Operation Barbarossa - 9

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On retiring and settling down in Hyderabad, I was looking for my first hair-cut.

I had always resisted hair-cuts. And used to postpone them till strands of hair fell on my eyes and made me blind...especially since cataracts destroyed my vision mostly.

There are traits peculiar to humans...my son would visit his hi-tech saloon every fortnight if he could (more for the massages he is fond of...like my father was).

But my son resists taking baths like any healthy child...Ishani has her daily fights with her mom about it during these days of lockdown when her school has gone online.

On the other hand, I love to take half a dozen baths every day....it is an obsession with me (OCD...Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).

And before each bath I discard my used banian.

Since I prefer to use the family-washing-machine only once a week, I keep a stock of 40 banians...no joke that!

A few years ago, my ophthalmologist-nephew threatened me that my cataracts would burst and make me totally blind (with pain on the side). And then I decided to get them removed by a surgical procedure that I feared.

One of those days the dad of one of my ex-students was visiting me. He had his cataracts removed recently then; and was encouraging me to go ahead. 

But I protested:

"Apparently I am not allowed to take any bath for a whole month after surgery"

"What else could be a better blessing?"

There was this story of my childhood: 

Men (and women) wanted to know from Lord Brahma about their righteous conduct. And sent a buffalo as a messenger to Him. And he said:

"Let them take three baths daily and eat once a week"

And the buffalo-messenger got it all mixed up and conveyed the orders of Brahma thus:

"Let men and women eat thrice daily and take bath once a week" 

That was how our 'breakfast-lunch-dinner' routine started (leaving snacking in between aside).

And Brahma got wild with the errant buffalo and cursed him thus:

"Go and till the lands of humans so they can eat all those sumptuous meals"

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Returning to my first hair-cut in Hyderabad:

We were then renting in a flat in SR Nagar.

And I walked to the nearest barber shop and found it closed shut. And then I walked further and further all over Amirpet and found every barber shop closed shut.

I returned home and rang up my Hyderabadi B-i-L. And he said:

"All barber shops in Hyderabad are closed on Tuesdays"

"Why Tuesdays?"

"No Hyderabadi would have his hair cut on Tuesdays. Tuesday is inauspicious for hair cuts"

I then remembered my sad plight in Gudur in the summer of 2003 while I was vacationing there with my mother and working sister.

On a Friday night I developed an acute attack of a stomach infection. And next morning my sister got me admitted to the local nursing home. The doctor was kind and tried his best to cure me. 

Message reached my Nellore sister and B-i-L, and both of them arrived at Gudur to look after me in shifts of day and night (My wife was then with her mom in Vijayawada).

By Monday morning I was only half-cured...the doctor being a pediatrician.

My Nellore sister and B-i-L were a working couple and were eager to get back to Nellore.

And they asked the doctor to discharge me that Monday evening itself.

I protested that I was still ill. But they said:

"Tomorrow is Tuesday. Tuesdays and Saturdays are inauspicious for discharges"

So I was brought home that Monday evening and the Nellore couple ran back to their Nellore.

That night I couldn't stand it anymore. And the next morning my resident sister got me re-admitted (Tuesdays and Saturdays being ok for admission but).

That evening my medico-wife arrived at Gudur.

She consulted my renowned Doctor-B-i-L at Madurai who said:

"Ask the pediatrician to mix three bottles of Metrogyl and three bottles of Ciprofloxacin in the saline"

And one bottle of each cured me (well before Saturday :)

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This reminds me of our rocket-scientist Abdul Kalam in 2002.

The BJP-led Government (for reasons political) selected him as our next President. And he agreed, I don't know why.

An Ambassador was sent to Kalam to civilize him for his forthcoming august job.

The first thing the Ambassador wanted was to have Kalam's famous locks clipped to his ears.

And Kalam declined politely...he being a bachelor, he had no wife, and his hanging locks were all that he loved. 

The Ambassador then asked Kalam to discard his bush shirts and loose pants and get himself measured for the  Bandh-Gala which was de rigueur  for the President of India.

Kalm agreed reluctantly.

Then the Ambassador said:

"Thursday is auspicious for the inauguration. Would it suit you?"

"All days are alike. Earth revolves around itself smoothly every 24 hours. There is no break at midnight. Nor at midday. Nor on Tuesday nor on Saturday"

The Ambassador laughed at the foolishness of Kalam (he was a firm believer in astrology, numerology, vaastu, planets, rings, amulets, mantras and tantras).

It is a different matter that he was shot dead by his own brother four little years later at the tender age of 56...Kalam lived till 83.

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To be continued

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శంకరార్పణం - 3679

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శంకరాభరణం సమస్య - 3679

“బూతగు రామచంద్ర యనఁబోకు సుహృజ్జనులున్న తావులన్”

తాతల నాటి గొప్పలను త్రవ్వుచు బైటకు లాగి పల్కుచున్

మూతులు నాకి నాయకుల మూర్ఖుడ! రూకలు మెండు జేర్చుచున్

నీతులు జెప్పి త్రాగుచును నివ్వెర పోవక హైద్రబాదునన్

బూతగు "రామచంద్ర!" యనఁబోకు సుహృజ్జనులున్న తావులన్

(కంది శంకరయ్య గారి సౌజన్యంతో)

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Operation Barbarossa - 8

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For most of his life Father was a borderline agnostic...he being the first science graduate of his generation.

Of course he used to do his sandhyavandanam without fail thrice a day. But that was by force of habit...and to please his ultra-religious wife.

But while at Muthukur, he used to visit the famous Balaji Temple at Tirupati to have a free tonsure that saved barber's expenses for the next four months.

Balaji is fond of his devotees' hair...tonsure means surrender of the ego...men (and women) being attached to their hair mostly.

One of my retired friends here told me that he rarely visits the local barber shop...whenever needed he would visit Tirupati (all of 40 times at the last count). 

Other than Balaji's visits, complete tonsure was prohibited for Brahmin gents who were advised to keep a tuft of hair till they renounced and became sannyasins.

Among my father's siblings, only the eldest kept his knotted tuft but concealed it within his crop of hair (he was the Nellore Shakespeare and had to teach a set of rowdy students).

Chanakya, I am told, refused to tie his tuft till he dethroned the Nandas who had insulted him (he taught Chandragupta the secrets of warfare and economics among other things).

Modiji needs him now more than ever...

And Father would lug me to Balaji and have my head tonsured, which I resented. 

But after cremating his body in 2004, I asked my mom what she wished me to do with my hair (he was her husband first and foremost, and only then my father).

Mother ordered me unequivocally to visit the local saloon at Gudur and have my head tonsured, leaving a tuft.

And my youngest niece (now in the US) used to braid my tuft for fun for all of ten days till that too got cleared by the same barber...

Twenty years later, upon cremating my mom's body, I got my head tonsured once again...that being her unsaid wish. 

That evening when I was traveling in my son's AC car in Nellore I felt as if my head was in the freezer.

Hair protects us from cold....everything in Nature has its uses (including nails which we need when we have to scratch our backs as well as our bosses')...

Ogden Nash:

There was a young belle of old Natchez
Who ripped all her garments to patchez
When comment arose
On the state of her clothes
She drawled, When Ah itches, Ah scratchez.

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But during his last five years, Father turned a staunch devotee of Lord Sri Raam, and used to recite (by heart) the Daasarathi Satakam (దాశరథీ శతకం).

Of course Lord Raam was a God to all South Indians. Even the virulent Anti-Aryan Dravidian was named Raamasaami Naicker.

And our staunch Communist of AP didn't change his name from "Sitaram Yechuri"

And the loudest Anti-Modi now is named Ramachandra Guha (Padma Bhushan).

At first I thought he was a Bengali (Guha being a common surname in Bengal).

But he turned out to be from Karnataka (Guha being the Bhakt of Sri Raam).

After retiring and settling down in Hyderabad I used to get my Hindu Newspaper, in which this Ramachandra Guha ran a weekly column that I loved to read for its lucid prose. 

And when I blogged my first story about my misadventure with a sewing machine at Muthukur, I mailed it to Ramachandra Guha (it is so tough to make others read what you write).

I wanted to see if he reads it...as a test of my own English prose. 

I was dubious till I got this return-mail from him:

 Dear Professor Sastry,

Thank you for your mail and your moving piece about your school and upbringing. 

The 1950s were a special time, almost an innocent time, in the history of the nation.

With regards

R. Guha

(He is 15 years younger to me and doesn't know those nineteen-fifties first-hand)

Five years ago, for Ishani's Home Library, I bought his book: "Patriots and Partisans"

Didn't read it yet (where is the time?)

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When I was 3, Father used to place me on his tummy while on his cot and say:

"I have only one demand of you...take me to Kashi once"

Redemption of that took me all of 40 years.

North-East perhaps didn't have this Raam Culture.

But what about Bengal?

No doubt there was our Ramakrishna Paramahamsa...but that was the name he took upon himself much later...he was christened "Gadaadhar" after the deity at Gaya.

He was by and large a devotee of Mother Kali.

Indeed the only temple that came up outside the IIT KGP campus was: "Shiv-Kali Mandir"

Bengal of the 15th century was greatly influenced by Lord Chaitanya (on our way to Gole Bazar at KGP there was this Chaitanyaasram).

That saint born in Nabadwip popularized Sri Krishna Bhakti Mlovement (now ISKCON).

Today being Holi, it is the day of Dol Jatra when Baby Krishna is placed in his cradle and songs are sung throughout the night to the accompaniment of Khol (variant of Dhol) in rural Bengal.

During the 1800s there was a perennial flux of devotees and sannyasins of Bengal walking from Nabadwip to Puri, as well as to Mathura-Brindavan (where Bengalis used to banish their desolate widows).

But no one traveled to Ayodhya from Bengal.

Durga Puja is a fairly recent arrival...with her inadvertent kids traveling home to Bengal (when did Lakshmi and Sarasvati become daughters of Durgajee? Lakshmi was supposed to be born while the milky ocean was churned, and Sarasvati from Brahma's tongue where she resides permanently).

But Didi revels in Durga and considers Sri Raam as a no-good god of North Indian goons.

And gets wild when the foot soldiers of BJP shout: 'Jai Sri Raam!', which slogan is to her as a red rag to a bull (holy cow that she is, nonetheless).

Anything goes in politics...

And I?

Of course I am a 'Love Bird'

Here is Yagnavalkya speaking to his fond wife Maitreyi (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad):

स होवाच: न वा अरे पत्युः कामाय पतिः प्रियो भवत्यात्मनस्तु कामाय पतिः प्रियो भवति। 

न वा अरे जायायै कामाय जाया प्रिया भवत्यात्मनस्तु कामाय जाया प्रिया भवति। 

न वा अरे पुत्राणां कामाय पुत्राः प्रिया भवन्त्यात्मनस्तु कामाय पुत्राः प्रिया भवन्ति। 

न वा अरे वित्तस्य कामाय वित्तं प्रियं भवत्यात्मनस्तु कामाय वित्तं प्रियं भवति। 

न वा अरे पशूनां कामाय पशवः प्रिया भवन्त्यामनस्तु कामाया पशवः प्रिया भवन्ति। 

न वा अरे ब्रह्मणः कामाय ब्रह्म प्रियं भवत्यात्मनस्तु कामाय ब्रह्म प्रियं भवति। 

न वा अरे क्षत्रस्य कामाय क्षत्रं प्रियं भवत्यात्मनस्तु कामाय क्षत्रं प्रियं भवति। 

न वा अरे लोकानां कामाय लोकाः प्रिया भवन्त्यात्मनस्तु कामाय लोकाः प्रिया भवन्ति। 

न वा अरे देवानां कामाय देवाः प्रिया भवन्त्यात्मनस्तु कामाय देवाः प्रिया भवन्ति। 

न वा अरे वेदानां कामाय वेदाः प्रिया भवन्त्यात्मनस्तु कामाय वेदाः प्रिया भवन्ति। 

न वा अरे भुतानां कामाय भूतानि प्रियाणि भवन्त्यात्मनस्तु कामाय भूतानि प्रियाणि भवन्ति।

 न वा अरे सर्वस्य कामाय सर्वं प्रियं भवत्यात्मनस्तु कामाय सर्वं प्रियं भवति। 

आत्मा वा अरे द्रष्टव्यः श्रोतव्यो मन्तव्यो निदिध्यासितव्यो मैत्रेयात्मनि खल्वरे दृष्टे श्रुते मते विज्ञात इद सर्वं विदितम्॥

And he said: "Verily, not for the sake of the husband, my dear, is the husband loved, but he is loved for the sake of the self which, in its true nature, is one with the Supreme Self. "Verily, not for the sake of the wife, my dear, is the wife loved, but she is loved for the sake of the self. "Verily, not for the sake of the sons, my dear, are the sons loved, but they are loved for the sake of the self. "Verily, not for the sake of wealth, my dear, is wealth loved, but it is loved for the sake of the self. "Verily, not for the sake of the animals, my dear, are the animals loved, but they are loved for the sake of the self. "Verily, not for the sake of the brahmin, my dear, is the brahmin loved, but he is loved for the sake of the self. "Verily, not for the sake of the khatriya, my dear, is the khatriya loved, but he is loved for the sake of the self. "Verily, not for the sake of the worlds, my dear, are the worlds loved, but they are loved for the sake of the self. "Verily, not for the sake of the gods, my dear, are the gods loved, but they are loved for the sake of the self. "Verily, not for the sake of the Vedas, my dear, are the Vedas loved, but they are loved for the sake of the self. "Verily, not for the sake of the beings, my dear, are the beings loved, but they are loved for the sake of the self. "Verily, not for the sake of the All, my dear, is the All loved, but it is loved for the sake of the self.

"Verily, my dear Maitreyi, it is the Self that should be realized, should be heard of, reflected on and meditated upon. By the realization of the Self, my dear, through hearing, reflection and meditation, all this is known".

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To be continued

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శంకరార్పణం - 3678

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శంకరాభరణం సమస్య - 3678

“వరుని గళంబునన్ వధువు వైభవమొప్పగఁ గట్టెఁ దాళినిన్”

పరువులు పెట్టగా మనము పండుగ పూటను టీవి గాంచుచున్

దరువుల పాటలన్ వినుచు దప్పిక తీరగ శయ్యనందునన్

తిరుగుచు రెండు ప్రక్కలను తీవ్రపు తీరున బీరు త్రాగుచున్

వరుని గళంబునన్ వధువు వైభవమొప్పగఁ గట్టెఁ దాళినిన్

(కంది శంకరయ్య గారి సౌజన్యంతో)

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Operation Barbarossa - 7

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My father was as butter-fingered as I am. And during his shaves he would invariably nick his chin in several spots here and there.

And then emerged from his LG Hing Shaving Box a white crystalline cube that he used to rub his chin with.

And I asked him what it was called (he was my walking dictionary-cum-encyclopedia).

He said it was: "Alum"

Much later I came to know alum is an astringent (skin contractor). He seemed not to wince, so I concluded it was soothing to his bleeding nicks.

But not the after-shave lotion that I used to apply from its roller...that used to burn. It was alcohol.

Nowadays I see that alcohol-based hand-sanitizers are a rage. 

(Hyderabadis are enterprising. I am told that during last year's severe lockdown they bought crates of hand-sanitizer bottles and distilled them to get their daily dose of alcohol...addiction can lead to crime).

My father was not that kind to me as he was to himself. 

When I had regular bleeding wounds (that I didn't mind) on my two knees and two elbows (after roadside play) he used to drag me to his table and ask my didi to hold my hands. And as I screamed savagely, he would take out from his medicine chest a miserable bottle of the 'Tincture of Iodine' and apply it in profusion on my wounds

. 

Which "biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder":

30They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.

31Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.

32At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.

https://biblehub.com/kjv/proverbs/23.htm

'Tincture of Iodine' is iodine dissolved in alcohol.

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Medicine is a funny thing. And it saved my life (for what it is worth) on several occasions.

When I was 9 at Muthukur, I once had fever. And our good country-doctor, Ishwar Reddy, asked me to take 2 tablets thrice daily of the newest antibiotic: Sulfadiazine. 

And then forgot to tell me to drink lots of water.

By 8 O'clock in the evening I was groaning with agony in my urinary tract...unable to pass its contents however hard I tried.  

I thought I was dying.

Then materialized from nowhere, like God Himself, my maternal uncle Dr K Krishna Murthy who was then a house surgeon at KGH, Vizagh. And he opened his patent leather bag and pulled out a bottle of Alkasol, one dose of which relieved me instantly.

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In his medicine kit, father also had paper sachets of what he called "Potassium Permanganate". The powder inside them was as violet as the 'Gentian Violet' that I came to use on my wife during her last days.

Father used his Potassium Permanganate dissolved in water to gargle his throat whenever it was sore.

Later on I came to know that it is a terrific oxidizing agent.

In the year 1979, soon after I got married to my medico-wife, I was traveling by bus from Tirupati (where she was then lodged) to Gudur.

And midway I got this horrendous ache in my left ear. It was unbearable. As I walked from the Gudur bus stand to our home, not knowing what to do to, I saw a new private dispensary manned by a youthful doctor. I went in and he asked me to sit down on the stool by his side. And he pulled out his medicine chest and pumped some liquid into my left ear. Squirt Squirt Squirt. And within seconds the pain vanished like an exorcized ghost. And I asked him what that magic liquid was and he said:

"Hydrogen Peroxide"

I knew all about it having mugged it up from my chemistry book by PC Ray...it is a rapid oxidizing agent. It is a highly unstable compound and on contact with any surface it quickly releases nascent oxygen (monatomic) that is highly reactive...it killed all resident bacteria.

[Jim Corbett said somewhere that sudden freedom from pain, like sudden freedom from fear, are untellable reliefs (he was talking of villagers, cooped up in their homes for weeks in fear of their man-eater, coming out onto the streets celebrating wildly with drums and drinks and bonfires throughout the night that Jim shot the poor thing down and brought it to the village for skinning)]

And when I wrote to my wife about my adventure with H2O2, she prescribed Supristol tablets (sulfur compound). It cured my ear ache but I grew as weak as my brain now. And my wife returned to Gudur, saw me limp, and prescribed B-Complex capsules which roused me up like a corpse brought to life by the Muthukur street-magician.

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That reminds me of my son's predicament in 2002 (by when he got his home-desktop with a petulant internet connection).

One fine morning he suddenly developed unbearable pain in his scrotum on which appeared a pimple-like hard mass.

I took him at once to Dr NB Pal's Clinic in Prem Bazar outside our Qrs at IIT KGP. Unfortunately the good doctor was on a holiday, placing a new junior MBBS in charge. And the novice was at a loss, and on consulting his "Chatterjee & Chatterjee" medicine tome, decided that my son's symptoms looked like those of filaria (!)

And he prescribed "Banocide" tablets. And for pain relief he gave the brand new "Brufen" tablets.

Banocide didn't work for a week,  much like the amulets of Muthukur hakim.

Nor did Brufen.

Then my son browsed his internet and went to the home page of the Harvard Medical School. 

And discovered that it was nothing like filaria but a common bacterial infection (Epididymitis) easily curable by any sulfa drug.

My wife gave him: "Bactrim DS" and one tablet relieved his symptoms.

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And when my son was in his Class 8, I had to employ a home-tutor for him for his Hindi lessons.

`And how many hours a day did you do lessons?' said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.

`Ten hours the first day,' said the Mock Turtle: `nine the next, and so on.'

`What a curious plan!' exclaimed Alice.

`That's the reason they're called lessons,' the Gryphon remarked: `because they lessen from day to day.'

His young Hindi tutor, Mishraji, had such a dulcet voice that I used to eavesdrop through the keyhole (despite the subject :)

Once my son had a rather obstinate pimple on his cheek that got infected. And it resisted all antibiotics.

And Mishrajee saw it and advised my son to apply Antibactrin...a cheap Bengali liquid that I saw later was mustard oil mixed with herbs like Tulsi (basil...ocimum).

And one application of it shriveled his scoundrel pimple.

I was then suffering from an oozing skin infection for over forty years that resisted all ointments (unguenta) including various combinations of steroids and Betnovates (C, N, GM). 

My son then asked me why not apply Antibactrin?

And one drop of it cured the damn thing permanently (so far).

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I always held homeopathy in low esteem.

Its principle seemed weird...'the agent that causes the disease cures it in diluted doses...the more the dilution, the higher its 'potency' 1x, 2x, 6x...'

X Scale	C Scale	Ratio	Note
1X	―	1:10	described as low potency
2X	1C	1:100	called higher potency than 1X by homeopaths
6X	3C	10−6
8X	4C	10−8
12X	6C	10−12
24X	12C	10−24	Has a 60% probability of containing one molecule of original material if one mole of the original substance was used.
26X	13C	10−26	If pure water were used as the diluent, no molecules of the original solution remain in the water.
60X	30C	10−60	Dilution advocated by Hahnemann for most purposes: on average, this would require giving two billion doses per second to six billion people for 4 billion years to deliver a single molecule of the original material to any patient.
400X	200C	10−400	Dilution of popular homeopathic flu preparation Oscillococcinum
Note: the "X scale" is also called "D scale". 1X = 1D, 2X = 2D, etc.

But once Professor RG Chatterjee narrated this story:

When he was a naughty boy in Allahabad, his father was an amateur homeopath.

One morning out of horseplay RGC opened his father's kit and swallowed a couple of pills of Lycopodium.

And within minutes his fair face became red and started itching.

Seeing which his father told him:

"Fetch from my homeo kit a vial of Lycopodium 2X"

;)

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To be continued

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శంకరార్పణం - 3677

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శంకరాభరణం సమస్య - 3677

“గ్రామమునన్ ఘటోత్కచుఁడు గ్రౌర్యముఁ జూపె దయావిహీనుఁడై”

నీమము తప్పకే మిగుల నేరుపు మీరగ వింతవింతగా

భీముని పుత్రుడాదటను బింకము వీడుచు పెండ్లి పందిరిన్

గోముగ చుట్టి కౌరవుల గొప్పగ చిత్రమునందు కూడి సం

గ్రామమునన్ ఘటోత్కచుఁడు గ్రౌర్యముఁ జూపె దయావిహీనుఁడై

(కంది శంకరయ్య గారి సౌజన్యంతో)

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Operation Barbarossa - 6

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After retrieving the sharp blade, father inserted it gently into his 7 O'clock razor. The handle had to be screwed out, blade inserted into its groove squarely, and the handle screwed back in, neither too tight nor too loose...just so...

And he went about shaving his tough beard.

(That his beard was tough I got to know during his last days on this good earth. He was bedridden and no barber was willing to come home...they got lazy. Mandal took over and their daughters got cushy government as well as software jobs and their fathers turned truant...like me now...happily).

After taking his razor in his hands father pursed his lips and went about his job. 

And it was time to replace the blade into its butter paper. 

But not before drying it on his gamcha gently gently.

Of course the blade was prone to rusting...and father must have reused it till cows came home.

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This business of rusting of iron I got to see for myself at a tender age.

With all my elephantine memory for useless things, I just can't remember in what sort of plate I ate my grub in my childhood.

I recall that, when I was a toddler roaming around our home and its front and backyards, mother would follow me holding mashed rice mixed with dal in a silver bowl I must have got as a gift from my maternal uncle on my first birthday.

But thereafter my memory goes blank.

Father himself ate his food in a silver plate with flowery designs and a blob of fake gold at its center...he got it as part of his dowry.

And then when we grew to a school-going age he bought his kids half a dozen iron plates with ceramic coating and flowery designs...Nellore District had its own "Glass & Ceramics Factory" at Gudur.

We simply loved those massive plates....till, within a few months, the ceramic chipped off here and there exposing iron (which we didn't mind). But they were washed in water and the exposed iron flakes got rusted.

This meant that they had to be discarded and new ones bought. 

Till stainless steel plates arrived in the market and were called, charmingly, 'Ever Silver'.

It was much later that I learned that iron won't rust if it were kept dipped wholly in water for even millennia. It rusts only when wet and exposed to air.

Much like our minds are happy and rustless in deep sleep or samadhi...they take worldly impressions and go blogging nonsense only after emerging from their bliss.

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And then father would take out his tiny scissors to clip his moustache.

He kept his mustache till he retired (to display his manhood to the students and teachers of his school).

Retirement is indeed a watershed.

We throw away many of our pretensions as so much chaff, keeping the grain.

I myself threw away ALL my physics books. And felt relieved of a load that I had to carry on my head unwillingly for all of half a century.

Also my shoes....as well as sweaters...there is no winter in Hyderabad. I kept my socks though...winter chill climbs up the feet.

And during the recent lockdown I discarded my pressed pants and shirts as well.

Nothing now to show off to the world save my genius, as Oscar Wilde said,..online.

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I could never trim my own mustache (that I sported for a few months).

The problem was that I could never master what our high school text books called "lateral inversion in a plane mirror"

That nomenclature is nonsense and misleading.

There is NO lateral or longitudinal inversion.

We read that the pinhole camera inverted our images (with ray diagrams as simplified as these blogs).

And that a convex lens produced inverted images often.

But a plane mirror does nothing of the kind. It doesn't invert. It doesn't rotate. It doesn't magnify. It doesn't glorify. It doesn't beautify. It doesn't change left and right.

Left hand with its wrist watch remains on our left side. Right hand with its comb remains on our right side. Top remains top and bottom bottom...unlike Nehruji's Shirshasan. 

All that the mirror does is scoop us front and back...so we can face ourselves...warts and all.

The so-called 'lateral inversion' is not even an optical illusion...it is just a psychological delusion.

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To be continued

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శంకరార్పణం - 3676

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శంకరాభరణం సమస్య - 3676

"శునకమ్ముం గడు భక్తిఁ గొల్చిన లభించుం బో శుభమ్ముల్ గడున్”

కనులన్ మూయుచు నవ్వుచున్ ఘనముగా కంగారు వోటర్లవిన్

తినుచున్ మెండుగ కోటికోటి ధనముల్ తీండ్రించుచున్ మేలుగా

కనకంబందున నొప్పు గద్దె గనుచున్ గర్వంబుగా నెక్కెడున్

శునకమ్మున్ గడు భక్తిఁ గొల్చిన లభించుం బో శుభమ్ముల్ గడున్

(కంది శంకరయ్య గారి సౌజన్యంతో)

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Operation Barbarossa - 5

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The next item to emerge out of my father's LG Hing Shaving Box was the packet of blades...7 O'clock.

Its flap had to be gently opened out and then it revealed all of half a dozen blades each packed in a blue-green tiny envelope.

One of these had to be pulled out and opened gingerly.

The top flap was lightly gummed and it came up easily. And then there was this whitish thin paper in which the sharp new blade was enclosed.

I asked father what that white paper was called.

And he said: 'Butter Paper"

I still remember the delight I got hearing that word: 'butter' although I didn't know its meaning.

It is now called: 'Oil Paper' I believe.

Much later when I was preparing for my exams in our university, I used to buy quires of what was called: 'Manifold Paper'.

These were extremely thin and milk-white and cheap. I couldn't afford the regular 'Foolscap Papers'; elephant brand with its water mark...

Foolscap? Why?

That takes me back to the raw: 'brown paper' that came to my father's desk along with its combo wooden stand for the 'ink bottle' with its refills of packets of blue 'ink powder', the 'writers' quill', the 'replaceable nib', and the 'rolling blotter'...all Second World War stuff...much like the annular ring: "holed out paisa" coin (చిల్లి కాణీ) to save precious copper (where has that metal vanished?)

Anyway, it was fun to write on the manifold paper with 'Royal Blue Parker Ink' filled by a 'filler' into my leaky fountain pen with its 'feeder' and 'tongue'.

Class Notes were useless. 

And I was too poor to buy imported text books like 'AB Wood' or 'Barton' or 'Richardson'...all of  'Sound' (and Fourier Analysis). Indeed each book was specific to one kind of 'string'...struck string (piano), plucked string (guitar) and bowed string (violin)...the last one had the name of our CV Raman in it and I felt proud (he had a Vizagh Connection).

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Bull. Indian Assoc. Cultiv. Sci. 15 1-158 (1918) 

On the mechanical theory of the vibrations of bowed strings and of musical instruments of the violin family, with experimental verification of the results-Part I

 C V RAMAN, M.A.

 CONTENTS 

Section I-Introduction 

Section 11-Effect of periodic force applied at a point 

Section 111-The modus operandi of the bow 

Section 1V-Simplified kinematical theory 

Section V-Classification of the vibrational modes 

Section VI-The first type of vibration 

Section VII-The second type of vibration 

Section VIII-The third type of vibration 

Section 1X-The fourth and higher types of vibration 

Section X-Construction of the velocity-diagram when the bow is applied at a node 

Section XI-Some examples of the graphical determination of the vibration curves 

Section XII-The effect of the variation of the pressure and velocity of bowing 

Section XIII-Some experimental tests of the theory 

Section XIV-Summary and outline of further research 

Section XV-Bibliographical appendix

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So I used the BBS Theory (Beg-Borrow-Steal):

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/10/of-money-men.html

And copied copiously from those text books in long hand on my manifold papers in order to mug them up and answer "essay" questions on them in our university exams (to get 'classes' and 'ranks' if not 'medals').

And I carried all those 60 'files' to IIT KGP thinking they would be useful in my teaching there.

And I soon discovered they were utterly useless...the 'system' there was 'problem-based'.

And I gave them away to a young Junior Technical Assistant (BSc) intending to appear for his MSc Exams in Calcutta University...he passed gloriously, left for the US (there were no GRE, TOEFL then), did his PhD, and settled there.

And poor me!

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Then came the Carbon Papers (Kores & Camlin).

I first saw 'used' carbon papers soon after I passed my MSc Exams in Vizagh and was footloose. 

I then thought I would learn type-writing as a second string to my bow. And joined the neighborhood Typing Institute.

Since I was the first post-graduate who joined his school, the Teacher was very kind to me and taught me "asdfgf & ;lkjhj" and left me to fend for myself asking seniors for further guidance.

Now I am told by my son it is called a 'qwerty' keyboard.

I didn't then understand the logic behind the weird placement of alphabet "abcdefghijkl..." in the keyboard. 

Much later I learned it is 'ergonomic';...meaning:

relating to the design of furniture or equipment which makes it comfortable and effective for people who use it

Like...our left middle finger is longer than the ring finger and so it goes easily onto the top third letter "e" which I learned is the commonest letter occurring in the English language.

This, I had learned at a tender age while reading Edgar Allan Poe's abridged short story: "Gold Bug":... Legrand deciphering an encrypted code:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2147/2147-h/2147-h.htm#chap05

Much later I felt rather saddened that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used the same decryption in his: "Adventure of the Dancing Men" (without attribution):

https://sherlock-holm.es/stories/pdf/a4/1-sided/danc.pdf

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Soon after passing my MSc Exam, I had no valid excuse to travel to our university for business or pleasure. And I didn't want to depend entirely on my poor father's dole.

So I approached the Principal of the 'Bharat Tutorial College' in Daba Gardens in Vizagh. That college was run by my friends in the RSS.

Seeing my mark sheets he offered me ONE hour in his Night College as a prep. If the paying students were satisfied, he promised to absorb me as a full-time lecturer next year.

And I grabbed the opportunity and asked him:

"How much?"

"Rs 30"

And the class was held at 8 pm in the night.

That suited me to a tee...on my way home from the Poorna Market buying vegetables. Rest of the day I combed the beach, read borrowed novels, wrote weird poetry, bought a couple of Janata Kerosene Stoves, cooked lunch and dinner for my two sisters who were in their final years mugging up.

I still recall the thrill I got when I learned the proof of Archimedes Principle while teaching that class.

A couple of months later I got my CSIR JRF that gave me a whopping Rs 250!

But I stuck to my word and continued teaching that one hour in the Bharat Tutorial Night College (God Bless RSS!) for the whole year before I quit.

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To be continued

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