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Ishani's school is having their first Sports Day Celebration this Saturday. And they issued a circular that all kids have to come in new white sports shoes and white socks.
Well, her old sports shoes were white enough as far as I could see. But there you are...
So, my son, Ishani, and I went to the nearest Bata outlet this morning. And while my son and his daughter were trying her new shoes I had an impulse to look at Bata's adult's shoes and their price tags. And I had the shock of my life...there was no decent shoe priced below Rs 3000 (or in good old Bata tricks, Rs. 2999).
In all my life I had bought Bata shoes only twice. That too very reluctantly. When I was young I didn't need any shoe. Chappals were fine with me...shoes were too heavy and too costly. But when I entered my 50s the KGP winter started biting me, and my feet used to feel too cold for comfort. So I would wear shoes for those two winter months and keep them aside for the next winter. My favorite was Mocassino @ Rs 499.
And I used to be a regular customer for the Tech Market cobbler. After two seasons I had to get the top patched up often and once I had the entire sole changed @ Rs 120. The thought of throwing them away or keeping them aside and buying a new pair never occurred...we were the Patchwork Generation.
Typically, our teachers at our school resembled R. K. Laxman's Common Man who used to appear in most of his cartoons as a bewildered spectator. He became so famous that there is this story about him:
RKL was invited to a German city for a Cartoonists Convention. And he landed at the airport well into the night and was taking rest in the lounge. And then his German host rushed in holding a placard with the Common Man's picture on it to receive his guest...an instance where Art is the Man.
If you inspect the Common Man closely, you will find lots of patchworks on his outfit and persona. He reminds me always of the Hindi Pundit of our school. My father was less well-dressed...he didn't have a coat nor shoes nor was he bald. But the persona remains close.
We didn't have electricity in our Village Muthukur. So, our nights were lit up by hurricane lanterns and, since kerosene was costly, we slept by 8 PM. And woke up at dawn.
Hurricane lantern is immaculate in its design...once lit, it can truly withstand hurricanes of any magnitude as long as it is not physically blown away...but what a MESS! The glass shade used to develop cracks at places due to inept handling by kids. My Father was ready to patch them up with surgical tape. Ideally it should be smokeless. But often soot would accumulate and the glass would become dark and tinted. No problem. Father would remove the tape-like wick, trim it and, if necessary, reverse it upside down!
Not only our lives but our Physics too was full of patchworks. Aristotle, the Great, looked at the sky and found the sun, the moon, the stars and all celestial bodies circling the earth. And so he decreed that circle is the perfect figure and every heavenly body should move in circles. But planets like Jupiter and Saturn were not exactly doing that...they reversed their tracks for a while. So, Ptolemy and others, obeying Aristotle, had to invent what were called epicycles...small circles orbiting larger circles...a perfect and ingenious patchwork:
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Well, her old sports shoes were white enough as far as I could see. But there you are...
So, my son, Ishani, and I went to the nearest Bata outlet this morning. And while my son and his daughter were trying her new shoes I had an impulse to look at Bata's adult's shoes and their price tags. And I had the shock of my life...there was no decent shoe priced below Rs 3000 (or in good old Bata tricks, Rs. 2999).
In all my life I had bought Bata shoes only twice. That too very reluctantly. When I was young I didn't need any shoe. Chappals were fine with me...shoes were too heavy and too costly. But when I entered my 50s the KGP winter started biting me, and my feet used to feel too cold for comfort. So I would wear shoes for those two winter months and keep them aside for the next winter. My favorite was Mocassino @ Rs 499.
And I used to be a regular customer for the Tech Market cobbler. After two seasons I had to get the top patched up often and once I had the entire sole changed @ Rs 120. The thought of throwing them away or keeping them aside and buying a new pair never occurred...we were the Patchwork Generation.
Typically, our teachers at our school resembled R. K. Laxman's Common Man who used to appear in most of his cartoons as a bewildered spectator. He became so famous that there is this story about him:
RKL was invited to a German city for a Cartoonists Convention. And he landed at the airport well into the night and was taking rest in the lounge. And then his German host rushed in holding a placard with the Common Man's picture on it to receive his guest...an instance where Art is the Man.
If you inspect the Common Man closely, you will find lots of patchworks on his outfit and persona. He reminds me always of the Hindi Pundit of our school. My father was less well-dressed...he didn't have a coat nor shoes nor was he bald. But the persona remains close.
We didn't have electricity in our Village Muthukur. So, our nights were lit up by hurricane lanterns and, since kerosene was costly, we slept by 8 PM. And woke up at dawn.
Not only our lives but our Physics too was full of patchworks. Aristotle, the Great, looked at the sky and found the sun, the moon, the stars and all celestial bodies circling the earth. And so he decreed that circle is the perfect figure and every heavenly body should move in circles. But planets like Jupiter and Saturn were not exactly doing that...they reversed their tracks for a while. So, Ptolemy and others, obeying Aristotle, had to invent what were called epicycles...small circles orbiting larger circles...a perfect and ingenious patchwork:
Bohr's celebrated theory of the atom was another instance of superb patchwork. He said electrons obey classical mechanics in their orbits around the nucleus but don't entirely obey classical electrodynamics.
Pauli's explanation of the spectra was another great patchwork of sewing spin onto Schrodinger atom.
I guess human mind advances by patching new ideas onto the old before it discards the old completely as I discarded my Mocassino shoes after half a dozen years of patchwork.
Indian politics nowadays is a patchwork called Coalition Governments. Ask Didi..she patches herself now on to NDA one day and next day on to UPA, and back and forth...
The best patch I saw was the Morphine patch that my son used to fix on the chest of my wife in her last days.
So clean and so cool...
...Posted by Ishani
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