Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Caninology - Repeat Telecast

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Dogs always fascinated me.

Ever since a big black hound chased me (when I was just a kid of about his age and height) on an ill-lit night in a strange alley and plucked a juicy bit of flesh from my right thigh.

The trauma of the event and its aftermath of 14 painful injections around my congested navel never left me. But, for a kid of 10, I was more philosophical than he, and used to wonder what he felt after his 'Mission Accomplished'...I still wonder.

Anyway, dogs of AP are making headlines daily in Hyderabad. Apparently they bit (collectively) more than 20,000 (!) people this summer and many rabies deaths have been reported.

The usual recriminations are out in the open.

There is talk of a criminal shortage of the vaccine.

And recalcitrant municipal protests that all is well as always except that the number of cases reported in the newspapers has gone up due to paucity of other titillating news now that the mission has indeed been truly accomplished in spite of the usual cynics asking for habeas corpus.

But some interesting folks are having a field day and making waves in DC.



"Astrology pundits are attributing this sudden spurt in canine activity to the changes in the positions of Rahu and Ketu" 


...which by the way are not even planetary bodies but just nodes in the intersection of the zodiacal and lunar orbital planes and so are related to eclipses...

"Ketu is transiting from Gemini to Taurus" 


...so what?...

"People are instructed to perform abhishekams and homams to the god Kalabhairava" who is in charge of the situation. 



...there is a temple of Kalabhairava in the outskirts of Varanasi which by the way is under siege nowadays because Ganga is apparently changing course and deserting her consort at the Dasawamedha Ghat due to the exponential rise in sins of omission and commission by the current UP Govt...surely an irrational politically motivated calumny...some say it is due to the World Class environmental ecological pollution...


"Numerologists are convinced it is Rahu and not Ketu who is the culprit. Their theory is that the dog is linked to the number 4. 


...don't ask me why...be a good boy!...

"and the ruling planet of this number is Rahu and not Ketu" 

...or even the loony moon...


"Most of the dog bites and rabies cases commence on the fourth month April".

...besides, they say, 


"the nature of the dog is to come out of hiding suddenly and attack people".

...ask me!...

 This, they say, is,

"akin to the sudden and secretive ways of Rahu" 

...and not, say Brishaspati ,an honest and upright teacher like me who never streaked into the class room whatever the provocation...

"As a preventive, the numerologist suggests chanting the Gayatri mantra."


...doesn't reveal the Brahminical Connection...

"He considers this more effective than running away or standing and staring or chasing the dog away with a stick".

I thought Atticus had more sense.



...Posted by Ishani

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Blind Man's Buff - Repeat Telecast

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The other day my friend NP invited us to his grandkid's Birthday Party. 

He knows that I don't eat at Parties,
 so I am allowed to mark my attendance, quit, return after a couple of hours, do a bit of gaga, and leave with my family.

But this time he expressed a wish that I stay back since he has a surprise for me.

That of course aroused my curiosity.

And as soon as we finished the attendance formalities, he fetched an old goon about my age and said that the gent was PKM, my classmate for five years at AU at Vizagh a half century ago, and NP had enticed him to his Party with the rare chance of meeting good old gps.

And NP left us in the peace of a two-seater sofa with a cool drink each as sweetener.

And this is a snatch of the  dialogue that took place thereafter:



PKM: How wonderful to see you after so long! You haven't changed a bit!!! Where do you live?

gps: Madinaguda

PKM: That is far from civilization...but I guess it is very peaceful and free from the pollution of Jubilee Hills where I live.

gps: Yes, I am now very happy after 3 years at Banjara Hills.

PKM: I met B a week ago at a Party

gps: How nice! I hear he traveled to Antarctica for six months in that Expedition

PKM: No, that was T; B retired from Khadakvalsa College. I am told you met L recently

gps: He kept in touch with me

PKM: He went to the Road Research Organization at Delhi; no?

gps: No; that was M; L went to Cornell

PKM: Is that so? I meet Ms K every other month

gps: Ah, I met her nephew once...she was at Chennai, no?

PKM: No, that was Ms S; K retired from ECIL here itself

gps: Is that so? I do hope they remain the great buddies they were at our Univ.

PKM: No, they never were; except for public pretense...they still bicker

gps: How nice to see you and exchange old gossip!

PKM: Yea! We must meet often

gps: Sure; I must be going

PKM: Me too...my wife doesn't know anyone here

gps: Bye

PKM: Bye

NP arrives and asks us if we had a great time getting together...we both agreed vehemently...



...Posted by Ishani

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Infinite Conpassion - Repeat Telecast

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OK, so you thought I made a spelling mistake and I am going to preach about the Infinite Compassion of Jesus or the Buddha.

Wrong again!

Conpassion is the precise opposite of Compassion; contrariwise as Tweedledee said.

I met many many persons (of both sexes) who are never happy with what you are or say or do.

Conpassion is a credo with them.

Let me illustrate by a 'composite dialogue' between a personified IC and me:


IC:  Where are you working?

Me:  IIT Kharapur

IC:  No good; IIT Kanpur is the best. What subject?

Me: Physics

IC: Pity, IITs are meant for Engineers. Anyway, Theory or Experiment?

Me: Theory

IC: It is stagnating, unlike Nano-Technology. Who is your guide?

Me: XXX

IC: Two of his scholars committed suicide and the third is in an asylum. What is your pay?

Me: XXX

IC: My daughter is in IT and she draws ten times your pay at half your age. Children?

Me: One son

IC: Sons are useless. They migrate to the US. You ought to have a daughter like mine

Me: My son is in Hyderabad

IC: Shockingly dirty place. He failed in GRE?

Me: He never appeared

IC: Hmm! Afraid of failure? Has any kids?

Me: One daughter

IC: Too much dowry in Hyderabad. He should have a son

Me: I will pass on your suggestion


The trouble about folks here in Hyderabad is that they want to quantify everything. Like Money in the Bank. If you stop by and admire a lovely black rose in their garden, they say it fetches $10 in the current export market.

If I say my son shifted to a new job the only thing they ask is how much is his hike.

If I say we shifted to a new apartment they ask how much is the new rent.



Weighty Matter


There is a curious news item today that a Senior Police Official tried to hang himself in his Police Station during lunch hour, but the attempt fizzled out: the rope snapped...he was too obese for the rope.

My friend NP used to say that every engineering student of his time had to pass a hated subject called: Strength of Materials.

But, as the Guard in the open-air crematorium at KGP used to say, after lighting his beedi in the engulfing fire,

"Everything has its use"



...Posted by Ishani

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Newsiness - Repeat Telecast

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Here is a curious news story that appeared in both Deccan Chronicle and Times of India yesterday:



...According to Begumpet Police Inspector (Mr AY), R (21), who works at a car accessories shop in Ranigunj and resides in Patigadda, invited three of his friends, S (21), A (21), and J (24), for a party at his house terrace on Friday night.

The party continued till 4 AM.

Meanwhile, a cat reportedly landed on the spot drawn by the food. R tried to shoo away the cat, but it kept coming back. Irritated, he went downstairs and got a toy pistol. He fired at the cat, but it managed to escape. The 'bullet' hit the window panes of a house of retired ASI, MAK. He had worked as ASI in Begumpet and retired last year.

Hearing the loud sound, the former policeman's family members were jolted out of their sleep.

On Saturday at around 7 AM, the retired ASI lodged a complaint at the Begumpet police station against R. Based on the complaint, police arrested four persons, R, S, A and J, and remanded them to judicial custody.

"We registered a case against the four persons under Section 336 (act endangering life and personal safety of others) and 427 (mischief causing damage) of the IPC."...



This reminded me of another news story of a couple of years back:


Thursday, April 2, 2009


Pet Rage Doggerel


"A senior Punjab IPS Officer grabbed his security guard's AK-47 and emptied the entire 32-round magazine on two snarling stray dogs and ended up shooting his own gunman in his thigh trying to save his pet dog. He was booked for his cruelty to animals"

...News item on page 8 DC April 2, 2009

IPS Officer's Defense:

They tried to kill my dog, they did;
I shot the mutts with his gun, I did;
My dog I saved as I wished, I did;
The poor cur lost his head and thigh, He did!






Note the following points common to both the stories:

1. In both cases, policemen are involved. It would be worth pondering if the cases would have resulted in arrests otherwise. The matter would have possibly been settled out of court amicably.

2. It is a matter of cats and dogs... poor chumps.

3. In both the cases, the pellet or bullet unfortunately went awry and hit the wrong party. If it happened that the cat or the dogs alone got killed, the matter would have ended there. And no one would have cared.

4. Just look at the Sections of the IPC that were invoked. In the first case, there was no mention of cruelty to the feline. It was a case of cruelty to the retired ASI; and it was not as if he was the more aggrieved party. He just lost his sleep for a few hours. The cat certainly would have been frightened out of her wits and stopped eating thereafter.

On the other hand, in the second case, the criminal was booked for cruelty to animals while the injured party was much higher in the animal kingdom: viz. a poor and innocent Security Guard.

5. In both the cases the cub reporters' fortunate beat was the criminal court and they had an easy scoop (they were surely not present at the scene of the crime before or during or after the event):

It is said that dog biting man is no news but man biting dog is.


It is also said that a kid asked his papa:

"How come there is always just enough news every day, without fail, to precisely fill the 18 pages of our paper?"


...Posted by Ishani

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Publicity - Repeat Telecast

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During my High School 
Years in our seaside Village Muthukur (1951-57), there was a plethora of Elections (or so it seems now).

The First General Elections in 1952 were followed by the carving out of Andhra State from the Madras Presidency in 1953, followed by the unification (unwilling it now seems) of Telengana with Andhra to make up Andhra Pradesh (AP) in 1956 which called for more and more elections and by-elections every once in a while.

My abiding picture of the pre-election scene is the lone tractor of the Village adorned by yards of Congress Tricolor, cardboard cutout of Nehru, and the election symbol of Congress:

"Two bullocks and a plow"



And the only Opposition Party then was CPI (undivided) which didn't have a tractor but lots of pushbikes going round, with blood-red banners and its election symbol:

"Sickle and sheaf of corn"

See, both the parties then had agriculture at their common heart...one plows and the other reaps (contrast this with the hand, elephant, lotus, cycle, time piece and so on, which have nothing in common).

Anyway, the belching tractor was a great attraction to us urchins. The driver would halt near our school and most of us would be given a leg-up, and once we are in we would be handed cheap Congress flags and asked to shout lustily:


"Two bullocks and a plow!" 

and we would be hauled around the two major streets to and fro and dumped back to upload the next batch. And those who didn't get the flags would be given a sheaf of cheap pamphlets to be scattered on the roadside to be picked up by one and all running for them. The pamphlets had again the picture of "Two bullocks and a plow".

We all got hoarse in the throat but anything for a tractor ride!

The CPI didn't have that much money to fritter away (Russia was kanjoos) but the cycle processions were a treat to watch and we were asked to tail them shouting: "Corn and Sickle!" for a fistful each of "balli gudlu" (red and green colored tiny candy balls that resembled "lizard eggs" and melted in the mouth).

That was all the publicity we knew...

...apart from the Touring Talkies that graced our village once or twice a year for two months, during which a cycle-borne youth would fly by our streets throwing leaflets as he went. And all of us would run and fight for as many as we could garner as a valued treasure, for they had what we thought were lovely pictures of heroes and heroines who were heartthrobs for the village folks: Nageswara Rao and Savitri all the time...like Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen.

One overarching bridge between Andhra and Bengal which otherwise were poles apart was the Communist Movement: we had legendary figures like Chandra Rajeswara Rao, Pucchalapalli Sundaraiah, Basavapunnaiah who were friends of Jyoti-da. All these were revered figures and idealists and were much admired and respected. Then of course, Srikakulam took up the Naxal Movement along with Kanu-da and Charu-da.



How different publicity is now!!!

For the past 2 months everyday all newspapers in Hyderabad are jacketed by front and back full page advertisements for condominiums begging you to buy dream apartments in gated communities which have everything you can wish within their four walls like a fortress.

Imagination boggles at the moolah that goes into those serial ads.

And these things have exotic names: Space Station, Nile Valley, and such.

Nile Valley (where I live now) in the rocky and hilly and thirsty Hyderabad!!!

And as soon as you pick up your newspaper hoping to turn to the first page to read the day's headlines, half a a dozen glossy pamphlets would spill all over the floor and frustrate you.



I was made to read Feynman's 


"Surely You are Joking!" 

by Amitabh Chatterjee (the one who also made me read Sakurai's MQM)...he brought an early US paperback a quarter century ago.

The only other full sentence I remember in it now is:

"Publicity is a whore!"

And that also was not spoken by Feynman!



...Posted by Ishani


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Curiosity - Repeat Telecast

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Let me confess that I am an MCP.

MCP was the acronym invented by feminists in my youth in the 1960s and stands for the celebrated 'Male Chauvinist Pig':



Definition: A male chauvinist pig was a term used in the 1960s among feminists for men, usually with some power (such as an employer or professor), who believed that men were superior and expressed that opinion freely in word and action.

http://womenshistory.about.com/cs/60s70s/g/gl_mcp.html


Well, I was never an employer nor much of a professor having never guided feminist Ph D students. I did guide a lady M Sc Project Student, but while asking for a dozen Recos to travel to the US for Ph D Program, she did say (in Bengali):

"If you don't feel like giving me Recos, you have to take me as your Ph D student".



What do you call that? Arm-twisting? Well, she got some of the most glorious Recos I ever wrote (which she deserved eminently).


Let me not digress.

By MCP I now mean: Most Curious Person.

I can list any number of examples in literature in which Curiosity has been diagnosed as a female symptom...but of course all of them have been written by Male Chauvinistic Pigs...I resent it.



Why is it that the Serpent chose Eve but not Adam to tempt to eat that delicious fruit?

"God charges Adam to tend the garden in which they live, and specifically commands Adam not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eve is questioned by the serpent concerning why she avoids eating from this tree. In the dialogue between the two, Eve elaborates on the commandment not to eat of its fruit. She says that even if she touches the fruit she will die. The serpent responds that she will not surely die, rather she and her husband would "be as gods, knowing good and evil," and persuades Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eve eats and gives the fruit to Adam, who also eats. At this point the two become aware, "to know good and evil," evidenced by an awareness of their nakedness. God then finds them, confronts them, and judges them for disobeying.
....wiki

Again, why is it that it was Pandora but not Epimetheus who chose to open that lovely Gift Box?




"In classic Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman on earth. Zeus ordered Hephaestus, the god of craftsmanship, to create her, so he did—using water and earth. The gods endowed her with many talents: Aphrodite gave her beauty, Apollo music, Hermes persuasion. Her name Pandora means "all-gifted."

When Prometheus stole fire from heaven, Zeus took vengeance by presenting Pandora to Epimetheus, Prometheus' brother. With her, Pandora had a jar which she was not to open under any circumstance. Impelled by her natural curiosity, Pandora opened the box-jar, and all evil contained escaped and spread over the earth. She hastened to close the lid, but the whole contents of the jar had escaped, except for one thing that lay at the bottom, which was Hope. Pandora was deeply saddened by what she had done, and was afraid that she would have to face Zeus' wrath, since she had failed her duty. However, Zeus did not punish her, because he knew this would happen"

....wiki



Here is that naughty Aphrodite at work again:

"...Aphrodite, who had the Charites and the Horai to enhance her charms with flowers and song (according to a fragment of the Cypria quoted by Athenagoras), offered the love of the world's most beautiful woman (Euripides, Andromache, l.284, Helena l. 676). This was Helen of Sparta, wife of the Greek king Menelaus"

...wiki


Note the language..."offered love of....Helen". What did her husband lack that Helen should embark on her ill-fated journey to Troy with that cowboy Paris?

Curiosity, obviously!



When Raam and Laxman were relaxing over a chess board it was Sita that saw that golden deer (golden, my foot!).

And got stolen by Raavan.

Why?

Curiosity, obviously!



When Yudhsitir was playing dice, Bhim was gorging in the kitchen, Arjun was shooting birds in their eyes, Nakul was horsing around, and Sahadev was milking his cows, it was Draupadi that watched Duryodhan making an ass of himself in Maya Sabha, giggled, and brought agony upon everyone.

Why?

Curiosity, obviously!


Take the lovable word: 'curiouser'.

You won't find it in any Dictionary.

But Lewis Carroll went a step ahead of every other MCP to invent that most curious word to be uttered by that sweet and innocent girl Alice.


Well, to make up for all the injustices perpetrated on us, we do have our Physicist Cowboy, Feynman, who approved the subtitle for his magnum opus:

"Adventures of a curious character"

Amen!


...Posted by Ishani

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Degrees of Freedom - Repeat Telecast

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By now about 100 KGPhians must be converging on IIT KGP for their Diamond Jubilee Get-Together. Pratik tells me tomorrow is the D-Day.

I guess most of them, say 80, must be ex-students. And 16 or so ex-faculty. Maybe the rest 4 are like bats...mammals with wings...I mean they were students (BCRoy mostly) and then teachers. This is my surmise...I have no data.

What is attracting all these folks there ranging in age from say 25 to 80?

I have a one-word answer to this million dollar question...Freedom.

All of them must have tasted hitherto unknown freedom in the Campus of KGP.

For UGs it is understandable. For the first time they were flying away from the shackles of home, parents, school masters, coaches, midnight oil, accounting for pocket money at the end of the day or week or month. No one asks them anymore what they would like to have for breakfast, lunch, snack or dinner and in their 'snack boxes'. And for the first time they would be mixing with queer 'others' from South, North, West, East, Far East; and would be hearing all sorts of lingos. It would take them some time to break their barriers and shackles and make unthinkable friends like say, Aniket from Cal and Kedar from Bombay. I asked Aniket when their friendship started. He said it was when they entered Phy Labs in their third year and were partners (in phy crime) willy-nilly. Even Supratim, who joined in his 4th year, remembers his lab partner, Santosh, and how the two were brutally ragged by an otherwise nice gent called Prof KVR.

And their haunts like Harrys, Chedis, or Gymkhana...

The same is true with the faculty who joined Phy Dept at KGP. They must have felt an all too unfamiliar oxygenated and exhilarating atmosphere in the Phy Dept. They would have been coming from their parochial Universities where they were told what they have to do and how and who to mix with and who to avoid. Speaking for myself, from birth to age 20, I was made keenly aware that I am a Brahmin and belong to the oppressor caste. I never felt I oppressed anyone...but that is neither here nor there.

As Sunanda K Datta-Ray wrote the other day, there is no caste in Bengal. That one thing was just enough for me to stick on there for all those decades. And when as a young teacher I asked my HoD, Prof HNB, what the Syllabus for my Class of EMT was, he looked at me and said: "You teach what you feel is good for the students and give me the syllabus at the end of the year."

Just unthinkable in our AU (Vizagh).

Prof AVK, ten years senior to me at AU, joined KGP as a faculty along with me in May 1965. He was teaching at BHU before that. And he told me that he was elated when he got his Appointment Letter as a Permanent Lecturer from KGP. Because, he said, at BHU those days, one starts as a Temporarily Temporary Lecturer, then graduates slowly to Permanently Temporary, and then Temporarily Permanent, and finally, before retirement or death whichever is earlier, as Permanently Permanent...he must have been joking.

But I witnessed (unfortunately) that gag about death. RSS, a virtuous Brahmin with few earthly desires, had but one...he wanted to retire as a (Full) Professor. But he was so good a human being that God loved him young and he was struck down by the Emperor of All Maladies when he was turning 50. And was bedridden and in the last stages of that venerable disease that sees no distinction of age, sex, caste, color or achievements like all those Apples or those famous Diagrams.

And as a very very special case, his Interview was conducted supine at his Qrs. And the next day, he was semi-officially told that he made it...a fortnight before he left leaving not a rack behind as Shakespeare said of all of us. This sort of a personal humanitarian thing, I suppose, is unique and unthinkable in our Univs...I beg to be corrected.

Well, for me, the difference between my AU and KGP was summed up by Maugham who said that in France you can act as you like but you have to think alike, while in Germany it is the other way round.

And I had to attend not only German Classes as my Ph D requirement but also Russian Classes to please My Fair Russian Lady:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/03/my-fair-russian-lady.html

...Posted by Ishani

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