Dress Codes

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In our Village School in the charming 1950s there was no dress code.

Indeed there was not much of a dress. None of us students had any footwear. And none wore full-pants. Well, we did wear half-pants but no undergarments...it was too warm.

Then this cute kid Raghu from the city joined our class. He was the son of the newly arrived doctor in what passed as our Hospital. He came with a full pant, full shirt and chappals. And felt so isolated and embarrassed that he skipped classes for a week till his mom had half pants and 'bush' shirts stitched for him. And he stopped wearing chappals, poor kid.

That in a nutshell is the moral of a dress code...conform!

Much later in the 1980s I read a news item: This town kid pestered his mom to buy him a jeans pant. And as soon as it arrived, he tore it up in a few places with scissors, had patchworks done by his mom, took his new pants to the bathroom and spent hours brushing them with coconut fiber, sand, and grime till they looked 'faded'...this guy (and his friends) would have been warmly received in our Village School as 'one of us'....

But our girl classmates were different.

They wore just a blouse with puffed up 'shoulders' and a printed skirt...full...not knee-length till about Class VIII.

Then they took leave for 3 days at a stretch. And when they returned to school, they were metamorphosed. They were in a pleated skirt, an arm-length blouse and a cute mini-sari covering them. And started blushing, refusing to join our games, sitting apart in our Class Room, 'friending' our lone Lady Teacher, Rani,...in short putting on the dog (sorry for the male gender).

It was all mystifying. We felt hoodwinked; and forlorn.

Nowadays it is the precise opposite...no girl takes 3 days leave at a stretch, nor start wearing mini-saris, nor sitting apart; it is all the other way round. Instead of covering up themselves they try to cover up their sudden 'difference'.

In Nehrujee's secular socialist free India, purohits as a profession started becoming an extinct species. Our own purohit's son who was our classmate was advised by his father to join the Territorial Army for a living.

When I returned to Hyderabad from KGP in 2005, I was stunned to see a phalanx of purohits, well-fed, riding scooters and power bikes, with their heads tonsured but for a blowing tuft, demanding entry into Apartment Complexes and getting it, to bless the unwary by the dozen with a vedic chant or two and pocketing wads of currency notes that would make my father blush...he having been advised by 'his' purohit uncles to take up English Education in the Christian College, Madras, becoming an English Teacher with pomp and prestige but a famished 'living'.

I discovered the secret of this transformation over half a century from Nehru's AP to Manmohan's.

I guess most folks here perhaps make too much money of a different color nowadays, and are afraid.

Fear seems to be the key to showy religion...at least in our AP.

Ha!

Ishani is retuning tomorrow early morning with her mom and dad...what a lark!

I am driving my jalopy 30 km to receive her at the Secunderabad Railway Station.

And sleeping early tonight.


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Tweaked Tales

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In our Village School at Muthukur we had a youthful Maths Teacher, Harihara Sharma.

My HM Father didn't believe in 'Giving Games', a favorite pastime of reluctant teachers at KV KGP (at one time, not now). So, when the Telugu Pundit was absent, the HM would depute his Math Teacher to substitute, improvise and engage the class.

And Sharma Garu would ask one of our beck-benchers to reel out the story of, say, the Crow and the Fox.

And would shake his head and say that there is a modern version of the Fable. And we would all be ears and beg him to tell it. And he would clear his throat and narrate with dramatic gestures:

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There was this clever Crow up the tree eating her piece of bread. And this clever Fox would see her and butter her up saying:

"Crow, crow, lovely crow! I am told you are a melodious singer; won't you please sing a song for me?"

And the Crow would remove the piece of bread from her beak, insert it below her foot and sing a song or two.

Then the Fox would come up with a cleverer request:

"Crow, crow, sublime crow! I am told you are a lithe danseuse; won't you please dance for me?"

And the Crow would replace the piece of bread in her beak and dance like the devil.

Then the Fox would come up with his final appeal:

"How wonderful it would be to see you render a song and dance number!"

And the Crow would ask our Fox to wait a while, eat up her bread, and perform the item number Sheila ki Jawani (Ishani's favorite) gleefully.

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That is what I call a Tweaked Tale, like the many I rendered in the Class Rooms at KGP.

In her childhood my smart niece used to come to me with joke-requests.

And I would start:

Banta steals the King's ring and is caught in the act and given death sentence. He catches the King's feet and asks for a reprieve The King proclaims:

"You will be hanged if you tell the truth and shot if you tell a lie."

My niece would brush me aside saying it is a stale joke.

I would retort that Banta is special, not like Joe.

And she would ask how.

Banta broods silently for a long minute and decide:

"I will be hanged."

And he is!

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During our youth at our AU, the Telugu Film Industry used to come up with fascinating titles which were all Tweaked Tales from our epics; like:

"Krishna - Arjun Yuddham"

"Raama - Aajuneya Yuddham"

and books like:

"Keemayanam" (in which Raavan is the hero and Raam the villain)

all of which were much more enterprising and entertaining than the regular stale epic stories.

And I now believe that tweaking tales is high art

or

Research?

Every day I read tall tales in newspapers saying:

"Nicotine is good for digestion"

"Painkillers are bad for liver"

"Excessive water is bad for kidneys"

"Vitamins are bad for heart"

To say nothing of various food supplements and yogic postures for enhanced virility.



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Bull Runs

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Bull is a very good word with a variety of meanings such as:

the bovine animal, papal edict, a cheap boast or even a blunder.

But the bull I have in mind is the ferocious animal. Some of them like the Gaur bull can stand their ground against predators like tigers and lions and even gore them to death. Tigers think twice before molesting them.

Bulls are in the news nowadays.

The Spanish Bull Run festivals are on and DC is full of pictures, gory and funny...gory comes from gore, of a bull typically.

Hemingway wrote an absorbing book: Death in the Afternoon.

It is all about Bull Fighting. His enchantment with the sport is because the matador, after teasing the bull to its boiling point has to stand very close to it as it charges past him with its aggressive head bent. And he has to 'kill' by bending over it and plunging his short sword in its neck.This split second is called the moment of truth, because if the matador makes a wee mistake in timing and the bull lifts its head, the matador is killed outright on the spot.

So, in theory at least, there is an even chance for the bull to kill its tormentor (so different from the pleasure hunters of tigers, sitting cozily on their machan up a tree and shooting the poor animal drawn to its meal).

There is a milder sport called Jallikattu in Tamilnadu...nowadays there is an outcry to ban it.

I talked about my first frightening experience of watching fighting bulls in our Village earlier:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2011/06/titanfights.html

Talking of ESP and stuff, I had this funny experience with a bullock cart at KGP:

One afternoon, I parked my TVS moped by the side of a lonely road well away from the tarmac and went into my friend's house for a chat.

And on returning to pick up the moped, I saw a double-bullock cart driven by a teenager coming my way.

I then had a premonition that the kid will now thrash the left bull urging it to speed up, the bull will get enraged and go haywire, turn left all the way down the road, hit my moped causing it to take a tumble and damage it sufficiently badly that I have to carry it on the bullock cart to the garage mechanic.

And it all happened in that precise sequence.

The probability of this chancy sequence of predicted events happening is as low as the chance of life on this planet.

Anyway, for those regulars who read this post up to this point, here is what I learned today:

KK was riding his TVS Scooty (with his Mrs on the pillion) on the main road of Jamshedpur about a month back, and met with a freak and nasty accident involving a roadside bull.

Lucky that he was wearing his helmet (his Mrs wasn't wearing one).

KK had a fracture in his pelvic region and was advised bed rest for seven weeks.

His Mrs escaped with a bleeding head injury that luckily didn't call for surgery, as revealed by a scan.

For those of you who know him well enough to wish him speedy recovery, here is his mail id:

kumar@phy.iitkgp.ernet.in


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Woolly Words

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On retiring from the Physics Department at IIT KGP in 1975, SDM joined as HoD, Math Dept at Viswabharati (remember that he had an M Sc each in Physics and Math; and equally profound publications in both).

He revisited KGP in 1983 and had dinner with us and watched our toddler son and pronounced (with some uninhibited astonishment): "Khoob shunder cheley hoyecche!".

While narrating his experiences at VB, he was bemoaning that his young Math Faculty there discovered that he didn't know Topology...it was neither taught in his pre-independence student days at Cal nor did he need it in his research work in GR, QM or Group Theory...he was a past master of Analysis and Algebra.

So, it seems, in public discussions like Vivas or Seminars, when he finds a loophole in their talks and tries to crucify them saying that their ideas of Point of Accumulation, say, are all wrong, they would retort:

"It happens to be right in Topology"

And silence him.

When we were living in Qrs C1-97 we had huge front and backyards and we employed a mali to keep them clean. He was an ancient import from East Bengal, toothless, and equipped with a charming vocabulary and an exotic accent. I suspect he was a rickshaw-puller before migrating to KGP. And his knowledge of gardening was about the same as my knowledge of Math...workmanlike, with no frills.

And I would ask him what the name of that flower in Bengali is. And he would say: Chompak. Then I would retort that the other day he used Chompak for a totally different flower; and he would bestow a condescending toothless smile and declaim:

"That is desi chompak while this is junglee chompak".

Same with Mollika...he would call 5 different flowers mollika and, when questioned how, would add adjectives and invectives...like chhotto, bodo, kalo, chandro, surjo...

In our AP Village in the 1950s, post-independence, there were a variety of novel merchandise. Neither the shopkeepers nor us consumers knew their names.

So, there were two broadside epithets: Bengal and Bangalore...don't ask me why not Jaipur.

So, I ask the shopkeeper what this new thing is called.

And he would reply: Oh, that is Bengal pappu (gram) or Bengal dumpa (white aloo)...

And when he is tired of Bengal, he would take up Bangalore: Bangalore vankay (chow-chow), Banglore mircha (capsicum)...

And when he is fed up with both he would say: Simla beans (kingsize).

On returning to Nawabi Hyderabad, I now find that the most popular Woolly Word is: Turai.

Any flower on a tree that looked exotic to them would be called Turai puvvu (krishnachura).

And Turai is bottle gourd one day and snake gourd the other...

We now come to the hi-tech lingo:

Bug, virus, and spam are passe'.

The in-thing is various G's.

"My cell phone is 2G-enabled...it has GPRS, wi-fi, GPS..."

"Oh, that's nothing...my QWERTY phone has 3G...all downloads at the flick of a button...just watching 3 Idiots..."

How many did you say?

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Importance of Fairy Tales

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'It's a funny thing about children,' Margherita sighed.

'When they're here, we're painfully aware about their presence; and when they're gone we're just as painfully aware of the hole they've left behind them'

.........House that Nino built

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My July score of blogs so far, the blogspot says, is 21; and it is only 15th today.

Generally I scramble to post something everyday; KGPhians are so demanding.

But the last fortnight I have been posting madly at all hours of the day @ 1.5 blogs a day.

Reason: Couple of weeks back Ishani left for Nellore with her mom.

And the vacuum tells.

She is retuning in a couple of days to take over...

She is just 1.6 years old; and I am waiting for her to attain the glorious 2-year-old-age. For I am bubbling with enthu to tell her all sorts of Fairy Tales, with top spin as I go.

Why?

Listen to Margherita's take once again:

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"...Our neighbour, Signora Marcella, was at our house on the day of departure, and heard the Duchess (6) remark;

'If the cat turns out to be a boy, it doesn't matter. But if it turns out to be a girl and lays eggs, please let me know.'

After the Duchess had gone, Signora Marcella gave vent to considerable indignation.

'That child has reached the age of reason. She is a mother of a family!' she exclaimed. 'To think that she can't distinguish a tomcat from a tabby, and imagine that felines lay eggs, like hens or canaries! There are certain essential facts that ought to be made clear even to the very young.'

But Margherita wasn't in the least worried.

'As long as the cat is in the know, that's all that matters. I don't mind if my child is ignorant of certain essential facts, but of course it won't do for the cat to behave like a chicken.'

I found the statement both logical and reassuring, but Signora Marcella didn't agree.

'It's a great mistake to keep children in the dark,' she insisted. 'Even the most old-fashioned educators believe that they ought to be instructed.'

Margherita has a limited number of ideas, but they are all crystal-clear.

'Even the most old-fashioned educators are a filthy-minded lot,' she replied. 'That cat never had any sexual instruction, but she'll know what to do when the time comes. No one ever talked very much to me about these things, but when I grew up, it never occurred to me to lay eggs like a hen or a canary.'

Signora Marcella isn't the sort to appreciate Margherita's reasoning.

'If you bring up a girl on fairy tales, how can she cope with the crude realities of life when they impinge upon her?'

Margherita was not in the least perturbed.

'How did you cope with them yourself?' she asked. 'After all, you and I were brought up on fairy tales, weren't we?'

Signora Marcella said that times had changed, but Margherita insisted that the famous 'facts of life' were just the same now as twenty years ago.

'I can't think of anything more criminal than taking away the illusions of a child. Fairy tales, as you call them, are like the foundations of a house. You may not see them, but they hold it up through the years.'

This was too much for Signora Marcella.

'What's criminal is to foster these illusions. If a girl's brought up on milk and honey, just think what a shock she'll receive when she learns babies aren't brought by the stork, for instance.'

'It wasn't too much of a shock to me,' said Margherita.

Signora Marcella had a great many things to say, the usual theories put forth by the 'sexual planners' the world over.

'I intend to tell my children fairy tales until they're at least twenty years old,' concluded Margherita. 'I still remember the ones that were told to me, and even if I've learned that they aren't true, I continue to get pleasure and some comfort from them.'

Signora Marcella insinuated that Margherita wasn't very bright, and Margherita insinuated even more serious things in return, and the discussion ended. The cat turned out to be a girl, and having attended no courses in eugenics, ignorantly laid a batch of eggs...."


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Hemingway's Lesson

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Here is a story I read half a century ago in Readers Digest:

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Papa Hemingway (PH) and Charlie (name forgotten) were once stranded in wartime Shanghai.

And there were no beer bottles to be got for love or money.

Famished.

And then there was this ad that a smuggled crate of famous beer bottles are on street-side auction.

Among a hundred others PH and Charlie too were bidding.

And Charlie outbid everyone else and carried the crate home and lovingly preserved it for his Birthday Bash coming up next month.

PH asked Charlie if he could buy just one bottle from him.

Charlie agreed to gift him a bottle on one condition:

PH should give him six lessons on how to write.

The deal was closed and PH took away the topmost bottle from the crate.

PH gave Charlie his first five lessons on the art and craft of writing.

On the day of his final lesson, in the Railway Station before leaving Shanghai, PH gave out only one dictum as the most important lesson:

"When you write you should be true to yourself and kind to your characters".

"Is it necessary in writing fiction too?"

"It is....very much so"

"Why is it necessary?"

"It is necessary"

The train cooed, and before leaving, PH told Charlie:

"By the way, you better taste one of those beer bottles before you throw your wingding."

And rushing home Charlie opened one bottle and tasted it.

It was gassed Tea water.

And the next...and the next...and the next...

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JKMSMKJ's Comment

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Let me briefly respond to this relevant comment on Skewed Definitions:

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JKMSMKJ has left a new comment on your post "Skewed Definitions":

How is it 'too late' to publish something? (Given that it hasn't been published already.) ...Or how about 'publishing' on the blog itself, removing all the middle-men!

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After a couple of decades of teaching Physics at IIT KGP, I discovered that any question on UG Physics that takes more than 24 hours of intense worrying makes for a short Note in one of the well-read teaching journals.

And I was right most of the time.

One such question that bothered me while I was setting the Question Paper for the Jumbo First Years towards the end of my stay at KGP had to do with the Chromatic Resolving Power (CRP).

It is entirely academic and not at all important practically but shows how we often tend to forget the derivations of formulae we take for granted, and how that can lead to confusion.

I talked about it in one of my earlier blogs; but I suspect that there are now a few new KGPhians reading this blog once in a while.

So, here it is:

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It is well-known that there is a stunningly simple formula for the CRP of a simple grating at normal incidence:

CRP = mN (where m is the order and N the total number of lines in the grating).

Now double slit is the simplest 'grating' with N = 2.

So, its CRP = 2m.

But it is nonsense, because double slit can't resolve at all; its 'CRP' is zero in all orders.

Because for a double slit the bright and dark fringes are equally wide...try it and see.

This is because there is a thing called Rayleigh Criterion that we use in deriving the CRP formulae; and forget thereafter.

This requires that the 'spectral lines' should be narrow enough to make sense.

How narrow?

In other words, at what minimum value of N does the CRP formula start making sense?

To get the answer, we have to draw superposed plots for closely lying 'spectral lines' with increasing 'delta lambda' for N = 2, N = 3, and so on and watch.

This is not as easy as it seems...it requires the patience of a mini-Tycho Brahe.

And I am a lazy lubber.

And then KK arrived in the Department and started as my partner in Jumbo Teaching.

And he had a powerful PC and knew programming (I forgot my Fortran II learned 35 years ago then).

And I gave the problem to him.

And after much 'graphing', we saw that the minimum number of slits N in the 'grating' that makes the CRP formula somewhat sensible is around N = 6 or so...I forget.

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