Woodpeckers - 1

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

Over half a century I had interacted with four carpenters, each quite different from the other.

A few years after I joined KGP, my friend got married and was setting up 'home'. That meant a sofa set, a dining set and a double bed pronto. Inquiries revealed that the best carpenter in Gole Bazaar was Jaswant Singh presiding over his Cabinet Mart.

We pedaled to Gole Bazaar and entered the Holy Presence. For, he was unlike the run-of-the-mill jovial Sardarjee. He was fiftyish, sullen, gruff and looked at us like a Government Official disturbed in his chai pani by intruders.

When we announced that we were from IIT, he grimaced as if we were too poor to afford his seasoned teak handcarved beauties. He then beckoned one of his assistants to show us around his huge stock of teak planks all left on umpteen attics for seasoning over years. But that is all...there were no exhibits. You order and then he will make them and supply. You just trust him.

And the prices he quoted were double the next nearest. And you would be too scared to haggle. And he would levy the 6% Sales Tax and insist on giving receipts. You have to pay and take them.

But when the furniture arrived, one after the other, over a month or more, you would cuddle them as lovingly as if they were your babies...the finish, the curves, the Decolam tops, the whole thing would be dreamy.

And they have lasted half a century just as they were when they were bought and you are sure they will last another. A totally exhilarating experience.

And we were told that knowing folks would ship them to the US and sell them at fifty times their cost...handmade furniture is expensive there.

Jaswant Singh's eldest son was our Physics student about whom I wrote in:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2011/09/lincolns-precept.html

His younger sons acquired his business and kept it up...I bought a king-size single cot for my son from JS Junior and it is as good as new here in Hyderabad.

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

Then there was this Ratneswar Das, an IIT Employee in the Carpentry Section. The good thing about him was that he was approachable and didn't scowl at you. That is about all.

In our Qrs C1- 97, there was this back door exit to the garden. I was unlucky that whoever made that door was a misanthrope and was in a hurry. It must have been made of raw mango wood and left there to the elements. Sun, rain and cold had such ticklish nonlinear warping on it that if the door closes in winter, it won't in summer. And in rains, it closes at the top but leaves a gaping slit at the bottom.

RD would come in, inspect it, and ask us to choose once for all whether we want the bottom open or the top. The choice is delicate and personal...if it is open at the bottom, snakes would be your visiting professors; and if you close it at the bottom, the top would be inviting bats to fly in.

We chose the bats.

This reminds me of the sorry tale of my close Bengali friend who narrated to me his howling 'first night' experience. He came from North Calcutta...maybe the Five Point Crossing (not Someone ;-)). He owned a chateau from generations down and he was most attached to it. But his bride hailed from the posh and mod New Alipore in South Cal.

And his mom insisted that their suhag raat be held in their ancestral home, like hers and her predecessors...

And when the pourparlers were through, more or less, he heard a scream and a faint from his best half. When she came to by and by, she jumped up and asked him:

"What are they...those black things hanging upside down from the wooden ceiling?"

And when he said they were just harmless house-bats and tried explaining how they use ultrasonar principle to navigate blindly over ceiling fans, cots and bridal couples, she fainted again...

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

To be continued tomorrow...

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

Tailpiece

Full Page Advertisement in DC by the Shipping Corporation of India (Golden Jubilee):

Valedictory Ceremony

of the Golden Jubilee Celebration

& Release of the Coffee Table Book

by Dr Manmohan Singh

Prime Minister of India

gps: Didn't know that our beloved PM is writing Coffee Table Books!

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

ATM &c

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

I first came to know of the existence of a device called ATM through an internet joke that was doing the rounds in around 1998.

I just got my Office PC and an e-mail id which spread somewhat in a dendritic growth among my ex-students in the US. And I got regular e-joke forwards then on.

It was an MCP joke that went something like this:

Man: Parks his car in front of the ATM, walks jauntily into the joint, pushes his ATM Card in and out, punches a few buttons, draws the cash, slams the door shut, and drives away whistling.

....Now you can let your imagination run riot, like:

Woman: Parks her car. Opens her hand bag to get her ATM Card. Finds a mirror. Lipsticks. Shuts the car door. Tries to open the door of the joint. Succeeds after two attempts. Pushes the Card in. Forgets to take it out. Fumbles. Enters the wrong PIN and is cursed by the Machine. Opens her handbag for the PIN noting. Finds the mirror and the powder puff. Punches buttons. Cash comes out. Lost in thought. Cash goes back. Pushes the Card in and out. Finally grabs the cash. Enters her parked car in sweat. Starts the car and chugs along for 100 meters. Stops the car. Releases the parking brake....

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

Right away, you see the acronym above:

MCP: KGPians were then familiar with the degree Master of City Planning. But of course I meant the Male Chauvinistic Pig.

Along with MCP we also had MTP for Master of Town Planning and not Medical Termination of Pregnancy.

And MRP for Master of Regional Planning and not Maximum Retail Price.

And you see above PIN for Personal Identification Number and not my Postal Index Number 500 049.

I looked up the expansion for ATM in the internet (there was no Google then) and found it stands for Automated Teller Machine. And could only guess how it looked like...we had no ATMs at KGP then.

By the time I stepped into Hyderabad streets my son was already a one-year-old veteran here and he took me to the first ATM I saw in SR Nagar. And with a few flashy punches drew crisp hundred rupee notes and slipped them into my pocket, while I was gazing bewildered (I took six months to master the demons, somewhat).

I then quizzed my son what ATM stands for.

"Simple: Any Time Money"

I liked the new and crisp expansion.

This morning I had to draw cash urgently to pay our Carpenter (see tomorrow's blog). My son drove me along the Hyderabad boulevards and we found that all shops are closed. And we recalled that today is one of those frequent Hyderabad Bandhs (courtesy WB). Half a dozen ATMs were closed too, surprisingly.

However, to our delight, one ATM Counter was open, it looked. We walked in and found that the establishment also housed an Apollo 24/7 Medical Shop. And we asked if the ATM is on. And he asked for our ATM Card and smiled and said that he meant the green one. And we learned that his ATM sign meant:

"Any Time Medicine"

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

The point I am belaboring is that the 26 or so English alphabet are hopelessly inadequate for acronyming purposes. And so the plethora of bewildering expansions.

How rich are our Indian Sanskrit-based languages!

We have about 53 single letters; and if we include single letter conjuncts, the number would be in hundreds.

Like my erstwhile girl friend in Class VI named:

"Lakshmiprasanna" (15 characters or so).

In Telugu she would just be 5 characters (what characters!)

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

In my school we had enormous trouble mugging up expansions of the various UN Organs that were then nascent and went haywire in enthu.

We could just get UNESCO ok.

But we were bowled by: UNMOGIP (I had to Google for it just now).

On a lighter note, PM was Prime Minister and HM was Home Minister.

But in my home HM was my Head Master father and PM meant our Maid Servant in our lingo (Pani Manishi).

Of course PC there meant Personal Computer and not our troubled present HM of GoI, who was FM (not the radio) when the trouble brewed.

And you would have noted WB above.

Before I landed (luckily) in Bengal, WB always meant World Bank in our SS.

SS meant of course Social Studies but in our History lessons it meant the Nazi stormtroopers.

Damn!

That of course, the online Free Dictionary tells me could be one of:

Acronym
DAMN	Direct Action Media Network
DAMN	DC Action Medical Network
DAMN	Distributed Architecture for Mobile Navigation (robotics)
DAMN	Dallas Area Male Naturists (nudist group)
dAmn	deviant ART messaging network (chat)
DAMN	Dallas Area Motorcycle Network

OK???

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

False Dusks

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

Last night around midnight my son returned from his Office, piled some dinner on his plate and sat before me while I was trying hard to get the word: 'alchemy' to describe the changing facial color of KVR in my blog.

And he said:

"There is this American Lady visiting us in our Office"

I raised my eyebrows and he dismissed it saying:

"Oh, she is a very old woman"

"How old?"

"64"

I slapped him on his wrist. And he said:

"Oh, Sorry!"

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

While I was passing through my post-retirement-trauma, most everyone including me, except my son, felt and declared that it was the end of my road. As they say of KGPians rather wollily:

"One can get out of Severe Depression, but it won't get out of you"

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

The other day I got one of those rare mails from Professor KLC (Director, IIT KGP, 1987-97). His mails are briefer than tweets:

"GP: What keeps you busy these days? Attached is my tribute to GSS"

I then replied in detail that a handful of my students (led by that taskmaster Aniket) are taking revenge on me asking me to submit online sessionals (webnals without webpo) daily. And attached that day's blog titled: "Pilgrim's Regress". I knew he would read it between the lines. And he tweeted:

"GP: Quite a rising Ruskin Bond. Keep it up!"

KLC happened to be the Director during my best decade at KGP. IBM PC arrived just then and so did Ed Taylor's Spacetime Software. It was a terrific learning experience. I learned more of SR in 15 days than I did in 15 years past. And Somnath's batch submitted an illegal mass-petition to the HoD asking for GR to be taught. And I was working out Weinberg and enjoying it. And Amitabh Chaks brought the oven-fresh Sakurai's MQM from Purdue and asked me return it to him within a fortnight...

KLC was always curious about me and used to shoot tweets every six months:

"GP: What are you doing nowadays?"...a terrific taskmaster.

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

If you get hooked to daily blogging in your so-called old age, there will be no time to think of your ailments. And if you have the great good fortune to have a li'l kid like Ishani always eager to keyboard your blogs, time evaporates like a piece of sublimating camphor.

The beauty of old age is that the two basic hungers that possessed you and made your life compelling just about vanish.

One is food. In your prime time, you have to eat well because you have to work. And digest it by walking, gymming, swimming and stuff.

But if you are as old as me, you don't need much food to blog...the calories needed for keyboarding are supplied by one meal a day, square or circular.

But you enjoy it thoroughly because you don't have to rush to the 4th Year Lab Class.

In your youth food is a necessity...in old age, it is a luxury...since all your teeth are gone or broken, you enjoy the color, the smell and the flavor of dosas, samoses, mirchi bhajas on the dining table, without having to eat them.

Much the same with the other primordial hunger...

It is the nearest state to what the Upanishads call: "Pure Existence"...like a Hyderabadi Rock.

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

Keep this to yourself, and I haven't done a survey, but I suspect that all IIT KGP Directors are Great Survivors. The greatest of them all, unarguably, Professor SRS, I think was into his nineties.

And GSS was so many times in and out of ICUs that he almost winked and said like Mark Twain:

"Stories of my death are greatly exaggerated"


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

webster

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

Four years ago, Sayan told me that the Phy students at KGP are calling their online magazine: "webzine"

Today, I learned from Amazon that they are going to hold a "webinar"

So, I thought why not make some contributions to the "webthings":

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

webjee: online JEE

webture: online lecture

weboratory: online laboratory

webshop: online workshop

webcutting: online masscutting (of webtures, weboratories and webshops)

webbunk: same as webcut

webzing: online dozing (in webtures, weblabs etc)

webmo: online demo

webpo: online topo

weberence: online conference

webotorium: online auditorium (like Netaji)

webgates: online collapsible gates

webhackers: online Thackers

webreco: online reco

webking: online sucking (for fellowships in the US)

webva: online viva

webdate: online date

webding: online wedding

webvorce: online divorce

weberal: online funeral

webtionary: online dictionary

.......and finally

webster: online Webster


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

Distemper

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

"...'Try another Subtraction sum. Take a bone from a dog: what remains?'

Alice considered. `The bone wouldn't remain, of course, if I took it -- and the dog wouldn't remain; it would come to bite me -- and I'm sure I shouldn't remain!'

`Then you think nothing would remain?' said the Red Queen.

`I think that's the answer.'

`Wrong, as usual,' said the Red Queen: `the dog's temper would remain.'

`But I don't see how -- '

`Why, look here!' the Red Queen cried. `The dog would lose its temper, wouldn't it?'

`Perhaps it would,' Alice replied cautiously.

`Then if the dog went away, its temper would remain!' the Queen exclaimed triumphantly..."

.........Alice Through The Looking Glass

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

Lord Krishna was ever the naughty boy...he knew everything past, present and future as He declared in Gita. So He was the embodiment of composure...ever smiling.

But He famously lost His temper once and that too in the battle field of Kurukshetra where He accepted the Position of the Charioteer of His B-i-L Arjun. There was this tacit agreement between the two that Krishna would expertly drive Arjun through the enemy lines and keep giving tactical and strategic advice to Arjun; but never would take up arms and start attacking the Kauravas.

Everything went on well in the beginning but the fight between Arjun and his granpa, the venerable Bhishma was turning out to be one-sided. Arjun couldn't cope with the missiles of Bhishma, and Krishna was getting irritated. According to one version of Mahabharat, one of the missiles grazed past Krishna Himself while Arjun could do nothing to protect his charioteer which is supposed to be the primary duty of a warrior.

THEN, Krishna loses His temper, curses Arjun for his pusillanimity, forgets His solemn promise not to take up arms, jumps down His chariot, calls up His Wheel and was about to launch it; while Bhishma jumps down his chariot, kneels in reverence to Krishna declaring that his mission in life would be fulfilled if it takes the Lord Himself to vanquish him; and Arjun jumps down his chariot, chases his B-i-L with profuse apologies and entreats Him to heed His promise and please turn back to His driver's seat...which He does after His temper cools down.

The description of this dramatic episode is wonderfully done and sung in Telugu by that absolutely adorable artist Balamurali Krishna: "Kuppinchi Egasina..."

http://www.raaga.com/channels/telugu/album/A0002009.html

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

The sight of handsome Krishna losing His temper must have been delightful.

Unfortunately, the sight of all persons whom I watched while they were losing their temper was anything but delightful...most people look uglier than they are when they lose their temper and throw tantrums.

Except one.

That was Professor KVR. He was very very fair, delightfully rotund, extremely courteous...almost to a fault, smiling and bowing and exuding cheer and goodwill...except when he was enraged, which was often. As I mentioned before:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2011/09/protocol.html

he was a stickler for his own version of protocol.

But when he lost temper, his red face would GLOW like a furnace, his words would flow like a Niagara, his white hair would turn red...all in all it was a beautiful sight to watch. But he would be himself in a couple of minutes and smile. This sequence used to happen invariably in Faculty Meetings while he was chairing them as HoD.

Once, Professor CLR was a wee late and entered the Seminar Room casually, but was stunned when KVR rebuked him as if he was a student of his final year Dielectrics class. And, before CLR could recover, KVR asked him to "Sit down!"; and Professor BKS, the earlier HoD had to intervene and cajole CLR who was preparing to stage a walkout.

I generally used to cut all Faculty Meetings, but during KVR's tenure, I used to go early, take a back seat and pray that KVR would lose his temper, which he did; just to watch the alchemy of his face.

KVR once narrated to me the famous episode when he was a Junior RS in B C Roy Hall. He was upset with the poor quality of mess food, and one day he barged into the Assistant Warden's Room and started shouting at him. It just happened that the Warden, who was the Seniormost Professor and No 2 in the IIT Hierarchy happened to walk in and finding the young chap losing his cool, attempted to cajole him and lovingly placed his arm across the young KVR's shoulder. KVR turned around, brushed off the Warden's hand from his shoulder as if it was a lizard, and asked him never to repeat it. The good old Warden didn't know what hit him and KVR staged a walkout before everyone could gather their senses.

KVR also told me the episode when he himself was at the receiving end. That was 20 years later when he became the Warden of the selfsame B C Roy Hall. Apparently he threw a tantrum in public and abused the Hall President for his indecent attire.

They had a GBM and a No-Confidence Motion was passed against KVR.

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

I don't remember to have lost my temper at KGP except with one HoD, which episode I described in one of my earlier blogs...I forget which.

After settling down in Hyderabad there was only one occasion when I blew my top. And that was against a Traffic Policeman. The chap was so taken by surprise that he didn't know what hit him...otherwise I could have been hauled up.

That was one morning at around 9 when I was driving my good old Maruti to drop my D-i-L at her Office in Balanagar. It was peak commute time and the Y-junction at Balanagar was notorious for its traffic snarls. As I approached the junction and was taking a right turn, I noticed that the Traffic Cop deserted his post and was buying a beedi maybe and chatting up the sales girl...he kept the traffic on auto-pilot...i.e. signals.

And I didn't see the signal turning amber, so I moved on and was stranded plumb in the middle of the oncoming traffic with horns screaming and truck drivers howling.

The Cop heard the noise and ran in to me and brusquely ordered me to drive into the kerb. I kept my cool and refused to do so, but asked him to give me the challan. He didn't have the challan book on him...maybe he left it with the sales girl. The traffic went pell-mell and he started shouting.

I then lost my temper and shouted back in such fluent English of which he could make out only the words: 'beedi' and 'sales girl' and 'duty' and 'Commissioner of Police'.

Gruffly he asked me to get going...which I did.

That was the only time when my D-i-L watched my rage...and that serves the purpose {;-}

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

Quotable Quote

From DC today:

"Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children"

....Charles R Swindoll

gps: If you are a teacher, replace: 'children' with 'students'.

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

Kuchlachati College

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

Wood work is going on in full swing in our Nile Valley Apartment these days. That means it is full of wood and saw dust.

My son drives me there regularly for 'inspection'. As usual I am a shirker and I pull out the plastic chair and doze in the spacious and breezy verandah while my son pretends to inspect and instruct the know-all carpenters...they are the only species that refuse to obey the rule: "He who pays the Piper calls the tune"...you pay and they call...

This morning while I was dozing, my son woke me up and introduced a youth who bought another apartment in our floor and works in their Thomson-Reuters outfit...birds of the same feather.

I lazily nodded and was falling back into my reverie, when my son said: "He is a Bengali." That made me sit up and smile.

He then said: "He is from KGP". That made me stand up and shake hands.

He then said: "He is a student of Kuchlachati College". That made me embrace him like a brother.

I asked my Bong friend: "Do you know Professor G. S. Sanyal?"

He started to almost cry and replied: "He passed away last month...oohoom...oohoom..."

I said I am aware of it.

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

That took me back 25 good years.

The Left Front had by then established itself as the perennial ruler of WB, despite the tantrums of Didi.

And the first thing they did was to abolish English from the Govt Schools...the land of R C Majumdar whose piece: "Why should we learn English?" was my favorite in my School Final and which I had by heart.

This didn't effect the Calcutta folks who sent their kids to Convent Schools. But, rural Bengalis of an entire generation lost out in the job race that was just then picking up in Bangalore and Hyderabad IT Sectors, courtesy Narayana Murthy and Chandrababu Naidu.

Unkind people said that this abolition of English and disabling the Bengali youth from "knowledge-careers" was intentional...they needed Party Workers.

Anyway, IIT KGP was like a Crystal Palace in a desert, out of bounds for the rural youth born and brought up around it.

Then Professor G S Sanyal became the Director of IIT KGP and decided that what was needed for the Kharagpur and Midnapore youth was a semi-professional College which would train the local youth in courses like Commerce, Accountancy, Computers and IT, so that they can earn a decent living in a growing economy.

And once GSS sets about a task, he would leave no stone unturned. As a Director, he used his position for the good but unconventional purpose of raising donations at the rate of Rs 1000 (a whopping amount) from Faculty. Followed by his well-wishers he used to go round the Campus in the evenings and knock and enter the Qrs of unsuspecting Faculty and squeeze donations for a good cause.

He skipped my Qrs for the simple reason that I was an applicant for the upcoming Professor Interviews and so there is a conflict of interest...I heaved a sigh of relief because I would have to borrow the thousand rupees from himself.

But he didn't leave me ultimately...

Soon after that, he gave me what everyone except my wife thought was a thoroughly undeserved promotion...wives are funny...they look down upon you at home but look up on you in public...they offend you at home but defend you outside...

A few years later, when he was the MD, STEP at KGP, he called me up and gave me a bundle of 200 pages to go through and come up with a 5-page Prospectus for the upcoming Kuchlachati College.

That was ok, because SDM taught me how to write Abstracts of Papers for PRS.

By and by the College came up, with the help of IIT infrastructure (paid) and was trying to find its feet when I retired.

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

So, when I embraced our Banga-Babu Lead-Software Engineer in Thomson-Reuters, I felt that he was the Dream Child of GSS.

Apparently he was from a village in the Midnapore District and did his BCA at GSS's Kuchlachati College, worked in an IT Firm in Noida for five years and shifted to the Dream City of Hyderabad, got married, bought an apartment in Nile Valley and became my neighbor...

Long Live GSS!


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

Sinking Feeling

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

Apropos of Sweet Sixty:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2011/09/sweet-sixty.html

Saswat writes:

Dear Sir:

Regarding your recent blog "Sweet Sixty", Indra's piece is funny. I also remember feeling quite confused upon seeing the wash basins in lecture rooms. Wash basins usually belonged to bathrooms. It was very distracting to see the wash basins in the lecture rooms every day for the first 3 years! It was only when you did your almost algorithmic ritual of erasing the blackboard and washing your hands that it all made sense - almost an aha moment for us! It became clear immediately, once you did your ritual in front of us for the first time, that here was a teacher who will shine light on many mysteries by the sheer power of simple and clear demonstrations.

As for the grumpiness that Indra refers to, you did seem a bit unapproachable to the freshers. Perhaps it was the aura that had built up around you due to all those GP stories we heard from seniors all the time. But, of course, it just took one class from you for us to realize that you were not only approachable but also the ideal person on whom to unleash all our questions.

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

Dear Saswat:

Well, Truth is truth even if it turns out to be disllusionmenting {;-}

When the Physics Department started its M Sc programs way back in the 1960s, it had only 2 floors (ground and the first) in the C-Block. So, most of the rooms in our C-Block served as labs. All lecture classes were held in the F-Block which don't have any 'wash basins' as you call them. They still don't have. When I had to take my lecture classes there, after erasing the black boards (which later turned green, with envy), I had to use my hankie to clear the 'white-collar' dust and I resented it.

Suddenly, the ECE Dept which was occupying the top floor suffered a Free Expansion as SDM called it and got their own building. When they moved out, Prof HNB of Physics and Prof. Bhattacharya of Chemistry fought for exclusive possession of the entire top floor. The Director did a Radcliffe Award and divided the spoils between Physics and Chemistry Depts. The rule was that if any contiguous room is left unoccupied by either dept, it would go to the other. So, HNB shunted Research Scholars and CLR upstairs and me too. I was allotted the Wagah Border post for one year as a sitting room. It was an ECE Electronics Lab earlier and so, it had 3 ft angle irons jutting from the walls, used as brackets for their electronics equipment like oscilloscopes. SDM once visited my room and remarked in his own style of graveyard humor that if all my papers get rejected, the angle iron projections would come useful. So, as HNB ordered, I had to hold fort till the angle irons were removed and it was converted into a lab, much later occupied by RNP.

Coming back to the Radcliffe Award Rule, we had to shift all our Lecture Classes from the F-Block to within our C-Block to use up and thereby save our Space, since obviously you can't build so many labs to fill the huge number of rooms acquired overnight. So, the labs in our first floor were uplifted to the top floor and we were asked to take our lectures in what used to be the first floor labs.

That is the reason you find so many 'wash basins' as you call them in our lecture halls. They were not wash basins but huge 'lab sinks' meant for draining our chemicals and stuff and wash our hands. You would also have noticed if you cared that these 'lecture rooms' also have sockets for what was a DC 300 volt line charged by a central battery bank in the ground floor; the reason being electronic equipment those days were vacuum-tube driven and these required 300 volt supply for their 'Plates'.

So, what I was happily using for washing my hands were really lab sinks...sorry!

As to grumpiness, it was a post-marital phenomenon.

gps

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