ECCPs

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Deccan Chronicle, 5 January 2012

PRESIDENT'S CHEF COOKS UP A STORM

President Pratibha Patil's head chef on Wednesday raised a controversy by storming out of the Gandhi Hospital because he did not get VIP treatment and admitting himself at a corporate hospital for a lung infection...A source at Gandhi Hospital said, "The chef complained about the stench, lack of cleanliness and lack of proper treatment. He expected that being on the staff of a VVIP, he should be given VIP treatment and doctors should attend to him 24 hours. Since that isn't quite possible in a government set-up, he left."

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I guess the acronym ECCP was coined by a bureaucrat (read IAS Officer). IAS is a funny profession. By and large he is supposed to advise his Minister (Yes, Minister!) on a policy initiative that his Minister wishes to take for political reasons (read votes). If the policy clicks, the Minister takes the credit. If it doesn't, the IAS chap gets the boot (I am exaggerating).

When Indira Gandhi imposed her infamous Emergency supposedly on the advice of her younger son, Sanjay Gandhi (among others), and wanted her IAS chaps to come up pronto with a winning Document, they came up with what they termed TPEP (they are suckers for 4-letter acronyms). It meant: Twenty Point Economic Programme. Why twenty only? I guess it is a round figure and not too big a manifesto to mug up and not too small to cover its loopholes. The only folks who had to read it were the new IAS aspirants...it was in their syllabus ;-)

Things didn't pan out quite the way she wanted and she was wrongly advised (again) to call Elections; which she lost badly and had to sit in the Opposition (for a while). The newly elected Government wanted to find out who was responsible for her ignoble defeat and they roundly attributed it to Sanjay who they said took quite wrong decisions and acted as if he was himself the PM, though he was just her son. And they called him and his buddies names: ECCPs (another four-letter thing) meaning: "Extra-Constitutional Centers of Power"

The question naturally arises whether the Head Chef of the President is a Constitutional VIP Post as he claims or another ECCP...I have to ask my IAS B-i-L.

Traditionally, when Power used to be vested with Men, their wives used to be ECCPs. Take Sita for instance. This famous Bhakta at the Bhadrachalam Sri Raam Temple was imprisoned (wrongly he claimed) by the Nawab of that time. He prayed to Sri Raamjee and nothing happened. At last, in a lovely kirtan, he prays to Sita, the consort of Raam, asking her to put in a word on his behalf to her hubby in one of his weak moments...it worked wonders and he was not only released but the Nawab turned a Raam Bhakt himself!

Coming down from Mythology to History, there was this girl child born to a carpenter and his concubine, turning an actress, and ending up getting married to China's Chairman (who was our Chairman during the Charu Majumdar decade). And rose so high due to her proximity to her hubby that she got to practically wield his Power in the company of what were famously called the Gang of Four. It is said that there used to be a huge chimney in their Central Hall and the earlier slogan: "Power comes from the barrel of the gun" was replaced by: "Death comes from an open mouth", and showing the Emergency Exit up through the chimney by boy-scout-arrows.

In our folklore, it is not the wife but her brother, the salah, that is supposed to be the ECCP Supreme. He has a direct access to the Raja through his fond sister. And he is feared as well as propitiated.

When my IAS B-i-L asked me why I was not visiting him, staying put all the time in that God-forsaken jungle called IIT KGP, I told him I would visit him during his 1-year stint as Collector and District Magistrate, a post as near a Raja as comes in a democracy. And when he was posted as DM at Dharmapuri in Tamilandu, I did visit him. But since there were no cell phones then, I tried a trick. I went incognito, unexpected and unanticipated, at noon on a Sunday. And was promptly barred by the Gatekeeper Security in his florid uniform. And told him I wanted to see his Boss. And he promptly said: "He is busy...come to the Collector's Office tomorrow." I pleaded with him that it was urgent and he was saying: "Everyone says that!" And I was practically trying to please him (instead of pleading) when my Didi happened to take a stroll in the garden and noticed me. For the next three days, I was the ECCP there; and on the last day, the Security who stopped me was grovelling and asking me to put in a word...

Fortunately, I happened to be an ECCP many times in my life: I was the son of the HM of our School, then the resident nephew of the Principal of our College, then the resident nephew of the Big Boss of the King George Hospital at our University town, Visakhapatnam; and finally the chum of the powerful Deputy Director at IIT KGP.

ECCP is not altogether a bad post...take it up if it comes your way...

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Sloguns

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This morning I saw this slogan on the ambulance of a corporate hospital:

"Cure with passion and care with compassion"

I am sure this will never catch on and will remain a curiosity for retired folks like me. If it has to go viral and provoke, a slogan ought to be short and crisp.

Like, say, "Vande Mataram!" during our British Rule. I heard it during my infancy. I am sure the Brits never understood what it meant but they didn't care...they saw in it a sharp rallying cry they thought would shake their Empire (which it did by and by). And they ordered their (Indian) Police to wield the lathi on whoever utters it. That was enough for the slogan to catch on.

During our school days (early 1950s), there was this Telugu Fantasy Movie: 'Pathala Bhairavi'. There is this six-inch golden statuette of the goddess. Whoever holds it to his forehead and says: "Jai Pathala Bhairavi!", will have the goddess materialized in front of him in human form and asks: "What's your desire, Man?" And it will be fulfilled at once, like: "Bind the Princess and bring her here!" The movie became an all-time hit and the slogan: "Jai Pathala Bhairavi!" was heard everywhere; at home, in the streets, in schools, uttered by urchins and street smarts.

Unfortunately this dhoti-clad Maths Teacher of our Village School one day got uppish and cried: "Jai Pathala Bhairavi!" when his confirmation letter was delivered to him in the class. That's it! Wherever he went, in the school compound and the Village streets, urchins used to howl: "Jai Pathala Bhairavi!" whenever he was seen strolling. And he used to react obnoxiously trying to chase them. And he got fed up one day and shouted at them: "You are like dogs which bark when the elephant walks majestically in the street."

Next day onwards they used to tease him shouting: "Elephant! Elephant!! Elephant!!!"...I guess there is a moral there...I can't find what.

"Jai Pathala Bhairavi!" also led to a street fight between students of Andhra Medical College at Viskhapatnam and shopkeepers. It so happened that one medico went to the cigarette-cum-soda shop and in his momentary exuberance said: "Jai Pathala Bhairavi!" And unfortunately the shop was then being manned by the wife of the owner. And she couldn't resist the slogan and smiled and reacted: "What's your desire, Man?" And he winked and said: "YOU are my desire, girl!"

Old Congressmen fell on their face when they couldn't resolve which of them should be the PM when Lal Bahadur Shastri suddenly died at Tashkent in early 1966. They thought they would install young Indira Gandhi as a stopgap while they resolved their in-fight. And chuckled: "She is but a goongi gudia (dumb doll)". Very soon they discovered that she was smarter than all of them put together and when she called for Elections, they came up with the slogan: "Indira Hatao! (Banish Indira!)" And she turned the tables on them by the counter-slogan: "Garibi Hatao! (Banish Poverty!)" Till date no one knows who coined this winning slogan, but she went public with the disarmingly innocent battle-cry: "O bol rahen hain, Indira Hatao! Mai bol rahan hoon: Garibi Hatao!" She won hands down and the Old Guards as they were dubbed were dumped promptly into the dustbin of history. Such is the power of a smart slogan, mouthed by a smart woman. Let us hope her D-i-L will come up with a similar winning counter-slogan against her bete noire who once proclaimed, rather hysterically, that she would shave off her head if the D-i-L is installed as PM; which is done ritually at a nominal cost at Tirupati.

As for battle-cries, I am told by an Army Officer in our Faculty Hostel that the Gorkha Regiment's: "Ayo Gorkhali!" is blood-curdling. This is because Gorkhas are allowed to always carry their khukri (curved steel knife) with them in their belts. And they understand and adhere to the Geneva Convention strictly but they don't believe in the wisdom of taking POWs (say, to the tune of 93,000).

But some slogans, after their purpose is served, take on different and comical meanings. For instance, during the Liberation of East Pakistan in 1971, the battle cry was: "Jai Bangla!" After the dust settled down, the eye infection conjunctivitis, came to be called: "Jai Bangla" even at IIT KGP. Perhaps because it was exported as a sweet revenge by the country which India helped create...


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Lollipops

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From The Rashtrabit, which is amalgamated with The Englishman's Friend:

"We warmly congratulate Khan Sahib Gobson Toady. He richly deserves the high honour awarded him, and we are truly delighted. It is the first time that such a high rank has fallen to a native's lot. At the same time, we would caution the Government not to cheapen such titles through excessive and indiscriminate award: that would cause chagrin to Indian Rai Sahibs and Khan Bahadurs, thereby impeding Europe's progress. Let Europeans be content with native titles like Knight, Baron, Marquis or Duke. However, as Mr Toady has indeed become a Khan Sahib, we would urge him to assiduously guard the signal honour of his station. We hope he will not let the shadow of seditious Liberty League fall on him."

...Parashuram in Ulat Puran (translated by Sukanta Chaudhuri and Palash Baran Pal)

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It is that time of the year here when Padma Awards get announced. I guess the awardees have already got their invitations in their mails. Without being cynical, I may say that while each awardee is thrilled to receive his letter, the happiness is somewhat muted when he sees the list of other awardees in his category (note the masculine gender...the fairer sex is different). I mean, the Padma Sri, say, would compare and feel inwardly (sometimes outwardly too) that he belongs rightly to the Padma Bhushan category.

And our Parshuram, almost a century ago, give or take a decade, wrote (see above): "we would urge him to assiduously guard the signal honour of his station."

There lies the rub...for, he wouldn't know what the future holds for him. I distinctly remember a TV Interview of the trio: R K Narayan, Raja Rao and a distinguished Civil Servant. While the two writers were appropriately modest and rather shy of their achievements, the Civil Servant-turned-Politician crowed: "Have you noticed that all the three of us here are Padma Bhushans?" or something like it.

Well, writers, like the present company ;-), stand or fall by their readers, not by their awards. But unfortunately the same is not true, rather, of Civil Servants, whose careers are at the mercy of their political bosses. This one in the trio was hit badly very soon by "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and lapsed into ignoble oblivion (maybe this is the only time he is in the recent 'media', as Dalia once glorified our blog). It is a safe bet to say that civil servants, politicians, businessmen, athletes, and such other figures of evanescent and treacherous fame be conferred their Padma Awards posthumoulsy (if that); for, far too many eagles of these professions are nowadays cooped up in the birthplace of Krishna, the B-i-L of Arjun (of the Arjun Awards fame).

Professions like the Military, I guess, can't do without their ranks and medals...they are unlike us...Death lurks for them everywhere, even in the skies, rather routinely even in peacetime. So, they have in a way, unlike teachers like me who at worst are hit by pieces of chalk and paper missiles when they turn to the blackboard, chosen to die for their Nation. The only trouble I had was that civilians are rather ill-educated about the meaning and significance of the various medals dangling from their chests and shoulders and can't figure out who is what. I say this from experience...in our Faculty Hostel, there were routinely half a dozen from the Armed Forces, training in the Radar and Communication Section. And I had to ask, not a very happy situation. There was only one friendly Squadron Leader (or was it Flight Lieutenant?) by name Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (not a Bengali but an Andhra) who was all the time talking about military protocol and stuff (Basudeb Ghosh, the wicked English Lecturer, used to refer to him as Parambok). But whenever I asked him about their medals and gallantry awards, he would soon switch to the elaborate procedures of court-martial, cashiering, clipping away ceremonially their epaulets, and outright dismissal...he was a born pessimist. Feynman says: "I had been brought up by my father against royalty and pomp (he was in the uniform business, so he knew the difference between a man with a uniform on, and with the uniform off---it is the same man)"

We, in the academics, too have our lollipops; the biggest, though not the wealthiest I am told, being the Nobel. Feynman says he wanted to refuse it...because he already had got his prize in that his Feynman Diagrams are used by one and all, except, unkind folks say, his co-awardee. He was advised against it by a Time Reporter, since it would be worse than accepting it. In this connection, I am reminded of Binoy, the friend and foil of Gora of Tagore (I am sure no Bengali reader of this blog read that novel, though all of them have it in their fathers' bookshelves). Gora asks Binoy why he had to accept and drink that cup of tea offered by Sucharita, he being a Hindu and she a Brahmo, taunting him: "Was it sweet enough?", to which Binoy retorts: "No, it was bitter...but rejecting it would have been more bitter"...he was in love with her sister ;-)

Anyway, Feynman did take the trouble to go to Stockholm and receive his share of the prize reluctantly; but like that Carpenter and the Walrus of Alice, he bought a big beach home with the prize money. Rather honest of him not to wear fig leaves about it...I mean he didn't give it away for charities like instituting a Research Institute in his name.

Maugham, the cynic, says in his Moon and Sixpence, that the stockbroker-turned-painter's ditched wife was so very eager to pardon her hubby in his deathbed that she couldn't wait...rather. Similarly I was so very eager to institute a Gold Medal in the name of my Guide SDM at KGP with the money I would get from the Silver Jubilee Research Award that I was even tempted to apply once, till my wise wife advised me against it...

Last Laugh

Like Feynman, I have already gotten my Prize...Blogspot's (mythical) Stats tell me that I have so far raised 32,228 (thirty two thousand two hundred twenty eight only) smiles in a mere three years at the rate of one smile on the average per 'page-view'...



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Secretfreaks

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Prof R and I joined the Phy Dept at KGP the same day in May 1965. He was ten years older to me (but married two years later), a perfect gentleman and a great teacher. Since we joined the same time, we were rather thrown together, sharing the same room in the Dept, the same Hostel, and the same Bachelors Flat (BF-1/6) for a while later.

On our way to the Registry with our Offer Letters to 'join', he asked me if I was a Lecturer or Associate Lecturer. I said: "Ass Lecturer". I guessed that he was joining as a Lecturer and asked him how many advance increments he got. He kept quiet and changed the topic and said: "KGP is very warm in May"

After a while, we were both shooed to our Independent Qrs, he happy and I sad, because he was planning to bring his mother to stay with him; and I hated the enormous Qrs (C-23) with its huge unkempt front and backyards. It was so lonely.

Within a month one day I returned from the Dept for lunch and found that my front lock was broken and the burglar had snitched my bag of rice and my spare shirt and pants...like Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo, that's all the property I had there. I ran to the Police Station and brought a Policeman with me thinking that the Bengal Police was like Scotland Yard and would take fingerprints and catch the thief in an hour or so and restore my bag of rice. Prof R got to know it and accompanied the Policeman. And the fat-cat, instead of taking fingerprints, started quizzing me on my very personal habits, to which I was responding as best as I could. And I offered, in my enthusiasm, my worst-kept secret: "I keep my cash in my Feynman Volumes though" The cop smoked a couple of my fags and quit.

Then all hell broke loose...Prof R chastising me for leaking out my stealth-wealth. I asked him what is the harm...the Police was trying to help me, no? And he was aghast: "Don't you know that the thieves of Bengal are in the pay of their Police (or is it the other way round)?...Change your hiding place immediately...(to your Webster!)"

When I narrated this incident to DB much later, he said the Delhi University (where he was an RS under the famous Theoretical Physicist, SNB) had a different take on theft. Apparently, within a week of his joining, he met his Guide who warned him sternly:

"Throw your cash wherever you like in the Department...no one is going to touch it...but always keep our calculations, particularly, the Feynman Diagrams, under lock and key"

DB ran away from Delhi as soon as he could and joined KGP to work with SDM, who had his own fears about his calculations. SDM's problem was that while he was working with his Research Scholars and juniors like me and DB, he was intent on publishing at least one paper per year all by himself. He was honest enough to admit that in a collaboration where ideas are a two-way street, it is tough to say which idea is whose because there is always a synergy (a term he never used). But still...he wanted one single-author paper per year.

One afternoon at lunch hour, SDM landed on the lawn bench beside me in our Faculty Hostel where I was relaxing, and proposed something curious. Apparently he and his Research Scholar had just published a lovely Paper on the Volume Element of SU(3) and sort of split in a huff...he could never pull on with his young Scholars. And that morning he happened to go to the Library and 'discovered' that his RS was sitting in a cubicle with a huge Drawing Sheet spread in front of him; and SDM happened to 'oversee' that his RS was trying to get the Volume Element of SU(4). And SDM told me with a purple rush in his face: "I already did it on my own and sent the manuscript to Annals of Physics yesterday!" And he discreetly asked me if I could find a way to inform this piece of sad news to his RS. I assured him that he must have been mistaken and left it at that...

I knew that there were terrible wartime secrets in the making of those 'atom bombs' and there were code words like: "Natives are friendly", not to talk of our own smiling Buddha...but to think that Feynman Diagrams at the DU and Volume Elements of SU(4) belonged to that category was and still is beyond me.

Much later, when SDM left KGP and joined Vishvabharati as the HoD of Math, both DB and he were extending their joint work on the Master Analytic Functions of various Groups, a longstanding invention of SDM. One day DB got a postcard from SDM asking him to immediately rush to Vishvabharati, and on returning, DB was all smiles when he told me the story of how SDM was in tears and blurted out: "I just don't have the time for completing this calculation (DB said he must have found a more interesting another)...I am laying all my cards on the table before you...will you please join me in this problem?"; and of course DB jumped at the offer, and they continued their long-distance collaboration.

Later I read hilarious stories of how Experimental Particle Physicists hunting for new particles were hogging Accelerator Time trying to secretly outwit their 'opponents'.

Since I never did any front-line cutting-edge research, I never could understand this secrecy...I always thought that the business of Physics was to pry the secrets of Nature from Her heart...

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Teaching Teachers

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Teaching Teachers? Don't! Please!! Never!!!

It is like scratching your back with a red-hot poker.

Late 1980s:

Professor KVR was our HoD at IIT KGP. And he won, using his enormous influence, the coveted Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghatan's Refresher School in Physics. And came to my room one day and said I have to give 3 Lectures for the 30 odd Teachers of various KVs assembled in the ECE Auditorium, with a terrific honorarium.

I said I have enough money but crave knowledge (much like King Janaka of Videha). And no amount of honorarium would tempt me to spoil my Woolgathering Sessions at Harrys in the welcome Summer Vacation.

But KVR was never one to take a 'No' from anyone...he threatened to ring up my home and lodge a complaint with my wife (we were good family friends).

That settled it.

One day before my 3 Lectures were to start, I met the Team Lead of the KV Teachers. He was a graying Principal, unlike his flock who were in their 20s and 30s, male as well as female, desperate to be 'refreshed'. He said I am to teach the Chapter on 'Universe'. That enthused me somewhat.

But he added that, since it is the very last Chapter in the CBSE text book, it is usually dismissed in a hurry, more so because very few questions would generally appear from that Chapter in the Class XII Question Paper (the Paper-Setter also being in a hurry). He added that he allotted the 'heavy' topics to Senior Professors (I must have looked like a chokra to him). And assured me that my job is simple: he would give me the two fat books of Objective Questions that were selling like hot cakes in the market, and all I have to do is to 'discuss' about 20 typical questions that he would (kindly) mark with a tick in those two books. And pocket my check...

I said I have other ideas. And requested him to take it easy and sleep off in his Guest House during my 'hour', since Universe is a 'light' topic. He was delighted and arranged my Lectures in the Last Period before Lunch.

As soon as I entered the Class Room and managed to get their attention, they were pleased that here was a chokra they can twiddle (they didn't guess that I had already bitten, chewed and digested about a couple of thousand IITians in the past 25 years). And within ten minutes of the first Lecture, they fell silent...I told them that Cosmology is nothing but Reverse Engineering....like the American U-2 Spy Plane that the Russians brought down safely to the ground and released the pilot but not the plane...they 'deconstructed' it (to use a favorite phrase of Aniket).

I told them stories and tall tales and myths and hot topics like the evolution of stars, the color-brightness plot, Chandra limit, Cosmic Distance Ladder, Quasars and Black Holes, First Three Minutes, Population I and II stars and how it resolved the conundrum of the Universe being younger than Earth, how Feynman was greeted by a young RS at Caltech and announced the resolution of the mystery, and how Feynman at once decided to stay back at Caltech and refuse the blank-check offer from IAS, Princeton, and lots of cock -and-bull stories. There was pin-drop silence in the first Lecture, smiles in the second, and guffaws in the last.

And I was invited, along with the other Senior Teachers from our Dept and other Depts involved in the Circus, to the Farewell Dinner in the Faculty Club. All bigwigs like the Deans were there. And while the Principals congregated with the Administrators, the young Teachers flocked around me narrating jokes and witticisms...in short I was mobbed by the Teachers.

And then there was this Valedictory Ceremony chaired by our Diro and other noblemen. There was the usual speech-making by the Convenor and Chairman, a couple of representatives from the 'participants' were invited to come to the dais and talk about their Refreshing Experiences.

The first Teacher (asked out by the Principal who offered to lend me those fat books) stood in front of the mike and my heart was beating. And the Speaker wanted to especially thank the wonderfully stimulating Lectures of Prof GP.

Yea, you thought it was me, no?

NO!!!

It was quite another GP, of the Electrical Engg Dept (I was the wrong'un).

And it turned out that this Prof GP taught them the very important and new topic of Logic Circuits, AND, OR, NAND, NOR, EXOR Gates and their various combinations. Because the current editions of the Objective Question Banks in the market do not as yet have this very new topic; and so the Electrical GP's Lectures were not only inspiring but also very very 'useful'.

Didn't I tell you not to Teach Teachers?

Well, it all reminded me of Thurber's terrific suspense story:

"The Princess and the Tin Box"

Here is its summary, with its Moral:

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On the day this rich and pampered Princess reached 18, the King announced that he would give the hand of his daughter to the Prince that brought the gift she liked most.

The first Prince brought an enormous apple of solid gold that he snatched from this dragon that was guarding it for a thousand years. And as he lay that apple at her feet, she didn't even get up or handle it....just bored.

The second Prince brought a nightingale made of a thousand diamonds...she yawned.

The third Prince brought a jewel box of platinum and sapphires...she started to doze.

The fourth Prince brought a gigantic heart made of rubies and emeralds...she winced.

The fifth Prince was the handsomest and strongest but poorest. He brought a small tin box containing mica, feldspar and hornblend...all of which were absolutely new to the rich Princess...

She jumped up, examined the box and squealed with delight at the absolutely novel contents of the tin box.

But when she was asked to make her choice, she chose the platinum-and-sapphire jewel box.

Thurber's Moral

All those who thought the princess was going to select the tin box filled with worthless stones instead of one of the other gifts, will kindly stay after class and write one hundred times on the blackboard 'I would rather have a hunk of aluminum silicate than a diamond necklace'

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Engineering Physics

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In response to the post: Negligence:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2011/12/negligence.html

Pratik sent me the following delightful Dirac Quote:

"The system of approximations I shall use will be somewhat similar to the approximation that engineers use in their calculations. Engineers have to get results and there are so many factors occurring in their problems that they have to neglect an awful lot of them; they don't have time to study everything seriously and they develop a sort of feeling as to what can be neglected and what can't. I believe that physicists will have to develop a similar sort of feeling as to what can be neglected and what can't. The final test is whether the resulting theory is coherent and is in reasonable agreement with experiment."

...P. A. M. Dirac (1966)

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Remember that Dirac trained as an Electrical Engineer, held the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge, and won the Nobel in Physics...some combo!

Coming to the 'feeling' Engineers develop and ignore hi-fi Physics and Mathematics, Feynman said a mouthful. He was talking to a Mechanical Engineer and receiving instructions:

"...when you have a gear ratio, say 2 to 1, and you are wondering whether to make it 10 to 5 or 24 to 12 or 48 to 24, here's how to decide: You look in the Boston Gear Catalogue, and select those gears that are in the middle of the list. The ones at the high end have so many teeth they're hard to make. If they could make gears with even finer teeth, they'd have made the list go even higher. The gears at the low end have so few teeth they break easy. So, the best design uses gears from the middle of the list."

Great lesson from a Military Engineer to a Quantum Freak!

During the British Rule, 'Engineers' meant only Civil Engineers trained to build Roads and Bungalows (still called R & B), bridges over rivulets, anicuts and railroads. This is because the British, unfortunately, couldn't import Roads and Buildings and Bridges from England and charge Indians for the same. They didn't bother to train Mechanical Engineers because simple machines like nail-files and razors could easily be imported from Home Sweet Home.

The Faculty Hostel I lived in at IIT KGP for 7 long and eventful years was named after the Engineer Supreme of British India, Visvesvarayya, (they knighted him...he lived a 102 years and also won the Bharat Ratna). The name was not unfamiliar to me because when I joined my AU at Waltair (Visakhapatnam), my MD Uncle took me to its famous natural harbor and pointed to what looked like a dead and floating giant whale and asked me to guess what it was. Even then I was a follower of Lincoln's Precept and fell silent. And then he triumphantly told me the answer: "It is the deck of the ship loaded with cement bags by Visvesvarayya who sank it at the mouth of the narrow sea-creek entering the harbor sandwiched between two verdant hills."

That is what precisely Dirac calls 'feeling' of great Engineers. The mouth of the creek was too turbulent and ships trying to enter the harbor were buffeted and bashed and shattered before they appealed to our Visvesvarayya. I don't think he would have hit upon his novel solution if he were merely trained at IIT KGP (or worse, IIT Cawnpoor) where rumor went that they teach: "Stress tensor is symmetric", and let it go at that ;-)

My friend NP (who rose to the position of DD at KGP) told me the following (spurious) Q & A Session that went on in his first Interview for the position of the exalted Assistant Professor in ME:

Q: What will happen if a 10-ton crane is loaded with a 20 ton boulder?

A: The stresses developed would no longer be within the elastic limit

Q: That is not the answer expected of a Mechanical Engineer

A: The strains in the cables would be outside the designed range

Q: So what???

A: They will SNAP!!!

Q: Precisely! You are selected...


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footinthemouth.com

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More than half a century ago when the visual media were primitive, Abraham Pais chided the showman-attention-grabber Feynman with the one liner:

"Publicity is a whore"

Every thinking man ought to understand that all that all media crave always, in this 24/7 cut-throat age, is: scoops and sound-bytes. That is their living, just as lawyers make their living by taking up cases...they don't mind which side of the case they take up...just who pays better.

Yet, I am surprised that every once in a while some well-meaning public figure puts his foot in his mouth and lands in a boiling soup. Hand-held microphone pushed up like a bait to a salmon, TV camera, and often the inviting face behind, undo many reputations.

Yesterday's front page headlines are that a much-respected top police officer said something like: Increased incidence of rape in AP is due to the inviting and revealing dresses worn by the victims nowadays. Naturally, this one sentence among a hundred others was picked up and went viral. And he and his PRs are tying themselves into Gordian Knots that further tighten the noose. Like Birbal apologizing to Akbar: "I thought it was the queen."

Even much-respected Presidents of Harvard were not spared.

Even the famous South-Indian film actress of yesteryear of Bollywood was not amused when our politico-buffoon said he desired to make the roads of Bihar as smooth as her cheeks.

And our tipsy-topsy yesteryear actor had to eat crow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNmPz8CN5Xs&feature=relmfu

Even the Gandhian Anna goofed saying: "Only one slap?" when he was told that a Senior Minister was slapped in public. And had to retract, not very convincingly.

Two years ago one midnight our Tamilnadu-born HM made a hasty statement almost granting Telengana overnight. And a couple of days later, his bureaucrat chamcha, also from Tamilandu, added fuel to fire by gifting Hyderabad as its capital (almost as if from his pocket). What happened then is history...the issue is still hanging fire after about 700 students and others sacrificed their innocent lives for the cause of the politicos. And Coastal Andhras, suffering from a couple of centuries of domination by the Tamils during British India, went to town imputing hidden motives to the Tamilian Minister and his Tamilian chamcha saying that they were envious of Hyderabad's growing IT Industry and wanted to sabotage it by hook, or better, crook.

There was but one great Tamilian leader called Kamaraj Nadar in the 1950s who understood the value of discreet silence in public. It used to be said that he never spoke Hindi or English as a matter of policy (those were the decades of anti-Hindi sentiment), and when asked any question by his Interviewers, he would just say: "Parkalam!", meaning something like: "Let's see!"

But my IAS B-i-L of the Tamilnadu Cadre told me one revealing story about Kamaraj. Apparently he was addressing National Media in his frugal style in chaste Tamil and was being translated into English by his Tamilian IAS Officer. And Kamaraj said: "The nation needs nalla opposition" in Tamil. And his IAS Officer translated the Tamil word: 'nalla' as 'good'. And Kamaraj wasn't happy with 'good'. Then his Babu said: 'effective'. And this word too was rejected by a wave of the hand. He then tried the buzz word: 'wonderful'. And was shut up.

And Kamaraj himself had to rescue his Babu saying:

"nalla opposition means 'sound' opposition."

But that was the Nehru Generation...


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