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Of late there has been a lot of brouhaha in our political circles about the skin color of ladies, both south and north Indian and Italian and Nigerian to boot.
It all started with a senior (read old) parliamentarian belonging to the famed Krishna clan...Krishna himself is as dark as a cumulonimbus cloud as his name indicates...maybe that's why.
This guy was speaking in the Lok Sabha about the insurance bill. And suddenly he found himself speaking about the color and texture of the skin of South Indian ladies...there are no women in this blog...all are ladies.
This reminded me of a faculty meeting in the Phy Dept of IIT KGP in the 1970s. The topic under discussion was teaching and how to improve it. The agenda was an outcome of students' feedback that phy teachers were the worst of the lot.
There were senior professors like HNB, SDM and GBM adorning the front benches. And us juniors were sipping tea and smoking fags surreptitiously in the last bench. As expected, the senior bhadralok started lecturing the juniors as to how to rivet the attention of the students. And we were smiling...except HNB, who was known as a world-class teacher, the other two were as innocent of teaching as a fish struggling on the sand.
Suddenly there was this intrepid backbencher SVD (known as Shivajee because of his Maharashtra ancestry) who could stand this no further. He ground his fag under his shoe and shouted:
"All will be well if the eloquent senior professors go to the class prepared to teach physics and stop stammering and start rambling like street-smart magicians"
There was a stunned silence and the meeting took a break for snacks. And everyone left one by one...snacks were the draw.
Coming back to our Lok Sabha, the veteran speaker is reputed to have said something like:
"North Indian ladies have fair skins alright but the dark South Indian ladies have great bodies because they dance well"
Upon which the lady minister of education, who is trying hard to polish up the fading systems of IITs and abolish the UGC, took offence and gently reminded the senior speaker of the insurance agenda and asked him to please not talk about the skin of the ladies south or north.
Upon which the speaker pounced on her and chided the junior-most MP:
"I know what you are!"
I am sure the speech was in upcountry Hindi and untranslatable.
Upon which the gents sitting (and not sleeping) in their seats simpered instead of coming to the rescue of the lady minister.
This must have brought tears to the lady (if any were left after the saas-bahu serials), reminding me of the Telugu saying about the lady who cried after being beat up by her hubby:
"I din't mind my hubby beating me but I can't stand the laughter of my sisters-in-law"
The said lady minister had already had her bit of spat with another ex-parliamentarian:
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/sanjay-nirumpam-remark-against-smriti-irani-irks-many/1/238786.html
Well, that's for today...see how I have rambled like a senior professor of phy at IIT KGP...
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Of late there has been a lot of brouhaha in our political circles about the skin color of ladies, both south and north Indian and Italian and Nigerian to boot.
It all started with a senior (read old) parliamentarian belonging to the famed Krishna clan...Krishna himself is as dark as a cumulonimbus cloud as his name indicates...maybe that's why.
This guy was speaking in the Lok Sabha about the insurance bill. And suddenly he found himself speaking about the color and texture of the skin of South Indian ladies...there are no women in this blog...all are ladies.
This reminded me of a faculty meeting in the Phy Dept of IIT KGP in the 1970s. The topic under discussion was teaching and how to improve it. The agenda was an outcome of students' feedback that phy teachers were the worst of the lot.
There were senior professors like HNB, SDM and GBM adorning the front benches. And us juniors were sipping tea and smoking fags surreptitiously in the last bench. As expected, the senior bhadralok started lecturing the juniors as to how to rivet the attention of the students. And we were smiling...except HNB, who was known as a world-class teacher, the other two were as innocent of teaching as a fish struggling on the sand.
Suddenly there was this intrepid backbencher SVD (known as Shivajee because of his Maharashtra ancestry) who could stand this no further. He ground his fag under his shoe and shouted:
"All will be well if the eloquent senior professors go to the class prepared to teach physics and stop stammering and start rambling like street-smart magicians"
There was a stunned silence and the meeting took a break for snacks. And everyone left one by one...snacks were the draw.
Coming back to our Lok Sabha, the veteran speaker is reputed to have said something like:
"North Indian ladies have fair skins alright but the dark South Indian ladies have great bodies because they dance well"
Upon which the lady minister of education, who is trying hard to polish up the fading systems of IITs and abolish the UGC, took offence and gently reminded the senior speaker of the insurance agenda and asked him to please not talk about the skin of the ladies south or north.
Upon which the speaker pounced on her and chided the junior-most MP:
"I know what you are!"
I am sure the speech was in upcountry Hindi and untranslatable.
Upon which the gents sitting (and not sleeping) in their seats simpered instead of coming to the rescue of the lady minister.
This must have brought tears to the lady (if any were left after the saas-bahu serials), reminding me of the Telugu saying about the lady who cried after being beat up by her hubby:
"I din't mind my hubby beating me but I can't stand the laughter of my sisters-in-law"
The said lady minister had already had her bit of spat with another ex-parliamentarian:
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/sanjay-nirumpam-remark-against-smriti-irani-irks-many/1/238786.html
Well, that's for today...see how I have rambled like a senior professor of phy at IIT KGP...
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