Post-Partyem

=======================================================

Yesterday, Post-Party, was a day of sightseeing for the guests. Everyone left cramping themselves into 3 cars to make the best of a sunny wintry afternoon and returned late at night after the ritual has been gone through.

Feeling they have accomplished something big to talk about and feeling miserable inside.

My son dumped them in the In-Orbit Mall in the Hi-Tech City hoping they would swipe their credit cards hastily and repent at leisure.

But folks nowadays are too clever by half: It was the Mall that was fooled....

I was alone for the 9 hours at home and slept off in fits and starts.

The mood was into Telugu lullabies, missing Ishani badly for 9 long hours.

There was one composed by my great-grandfather around the time Sepoys were mutinying in India, Lincoln was having one of his nervous breakdowns, and Autocrat was going strong in Boston gabbing away and composing delightful verses.

Due to the prevailing oral tradition, only two stanzas of the lullaby survived and passed on to me.

So, I composed two more and closed the chapter.

Adi Sankaracharya was going forth with his 12 disciples one morning and found an old man trying to learn Sanskrit Grammar the hard way.

And took pity on his futile attempts and composed extempore on the spot 12 verses now called : Dwadasa Manjari: 12 stanzas in the Manjari prosody; somewhat like the short and sweet konika of Rabindranth Tagore.

The 12 verses with "Bhaja Govindam" as the refrain are gems pouring forth the futility of worldly aspirations: 2G-Spectrum, 3-G, 4-G and N-G.

Then on each of his disciples composed one each as a Supplement...24 in all.

Anyone who reads any of the verses can at once decide if it was composed by the Adi Guru or one of his disciples. The Sankara trade-mark is all over his.

Likewise, if anyone listens to the 4 stanzas of the lullaby I spoke about, they can decide at once which are my great-granpa's and which mine: the trade mark of genius is all over my ancestor's gems...in lullabies Sense is secondary to the Sound...

Still...not all is lost...;we don't relish hilsa fish and that is a tragedy; otherwise, the original 4 would have surely survived...



========================================================

Party Spirit

==========================================================

Yesterday's Ishani First Birthday Party was truly Grand!

The Venue was the 4th Floor of the 3-Star NKM's Grand.

And it cost just a Grand: about Rs 45K at the going exchange rate. Dead cheap for the immense customer satisfaction.

Trust Hyderabad to give you a 5-Star ambiance @ 3- Star Rates. And all you have to do is to swipe your Credit Card (if you have one), mention the requirements, invite your guests and forget; they will do the rest.

I allotted myself the Gate Duty: as soon as some group arrives dazed into the Hall, I greet them with an ooh and an aah with that disarming smile as if I was waiting for just them and have known them all my life although I don't: from Adam to Eve: they are my son's colleagues, my daughter-in-law's friends and colleagues and my wife's Crowd; I didn't invite mine because my side of the family is a Vanderbilt Convention and my son would be pauperized for no fault of his.

And then ask the mia, bibi and the kids if they have any, to go and hang themselves out as best as they can, since the next crowd is due.

After everyone is in and the cake and ale (fruit juice) is through, I go around with that same plastic smile and lead them to the buffet queue.

And hold the scared baby and show her around, asking everyone if the food is good enough: everyone will say: wonderful, although tears are streaming down their Biryani eyes.

And ask them to have some more Ice-Cream much like that Alice's Mad Tea Party.

And stand at the Gate with that smile again and ask if they had their fill and thanking them for gracing the occasion.

Everyone is happy. Because folks don't come for the food and drink of a vegetarian, teetotaler, non-smoking, closed-air Party; but to have a nice time Posting Crow-Comments about their bosses: everyone has a boss.

And the Gatekeeper (even if he is a Senior Citizen-Joker) makes them feel like Someone once in while. And they will remember..

Although it is funny that if 98 of the 100 invitees turn up, the talk will be about the ones that got away.

And in less than 3 hours, the shutdown starts mercilessly: you collect the gifts, load them into the cars and get back home.

I am convinced that, like that saying: "The dead will crowd out the Living", the junk in the house will crowd out the Inmates.

The trick is to learn to throw without looking: not easy.

I am right now crowded out of our home and blogging from the nukkad Cybercafe:

The Absconding College Girl is breathing down my neck to Face her Book:

Bye for now!

===========================================================

Ishani's Birthday Gift

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Pratik's Post Script

to

"Between You & Me & Li'l Ishani"

*************************************************************************

Ours was a Hindi medium Theosophical School in Varanasi. As long as we lived in the city we were happy and gay. When I was in class V and my brother in VI, my father moved in Banaras Hindu University(BHU) quarters to save the house rent. In BHU, most of the boys and girls of our age went to Convent Schools and spoke English fluently and read Mills and Boon. Girls refused to converse in Hindi. At home we saw the hard bound Tom Brown’s School Days with a young boy’s picture in school uniform on the cover but inside it everything was Greek to us. This gave us a feeling of inferiority. My father was not ready to admit us to a Convent and instead purchased a Linguaphone® for us by paying Rs. 400/- in those days, which I suppose was the sum needed as a donation for our admission to the Convent. ‘Linguaphone®’ had sixteen EP (45 rpm) records. The first one started with the arrival of Mr and Mrs Hunt at the Heathrow airport in London from Geneva and in the subsequent ones they moved through Immigration and Customs to reach the hotel. Soon we learnt to pronounce Passport, Cassette, Tape, Record and Pepper-mint Chocolate with their right accents. We could mimic the sentences of Linguaphone® but could not make a single one of our own.

Among neighbours we envied Ronny, a boy a year or two senior to us, as he stood always first in his class, could recite from Shakespeare, chant Rig-Veda Hymns, write poetry and solder resistors, capacitors and transistors on a circuit board. All parents wanted their children becoming replicas of Ronny. We tried several of our tricks to outwit Ronny but all in vain.

Then my brother and I planned that we must knock him out of his own ring of expertise in front of others somehow. So we chose English Vocabulary as the subject. After going carefully through the list of new words we learnt, courtesy Linguaphone®, we settled for Cosmetics and thought this word would definitely knock Ronny flat.

Finally the moment came one evening in our drawing room when Ronny was present with other elderly people. Point blank we asked him the meaning of Cosmetics with our right accents.

Within a split of a second Ronny shot back: Prasadhan Dravya.

Neither of us heard either of these words ever before!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Surely you are fishing, Jeeves!

==============================================================

Had you entered the Hallowed Hall of the high-ceiling-Central Library in the late 1960s (before the false ceiling came up) and took a leisurely stroll along its book-shelves, you would be amazed at the number of books 'Donated by Dr S R Sengupta' (say a thousand on random sampling).

This SRS was the Director @ IIT KGP when they made the fatal mistake of recruiting me (too late now). A stern and austere figure to look at but his Collection of Books spanned every subject under the Sun from Jeeves to the Royal Society Christmas Lectures like Perry's Spinning Tops & Gyroscopes and C V Boys's Soap Bubbles of which I talked in my Spin Series of Blogs.

Like so many famous public figures in Bengal those days, SRS was a Singlet; i.e. semi-educated: imagination seethes and boggles how many more thousands of books he would have collected and donated if he were a Doublet or even Multiplet like our Laloojee & his extended family {;-}

******************************************************************************

Then there was this Professor of GG, about a decade my senior: Supriyo Mohan Sengupta. Whenever we met we talked of his collection of books; and whenever I mentioned an author of whom I read in Reviews and Quotes, he would reel out paragraphs from their books, stunning me.

He was just a Doublet; still, something is better...
*******************************************************************************

Then I come to my contemporary in GG, Professor Saradindu Sengupta.

My Friend & Bengali Language Guru of Ag E Professor Hrishikesh Das (Singlet again) taught me the rather little-known but Heavenly Konika: "poth bhabhe ami deb...".

I flaunted this to the Senior GG Sengupta mentioned above, and he had to look up his Rabindra Rachanavali.

But when I did the same to this Junior GG Sengupta on the cement bench under the Bodhi Tree of the Canteen, he stunned me by reciting its first half (untaught to me by HD): "Ratha jatra janaranyo...".

****************************************************************************

Then we have this Professor of Bio-Info @ JNU: Supratim Sengupta

....now that we have embarked on this Sengupta Convention, let us try and see how far we can go...

In addition to making me read two fat books of 500 pages each in a single post-retirement semester, he is threatening me thus: 


"...Talking of which, I was wondering if you have a leftover copy of your first (?) booklet 'Limericks & Light Verses (2009)'. It was before I got back in touch with you and so I missed out on being a lucky recipient. If you have any leftover, I will greatly appreciate a copy. I was once thinking of creating my own edited version of your limerick collection, and I will probably do that if you don't have a copy left...." (italics mine)...


...Pure & Simple Arm-Twisting...
******************************************************************************************************

Let us now come to Professors Khastgir:

There are many... one of them was in the Phy Dept @ BHU during my childhood....rumor went that he was our Paper-Setter in Spectroscopy while I was larking about at AU....I must have failed miserably in that Part I if I know my Khastgirs... luckily we had this other Part II of Optics....

Like the Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr (Autocrat) & Jr (Supreme Court Judge) father-son duo, there are two more Physics Khastgir Professors in my ken....

Of their vast book-collection, let Junior Khastgir himself speak:

"...The most awful question I face frequently from new visitors is 'Have you read all these?'; I tell them 'Collecting books is my business'. (courtesy Raymond Chandler). The most interesting comment I got for books was from our colleague Prof. B. N. Das when he visited us for the first time: 'Progressive bujhi natun branch khuleche?'...('Looks like Progressive Book Stores has opened a new branch here)'..."

If you think Khastgirs are a different branch than the Sengupta Convention, you are sadly mistaken: they are like Tweedledum & Tweedledee...or like Felis Leo & Felis Tigris.... ask Pratik...

****************************************************************************************************

When I joined IIT KGP in 1965, my friend NP, then a Lecturer in ME, used to take me to his Lab; and once introduced me to the Lab Asst Nag Babu..a charming figure with soda-water-bottle spectacles and the default paan.

35 years or so later, NP was DD and Nag Babu STA (perhaps retired). NP visited Nag Babu's home to invite Nag Babu for his son's Wedding Reception; and found him studying a book keenly under his table lamp.

Rejoicing the timely visit of his old friend NP, Nag Babu apparently held forth on the book he was reading: History of the Vijayanagar Empire; to hold our DD spellbound for a good while before he could proceed with his Invite.

*****************************************************************************************************

Professor Amalendu Mukherjee of ME was younger to me by a few years. He was practically brought up in Rajasthan where his father was a Professor at a College.

Amalendu told me once that the abiding image he has of his father was that of a man wrapped in multiple shawls in the biting Rajasthani Winter and poring over fat books in the flickering light of a hurricane lamp long long into the wee hours of the morning.

One morning while I was gathering wool under the Bodhi-Mango-Neem Combo Tree of Harry's, Amalendu came in, sat beside me and asked for a penny worth of my wool.

And when I said that I was recalling Ishopanishad's famous verse:

The face of Truth is covered by a golden disk;
Unveil it Pooshan so I, a lover of Truth, may have a peek!

....he asked me where he can find it......

I told him that the 1000 page Principal Upanishads by Radhakrishnan is available at the Progressive, he left at once, started his scooter, and was back in 10 minutes with a copy of the book...

**************************************************************************************************

This is just the tip of the bookberg...


******************************************************************************************************

The other day I saw a ticker in Yahoo News titled: "Indian American's book rated among the Top Ten Best Books by NYT".

Before clicking on it I bet with myself (always safe...it is a win-win..) that it is either a Mukherjee or a Sengupta (....Siddhartha or Gautam...the same fish...);

...and I won hands down:

"...Just three weeks after publication, Indian American cancer specialist Siddhartha Mukherjee's first book 'The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer' has been rated among 'The 10 Best Books of 2010' by the New York Times..."
****************************************************************************************************

The other evening I was in the Smoking Lounge of Drones Club and I collared Bertie and asked him:

"What is this thing between Books & Bengalis?"

He scoffed at my ignorance and replied:

"It is them Hilsa they eat, Old Man...."

===================================================================

Science, Religion & the Nobel

========================================================

My Guru and Ph D Guide SDM used to Catch me and Have me (as that Sardarjee in NY joke goes) as a one-man captive audience in my final year with him; and talk nonstop for six hours at a stretch every Saturday and Sunday Evening at his Qrs (Mrs SDM fed me sumptuous loochies as Relief).

He used to talk on every subject under the Sun except my Thesis and Religion:

Thesis because I will run away as soon as he okays it, leaving him talking to the horses in his stable as Churchill used to do for rehearsals before his War Speeches in Parliament.

And Religion because he was too shy since it is an unscientific topic.

But once he slipped in one of his weak moments and let out that whenever he visits his elder sister (didi) at Gauhati, he reads her entire collection of Upanishads in Sanskrit.

And bit his tongue and changed the topic at once to Naxalite Ideology:

He was always scared (as he admitted to me) that pro-Naxalite students at IIT KGP hailing from his Calcutta will slit his throat as they apparently did to the HoD of Calcutta University....

That single year SDM was our HoD: his Administrative Acumen is better left unsung despite his boast that Administration is cakewalk compared to Theoretical Physics Research (He had to dourly apologize to Raamda in public for a snide remark he made to students that all Non-Researchers of his Department are Dead Wood....students found a golden opportunity to tom-tom this fruity stuff in that drab campus).

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, Theoretical Physicists like Einstein and Dirac made laughing stock of themselves commenting needlessly on God. Feynman was cleverer...he declared that though his father was Jewish, he couldn't care for Religion...indeed I recall he made snide remarks on Jewish Theology Students who asked his Authoritative Opinion if Electricity was Fire.

The Retired Chief Engineer in our Apartment Block who first assaulted me with the question: "Can you follow English?" is very religious. He says he spends all his spare time reading and re-reading his Gita.

When he asked me that question on English, I was delighted that Here is an English Lover in this desolate and arid Deccan Plateau.

So, I gifted my 5 booklets (2 in verse and 3 in prose...Elephants in a Beetle...) as and when they arrived from the Printer, hoping that I would get some encouragement to carry on blogging...

He made only 2 comments in 3 years:

1. "I tried reading your booklets...but your English is quaint, quite unlike the English I learned at my School"

gps: I have no issue with this..rather I take it as a compliment.

2. "At your age you should be writing about religious topics"...

gps: This is funny...I think all my 3 Ishani booklets are deeply religious in the sense that they are attempts by an old man in a hurry to make some sense of his life and his world...which I think is the gist of religious quest..... ...

What do you say?...

Moreover, did I not, in half a blog, narrate the Heart of Raamayan, that took an entire verse to the Poet:

****************************************************************************************************

Aaadau Raama Tapovanadi gamanam, hatva Mrigam kaanchanam,
Vaidehi haranam, Jataayu maranam, Sugriva sambhashanam,
Vaalee nigrahanam, Samudra taranam, Lankapuri dahanam,
Paschaat Raavana Kumbhakarna hananam, Etadhi Raamayanam!

......Ek Shloki Raamayaan

**********************************************************************************************************

As for encouragement, I got plenty of it in the past 24 hours:

Pratik: "That was absolutely brilliant. From the stage-setting with the Raam episode till the finis..."

Anushree: "We received your lovely book quite sometime back and enjoyed (short moment) reading it. This time Ishani's and Pratik's stories are the best!"

Aniket: "Enjoyed your latest piece as much as any other. Your writing seems to get better every day. Whatever happened to the blogger's block you experienced? Some avid admirer must have wished it away.."

Supratim: "During the week of your absence, I was quenching my thirst by re-reading your older booklets.."

***************************************************************************************************

Please note the significant coincidence that all the above mentioned + the DQ of the 'Ogo Dada' fame are avid hilsa-lovers (of which there is going to be a whole blog in the near future).

I hereby Will that, as and when my blogs are awarded (posthumously as a special case) the Ig-Nobel for Religious Literature, these people should share it with my half-hilsa Ishani...

And I hereby appoint Google as the Executor of this Will hoping it survives That Long.


=========================================================

Water Harvesters

======================================================

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....

========================================================

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:

"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...

============================================================