==========================================================================
Napoleon is reputed to have said a mouthful:
"An army marches on its belly"
Fine. But a Government doesn't march, no way. It is supposed to be 'run', but most of them 'squat' on their subjects in an uncouth way. It doesn't matter whether it is democratic, autocratic, plutocratic or ahem kleptocratic. They are all the same. They try to squeeze every drop of juice from their unfortunate lemons.
Let us take the Gold Rush State of California, often touted as the ultimate heaven to starry-eyed Indians like me. Typically a KGPian, after much stress and strife, lands a job there, rents a studio apartment, saves some nickels, finds a girl willing to marry him and settle down, and walks to the Registrar of Marriages. You would expect that She would clap and be delighted that the couple is doing an enormous favor to the community with their combined input of software, hardware or finance expertise and would in due course bring forth more profitable versions. And that She would write a check for a grand and ask them to go forth and have a blast.
But what really happens? They are slapped anything up to $100 of scarce money as license fees!!!
Governments all over and all along would like to tax any thing and everything they see. Ben Frank or someone equally bright said that nothing is certain in this world except death and taxes.
Why, our own Mughal Emperor taxed long hair on the crowns of infidels and called it by the fancy name of zizia.
And the more sagacious Brits taxed the salt of our seas; and came a cropper when Gandhijee marched to Dandi with his army on their dandas.
When I was a kid of 8, I was once visiting my Literary Uncle's place in Nellore. He was then working as a youthful clerk in the Post Office, a job that I always craved. In those days, there were no scooters or motor bikes. When a Royal Enfield Bullet of a Madrasi dandy passes by, everyone in the town would stop whatever they were doing and gape.
After saving for over a year, my Uncle bought a second hand push bike and was riding it to his Office that day as I watched him mount his bike with gaping admiration and envy.
Within minutes he rushed home and frantically concealed his bike in the backyard and tried to pretend he never saw a bike in his life.
I gathered later that the Nellore Municipality issued licenses to be renewed annually to all the roadworthy push bikes in the town and that day there was this spot check by the police who stopped every bike plying on its arterial Grand Trunk Road and heaved the defaulting bikes on to a truck. The license used to come in the shape of a metallic token with a numeric ID fitted to the frame behind the seat.
Can you beat it?
The practice stopped when the Rayleigh Company became a Sen-Rayleigh affair and produced so many bikes at an affordable price that it became impractical, impossible and unprofitable to go about issuing licenses, renewing and checking them. In their heart of hearts they would be happy if all their honest citizens (unlike my Uncle) came every year on their own to the Municipal Office, queued up for hours and put their cash in a piggy box which could be opened by the charwoman every evening and handed over to her Lord without pocketing a penny or two. But human nature being what it is, they scrapped the whole business. My Uncle must still be having that memento of a metal disk in his vault...he is a fond collector of odds and ends.
When I joined IIT KGP and bought my own third hand push bike and was riding nonchalantly to the Gole Bazaar, I was stopped by a cop and ordered to 'fall out'. I was surprised since I was told there is no licensing of push bikes in Bengal.
But I was told by the cop that a brand new rule has been introduced that week that every push bike should be equipped with a 'head light'. I asked him how. He said there were many options...attach a dynamo kit to the rear wheel and a torch light bulb to the handle bar, or, have a kerosene kit available in Gole Bazaar. He didn't say it but he would have unwillingly let me go if I could equip my forehead with Sir Humphry Davy's Miner's Lamp.
He let me go with a warning. I bought one kit from Gole Bazaar and attached it to my bike. Needless to say, it got stolen the third day and I stopped going to Gole Bazaar till they blew 'all clear' after finding it impossible, impractical and unprofitable.
Then I saved some pennies and bought a first hand Murphy Radio in Gole Bazaar. They gave me what I thought delightfully was a pass book along with it. I was told it is the Radio License Book. Apparently I had to go to the Post Office by the Railway Station every January, stand in a queue and pay the license fees and get it stamped in the pass book.
I never went since the radio never worked...it just about creaked. But I was told that the defaulters will be 'checked' at their residence and penalized heavily and the radio set confiscated, unless I get a certificate from them that the kit had stopped working irreparably and 'condemned' officially.
However, nothing drastic happened because by then the market was flooded with 'transistor' pocket kits....
And then they latched on to B-W TVs...
As I said, every Government worth its salt would tax you till it becomes impractical, impossible and unprofitable.
Marriage???
=========================================================================
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Footloose
==========================================================================
Imelda Marcos, wife of President Ferdinand Marcos of Philippines, was often in the celebrity columns of our youth. Known as the Steel Butterfly, she declined to buy the Empire State Building saying that at 750 million dollars it was overrated and not worth it. She did buy the Crown Building, the Woolworth Building and the Harold Center though (they must have been ok at about 300 million dollars).
But she is famous most for her signature collection of 2,700 pairs of shoes...wow!
didi!!!
As I said earlier, none of us boys and girls at our Village School in the 1950s ever had any footwear.
Not that all of us were as poor as church mice. We had our Reddy landlords at either end of the high street, and between them they owned the bulk of the Village farms, very fertile. They didn't farm them with the sweat of their brows though. They had a couple of chauffeur-driven Fords and Chevrolets in their stables alright.
But their kids were footloose like us...born free, living free and forever free like Joy Adamson's lion cubs.
The concept of students shackling their tender feet was just not there. Our teachers did wear ancient chappals to the School Assembly as part of my HM Fathers' dress code, but were happy to leave them in their common room.
My father bought his chappals from the gray market of Nellore; and they were forever keeping him busy with his hobby of nailing. He had this 'nails-box' of which he was proud, and that deal-wood thing had his signature collection of 'chappal-nails', two hammers (the parent one for nailing his walls and the baby for nailing his chappals) and tweezers to pluck the bent nails. I have a suspicion he used to straighten them with another tool in his kit.
There were no cobblers in our street.
My mother, like any other middle class brahmin housewife, didn't stir out of our home much till all her seven kids grew up and she lost her youth thereby. Then on she wished to visit temples and ashrams and I guess she inherited the 'ex-chappals' of her college-going daughters. She is now 89 and her wealthy daughters gift her Imelda-style footwear, but she is happy with her didi-style rubber ones.
In fact the arrival in the Indian market of Hawai Slippers in the 1960s revolutionized our foot-habits. They were dead cheap (like our cell phones) and even village belles took to them like their cell-phones now. They were not regarded as 'bathroom' wear...who needs footwear to the bathrooms anyway?
When in the 1980s KGPian students started wearing their Hawai Slippers to their Exam Halls, there was an uproar and a dress code was invented by the authorities. And us invigilators were supposed to inspect their feet (instead of their roving eyes) and warn the miscreants.
This shows how fashions change...what was high class in the 60s became taboo in the 80s...sigh!
All I have against the ever-convenient Hawai Slippers of our University Years was that their straps tended to ease out of their holes while we were running desperately to catch the city bus to the Exam Hall. And the only thing you are supposed to do is remove and push them into your book-bag if you are lazy enough to carry one for a last minute 'preparation'. And, once seated in the bus, you try and push the dangling strap back into its hole and be careful. Ladies had the advantage that they carry safety pins with them in their money purses and so can use them to 'fasten' their temperamental slippers.
Like in any culture, you can't cultivate this footwear habit if you are not born to it (Ishani has a collection of half a dozen shoes with Son et Lumiere effects).
So, I am so happy and comfortable nowadays in Hyderabad. After exhausting all options, from Chinese, Batas, and other fancy brands, I have settled down to what are called Diabetic Chappals...not that either me or them have sugar complaint. Just that they are soft on the skin, wear out uniformly, and their straps don't come out of their holes.
Sweet and Sugary. They do cost a bit and at times I feel like Imelda pampering her feet, but what is a son for, if he doesn't care to pamper his Papa's Holy Feet?
=========================================================================
Imelda Marcos, wife of President Ferdinand Marcos of Philippines, was often in the celebrity columns of our youth. Known as the Steel Butterfly, she declined to buy the Empire State Building saying that at 750 million dollars it was overrated and not worth it. She did buy the Crown Building, the Woolworth Building and the Harold Center though (they must have been ok at about 300 million dollars).
But she is famous most for her signature collection of 2,700 pairs of shoes...wow!
didi!!!
As I said earlier, none of us boys and girls at our Village School in the 1950s ever had any footwear.
Not that all of us were as poor as church mice. We had our Reddy landlords at either end of the high street, and between them they owned the bulk of the Village farms, very fertile. They didn't farm them with the sweat of their brows though. They had a couple of chauffeur-driven Fords and Chevrolets in their stables alright.
But their kids were footloose like us...born free, living free and forever free like Joy Adamson's lion cubs.
The concept of students shackling their tender feet was just not there. Our teachers did wear ancient chappals to the School Assembly as part of my HM Fathers' dress code, but were happy to leave them in their common room.
My father bought his chappals from the gray market of Nellore; and they were forever keeping him busy with his hobby of nailing. He had this 'nails-box' of which he was proud, and that deal-wood thing had his signature collection of 'chappal-nails', two hammers (the parent one for nailing his walls and the baby for nailing his chappals) and tweezers to pluck the bent nails. I have a suspicion he used to straighten them with another tool in his kit.
There were no cobblers in our street.
My mother, like any other middle class brahmin housewife, didn't stir out of our home much till all her seven kids grew up and she lost her youth thereby. Then on she wished to visit temples and ashrams and I guess she inherited the 'ex-chappals' of her college-going daughters. She is now 89 and her wealthy daughters gift her Imelda-style footwear, but she is happy with her didi-style rubber ones.
In fact the arrival in the Indian market of Hawai Slippers in the 1960s revolutionized our foot-habits. They were dead cheap (like our cell phones) and even village belles took to them like their cell-phones now. They were not regarded as 'bathroom' wear...who needs footwear to the bathrooms anyway?
When in the 1980s KGPian students started wearing their Hawai Slippers to their Exam Halls, there was an uproar and a dress code was invented by the authorities. And us invigilators were supposed to inspect their feet (instead of their roving eyes) and warn the miscreants.
This shows how fashions change...what was high class in the 60s became taboo in the 80s...sigh!
All I have against the ever-convenient Hawai Slippers of our University Years was that their straps tended to ease out of their holes while we were running desperately to catch the city bus to the Exam Hall. And the only thing you are supposed to do is remove and push them into your book-bag if you are lazy enough to carry one for a last minute 'preparation'. And, once seated in the bus, you try and push the dangling strap back into its hole and be careful. Ladies had the advantage that they carry safety pins with them in their money purses and so can use them to 'fasten' their temperamental slippers.
Like in any culture, you can't cultivate this footwear habit if you are not born to it (Ishani has a collection of half a dozen shoes with Son et Lumiere effects).
So, I am so happy and comfortable nowadays in Hyderabad. After exhausting all options, from Chinese, Batas, and other fancy brands, I have settled down to what are called Diabetic Chappals...not that either me or them have sugar complaint. Just that they are soft on the skin, wear out uniformly, and their straps don't come out of their holes.
Sweet and Sugary. They do cost a bit and at times I feel like Imelda pampering her feet, but what is a son for, if he doesn't care to pamper his Papa's Holy Feet?
=========================================================================
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Drill Class - 3
=========================================================================
And now Thurber in University Days:
*************************************************************************************************************
"...As a soldier I was never any good at all. Most of the cadets were glumly indifferent soldiers, but I was no good at all. Once General Littlefield, who was commandant of the cadet corps, propped up in front of me during regimental drill and snapped, 'You are the main trouble with this university!' I think he meant my type was the main trouble with the university but he may have meant me individually. I was mediocre at drill, certainly--that is until my senior year. By that time I had drilled longer than anybody else in the Western Conference, having failed at military at the end of each preceding year so that I had to do it all over again. I was the only senior still in uniform. The uniform which, when new, had made me look like an interurban railway conductor, now that it had become faded and too tight, made me look like Bert Williams in his bellboy act. This had a definitely bad effect on my morale. Even so, I had become by sheer practice little short of wonderful at squad manoeuvres.
One day General Littlefield picked our company out of the whole regiment and tried to get it mixed up by putting it through one movement after another as fast as we could execute them, squads right, squads left, squads on right into line, squads right about, squads left front into line etc. In about three minutes one hundred and nine men were marching in one direction and I was marching away from them at an angle of forty degrees, all alone. 'Company, halt!' shouted General Littlefield, 'That man is the only man who has it right!' I was made a corporal for my achievement.
The next day General Littlefield summoned me to his office. He was swatting flies when I went in. I was silent and he was silent too, for a long time. I don't think he remembered me or why he sent for me, but he didn't want to admit it. He swatted some more flies, keeping his eyes on them narrowly before he let go with the swatter. 'Button up your coat!' he snapped. Looking back on it now I can see that he meant me although he was looking at the fly, but I just stood there. Another fly came to rest on a paper in front of the general and began rubbing its hind legs together. The general lifted the swatter cautiously. I moved restlessly and the fly flew away. 'You startled him!' barked General Littelfield, looking at me severely. I said I was sorry. 'That won't help the situation!' snapped the General, with cold military logic. I didn't see what I could do except offer to chase some more flies toward his desk, but I didn't say anything. He stared out the window at the faraway figures of co-eds crossing the campus toward the library. Finally, he told me I could go. So, I went. He either didn't know which cadet I was or else he forgot what he wanted me to see about. It may have been that he wished to apologize for having called me the main trouble with the university, or maybe he had decided to compliment me on my brilliant drilling of the day before and then at the last minute decide not to. I don't know. I don't think about it much anymore."
==========================================================================
And now Thurber in University Days:
*************************************************************************************************************
"...As a soldier I was never any good at all. Most of the cadets were glumly indifferent soldiers, but I was no good at all. Once General Littlefield, who was commandant of the cadet corps, propped up in front of me during regimental drill and snapped, 'You are the main trouble with this university!' I think he meant my type was the main trouble with the university but he may have meant me individually. I was mediocre at drill, certainly--that is until my senior year. By that time I had drilled longer than anybody else in the Western Conference, having failed at military at the end of each preceding year so that I had to do it all over again. I was the only senior still in uniform. The uniform which, when new, had made me look like an interurban railway conductor, now that it had become faded and too tight, made me look like Bert Williams in his bellboy act. This had a definitely bad effect on my morale. Even so, I had become by sheer practice little short of wonderful at squad manoeuvres.
One day General Littlefield picked our company out of the whole regiment and tried to get it mixed up by putting it through one movement after another as fast as we could execute them, squads right, squads left, squads on right into line, squads right about, squads left front into line etc. In about three minutes one hundred and nine men were marching in one direction and I was marching away from them at an angle of forty degrees, all alone. 'Company, halt!' shouted General Littlefield, 'That man is the only man who has it right!' I was made a corporal for my achievement.
The next day General Littlefield summoned me to his office. He was swatting flies when I went in. I was silent and he was silent too, for a long time. I don't think he remembered me or why he sent for me, but he didn't want to admit it. He swatted some more flies, keeping his eyes on them narrowly before he let go with the swatter. 'Button up your coat!' he snapped. Looking back on it now I can see that he meant me although he was looking at the fly, but I just stood there. Another fly came to rest on a paper in front of the general and began rubbing its hind legs together. The general lifted the swatter cautiously. I moved restlessly and the fly flew away. 'You startled him!' barked General Littelfield, looking at me severely. I said I was sorry. 'That won't help the situation!' snapped the General, with cold military logic. I didn't see what I could do except offer to chase some more flies toward his desk, but I didn't say anything. He stared out the window at the faraway figures of co-eds crossing the campus toward the library. Finally, he told me I could go. So, I went. He either didn't know which cadet I was or else he forgot what he wanted me to see about. It may have been that he wished to apologize for having called me the main trouble with the university, or maybe he had decided to compliment me on my brilliant drilling of the day before and then at the last minute decide not to. I don't know. I don't think about it much anymore."
==========================================================================
Drill Class - 2
===========================================================================
My aversion to Drill is shared by at least two of my favorite authors.
RKN in My Days:
********************************************************************************************************
"...At school, a repetition of my previous performance. Old Venkata demanded to know where I had gone, and I told him I had had fever. The additional worry this time was that I was asked to conduct drill for some class at the end of the day. I protested. The headmaster said, 'Every member of the staff is expected to handle drill classes once a week by turn.'
'I don't know any drill--never attended any class even as a school boy.'
'Keep them engaged for an hour. Don't let them off. We are trying to teach them also Surya Namaskar.'
'I know nothing about it.'
'We will help you to learn it by and by. Today keep them engaged. Take the roll-call and make note of the absentees.'
And so I found myself in the drill field surveying an array of fifty boys standing in two rows under the evening sun. The sun hit us from the west. Many others, including teachers, stood around to watch my performance. I inspected the boys closely, like a commander reviewing an army cried, 'Right, left, right, left,' marched them, made them perform high jumps, long jumps, swing their arms, kick their legs in the air. I engaged them as long as I could, still no bell rang to indicate the end of the hour. I cried, 'Stand at ease!' and then, 'Dismissed!' and the whole crowd vanished in a second.
...(Next day) I got ready for the school. The man left for his bank. I suddenly felt it would be impossible to spend another day at school or in this house. I knew the bus would be coming in half an hour under the tree. Got a coolie to carry my box and roll of bedding, banged the street door until she came up behind it, mentioned to her that I was leaving for Mysore, and caught the bus for Mysore again."
***************************************************************************************************************
gps: I guess we should thank the HM...
==========================================================================
My aversion to Drill is shared by at least two of my favorite authors.
RKN in My Days:
********************************************************************************************************
"...At school, a repetition of my previous performance. Old Venkata demanded to know where I had gone, and I told him I had had fever. The additional worry this time was that I was asked to conduct drill for some class at the end of the day. I protested. The headmaster said, 'Every member of the staff is expected to handle drill classes once a week by turn.'
'I don't know any drill--never attended any class even as a school boy.'
'Keep them engaged for an hour. Don't let them off. We are trying to teach them also Surya Namaskar.'
'I know nothing about it.'
'We will help you to learn it by and by. Today keep them engaged. Take the roll-call and make note of the absentees.'
And so I found myself in the drill field surveying an array of fifty boys standing in two rows under the evening sun. The sun hit us from the west. Many others, including teachers, stood around to watch my performance. I inspected the boys closely, like a commander reviewing an army cried, 'Right, left, right, left,' marched them, made them perform high jumps, long jumps, swing their arms, kick their legs in the air. I engaged them as long as I could, still no bell rang to indicate the end of the hour. I cried, 'Stand at ease!' and then, 'Dismissed!' and the whole crowd vanished in a second.
...(Next day) I got ready for the school. The man left for his bank. I suddenly felt it would be impossible to spend another day at school or in this house. I knew the bus would be coming in half an hour under the tree. Got a coolie to carry my box and roll of bedding, banged the street door until she came up behind it, mentioned to her that I was leaving for Mysore, and caught the bus for Mysore again."
***************************************************************************************************************
gps: I guess we should thank the HM...
==========================================================================
Drill Class - 1
==========================================================================
Every red-blooded student who has a semblance of individuality hates the Drill Class.
Sorry if I hurt anyone with this sweeping generalization but I won't retract it.
This afternoon I took out my car from its parking lot intending to drive to our Township's Supermarket for replenishing my stock of cool drinks.
And then I saw the Officer of our Security Staff bellowing commands on a 3-line array of his subordinates whom he collected for a Drill Class...and my blood rose and I was feeling sorry for the poor blokes.
I could have taken the left and avoided them, but by an impish impulse, I took the right turn, approached the Class and honked. and felt happy for them when the Officer shouted a command at them to give way and possibly disperse...his spell was broken and I felt I did my duty.
In our Village School we had a Drill Teacher called Jessey sir (I guess it was a common name for all Drill Teachers in all schools at our time).
Jessey sir was as reluctant to drill us as we were to be drilled. So, he gave out Games after Roll Call; and I believe got rebuked by my HM Father.
Anyway we became so expert at Games under his benign supervision that we were selected for the Finals of the Annual Griggs Memorial Tournaments.
And I was the Center of our Ball Badminton Squad.
Jessey Sir collected the 'cash' from the HM and we all (about 25 of us) were led by him to our District HQ, Nellore on a bus. Jessey sir parked us all in the student's hostel, whispered something in the ears of our SPL (School Pupils Leader) and vanished.
We never saw him again for three days...SPL and us managed somehow with the pittance of 'cash' that Jessey Sir pushed into the pocket of SPL.
By the way we lost narrowly to the Town's RSR Badminton Squad (I suspect the linesmen, who were from Nellore, cheated us).
We made our ignominious way back to our Muthukur sans Jessey Sir, who was discovered in a stoned condition in one of the hovels of Nellore and fetched back...I think his 'case' wasn't settled till my father's retirement.
My next encounter with the Drill Class was in the Final Year of our M Sc at AU in 1963. The Chinese 'invaded' our country and gave us a bloody nose which rankles still and frightens our Leaders whenever the Dragon wags his tail (Do dragons have wagable tails? I have to check).
The upshot of this one-sided affair was that all students at AU were forced to enroll for NCC with the sweetener of a 5% grace marks in the Final Exams. So there was this mass upsurge in the NCC Classes whose Teachers were unprepared for anything more than giving Drill Classes by the thousand.
But we were in our Final Year and the Teachers were our Juniors who had enrolled voluntarily in their First Year and rose to become Colonels or stuff. And they depended heavily on our Text Books, Lecture Notes and Lab Manuals in their Final Year.
So, we all pleaded sick by turns and were left out to mug up and prepare for our Exams...I don't think I was 'drilled' for more than 5 minutes in my life.
****************************************************************************************************************
Fortunately I am not alone in my aversion to Drill.
I don't know if you have read PGW's Performing Flea. It is not a widely read book. It is semi-autobiographical. Almost half of it is 'instructions' on 'how to write' to a friend of his. The rest of it is a hilarious account of his imprisonment by the Germans in a Camp for English senior citizens caught napping in France during the Second World War.
PGW apparently had a not-so-bad time and was asked to broadcast about the nice time they gave him for propaganda purposes by Goebbels. PGW, not knowing what nefarious things were going on outside their Camp agreed to deliver three or four talks on radio and got into serious trouble in England and had to shift base to the US.
Anyway the only unpleasant task that the Germans imposed on their senior citizen prisoners was to attend Drill Classes morning and evening, more for the Roll Call to see if everyone was in and ok.
At the end of it all, PGW writes in his Performing Flea, the only wish he had in his retired life was to buy a German Soldier, put him up in his house, drag him every morning and evening to his garden and bark at him...Left, Right, Left, Right, About Turn, March, Double Up...Achtung!!!
=========================================================================
Every red-blooded student who has a semblance of individuality hates the Drill Class.
Sorry if I hurt anyone with this sweeping generalization but I won't retract it.
This afternoon I took out my car from its parking lot intending to drive to our Township's Supermarket for replenishing my stock of cool drinks.
And then I saw the Officer of our Security Staff bellowing commands on a 3-line array of his subordinates whom he collected for a Drill Class...and my blood rose and I was feeling sorry for the poor blokes.
I could have taken the left and avoided them, but by an impish impulse, I took the right turn, approached the Class and honked. and felt happy for them when the Officer shouted a command at them to give way and possibly disperse...his spell was broken and I felt I did my duty.
In our Village School we had a Drill Teacher called Jessey sir (I guess it was a common name for all Drill Teachers in all schools at our time).
Jessey sir was as reluctant to drill us as we were to be drilled. So, he gave out Games after Roll Call; and I believe got rebuked by my HM Father.
Anyway we became so expert at Games under his benign supervision that we were selected for the Finals of the Annual Griggs Memorial Tournaments.
And I was the Center of our Ball Badminton Squad.
Jessey Sir collected the 'cash' from the HM and we all (about 25 of us) were led by him to our District HQ, Nellore on a bus. Jessey sir parked us all in the student's hostel, whispered something in the ears of our SPL (School Pupils Leader) and vanished.
We never saw him again for three days...SPL and us managed somehow with the pittance of 'cash' that Jessey Sir pushed into the pocket of SPL.
By the way we lost narrowly to the Town's RSR Badminton Squad (I suspect the linesmen, who were from Nellore, cheated us).
We made our ignominious way back to our Muthukur sans Jessey Sir, who was discovered in a stoned condition in one of the hovels of Nellore and fetched back...I think his 'case' wasn't settled till my father's retirement.
My next encounter with the Drill Class was in the Final Year of our M Sc at AU in 1963. The Chinese 'invaded' our country and gave us a bloody nose which rankles still and frightens our Leaders whenever the Dragon wags his tail (Do dragons have wagable tails? I have to check).
The upshot of this one-sided affair was that all students at AU were forced to enroll for NCC with the sweetener of a 5% grace marks in the Final Exams. So there was this mass upsurge in the NCC Classes whose Teachers were unprepared for anything more than giving Drill Classes by the thousand.
But we were in our Final Year and the Teachers were our Juniors who had enrolled voluntarily in their First Year and rose to become Colonels or stuff. And they depended heavily on our Text Books, Lecture Notes and Lab Manuals in their Final Year.
So, we all pleaded sick by turns and were left out to mug up and prepare for our Exams...I don't think I was 'drilled' for more than 5 minutes in my life.
****************************************************************************************************************
Fortunately I am not alone in my aversion to Drill.
I don't know if you have read PGW's Performing Flea. It is not a widely read book. It is semi-autobiographical. Almost half of it is 'instructions' on 'how to write' to a friend of his. The rest of it is a hilarious account of his imprisonment by the Germans in a Camp for English senior citizens caught napping in France during the Second World War.
PGW apparently had a not-so-bad time and was asked to broadcast about the nice time they gave him for propaganda purposes by Goebbels. PGW, not knowing what nefarious things were going on outside their Camp agreed to deliver three or four talks on radio and got into serious trouble in England and had to shift base to the US.
Anyway the only unpleasant task that the Germans imposed on their senior citizen prisoners was to attend Drill Classes morning and evening, more for the Roll Call to see if everyone was in and ok.
At the end of it all, PGW writes in his Performing Flea, the only wish he had in his retired life was to buy a German Soldier, put him up in his house, drag him every morning and evening to his garden and bark at him...Left, Right, Left, Right, About Turn, March, Double Up...Achtung!!!
=========================================================================
Monday, July 18, 2011
Pseudo-nostalgia
=========================================================================
The first time I read 'pseudo' and elicited a rare boisterous laugh from my HM Father was when I read 'pseudonym' aloud...I pronounced the 'p' emphatically...unlike Peasmith of PGW.
The next was when MSS taught me all about pseudo-forces in mechanics at IIT KGP.
The pseudo that looked very original was when two unknown kids from IIT KGP Phy Dept wrote:
"Your article has once again stirred up that wishful pseudo-nostalgia in us!"
The article mentioned was my SDM Homage that was about to appear in Ansatz, their (extinct) webzine, as they called it.
Later on it was explained to me that real nostalgia is fond memories of an experienced past; while pseudo-nostalgia is fonder memories of a vicarious past, viz. a past others experienced and told you tall tales about.
That brings me to the genesis of this blog that has grown from an aquarium fish into a Loch Ness Monster.
The initial reaction to the SDM Homage from KGPhians (such as the pesudo-nostalgia it evoked) was so heart-warming that I wished to post a few sdmsnippets (now deleted it appears) on the web. And my son created this blogspot for me.
The usually sedate Sachin once was so taken by his latest century that he flamboyantly 'dedicated' it to Tiger Conservation.
My blogspot gul dashboard tells me that this is the 700th post.
Let me follow Sachin's example and dedicate these 7 centuries to the Conservation of KGPhians.
If at all there is a targeted audience for these tall tales it is the KGP Phy brood. Indeed a CSE lady reader complained to me of this 'focus'.
There was a time when KGP (Integrated) Physics was about to become extinct...there were not even the required minimum number of 4 JEE students opting for Physics...it was the local talent that saved and sustained it.
I do hope that such a crisis will never erupt in future.
Here is to KGPhians and their pseudo-nostalgia!
For, when everything is said and forgot, Physics remains one of the good things of life.
========================================================================
The first time I read 'pseudo' and elicited a rare boisterous laugh from my HM Father was when I read 'pseudonym' aloud...I pronounced the 'p' emphatically...unlike Peasmith of PGW.
The next was when MSS taught me all about pseudo-forces in mechanics at IIT KGP.
The pseudo that looked very original was when two unknown kids from IIT KGP Phy Dept wrote:
"Your article has once again stirred up that wishful pseudo-nostalgia in us!"
The article mentioned was my SDM Homage that was about to appear in Ansatz, their (extinct) webzine, as they called it.
Later on it was explained to me that real nostalgia is fond memories of an experienced past; while pseudo-nostalgia is fonder memories of a vicarious past, viz. a past others experienced and told you tall tales about.
That brings me to the genesis of this blog that has grown from an aquarium fish into a Loch Ness Monster.
The initial reaction to the SDM Homage from KGPhians (such as the pesudo-nostalgia it evoked) was so heart-warming that I wished to post a few sdmsnippets (now deleted it appears) on the web. And my son created this blogspot for me.
The usually sedate Sachin once was so taken by his latest century that he flamboyantly 'dedicated' it to Tiger Conservation.
My blogspot gul dashboard tells me that this is the 700th post.
Let me follow Sachin's example and dedicate these 7 centuries to the Conservation of KGPhians.
If at all there is a targeted audience for these tall tales it is the KGP Phy brood. Indeed a CSE lady reader complained to me of this 'focus'.
There was a time when KGP (Integrated) Physics was about to become extinct...there were not even the required minimum number of 4 JEE students opting for Physics...it was the local talent that saved and sustained it.
I do hope that such a crisis will never erupt in future.
Here is to KGPhians and their pseudo-nostalgia!
For, when everything is said and forgot, Physics remains one of the good things of life.
========================================================================
Fact Files
====================================================================
When all of a sudden the number of IITs were doubled and the intake in each increased fivefold or so, there was hue and cry. I recall I posted a blog about it.
Now listen to today's news:
The intake of Engineering Colleges in AP has been enhanced by 42,000. This takes the total intake in AP alone to about 3 lakhs in its 714 Engineering Colleges. But there are only about 2 lakh aspirants. They have to merely appear in an Entrance Exam, just to get their inter se merit rating. The absolute marks they get could be zero or even negative.
DC: "As per a recent Nasscom survey, only about 10% of students graduating out of engineering colleges in the state are employable".
gps: It doesn't mention what the others do with their degree...your guess is as good as mine.
***************************************************************************************************************
DC: After the 9/11 attacks, there have been no terror attacks in America because of its policing apparatus, but Mumbai continues to face terror strikes time and again...
Julius Ribeiro: You cannot compare the situation of Mumbai with that of the United States. We live in a very dangerous part of the world whereas the US is far away from the hub of the Islamic world.....
gps: As Thurber's Mathews put it neatly: "The setup is different"
**********************************************************************************************************
DC: At best, former Scotland Yard senior officers acknowledged in interviews, the police have been lazy, incompetent and too cozy with the people they should have regarded as suspects. At worst, they said, some officers might be guilty of crimes themselves...The scandal has embroiled Britain's police, who are accused of being too close to News Corp, of accepting cash from the now defunct News of the World tabloid that was at the heart of the scandal, and from other newspapers, and of not doing enough to investigate phone-hacking allegations that surfaced as far back as 2005.
gps: Deja vu from Robert Clive and Warren Hastings...it is tough to say whether they corrupted India or vice versa...I guess for over two centuries India and England lived in a cozy symbiotic relationship...each learning from each. I am told that Napoleon scornfully remarked that Britain is a nation of shopkeepers...I think India should protest vehemently.
****************************************************************************************************************
Ishani is here...Joy in the Morning!
=====================================================================
When all of a sudden the number of IITs were doubled and the intake in each increased fivefold or so, there was hue and cry. I recall I posted a blog about it.
Now listen to today's news:
The intake of Engineering Colleges in AP has been enhanced by 42,000. This takes the total intake in AP alone to about 3 lakhs in its 714 Engineering Colleges. But there are only about 2 lakh aspirants. They have to merely appear in an Entrance Exam, just to get their inter se merit rating. The absolute marks they get could be zero or even negative.
DC: "As per a recent Nasscom survey, only about 10% of students graduating out of engineering colleges in the state are employable".
gps: It doesn't mention what the others do with their degree...your guess is as good as mine.
***************************************************************************************************************
DC: After the 9/11 attacks, there have been no terror attacks in America because of its policing apparatus, but Mumbai continues to face terror strikes time and again...
Julius Ribeiro: You cannot compare the situation of Mumbai with that of the United States. We live in a very dangerous part of the world whereas the US is far away from the hub of the Islamic world.....
gps: As Thurber's Mathews put it neatly: "The setup is different"
**********************************************************************************************************
DC: At best, former Scotland Yard senior officers acknowledged in interviews, the police have been lazy, incompetent and too cozy with the people they should have regarded as suspects. At worst, they said, some officers might be guilty of crimes themselves...The scandal has embroiled Britain's police, who are accused of being too close to News Corp, of accepting cash from the now defunct News of the World tabloid that was at the heart of the scandal, and from other newspapers, and of not doing enough to investigate phone-hacking allegations that surfaced as far back as 2005.
gps: Deja vu from Robert Clive and Warren Hastings...it is tough to say whether they corrupted India or vice versa...I guess for over two centuries India and England lived in a cozy symbiotic relationship...each learning from each. I am told that Napoleon scornfully remarked that Britain is a nation of shopkeepers...I think India should protest vehemently.
****************************************************************************************************************
Ishani is here...Joy in the Morning!
=====================================================================
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