======================================================
In our small towns in AP in our childhood, there were these few curious families: they practically owned the entire Gold Ornament Business in addition to Clothes Stores.
The males wore their Dhotis differently than my father...they were forward-backward symmetric. The ladies wore their saris with their pallus on the wrong side unlike my mother; and they covered their heads with bright and flowery veils. And they spoke something like Hindi but not the chaste Hindi we learned at school. Their kids spoke Telugu with a sweet li'l accent and got back home at dusk abandoning their games midway...
It was only much later that I came to know that they were Marwaris from Rajasthan settled all the way down deep South towns for generations.
When I joined IIT KGP, I faced bright li'l kids with quaint surnames like Mittal, Singhania, Maheswari...all of them extremely well-behaved and studious without being odiously pretentious.
Then I came to know that they came from families wealthy enough to buy a dozen gpses hired by IIT KGP @ Rs 375 + DA.
And about their Birlas, Dalmias, Bajajs...with their vast Business Empires, Temples, Institutes of Technologies, Planetariums....
****************************************************************************
In KGP Gole Bazaar there is a Marwari Dry Fruits Shop which I used to visit every Sunday. It was owned by a dhoti-clad vermilion-foreheaded short and stout Patriarch.
One day I found a new local Sales-Urchin in the shop and asked as usual for a packet of cashew nuts: "Ek packet kaju dedo!".
The urchin innocently queried: "Bada ya chota?" (Large or small?).
I then heard a big thump on the back of his tiny head: "Bada de do...poochna mat!" (Push the large one; don't ask!), implying "Let them refuse the large one".
***********************************************************************************
In our nukkad in Hyderabad we have a Marwari Business Family. They own three contiguous Stores: Provisions, Medicines, Cell Phones and such. They all live together palatially behind their Stores almost incognito.
They are four elderly brothers, their wives, sons, daughters, grandkids...all trained to sit in all the Counters and man their Business as and when need arises.
They have two Helpmates imported from their Village in Rajasthan; smart youth practically living as family members.
One morning I was in their Front Provision Stores to purchase toothpicks. The Counter was being manned by a young Bahurani (D-i-L) of the Family.
She stopped a Cart-Wheeler with his Cart full of spring onions. He was shouting: Rs 20 a kilo...
She stared at him; and he whispered: "Maajee, Rs 15 for you only". She whispered back: "10". After a few curt exchanges, they settled for Rs 11. The Cart Chap asked: "How many kilos?". She replied: "Download the entire Cart".
The Cart-Wheeler jumped with joy. Her Helpmate assisted. The Cart-Wheeler ran back with his Cart to Chintalbasthi Wholesale Market for a second helping for folks older than me at their doorsteps at Rs 20 a kilo.
The Bahurani ordered her Helpmate to separate the small ones for the Family Kitchen and dump the big ones in the Drum to be sold to folks like me at Rs 15 a kilo.
It is win-win for all: I get a Blog @ toothpicks...
*****************************************************************************
The only time Marwaris got bad publicity was a few years back when a Family Will was disputed and the entire thing spilled over into the wildly jubilant Newspapers which displayed the Birla Family Tree with all its sumptuous branches.
That reminded me of the Vanderbilt Convention:
****************************************************************************
Frank Sullivan: The Vanderbilt Convention:
*****************************************************************************
"....Suppose we start all over again and get this thing straight. Let's begin once more with the doughty old Commodore. He married, first, Sophia Johnson, and, second, Frances Crawford. William Henry Vanderbilt was their son. Not the William Henry Vanderbilt who gives all the clambakes; the other one, the one who married Maria Louisa Kissam.
Now, if William Henry and Maria Louisa Kissam, after getting married, had let it go at that, things wouldn't have become so complicated. But they didn't. They had issue: eight children. These eight children had children and these children in turn had children, so that in due course of time there came to be so many Vanderbilts that the family became known as the Vanderbilt Convention. And the doughty old Commodore had started practically on a shoestring.
Now then. What I am trying to do here is simply to give an explanation of which Vanderbilt is which, so that the reader who is interested may be able to distinguish them.
Damn it all, why the hell should people want to distinguish the Vanderbilts, anyhow? This country is supposed to be a democracy, isn't it?...."
************************************************************************
I read that the secret of the Marwari grip on Business is the fact that they hail from Villages of the Thar Desert in Rajasthan with its scanty rainfall.
Those who know how to conserve every drop of water, the Wellspring of Life, know how to conserve every coin.
No wonder that our nukkad Marwaris' profits come mostly from the 30-liter Water Cans they sell like hot cakes in Hyderabad where there is a perennial water shortage due to the ever-leaking civic water pipes.
It is a different matter that a couple of months back there were untold floods in their Rajasthan Desert Towns due to Cyclone Phet (also in Pakistan):
.....Of course due to Faithless Customers like me who don't much care for the archeologically proven fact that Raamjee was born precisely @ that sweet spot at Ayodhya....
========================================================
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
Tenterhooks
======================================================
The Decoy Fake Golden Deer beguiles Raam far astray into the forest, and on being shot at, cries out: "Ha! Laxman!", revealing himself as a vengeful dying demon.
Raam is full of misgivings which are boosted by Laxman joining him on his way back to their Kuteer (Cottage). And they prove right when they can't find Sita anywhere.
Their long and weary search for Sita begns and they are given a clue by the Eagle Jataayu on his fighting deathbed waiting to tell them that Raavan filched her away Southwards.
They meet Monkey-King Sugriv and seek his help in finding Sita. Sugriv agrees to help if Raam kills his brother Vaali, which Raam does.
Recovering his throne and wives, Sugriv forgets all about Raam.
And then come the Rains, the Fertile Season for monkeys.
After rains cease, Raam reminds Sugriv of his promise amid threats of making him join his brother Vaali up there...
Sugriv feels sorry, relents, and deputes 4 of his worthies to go forth in the four directions in search of Sita.
And chooses Hanuman, the most powerful of all, to go South.
Hanuman returns in a few days and finds Raam desolately sitting on a stone bench forlorn, waiting and waiting and waiting....
Hanuman approaches Raam, and without ado says:
Raam descends from his stone bench, embraces Hanuman who falls at His feet and never looks back in his devotion to Raam...
*********************************************************************************************************
1977, November 16
I board the Howrah-Madras Mail at KGP on a perfectly clear Autumnal Night on my way to Gudur to attend the marriage of my sister S on 27th; a 26-hour journey.....
My other sister V is supposed to join me at Vijayawada on my way at 9 PM on 17th.
V is an alumnus of the Phy Dept of IIT KGP (DIIT:1974-75) and now a Lecturer in the Womens Junior College at Bapatla near Vijayawada; and so closest to me among the six.
My train stops 3 Stations before Vijayawada next evening abruptly at Nidadavole.
We are told that a cyclone is brewing in the Bay of Bengal and we will be given the green signal after it crosses the Coast.
The train plods to the next station Eluru next morning and stays put there for the rest of the day...
News trickles to us that the cyclone turned killer and crossed the Coast at Bapatla where my sister was staying in a Cottage close to her College...
The Cottage was covered with a thatched roof...
As the train enters Vijayawada Station, we are told that the entire Section between Vijayawada and Ongole centering on Bapatla is blown to smithereens...
And that the killer cyclone took 20,000 lives on its way that eerie night....
Next morning, the 4th starving day, the train halts at Bapatla but there is no Railway Station to speak of and the entire town razed to ground apparently...
Not a single tree stands upright...
I get down thinking that I will break my journey and look for my sister V, swimming across the waterlogged Station; but on second thoughts continue my slow journey to Gudur, throw my baggage at home, and at once take the first bug-ridden evening train limping backwards to Vijayawada....
It is midnight when it reaches the non-existent Bapatla Station....
It is raining hard, and me and a Hindu Photographer are the only souls sitting on the cement bench and getting fully drenched in the steady rain...
.....Apart from the Station Master with his hurricane lantern and an umbrella overhead....
The Hindu chap tells me (huddling his costly equipment) that a Church in Bapatla collapsed killing more than 300 children seeking shelter there that ghostly night; and he is looking forward to some scoop shots...(which I find later in center-spread)...
At dawn the rain stops and I slowly wade my way through knee-deep water skirting skinned cattle carcasses...
Only to find the roof of that Cottage blown off and walls collapsed in a heap of rubble....
I stand there transfixed...
An Old Woman comes out from her collapsed neighboring hut, recovering her luggage, and recognizes me...
And all but embraces me for my sibling devotion and says:
"Safe Your Sister is at Her Friend's Concrete House"
it is then my turn to fall at her feet...
********************************************************************************************************
============================================================
The Decoy Fake Golden Deer beguiles Raam far astray into the forest, and on being shot at, cries out: "Ha! Laxman!", revealing himself as a vengeful dying demon.
Raam is full of misgivings which are boosted by Laxman joining him on his way back to their Kuteer (Cottage). And they prove right when they can't find Sita anywhere.
Their long and weary search for Sita begns and they are given a clue by the Eagle Jataayu on his fighting deathbed waiting to tell them that Raavan filched her away Southwards.
They meet Monkey-King Sugriv and seek his help in finding Sita. Sugriv agrees to help if Raam kills his brother Vaali, which Raam does.
Recovering his throne and wives, Sugriv forgets all about Raam.
And then come the Rains, the Fertile Season for monkeys.
After rains cease, Raam reminds Sugriv of his promise amid threats of making him join his brother Vaali up there...
Sugriv feels sorry, relents, and deputes 4 of his worthies to go forth in the four directions in search of Sita.
And chooses Hanuman, the most powerful of all, to go South.
Hanuman returns in a few days and finds Raam desolately sitting on a stone bench forlorn, waiting and waiting and waiting....
Hanuman approaches Raam, and without ado says:
"Saw Sita Alive I....".
Raam descends from his stone bench, embraces Hanuman who falls at His feet and never looks back in his devotion to Raam...
*********************************************************************************************************
1977, November 16
I board the Howrah-Madras Mail at KGP on a perfectly clear Autumnal Night on my way to Gudur to attend the marriage of my sister S on 27th; a 26-hour journey.....
My other sister V is supposed to join me at Vijayawada on my way at 9 PM on 17th.
V is an alumnus of the Phy Dept of IIT KGP (DIIT:1974-75) and now a Lecturer in the Womens Junior College at Bapatla near Vijayawada; and so closest to me among the six.
My train stops 3 Stations before Vijayawada next evening abruptly at Nidadavole.
We are told that a cyclone is brewing in the Bay of Bengal and we will be given the green signal after it crosses the Coast.
The train plods to the next station Eluru next morning and stays put there for the rest of the day...
News trickles to us that the cyclone turned killer and crossed the Coast at Bapatla where my sister was staying in a Cottage close to her College...
The Cottage was covered with a thatched roof...
As the train enters Vijayawada Station, we are told that the entire Section between Vijayawada and Ongole centering on Bapatla is blown to smithereens...
And that the killer cyclone took 20,000 lives on its way that eerie night....
Next morning, the 4th starving day, the train halts at Bapatla but there is no Railway Station to speak of and the entire town razed to ground apparently...
Not a single tree stands upright...
I get down thinking that I will break my journey and look for my sister V, swimming across the waterlogged Station; but on second thoughts continue my slow journey to Gudur, throw my baggage at home, and at once take the first bug-ridden evening train limping backwards to Vijayawada....
It is midnight when it reaches the non-existent Bapatla Station....
It is raining hard, and me and a Hindu Photographer are the only souls sitting on the cement bench and getting fully drenched in the steady rain...
.....Apart from the Station Master with his hurricane lantern and an umbrella overhead....
The Hindu chap tells me (huddling his costly equipment) that a Church in Bapatla collapsed killing more than 300 children seeking shelter there that ghostly night; and he is looking forward to some scoop shots...(which I find later in center-spread)...
At dawn the rain stops and I slowly wade my way through knee-deep water skirting skinned cattle carcasses...
Only to find the roof of that Cottage blown off and walls collapsed in a heap of rubble....
I stand there transfixed...
An Old Woman comes out from her collapsed neighboring hut, recovering her luggage, and recognizes me...
And all but embraces me for my sibling devotion and says:
"Safe Your Sister is at Her Friend's Concrete House"
it is then my turn to fall at her feet...
********************************************************************************************************
The last 350 Blog-Posts read in any random order could be titled:
"Autobioguly of an Unknown KGPian".
I guess that is how real autobiographies ought to read...at random...at ease... rather than a strict linear Womb-to-Tomb page-marked chronological order...
============================================================
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Pedestalism
==========================================================
IIT KGP: 1995
We watched a cute new couple with a new-born kid occupy an FTA across the street from our Heavenly Qrs B-140.
Give it to KGP for naming her Qrs with an oomph...FTA stood for Faculty Transit Apartment....much like the seat in a Transit Lounge at the Moscow Airport for those who didn't have a Transit Visa (unless you were a Fellow Traveler).
I know of newly arrived Calcuttans who occupied our Dandakaranya-Outpost FTAs resign and go back to Cal when they heard what they fancied were the outlandish howls of foxes, vixen, and wolves; and laughs of hyenas...pure bunkum and fevered imaginative excuses to get back...
On the other hand, there were many who loved their cute li'l 1-BR FTAs and overstayed their welcome declining routine offers of regular (non-transit) fabulous 3-BR Qrs and preferring to pay instead the whopping Penalty Rent as long as they could....till the mother-in-law arrived to stay...we even heard fake guls of employed couples renting more than one cute FTAs (one for the hubby, two for the missis and M-i-L; baa..baa..black sheep)....
Coming back to our real cute couple, they made themselves at home very quickly possibly because they were returning Home from a more desolate Campus in the US...
On our walks along the Gate # 5 Road, my wife and I used to smile at them and they warmly reciprocated.
One fine evening after a month or so, we found the couple, Dr and Mrs JK, at our door with their kid ringing our door-bell demurely. As soon as they stepped in, Mrs JK apologized to me profusely for not having known all these days that I was the gps of the Phy Dept, almost accusing me for not carrying a Placard round my famous neck to that infamous effect.
It turned out that her elder brother, HR, was our student 25 glorious years back when all my world was young, lad, and all those (Bengalee) lasses queens...
And HR, now at Delhi in a rather Plum Post, asked his sister to locate gps of Phy as soon as they set foot in KGP and convey his best wishes etc.
But HR didn't know that a young couple with a cute kid settling down in a new un-Delhi god-forsaken campus have more compelling business than hound an old hag. And HR was asking everyday.
And when someone told them that the regular old goon they meet daily with their sweet son was himself THE gps, their joy knew no bounds.
And we became fast family friends...stone's throw across the street...
On return from their next Winter Vacation at Delhi, Dr and Mrs JK called on us; and Mrs JK said that HR didn't believe they hit upon the RIGHT gps.
Apparently HR asked if the said gps they met smoked cigarettes with both hands, was a sworn bachelor, lean and hungry-looking like yon Cassius, and was discovered one night by HR and his classmates swigging Golden Eagle in a cubicle in Anarkali all by himself in Gole Bazaar....and stuff like that....
To all of which his sister rebuked: "Pagal hai!...He is a most respected non-smoking vegetarian teetotaler Professor with a Golden Wife and a Platinum Son".....
...Upon which HR stuck to his guns and lamented that his old gps is perhaps dead from lung cancer or worse (bless his soul!) and is faked by a pretender-gps...like that fake Golden Deer of Ramayan...
.......And HR was inconsolably forlorn ....
And Mrs JK confronted me point blank with all her brother's foolproof watertight claims; and I had to request her to go rather easy on the Anarkali Golden Eagle stuff but the rest was all in the Public Domain of my Wife and Son...
*****************************************************************************************************
Being the sole elder son with six young sisters, I postponed talk of my marriage till most all of them got married....
And when that eventually was happening, as my good luck would have it, I spoke to my mother discreetly asking her to hunt a suitable bride to this suitable boy of 36.....which she did.
Upon which my younger sister (by a decade) wondered to me privately:
"I never knew you were the marrying sort...."
Upon which I asked her what was wrong with me?.......
....I was of average build, average pay, average complexion, a li'l more than average age, a li'l less than average virtue...
She said that was all ok but she never ever THOUGHT!......
....almost as if I betrayed her and broke her sisterly heart...
**************************************************************************************************
A couple of years ago I was sadly written off by all my well-meaning relatives wholesale as a Gone-Case after I was laid low for 2 years from Post-Retirement Depression.
But they couldn't dream that IIT KGP trains her Physics folks to reinvent themselves as IAS Officers landing Governorships of Reserve Banks, Quantum Financiers, Wholesome Biologists, Software Professionals and just plain lazy limericists.
They rather expected me to stand to reason, shrink, shrivel, shut-shop and die...
And are surprised.
Here is the verbatim excerpt from my IAS B-i-L's Foreword to my Famous Booklet: Limericks & Light Verses (2009):
*********************************************************************************************************
**********************************************************************************************************
============================================================
IIT KGP: 1995
We watched a cute new couple with a new-born kid occupy an FTA across the street from our Heavenly Qrs B-140.
Give it to KGP for naming her Qrs with an oomph...FTA stood for Faculty Transit Apartment....much like the seat in a Transit Lounge at the Moscow Airport for those who didn't have a Transit Visa (unless you were a Fellow Traveler).
I know of newly arrived Calcuttans who occupied our Dandakaranya-Outpost FTAs resign and go back to Cal when they heard what they fancied were the outlandish howls of foxes, vixen, and wolves; and laughs of hyenas...pure bunkum and fevered imaginative excuses to get back...
On the other hand, there were many who loved their cute li'l 1-BR FTAs and overstayed their welcome declining routine offers of regular (non-transit) fabulous 3-BR Qrs and preferring to pay instead the whopping Penalty Rent as long as they could....till the mother-in-law arrived to stay...we even heard fake guls of employed couples renting more than one cute FTAs (one for the hubby, two for the missis and M-i-L; baa..baa..black sheep)....
Coming back to our real cute couple, they made themselves at home very quickly possibly because they were returning Home from a more desolate Campus in the US...
On our walks along the Gate # 5 Road, my wife and I used to smile at them and they warmly reciprocated.
One fine evening after a month or so, we found the couple, Dr and Mrs JK, at our door with their kid ringing our door-bell demurely. As soon as they stepped in, Mrs JK apologized to me profusely for not having known all these days that I was the gps of the Phy Dept, almost accusing me for not carrying a Placard round my famous neck to that infamous effect.
It turned out that her elder brother, HR, was our student 25 glorious years back when all my world was young, lad, and all those (Bengalee) lasses queens...
And HR, now at Delhi in a rather Plum Post, asked his sister to locate gps of Phy as soon as they set foot in KGP and convey his best wishes etc.
But HR didn't know that a young couple with a cute kid settling down in a new un-Delhi god-forsaken campus have more compelling business than hound an old hag. And HR was asking everyday.
And when someone told them that the regular old goon they meet daily with their sweet son was himself THE gps, their joy knew no bounds.
And we became fast family friends...stone's throw across the street...
On return from their next Winter Vacation at Delhi, Dr and Mrs JK called on us; and Mrs JK said that HR didn't believe they hit upon the RIGHT gps.
Apparently HR asked if the said gps they met smoked cigarettes with both hands, was a sworn bachelor, lean and hungry-looking like yon Cassius, and was discovered one night by HR and his classmates swigging Golden Eagle in a cubicle in Anarkali all by himself in Gole Bazaar....and stuff like that....
To all of which his sister rebuked: "Pagal hai!...He is a most respected non-smoking vegetarian teetotaler Professor with a Golden Wife and a Platinum Son".....
...Upon which HR stuck to his guns and lamented that his old gps is perhaps dead from lung cancer or worse (bless his soul!) and is faked by a pretender-gps...like that fake Golden Deer of Ramayan...
.......And HR was inconsolably forlorn ....
And Mrs JK confronted me point blank with all her brother's foolproof watertight claims; and I had to request her to go rather easy on the Anarkali Golden Eagle stuff but the rest was all in the Public Domain of my Wife and Son...
*****************************************************************************************************
Being the sole elder son with six young sisters, I postponed talk of my marriage till most all of them got married....
And when that eventually was happening, as my good luck would have it, I spoke to my mother discreetly asking her to hunt a suitable bride to this suitable boy of 36.....which she did.
Upon which my younger sister (by a decade) wondered to me privately:
"I never knew you were the marrying sort...."
Upon which I asked her what was wrong with me?.......
....I was of average build, average pay, average complexion, a li'l more than average age, a li'l less than average virtue...
She said that was all ok but she never ever THOUGHT!......
....almost as if I betrayed her and broke her sisterly heart...
**************************************************************************************************
A couple of years ago I was sadly written off by all my well-meaning relatives wholesale as a Gone-Case after I was laid low for 2 years from Post-Retirement Depression.
But they couldn't dream that IIT KGP trains her Physics folks to reinvent themselves as IAS Officers landing Governorships of Reserve Banks, Quantum Financiers, Wholesome Biologists, Software Professionals and just plain lazy limericists.
They rather expected me to stand to reason, shrink, shrivel, shut-shop and die...
And are surprised.
Here is the verbatim excerpt from my IAS B-i-L's Foreword to my Famous Booklet: Limericks & Light Verses (2009):
*********************************************************************************************************
"....Life’s wonders never cease. Miracles crisscross our paths so often that we fail to notice the out-of-ordinariness contained in them.
One such wonder is Prof. GPS. A well-groomed Theoretical Physicist drops off Physics: his erstwhile bread and butter, seductress, companion and ‘What have you?’; and takes to limericks, the veritable word-toon jingles. A solemn Don transmutes into a mischievous, no-harm-meant tongue–wag and an iconoclast blasting anybody that is somebody or anything that is something. Poking fun at one and all seems to be his staple daily diet. What better marvel can there be than a solemn and erudite egghead of an elitist IIT taking to limericking as a full time occupation using Deccan Chronicle as feedstock… As a result, there are 100 and more ditties of myriad hues and flavors, and they are all impregnated with plethora of innuendos and puns..."
**********************************************************************************************************
Why do we install people on our own sculpted pedestals; and feel upset or surprised when they step down and scoot without our permission?
============================================================
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Barberosa - 2
==========================================================
Yesterday's Post Barberosa - 1 ended with the sentence:
"....The Musician was hanged till death by his neck and his flute burnt to cinders and ashes...."
I suspect that me and my blogs would face the same Fate one of these days.
Well, the reason is that most of my blogs have real flesh-'n-blood people, living and dead.
And people take offense.
Why People? Because, as I explained in: Post A Comment, People like to talk about People, not mere Ideas and Events all the time.....they love Low Grade Comments like the King's Donkey's Ears.
In Journalese they call it: Human Interest Stories; qua Gossip.
Anyway, last year early 2009, before the General Elections, I posted some 100 limericks mostly on Politicians, some of them quite biting.
And hints were thrown at me by my well-wishers to keep quiet...I may be done to death by one or more of several Senas.
But I persisted.
I didn't delete any of those but one: That had to do with Cricketers: Tiger Pataudi and Sachin Tendulkar, titled: Tiger Tiger Burning Bright, which I deleted.
Reason: I felt that Fan Clubs of Cricketers can be more touchy than Political Senas; and their cricketing clubs (bats) can be more battering.
Again, in one of my blogs which I seem to have deleted, I narrated the true story of a Celebrity whom I had to de-whisker to save the honor of my friend DB whom he professed not to know after sharing a Month's Summer School Accommodation at tiny Ooty. I called him DT (Apparently he pulled the same Amnesia Act about me later on, after sharing 3 intimate days and nights at one of those other IIT Faculty Hostels and losing to me a Prestige Bet of Rs 0. 25: Twenty Five Paise only on Constant of the Motion).
Immediately I got a request from DQ to please let him know who this DT was. Since DQ was my grandstudent (rather like a grownup Ishani), I let out the Expansion by e-mail.
Aniket waited six long months and more:
********************************************************************************************************
Aniket:
"..Since you are in the mood to tell the truth for a change :) I am unable to suppress my curiosity and am tempted to strike while the iron is hot - who was "DT", the character you introduced in one of your older posts? He seemed a big hit both with you and DB (Ooty Summer School, etc).... :)......."
***********************************************************************************************************
And how could I refuse Aniket, my Foreworder?
So I told him DT stood for Ocimum Sclavus; and he winked.
Not so Super Supratim. He simply rubbished the entire blog as nothing new since I had already told the story in all its gory detail a decade ago on his Reconight; and wanted fresh gossip:
****************************************************************************************************
Supratim:
"...............Thanks so much for such a prompt response to my request, I read it last night itself within a few minutes of your posting it after forsaking preparing for my class on Tuesday. But that story wont do and you have to post a fresh one on big egos. The reason is that I heard about this story from you some years back (2000 or 2003) when I had gone to visit KGP. So it does not qualify; I demand some local KGP color of which there are plenty, not some deliberately forgetful DT from another IIT :) So I really don't mind you deleting that blog post, as long as you promise to replace it by another juicy rise and fall of ego story. ........................."
******************************************************************************
This is the trouble with folks who have monster minds with elephantine memories (unlike DT). They are the sworn enemies of absentminded repetitive bloggers.
Once I asked A if he didn't ever miss KGP, Bombay and Hyderabad and feel nostalgic. He replied at once that his memories are so fresh and vivid that he never misses anything however much he tries.
This ought to be called Photalgia. Somewhat like Dorothy Parker: "When you are with me I miss the fun of missing you..."
Anyway, this Supratim once saved the Day for IIT KGP without his knowing it. He was then a Research Scholar at Bhubaneshwar (doing more Scholaring than Researching) in 1999.
IIT KGP had to print her Academic Calendar well in advance in June 1999 for the whole Academic Year, which spanned February 2000. And there was this prolonged discussion and debate if 2000 was a Leap Year or not (2000 being a special millennial year; we are lucky to see Y2K, rather). IIT KGP didn't want to goof and make a laughing stock of herself; and time was running out.
Then Gangulysaab who was in charge rang me up and asked me.
I didn't want to goof up either and be hanged by the Senate of which I was an absentee landlord.
So, I e-mailed Supratim @ Bhubaneswar and wanted the Funda pronto: there was no Google then but some Netscape or stuff. But within minutes he sent me the entire write-up on it straight from the horse's mouth: Royal Astronomical Society, which I printed and passed on to Gangulysaab who tabled it in the Senate and got it approved vis RAS.
Also at that time I compiled a crazy File called: gps Autographs in MS Word which many of the recipients (about 60 ex-students) couldn't convert onto their primitive computers most of which were not equipped with Windows.
Supratim once again came to the rescue and gave a detailed recipe of what to do, like FTPing and stuff which I didn't know; and I made it an Addendum to the File.
Talk of Dr Dracula: http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/05/dr-dracula.html
*********************************************************************************************
In a recent blog called Cook It Up, I wrote something like: "My father was a long-suffering man: he had the courage of his wife's convictions.."
Right now my 87-year-old mother is staying for a few weeks at my IAS B-i-L's place at Chennai; and daily I am scared that he will translate this unholy sentence into juicy Telugu to my mother... Barberous?
**************************************************************************************************
But my 81-year-old Literary Uncle and my relevant Auntie whom I love are most sportive:
When the latest Ishani booklet arrived at their place, it turned out apparently that their son Ravi, a physics post-graduate and so a literary gem too, was present and whisked the booklet away.
After a couple of days he brought it back and asked his mother who that EMM (Extreme Methodical Mind) could be, after narrating the story of the chap who forgot to download the trunk with his wife's saris and complained to the Station Master with all the gory details.
My wonderful Auntie pointed to her husband sitting on his cot and replied:
"There, there, there he is, sitting and smiling...your Infallible Dad..who else?"
I wish there were more such sportive Uncles and Aunites on this planet so I can blog fearlessly.. .
****************************************************************************************************
The blogging finger blogs; and having blogged
Blogs on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall stop it cancel half a Blog
Nor all your Tears restore an entire Blog of it
......Amaar Khayyal
==========================================================
Yesterday's Post Barberosa - 1 ended with the sentence:
"....The Musician was hanged till death by his neck and his flute burnt to cinders and ashes...."
I suspect that me and my blogs would face the same Fate one of these days.
Well, the reason is that most of my blogs have real flesh-'n-blood people, living and dead.
And people take offense.
Why People? Because, as I explained in: Post A Comment, People like to talk about People, not mere Ideas and Events all the time.....they love Low Grade Comments like the King's Donkey's Ears.
In Journalese they call it: Human Interest Stories; qua Gossip.
Anyway, last year early 2009, before the General Elections, I posted some 100 limericks mostly on Politicians, some of them quite biting.
And hints were thrown at me by my well-wishers to keep quiet...I may be done to death by one or more of several Senas.
But I persisted.
I didn't delete any of those but one: That had to do with Cricketers: Tiger Pataudi and Sachin Tendulkar, titled: Tiger Tiger Burning Bright, which I deleted.
Reason: I felt that Fan Clubs of Cricketers can be more touchy than Political Senas; and their cricketing clubs (bats) can be more battering.
Again, in one of my blogs which I seem to have deleted, I narrated the true story of a Celebrity whom I had to de-whisker to save the honor of my friend DB whom he professed not to know after sharing a Month's Summer School Accommodation at tiny Ooty. I called him DT (Apparently he pulled the same Amnesia Act about me later on, after sharing 3 intimate days and nights at one of those other IIT Faculty Hostels and losing to me a Prestige Bet of Rs 0. 25: Twenty Five Paise only on Constant of the Motion).
Immediately I got a request from DQ to please let him know who this DT was. Since DQ was my grandstudent (rather like a grownup Ishani), I let out the Expansion by e-mail.
Aniket waited six long months and more:
********************************************************************************************************
Aniket:
"..Since you are in the mood to tell the truth for a change :) I am unable to suppress my curiosity and am tempted to strike while the iron is hot - who was "DT", the character you introduced in one of your older posts? He seemed a big hit both with you and DB (Ooty Summer School, etc).... :)......."
***********************************************************************************************************
And how could I refuse Aniket, my Foreworder?
So I told him DT stood for Ocimum Sclavus; and he winked.
Not so Super Supratim. He simply rubbished the entire blog as nothing new since I had already told the story in all its gory detail a decade ago on his Reconight; and wanted fresh gossip:
****************************************************************************************************
Supratim:
"...............Thanks so much for such a prompt response to my request, I read it last night itself within a few minutes of your posting it after forsaking preparing for my class on Tuesday. But that story wont do and you have to post a fresh one on big egos. The reason is that I heard about this story from you some years back (2000 or 2003) when I had gone to visit KGP. So it does not qualify; I demand some local KGP color of which there are plenty, not some deliberately forgetful DT from another IIT :) So I really don't mind you deleting that blog post, as long as you promise to replace it by another juicy rise and fall of ego story. ........................."
******************************************************************************
This is the trouble with folks who have monster minds with elephantine memories (unlike DT). They are the sworn enemies of absentminded repetitive bloggers.
Once I asked A if he didn't ever miss KGP, Bombay and Hyderabad and feel nostalgic. He replied at once that his memories are so fresh and vivid that he never misses anything however much he tries.
This ought to be called Photalgia. Somewhat like Dorothy Parker: "When you are with me I miss the fun of missing you..."
Anyway, this Supratim once saved the Day for IIT KGP without his knowing it. He was then a Research Scholar at Bhubaneshwar (doing more Scholaring than Researching) in 1999.
IIT KGP had to print her Academic Calendar well in advance in June 1999 for the whole Academic Year, which spanned February 2000. And there was this prolonged discussion and debate if 2000 was a Leap Year or not (2000 being a special millennial year; we are lucky to see Y2K, rather). IIT KGP didn't want to goof and make a laughing stock of herself; and time was running out.
Then Gangulysaab who was in charge rang me up and asked me.
I didn't want to goof up either and be hanged by the Senate of which I was an absentee landlord.
So, I e-mailed Supratim @ Bhubaneswar and wanted the Funda pronto: there was no Google then but some Netscape or stuff. But within minutes he sent me the entire write-up on it straight from the horse's mouth: Royal Astronomical Society, which I printed and passed on to Gangulysaab who tabled it in the Senate and got it approved vis RAS.
Also at that time I compiled a crazy File called: gps Autographs in MS Word which many of the recipients (about 60 ex-students) couldn't convert onto their primitive computers most of which were not equipped with Windows.
Supratim once again came to the rescue and gave a detailed recipe of what to do, like FTPing and stuff which I didn't know; and I made it an Addendum to the File.
Talk of Dr Dracula: http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/05/dr-dracula.html
*********************************************************************************************
In a recent blog called Cook It Up, I wrote something like: "My father was a long-suffering man: he had the courage of his wife's convictions.."
Right now my 87-year-old mother is staying for a few weeks at my IAS B-i-L's place at Chennai; and daily I am scared that he will translate this unholy sentence into juicy Telugu to my mother... Barberous?
**************************************************************************************************
But my 81-year-old Literary Uncle and my relevant Auntie whom I love are most sportive:
When the latest Ishani booklet arrived at their place, it turned out apparently that their son Ravi, a physics post-graduate and so a literary gem too, was present and whisked the booklet away.
After a couple of days he brought it back and asked his mother who that EMM (Extreme Methodical Mind) could be, after narrating the story of the chap who forgot to download the trunk with his wife's saris and complained to the Station Master with all the gory details.
My wonderful Auntie pointed to her husband sitting on his cot and replied:
"There, there, there he is, sitting and smiling...your Infallible Dad..who else?"
I wish there were more such sportive Uncles and Aunites on this planet so I can blog fearlessly.. .
****************************************************************************************************
The blogging finger blogs; and having blogged
Blogs on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall stop it cancel half a Blog
Nor all your Tears restore an entire Blog of it
......Amaar Khayyal
==========================================================
Barberosa - 1
======================================================
Unlike my son I avoid visiting Hair-Cutting Saloons as long as I can.
He is different.
Whenever he is tensed up on his Project Manager Job, he walks into the nukkad A/C Saloon, has a Hairdo, and a Massage (maalish) of his head, shoulders and torso given violently by the resident ruffian Barber-Masseur at a heavy surcharge...
I guess it is the age-old Amritanjan Principle: A bigger nuisance drives away the smaller
I am told that this Body-Massage Thing can be cruelly addictive: Ministers have to carry their Masseurs (and Cooks) in the First Class Cargo wherever they tour.
Anyway, I don't like to be touched by strangers: my hairdo is over in 5 minutes: the chap will ask: Long or Short and like the Buddhist I am, I reply: Medium. And finally when he shows the Big Mirror this way and that I get scared because of the Heavily Distorted Lateral Inversion and close my eyes.
And my wife would chase me back to the Saloon saying that the left half (I mean the right) has not been clipped aright.
I think this aversion for touching strangers is inbuilt in our middle class society: we would rather fold up our palms and say Namaste than shake hands with every Tom, Dick and Harry (of the same sex).
Indeed my MD Physician Cousin stunned me saying she never shakes hands. I asked her why. She said she would lose her Power to the other Chap...much like a high voltage getting grounded. And she cited the instance when Raam shook hands with Parashuram via the latter's mini-axe and bled-in all his Vast Powers.
I am inclined to side with her...goofy though she sounds.
I think I blogged a Piece on this Power Transfer Theorem long long ago:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/04/shocking.html
****************************************************************************
"....Then I read about Electric Eels. These chaps wantonly generate a pretty high voltage difference (around 600 Volts) between parts of their bodies like the two ends of their tails, without inflicting any shocks on themselves. They then catch a poor fish which at once dies of shock and gets happily eaten.
Oh Well! Can we not do what a lousy witless eel does? A curious thought. Maybe some Yogis can do it. With intense reverence to Him and equally to rationality, could this be what Ramakrishna Deb did to Vivekananda when he touched him and dispatched him into a well-described trance state?..."
*******************************************************************************
Anyway, I postpone Visits to the Saloon till the last moment when the few strands of hair left in place fall across my eyes and blind completely a half-blind chap.
In my childhood there were no Saloons: the State-Barber used to visit us with his surgical kit, and my father and I used to extend each other the needed Moral Support at the Package Deal.
Here is today's half-century-old Chandamama story:
******************************************************************************
The State-Barber of this King fell ill and sent his Son of a Barber (SoB, sorry) on Deputation for the Day.
When the SoB first saw the King sans his Pagdi (Crown), he was astonished beyond himself: the King had Donkey's Ears; and he was threatened with Death if ever he leaked this State Secret.
On returning home, the SoB took ill. No drugs worked and he was in bed for a fortnight. Finally his Physician rightly diagnosed that the SoB was suffering from a little-known Mental Condition (Odium Secretesa), and he would die if he didn't tell the secret that he was vainly trying to conceal: his belly was bloating...
Since the SoB declined to tell, come what may, it was suggested that he go to the nearby Forest and whisper his deadly secret into one of those flourishing ant-holes.
Which he did.
And recovered miraculously the next moment.
Months passed by and an itinerant musician looking for a good bamboo shoot for his flute found one coming up on the said ant-hole, cut it, fashioned it into a lovely flute, played a dozen tunes on it mellifluously, and decided that the flute played so well that he would play one of his rich melodies in the King's Court and get rich rewards in liquid cash.
He got a Right Royal Welcome by the King's Bodyguards who were mesmerized by his divine tunes.
As soon as the King arrived and the Court assembled and the musician ordered to perform, the flute could play only one tune monotonously:
"Our King has Donkey's Ears....Our King has Donkey's Ears... Our King has Donkey's Ears.."
The Musician was hanged till death by his neck and his flute burnt to cinders and ashes....
To be continued...
=======================================================
Unlike my son I avoid visiting Hair-Cutting Saloons as long as I can.
He is different.
Whenever he is tensed up on his Project Manager Job, he walks into the nukkad A/C Saloon, has a Hairdo, and a Massage (maalish) of his head, shoulders and torso given violently by the resident ruffian Barber-Masseur at a heavy surcharge...
I guess it is the age-old Amritanjan Principle: A bigger nuisance drives away the smaller
I am told that this Body-Massage Thing can be cruelly addictive: Ministers have to carry their Masseurs (and Cooks) in the First Class Cargo wherever they tour.
Anyway, I don't like to be touched by strangers: my hairdo is over in 5 minutes: the chap will ask: Long or Short and like the Buddhist I am, I reply: Medium. And finally when he shows the Big Mirror this way and that I get scared because of the Heavily Distorted Lateral Inversion and close my eyes.
And my wife would chase me back to the Saloon saying that the left half (I mean the right) has not been clipped aright.
I think this aversion for touching strangers is inbuilt in our middle class society: we would rather fold up our palms and say Namaste than shake hands with every Tom, Dick and Harry (of the same sex).
Indeed my MD Physician Cousin stunned me saying she never shakes hands. I asked her why. She said she would lose her Power to the other Chap...much like a high voltage getting grounded. And she cited the instance when Raam shook hands with Parashuram via the latter's mini-axe and bled-in all his Vast Powers.
I am inclined to side with her...goofy though she sounds.
I think I blogged a Piece on this Power Transfer Theorem long long ago:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/04/shocking.html
****************************************************************************
"....Then I read about Electric Eels. These chaps wantonly generate a pretty high voltage difference (around 600 Volts) between parts of their bodies like the two ends of their tails, without inflicting any shocks on themselves. They then catch a poor fish which at once dies of shock and gets happily eaten.
Oh Well! Can we not do what a lousy witless eel does? A curious thought. Maybe some Yogis can do it. With intense reverence to Him and equally to rationality, could this be what Ramakrishna Deb did to Vivekananda when he touched him and dispatched him into a well-described trance state?..."
*******************************************************************************
Anyway, I postpone Visits to the Saloon till the last moment when the few strands of hair left in place fall across my eyes and blind completely a half-blind chap.
In my childhood there were no Saloons: the State-Barber used to visit us with his surgical kit, and my father and I used to extend each other the needed Moral Support at the Package Deal.
Here is today's half-century-old Chandamama story:
******************************************************************************
The State-Barber of this King fell ill and sent his Son of a Barber (SoB, sorry) on Deputation for the Day.
When the SoB first saw the King sans his Pagdi (Crown), he was astonished beyond himself: the King had Donkey's Ears; and he was threatened with Death if ever he leaked this State Secret.
On returning home, the SoB took ill. No drugs worked and he was in bed for a fortnight. Finally his Physician rightly diagnosed that the SoB was suffering from a little-known Mental Condition (Odium Secretesa), and he would die if he didn't tell the secret that he was vainly trying to conceal: his belly was bloating...
Since the SoB declined to tell, come what may, it was suggested that he go to the nearby Forest and whisper his deadly secret into one of those flourishing ant-holes.
Which he did.
And recovered miraculously the next moment.
Months passed by and an itinerant musician looking for a good bamboo shoot for his flute found one coming up on the said ant-hole, cut it, fashioned it into a lovely flute, played a dozen tunes on it mellifluously, and decided that the flute played so well that he would play one of his rich melodies in the King's Court and get rich rewards in liquid cash.
He got a Right Royal Welcome by the King's Bodyguards who were mesmerized by his divine tunes.
As soon as the King arrived and the Court assembled and the musician ordered to perform, the flute could play only one tune monotonously:
"Our King has Donkey's Ears....Our King has Donkey's Ears... Our King has Donkey's Ears.."
The Musician was hanged till death by his neck and his flute burnt to cinders and ashes....
To be continued...
=======================================================
Friday, December 3, 2010
GoogleGul
========================================================
The latest Ishani booklet (75 pages) bristles with references and wholesale quotations.
Here is a short list:
1. Alice in Wonderland; 2. Alice Through The Looking Glass; 3. Tompkins in Wonderland; 4. Sherlock Holmes; 5. Mills & Boon; 6. Shudraka's Mricchakatika; 7. James Thurber; 8. Mark Twain; 9. Hamlet; 10. Julius Caesar; 11. Shakespeare Sonnets; 12. As You Like It; 13. Antony & Cleopatra; 14. Robert Browning; 15. Jim Corbett; 16. Holy Bible; 17. Oliver Wendell Holmes; 18. Pickwick Papers; 19. R K Narayan; 20. Wodehouse; 21. Omar Khayyam; 22. Ramayan & Mahabharat; 23. Iliad; 24. Ramana Maharshi; 25. Three Men in a Boat
***************************************************************************************************
The booklet is meant for those of my elder generation and some younger who are unaware of the Net, Google, and even MS Word.
You can well imagine the terrific impression I generated.
I even wonder at times what my late Father and Uncle who taught me English assiduously inside and outside the Class Room would feel if this booklet is suddenly thrust into their hands. They never saw a Computer and hadn't heard of Copy-Paste.
They would surely think:
1. That I read a lot
2. I have a vast collection of books
3. I took about 3 years to write, type and get the booklet printed
4. I must be someone they ought to be proud of and show off to their Heavenmates
"So sorry, sirs, to have duped you: I read about a fiftieth of English that you did".
Rest is Google (like Hamlet's quote: Rest is Silence)
That brings us to Shakespeare:
Mani Sankar Aiyyar was rather honest. He said that all the Shakespeare he learned was from Jeeves:
****************************************************************************************
Friday, March 6, 2009
"Most Britons falsely claim to have read Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' ": Report
*******************************************************************************************
The other day I wrote my Last Will and Testament which had this quote:
*****************************************************************************
Who steals my purse steals trash;
'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
Othello Act 3, scene 3, 155–161
*************************************************************************
Sonoo and Sailaja knew I stole it from Google; but my wife was terribly impressed; which is what matters {;-}
***************************************************************************
The latest Ishani booklet has a wonderful Foreword by Pratik which has this delightful quote from Multatuli:
"And then there shall be in the land some who welcome him with love, who lay their hands on his head, and say: Sit down with us to meat, live with us in our house, and share all that we have, for I have known your father".
I at once Googled for Multatuli and found that he was a Dutch Colonial Officer who rebelled against Colonialism and his Latin pen-name means: I Have Suffered Much.
I immediately felt that Pratik was the Owl Who Was God.
I gently asked him about this heartwarming quote.
He said he found it in his late Father's Diary.
QED
=========================================================
The latest Ishani booklet (75 pages) bristles with references and wholesale quotations.
Here is a short list:
1. Alice in Wonderland; 2. Alice Through The Looking Glass; 3. Tompkins in Wonderland; 4. Sherlock Holmes; 5. Mills & Boon; 6. Shudraka's Mricchakatika; 7. James Thurber; 8. Mark Twain; 9. Hamlet; 10. Julius Caesar; 11. Shakespeare Sonnets; 12. As You Like It; 13. Antony & Cleopatra; 14. Robert Browning; 15. Jim Corbett; 16. Holy Bible; 17. Oliver Wendell Holmes; 18. Pickwick Papers; 19. R K Narayan; 20. Wodehouse; 21. Omar Khayyam; 22. Ramayan & Mahabharat; 23. Iliad; 24. Ramana Maharshi; 25. Three Men in a Boat
***************************************************************************************************
The booklet is meant for those of my elder generation and some younger who are unaware of the Net, Google, and even MS Word.
You can well imagine the terrific impression I generated.
I even wonder at times what my late Father and Uncle who taught me English assiduously inside and outside the Class Room would feel if this booklet is suddenly thrust into their hands. They never saw a Computer and hadn't heard of Copy-Paste.
They would surely think:
1. That I read a lot
2. I have a vast collection of books
3. I took about 3 years to write, type and get the booklet printed
4. I must be someone they ought to be proud of and show off to their Heavenmates
"So sorry, sirs, to have duped you: I read about a fiftieth of English that you did".
Rest is Google (like Hamlet's quote: Rest is Silence)
That brings us to Shakespeare:
Mani Sankar Aiyyar was rather honest. He said that all the Shakespeare he learned was from Jeeves:
****************************************************************************************
Friday, March 6, 2009
A little dishonesty is BRITISH!
"Most Britons falsely claim to have read Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' ": Report
I too tried 'Peace and War',
Found it an unreadable bore;
But I read all of Shakespeare
Songs & Sonnets & King Liar.
But, most I love my Bertie,
Shaken to his foundations;
He said with honesty,
"Hamlet's full of Quotations"
Found it an unreadable bore;
But I read all of Shakespeare
Songs & Sonnets & King Liar.
But, most I love my Bertie,
Shaken to his foundations;
He said with honesty,
"Hamlet's full of Quotations"
*******************************************************************************************
The other day I wrote my Last Will and Testament which had this quote:
*****************************************************************************
'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
Othello Act 3, scene 3, 155–161
*************************************************************************
Sonoo and Sailaja knew I stole it from Google; but my wife was terribly impressed; which is what matters {;-}
***************************************************************************
The latest Ishani booklet has a wonderful Foreword by Pratik which has this delightful quote from Multatuli:
"And then there shall be in the land some who welcome him with love, who lay their hands on his head, and say: Sit down with us to meat, live with us in our house, and share all that we have, for I have known your father".
I at once Googled for Multatuli and found that he was a Dutch Colonial Officer who rebelled against Colonialism and his Latin pen-name means: I Have Suffered Much.
I immediately felt that Pratik was the Owl Who Was God.
I gently asked him about this heartwarming quote.
He said he found it in his late Father's Diary.
QED
=========================================================
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Flow
======================================================
During our extended youth, there was a Tennis Star called Bjorn Borg.
Those were the silly days of Rally Tennis. Anything like 50 Exchanges between the opposing players were the norm. (I have a suspicion that my wife used to Count them, like she used to count the number of wagons in a goods train when we were stuck at Puri Gate Railway Crossing and announce proudly: 87).
Very unlike the later Power Tennis slam-bang of Pete Sampras (my favorite).
Borg said once that when he gets going (into maybe his 100th rally) he felt a spiritual sort of Flow (of soul?).
When I joined IIT KGP as an Associate Lecturer in Physics at 21, I soon discovered that if you talk sense in the Lecture Hall, IITians listen.
Then on for 40 years I once in a while used to get a sensation like what Borg said he got...a sort of Flow when things were going rather well. It is a sense of Power...
I missed it as soon as I retired and got all the withdrawal symptoms.
It took about 3 years for me to get back that feeling when a blog piece happens to be going well while composing...it feels like the good old Flow.
The other day I happened to compose a piece titled: Half Tricks, and was feeling my oats while posting it.
Teernajee, a Central School student of maybe Class 8 says it is the best piece of all...she should know.
=======================================================
During our extended youth, there was a Tennis Star called Bjorn Borg.
Those were the silly days of Rally Tennis. Anything like 50 Exchanges between the opposing players were the norm. (I have a suspicion that my wife used to Count them, like she used to count the number of wagons in a goods train when we were stuck at Puri Gate Railway Crossing and announce proudly: 87).
Very unlike the later Power Tennis slam-bang of Pete Sampras (my favorite).
Borg said once that when he gets going (into maybe his 100th rally) he felt a spiritual sort of Flow (of soul?).
When I joined IIT KGP as an Associate Lecturer in Physics at 21, I soon discovered that if you talk sense in the Lecture Hall, IITians listen.
Then on for 40 years I once in a while used to get a sensation like what Borg said he got...a sort of Flow when things were going rather well. It is a sense of Power...
I missed it as soon as I retired and got all the withdrawal symptoms.
It took about 3 years for me to get back that feeling when a blog piece happens to be going well while composing...it feels like the good old Flow.
The other day I happened to compose a piece titled: Half Tricks, and was feeling my oats while posting it.
Teernajee, a Central School student of maybe Class 8 says it is the best piece of all...she should know.
=======================================================
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