Coincidences

I recently experienced an extremely surprising coincidence. It sent me reminiscing about earlier coincidences I had experienced.

It was 1986 and I had started my M. Tech. studies in Reliability Engineering, at IIT Kharagpur.  A cricket test match between India and Australia was going on and there was a large crowd of students watching it on TV in the common room. I am not very keen on cricket and so had not watched the first few days of play. Since it looked like India had a chance of winning - after having conceded a considerable lead in the first innings and Australia having declared at a sporting score in their second - the interest was high. All the chairs in front of the TV were already taken. I had to stand at the very back of the crowd, with some newly minted friends, crane my neck and watch. 

Then, just to bug my friends who were so eager for India to win, I said, “This guy will be out next ball. Caught”. And to my utter disbelief, it happened. I correctly “predicted” the next wicket too just before the wicket taking ball was bowled - the first ball the new player faced - he was out for a duck. At this point I “predicted” that the match was going to end in a tie. I further “predicted”, correctly, the next two wickets as well, just before the wicket taking balls were bowled. The match did end in a tie. People around me who had heard my “predictions” really thought that I was clairvoyant. I had a hard time convincing them that I was just shooting my mouth off and it was sheer coincidence that what I said happened to come true.

Here is the complete score card of that match.

Statistically speaking, until that match, 1,051 test matches had been played and there had been only one tie - in Brisbane, between Australia and England. So, roughly a one in a thousand event. Not bad odds for a random “prediction” to come true rare but not impossible. As of today 2,586 test matches have been played with only two tied fixtures. For a larger sample size we see that over 60,000 “first class” cricket matches have been played with 69 tied games. So, it is still around one in a thousand.

I was flying from Mumbai to Bengaluru with my manager. The flight took off quite late because of faulty air-conditioning on the aircraft. Eventually, we approached Bengaluru and the aircraft started circling over the city, instead of landing. After seven or eight rounds, the captain came on the public address system and announced that the ground staff were unable to keep the runway lights on and hence we couldn’t land. During one of the passes over the runway I could see the lights come on momentarily and then go off.

After a few more rounds over Bengaluru, I told my manager, “The captain is going to say that we are running out of fuel and we will head to Chennai.” Within minutes, the captain made that very announcement.  Some passengers whose destination was Chennai celebrated loudly with whoops, whistles, and claps.

I could feel the aircraft straighten and ascend to cruising altitude. In a little while I told my manager, “Sir, the captain will say that the runway lights are on now and we will go back to Bengaluru”. Soon, the captain did just that. And we could feel the aircraft bank and turn back. The Bengaluru bound passengers cheered louder.

After a while, I wondered aloud, “What if the lights go off again by the time we reach Bengaluru? The captain already said that we are running out of fuel. What do we do if we do not have enough fuel to get back to Chennai?” Obviously, that didn’t happen and I lived to tell the tale. 

The third instance is not that dramatic. I had been to the Chamundi Hills. While walking from the vehicle parking to the temple, I saw two elderly gentlemen sitting on a stone bench and quietly enjoying the sight. One of them, perhaps about 70 years of age, was very handsome. I also noticed that one of his hands was amputated just below the elbow. The image of the two gentlemen stayed in my mind. They looked so calm and at peace.

A few days later the doorbell rang. I went out to open the door and was astonished to see the same two gentlemen at the door. They turned out to be Sri Thyagarajan (Thyaga Mama) and his brother Dr Venkatesh. They were close friends of my father. I had heard about them but had not met them before. My father considered their mother as his second mother. Why it was so is a long story, narrated in detail by my father in his autobiographical work “Nenapina Alegalu”. 

The fourth incident happened a few months later. I had a friend who ran an arts and crafts emporium at the famous Devaraja Market in Mysuru. A few friends of mine and I often spent our free time in the evenings at his shop. It was our hangout. One evening, I saw a couple walk past the shop. I thought to myself, “What a lovely looking couple!”

Within a week or two, Thyaga Mama visited us again and he was accompanied by the very same couple! They turned out to be the son and daughter-in-law of Thyaga Mama.

The last one I’m going to talk about is a very recent occurrence. That is what triggered this post. It almost dumbfounded me - at least for a little while.

I had talked to a friend about a web comic series which had stick figures in it and which both of us used to enjoy a lot. We had not come across that in recent times. I had completely forgotten its name. I only remembered that it had a four letter name like an initialism. A few days after that conversation, I remembered it again and I decided to ask the AI engine – Copilot – for help. I was away from my laptop and was listening to the audio version of the New Scientist magazine on my earphones. I walked to my laptop, opened Copilot and started typing my question while the audio was still playing in my ear. I typed “What is the name of the web comic series with stick figures ... " the name of the very web comic series being mentioned in a story in New Scientist. This was the sentence I heard: “if that prospect doesn’t appeal, robin Stevens offers a possible salve. He highlights the 391^st edition of web comic XKCD*, which is called Anti-Mindvirus”. I was so astonished and disbelieving that I had to wind the audio back and make sure that I had actually heard it and that it was not a figment of my imagination or I had heard something else that had reminded me of XKCD.

This might look like a fantastic divine intervention to some. It was just a coincidence, albeit an extraordinary one, and nothing more.  

* The name XKCD is not an acronym and does not stand for anything. According to its creator, Randall Munroe, he chose the name because it was a "treasured and carefully-guarded point in the space of four-character strings". He described it as a meaningless, unpronounceable word.

An officer and a gentleman - A Tribute to Wg. Cdr. (Retd.) Dinesh Kumar

I just now heard of the passing of Wg. Cdr. (Retd.) Dinesh Kumar. He was 88.

He was the executive director of Kirloskar Electric where I worked for nearly 18 years. I had a few opportunities to interact with him and was always amazed by his natural courteousness. As a tribute to him I recall here two instances of my interactions with him that are etched in my mind.

(Some terms and names mentioned are for my former colleagues from Kirloskar Electric and other readers may ignore them)

The Wg. Cdr. was on one of his periodic visits to the Mysore unit. Some twenty of us were in a meeting with him in the board room behind the Chief Executive’s office. The Wg. Cdr. asked a question and, as the head of the Quality Assurance department, I had to answer the question, though I don’t remember the exact issue now.

I was sitting right next to him and I said apologetically that his question required a lengthy answer. He said that it was alright and turned towards me. I went on to give a detailed account of the issue. While I was in the middle of my explanation, Narayanappa, the old gentleman, a casual labourer, who worked in the office of the CEO, walked in with a tray full of coffee cups and plates with biscuits and served everyone at the table. Many at the table picked up their coffee and reached for the biscuits. I continued talking and finished after quite a few minutes. All the while, the Wg. Cdr. listened to me with rapt attention.

Once I was done, the Wg. Cdr. thanked me for the explanation and said a good word about the clarity of my presentation and then gently pushed the coffee cup and plate of biscuits towards me and gestured to me towards them and he took his cup only after I had taken mine. All this was done with the greatest natural ease without a hint of artificiality about it.

The other occasion was this. We had a product called Cruiser – a dc drive for machine tool applications. It had a high failure rate and we had many customer complaints. We had many service engineers constantly shuttling between various parts of the country servicing or replacing them. While this was going on, a colleague of mine, Pradeep, and I worked with the then Chief Executive, NAJR, who was a technical wiz, and developed many solutions to stop the failures, experimented on them and were confident that we had solved the problem. The solution included new PCBs to be designed and manufactured, some power devices to be imported, kits designed and prepared for retrofitting at site, instructions to be prepared for the service engineers how to retrofit on site, and so on and were on the job.

At this juncture, the Wg. Cdr. was visiting again and the three of us were with him in the lab discussing the implementation phase of the solutions. We gave him an estimate of the time required. I would have taken it as normal if had just asked us bluntly, “Can’t you do it faster?”

What he did was this. He thought about it for a minute or two and then said to us, “I am sure you know what you are talking about. I have no idea about all that is involved. But, I have to ask you, is there any way you can get this whole thing organised sooner? Please let me know what I can do to help you achieve it and speed things up and I will do it. But please explore the possibilities of getting this done as fast as possible.”

I really admired the humility and frankness of the man. I think we needed his help in expediting the procurement of the imported components and he was as good as his words.

He was a tall, imposing man who kept himself fit by running regularly. The only time I met him after I left Kirloskar Electric, was in the campus of Indian Institute of Science where he was running. He stopped briefly and we exchanged a few pleasantries and he was off. 

 

PS.

I talked about this with my friend, Chandru (Short for K Chandrasekhar), popularly known as KC at work. He has been a friend from my college days and a colleague at Kirloskar Electric for eighteen years. He narrated an incident about the Wing Commander. On my request he wrote the following for me to include here. Following are his words.

 

What makes a Gentleman? 

I was deeply saddened to hear about the passing away of our Wg. Cdr. (Retd.) Dinesh Kumar, last week. I believe that he had been hospitalized and was being treated for pneumonia. I will always remember his upright bearing, the slightly sunken cheeks topped by rather high cheek bones, a pair of bright probing eyes, the immaculate grooming and the quiet dress sense which all bespoke of a true gentleman. When you added his composure, courtesy and politeness, you had all the hallmarks of a truly iconic personality who brought a sense of dignity, grace and charisma to all that he did.

I had the privilege of interacting with him on a number of occasions and among them all I cherish one moment which is evergreen in my memory.

It was around 1986 and our team was engaged in commissioning the first set of Power Electronic drives for a Cold Rolling Mill for a company called Steel Strips Pvt Ltd, near Ludhiana. Operation Blue Star had been carried out about two years previously in 1984 and the scars of it was there for all to see. In the aftermath of it the level of militancy in Punjab was at its peak. In late September, we were witness to a first-hand gory incident which could have ended in tragedy. One morning the factory manager was on his rounds and suddenly a workman pounced on him and stabbed him in the belly. Fortunately he survived the attack. We were all very badly shaken by the incident but we carried on as we had to complete the job and start trial runs before handing over the system for regular production. 

When Wg. Cdr. (Retd.) Dinesh Kumar got to know about the incident he was on a visit to New Delhi. I think he was then Vice-President, heading the Marketing Division at KEC. He made it a point to specifically visit us and enquire about our welfare and see the trial runs in progress. He was extremely happy with what he saw and in his characteristically quiet manner left us a crate of beer as a mark of his appreciation. We were all very junior both in age and service and were touched by his concern and kindness. He also made it a point to let us know that we could contact him on his direct telephone number in case we ran into anything unprecedented. During all our stay, he was the only person who visited us. His quiet demeanour, old world charm, and etiquette were attributes which left a deep imprint on us. In many ways he was the ideal, of which any company could justly be proud of.

All I can say is, in my humble opinion, they don’t make men like him anymore. He was the difference between a corporate being and a human being. The world of today and indeed for that matter the society in which we live in, is a poorer place in the absence of people like him. They say old soldiers never die, they just fade away. In the Wing Commander’s case, his memory will remain with me forever as a shining example of a long forgotten word, which you may remember. Decency.

Musical Memories - An Introduction

 

 

This is an introduction to a series of short posts about incidents I remember from music concerts.

 

I have been an avid listener of music – Karnatak classical, Hindustani, Hindi film music (older the better), western classical, rock and jazz – perhaps in that order in terms of the amount of time I have spent and my familiarity with them. Also, thanks to my parents, I am an avid concert goer. I started attending concerts around five or six years of age. I will recount some tales of my experiences. Almost all of them are about the musicians and not about me, except the first one. I have referred to all the musicians with just their names with no honorifics such as vidwan, vidushi or ustad preceding their names. Though I have great admiration and respect for all the artists I mention, I have chosen to drop the honorifics because I want these to be like a personal conversation during which I would not use them.

1 Mangala

If you stumbled upon this post, reading this introduction might help

 

It was M D Ramanathan’s concert at Budaram Krishnappa’s Ramamandira. When he came to the end of the concert and started singing the Mangala - the last item of all Karnatak music concerts - as usual, people started getting up. He shushed them all and waved his hands to command them to stay seated and said that one should not get up during Mangala. It is sung for the welfare (the literal meaning of Mangala) of everyone including the musicians. So no one should get up. Everyone sat back. Whereas Mangala is normally sung perfunctorily for a couple of minutes in Madhyama kala, he went on to sing an elaborate mangala with raga surati and madhyamavati for nearly twenty minutes in vilamba kaala. What a treat it was!

2 The Heart of the Matter

 

If you stumbled upon this post, reading this introduction might help.

 

It was 1986 and I was in Kharagpur. SPICMACAY had organised a concert and discussion with the flute maestro Hari Prasad Chaurasia. It was large hall and there were carpets on the floor. Chaurasia sat at the centre of the hall and the audience was all around him. After a couple of hours of music, during which the audience steadily thinned, there were only about a fifty of us left.

One student asked, “They say that playing the flute affects the heart. What do you say?”

Chaurasia calmly took his flute, took a deep breath and played a single note, after ten seconds or so I timed him. He held that note for at least one and a half minutes. More like one minute and forty-five seconds.

He then kept the flute down and in a conversational tone asked, “What was that?” Someone said “breath control”. He asked, “What is prANAyAm?” The answer to that too was breath control. He asked, “If prANAyAm can be good for the heart how can this be bad for the heart?” and rested his case.

3 What Religion is This?

 

If you stumbled upon this post, reading this introduction might help

 

SPICMACAY had organised a morning concert of the great “Shahnai Nawaz, Khan Saheb Ustad Bismillah Khan” – that is an announcement before one of his concerts I had heard on All India Radio and it has got lodged in my brain.

 The hall was full and the maestro wove his legendary magic. In the middle of a raag, when everyone was listening mesmerised, he suddenly stopped and asked, in Hindi, “What religion is this?” Then went on, “This is music. It has no language, no religion, no caste . . .  Then he pointed to the plaques hanging from the wall all around the hall, look at them, they are all equal, they all seek the same thing. We are all human beings and we are all together and we should live in peace together.”

 He was pointing at the plaques because each plaque on the wall had a symbol of a religion. And they were beautiful wood inlay works. He found that close to his heart. The audience, mainly students, clapped and cheered.