Sentiment

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'I like the Walrus best,' said Alice: 'because you see he was a LITTLE sorry for the poor oysters.'

'He ate more than the Carpenter, though,' said Tweedledee. 'You see he held his handkerchief in front, so that the Carpenter couldn't count how many he took: contrariwise.'

'That was mean!' Alice said indignantly. 'Then I like the Carpenter best—if he didn't eat so many as the Walrus.'

'But he ate as many as he could get,' said Tweedledum.

.......http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12/12-h/12-h.htm#2HCH0007

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There..there...Lewis Carroll has the last word on Sentiment.

If you have lived as long as I did and as eventlessly, you will realize at the end of the Day that Life has been a series of graduations from one delusion to another.

Still and all, there is fun and pain at every stage of this Drama: Shakespeare knew it best.

However wise or otherwise you pretend to be, you are connected by visible and invisible strings to the Rest of the Universe all the time: by gravitons (?) and photons if nothing else. So feelings are inescapable even for ETs.

On the day of my quitting IIT KGP they arranged a Fond Farewell in the evening at 4.30 PM. At noon, on my way home, Prof PS, who joined a few years before I left and had as little interaction with me, happened to meet me in the corridor, excused herself from the Farewell Meeting and wished me well instead on the spot. I thanked her for her kindness. She then asked abruptly an unexpected question: "Professor Shastry, after all these decades, do you feel happy or unhappy today?". Frankly I was embarrassed and speechless, and mumbled something like: "What is the use of being unhappy...all of us should always try to be happy so we could spread a little cheer".

I was indeed quite happy that day since I would be joining my wife and son at Hyderabad after a year of loneliness, and all my folks back home after decades.

Little did I know that for 2 years then on I would be dreaming every night of nothing but KGP and for the next 3 years I would be blogging about folks there, past and present.

And I always prided myself as a no-nonsense character....Carpenter.

These thoughts are there now because I am just back from seeing off my son to his Office, where he would be getting a Farewell today after 6.5 years of his first job after IIT KGP. Subash and Anu, the couple who sat through willy-nilly 2 semesters of my Theory and 2 of Lab in their 4th year not only took him as a gesture of goodwill in their start-up, but treated him embarrassingly well all these years.

My son told me that he would ask his HR to make his exit as quiet as possible...much like I did.

Wherever he would go, I guess he wouldn't easily forget Ocimum Biosolutions, his first bread and butter...

Rest is Cash...as Americans say...

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Eeesh!

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In our University town of Vizagh in AP in the 1950s it was a fashion for sick home-owners to sport this placard on their front gates:

"If you have nothing else to do, please don't do it here"

But as you are well aware, our Bloggers Anthem has the slogan:

...You may have little to say
Still you can say it here!

In his delightful Foreword to the latest Ishani booklet, Pratik quotes Lin Yutang:

"If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live"

So, it just happened that I woke up from my afternoon siesta with the word: "shibboleth" whirling in my mind for absolutely no reason at all. This is a word which I never heard spoken but read a few times without a clue to its precise meaning.

So, I Googled for it and found this charming passage:

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In the Book of Judges, chapter 12, after the inhabitants of Gilead inflicted a military defeat upon the tribe of Ephraim (around 1370–1070 BC), the surviving Ephraimites tried to cross the Jordan River back into their home territory and the Gileadites secured the river's fords to stop them. In order to identify and kill these refugees, the Gileadites put each refugee to a simple test:

	"Gilead then cut Ephraim off from the fords of the Jordan, and whenever Ephraimite fugitives said, 'Let me cross,' the men of Gilead would ask, 'Are you an Ephraimite?' If he said, 'No,' they then said, 'Very well, say "Shibboleth" (שיבולת).' If anyone said, "Sibboleth" (סיבולת), because he could not pronounce it, then they would seize him and kill him by the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell on this occasion."

Shibboleths have been used by different subcultures throughout the world at different times. Regional differences, level of expertise and computer coding techniques are several forms that shibboleths have taken. For example, during the Battle of the Bulge, American soldiers used knowledge of baseball to determine if others were fellow Americans or if they were German infiltrators in American uniform.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth ..

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I think Bengalis can use the shibboleth: "Eeesh!" to distinguish the East from the West Bengalis:

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"E is for Eeesh. This is a very common Bengali exclamation made famous by Aishwarya Rai in the movie Devdas. It is estimated that on an average a Bengali, especially Bengali women, use eeesh 10, 089 times every year.."

http://mypaisworth.blogspot.com/2008/07/fast-forward-shalom-bong-thank-you-maam.html

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Most Sanskrit-based Indian languages like Bengali and Telugu have 3 letters in their alphabet for "s":

The first one has no English equivalent to my little knowledge; the second as in "shoe" and the last one as in "soul".

Most cultivated Bengalis pronounce most of the three in the middle "shoe" style and look down upon anyone pronouncing all the three as in the last "soul" style..."Eees!".

Correct me if I am wrong.

My own name "Sastry" has unfortunately 2 of the damned thing; the first is the first Sanskrit "s", and the second the last "s".

Most Bengalis at IIT KGP pronounced it as "Shastri"; my own East Bengali Guru SDM and an Ex-Director also used to spell it that way... No harm!

I gave my son, who spent his first 24 years in Bengal, the name "Sreenivas Shreenath". Literally, the first "S" in his name is the first "s" of Sanskrit, the second "s" the last Sanskrit "s" and the third "S" is again the first "s" of Sanskrit (confusion enough!).

Somehow I was inclined to spell the last "s" as "Sh" simply because he would be living in Bengal for a good while.

With a vengeance, for reasons known only to him, he gave a Bengali name to his daughter: "Ishani"; and spelled it that way in her Birth Certificate and Passport.

I often ask our little Ishani: "What is your name?"; and prompt the answer: "Ishani".

Till now she used to smile and repeat: "Eee.." but couldn't get hold of the rest of her name.

Her mom, Sailaja (pronounced "Shoilaja" in Bengali), reports that today when asked for her name, one-year-old Ishani came up with:

"Eeesh!"

Hurray to Bengali Ladies and their: "Eeesh!" (today for the 10, 090 time)!

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Babes & Sucklings

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Matthew 21:16:

"And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?"

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gps: Having been a teacher all my life, I realized that if what you say or write touches a young mind & heart, your job has been well done:

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Dear Uncle,

I hope you all are fine and we are fine too at KGP. Our first unit test is over and brother's second monthly exams are going on. I have composed one limerick after reading your two books on this topic.

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Studies

Studies studies studies.....

Always studies

No time to read bed time stories

And no time to remember childhood memories

Maths Physics chemistry....

Still Newtons law remains a mystery

Studies studies studies....

There is no time to play tennis

And no time to watch Dennis the menace

There is no time to eat a cherry

And also no time to watch Tom and Jerry

But elders say that if you study

Then your future will be sunny

But children always hate

That is why they face a difficult fate

Studies studies studies....

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By a young limerist!!!

V.U. Varun

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Grand Spam

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Night & Day I pray to Allah
Not for gold or mota moola
Just a mail from apoon Laila
Ugh!
Here is one from Coca Cola!

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Problems of Plenty

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On the coast of Coromandel
Where the early pumpkins blow,
In the middle of woods
Lived the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo

...........Edward Lear

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Not only pumpkins but also cucumbers, watermelons, bottle gourds and all such watery creeper-borne vegetables blow at a mind-blowing rate when they decide to do so.

In the early 1950s we were living on the famous Coromandel Coast in the Village of Muthukur in a tiny house with a mammoth backyard. The house was then good enough for us but keeping the backyard clean was a Herculean task in which everyone participated enthusiastically in the beginning.

Call it Beginner's Luck, but there was this creeper of bottle-gourd which was wilting, withering and dying till Father tended to it with love, manure and water.

It reciprocated famously.... within six months it spread all along our side of the boundary wall, with lovely tendrils, tiny buds and milk-white flowers, making all of us glad that a dying thing was revived.

Then came the rains....and the creeper started yielding its Bounty. The Harvest turned out to be simply unmanageable. There would be slim six-inch fingers when we went to bed at night and by the next morning they grew to two feet; and by the dozen everyday...a veritable cornucopia...

Bottle gourds were expensive in our villages because they can be cooked in a dozen ways: curries with dal, milk, masala, curd, sambar and other inventive recipes. And tender bottle gourd is supposed to be good for the tummy.

Mother made all these varieties day in and day out till everyone of us was fed up and declined to touch her food if they find any preparation of the damn thing in the menu,

And they grow too tough and useless if left on the creeper even for a couple of days.

So every morning myself and Father had this duty of plucking them. And it was left to me to distribute them among neighbors near and then far away....they were all very happy at first but they used to shut their door soon enough when they spotted me with 2 feet long gourds on my shoulders much like the maces of Bhim and Duryodhan.

Since Father was the Head Master and a virtuous Brahmin at that, he couldn't dare sell them and get a bad name. So, we had to carry them to Nellore by bus and distribute them among our dozens of relatives near and dear as well as far and feared. And they used to pick the ones of their choice and leave the others behind...so much so that all of them were unhappy thinking that they were not the first in the receiving line. So, we had to rotate the itinerary....all in all we made more enemies than friends.

Our neighbor was eying us with envy...he hardly knew.

So, one night he pulled the creeper to his side of the boundary wall preparing for a fight on his hands next morning...he hardly knew...

After a couple of days of relief, the wretched creeper turned back onto our side of the wall and refused to leave us in peace. There was this sentiment that we can't very well 'kill' the creeper that was yielding such a rich crop.

The Agony lasted 2 months till rains stopped; and we decided to move to a bigger house with a tinier backyard with just a wilting guava tree which we decided not to manure or water. We hardly knew...

Following Vastu Sastra, Mother made a kitchen drain that happened to water that Guava Tree in abundance with the leavings of minerals, vitamins, and biochemicals that it was just thirsting for for decades.

When rains came, it yielded tennis-ball-sized fruit with bright yellow skin and blood-red innards...a Benaresi Guava Tree...Prize Possession for any fruit-lover.

And it apparently wished to worst the Bottle Gourd Creeper in its Bounty.

We were back to square 1.

And our new neighbors who were at first jubilant turned our enemies, because an over-ripe Benarsi Guava fruit is worse than the Cottage Cheese and Paraffin Oil of Harris, Jerome, George and Montmorency...it spreads its richly stinking perfume all over the house...you drink it, eat it, read it and go to bed with it...

We shifted house again....

This time a pleased student celebrated his success in the Exams by gifting his HM a cute pair of blinking rabbits.......

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Watersheds

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Here is the Chronology of Momentous Events in an Uneventful Life:

1. Arithmetic to Algebra: Let x be the required number of mangoes...what a relief from the Undependable Rule of 3!!!

2. Hormonal Things: Coeval with Algebra full of unknowns...like the first Tender Feelings and Self-Discovery {;-}

3. Leaving Home: No more parental freedoms...to the care of Loving but Disciplining Uncles and Aunties

4. Borda' Pendulum: First Physics Lab all alone with a massive hanging metal sphere, a telescope, pin and a stopwatch..took 3 days to focus...but the Ghost of Phy Lab exorcised once for all

5. Research Scholarship: All bad except for no more Money Orders...first taste of financial independence and payback to the family

6. Faculty @ IIT KGP: First Tutorial Class with Attendance Register, Chalk Piece and Duster...Learning Physics from Arjun Malhotras for the next 40 years....First Bank Account & the First PF Loan..being hailed Kaku instead of Dada in the Tech Market

7. Marriage: The thud within happened while crossing the Overbridge at Tirupati an hour after the Wedding....in the words of the Princeton KK: "Funeral of Bachelorhood's Freedoms"

8. Fatherhood: This thud happened while crossing Nagpur on way to Jalgaon and the newborn son...the memeory never leaves...gps is FATHER!!!

9. Death in the Family: Losing Father defies description

10. Retirement: What a Relief from 3-hour Labs & 3-hour Invigilation Duties!...expecting Eternal Harry's nook

11. Culture Shock: From liberal Bengal's KGP Campus to hidebound AP's Hyderabad and the new norms...biggest change in life and down in the dumps for 2 good years

12. Rehabilitation: Being asked by Sayan to write a Piece on SDM..I can Write!!!!

13. Son's Marriage: The best thing that happened..Advent of a brand-new loving member into the Family..this time a Daughter

14. Blogoshpere: Discovering the Best of All Spheres..from Borda's Pendulum to the Celestial Sphere

15. Granpa gps: Greatest thing that has happened in Life..watching the girl kid grow and charm everyone around

16. Back in Touch: Back with a Bang again in touch with former students, colleagues and well-wishers....thanx to Blogger!

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Smile Collector

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People collect coins, stamps, books and antiques; also spectacles, watches, pens and samples of body fluids of Gandhijee for outright sale or auction.

They all leave their Beloved Collections behind to their progeny when they depart from here.

I however am a Smile Collector.

I take my Collection with me wherever I go, here or hereafter. Collecting smiles is a Passion with me and I have been doing this from childhood. These are free and nobody else wants them...strictly Private Property.

As with coins and stamps, the thing is to classify smiles and label them in identifiable groups such as:

1. Beatific Smiles: These are the best and truly Divine, the sole preserve of babies and saints. Unfortunately I met no saint but I have watched four of my younger sisters, son, and granddaughter closely when they were just 3 months old....the tender age at which they flash their first smile of love at their moms.

2. Ingratiating Smiles: These are the worst and are flashed when people have an axe to grind. None of my students did this; they were too dignified for this. But Gouri Babu of the Accounts Section of IIT KGP must have seen these on my face the couple of dozen times I had to approach him for dire PF Loans.

3. Understanding Smiles: I have seen hundreds of these when suddenly one or the other of my students thought that they have absorbed a tough concept that was beyond me.

4. Ununderstanding Smiles: Also called Grin; a charming sight in Grand Viva when the victim has absolutely no clue.

5. Recognition Smiles: These are the broadest and most spontaneous and pleasing. Tikka at Harry's, Mohinder at Thacker's, Bolai Babu and his youngest brother Nitai, Bhanja Tailors, and the twins Lav & Kush, the Tea Dispensers at the Tech Market, flashed these at me when I resurfaced at KGP 5 years after my retirement.

6. Mona Lisa Smiles: These are well known to be due to a congenital deformity in the facial muscles. I better leave it at that.

7. Victorious Smiles: My Guru SDM flashed these whenever the referee of Annals of Physics had to admit that he could in no way follow how Eq. 16 comes from Eq. 15...SDM gobbled up at least ten intermediate Equations...these are largely self-defeating because all such Victories are at best Pyrrhic.

8. Sardonic Smiles: One never knows whether the smiler is smiling at you or your so-called joke. My grandmom was famous for these.

9. Toothy Smiles: The fortunate few who had a wonderful set of teeth like my father and Madhuri Dixit could afford these.

10. Toothless Smiles: The smiles of Gandhijee and Ishani are samples of these wonders.

11. Ocular Smiles: Those who have dirty teeth like me have to resort to these.

12. Disarming Smiles: Grand Viva again, but the hapless victim has to be beautiful.

13. Silent Smiles: These are called chuckles; Aniket is expert at these, even on phone...

14. Superior Smiles: SPK regrets that his friends and relatives wrongly accuse him of these; but at me he has always flashed his most charming smile...the genuine thing.

You can take it up from here...if you too are a Smile Collector

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