Dogs & doggerels

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Everyone knows that 'Dog' is a word that has many many meanings; online Webster gives about 20 entries for various 'dogs'.

But this post is mainly about the animal.

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The word 'post' in the above sentence reminds me of a repartee famous in our times:

The British tabloid 'Post' editorially called its rival 'Sun' a Dog; to which 'Sun' responded: "Our attitude to 'Post' is that of every dog to every post".

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And the joke about the lost dog:

The dog of a very rich man got lost in a crowd. He inserts an ad in the most popular newspaper of the town promising a fabulous cash award to anyone who restores his dog to him.

Next day he visits the offices of the newspaper to know the latest news of his dog. The Cub Reporters Pantry was empty. He asks the watchman accompanying him where they have all vanished, to which he gets the reply: "Aapka Kuttha dhoondne gaya". And then the sub-editor's office which too was empty: "Aapka Kuttha dhoondne gaya". Finally he goes up to the newspaper magnate's empty luxury cabin: "Aapka Kuttha dhoondne gaya"

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I took my parents on a long-promised 3-day visit to Varanasi in 1984. After covering all sights, on the last evening, there were two left out: my paternal cousin's home and Kala Bhairav's temple on the city's outskirts. My father was inclined to the first and my mother to the last. I cast my decider in my mother's favor and we had to travel for more than an hour in a cramped and creaky rickshaw to reach the temple. Apparently Kala Bhairav's watchdog guards the city and whoever visits the temple and wears the wrist-band for which the place is famous will conquer fear.

Dattatreya, a very popular God in Maharashtra is accompanied by 4 dogs symbolizing the four Vedas.

Mention is made in the Chandogyopanishad of Yama's two messenger dogs Shyama (dark) and Shabala (bright) who are sent forth to seek out those who are due to join their ancestors.

And in the Swargarohan Parva, Yudhishtir declines Indra's invitation to Swarg unwilling to part with the dog that followed him faithfully all the way up as his brothers drop dead one by one. Pleased with his devotion, the dog then reveals himself to Yudhishtir as his own father Yama.

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I had my first encounter (at age 9) with a ferocious watchdog at dusk in a chasing race in which I came a poor second and lost a juicy bit of flesh from my thigh. And had to take 14 painful injections one a day around my tiny navel; given a choice I would have gladly risked hydrophobia, but at 9 you are hardly master of yourself.

Then on I learned my lesson: when a dog chases you, you ought to come to a standstill posture like a statue and slowly bend down as if picking up a stone or chappal. Most dogs turn back and run for their life. All men and animals are scared of missiles, guided or not.

Then there is this Dog Star Sirius in the constellation Canis Major. It is possibly the brightest star in the night sky. I am told that in villages where no clocks were available, people used to reckon the time at night by the position of Sirius called: Sookh in Hindi (?). As it rises in the evening sky on a summer night it is a pleasure to watch its glittering VIBYOR colors. Its light is then refracted through thick layers of turbulent atmosphere that act like a randomly shaking prism.

In the late sixties I read a Condensed Version in Readers Digest of the powerful novel, The White Dog, by Romain Gary, later converted into a controversial movie. It is set in the Civil Rights Movement in the US: A white couple bring home a lost dog and adopt him; but discover to their consternation that he was an Alabama Police Dog trained to attack Blacks. They send him to be retrained to a black dog-trainer. And find that he trains him to attack whites, including the couple that gave him food and shelter. And it wails in its 'dehumanized' agony.

'Dog' is a pejorative term in some religions. Here is a limerick from my 'poetic' phase:

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Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Language goes to Dogs!

"Deccan Chronicle apologizes for its Banner Headline: 'Rahman Top Dog' ":


Slumdog offends slums
Top Dog wounds Muslims
Alien lingos
Upset jingos
As Big Dog smiles down Heavens!


Big Dog is the constellation: Canis Major

Posted by G P Sastry (gps1943@yahoo.com) at 10:09 PM

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And yet another:

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Thursday, April 2, 2009

Pet Rage Doggerel

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"A senior Punjab IPS Officer grabbed his security guard's AK-47 and emptied the entire 32-round magazine on two snarling stray dogs and ended up shooting his own gunman in his thigh trying to save his pet dog. He was booked for his cruelty to animals": News item on page 8 DC April 2, 2009

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"But soon a wonder came to light,
That showed the rogues they lied:
The man recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died."

----- Last stanza of 'An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog' by Oliver Goldsmith

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IPS Officer's Defense:

They tried to kill my dog, they did;
I shot the mutts with his gun, I did;
My dog I saved as I wished, I did;
The poor cur lost his head and thigh, He did!

Posted by G P Sastry (gps1943@yahoo.com) at 4:10 AM

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SEFASA

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A Fictitious First Person Account (AFFPA):

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In the Beginning I was appointed Project Manager in charge of setting up the Infamous Hijli Detention Camp (IHDC).

I wanted a strip of land sandwiched between a State Lowway and a Single Track Railroad. It is never easy to build high-security Jails without pucca access; after all tons of bricks, cement, steel and ropes are to be shipped to the site.

That is how my IHDC came up where it did. The Jail proper with its honeycomb of "single and double-sitter" Luxury Cells for the well-behaved, creepy "stand-alone" Solitary Cells for the naughty, a very temporary "hanging" Roof Garden for the very naughty, and dingy hovels for sharp-shooter-sepoys came up near the Hijli Railway Station that I built East of the Lowway; and palatial bungalows with lofty roofs (with outhouses for the servants and cooks) for the Chief Jailer and his minions, with the imperative Officers' Club, on its West.

When "Transfer of Power (ToP)" took place on the "Tryst with Destiny (TwD)" midnight after the White Jailer fled and the surviving inmates welcomed with garlands and "Promises-to-Keep (PtK)" pensions that were as broke as the Ten Commandments, I was given charge of converting the IHDC into the first and foremost IIT KGP.

I designed and built the Main Building with a high wall enclosing the IHDC, so that students can't escape once they are in, except when the Lofty Main Gate was open or scaled during the Famous Bangla Bundhs (FBBs). This covered a stretch between the Lowway and the Hijli Station. On the West of the road, the Chief Jailer's Bungalow served as the Director's Bungalow, but the Officers' Club stayed the Officers' Club since Faculty Members were recognized as Class I Gazetted Officers empowered to attest True Copies (TCs).

By and by I built several Hells (sorry, Halls) for students; and Quarters, Halves, Three-Quarters and Fulls for Faculty and Supporting Staff in the descending order: 'A' for Professors, 'B' for Assistant Professors, 'C' for Lowly Lecturers (LLs), 'G' for Sanitary Staff, 'H' for Technical and Administrative Staff, with lots of spare alphabets in between for comeuppances.

By and by need arose for Quarters for Senior Assistant Professors, Senior Lecturers and Senior Technical Assistants. Unfortunately however, a Professor of Tensor Analysis whose outlook was poisoned by subscripts and superscripts was appointed Chairman, Housing Committee. And we had to cope with B(^ 1), C(^ 1), H(^1) as nowhere else in the World (Math Profs are showy).

Such exotic nomenclature being outside the Morse Code, the Lightning Telegram conveying news of the long-awaited birth of a golden son (Sonoo) to poor gps went first to C-197 and then G-97 instead of C(^ 1)-97, causing so much heartburn that he bashed up his HoD like a blinded Calypso. RSS then proclaimed the working recipe for getting a golden son: "Bash up your HoD".

Anyway, the villageship came up entirely on the West of the Lowway, to the satisfaction of all; till it burst its seams and land was required for further expansion. Then the scrub jungle on the remaining part of the East Side (which was affectionately called "Dandakaranya") was slowly cleared and I built new Quarters of the same tensor nomenclature on its very outskirts.

These were truly charming and full of adventure as they were peaceful-coexistence homes to serpents, jackals, rabbits. owls. giant spidermen, turtle-snails, bandicoots and all species of wildlife save Man-Eating Royal Bengal Tigers displaced from Sunderbans.

And petty thieves, chain-snatchers, burglars, dacoits, thugs and lowway robbers had a field day till the residents of "Dandakaranya", fighting shy to call a spade a spade set up the Quixotic Venture:

"South-East Fringe Area Security Association" (SEFASA), more of which later.

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Tailpiece: SPK rang up and was telling me that my fond Campus is beset by Dengue fever; and was wondering what the correct pronunciation was: 'Dengyoo' or 'Deng'.

This reminded me of the joke of my eons at KGP:

Professor: The purpose of the outboard motor is to boost torqyoo

Frontbencher: Sir, it is torq!

Professor: It was a slip of the tongyoo

Frontbencher: Sir, it is tong!

Professor: Such nit-picking leads only to resentment and piqyoo

Frontbencher: Sir, it is piq!

Professor: Shut up and don't arg!!!

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My son tells me it is pronounced 'Dengee' in his Office.

Like torkee, tongee, pickee and argee {;-}

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Blogger's Prayer

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Blogger's Prayer:

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"Our Father, that art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily blog.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the blogdom, the power and the glory. for ever and ever. Amen"

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Today is Teachers' Day: I remember the date well: September 5th. Precisely 5 years ago my wife and I presented ourselves in the SBI Balkampet Branch in Hyderabad and nervously deposited my Retirement Drafts to the very very user-friendly Relationship Manager. He got them credited to our Savings Acount in 5 minutes and asked us what we wished to do with the money. I told him that I would go by his precious advice. He suggested that half of it should be 'fixed' for one year at the going rate of 6% (I felt cheated, for I was paying my EMIs @ 14% for the past 5 years); and advised us that I 'fix' the other half in the Senior Citizen's Savings Scheme @ 9%. I heaved a sigh of relief. But there was a catch: it can't be 'broken' for 5 years: i.e. till September 5th 2010. I cringed: would I live that long?

But here I am: living, kicking and blogging furiously. Today is the D-Day. I kept my 'many promises to keep'.

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Yesterday Vinit called in the morning and wished me Happy Teachers' Day. I told him he was one day early. He replied that he didn't remember the date, but his son in Class VIII told him it was being celebrated in his School yesterday; and he was taking his son's word for it. Teachers' Day falls on a Sunday this year; and the Teachers of his School couldn't wait till Monday: they had advanced it by a day instead of postponing it (who knows!).

I am told that in the US, the practice is that if July 4th falls on a weekend, its holiday is taken on the coming Monday, not the earlier Friday. In parts of India too there is this custom: If your Birthday or Wedding Anniversary couldn't be celebrated for some reason on the precise date, you can only celebrate it later but not earlier.

Vinit wished me again today, to make up. And he surprised me by mentioning that some of his colleagues found the post: "Read or Write" useful. So far I had been told my blogs are instructive, educational, evocative or even inspirational. But now it seems they tend to be useful too.

It is therefore time that I solemnly disown the consequences of all such unintended applications. I consider myself a Guest Buffoon in the Entertainment Industry. If any, my posts are supposed to be mild mood-elevators and nothing else: they are too full of bluffs to merit any other use.

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This year there is a well-wisher from the blogosphere wishing me Happy Teachers' Day:

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Suvro Chatterjee said..."Comment on: Bibliophobes":

Sir,

Happy Teachers' Day to you.

I am 47, and a teacher myself; and one of your old boys at IIT-KGP, Nishant Kamath now in the US, told me about your blog. I have just been reading all the posts on your home page with delight and admiration, and chose to comment on this one at random - well, not quite, but because I am a bibliophile myself (as you will see if you ever visit my blog, http://suvrobemused. blogspot.com), and don't meet too many like that these days, even among educated people.

May God grant you long life, and happy blog writing. If you kindly see it fit to give me your email i.d., we might talk directly too.

With respect, and best wishes,

Suvro Chatterjee

September 5, 2010 6:14 AM

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Thank you Suvrojee! And a hearty reciprocation!

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I always had a problem with the Bengali spelling of 'bh'. Some times, they write: Shubhra Chatterjee, as our KGP Physics lady alumnus does; and at other times use 'v'. My name (Prabhakara) is spelled with a 'bh' in all official records, and in my Bank. But at the SBI KGP, whenever I asked for a Demand Draft in my favor, they used to spell it with 'v' and it used to bounce from my AP SBI Branches. After a couple of such mishaps, I had to double and triple-check it.

This recalls the famous Wellerism:

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"What's your name, sir?" inquired the judge.

"Sam Weller, my lord," replied that gentleman.

"Do you spell it with a 'V' or 'W'?" inquired the judge.

"That depends on the taste and fancy of the speller, my lord," replied Sam; "I never had occasion to spell it more than once or twice in my life, but I spells it with a 'V'."

.............................'Pickwick Papers"

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Old is Gold

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In the Beginning there was the Old Building, biblically speaking.

Well, it was not called the Old Building till the New Building came up. It was known as the (infamous) Hijli Detention Camp (euphemism for Hijli Jail lovingly hosting Freedom Fighters).

The New Building was not called New Building: it came to be known as the Main Building. But the Old Building continued to be called Old Building; not Subsidiary or, worse, Supplementary Building.

In the Beginning, IIT was not called the Indian Institute of Technology; it was called: Eastern Higher Technical Institute, simply because the Founding Committee chaired by N R Sarkar, with S S Bhatnagar, J C Ghosh and Dharam Vir (not our IAS student, but an ICS; I have to find out if he is a relevant granpa) as Members recommended 4 such Higher Technical Institutes; Eastern, Western, Southern and Northern; much like Adi Shankaracharya's Puri, Dwaraka, Shringeri and Joshimatt pitas.

Old Building is a great name: as SPK writes: "Although you dislike gold but the world accepts it as a standard of quality or excellence. They say `Old is Gold', `It is pure gold' etc".

The Grand Old Building had a 20-ft tall and 2-ft wide Compound Wall around it, with watch towers on its 4 corners manned by our own sepoys aiming our own rifles at our own unarmed Freedom Fighters trying to escape: they did manage to shoot and kill two of them (and perhaps got rich rewards and promotions, if not Gallantry Awards by their proud British Employers...udara nimittham bahukrita vesham says our own Adi Shankara). The unarmed shahids are: Santosh Kumar Mitra and Tarakeswar Sengupta. There is a fine memorial for them and a simple annual celebration on Martyr's Day.

The Old Building has a tall central tower. This is home for a hundred parrots with green feathers and red eyes. At the crack of dawn the flock splits up and visit the ten thousand trees of the Campus, a Paradise for Botanists, Zoologists, Ornithologists and Herpetologists. The parrots feast on seasonal fruit and return to their Home in the Old Building Dome. They are a feast for the senses.

In the Beginning, all classes were held in the Old Building which also housed the Administration Offices. As the Main Building, and by and by a couple of dozen independent grand buildings for each major Engineering Department came up, the Old Building got slowly vacated. And then there there was this sudden expansion (SDM called it the Free Expansion of an Ideal Gas into Vacuum) of the Physics & Chemistry Departments in the 1960s when their Integrated (and disintegrated) M Sc programs started (disintegrated refers to the initial facility of taking the B Sc Hons Degree and running away after 3 years, like Dharam Vir and Subba). Some Physics and Chemistry Lectures and Labs were then temporarily held in the ground floor of the Old Building (I lectured there in the early 70s, and SDM and I took 3rd Year Lab classes too).

As more and more buildings came up, the ground floor of the Old Building fell into disuse and was converted into the Nehru Museum of Science and Technology by our learned Director Professor K L Chopra. It was a fitting tribute to the soaring aspirations of Nehru. Gandhijee didn't have the vision and temperament for Modern Science and Technology of Nehru; but he had the sixth sense to appoint Nehru as his successor and the First PM of Independent India (it is a wild guessing game to work out what would have been the color and texture of India now if some X, Y or Z other than Nehru was our first PM).

Gifts of the Magi: Railways donated an antique Steam Engine on rails and the Air Force gifted a Hunter Fighter Aircraft. And many many artifacts. At one time there used to be bimonthly Exhibitions and Modeling Contests for IIT and School Children of the Campus (for the record my son won a third prize for a working Electronics gadget). And I had to write-up a long Essay (Differential Diagnosis between Laser Light and Sun-like-light) for Professor G S Sanyal, ex-Director and then Managing Director of the budding STEP which was housed in the First Floor of the Old Building. Professor STA, then Chairman, Nehru Museum, happened to visit my humble office in C-236 and had a peek at it. He at once confiscated and hijacked a copy and started an NMST Series of Publications. It was christened "Lasers...the Light Wave of the Future" by Professor KLC and was ambitiously called: 'NMST-001'. When I retired 15 years later and wanted to buy a copy of my own booklet, I was told that all 1000 copies of the first printing were sold out: a mixed feeling. And then they wanted me to bring out a Second Edition; but who will blog daily if I start bringing out Serial Editions of my many Physics Books {;-}? (Just this morning Vinit rang up and was asking me to 'publish' my Jumbo Lecture Notes, the last copy of which went to Anirban a fortnight ago).

The trick is to know when to quit gracefully.

By the time Sayan and Company joined our Department, GSS's STEP got its own magnificent building and his erstwhile Office in the Second Floor was converted into CTS. I used to occasionally visit CTS, mainly to offload a few of the large number of Physics & Astronomy books I gathered during my tenure there (frankly I was scared of the residents of CTS....they are such a learned, serious and sincere lot, too busy for my brand of woolgathering).

Well, that is all about my love-life with the Old Building and its resident parrots, a very cheerful lot. I hope they continue undisturbed there in all their vibrant green feathers and red eyes.

Bye bye Hijli Detention Camp!

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Disclaimer: This is not an Official Document with verifiable facts and figures; just a lighthearted personal piece claiming no veracity.

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Watch & Ward

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"See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil"...............

.................The motto typified by the 3 Chinese Porcelain Monkeys Gandhijee was fond of (and used as paperweights in his Sevagram Ashram)

(Some relentless wit added an unspeakable 4th Monkey on behalf of the Ministry Of Family Planning at the height of the campaign for compulsory sterilization which contributed its bit to the downfall of Indirajee's infamous Emergency; everything is infamous after its downfall, but famous till then)

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Last night I happened to read George Orwell's 'Shooting an Elephant', perhaps for the fifth time in as many decades. It is the best narrative piece I ever read, surely. It has everything in it to make absorbing reading and rings true to boot.

This kindled many memories of the 200 odd Invigilation Duties I had to regularly 'do' at IIT KGP willy-nilly. I had no stomach for them, but there was no escape. I took them as lightly as I could (Faankeebajee).

Throughout my stay at IIT I had to face a stream of constant rhetorical questions such as:

"If nobody does Invigilation sincerely what will happen to IIT?"

"If nobody guides Ph D students what will happen to IIT?"

"If nobody does Wardenship what will happen to IIT?"

..........................and so on and so forth.

This nobody business made me feel like Ulysses in the Cave of Cyclops.

I can only say that IIT KGP has been doing rather well with or without or in spite of me.

Anyway, it just turned out that in all these decades I could never catch a single student cheating red-handed (what a bloody word for the poor lily-livered poltroon!), although most others did. My eyes were always wide open for those spells of 3 hours, but they were like the eyes of a dead goat: staring but not seeing.

During my first 20 years I rather enjoyed those 3-hour spells of Invigilation. I was then truly a nobody among half a dozen seniors in Raman Auditorium. As soon as things settled down to a silence other than its wheezing old fans, I would first take a long look at all the question papers (extras left over). Curious as I was, I learned a lot of what was being taught in other Departments on their specialized subjects. It was a mind-expanding exercise (like a mental bullworker). It also gave me tips on how and how not to set question papers. For, the paper-setter would duly arrive to announce 'corrections' in his question paper. At times it was hilarious, like this ME teacher loudly announcing: "Question # 5: Replace 'crankshaft' with 'piston'". And students duly noting down the change. But I was young and speculative. And I would dramatically visualize what would happen to our Director in his Staff Car if I replace its 'crankshaft' with a 'piston'.

And then I would pick up and browse all the text-books and sometimes even khatas left by students on the dais after their last-minute preparation. And if nothing interesting turns up, I would draft a couple of long-pending letters sitting in a last row seat. I recall that once I wrote down the first draft of the manuscript of a Paper (with B K Parida) whose calculations were through.

All in all a very productive 3 hours.

In one of those forages on the dais, I happened to pick up an English Text Book kept there by a First Year student. And it opened on the page of this George Orwell piece. I read it quickly once and then began a leisurely word-by-word lip-smacking devouring. Halfway through, there was this shout that was taken up and repeated again and again from all corners by every invigilator but me: "Time UP! Stop writing!! Submit your Answer-Scripts!!!"; much like: "Fasten your seat-belts! Oxygen masks are dropping down!! Going, Going, Gone!!!".

I then returned the book I was reading to its owner.

That evening I rushed to the Tech Market and bought a sizzling copy from Thackers which was the only book-shop then. To this day I have not only preserved it but browsed all its articles with great pleasure whenever I was in the mood.

Let me have the pleasure of keyboarding its title and front-matter (give it to the Yankees: they are experts at wordsmithy):

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MODERN PROSE

Stories, Essays and Sketches

edited with
an introduction and notes by

MICHAEL THORPE

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CALCUTTA

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

DELHI BOMBAY MADRAS

...... ....(Oh Calcutta!, Bombay!!, and Madras!!!; and not Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai)


For

Chong Yoon Wah
Choong Weng On
Chuah Toh Chai

and other Members of the

Department of Modern Languages and Literature

Nanyang University, Singapore, 1963-4

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Who says I am sentimental?

Just for fun only!


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Strong, Medium or Light?

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Half a century ago, in the 1960s, while we were students at Visakhapatnam, we used to frequent the Ajanta Hotel in Maharanipet (all of them evocative names: what has the bright star Visakha got to do with the seaside town, why the Cavernous Ajanta for the gloomy restaurant, who was that artful Maharani?).

We were too poor to order anything but Coffee (that too: one/two). In spite of the fact that we were daily visitors, the Bearer would ask his routine question: "Strong, Medium or Light?"

RKN wrote so much and in such detail about his Coffee preferences that anyone trying add to that would have to be gutsy or foolish. But now times have changed and our Coffee World is not quite the same as his. Even in RKN's time, his was a middle-class South-Indian-Brahmin perspective. In our Village those days, pure 100% Coffee was unaffordable for most folks with large families. So, there were diluted versions of RKN's grand thing.

For one, dried tamarind seeds in the proportion needed were mixed with Nilgiri Coffee seeds and the two fried together, before being ground. As a cheap alternative to white crystalline sugar, raw brown sugar or even (RKN would turn in his Heaven) jaggery was used as the sweetener. And, in cheap wayside 'bunks' goat's milk (a la Gandhiji) acted as a whitener.

Later on, chicory came to be used to adulterate our coffee. Chicory is a great impostor: it has the same color, texture, taste (but not flavor) of pure Coffee. But it is more catholic in its soil and water preferences and is grown widely and so is much cheaper. And, although it is as acidic as Coffee, it has no Caffeine. So it is less addictive and doesn't act as a stimulant. On the other hand, it is a mild sedative. All in all, a proper mixture of Pure Coffee and Chicory is a blessing in several ways.

Thus, when I visit a 'Coffee Day' outlet in Hyderabad nowadays, instead of "Strong, Medium or Light?", the question asked is: "60-40, 70-30, or 80-20?"

My unthinking answer to all such questions, like Feynman's, is: "Medium", the Buddha's Middle path (also to the fastidious A/C Barber in our locality).

But I digress.

Coming back to books and their relation with people, I can roughly divide the set into six subsets:

Bibliophobes (Book-Haters): Strong, Medium, Light

Bibliophiles (Book-Lovers): Strong, Medium, Light

In the previous post I talked exclusively of Strong Bibliophobes. So, I skip it.

As for Medium Bibliophobes, I have seen quite a few even in the Academic World. Other than their professional books, they tend to avoid all others. There was this student of mine who purchased the entire set of very expensive Landau-Lifshiz Physics Volumes out of the money he made by coaching students for IIT JEE in his Summer Vacations. One day I happened to ask him which newspaper he reads. He replied without batting an eyelid that he never reads newspapers, magazines, novels, and stuff. He just watches the 'News at 9' Headlines. When he met one of my brothers-in-law at Bangalore on an errand I dumped on him, my b-i-l tried to chat him up and found he was not interested in ANYTHING other than Physics and appeared to have zero General Knowledge. He reported this to me rather contemptuously. I replied that this very curious Dilliwala would be in Princeton 3 years hence. And he was! And then at Harvard for his Post-Doc to the amazement of my b-i-l.

Coming to Light Bibliophobes, my son is the best example. He loves to spend all his precious little spare time on his 'passion': Music. Name a music system and he has it, from the tuck-in Sony Walkman of his High School Days to the I-Pod or whatever he bought in the US, via the Philips Home-Theater 5.1 or such gadgets which are anathema to a tone-deaf chap like me. Music, like poetry, leaves me cold. At our Qrs B-140, owing to lack of space in our bedroom with a double-cot, I installed my book-case in his bedroom (with a 1.5 cot specially made for his 'daddy-long- legs'), with the secret desire that by proximity at least he would pick up one of my Collection and read it. That didn't happen apparently. But, when he got engaged to be married, I suggested jocularly to him that he better read the book in my book-case by Dr. David Reuben, MD. He promptly replied that it was the only book he picked up and read cover-to-cover in his Class XI. I should have guessed he is Project Manager Material, and not a useless-born-teacher like me.

As to Light Bibliophiles, I count myself as the Standing Example. I read many English books, but I was (and am) always very choosy. I have no love for Poetry and avoid reading it, although I bought Palgrave's Golden Treasury once and donated it to the Club Library next day, in exchange for the Autocrat (this facility was there then). I also avoid dark novels. My reading is confined to Light English Prose like Wodehouse, Thurber, Mark Twain, Alistair McLean et al. I read RKN's 'Personal Essays' many times over but avoid his novels. As a matter of taste I don't like stories. Of course I read all of Maugham in my teens; and 'Crime and Punishment' for its art and craft rather than its insipid story (it is an expanded version of Poe's short story 'The Imp of the Perverse'; ok, let that lightning bolt strike me as Shobhaa De is fond of saying).

So we come to the famous: "gps theorem: Dark characters prefer light reading and vice versa".

Medium bibliophiles I have seen many. They have a large collection of books and they can't go to bed without one of those in their hands. The best examples from my own family are my brothers-in-law, Sri G Ranga Rao IAS and Doctor LVK Moorthy. GRR paid me the best compliment: "I wish I were your Graham Greene", and wrote the Foreword for my 'Limericks & Light Verses'. LVK did it to my latest booklet 'Tall Tales'. After a tiring day at his Clinic, LVK picks up the latest English novel he can lay his hands on and goes to bed with it. And when he was vacationing at his daughter's place in Glasgow for a couple of months, the first thing he did was to walk into the Lending Library across the Road and become a member.

I also include in this honorable class (or caste) Aniket who wrote the Foreword for my 'Chatty Essays', and SPK who is going to write his to my next booklet, if there would be one. Indeed this category includes all those who are compulsive readers of my silly blogposts: That proves it, doesn't it!!!

The best example of a Strong Bibliophile I met is Professor S H Rao of IIT KGP. He told me that from his childhood he was a voracious reader and spoiled his eyesight by continual reading. His home-library was the Court of Last Resort for checking anything in the Book-Line. He is a walking encyclopedia and it is a pleasure to 'switch' him on any topic from the Trojan War to the Second World War. After four or five hours of listening to him with rapt attention, you would give up; not he. And our learned Director KLC chose him as the Coordinator for the new Course: History of Science & Technology.

He retired a couple of decades ago, but he still keeps reading his vast collection of books and adding to them. He shifted his entire home-library from KGP to Hyderabad; and his day starts with a cup of coffee over the Online Times (London) Crossword.

Rare nowadays!!!

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Bibliophobes

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For a moment I thought I was inventing a new word: 'Bibliophobe'.

But Shakespeare said it long while ago:

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SONNET 59

If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burden of a former child.

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It isn't there in my fat 2-volume Webster, but I found it in an Online Dictionary:

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Bibliophobe

n

"a person who hates, fears or distrusts books"

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I guess it refers to Dictators who proscribe, ban or burn books, because they are scared that they would undermine their vice-like grip on their subjects.

Censoring, banning and proscribing books is as old as Cicero.

At our AU, we had to read a prescribed slim Prose book by Milton titled: Aeropagetica. It was an impassioned plea against proscriprtion (censoring) of books by his regime. It was unreadable at first, but I got it 'by heart" by and by. (Telugus say: "kanthasth"; by vocal chords; while Bengalis say "mukhostho", by tongue; we Indians don't take books 'by heart' to our heart, looks like).

Galileo had to smuggle his monumental books out of Italy from his house-imprisonment.

Church and the State!!!

I watched a movie: 'Fahrenheit 444' many decades ago. That is the ignition temperature of paper. The Regime ordered all books in all its libraries burnt. The last scene is pathetic: a swarm of ill-clad 'memory-geeks' walking about listlessly in their open-air jail, mumbling, memorizing, repeating and getting the contents of EVERY book they smuggled in 'by heart'.

It is now not that easy, although the GoI brought Blackberry to its knees, like her Northern Neighbor did to Google.

My son says he had to 'Delete' some of his stuff 'by order' from his mail-box; and then 'Empty Trash' too. He did it, but later quietly went to the Microsoft 'Help' and found the trick by which he can 'Recover the Emptied Trash'.

That feat of 'memory-geeks' reminds me of a Chandamama story I read when I was a kid:

In one of their periodic tiffs, Kalidas goes into hiding, not appearing in Bhojraj's Court. After a week of separation, Bhojraj is forlorn and orders everyone under his command to ferret out Kalidas from wherever he is hiding with bountiful cash prizes on him.."alive and kicking" (unlike our former President of the US's order: "alive or dead"; ...till now neither...Dollars go only that far!).

It doesn't work. Fine-Tooth and comb.

His CM draws up a clever plan:

He invites anyone who can produce an original and NEW shlok to appear in the Court and recite it. If it is proved that the shlok is indeed original and new, the poet would walk away with 'Akshar-Lakha' (gold sovereigns in lakhs totaling the number of letters in his shlok...stretch them like my blogs {;-}).

Many needy and greedy poets and versifiers make a beeline to the Court with their original compositions and start reciting them. It turns out that Bhojaraj's Court has: an Eksandhagrahi, a Dwisandhagrahi, a Trisandhagrahi et al (the first capable of repeating anything he hears just once, the second twice etc).

As soon as the claimant recites his shlok, the first one would get up, repeat it and dismiss it as not new since he knew it already. Then the 'seconder' repeats it and confirms it; etc.

And the aspirant is shooed away.

Then there is this very poor and needy brahmin (all needy deserving folks happen to be brahmins like me and Saswat) in whose hut Kalidas is hiding incognito. He narrates this business going on in the Court to Kalidas who feels grateful to his poor host and so composes a shlok and asks the brahmin to go recite it as his own.

When this poor chap recites it and claims his pot of gold, the Eksandhagrahi falls stunningly silent; and so also all his followers. Bhojraj grants the brahmin his quota of sovereigns, but asks his sepoys to imprison him till he reveals the whereabouts of the real author of that baffling shlok.

The nouveau riche brahmin had to tell the truth and lead Bhojraj to his hut, where the usual happy ending takes place between the King and his First Love.

The shlok reads: "Rajan, your father owed my father a million gold sovereigns; your grandfather owed my grandfather a thousand hectares etc".

If the Eksandhagrahi repeats it and claims that it is nothing new and he knew it always, the contents of the shlok are confirmed and Bhojraj had to redeem his father's and grandfather's preposterous debts of honor.

So, he falls silent. And they all fall silent.

What a clever ruse!!!

Can we please have something like that for a Physics Nobel?

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P.S. The only Bibliophobe I met in real life is my 8-month-old Ishani:

She first tears up into bits and pieces the day's Deccan Chronicle and strews them all around her (serves them right for not publishing my Letters).

And then she climbs on my bed and 'reads, chews and digests' the fat "Collected 'Now & Again' pieces of The Statesman".

Serves them right too; for the same reason!

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