Fractional Distillates - 2

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Yesterday we talked about the Bitumen grade of book-rooks. They are all book-haters willy-nilly whether they admit it or not. Autocrat said that those who haven't handled books in their infancy and childhood will never get over their fear of books. It is like Diwali crackers. The converse is not true though. I have seen kids who have grown up in a vast home-library giving them a miss. This has to do with a certain imbibed confidence that when time comes (whenever it is, if ever) they can always start reading them...not to hurry and worry now...meanwhile let us play golies, gulli-danda, looko-chori, and a while later, chase the girls...

There is also this phenomenon of the parents forcing their kids to read them...anything forced in the childhood breeds an aversion, like castor oil. My Father, bless his soul, was aware of this. So, although we didn't have a home-library, he used to surreptitiously throw good school-library books here and there within my reach; and perhaps watch if I get curious what is there in them. I clearly remember one afternoon when he was ironing our dresses, I brought the Collected Works of Oscar Wilde and started reading his short pieces like the Happy Prince, Nightingale and the Rose, and Selfish Giant (I was too young to understand his Picture of Dorian Gray although I did wade through it). And after reading his stories, I remarked aloud: "Oscar Wilde's stories are very sentimental". He laughed and corrected me: "Sentimental is a negative word...the right word is, 'lyrical'..."


Anyway, the next lighter distillate is: Fuel Oil.


Folks who belong to this category can be called: Book-Case Lovers.


As soon as I entered my M.D. Uncle's drawing room, the first thing that struck me was a fairly vast book-shelf with glass doors so that any visitor could see his Collection and also read the titles. I happened to live in his home for two years. First I was afraid if I could take them out and read them. After a week, I made bold and asked Auntie if I can take down Uncle's books and read them...backdoor diplomacy.


She eventually said, "Yes, but be careful not to soil them and never lend them to your friends." This is  the typical psychology of a book-case lover...he treats them as his bone-china collection...fragile... like, 

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





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And then I was spoilt for choice. There was this Collected Works of Shakespeare (two volumes). PGW said he would give a thousands pounds sterling for anyone who read them through. While he was visiting Paris, the Germans captured it in WW2 and were rounding up all enemy intellectuals to imprison them in a fairly decent accommodation to show off their magnanimity. PGW, being a dreamy-eyed Lord Emsworth, was made to broadcast how well the Germans treated their prisoners and got into hot waters. Anyway, he was given an hour to pack up his essential possessions and march. He picked up the two Volumes of the Bard mentioned above with a desire to read them now that he had got the chance of a whale of leisure. And he wrote that the two volumes stacked one above the other made great pillows in the prison. I too gave them a miss.

But there was this Collected Works of Conan Doyle, which I waded through in those two years...not only Holmes but the Challenger Stories and in particular the Lost World, the theme of which preceded the movie Jurassic Park by almost a century. And then many PGWs and Somerset Maugham...I could sense that I was the first reader...you can always tell if a book has been thumbed earlier. Books are like cotton shirts of our youth...wear them once and they crumple. And several of the pages stick to one another and you have to use a blade to take them apart. There was this great feeling of achievement deflowering a book fresh from the printer.

The trouble with my MD Uncle and his likes those days was that from the day they entered their Medical College to the day when they got their MD eight or nine years later, they were so overloaded with the professional tomes they had to mug up that they never had any leisure to read anything else during their prime youth. But Vizagh being a University town, the medicos were living amidst University students and faculty who not only have too much leisure but outside reading was sort of essential for them to compete in the Exams for IFS, IAS etc. So they keep hearing words like Maugham and Jane Austen and Emile Zola and Jean Paul Sartre...and the pressure tells.

My youngest sister (52 then) visited our home once and saw with awe my book-shelf with its depleted survivors of KGP. And remarked in ecstasy: "I always wanted a glass-plated book-case in my Drawing Room, but it is so tiny that after arranging the sofa, center piece, diwan, TV stand, Home Theater, shoe-rack, telephone table and sundry other items, there never was any space for a decent book-case."

And I had to tell her:

"The place for a book-shelf is not the drawing room but the bedroom"

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Fractional Distillates - 1

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/aqa_pre_2011/rocks/fuelsrev3.shtml

 


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Don't think I have gone completely off my rocker to be talking about Class X Chemistry in my blog. Fractional distillation, a topic I learned while teaching Chemistry to my son in his Class X, sort of fascinated me...by the by, I was somewhat of a success as a Chemistry tutor...he went on to do his M Sc in Industrial Chemistry at IIT KGP.

What was fascinating was not so much the crude oil itself, but the separation and labeling of its various distillates. And I guess, as similes go, this gradation of components is there all over...say the gradation of geniuses...it is my contention that the word 'genius'  doesn't tolerate any adjective...like  the word, 'unique'. People talk of a 'true' genius as if the world is full of fake claimants. Our English poetry teacher in College used to go into raptures whenever he talked of Goldsmith calling him a 'versatile' genius...he never applied this term to Shakespeare alright. Genius seems to come, for some people, in the grades light, medium and strong like Coffee in South Indian hotels.


I am talking about people's relation with books (other than the inescapable ones of their professions) and their gradation.


First come the Bitumen-grade. These are the avowed book-haters. Listen to our Autocrat:


"How sweetly and honestly one said to me the other day, 'I hate books!' A gentleman,---singularly free from affectations,---not learned, of course, but of perfect breeding, which is often so much better than learning,---by no means dull, in the sense of knowledge and society, but certainly not clever either in arts and sciences,---his company is pleasing to all who know him.....In fact, I think there are a great many gentlemen that really 'hate books,' but never had the wit to find it out, or the manliness to own it."

This evening there was a middle-aged visitor to our home and it just happened I had to engage him. And I was in no mood for small talk. So, I said I write booklets with their title having my granddaughter Ishani. This made him curious and he asked me to show him one. One was right there below the telephone and I gave it to him. He flipped through it for fifteen seconds and remarked: "I never read books." And then said, "Could you please lend me this booklet, I shall read it and return it to you." I told him that there are four others which make a set and I will gift him one set by and by. He was pleased. And of course I am not going to gift him any set till he comes and asks for it again, which I am sure he won't. Nothing wrong in it.

And he is a high-up Manager in a reputed Pharma Chain, posted in Hyderabad. 

I got printed a 100 copies of my first booklet, Limericks & Light Verses, and mailed them to all my uncles and cousins, about 30. I got acknowledgment from 5 and appreciation from 2. But there are others (friends of my cousins)  who now ask me for a copy which they browsed somewhere.

There was a curious reaction to the one I gifted to our retired Chief Engineer living in our previous apartment block. He said he tried to read it but after the first few attempts he gave up because the language I used is very different from the English he was taught in School....that said it all...he never read anything beyond his school level except Civil Engg books...no harm and as our Autocrat said, he had the courage to admit it frankly.

But that was not all...he said: I have a friend who retired along with me and always boasts of his English. When he visits me next, I will challenge him to tell me the meaning of this verse (he didn't use the strange word 'limerick') that occurs in the beginning:

Older folks ought not ogle

Lest their eyes goggle and boggle;

But old and young

Queen and King

All of us ought to Google!

I asked him why he chose this as his 'test-paper'. And he said that he was sure his friend, like himself, has never heard of all those ogles, goggles, boggles, and Googles. He didn't find any of them in his English-Telugu pocket dictionary.


And a couple of years passed. And an old man living in our Apartment Complex died. And there was a congregation blocking the main gate. And I had to go to fetch my 2-liter bottle of Sprite. And as I was sneaking through the interstitial spaces, I was called by our CE and he introduced me to an old man there:


"Sastry Garu! Meet my friend of whom I talked about as an expert in English."


And as I was trying to extend my hand and thinking about some inanity to utter, the gentleman in question turned his face, pretending to meet some other VIP guest...and ran away as if I was going to take his viva on that ogle thing.


The CE was amused beyond himself.

But there is nothing wrong in admitting his ignorance of 'ogling' although I am sure he does it all the time like any other retiree.


After all, my knowledge of beams, trusses, roads and buildings and helipads is NIL and I am not ashamed to admit it...but English is different...they ruled us for two centuries mercilessly...




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Ad-vantage

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One day when I was an urchin in Class VIII, I was trailing behind my Father on the Trunk Road of Nellore. My Father used to visit Nellore, our District HQ, once a month for purchases for his school and home. And I was his invariant tail (I used to look so puny that the Bus Conductor never ticketed me).

On that busy and narrow street, Father entered a tiny Medical Shop selling Ayurvedic, Unani, Homeo, and other non-allopathic drugs.  Father's interest was Bhaskar Lavan, a horrible salty digestive, while mine was the supremely appetizing Chyavanapras. Before entering the shop I noticed a new sign board with the bold letters: NOPAIN. Not exactly...the first N was written ok, but the last N was its mirror image, the cross bar along the wrong diagonal, like the Russian 'i' as in k(i)ss: И.

So, I thought I will display my knowledge of English and stood on my toes and told the shopkeeper: "Your signboard for Nopain is faulty...the last N is wrong". Upon which the elderly shopkeeper lifted me and patted me on my head and said: "You are the 100th person to tell me this during the last one week. And my sales of Chyavanapras increased by leaps and bounds."

I couldn't follow the logic of how a wrongly spelt word increases sales. And was too afraid to ask. Now I know it was the first 'advertising gimmick' in the Nehruvian Socialism. Till then Amrutanjan was the monopoly cure-all for every pain. And Nopain, the first competitor that got license, had to try hard to sell itself and the Science of Eye-Catching Advertisement was born in India...now of course there are several 'balms'...my wife's favorite is Menthoplus, a vial of which can always be found under her pillow.

And then there was this monopoly Telugu weekly, Andhra Patrika, incidentally owned by the maker of Amrutanjan. And a rival was launched with lots of fanfare. It was called, Andhra Prabha, and was not making any headway. One Sunday morning when the School Magazines arrived in our house, we were woken up by a wafting sweet scent. And it was traced to the copy of Andhra Prabha. Its pages were loaded with a rose scent. On the first page was an ad for a newly launched scent bottle, Kunega Marikolundu, which was liberally laced over each copy of the magazine sold. It was a double whammy: men then on switched over to Andhra Prabha and their wives to Kunega...

And then there was this English Daily, The Hindu, still in print. One day, another daily appeared called The Daily Mail (not the British but the South Indian). Its front page didn't have the usual headlines like the notorious Amrit Bazar Patrika's four inch disaster: "TIKKA KHAN SHOT DEAD"...unfortunately he wasn't. But its entire first page was dedicated to fine-print ads for jobs that lay here and there scattered inside The Hindu.

This gimmick apparently didn't quite succeed because although everyone was looking for a job, they wanted to first read if Tikka Khan was really shot dead ;-)

The clock turned a full circle. Today's Deccan Chronicle as well as all the other dailies had a full-page color ad by the Tamilnadu Government detailing its successful programs in the past one year or so. The only non-text item was a huge portrait of, you know, who...the Lady CM of the said state. And for the past one year and more, every Sunday Times of India had its entire first page (as well as page 2) asking us to instantly buy a flat in an upcoming Township doling out sumptuous freebies for the early worms...like free furniture, free Registration and stuff.  I always thought if they had invested all those crores of advertizing revenue in making the Township more livable and lovable, it would have a big market...but I must be wrong as always.

And for the last couple of days there has been a big row among our Elders that their dignity has been compromised. How? Apparently the monopoly Rajya Sabha TV crew (who thought no one watches their handiwork...they were wrong...their MPs do...to see if their faces were 'covered' when they were not asleep) had their bit of fun. The new entrant to the Rajya Sabha happened to be taking her oath. The TV crew, instead of focusing on her eminently viewable face, also showed switching naughtily on the rather dour face of her rival in the Hindi Movie, Silsila. If you haven't watched the movie, here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S18p4n6svxA

Hyderabad is funny. A few years ago we were looking for renting a bigger apartment in view of my son's impending marriage. I was going by the traditional ads in the Hyderabad Chronicle for Rentals. My son one day woke me up early in the morning and dragged me to the chaurasta on his moped. And on the pavement were lying spread several newspapers. And my son picked up one titled: 'Free Ads' and started walking away. I thought he forgot to pay...but he said: "It is 'Free Ads', no? It is indeed free...the early bird gets to pick it up for free." It was as bulky as Sunday Times...but there was no news in it...the whole thing is ads, ads and ads...from Rentals to third hand BMWs...they call them 'Pre-Owned' but it is the same shirt...

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Spats & Tiffs

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 '...Norton released Surely You are joking, Mr Feynman! in a small first printing early in 1985. It sold out quickly, and within weeks the publisher had a surprising best-seller.


One unhappy reader was Murray Gell-Mann. His attention focused on Feynman's description of the joy of discovering the "new law" of weak interactions in 1957: "It was the first time, and the only time, in my career that I knew a law of nature that nobody else knew." Gell-Mann's rage could be heard through the halls of Lauritsen Laboratory, and he told other physicists that he was going to sue..."

...Genius by James Gleick Page 411.

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Who wouldn't like to watch public spats between stalwarts? I, for one, would pay for the privilege @ Rs 100 only (I am a poor retiree).

And remember that Feynman and Gell-Mann were co-authors willy-nilly...and Telegdi wrote: "The F-G theory of beta decay is no F-G" 


I don't want to mention names but in Physics, at least, quite a few celebrity co-authors had their spats, sometimes leading to a breakdown of friendships. 


History and mythology are replete with spats between Father and Son, Mother and Son...not to speak of wife and husband.


The spat between Bharata and Kaikeyee stands out as the best example.


I don't know about other languages but whenever a Telugu movie is released with a title like: "Rama-Anjaneya Yuddham" or "Krishna-Arjuna Yuddham" it was a sell-out.


In my Father and Grandfather's generations, it was typical of the husband behaving like a tyrant having a say in all family decisions, especially involving money, till say the end of his middle age. The wife then remained a mute spectator believing that her husband is a know-all and can't do wrong. But, as any Management Guru knows, none can be infallible in all his decisions...some of them eventually bomb...like the divorce of the eldest daughter after a decade, or worse, the dowry death of the youngest. Then on the husband is on the defensive and wife takes over with retrospective effect. And it was always fun to watch the old man and his much younger wife arguing, insulting, even throwing chappals and ladles at one another. And it was never a tame draw. The wife wins resoundingly. After a few futile attempts, the husband knows how to hide when his wife is in one of her truculent moods; and either run away to the market or bury his head in The Hindu pretending nothing happened.  My Grandfather on my mom's side developed a healthy attitude..he would  look at us kids and smile and say: "See..see what sort of language she uses!"


Nowadays it is very common to watch two Bollywood stars or even cricketing stars coming to blows...maybe it is stunt.


In the Phy dept of IIT KGP, the canonical spat between two senior professors was the SDM-GXM pubic fight. DB and I both missed it unfortunately but several witnesses told us the story. It so happened that SDM had a monthly-rickshaw chap who would arrive at SDM's Qrs, pick him up and reach him at the BC Roy circle. But if GXM was found walking along, SDM would 'offer' him a lift (the rickshaw chap bore the combined heavyweights without grumbling...I guess he had lots of fun overhearing the two senior professors' arguments). One day however, SDM was so cut up with what he thought was GXM's treachery in the matter of promoting their Research Scholars into permanent SRA positions that SDM asked the rickshawala to stop at Harry's and threw GXM out, the latter trying to put up a brave face and snigger...he had to walk the rest of the distance.

There was another famous couple in the campus. The husband was a Senior Professor and his wife a home-maker. They loved visiting their colleagues' homes of an evening and spend an hour or two. Prof KVR told me that within minutes of everyone taking their seats on the sofa, the husband-wife combo would pick up an argument that would develop soon into a tiff, and then grow into a brawl, threatening to turn into a fist-fight, with the attendant shouts, tears, and insults. But meanwhile dosa and coffee would arrive and their tempers would cool down. And by the time they leave, the two would walk away arm-in-arm like long-lost buddies.


Finally, at Vizagh, our co-tenants had a rather a large family and were so angry with each other they would never speak to each other in public (or even in private...our walls were thin). But every other year there was a new arrival, as regular as the arrival of the Indian monsoon in Bombay.

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