Seals

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We now have an internationally accepted symbol for our Rupee like $ for the US:




The other day I read that a new series of currency notes incorporating this symbol will be out, with the signature of our own Subba Rao (Subbu for Dharam Vir), Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, who will say: "I promise to pay the bearer..." under the seal of the RBI:





I am sure he, his extended family, sons, daughters, in-laws and grandkids would hoard as many notes as they can afford and preserve them for posterity as mementos. It sure is a rare honor. I can only hope that 'promises' of a KGPian will hold water forever.

There is a Thurber story where a performing seal from Alaska got excited when she heard that the United States of America chose her as the Great Seal of the USA:






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

Unfortunately it turned out to be a bald eagle that won the race.

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Ever since my childhood this confusion between the two 'seals' held sway on me.

When my Father was promoted as Head Master, the first thing he did was to order a seal to be made with his short signature 'grk' in his own facsimile handwriting on a brass circular ring at the end of a heavy brass handle (brass was cheap then).

Those days answer scripts of the Board Exams were not evaluated within the same school but sent to some other school secretly to avoid what were termed 'malpractices'...of course nothing is ever secret in this world. So, after the exam, the scripts were collected and bundled (sometimes with false-scripting) and enclosed in a specially stitched bag made of coarse cloth (kora) and sewed by hand with a twine thread passing through the devil of a needle. Then Father would take a sealing wax stick (red in color), light a candle, melt the end of the seal stick turning it slowly so that the molten wax falls on the seams of the stitched cloth...and then ask me to firmly emboss his signature on the molten wax by pressing the brass ring onto it...it sure got hot enough for me to run away.

The idea I am told was that once the wax dries, it is impossible for anyone to open the bundle without breaking the seal; and none could re-seal it, since they don't have my Father's signature-brass stick: the seal. The whole thing appeared to me to be an elaborate hoax, since I guessed that "nothing is fool-proof for a sufficiently talented fool", a maxim I came across later on.

By and by Father's brass seal became useless, probably because molten wax seeped deep into the grooves of his signature and the seal became as flat as my brain. Then my Father would take a piece of chalk, wet one end of it, write: "G" on its flat surface with a pin, allow it to dry and use it as a poor substitute for brass...the good thing about it is that it costs next to nothing and can be recycled.

Finally there came a day when the quality of chalks became so poor that they dissolve in water and can't be wetted. Then an ingenious idea came up: use a 4-anna coin as a seal..the idea is that no two 4-anna coins have the same 'thumb impression'...each of them would have worn out differently...crazy...

The next time I had to face sealing waxes was at IIT KGP. I had to send several documents like birth certificates, degrees, marks sheets and hundred rupee notes by post. The only safe method was to send them by Registered Insured Post. But that required I had to seal the envelope enclosing them by sealing wax...no need of brass sticks, chalks, coins etc...just sealing wax would do. But by then the quality of the wax sticks got so poor that the clerk behind the counter would take my fond envelope in his hand, turn it, twist it, screw it and fold it till the seal breaks into a hundred grains...and hand it back to me triumphantly to redo it...his moment of glory.

My Guru SDM had it worse...he wouldn't trust any clerk in the Phy Dept with envelopes enclosing his 'manuscripts' but seal them himself. And he discovered that there is in the Gole Bazaar a single Marwari Shop selling circular flakes of a nasty black wax called: Chach Gola, which even the most truculent postal clerk can't break without hurting his fingers. So, he would order me to fetch a couple of dozen chach gola flakes every other quarter. But of course he would 'reimburse' its cost...about one rupee...a hefty price then for anything...a kilo of rice cost just four rupees.

What do you get for a rupee now, Subbu?


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Bugging

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http://lowres.cartoonstock.com/-sachin_tendulkar-cricketer-cricket_player-playing_cricket-cricket_teams-sahn11_low.jpg

Among all the heroes of all the epics I read, I find Karna the most interesting.

His is the sad story of a valiant warrior abandoned at birth, denied formal education and so had to learn everything by distant education, cursed by his own teacher for faking his birth certificate, stripped of his armor by devious means by a shameless parent exploiting his generosity, cursed by mother earth herself when all he did was to help a grieving child, and sundry other misfortunes.

But the cake goes to his being bugged constantly by his own chauffeur.

It so happened that he chose Shalya as his charioteer because of his unequaled CV...Shalya was by far the best ever in his profession. But it just happened that Shalya, although in the service of Kauravas, was partial to Pandavas. This dichotomy runs throughout the epic and is typical of any fratricidal war. Many find themselves on the wrong side of the border and secretly wish that the other side wins...like it used to said of India-Pakistan cricket battles before the whole thing became a farce with the advent, first of Kerry Packer, and last of various brewers, film stars, media magnates, real estate sharks, and sundry busybodies.

The strategy of Shalya was truly devious. During Karna's battles with his arch-enemy, Arjun, Shalya would subtly praise every arrow that Arjun shot and compare it with Karna's own to his disadvantage....like say:

"Oh, Great! What fantastic aim!!! Why don't you try that other one in your quiver? Maybe that would destroy him! Ah, s**t!"




The worst thing parents could do to destroy their affectionate relation with their kids is to compare them with their rivals constantly...

This is the worst of all buggings.

I had to constantly undergo another type of bugging from a man who is otherwise a most helpful person and a friend in need.

When I got fed up with cooking for myself and eating alone in the forlorn campus of IIT KGP, I went to the Faculty Hostel and met its Manager, Rajan, a very fair and courteous Tamilian Brahmin, well-versed in music, literature, arts and every good thing in life except Management. It was a mystery how this chap ended up at KGP which I felt too delicate to probe. Both his sons cleared IIT JEE by the by and were my students in their first years.

Rajan told me that there was no 'single' room available at the moment but there was one 'duplex'...two rooms with two doors and two of everything but sharing one bathroom and one toilet through a common corridor at the back. I told him I would be happy. So, I was allotted C - 10, and its 'double', C - 9 was vacant.

Within a week, a colleague in the Dept of ME occupied C - 9, and that was the beginning of a half-century-long friendship lasting till today...he and his wife visited us yesterday to look up Ishani among other things.

It just happens that I am a Late-Kate at every milestone of the hapless marathon that life is. And my Friend was always ahead of me by a leap or two. Our story is like that of the hare and the tortoise so far...and it continues...

Within a year of his joining our Faculty Hostel, my Friend quit, and chose to occupy a married-man's accommodation, Qrs C1 - 133.

But Rajan remembered him fondly and followed our careers closely.

And it went like this:

When I told him I got promoted from an Associate Lecturer to a Lecturer (with difficulty...like Robert Bruce), Rajan would at once say:

"But your Friend became a Lecturer 3 years ago...when are you becoming Assistant Professor?"

When I announced it by and very very by, he would say:

"But your Friend is already a Professor!"

And when I gave him my Wedding Card, he would say:

"But your Friend got married a decade before!"


And, likewise...

"But your Friend became father a decade ago!"

"But your Friend is already a Dean!"

"But your Friend is a Deputy Director!"


"But your Friend retired and settled in Hyderabad a year ago!"


And then we lost touch.


But you know I am an incurable visionary (prone to optical delusions). So, I often see Rajan's face and figure dismissing my achievements with a peremptory hand-waving gesture whenever I cross a new milestone, like say becoming a Father-in-Law, Grand-Father, Owner of an Apartment....and the like.

Yesterday I had a dayhorse (opposite of nightmare)...

Apparently I reached what looked like Heaven earlier than my Friend and was looking for Rajan to announce once and for all that I beat my Friend at the Last-Post like that tortoise.

But I didn't find him there and on repeated inquiries I found that Rajan was on a quick trip down to Hyderabad to meet my Friend and bug him:


"But your Friend won the race finally and is already in the joint embrace of Rambha, Tilottama, Urvashi, Menaka...why are you so late...chee chee chee!"


...Posted by Ishani
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Droning

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THE FLOWER GIRL. Ought to be ashamed of himself, unmanly coward!

THE GENTLEMAN. But is there a living in that?

THE NOTE TAKER. Oh yes. Quite a fat one. This is an age of upstarts.
Men begin in Kentish Town with 80 pounds a year, and end in Park Lane
with a hundred thousand. They want to drop Kentish Town; but they give
themselves away every time they open their mouths. Now I can teach them--

THE FLOWER GIRL. Let him mind his own business and leave a poor girl--

THE NOTE TAKER [explosively] Woman: cease this detestable boohooing
instantly; or else seek the shelter of some other place of worship.

THE FLOWER GIRL [with feeble defiance] I've a right to be here if I like,
same as you.

THE NOTE TAKER. A woman who utters such depressing and disgusting
sounds has no right to be anywhere--no right to live. Remember that you
are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that
your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible;
and don't sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.

THE FLOWER GIRL [quite overwhelmed, and looking up at him in mingled
wonder and deprecation without daring to raise her head] Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--oo!

THE NOTE TAKER [whipping out his book] Heavens! what a sound!
[He writes; then holds out the book and reads, reproducing her vowels exactly]
Ah--ah--ah--ow--ow--ow--oo!

THE FLOWER GIRL [tickled by the performance, and laughing in spite of herself]
Garn!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Shaw's Pygmalion

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3825/pg3825.txt

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What that Flower Girl was doing to Higgins and Pickering is a typical instance of what I call: "Droning"

Droning is superior to grumbling as it encompasses silent protests too and is more effective than grumbling.

Take my Father.

He was a Head Master till he retired and while in service he was a HM at home too...his word was Law. But folks like that can't easily adjust to retirement and they suddenly feel de-fanged. Students and Teachers who were pissing in their pants whenever they saw him ignore him now which is worse than abuse, ridicule, or contempt. Once they give him a send-off with a shawl and some poetry, he is expected to vanish...like I did from KGP.

But my Father bought a house and settled in Gudur where he served for a decade and more. At home now his wife and grown-up kids find him a nuisance all the time crossing their paths with HM's Orders and Commands. They wish he were away from home eight hours a day (Saturdays and Sundays included). But he has no place to go. And slowly he finds his (imaginary) grip over family affairs vanish...it was never there...my Mom held sway all the while giving him a pretense of respect and freedom to say "Yes" since he was till then too busy with his office work to notice it.

Now he notices everywhere that he is being ignored.

It is then that he takes to grumbling. He finds great solace in this activity, since he IS passing orders under his breath. But this practice of his is new to his wife and kids and they try to hear what he is grumbling about and find it atrocious and ask him to stop that low db noise forthwith.

He would protest: "Don't I have a right to even grumble in my own home?"

The answer is an emphatic: "No"

They ask him to go sit under that neem tree and grumble as much as he wants. He then falls silent.

That is when he begins to DRONE.

Spoken criticism is tolerable. But unspoken but gestured disapproval is worse. Because, the wife and kids who are subject to those lock-in-radar looks and head-turnings and sighs and deep breaths are deeply annoyed since they don't know precisely what is going on in his mind now.

And they shout: "Will you stop that droning?"

And he would say: "Can't I even look at you?"

The thundering answer is a loud: "NO!"

If the retired HM (like my Father) is sensible enough, he would take up a part-time job under the Reddy whom he threw out of his Office not many years ago for suggesting a wee bribe to pass his daughter.

That is the last straw...but he is now in the company of equals...a dozen past Head Masters, Post Masters, Munsiffs, Judges, Sub-Collectors...all of whom tell tall tales of how wonderful THOSE days were and how they were as honest as Sriraamjees, as devoted to work as Hanumanjees, and as respected as Sage Vasishthas.

That is Summum Bonum for all concerned.

Hyderabad is no different. I used to often visit the corner store DTDC Outlet while I was in our previous rented house. Its owner was a young Reddy whom I befriended. Since I was a high-value customer, Reddy asked his Assistant who actually did the weighing, writing, pinning, and collecting cash to give me a 20% discount. His Assistant turned out to be a very old man short of hearing, seeing and even speaking up, but enjoying his occasional fag. He was otherwise very courteous and as efficient as is expected of a senior citizen my age.

One fine morning I found a new teenager in the place of the Old Man. And I asked Reddy what happened to our Old Man. And he replied that he passed away peacefully the other night. And I was told that the Old Man was actually a retired Head Master who begged to be employed for tea and biscuits and a cigarette once in a while...

Poor chap didn't learn Blogging ;-)


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sphygmomaniometry

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Muthukur, Early 1950s:

This Farmer thought his wife was shamming illness and so fetched an English Doctor from Nellore. The Doc came in, opened his medicine bag, took out a queer-looking object, inserted it into the wife's mouth, asked her to shut up, counted seconds on his own wrist for a whole minute, pulled the thing out, stared at it, asked for water into which he dipped it, took it out, whipped it down thrice, inserted it back into its case, asked her to open her closed mouth, dropped four drops of medicine, packed his bag, collected Rs 2 and walked out...when the Farmer ran after him and asked:

"Doctor! Where can I get one of those things with which you closed her mouth?"

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I don't recall having a countable pulse and measurable BP till I was 26.

Those days I was regularly down with my spring-summer-monsoon-winter-fevers that lasted 3 days and 4 nights. As soon as I felt it coming, I used to buy a couple of dozen Codopyrin tablets and gulp one tablet each half-an-hour before my lecture classes, take the class and return to my room in our Faculty Hostel and sleep off till the next lecture was due.

That morning, however, I overslept and missed my lecture class. And within half-an-hour, Dharam Vir, Subba Rao, Trivedi and Venky were knocking at my door and carried me to the only Private Physician in Prem Bazaar, Dr Sanyal;...does it happen nowadays at IT KGP...maybe...I don't know.

I slipped a tablet of Codopyrin into my mouth on the way.

Dr Sanyal was then young and alone, trying to catch a disturbing mosquito with his bare hands and succeeding only in loudly clapping as if calling for tea...Bengal was notorious those days for king-size anopheles mosquitoes that dodged even 'practicing' doctors.

And he warmed up as soon as he saw a rare customer led by a foursome (everyone knows this body requires a foursome at the end of its sojourn down here...sajan re jhoot muth bolo)...later on he became famous and rich and busy.

He asked me to sit on the tripod in front of him and held my wrist for a whole minute; and smiled at me. I was wondering what made him smile at a paying patient. He then announced:

"You have an athletic pulse!"

And this, when I was doing the one thing no athlete should do...smoking two packets of Wills Flakes a day.

So, I asked him what does it mean. He said it is observed in rare individuals whose pulse hovers around 50 instead of the default 72. I asked him what was mine and he said triumphantly: "47"

And I was wondering if it was that bad and foretold that I would die before even I consummated my marriage, in which case, folks told me I had to take birth again (and serve IIT KGP...Oh No!).

He read my mind and reassured me it was a symptom of good health since, although the heart-beat was slow, it was 'thundering'...meaning the pulse was high-volume.

He then opened his BP kit and went through the ritual and wrote down: 100 / 70. And again smiled. And said:

"You are hypotensive"

It sounded to me almost like a "dipso"...which I was not. And he once again reassured me that it is good to have a low BP, because it indicates a cool temper and a long long life (imprisonment).

(So far his predictions have come true)

One morning, much later, Amalendu dragged me to his Office, since he was curious to see what Ed Taylor's Software looked like...he was then writing his own software package which later was christened and sold as COSMO. He and his coworkers led me into a small air-conditioned cubicle with space enough for one PC and two persons...eventually there were six in all, everyone smoking except me...I was reformed soon after my marriage to Dr Rukmini Devi, MD...and as all reformed criminals, was allergic to my past.

After half an hour, I was feeling giddy and unable to concentrate. Voices were heard by me but made no sense. And it went on for two hours during which they were showing me what they were doing.

I returned to the scooter stand and tried to get on to it and start...which I succeeded on the fourth attempt. And the ride to my Qrs was hilarious...it was hit-and-miss with four innocent professors walking by the kerb.

As soon as I parked my scooter and went in, I dropped flat on the floor and my wife was afraid. When I narrated my symptoms, she fetched her BP kit and announced: 220 / 120. I thought I would be laid low any minute...a scary thought since I was too fond of my son to go away so soon.

And I asked her if I had to take any medicine. She said: "No, not necessary...anti-tensive drugs should be given only if the symptoms persist for 3 days at least."

And she asked me to just take it easy and lie down for a while. By the evening, I could actually multiply mentally 6 x 4 correctly and the BP apparatus showed 100 / 70 as usual.

Moral: Marry a Doctor!

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Share, Shore, Shorn

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One goofy question invariably asked and answered during our College Days in the 1950s was:

"Who is the hero of XXXX? Justify your answer"

If XXXX stood for Odessy, it is trivial...Ulysses is the answer...so this silly question was never asked.

But if it is Iliad, then there are a plethora of answers...every jack-in-the-box starting from Achilles, Ajax, Hector to Ulysses and the Trojan Horse has a claim.

Julius Caesar (which we had in our B Sc (Hons) as a Shakespeare Drama) is said to be unique...the 'title-holder' dies half-way through the Drama (although his ghost prevails...but ghosts and ghostesses can't be held heroes and heroines). The favorite candidate was Brutus..."for he was an honorable man". If honor and honesty alone makes one a hero, every other fool incapable of fibbing has a claim. Mark Antony too has a claim because he made a counter-speech that turned tables against the Marxists of Rome. But he has another drama after him, Antony & Cleopatra,...but my reading is that Cleo has a better claim because she didn't drain a cup of poison like her umpteenth hubby...a cowardly thing to do...she hugged her pet snake to her voluptuous tits...and this, not because of her love for Antony but because her next in the queue, Augustus, didn't fall for her charms...his wife must have warned him of terrible consequences that would follow.

Anyway, if you wrote 'Ceasar' as the answer, you would fail. If it was 'Brutus', you would just about pass. But I wanted a 'Distinction' ('star' in old-time Bengal) in English, at least, and so I wrote; 'Cassius'. And by the way I did get my 'star' though I lost my moon. It is easy to call someone your hero but to justify it needs skills in maverickism. And I gave about half a dozen qualities of Cassius that mark him out as special. The first five were trivial and I forgot them but I still remember that last and final gem:

"Cassius had a sharing nature"...he didn't want to grab all the credit for killing Caesar, which any goonda can do in a dark alley for adequate supari, but he enlisted a couple of dozen shareholders, and passed on the entire blame to his friend Brutus whom he allowed to administer the coup de grace...not only sharing but also sacrificing the distinction of being the first or the last author.

Ramayan is trivial as far as this question of heroism goes...Lord Raam is the quintessential hero, although some Bengali counter-culturists would cite Manthara as the real hero since Ramayan would be as tasteless as 'bread without butter' without her.

Mahabharat reeks of heroes. Many say Yudhistir, despite all his faults. Some say Draupadi, particularly Bengali ladies:

See e.g.:

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1 comments:

wanderlust said...

Sir, I am unaware of a process that decides the sex of the Hilsa fish.

The first few lines gave a premonition of a man's deep seated grudge against the other clan and I felt urged to playrole Phulan devi in spite of being a "bhaat e mach e bangali draupadi" (fish and rice and bengali and draupadi) by ethnicity.

I was sadly mistaken. Humour and quality wit has surpassed all boundaries of the man-woman empowerment conflict. I am short of words to appreciate this blog.

Would love to read more.

March 21, 2010 2:12 PM

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But my vote goes to Kuntijee. Because she inculcated the sharing nature in her kids ;-)

One of the reasons I loved IIT KGP was that students there always had this sharing nature...after they passed their first year without getting booted out.

I too wanted to inculcate this sharing nature in my only son. This was because of an incident that turned my spiritual bowels:

My neighbor there were a working couple with two kids, the younger one my son's age. So, they were very happy to leave their younger kid in our home so he could play with my son with all his toys, bats and balls, and share his idli-dosa tiffin; which was fine with me since their kid was cute and bright. When my son was admitted to St Agnes School and in his Nursery Class, he was lisping some nice nursery rhymes new to me...I only knew: "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" which my father taught me while we were sleeping under the starlit skies of our sea-side village Muthukur.

So, I took my pen and paper and asked him to recite all the rhymes he learned in the good old convent. We were then in our verandah; seeing us, my son's neighbor-classmate ran into our home and stood beside my son, both singing in concert, with actions, like lifting their two hands and placing them on their shoulders and taking them away while reciting:

"Two little dicky birds..."

Then my neighbourani happened to come out on to her verandah combing her sumptuous hair like in that favorite Hindi Movie song of Prof RSS about his neighbor going through a similar drill:

http://www.hindigeetmala.com/song/ghar_se_nikalate_hii_kuchh.htm

And saw with her own eyes her darling son sharing his rhymes with mine and me too...and she threw away her comb and let her hair fly like Draupadiji, ran out and opened her gate, ran down the main road, opened our gate, entered with lightning speed despite her ample figure, caught her son by his shoulder and dragged him home, all the while trying to smile at me saying: "It is time for his bath", and shutting her son's mouth when he tried to protest: "You gave me my bath ten minutes back, no?"

Upon which I decided to train my son to share all he has with his friends despite everything. This training helped him in his life...everyone loves him as long as they are not compelled to reciprocate...it became his second nature...particularly in sharing blame...

And I am now training his daughter Ishani (all of 2.5) to share whatever she has in her hands. Whenever she ambles into our bedroom with a bowl of grapes, pakoras, cashew nuts and the like that her mom gave her, I ask her:

"Won't you please give me one?"

Upon which she demurely places one pakora piece in my hand. And I smile and give it back to her saying:

"I can't eat it, you know! I don't have teeth"

Upon which she shows off the bright row of all her milk-teeth, saying:

"But I do have, see!!!"

This has become as regular a routine as my praising her beauty and brains.

But yesterday she came in with a bowl of Cadbury Gems with a couple of tears swelling in her eyes. I comforted her with an embrace and asked what is the matter. And she said:

"Tinkoo came in while I was eating gems. And I recalled your lesson to me to share whatever I have with my friends. And gave him one gem"

And I said: "Wonderful!, Wonderful!! Wonderful!!!"

But she moaned:

"What Wonderful? He ATE it!!! hoon...hoon...hoon..."

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Moral

"Before offering to share with others what you have, do factor into account the likelihood that they indeed may accept your offer shamelessly"




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