Monday, November 30, 2009

Missing Last Nail

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The continued bleats of the Pak PM Gilani asking for more conclusive evidence against the 26/11 plotters reminds me of the following story:

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Jack, the traveling salesman, suspects that his wife Jill is cheating on him during his absences, with Tom.

He hires the Detective Harry to spy on Jill the next day when he was out of town.

On his return, Harry is ready with his report:

1. Tom visits Jack's home at 11 A. M.

2. Takes Jill out for lunch at the Marriott.

3. And to the Theater at 2 P.M.

4. And to a cocktail party at 6 P.M. followed by dinner.

5. And a movie at 8 P. M.

6. They return to Jack's place at 11 P.M.

7. They enter the bedroom and undress.

8. They jump into bed.

9. They switch off the lights.

Harry rests his case triumphantly.

Jack: "I myself have seen things till that event many times. What happened AFTER that?"

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Wednesday, November 25, 2009

"Repaid with Interest"

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I am becoming famous, courtesy Shyamal! Either that or The Statesman has relaxed her British English Bhadralok (Bhadramahila) standards; and gone ahead and published the piece: "Rain Drops and Pearls" under the 'better' title: "Repaid with Interest" (dropping the "Moral").

Who wants Moralizing these days anyway! They have even dropped 'Moral Science' from schools.

Child coming home from her new School: "Mother, our new teacher is great; she has no morals!"

Here is the link:

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http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=4&id=308487&usrsess=1
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Friday, November 13, 2009

To Commute or not to Commute

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No, this is not about the wisdom or otherwise of renting your apartment near your workplace in Hyderabad.

This is about a gentleman called Rasik (I forget his surname).

During my University Days, one of the raging questions was the definition of ‘gentleman’ in the Indian context. Everyone knows the definition of an English gentleman (just look up OED).

Our social structure being so different than the English, the definition ought to be ours own.

I thought that the Hindu Indian gentleman is aptly described by: a ‘gentle’ man.

None of my classmates agreed it could be that simplistic.

But Rasik was a thoroughly ‘gentle’ man. During my 40 years in the Physics Department at IIT KGP, I never saw him lose his cool. He never was found drunk.

Since he was almost permanently posted in the X-ray Research Labs, I met him rarely; except when the Jumbo 10-day all-day ritual of JEE Spot Valuation was on in the Second Year Lab on the Second Floor for a decade or so.

Rasik was the permanent Tea-Provider. DB and myself used to join the Mela not for making good money (which we never did), but just for enjoying the Jamboree Picnic spirit.

Rasik guessed our jolly mood and was doling out Subsidized Tea every hour without asking.

I knew he was a good singer of folk tunes, because he was humming whenever he was free (indeed during his Farewell, which happened a few years before mine) he was asked to sing and he did oblige.

A few days before his retirement, I happened to visit the Physics Office one quiet noon when he was alone with Didi who was egging him on to sign the ‘Commutation Forms’.

He was declining to do what everyone without exception was doing.

Didi was explaining that by foregoing Y Rupees of pension per month, he would be getting 100 Y Rupees as a lump sum, which if he Fixes in any Bank, he would be getting the same Y Rupees per month as Interest; and the Principal would be intact forever (those were the golden decades of ‘tight money policies’ of the GOI and a stable whopping Interest Rate of 12% on FD).

Greed!

Rasik refused to listen to the details.

His logic was simple:

“Didi, if the Government (Shorkar) is offering a crazy (pagla) Scheme like that, it is for their own good; not for my good. No, thank you!”

He stuck to his guns and turned out to be one of the few who didn’t commute!

He said he needed his ‘Full Pension’ which he would like to enjoy and be rid of dependence from his children whom he didn’t trust an inch. And mush less the GOI!

By the time I retired, the Bank Interest Rates sank to 6% and Didi’s logic went phut!

And I am sure the ‘Commuted Amount’ which Didi said would be ‘intact forever’ would go to the Corporate Hospitals of Hyderabad, which will put me in ICU and refuse to discharge me till my PF, Commutation Amount, Leave Salary, Gratuity, my son’s savings, my daughter-in-law’s savings and my wife’s ornaments all go up in smoke; and then they would also offer loans with easy EMI’s to keep my brain-dead body clinically alive.

When we were young staying in the IIT Hostels, whenever any of our colleagues used to go to the B. C. Roy Hospital for admission, the others would sing in chorus the popular Film Song ‘O, Jaane wale, ho saketo lout ke aanaa!).

Same with the Corporate Hospitals of Hyderabad.

I don’t know what happened to Rasikda.

I do hope he is enjoying his Full Pension!

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Cracking the Grand Viva (Sonoo’s Tip)

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Cracking the Grand Viva
(Sonoo’s Tip)

Disclaimer: The following hint is based on the imaginary experience of an imaginary student facing an imaginary Grand Viva in an imaginary Department of an imaginary IIT.

Grand Viva is defined as the unpleasant experience of a lone student with a giant blackboard on one side and a bunch of at least 10 combative teachers on the other.

The first thing you should know is that the Grand Viva Room is a Battle Field where 11 egos fight one another.

As such, your entry into the War Room is fraught with palpable tension.

It is a cauldron of intellectual boiling soup which you are cordially invited to plunge in.

The thing is to ‘dodge’.

Let me explain: Each salvo that each teacher fires, it is hoped, mortally wounds the other 9 (the victim should try and stay an innocent bystander). If there is 1 question allowed for each teacher, this makes for a clash of 90 egos (literally a blood bath, if my math is right).

So the first step is: ‘Release this Unbearable Tension’.

This is done as follows:

Enter and clean the blackboard (strewn with the remains of your predecessor).
Turn around and coolly await the first bullet.

You should NEVER try to face this virginal assault frontally:

Look out the window.

Then stare at the blackboard pleadingly, with your back to the Inquisitors.

Turn around and look down (tears optional).

Rub your chin poignantly.

Stand on the other leg.

Look straight into the eyes of the assaulter.

Shake your dumb-head slowly like a cucumber swaying in a storm.

Utter the golden words: “THIS, I don’t know”.

You won the battle!

All the tension has dissolved.

You are up by one grade.

Rest is up to you.

At the end, slowly utter the words: “May I please try the first question?”

They’ll say: ‘Not needed’.

You are up by one more grade.

You are through!

Celebrate!

Friday, November 6, 2009

A Season of Limericks and Lampoons

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A Season of Limericks and Lampoons

To use a well-worn Dickensian cliché, it was a winter of despair and a spring of hope.

I am referring to the winter of 2008 and the spring of 2009.

There was the world-wide recession, the Bombay carnage, the tanking of Sensex and tumbling of the real estate, followed by Obama’s Presidential Election, and our own hilarious General Elections.

For a pensioner like me sitting in Hyderabad, it was the time of my life: just watching the ‘News at 9’ and scanning the newspapers spawned more than a hundred limericks and lampoons in 2 months.

I collect here a clutch of them in no particular order:

I. International: 1. Satyam: Lehman laid, Goldman Sacked; Merril Lynched, Price Watered; Morgan Chased – nothing happened; But when Satyam lied; poor Raju is jailed! 2. Bush shoe-ting: Bush had a thing; Sent Osama hiding; Embraced our Singh; Let Obama be King; What an expert at ducking! 3. Lincoln watches Obama: His dream come true; He dropped down to view; When on his Bible, The novice did fumble; He smiled and withdrew. 4. Britain’s ban: Britain bans clicking its bobbies; To save them from terrorists; Indian should follow; So we can allow, Our Police to freely PRACTICE! 5. Obama bans outsourcing: (with apologies to Raj Kapoor) Mera jootha hai yeh Cheeni; Yeh pathloon Hindusthani; Sar pe lal topee Brazili; Phir bhi dil hai Mike Obami. 6. Vatican embraces Darwin: We are so pleased and gratified; That Darwin’s theory is sanctified; Both Pope and us, Came from Apes; And Sir Charles is to be beatified. 7. Report that most Britons falsely claim to have read Tolstoy: I too tried ‘Peace and War’; Found it an unreadable bore; But I read all of Shakespeare; Songs & Sonnets and King Liar; But most I love my Bertie; Shaken to his foundations, He said with honesty: “Hamlet is full of quotations!”. 8. Obama says no to foreign nurses: Gone is the Iron Curtain, Goner is the Bamboo Curtain; Busy are the Obamas, Behind their hungamas, Knitting a see-through Lace Curtain. 9. Dickens’ former home ‘Bleak House’ at Broadstairs, Kent is up for sale: The stairs may be broad but the house is bleak; The walls are broke and the roof will leak; The buyer will be taunted, That the house is haunted, By the ghosts of Winkle, Weller & Mr. Peekweek. 10. Queen & the Cauliflower: Folks kneel before me and the Pope; But these Yankees hug me and grope; This Michelle Obama, Like Spencer Diana, Brims with the ‘Audacity of a Dope’.

II. Bengal Special: 1. ‘Slight’ of hand; all except the Left consult palmists before elections: “I am the Hand of Maradona; And I that held up Indiramma; All get me read, Save those of the red; Buddha, Bosu & Brindamma”. 2. Bardhan slams Congress for adopting ‘Jai Ho’: Bardhan’s best at pitching, Into his opponents hitching, Onto bandwagons; But these shenanigans, Amount to ‘slumbitching’. 3. Humpty-Dumpty of Bengal: Buddha-Mamata fought on a wall; Buddha-Mamata had a great fall; Not all their wits, Nor their big sticks, Can lure Tata back to their stall. 4. Mamata’s Bloody Pledge: “Boats sail on rivers; Ships sail on seas; But Tata’s cute Nano, Stolen by Narendro, Sails on the blood of W.Bees”. 5. Nano makes a splash: Nano comes in 3 colors: Blue, white and red; A splash in Mamata’s metaphors, Turns them all Bloody Red. 6. Buddha: ‘Post election Math will decide Chemistry: To Maya born under a sal tree; Ditching his son and wedded stree; Of maya-mamata to get free; Penanced under a peepal tree; But can’t get rid of either stree; Now seeks power and pelf in Chemistry!


III. Rest of India: 1. Every dog its day! : Pet dog, Lap dog, Bull dog, Watch dog, Hot dog, Top dog; Better rear a Slumdog. 2. Slumdog’s fallout: Bombay was our melting pot; In November it was boiling hot; What Taliban tried to do; Our slumdog did undo; Bombay’s again a tourist resort. 3. 26/11 Forgot! : Abhinav Bindra shooting away, So many Oscars on our way; Ring a Ring a Roses! Pocket full a poses; …Time to bury Bombay! 4. King’s last resort: One Bill I had in pocket, The other Bill in my jacket; With Satyam waylaid, All bills unpaid; I’d get a Lok Sabha ticket. 5. Language goes to dogs: ‘Slumdog’ offends Slums; ‘Top Dog’ offends Muslims; Alien lingoes, Upset jingoes; As ‘Big Dog’ smiles down heavens. 6. Burn & Dance: Couple o’ weeks ago, Dharavi let go!; It torched, It scorched, Danny & Co. Now O Saya!, Oscars aagayaa; It sings, It swings; Rahaman ki Maya! 7. Hillary mulling a Deal with Taliban: “You gobble Afghanistan, Pakistan; Hindustan, Ceylon & Iran; But leave Europe & US, In Everlasting Peace”; Smirks the Ghost of Chamberlain. 8. Amma is fast…ing!: Amma’s instincts are always right; To fight for her voters’ basic rights; What’s a day’s fast?; It can’t last; She can more than make it up at night!. 9. Proof of Rebirth Theory: Take a look at Laloo: Photo-milking his buffaloo; So much wit and GRIST; Can anyone hope to get?; And beget it at one GO! 10. Advani’s Challenge: My name is Advani; Hindu, Hindi, Hindustani; I dare anyone debate me; Sikh, Isai, Islambhai; Except Uma that SANYASINI!; My name is L. K. Advani. 11. As You Like It! Former IAS Officer complains to CEO about Purandareswari’s Book Release violating Poll Code: (With apologies to Shakespeare): Books thrown in running brooks, Tongues tied firmly in cheeks, Sermons greeted by pelted stones; And Poll Code violated in Everything! 12. Out of Thin Air!: Air Deccan Founder takes electoral plunge: (with apologies to Emerson) They reckon ill that leave me out; When me they fly I am the wings; I am the voter who voted me out; And I the flier who singed his wings. 13. Tweedledum & Tweedledee: When one was in, the other was out; Then both were in, now both are out; Both are now locked in embrace; But one says Aye, the other Nay; Both are Yadavs out and out. 14. Chairman Mao’s Karat(e) guide: Give them food, they ask sex; Give them sex, they ask house; Give them house they ask job; Give them job, they ask News; Give them news, they ask Vote; Then Freedom, that’s your doom; DON’T GIVE THEM FOOD! Learn from My Lai & Dalai; Food is ticket for Tibet! 15. Advani’s Confession..sorry Confusion: “I meant to say Osama; It came out as Obama; My tongue didn’t slip; It’s a Freudian slip; I’m told both are Musalmana”.

IV. Gandhijee: 1. Gandhi’s auction: "Gandhijee, O Father of
Our Nation!; We all vow to stall thy auction; We swear by Thee!, Who made us Free, To loot this nation!”. 2. Lage Raho Munna Bhai! MRPS workers damaged the statue of Mahatma Gandhi and broke its hands and legs: Raama, Buddha, Christ and Gandhi; Sure will survive your banter and bandy; Don’t be furious; They are mere IDEAS!; Cash in on them like our Munnabhai dandy! 3. Tipsy Gandhi: “Gandhi in Heaven, did you watch?; I just bought your specs and watch”. Gandhi smiles; A tipsy smile; “Here’s is a Heaven’s Brew, smartly catch! 4. Gandhi’s latest Will: Special Police Officer K. S. Raju succumbs to his injuries trying to save Gandhi Bhavan set on fire by MRPS activists: “All people are born to die; Police & Army are paid to die; Jihadis prefer to die; Several times I tried to die; Yet I wish…hic…..; Rajus get a speck; Of that $ 1.8 million pie”. 5. Gandhi couldn’t care! “I have drops of Gandhi’s blood and his ashes up for deal, sale or auction”…..James Otis : Otis: “Here is thy blood and here thine ashes; This is our wine, and these molasses”….. “Gandhi”: ‘But I am a Hindoo; None of this voodoo; I am the Spirit transcending Judasses; 30 pieces of silver, Is the price of Jackasses”. 6. Unhappy Pauper: Gandhi’s statue couldn’t be unveiled due to Model Code of Conduct: (with apologies to Oscar Wilde’s Happy Prince) “Swallow swallow, little swallow!; Lift the veil, it’s too hot”; “I can’t do it, I’ll be caught; dragged before EC, maybe shot”; “Tell me at least what’s on”; “All make merry with booze and biryan”; “Who will win and who will lose?”; “Whoever wins, you’ll lose; First you get a flowery noose; Then your limbs broken loose!”
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Thursday, November 5, 2009

Greed is too Good!

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Greed is too Good!

My online Webster defines ‘greed’ as: ‘A selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed’.

Noah Webster is clearly ‘hedging’ (which he defines as: ‘evading the risk of commitment especially by leaving open a way of retreat’).

The vexed ‘Umbrella Devotee’ of R. K. Narayan fumes: ‘I have five umbrellas because I like to have five; I have as much right to have five umbrellas as you have five fingers on your hand’. And he is ever wary of parting with any of them.

Is he greedy? The burden of RKN’s essay is that he is not.

Webster keeps open his ‘way of retreat’ in his last word: ‘need’. The Umbrella Devotee thinks he ‘needs’ his five.

‘Need’ varies from person to person. Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said: ‘Give me the luxuries of life; and I will dispense with its necessities’.

I myself ‘badly need’ just what the witches in the forest gifted Goopy Gayen-Bagha Bayen; I will be content and ask no more. Or, just the one wish-fulfilling statuette ‘Paathaal Bhairavi’ (I don’t wish to be reminded that, after much murder and mayhem, the goddess in the movie is urged to please take back the accursed thing).

Am I greedy? Well, the charming Goopy and Bagha are the epitome of Bengali ‘greedlessness’ (like Humpty Dumpty, I define it as the opposite of the Harshad Mehta syndrome).

HM shocked my Bengali Theoretical Physicist friend and room mate numb: for days on end he just couldn’t digest that figure of ‘Rs. 4000 Crores’!.

Rs. 4000 crores is passé these days. Today’s headlines say that an unnamed ex-chief minister amassed that much in less than six months and also stashed away an unknown amount in Swiss Banks.

Well, the currency of ‘greed’ varies. In the Wonderland of Academics, it is counted in how many ‘papers’ one publishes and how many Ph. D.’s one guides. I hear of an Academic the bound volume of whose CV is twice as bulky as a typical Ph. D. thesis.

The Nobel-winning Feynman had only 30 odd papers to his credit and was reluctant to guide any Ph. D. students after his first (once bitten twice shy!). But he concedes that his greed for ‘fame’ was insatiable; he was snubbed by his colleague Abraham Pais: ‘Publicity is a whore’!

When I retired after 40 years in Bengal and tried settling down in Hyderabad in its boom time, the daunting Malls here were aglow with flashing Neon Signs: ‘Greed is Good!’. And there was no standing room for venerable Senior Citizens like me in their stalls.

It is a different matter that all those beckoning lights dimmed and died in a couple of years; and I can now squat in these Malls and swat flies.

In my late teens I had a friend who did his Diploma in Civil Engineering and was just then employed as a small time Supervisor of Constructions. Within six months he used to talk of everyone’s Bank balance in terms of how many ‘houses’ they could buy.

The famous Tolstoy story: ‘How Much Land Does a Man Need?’, ends with the pithy sentence: ‘Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed’. And his admirer Gandhijee hinted: ‘Mother Earth has enough to quench each one’s need but not their greed’.

In one of those days of the real estate Big Bang, a Hyderabadi ‘know-all’ urged me to quickly buy a 2-BHK flat of 1000 sft at the going rate of Rs. 50 lakhs in his middle class locality because the prices of land, steel, cement and the works were hitting the roof and would touch the sky within a couple of months.

But God gave me only Rs. 15 lakhs as my Retirement Fund. Within six months the prices tumbled to Rs. 18 lakhs; and still no takers. The Banks are vying with one another begging even me to take a ‘Dream-Home-Loan’ on ‘Reverse Mortgage’.

I am demurring, ‘dreaming’ that they would touch down the Rs. 15 lakhs rock bottom line one of these days.

Am I greedy? I should ask Noah Webster.

Last Laugh: We now come to Noah Webster’s bracketed dirty word: ‘Money’: Today’s newspaper has this piquant item:

“The Columbian cocaine baron, Escobar on the run, is said to have burned over $ 1.5 million in hard cash in one night just to keep his daughter warm in a cold mountain hideout”. 


He couldn't have burned houses and gold though...

Money has many uses and can be heart-warming! What do you say, Noahjee?

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Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Autocrat of the Dining Floor

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Autocrat of the Dining Floor

(with apologies to Oliver Wendell Holmes)

This is all about my grandmom (Ammamma).

She was born more than a century ago and lived a proud life of 85 years: the wife of a Revenue Official in British India.

We were a dozen or more of her grandkids clinging to her lovingly in the 1950s.

(Padma Bhushan) Ramachandra Guha calls the 1950s a ‘special’, nay, an ‘innocent’ decade of Free India. So were we.

An orthodox South Indian Brahmin family, we were brought up on enormous mounds (or so it seemed to us in our voracious outdoor childhood) of curry, sambar, chutney, rasam, and curd admixed with rice, serially, with ghee as the ‘killer lubricant’.

Whenever she visited one of her children, Ammamma would capture and rule over their kitchen like a benign despot. ‘Breakfast’ started with all her grandkids squatting in a semicircle around her. She would craft giant size perfectly round morsels which would be ‘dealt’, like playing cards, along the ring of our waiting hands. Anyone with an unfinished morsel in their hands would be rebuked as a slow and sloppy eater, and threatened with a ‘bypass’. So, none could waste their time in unholy chit-chat. Concentrated ‘upload’ was the motto. That saw us through five hours of play.

When I joined College, Ammamma used to visit my uncle’s place where I was living. Since my ‘University Bus’ left promptly at 9.30 A.M. it was hustle and bustle for her. At the stroke of 9 I would fetch my plate and squat mercilessly on her kitchen floor.

First would come steaming rice with curry as the breather, and the rest of the items would descend on my plate one by one as the cooking progressed. Since I had to run to catch the bus (I had to walk 5 km if I missed it), I was in no mood to ‘relish’ my lunch (that ‘happy hour’ was reserved for the night meal). Just shovel and scram!

But she was a proud cook and insisted on my ‘feedback’ on each item (I was the day’s guinea pig; orthodoxy forbade her to taste the food before everyone in her family had theirs). I used to say ‘delicious’ in reply to her serial queries. And she would taunt me as an ‘indiscriminate ignoramus’ (as opposed to a ‘connoisseur’). I had little time to argue.

But one day, I had more time than usual at my disposal and I ventured to suggest that the curry could perhaps do with a little less salt. That was it! I was scolded for my ‘lay’ tastes, lectured on the importance of salt as the spice of life and food, and in general brushed off. I ‘had’ it either way.

But, in truth, she was a marvelous cook, and ‘delicious’ was the right word, scolding or no scolding.

Much later when she once complained of a wee giddiness, her physician son brought out his gleaming B. P. kit and discovered that she was running a steady 250/150. He forthwith forbade her from having ‘any salt’ whatsoever.

By then she had acquired the services of a cook, but would herself decide on every detail of every recipe, and supervise the cooking closely.

And strict instructions would be given loudly (for public consumption) that excessive salt is bad for health though good for taste, and so only a ‘sprinkling’ of it should be used in every dish. That ‘healthy’ food would be served for all on the dining floor.

My mother reported that, after the entire family was fed, and fled, Ammamma and her cook would squat face to face for their leisurely meal adding a ‘splash’ of salt hither and thither ‘just for a hint of taste’.

And she lived to a ripe and healthy old age with no ‘side effects’ whatever of a soaring B. P. apart from its nuisance value; while many of her grandkids became unduly health conscious and ceased relishing food what with indigestion, dyspepsia, acidity, sugar and so on before they turned 40.

Ammamma was truly made of sterner stuff!

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