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That about sums up aptly our 7 University Years at AU, Vizagh (1958-65).
And more so that bit about Light and Darkness...the only text book of light available to us in a cheap edition on Light was by Jenkins & White. The book was as full of light as of obscurity. It was as lovable as it was deplorable. It was as tantalizing in its breadth as in its shallowness.
Anyway, we had heard of Magnifying Power (MP) and Resolving Power (RP). And there were round-table discussions on the difference between the two. MP involves only the Geometrical Optics while RP needs the dreaded Diffraction of Physical optics. And Jenkins and White was as clear as mud on these two topics.
We didn't know that magnifying an object a hundred times is of no use if it throws the image a hundred times away. Nor why a sixpence-coin can blot out the moon. And the less said about RP, the better...we didn't know why an electron microscope is better than the optical one.
I didn't touch a camera till I was 20...and that was a borrowed box-camera. Things are so different now. Ishani comes up and lies down beside me on my pillow, hands me my cell phone, and asks me to show her the latest photo I clicked. And then she urges:
"Zoom! Zoom!! Zoom!!!"
In a couple of years she will be talking about megapixels.
Old age doesn't break out suddenly like herpes...it sort of creeps in slowly...and doesn't go away. One day you find you forgot the name of your heart-throb in your school. And the next month you forget your PIN. And the next year, you find you are unable to push the thread in the eye of that needle. And the next year, you bump into a pedestrian.
Then you take steps...
The most important step is to fall into incurable fool-proof habits.
My wallet is bulky...not with cash but visiting cards and receipts for Maintenance, Milk, Newspaper, Gas and the like.
There is a dedicated space in my wallet for Rs 1000 notes. Another for Rs 500 notes. And another for Rs 100 notes. Notes of lesser denomination, the 50s, 20s and 10s always go into my shirt pocket. Coins go into the right pant pocket. Keys into the left. A Rs 50 note never goes into the space reserved for Rs 500 notes.
The other day I was in the local Supermarket. Well, it is just a corner store with a couple of crisscrossed open-access corridors. And a cash counter by which sits a smiling youth punching numbers on the keyboard with a display and printer. Also a card-swiping machine. He is helped by his middle-aged smiling mom and a grumpy boy and a couple of chattering sales-girls.
It was late in the evening around 9.45 PM nearing closing time and I was the only customer. I picked up a basket and downed a Pears soap and a Lizol bottle and walked to the cash counter. The gent punched his keyboard and announced: Rs 80.
I opened my fat wallet, picked up a Rs 500 note and gave it to him. He threw it into his cash-drawer overflowing with end-of-the-day cash bills.
And I was waiting for my change and he was waiting for I didn't know what. And then he asked me to give Rs 30 more. I said I gave him a Rs 500 note. And he was taken aback and said that I gave him a Rs 50 note...he opened his cash drawer and picked up a Rs 50 note and held it to me for inspection...it didn't look like mine ;)
I was puzzled...this never happened to me before. And the cash gent was so sure...he was smiling. And I was frowning.
Watching which, his mom told him to switch on the monitor on the wall, which he went up and did. Then I noticed that he has a surveillance camera right on top of the cash counter looking down at it from the ceiling.
After a few hits and trials he latched on to the movie of my handing a note to him. Since I am half-blind, I couldn't see the movie of the transaction clearly and asked him, like Ishani:
"Zoom! Zoom!! Zoom!!!"
And he zooooomed it to and fro and fro and to and to and fro...and in and out and out and in...
It made no difference to me...the whole thing was a blur...however much you zoom in a blur, it remains a blur...
But the eyesight of the cash gent and his mom and his boy were keener, it looked. After a few zooms and vrooms., they all declared unanimously:
"It is a Rs 50 note"
I gave it up and forked out another Rs 30, picked up my carry-bag and walked away saying sorry...and they said it didn't matter...anyone can make mistakes...I never suspected their honesty...only their camera's RP...
On my way home, I told myself:
"They are so young...they can't be wrong"
And myself told me:
"And you are a GOAT!"
P.S.: A week later I found an odd Rs 50 note in my wallet mixed with Rs 500 notes. And when I was flummoxed, my son told me that nowadays he filches notes from my wallet for cash once in a while when he has to pay for the milkman's advances when I am in the bathroom and keeps the change wherever he pleases in my wallet...he doesn't deal in cash..only credit cards and online payments.
I felt sorry for the cashier and his mom and their boy whom I suspected of cheatery...
...Posted by Ishani
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IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way....
....A Tale of Two Cities
That about sums up aptly our 7 University Years at AU, Vizagh (1958-65).
And more so that bit about Light and Darkness...the only text book of light available to us in a cheap edition on Light was by Jenkins & White. The book was as full of light as of obscurity. It was as lovable as it was deplorable. It was as tantalizing in its breadth as in its shallowness.
Anyway, we had heard of Magnifying Power (MP) and Resolving Power (RP). And there were round-table discussions on the difference between the two. MP involves only the Geometrical Optics while RP needs the dreaded Diffraction of Physical optics. And Jenkins and White was as clear as mud on these two topics.
We didn't know that magnifying an object a hundred times is of no use if it throws the image a hundred times away. Nor why a sixpence-coin can blot out the moon. And the less said about RP, the better...we didn't know why an electron microscope is better than the optical one.
I didn't touch a camera till I was 20...and that was a borrowed box-camera. Things are so different now. Ishani comes up and lies down beside me on my pillow, hands me my cell phone, and asks me to show her the latest photo I clicked. And then she urges:
"Zoom! Zoom!! Zoom!!!"
In a couple of years she will be talking about megapixels.
Old age doesn't break out suddenly like herpes...it sort of creeps in slowly...and doesn't go away. One day you find you forgot the name of your heart-throb in your school. And the next month you forget your PIN. And the next year, you find you are unable to push the thread in the eye of that needle. And the next year, you bump into a pedestrian.
Then you take steps...
The most important step is to fall into incurable fool-proof habits.
My wallet is bulky...not with cash but visiting cards and receipts for Maintenance, Milk, Newspaper, Gas and the like.
There is a dedicated space in my wallet for Rs 1000 notes. Another for Rs 500 notes. And another for Rs 100 notes. Notes of lesser denomination, the 50s, 20s and 10s always go into my shirt pocket. Coins go into the right pant pocket. Keys into the left. A Rs 50 note never goes into the space reserved for Rs 500 notes.
The other day I was in the local Supermarket. Well, it is just a corner store with a couple of crisscrossed open-access corridors. And a cash counter by which sits a smiling youth punching numbers on the keyboard with a display and printer. Also a card-swiping machine. He is helped by his middle-aged smiling mom and a grumpy boy and a couple of chattering sales-girls.
It was late in the evening around 9.45 PM nearing closing time and I was the only customer. I picked up a basket and downed a Pears soap and a Lizol bottle and walked to the cash counter. The gent punched his keyboard and announced: Rs 80.
I opened my fat wallet, picked up a Rs 500 note and gave it to him. He threw it into his cash-drawer overflowing with end-of-the-day cash bills.
And I was waiting for my change and he was waiting for I didn't know what. And then he asked me to give Rs 30 more. I said I gave him a Rs 500 note. And he was taken aback and said that I gave him a Rs 50 note...he opened his cash drawer and picked up a Rs 50 note and held it to me for inspection...it didn't look like mine ;)
I was puzzled...this never happened to me before. And the cash gent was so sure...he was smiling. And I was frowning.
Watching which, his mom told him to switch on the monitor on the wall, which he went up and did. Then I noticed that he has a surveillance camera right on top of the cash counter looking down at it from the ceiling.
After a few hits and trials he latched on to the movie of my handing a note to him. Since I am half-blind, I couldn't see the movie of the transaction clearly and asked him, like Ishani:
"Zoom! Zoom!! Zoom!!!"
And he zooooomed it to and fro and fro and to and to and fro...and in and out and out and in...
It made no difference to me...the whole thing was a blur...however much you zoom in a blur, it remains a blur...
But the eyesight of the cash gent and his mom and his boy were keener, it looked. After a few zooms and vrooms., they all declared unanimously:
"It is a Rs 50 note"
I gave it up and forked out another Rs 30, picked up my carry-bag and walked away saying sorry...and they said it didn't matter...anyone can make mistakes...I never suspected their honesty...only their camera's RP...
On my way home, I told myself:
"They are so young...they can't be wrong"
And myself told me:
"And you are a GOAT!"
P.S.: A week later I found an odd Rs 50 note in my wallet mixed with Rs 500 notes. And when I was flummoxed, my son told me that nowadays he filches notes from my wallet for cash once in a while when he has to pay for the milkman's advances when I am in the bathroom and keeps the change wherever he pleases in my wallet...he doesn't deal in cash..only credit cards and online payments.
I felt sorry for the cashier and his mom and their boy whom I suspected of cheatery...
...Posted by Ishani
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