Perverse Arguments

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"Women cannot receive even the most palpably judicious suggestion without arguing it; that is, married women"

-------------------------------Mark Twain

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I vividly recall this typical argument between my HM-father and my worldly-wise mother:

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GVR, (an otherwise well-to-do) part-time cub reporter for The Hindu in our small town, used to take the help of HM in rendering a hopefully publishable town-item into printable English. When a couple-of-inches-long cruelly abridged version happened to appear in print once a month or so, the cub would be so pleased and excited that his joy knew no bounds on his laudable 'recognition'. He would go round the town and show off his (ghost-written) column to one and all who mattered (I doubt if he got any remuneration at all from The Hindu).

GVR also happened to be our town's Stockist-Supplier of The Hindu, which perhaps fetched him a tiny commission. As a mark of gratitude he used to supply The Hindu free to my father, who was overwhelmed that he got The Hindu scot-free!!!. It meant that he didn't have to spend Rs 30 a month, could read it whenever he wished, and also sell the piled up back-number Hindus at the end of the month as raddi and get another 15 Rupees.

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Father: See, GVR is gifting me Rs 45 every month for just writing up a few sentences into printable English!

Mother: How come? The Hindu costs only Rs 30; that's just the worth of GVR's gift.

Father: But I get Rs 15 by selling it, no?

Mother: But anyone who gets the Hindu earns Rs 15 automatically by selling it. So GVR is not gifting the extra Rs 15. The cost of his gift for him is just Rs 30.

Father: He could always have taken back today's Hindu tomorrow, sell it himself and pocket that Rs 15. Since he is leaving the Hindu back-numbers to myself, he IS gifting me that Rs 15 too. And moreover, I get to read it too. If he didn't gift it I would have to spend Rs 20 from my pocket to buy the cheaper Indian Express. Which means that the actual worth of GVR's gift adds up to a whopping Rs 65.

Mother: But, if you bought Indian Express for Rs 20, you would get back Rs 10 by selling it; so its actual cost to you is only Rs 10. And, moreover, you could always walk into the mohalla's Free Reading Room at your leisure and read The Hindu, Express, Andhra Prabha, Andhra Patrika absolutely free. So, GVR's gift is worth only the Rs 15 you get by selling it and keeping the money to yourself instead of returning it to him.

Father: But I can't go to the Reading Room in the morning since I have to go to school. And by late evening the copy of the Hindu would be missing, carried home by some enthusiast, to be returned next morning.

Mother: What's wrong in reading it next morning?

Father: By next morning the news is stale and worthless.

Mother: Not so, not so!....You always listen to the morning's 9 AM News Bulletin on the AIR English News. So, the newspaper gives only masala-details which can always wait till tomorrow

Father: It would be as tasty a treat as yesterday's stale Sambar.

Mother: You don't dare compare the idle Hindu to the delicious food I cook and feed you, which is essential for your sustenance.

Father: It just happens that food for thought is as essential as food for the body

Mother: I listen to the afternoon 3 P M Telugu News and that is good enough for me to know all the news that is worth listening to.

Father: There are also educative and entertaining articles written in chaste English which are no 'news' but 'views'.

Mother: Indira Gandhi said that she reads just the news in the day's paper; and she makes up her own views herself; which she wouldn't like to borrow from others second or third hand.

Father: And that is why she couldn't get the public opinion and got killed sadly by her own security men. Moreover, Hindu is full of advertisements. They are very useful.

Mother: The only ads worth listening to come from the Commerce News of AIR at 4 P M. And that reminds me: the price of gold is shooting up and it is time you buy a few ornaments for your daughters as their wedding trousseau.

Father: It is getting late; but let me read this article in today's Hindu Weekly Magazine: It is all about the fatal weakness Indian women have for gold. It is written by the eminent writer, F L Brayne: "Jewelery and the Proper Position of Women in India"

Mother: All you men are smooth escapists....

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Shyamal writes:

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"Now I know why
Gps doesn’t write to me
He is too busy blogging
Has no time for reading
My poems and Witty Ditty"

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gps:

I guess I owe Shyamal an apology: His wonderful gift of the book of his poems lies unread.

The fact is that my eyesight is not what it was even a few months ago. I don't enjoy reading anymore...all my 'pocket books' are in fine print...it is a punishment. Even the mails I get happen to be in small print, and I have to click them in the 'Reply' mode, en bloc 'bold' them, and increase the size of the text. You may have noticed that all my blogposts are em-'boldened'.

And so I have taken to blogging a piece everyday. It is a challenge. There is no challenge for me in reading or watching TV anymore (except for the vision).

A couple of millennia ago Cicero said that old age can be delayed only by bullying oneself to undertake tasks to the very limit of one's capacity. His own method was to learn new languages. Everyone...his own madness.

Blogging a readable piece everyday (readability being the only criterion);..,.....I never 'worked' this hard any time in my life. It is a 24/7 activity. Nowadays what little I read is only with the selfish motive of fishing a suitable topic for the day's post.

So sorry Shyamal!

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gps:

The limerick bug seems to have bitten Supratim too. He shortly relaxed the tight embrace of his 'biological' students and sent this charming couple:

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"At iitkgp there lived to profess
A physicist called GPS;
Now that he is retired,
He claims of Physics he is tired
But blogs nightly in dubious dress

From limericks to history
GPS in spite of his artistry
Craves adoring fans
For reasons
That remain a mystery"

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gps:

Actually, 'limerick' is a highly structured animal with all sorts of anapestic ["a metrical foot consisting of two short syllables followed by one long syllable or of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable (as unaware)", wow!!!] stuff; but for the likes of us, anything goes!

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Axes to Grind

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AX

".........There is no man so poor but what at intervals some man comes to him with an ax to grind. By and by the ax's aspect becomes familiar to the proprietor of the grindstone. He perceives that it is the same old ax. If you are a governor you know that the stranger wants an office. The first time he arrives you are deceived; he pours out such noble praises of you and yours and you are thankful that you have lived for this happiness. Then the stranger discloses his ax, and you are ashamed of yourself and your race. Six repetitions will cure you..........."

--------------- Mark Twain, a Biography

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The story goes like this: A growing kid is pedaling his dad's newly acquired grinding wheel. A passing woodcutter (WC) with an ax on his shoulder stops by and asks the kid what this new gadget is for. Kid boasts he can grind and polish steel blades, knives and stuff in a jiffy. WC gives a dubious look, shakes his head and turns to go away. Kid feels challenged, hails WC and offers to give a free demo on his rusted ax. After the demo, WC looks bewildered and appears chastened, and resumes his walk. Kid feels gratified, but the sly glint in WC's eyes haunts him and he is sure he has been taken for a ride.

That is one version of the birth of the idiom: The woodcutter had "an ax to grind".

From womb to tomb all of us have axes to grind in the sense that we have to seek favors from mother, father, wife, boss and perhaps neighbor too.

I once entered the Office of a newly recruited AR (Acad) at IIT KGP on some business. I saw that the youngster had this plaque on his table turned towards visitors:

"Come to a man of business,
State your business,
Do your business,
Leave the man of business
To his business"

An eminently sensible motto. If everyone could be as straightforward as the plaque, there would be no axes to grind. It is when one seeks a slightly undue favor, but doesn't want to admit it prompto, and goes beating about the bush wasting everyone's time that the idiom applies to a tee.

I have often to travel overnight in the Simhapuri Express to reach my mom's place next morning. I book my sleeper ticket well in advance. Seeing my Senior Citizen status (67) the Indian Railways Computer automatically allots me a Lower Berth (LB). My son comes to see me off. More often than not there are a couple of plump middle-aged ladies in the same cabin as me. My son whispers: "Dad, tomar promotion hoye jabey!" (We talk in Bengali when we wish to trade secrets in Hyderabad). I smile.

As soon as the train toots off, the charade starts. The ladies are overly concerned about my health, wealth, family life, business if any; and start offering me idlies with coconut chutney. I try to be as reticent and aloof as I can pretend, refusing every favor offered. By bedtime the cat comes out of the bag: can I please exchange my lower berth to their middle berth? I smile and say that I can even travel on the roof like Gandhi (in Attenborough) or King Khan (in Chayya Chayya) or even Sean Connery (in Great Train Robbery). The ladies are pleased but look foolish for running around so many thorny bushes for such a trivial favor.

In the 14 years of my bachelorhood at IIT KGP, I was forced to stay alone for half the time in unwanted palatial Qrs just because I was becoming too senior to stay in the Faculty Hostel (IIT was losing rent); while there were many married Research Scholars wanting to stay in Qrs with their families but were denied the facility because rules didn't permit.

So, there would be this perennial stranger visiting me in my Qrs on a lazy Sunday morning. He would introduce himself, say that he got my parichay from so and so who told him that I was not only the genius from our AP keeping its flag flying in Bengal but a very friendly and popular soul!!! I coolly absorb all kind words and compliments like a bloody sponge but keep silent. After singing our praises for half an hour, he would go forth about the need for linguistic, casteist, communal and all sorts of bonding; which sentiments I laud silently. Finally after an hour of sweet and soupy feast of reason and one-sided flow of soul, his cat would be out of the bag: Could I please make space for him, his wife, kids and mom-in-law on a strictly unofficial basis (there were Conduct Rules against sub-letting), stating that he is my 'convenient cousin'; but he would pay the full rent and take me as his PG (Paying Guest) for food for which I would no longer have to forage.

I would then feel extremely sorry and say without batting an eyelid that, much as I would have loved the company of him, his wife, kids and mom-in-law, unfortunately my own marriage is coming off next month, and my wife would be joining me the day after the wedding. He would be confused, betrayed and curse himself, his informers and me, and quit elsewhere to 'grind his blunted ax'. You know by now that while I never lie for personal gains, I have absolutely no compunction in mouthing white lies when my privacy (which I cherish next to my Life) is invaded.

I myself had one and only one possible ax to grind at KGP: I was in constant need of PF loans to discharge my filial responsibilities and my bachelor-needs of smoking (a well-known sex-substitute). As you can expect, the Rules and Regulations governing PF Loans were so framed that an honest soul could never get one except when he doesn't need it. So, I had to depend on the ingenuity of the Superintendent of the Accounts Section who happened to be a wizard at the game of pretending to follow the hallowed Rules without being caught.

It was my good luck that Gouri Babu (a sworn bachelor 15 years or so senior to me) took a liking to me the very first day when I frankly bared my soul and its outpourings without beating about several bushes. From then on Gouri Babu would welcome me whenever I approached his desk, make me seated pleasantly, order Tea, and ask his Assistant, Satya Roy, to fetch the form, fill it up himself except for my signature (stating acceptable bahanas as the situation demanded) and deliver the cash at my desk in my Office all in altruistic exchange for coaching Satyada's daughter for her B Sc (Hons) Physics exams (Kharagpur Town Inda College):

"Come to a man of business........"

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Like the true sport I expected him to be, the unseen and unknown Varun responded prompto to my request for a bawdier version of Saswat's limerick.

Here it is:

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"I know of a certain man from Nellore
Who, I am told, knew Physics galore;
But now he belabors on this, that and sundry.
(He must be senile, for he begged for ribaldry!)"

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He also asks:

"What do you think of that?"

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gps:

It is sufficiently irreverent.

I quote Mark Twain's insightful take on irreverence:

"Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense"

......................................Mark Twain

But 'bawdy' it is not! (Webster defines 'bawdy' as: "boisterously or humorously indecent").

And 'senile' ribaldry?

Maybe the 's' in 'senile' could be replaced with 'p'.

Ho ho ho!!!!


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Clubs & clubs

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"The game of billiards has destroyed my naturally sweet disposition."

...................................Mark Twain- Speech, April 24, 1906

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At our Andhra University, Waltair, where hundreds of us suddenly joined as CSIR Scholars in the early 1960s, we were automatically made 'compulsory' members of the Faculty Club, just because our Scholarship jumped to Rs 250, equaling the pay of Lecturers, thanks to the Chinese Invasion. The Faculty Club saw the chance of an explosive infusion of dependable revenues and lots of enthusiastic young blood.

Overnight the character of the Club changed from a sedate nook for permanent teachers to a raucous hang-around of fly-by-night upstarts. The resulting encounters between stuffy Senior Professors and their sub-junior Scholars were embarrassingly novel. While most Professors retreated to the Reading Room burying their faces in Time and Newsweek, Prof PM couldn't care.

With his lanky figure and weather-beaten face he would stroll into the midst of an ongoing cricket match between Scholars of two Departments, snatch the bat from the batsman, hit a couple of sizzling boundaries and huge sixes, hand in the bat, walk to the bowler's end, bowl an over or two picking up a couple of wickets with slow bewitching googlies and donkey drops just to show who is who and what is what, wave a cheery bye-bye, amble back to the Chess Table, displace one of the Scholars asking him to join his opponent, checkmate in half a dozen moves, slump into the sofa of the Reading Room, pick up "Men Only", and relax over a cup of black sugar-free Coffee.

Once and for all, Scholars are silenced into awesome submission and look forward to more such visits from PM.

The Faculty Club was open the whole day from 9 to 9, with unending supplies of Coffee and Tiffin on 'credit account' to be deducted from the scholarship of the next month. Many FRSes (Frustrated Research Scholars like me) practically lived there.

On the other hand, when I joined the Technology (Officers) Club at KGP as soon as I landed there in 1965, I found to my dismay that it was open only in the evenings with just home-brewed Tea supplies. Most of its 'regulars' were married couples in their late 40s, with very few bachelors like me.

They were hogging the Chess, Bridge, TT, Caroms and the seasonal Badminton facilities. They were all grumpy folks out to 'win' to boost their sagging professional morale rather than enjoy the games. There was just no scope for a genuine sport-lover. Fortunately the couples never entered the tiny Library which turned out to be my nook, unless I was called in to join when the wife of one of the couples was away (a rather poor stepney).

I was only good at Badminton and loved to get a chance to play it. But it was not to be, initially. Our out-door Badminton season lasted just the two winter months of December-January when the evening breeze stalled, allowing the shuttle-cock to play true.

I would take my racket and jump the fence separating the Faculty Hostel and the Technology Club hoping to get just one good game of singles. I used to find that I was always forestalled by Prof and Mrs ST. They were already there firmly occupying the Singles Court on either side of the net and playing games one after unceasing another. They would never get tired because they never moved, standing still at the Center and hoping the shuttle would sail to them. The shuttle-boy (urchin son of the Club-Keeper Das) would be chasing and retrieving those shuttles which drop out of their reach.

And I would be waiting and waiting. There was no hint of any chance for me because by and by they would be joined by the ample couple Prof and Mrs Sood in unending Doubles Games.

Finally after a week, I suggested to ST that I would play singles from one side of the Court and he and his Mrs could play doubles from the other side: a very comfortable and challenging proposition for them. And, after I made them try to run around for a couple of 2-to-1 games, they would be tired and gladly give their place to VS and his wife. By and by more junior bachelors joined the Club and a separate Court was laid for the exclusive use of Married Couples.

There was this bespectacled shortsighted bachelor RG who never would move from one side of the TT Table. He had a miserable temper while playing TT, but otherwise was very sweet, laughing boisterously all the time. One day he was playing against me and was losing badly. After every hit that sailed astray, he would growl, shout, hit his racket against the edge of the Table, swear in chaste Bengali and throw tantrums with himself. Finally he lost his temper with his soda-bottle specs because his dripping sweat fell on his glasses making them opaque. Since the glasses come without 'wind-screen-wipers', he would have to stop, take them out once in every while and clear them with his hankie. And he so lost his cool with this drill that after a lofty shot that hit the wall, he stopped, took out his specs into his hands, broke them into two, dashed them on the floor and shouted: "Carry on!"; upon which I felt so frightened that I dumped my racket on the Table and scooted like a bat out of hell.

And then there was this Prof AV who hogged one end of the chess table and refused to quit. His technique was simple: He wouldn't make his move firmly, but hold his 'piece' gingerly in his hand, move it into a new square, keep holding it, look at the face of his opponent trying to read his mind, leave the 'piece' slowly or take it back (which was allowed as long as you don't let go of the piece from your hand; folks seeing him play used to joke that AV invented back-move before chess was). On the other hand, the moment he 'kills' one of his opponent's pieces he would pocket it irretrievably. Naturally everyone avoided him and he would get bored and pretend to quit. When he was replaced by a twosome waiting to play against each other, he would return, watch the game, offer suggestions to both the players and criticize every other move till they got disheartened and left the table; to be retaken by him waiting for the next singleton player foolish enough to play against him.

AVK set the record of never losing a single game; all of them were won by default (abandoned midway by his stream of opponents).

Mark Twain would have loved the Games Room of our Technology Club.

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Saswat just now paid his dues for reading the 'Going..Going..Gone' story:

........saswat said...

Dear Sir,

As promised, here it is the GPS Limerick:

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"I know of a great man from Nellore
Who I thought knew Physics galore;
But now that he blogs,
and his blogging leapfrogs,
He amazes with the wisdom he has in store!"

September 12, 2010 7:11 PM

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gps: Well, the structure, rhythm, rhyme and poetry are all fine; but it is not bawdy at all! As I said a few blogs ago, limerick is a low-level mocking activity, while Saswat has been far too 'polite', maybe because he sat through my classes at IIT.

Varun N Achar, the born-heckler in the gps-mold who is not handicapped thus could possibly rectify this defect!!!

Over to you, Varun!!

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God!

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"Ganesh Chaturdhi" is here.

Bal Gangadhar Tilak gave this a "community festival status" in Maharashtra to mobilize the 'masses' against the British Rule, rather successfully. Part of it seeped into Hyderabad. It is a big do for the whole of nine nights (Navaratri).

It also coincides this year with Holy Ramzan Id festival.

God seems to come in so many Police Unifroms today.

Like every student of Physics (from Einstein to Feynman via Dirac), I too always had a mild curiosity about Religion. From childhood I had an aversion to "Do-or-Die Commandments Religion". I felt it should be an a la carte @home private and personal affair. Now at a ripe age I am even more convinced.

But unfortunately it is becoming ever more intrusive all over the World.

I thought I better collect the words of some of my 'maverick favorites' on the subject, without adding my comments:

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1. Mark Twain on BIBLE

"It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies."

............. Mark Twain- Letters from the Earth

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2. Dirac & Pauli on Religion

Among other things, Dirac said:

I cannot understand why we idle discussing religion. If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also much easier to exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated against the people. Hence the close alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church. Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards—in heaven if not on earth—all those who have not risen up against injustice, who have done their duty quietly and uncomplainingly. That is precisely why the honest assertion that God is a mere product of the human imagination is branded as the worst of all mortal sins.

Heisenberg's view was tolerant. Pauli, raised as a Catholic but soon to leave that church had kept silent after some initial remarks, but when finally he was asked for his opinion, jokingly he said: "Well, I'd say that also our friend Dirac has got a religion and the first commandment of this religion is 'There is no God and Paul Dirac is his prophet." Everybody burst into laughter, including Dirac.

.............................Wikipedia

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3. Edward Lear on Mount Athos Convent

"....But however wondrous and picturesque the exterior & interior of the monasteries, & however abundantly & exquisitely glorious and stupendous the scenery of the mountain, I would not go into the Athos for any money, so gloomy, so shockingly unnatural, so lonely, so lying, so unatonably odious seems to me all the atmosphere of such monkery. That half of our species which it is natural to every man to cherish & love best, ignored, prohibited and abhorred - all life spent in everlasting repetition of monotonous prayers, no sympathy with one's fellow-beans of any nation, class or age. The name of Christ on every garment and at every tongue's end, but his maxims turned upside down, maimed, & caricatured: - if this I say be Xtianity let Xtianity be rooted out as soon as possible......"

..............................from: "A Book of Bosh"

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4. Huston Smith on Primal Religions

"...Oren Lyons was the first Onondagan to enter college. When he returned to his reservation for his first vacation, his uncle proposed a fishing trip on a lake. Once he had his nephew in the middle of the lake where he wanted him, he began to interrogate him. "Well, Oren," he said, "you've been to college; you must be pretty smart now from all they've been teaching you. Let me ask you a question. Who are you?" Taken aback by the question, Oren fumbled for an answer. "What do you mean, who am I? Why, I'm your nephew, of course." His uncle rejected his answer and repeated the question. Successively, the nephew ventured that he was Oren Lyons, an Onondagan, a human being, a man, a young man, all to no avail. When his uncle had reduced him to silence and he asked to be informed as to who he was, his uncle said, "Do you see that bluff over there? Oren, you are that bluff. And that giant pine on the other shore, Oren, you are that pine. And this water that supports our boat? You are this water......"

.................................from: "The World's Religions"

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5. Lao Tzu: 76

"When a man is living, he is soft and supple.
When he is dead, he becomes hard and rigid.
When a plant is living, it is soft and tender.
When it is dead, it becomes withered and dry.

Hence, the hard and rigid belongs to the company of the dead:
the soft and supple belongs to the company of the living.

Therefore, a mighty army tends to fall by its own weight,
Just as dry wood is ready for the axe.

The mighty and great will be laid low;
The humble and weak will be exalted.

...............................from: "Tao Teh Ching"

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6. Ishopanishad: Verse 15

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

"The face of truth is covered with a golden disk. Unveil it, O Pooshan, so that I who love the truth may see it."

.................................from: "The Principal Upanishads"

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Acknowledgments:

1. Mark Twain from: http://twainquotes.com/Bible.html

2. Dirac & Pauli from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Dirac

3. Edward Lear from the Puffin Books I bought in1968

4. Hutton Smith book gifted by Edwin Taylor

5. Tao Teh Ching book gifted by Vivek Chhetri of the 1997 batch

6. S. Radhakrishnan's "The Principal Upanishads" I bought in 1985

Have a Nice Id & Ganesh Puja!

We celebrated our @home Puja just like in: "Bottom Line"

@ http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/08/bottom-line_20.html




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Fruitless Antics

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..............I am persuaded that the average ant is a sham. I admit his industry, of course; he is the hardest working creature in the world,--when anybody is looking,--but his leather-headedness is the point I make against him. He goes out foraging, he makes a capture, and then what does he do? Go home? No,--he goes anywhere but home. He doesn't know where home is. His home may be only three feet away,--no matter, he can't find it. He makes his capture, as I have said; it is generally something which can be of no sort of use to himself or anybody else; it is usually seven times bigger than it ought to be; he hunts out the awkwardest place to take hold of it; he lifts it bodily up in the air by main force, and starts; not toward home, but in the opposite direction; not calmly and wisely, but with a frantic haste which is wasteful of his strength; he fetches up against a pebble, and instead of going around it, he climbs over it backwards dragging his booty after him, tumbles down on the other side, jumps up in a passion, kicks the dust off his clothes, moistens his hands, grabs his property viciously, yanks it this way then that, shoves it ahead of him a moment, turns tail and lugs it after him another moment, gets madder and madder, then presently hoists it into the air and goes tearing away in an entirely new direction; comes to a weed; it never occurs to him to go around it; no, he must climb it; and he does climb it, dragging his worthless property to the top--which is as bright a thing to do as it would be for me to carry a sack of flour from Heidelberg to Paris by way of Strasburg steeple, when he gets up there he finds that that is not the place; takes a cursor glance at the scenery and either climbs down again or tumbles down, and starts off once more--as usual, in a new direction. At the end of half an hour, he fetches up within six inches of the place he started from and lays his burden down; meantime he has been over all the ground for two yards around, and climbed all the weeds and pebbles he came across. Now he wipes the sweat from his brow, strokes his limbs, and then marches aimlessly off, in as violent a hurry as ever. He traverses a good deal of zig-zag country, and by and by stumbles on this same booty again. He does not remember to have ever seen it before; he looks around to see which is not the way home, grabs his bundle and starts; he goes through the same adventures he had before; finally stops to rest, and a friend comes along. Evidently the friend remarks that a last year's grasshopper leg is a very noble acquisition, and inquires where he got it. Evidently the proprietor does not remember exactly where he did get it, but thinks he got it "around here somewhere." Evidently the friend contracts to help him freight it home. Then, with a judgment peculiarly antic, (pun not intentional) they take hold of opposite ends of that grasshopper leg and begin to tug with all their might in opposite directions. Presently they take a rest and confer together. They decide that something is wrong, they can't make out what. Then they go at it again, just as before. Same result. Mutual recriminations follow. Evidently each accuses the other of being an obstructionist. They warm up, and dispute ends in a fight. They lock themselves together and chew each other's jaws for a while; then they roll and tumble on the ground till one loses a horn or a leg and has to haul off for repairs. They make up and go to work again in the same old insane way, but the crippled ant is at a disadvantage; tug as he may, the other one drags off the booty and him at the end of it. Instead of giving up, he hangs on, and gets his shins bruised against every obstruction that comes in the way. By and by, when that grasshopper leg has been dragged all over the same old ground once more, it is finally dumped at about the spot where it originally lay, the two perspiring ants inspect it thoughtfully and decide that dried grasshopper legs are a poor sort of property after all, and then each starts off in a different direction to see if he can't find an old nail or something else that is heavy enough to afford entertainment and at the same time valueless enough to make an ant want to own it.......................................

.............. .......................Mark Twain in : "A Tramp Abroad"

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That pithily describes, rather, my hectic efforts for two long years (1963-65) as a Research Scholar at Andhra University, Waltair, attacking " Spin Echos in Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance Spectroscopy" under my revered Ph D guide; both of us desperately, woefully, enthusiastically and industriously ignorant of the subject...............

.......................................................... gps



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Rank & File

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"When we do not know a person -- and also when we do -- we have to judge his size by the size and nature of his achievements, as compared with the achievements of others in his special line of business -- there is no other way".....Mark Twain

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In my SDM Homage I had mentioned the predilection of the SDM generation to seek to know as soon as an acquaintance is made (or about to be made) of his achievements.

If it is not impertinent, they would directly ask: "What are your achievements?" Otherwise they would like to get the lowdown somehow or the other. This could be due just to idle curiosity or to peg the pecking order that would make it easy to deploy the proper courtesy decorum and business demand.

In the Armed Forces, this is made obvious and imperative by the size, shape, color and texture of the Uniform, ribbons, insignia, epaulets, medals and so on and so forth so that it would be immediately obvious who should salute whom and who should report to whom, I guess.

This is perhaps very necessary wherever there is a 'Command-Control' Protocol. Otherwise there nay be chaos.

But, when some Army Officers used to be deputed for their M Tech courses to IIT KGP and were living in our Faculty Hostel, they would first approach our Manager and get to know the designation and salary structure of all of us inmates so they could follow their Army Protocol habits implicitly. This led to hilarious situations when a lowly Associate Lecturer whom they looked down upon in the Hostel turned up as their Teacher of an important subject. Perhaps they had to ring up and get instructions from the Army Headquarters what the correct Protocol was in such anomalous situations: maybe come to attention and salute him in the Department but brush him aside in the Hostel: but that won't do; the Ass Lecturer brings their Answer-scripts to the Hostel to evaluate and grade their throbbing hearts {;-}

With 3 growing daughters and no hope of promotion, MSS used to offer himself as the Civilian 'Major' (for which voluntary post there was a perennial shortage in our NCC Unit) in order to earn those few extra bucks for spending 6 hours weekly on the NCC grounds in his Army Uniform supplied by the NCC. But the Head of NCC, a 'high' Lieutenant Colonel deputed for a couple of years at KGP on a punishment posting, would be upset if MSS didn't come to attention and salute him on the KGP roads as well. And demand it not so discreetly. MSS, being MSS, apparently told his Colonel reverentially that while in civilian clothes he tends to forget the proper Army Protocol; and that the Colonel should remind him to salute him as and when he forgets. And the perennially 'high' Colonel agreed to this mutually satisfactory arrangement gleefully.

During my early years at KGP, I had to visit the Writer's Building at Cal a couple of times on some personal business . I was surprised to note that everyone there from the lowly Writer to the CM was dressed in impeccably white Dhoti-Punjabi, chewing paan and smoking Charminar and inhaling nosshi to boot; and a visitor had no way of knowing 'who is who' till the Bhadralok Officer enters his Plated-Office guarded by a proud Peon who was the only one in Uniform. Maybe the Vidyasagar Effect.

The Bureaucracy everywhere else insisted on their own pecking order. Everyone was aware who was the Under- or Joint- or Principal Secretary and who should report to whom. During my son's Baptism Ceremony, my father-in-law (a simple Railway Employee) happened to be sitting beside my IAS brother-in-law. My pop-in-law was at that time very proud of his family connection to the Chief General Manager of State Bank of Hyderabad. And he cordially invited my Madras-Cadre IAS b-i-l to Hyderabad so he could escort him to the CGM of SBH and introduce him to the eminence. All Hell broke loose in my b-i-l's bosom. It was only courtesy demanded by age that prevented him to let my p-i-l know that one phone call from the PA of his sub-junior in Hyderabad would fetch the CGM of SBH flying to his Chambers, and stopped peremptorily at his doorstep by his liveried Peon with his Brasso-polished embossed dawal.

But by and large in IIT KGP everyone was 'dada' to everyone else. My upcountry colleague V about whom I wrote in the blog-post: "A Nondescript Face" didn't know this in the beginning. He used to address every faculty colleague of his: Professor Khanna, Professor Chatterjee et al whatever Khanna's or Chatterjee's designation was; and expected to be addressed Professor V in return. But he was somewhat abrupt with non-faculty.

Soon after we joined, we used to visit the Co-Op Canteen for Tea and a fag. And when the Tea was not up to his cultivated taste, he used to shout: "Manager!" and when he came down, curse him in public. After a couple of these indecent incidents, the youthful Manager got to know the designation of V, and on their next encounter shouted back: "Coming, Ass Lecturer!" to the mortification of V for the rest of his short stay at KGP (He flew to California where the Protocol hopefully suited his taste).


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Our Anonymous Frost addict 'Posted this Comment' on: 'Post a Comment' rather aptly:

Revelation

We make ourselves a place apart
Behind light words that tease and flout,
But oh, the agitated heart
Till someone really find us out.

'Tis pity if the case require
(Or so we say) that in the end
We speak the literal to inspire
The understanding of a friend.

But so with all, from babes that play
At hide-and-seek to God afar,
So all who hide too well away
Must speak and tell us where they are.

-Robert Frost
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Tailpiece:

.............."We were in VS Hall then, segregated from the seniors. Two of my friends, one of them from my alma mater, were ogling at some of the lady visitors, and passing comments. Imagine their shock when they heard a deep voice behind them and turned to find it was Professor Arora, "Nice, isn't she?" Professor Arora proceeded to put them at ease, and began discussing one of the women in greater detail, much to their initial embarrassment, but soon my friends joined in thinking this guy is so cool, and so on. "Nice, isn't she?" he repeated. "Has to be - she's my wife"..................

........'Anonymous' from 1994 Diwali Illumination Contest @ IIT KGP
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Post a Comment!

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http://jeffreyhill.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341d417153ef0105370954ad970b-pi

....I never saw such a bird for delivering opinions. Nothing escapes him; he notices everything that happens, and brings out his opinion about it, particularly if it is a matter that is none of his business. And it is never a mild opinion, but always violent--violent and profane--the presence of ladies does not affect him. His opinions are not the outcome of reflection, for he never thinks about anything, but heaves out the opinion that is on top in his mind and which is often an opinion about some quite different thing and does not fit the case. But that is his way; his main idea is to get out an opinion, and if he stopped to think he would lose chance...

...Mark Twain on "The Indian Crow"



Mark Twain has no right to complain: His 500-page book "Following the Equator" from which the above passage is taken and the thousand odd quotations for which he is celebrated are uninhibited opinions and comments on his world, its peoples and their attitudes.
Having said that, I have to admit that by and large there is an Indian Crow in all Indians of my generation and in my mother's generation where passing comments was ok.

In a family wedding my mother (85) and my wife (55) were sitting side by side in the front row:

Mother: (pointing to the bridegroom) Look at his nose. Isn't it like an Eagle's nose?

Wife: Hush, hush, please, others will hear......

Mother: So what? Tell me if I am right or no?

Wife: OK, but......

Mother: What is wrong in saying the truth? When we were girls, my three sisters and myself used to sit in the verandah and observe every passerby and pass comments. It is just a harmless pastime..

Wife slips away quietly to the back row on some pretext and Mother is joined by one of her sisters happily. 

RKN says that the most interesting object to a man is another man; and so-called 'politeness' has killed the most favorite pastime of all: harmless gossip. In his small town Malgudi everyone's affairs are everyone else's; and that creates a sort of bonding and security in spite of acute political rivalries: if there are two people there would be three parties (Brahman being the witnessing third as a hymn in Rigveda has it).

It is said that comments are of 3 grades:

(A) About People; (B) About Events; (C) About Ideas.

All of us indulge in all these three grades in various proportions at various times.

The A grade is typified by the conversation quoted above. B grade is the 1400-page: "Glimpses of World History" of Nehru. Under C grade comes the 250-page: "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Last year (2009), from February to April, I was passing through a limerical phase. The General Elections were imminent and politically it was the most interesting time I ever passed through. Impromptu limericks at the rate of 5 a day were happening to me on just looking at the Headlines in Deccan Chronicle and I was daily posting them and mailing them to my IAS brother-in-law at Chennai. He was somewhat baffled and was wondering if I was truly being original, and put me to an undeclared test: He sms-ed me a Headline in that day's ToI: 

"Math will decide Chemistry...Buddhadeb" 

and asked me to compose a limerick on this theme and send it to him within half an hour.

With Google and Webster at my finger tips, the thing was over in ten minutes. He was very happy with it but complained that it was all about Buddha, Maya and Mamata, but not about Math and Chemistry (See below). I had to reply that limericking by definition is a lowly A grade activity about people and not about ideas (for which you will need a Keat's poem).

One always invites 'critical' comments about oneself and one's own 'work'. But he is never completely pleased. If the comments are uniformly laudatory, he feels that the commenter neither read it, nor understood it, and may perhaps be harboring an ulterior motive (like inviting him to 'critically' comment on his own 'work' in a few days).

If the 'critical' comments are even mildly adverse, hell hath no more fury.


Here is the Budhadeb limerick:


Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Buddha gets wise!

"Math will decide Chemistry"; Alignments depend on post-poll arithmetic..Buddhadeb Bhattacharya: 

Times of India Wednesday, April 15

"To Maya born under a saal tree,
Ditching his son and wedded sthree,
Of Maya-Mamata to get free,
Penanced under a peepal tree;
But can't get rid of either sthree:
Seeks Power and Pelf from Chemistry!"

...Posted by Ishani

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