Powers of Ghost

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One sunny morning at 8 AM, Rinku, the eldest daughter of RSS, appeared in our spacious Hall of Qrs C1-97 at IIT KGP.

She was in her Class IX at the KV (Central School) then. She had a ball-pen and a rough paper in her hand.

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Rinku: Uncle, jaldee se ek English poem likkhe deejiye

Me: Kya baat hai?

Rinku: Mere ko Assembly mey padhne ka hai 9.30 pe

Me: Topic choose karo; try karengey

Rinku: Agar topic milta tho pappa hi likh sakthe hai

Me: Aap ka school mey sabse bada joker kon hai?

Rinku: Hey..hey..hey...hamara Prinipal hi hai!

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That was the first piece of ghost-writing in English I had to do at KGP.

Title of the poem was: "The Prince"

By 8.30, the ten-line poem with rhyme and fairly good reason was in her hands. She thanked me and went away. Apparently it went terrific well and the Prince was all smiles and seized her paper for safe-keeping.

English is a powerful language and the meaning you extract from it depends:

"His head is like a green coconut" may mean it is sooooo sweet and delicious inside; or that it has water in place of grey matter.

Whenever the demands came from KV, I insisted that the student at least choose the topic. It never happened. From this I conclude that it is the choice of topic that is half the battle.

One evening my son and I had to take out our push-bikes and go round the Campus angling for a topic. The Hiji Station yielded nothing; but on our way to the Tech Market we saw a large number of members of the Technology Angling Club, busy fishing single-minded in the Lake with umbrellas covering their heads; and so the poem: "The Angler" got composed by the time we reached home.

But it required an overnight effort from 9 PM to 3 AM to compose an 80-line Theme Poem parodying Vikram Seth's "Frog and the Nightingale". It was titled: "Ms Buffalo & Dr Crow" and I think we still have a soft copy on my son's hard disk.

These are merely 'ghost-writings'.

Then come the several pieces of prose we all had to compose when, let us say, the the Dean asks the HoD for a ghost-write-up and the HoD dumps it on you.

These come under the head of 'ghost-ghost-write-ups'.

One morning at 10 AM at KGP I got a call from my eldest brother-in-law, Sri G Ranga Rao, IAS at Madras asking me to fax a two-page write-up on the current literary scene in Bengal by the evening.

Apparently, the tiny but cute Probasi Bengali Association in Madras chose him as their Chief Guest for a function of theirs. He had his schooling in Cuttack and so was very proficient in Oriya, and picked up very good spoken Bengali during his tenures in Bengal which was why he was chosen.

That was a little too much even for a super-fiction-writer like me, and I was wondering what to do, sitting under the mango tree at the Co-Op Canteen, when I spotted Mainak Sengupta passing along. I beckoned to him and asked him to do the job for me by the evening. He was the Culture Vulture I knew very well and was the reigning Secretary of SPICMACAY at IIT KGP. He did a Project under me in 'History of Science & Technology for Research Scholars' and has a lovely paper titled: "A Brief History of Radio Astronomy".

He said he would deliver it by 4 PM.

And he did.

Apparently it went off so well that GRR had a few kind words for me, which I at once passed on to Mainak.

Mainak smiled and said he would pass them on to Aparajita, his betrothed co-Research Scholar in EE.

You will find their names in my Schindler's List. The charming couple with two cute kids are now Professors of EE at the Deemed University BE College in Howrah, where myself and my whole family have a standing invitation.

That would be 'ghost-ghost-ghost writing'; no?

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Aurum 79

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Yes, that is GOLD!!!

But if I title this post as 'Gold', my inbox will be flooded with computer-generated spam from Gold Outlets.

I have always been averse to gold and silk.

That was because during my childhood in AP, there was too much display of these two in every function by womenfolk. That was all their wealth. Poor things: cash, land, houses, and every other form of wealth were the preserve of men, descending from father to sons.

Shree Suktam of the Rig Veda starts like: "Om, Hiranyavarnaam harineem suvarna rajatasrajaam, chandraam, hiranmayeem lakshmeem jaatavedo ma aavah".

Lakshmi is all gold and silver and moonshine.

My problem was that early in life I happened to read the story of King Midas whose touch turns his daughter into all-gold, like that blonde in Ian Fleming's Goldfinger.

What is the use of a girl of gold?

And then our science text had it that the silk saris ceremonially worn by our ladies demand the merciless boiling of thousands of silkworms blissfully asleep in their cocoons. What a horrible thing to wear!!!

Fortunately for me, in KGP, I saw very little of gold and silk displayed in daily life, at least.

It is funny that gold is what it is because it is inert.

I read that if all the gold ever mined in this world is stockpiled, it won't even fill an IIT Hangar of a double-football field size like the Tata Steel Stadium at KGP.

There is no doubt that a thin gold chain around the neck of a girl-child like Ishani certainly adds to the chain's beauty.

But, any gold-plated chain would do it even better.

But I used to see waist-belts of solid gold around fat dark middle-aged mothers of a dozen in my childhood.

Soon after my marriage, my wife landed in Qrs C1-97 with a small steel trunk as her wedding trousseau. I asked her what was there hidden in that Pandora's Box. She replied, a few silk saris and a few gold ornaments. I told her that if she was much attached to them she better conceal them because during those years burglaries were rampant in IIT Campus, and by then I myself had that Qrs and similar ones earlier broken in and stuff looted several times: "who steals my purse steals trash" (Othello)

With the result that our honeymoon plans to Digha got canceled; because she couldn't risk burglary and I was averse to shift her trunk to someone else's house for safekeeping.

The poor girl was stark alone in that wilderness (our twin C1-98 was vacant) when I was at the Institute supposedly teaching. And she came from an extra- large family in a temple town which knew no silence.

So, at the stroke of 11 AM she would be waiting for me eagerly in our verandah, and when she spotted my ramshackle bicycle, her face would light up like a thousand bulbs (she is very fair, you know, compared to me; so are her son and now her granddaughter; fair skin is much valued in the marriage market even now).

But one day the smile on her golden face was replaced by a sullen frown and as usual the reply was: 'Nothing'.

This went on for two days.

The third day, she broke down, and confessed that ALL her gold ornaments were missing by the time she returned from her one-hour stint in the Prem Bazaar Hospital (Free) OP duties.

But there was no break-in and it was quite mysterious. And she admitted that she was concealing them in her wardrobe instead of in her steel trunk, as per my suggestion.

I took great pity on her and asked her how much her gold ornaments would cost. She replied about Rs 30K. It just so happened that was exactly my PF balance (after 15 years of honest service at IIT KGP). So, I assured her that I would by hook or crook (I knew our kindly Gouri Babu) withdraw that amount in installments and replace all her gold within 2 years.

Oh, well, I don't have to describe the fruit of my magnanimity.

Next morning at 11 AM, I saw that she had walked to our front gate and was standing there, so she could spot my Rocinante from the turn at the horizon.

And she was all million-dollar-smiles.

And she announced, like Hanuman debriefed Lord Raam: "Found! Found!! Found!!!"

"Where?"

"In the folds of that old sari".

Both of us were at once richer by Rs 30K and happiness worth a thousand times that.

Our own 'Free Gifts of the Magi'.

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This reminiscence was triggered by a phone call to him that my son described this morning:

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Caller: "Mai, Ashok, Rajasthan se bol rahah hoon"

Sonoo: "Boilye jaldee"

Ashok: "My aap ki ek minute le sakta hoon?"

Sonoo: "Jaldee"

Ashok: "Aaap AP se hai naa?"

Sonoo: "Haa.. Haa"

Ashok: "Aisa hai; ki, merey paass do kilo ka gold biscuits hai"

Sonoo: "Rakhiye aapkehi paas"

Ashok: "Oh, aap jaantey hai!!!"

Sonoo: "Bahut.. Bahut"

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End of phone call,



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DeFrosted Cat

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Feeling too weak to compose anything original.

So, here is a wonderful parody (sent by Aniket) and the original below it.

The mills of the 'wit' grind slowly but grind superfine; all is grist to his impartial mills.

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Sitting by the Fire on A Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost's Cat from POETRY FOR CATS by Henry Beard
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Whose chair this is by now I know.

He's somewhere in the forest though;

He will not see me sitting here,

A place I'm not supposed to go.

He really is a little queer


To leave his fire's cozy cheer

And ride out by the frozen lake

The coldest evening of the year.

To love the snow it takes a flake;

The chill that makes your footpads ache,


The drifts too high to lurk or creep,

The icicles that drip and break.

His chair is comfy, soft and deep.

But I have got an urge to leap,

And mice to catch before I sleep.

And mice to catch before I sleep. ***********************************************************

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

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Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

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Paperbags & Paperbacks

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Supratim lately made two remarks:

1. "He had some Wodehouse books lying around at home and one day when I didn't have anything else to read I took one of those and started reading it and was immediately hooked".

2. "Its so much nicer to read from a book than from a computer screen".

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John Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press, heralded a revolution; later came TV and Computer screen.

Still the pamphlet and the paperback seem to thrive.

It is said that the great Debendranath Tagore was very much attached to his grandmother. Upon her death he decided to end his life by drowning in the Ganges (Ramakrishna always called it the Gangamai and not Hooghly, no?).

As he was walking dejected, it seems a loose leaf of a printed sheet that was flying in the wind happened to hit his face and drop at his feet.

He picked it up and found in it the leading verse of the ancient Ishopanishad:

"Ishaavaasyamidam sarvam yatkincha jagatyam jagat
Tena tyaktena bhunjeetha maa gridhah kasyavit dhanam",

which roughly translates to:

"Whatever passes in this world is enveloped (belongs to) by Ishwar So, enjoy after renouncing (ownership), not coveting what belongs to others"

It is said that this touched him so much that he returned home and devoted himself to the study of Upanishads and became Maharshi, leading an active life of renunciation of the ego, raising a large family all of who turned out to be gems, the last being the Tagore; and invigorating the Brahma Samaj that led the Bengal Renaissance after the death of Rammohun Roy.

Whenever I went home on my vacations, the first thing I would do was to go through the English 'Prose Selections' of my younger sisters' school books. One day I found the charming piece from the autobiography of Gandhi: 'Third Class Travel', towards the end of which he concedes that he let his wife take bath in the 'Second Class' Waiting Room instead of the common tap on the Madras Central Platform, out of compassion to his wife.

And then admits that his partiality to his wife overcame his partiality to Truth, and quotes another gem from the same Ishopanishad (the shortest of the major Upanishads):

"Hiranmayena patrena satyasyaapihaitam mukham Tat tvam pooshan apaavrinu satya dharmaaya drashtaye",

which roughly translates to:

"The face of Truth is hidden behind a golden disk Unveil it Pooshan, so I, a lover of Truth can have a peek".

This rather charmed me so much that I not only read Gandhi's: 'My Experiments with Truth", but also browsed Radhakriashnan's: 'The Principal Upanishads' for fun (Hail Central Library, IIT KGP!)

Tom Friedman (whom I used to call Uncle Tom to the desperation of my friend Edwin Taylor), while writing about the importance of imparting literacy somehow to the women of Afghanistan said something like:

"The mother would send his son to the provisions store to fetch wheat flour; maybe in a paper bag; maybe she would empty the contents into her tin; maybe she would glance at the paper before throwing it into the bin; maybe it would have the latest news of man reaching the moon; and maybe that would expand her narrow horizon" (all words are mine).

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa has a further take on this. He says:

"After reading the paper which wrapped the sweets, you can absorb what is in it, throw it away and eat the sweets (implying perhaps you digest the paper's contents and act on them)"

Nice similes all!!!

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Books & Guides

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Here is a comment that was posted yesterday on a 2-month-old blogpost: 'Nellore-Kovur Marathon':

Anonymous said... " Amiable post and this post helped me a lot in my college assignment. Thank you seeking your information. "

Can't quite make out.

It is definitely from a student in Nellore or Kovur (can't be from Timbuctoo).

Naidu, the ex-CM, who transformed Hyderabad from a lazy easy-going Nizam's place of palaces into a modern IT hub rivaling B'lore, set up the IT culture in AP. Every youngster here is more net-savvy than me.

He also replaced 'History' in the school curriculum with 'IT'.

Sad that 'history' is taking a sweet revenge on him.

In any case, students of English must be scanning the web day and night for their 'suitable' assignments: 'copy-paste'.

In our days it was 'mug-vomit'.

1950's: English surely was the bugbear of 90% of village matriculation students.

So, there appeared in the market fat volumes called 'Guides', shabbily printed on thin paper, but cheap enough.

They were published by Madras companies with names like 'LIFCO' (for Little Flower Company, with three little tiny tots as their emblem. Also Leo and Duco).

They appeared in the market before the text-books did: Inside information.

Marvelously produced but expensive text-books then came with a suitable time-lag.

These 'Guides' had all the 'lessons' followed by: Questions & Answers, typical essays, letter-writing exercises, typical grammar questions and what not.

We were forbidden to be seen with these things in our hands; along with vernacular 'pornography' pocket books and 'detective' books (starring Yugandhar on his red Lambretta scooter, a hotch-potch of Perry Mason, Holmes and Agaatha Christie themes).

The reason is that if the examiner finds two or more 'identical' essays, all these will be scratched and marked zero.

I did consult them for extra 'points', but I mugged up the text-book which apparently was ok!!!

Now, I think, web-search is replacing 'Guides'.

Anyway, in my University we had 2-years of grueling English, with 17 text books, Selections, novels and what not.

The Shakespeare drama was 'Julius Caesar' (Bernard Shaw's was 'Candida', the routine question on which was: "What is the secret in the poet's heart?": My answer was like: "Love & Sex don't mix for poets; while Love warms the poet's heart into sublime verse, sex cools it down to the absolute zero of disillusionment").

While I was passing through my 'Shakespeare' uncles' place, he asked me what my Shakespeare was, and when I said it wa Julius Caesar, he gifted me from his bookshelf one 'precious' copy of an 'annotation' book written by a devious British critic and told me to read it and use it since it was most unconventional.

'Julius Caesar' is special: unlike the other dramas of the Bard, the title-bearer of this drama is killed in the Third Act itself, although his ghost survives till the end.

So, the standard question used to be: "Who is the 'hero' of 'Julius Caesar'?"

A chap who dies midway can't be the hero. Nor Mark Antony, since I suppose there was another drama after him and Cleo.

The standard answer was: 'Brutus'; much like Yudhistir is supposed to be the hero of Mahabharat, though some say it is Draupadi.

Anyway, this queer book gifted me by my uncle very cleverly argues that Cassius is the real hero (it was he who plots the entire assassination while Brutus was just putty in his hands).

Like say, Shakuni could be the real hero of Mahabharat.

Lit folks are funny: How does it matter who the hell the hero is?

Why not Just Enjoy!!! Did Shakespeare bother?

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Mark Twain: "There is no difference between one who doesn't read and one who can't".

Rather strong words!!!

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The Gift of the Magi

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Today has been one of those handful of days I didn't stir out of home in Hyderabad.

Generally, I take at least a hundred meters walk for a cup of Tea to the eatery: "Top-Inn Hotel".

This name always reminds me of a "Drop-Inn" Eatery at Gole Bazaar which folded up in a couple of years; but while it was there the fare was apparently good: mostly NV: various paranthas; Mughalai, egg, chicken etc. Since I never liked the NV stuff, I was a spectator quark, drinking my Tea while my friends had their fill.

Not that I was too unwell today; yesterday, when it was worse, I walked uphill to post some Air Mail packets and DTDC couriers. Just that there was no incentive to stir fom bed: I happened to pick up an RKN thing and got absorbed.

Its title is: "A Story-Teller's World".

It is a compilation of 'pieces' many of which I read earlier; still.

The most delicious compilation of his 'pieces' remains: "Next Sunday". They are period pieces: the early 1950's under Nehru's Independent India, its birth-pangs and the funny side of it. Also my boyhood days at what everyone says was my Malgudi.

The opening page of today's book has this inscription: "from Kasturi Basu", 2nd February, '94.

That is Dola, DB's daughter. She must have been in her MA (English) at JU then.

It was a funny thing: Dola's mom holds an MA (English) from the same Univ, maybe.

DB used to claim that he was 'writing' her 'essays' as preparation for her exams: it so happened that he married her while she was a student; and as you know, marriage is a big diversion for a woman.

"Vivaham vidya nashanam; santanam sarvanashanam"

But when Dola entered her High School, she flatly refused to 'prepare' for JEE, a wise decision supported by her parents.

Her first love was English.

Somehow, by hook or crook I convinced DB that I know a little of this language; nothing like SDM's: his mastery of English was such that he could easily have been a professional writer if math wasn't his first love.

I learned how to write precise and concise scientific prose from SDM. I didn't learn much of his math though; that remains contraband in my family.

So, DB and his Mrs used to feed me at their place and after dinner, Dola used to come to me for a couple of questions in her English text.

And I used to gul as usual.

One thing I recall was that there was this: 'The Gift of the Magi' story by O Henry.

I somehow felt that the last para appeared like an afterthought. The short story would have been nice if it ended without its rather overt end-pontification.

I said so.

The next day, Dola went to the Tech Market book store and bought a compilation of O Henry's in which an earlier version left out the last para, with the title: "Gifts of Magi".

I guess there is some truth in the popular saying that excessive revision, particularly after many years, is better avoided.

Dola holds a prestigious Diploma in Journalism from The Hindu @ Madras.

It turns out that the building that houses this in the Mount Road (now Anna Salai) is called Kasturi Buildings, sort of Dola's namesake.

Legend has it that some irate journalist who was rejected by the original 'Kasturi' wrote a complaint to the Ministry that The Hindu employs 90% of its staff picked up from Tamilain Brahmins.

When the complaint was passed on to Kasturi, he replied: "There appears to be some mistake. ALL our employees are Tamilian Brahmins".



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Colden Nash

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Thanx to Varun for this delightful poem (I discovered that Nashsville is named for his ancestor):



Go hang yourself, you old M.D.!
You shall not sneer at me.
Pick up your hat and stethoscope,
Go wash your mouth with laundry soap;
I contemplate a joy exquisite
I'm not paying you for your visit.
I did not call you to be told
My malady is a common cold.

By pounding brow and swollen lip;
By fever's hot and scaly grip;
By those two red redundant eyes
That weep like woeful April skies;
By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff;
By handkerchief after handkerchief;
This cold you wave away as naught
Is the damnedest cold man ever caught!

Give ear, you scientific fossil!
Here is the genuine Cold Colossal;
The Cold of which researchers dream,
The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme.
This honored system humbly holds
The Super-cold to end all colds;
The Cold Crusading for Democracy;
The Führer of the Streptococcracy.

Bacilli swarm within my portals
Such as were ne'er conceived by mortals,
But bred by scientists wise and hoary
In some Olympic laboratory;
Bacteria as large as mice,
With feet of fire and heads of ice
Who never interrupt for slumber
Their stamping elephantine rumba.

A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!
Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;
Don Juan was a budding gallant,
And Shakespeare's plays show signs of talent;
The Arctic winter is fairly coolish,
And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.
Oh what a derision history holds
For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds!

Ogden Nash