Arakere Narayana Rao (ಅಣ್ಣಣ್ಣ)

A cousin and I were studying Engineering in the same college. He was my senior by a (academic) year. When the examinations appeared far away we both read novels, mainly popular novels. Those were the days when Alistair McLean, Arthur Hailey, James A Michener, Harold Robbins, to name a few, supplied a large part of our reading. One day, the two of us were talking away about some of the books we had recently read. My father and this cousin's father were listening to us. But we were unaware of it.

Suddenly a soft voice asks, "ಅವನು ಯಾಕೆ ಬರೀತಾನೆ?" (Why does he write?). It emanated from a diminutive man with unkempt grey hair, clad in a faded white cotton, perhaps khadi, dhoti and an un-pressed, nondescript bush shirt. An expectant pair of inquisitive eyes stared at us from behind fairly thick, glasses. We were stumped. We struggled for an answer. Did not find any, convincing or otherwise. Eventually I came to the conclusion that he/they wrote for money, fame and so on. Did they really have something to say? Perhaps Michener had. Did we get an idea of what the characters in the novel felt deep inside them? The answer surprised me – perhaps Harold Robbins’ characters did. Did the problems the characters faced have any bearing on my life? I later read about literature and art and got a ghost of an idea of what makes good literature. Perhaps this question had a lot to do with it.

That innocuous sounding soft question triggered a lot of things.

The man behind the question passed away recently, aged about 96. When I looked back at the times I  had with him and what I had heard about his life, as happens when we lose someone, my admiration for and fascination with and respect for him were all renewed.

My sisters and I called him ಅಣ್ಣಣ್ಣ (aNNANNa). He was the elder cousin of my father, whom we called ಅಣ್ಣ (aNNa), which means elder brother. Being aNNa’s aNNa, he became aNNANNa. He was one of the most well-read people I have met. His formal education ended perhaps at intermediate (12 years of formal education). Though he had to take up a job, (as a ticketing clerk in a touring kannaDa drama company, if I remember right) he kept in touch with his deep interest in literature, mathematics, philosophy and politics (leftist philosophy) and life and the world in general. When younger, he read mathematics in his spare time.

Later, he managed the agricultural lands of a landlord, in a place called kilAra. He bought a small house in Mysore to enable his children to study further. That is when he became more of a regular visitor to our place. He came home and talked to my father about various things. Sometimes the discussions would get really heated and voices would be raised. My mother had to come out and calm them down – “The neighbours will think that there is a fight on!” The discussions were most illuminating.

He was shy and unobtrusive. After talking to my father for an hour or so, my mother would offer him something to drink. Invariably his drink of choice was hot water as he suffered from Asthma. He used to drink coffee, once upon a time. He was an ardent Gandhian. Once he was trying to make a man from his village give up alcohol. That man challenged aNNaNNa “it is easy for you to ask me to give up drinking. Let me see if you can give up coffee!” He never touched coffee again.

It was almost impossible to make a biased, sweeping, generalized statements in his presence. With a sweet and inquisitive smile on his face, he would challenge it. I had to either withdraw it completely or modify it so much that it was no longer as broad or as sweeping or as biased as it once was. I have a feeling that it taught me to weigh my words before I speak. And eventually it made me wary of almost all kinds of generalisations and biases.  My father had a very big role in this too. But what aNNaNNa did was different.

He passed away when I was on travel. I was back for the 13^th (?) day rituals. At lunch that day, along with the usual “tAmbUla” all those who attended were given a copy of DVG’s “mankutimmana kagga”. I thought that THAT was a befitting way to end those rituals.

Hyperbole

Boy of marriageable age. Parents seek alliances. Boy sees many girls. Does not accept anyone. A relative asks him what kind of girl he wants to marry.

He wants to marry someone who is like the girls he has read about in literature. A girl with lotus-like eyes, rose-like cheeks, moon-like face, Champak-like nose, snake-like hair. Arms like the stem of a banana plant, etcetera.

One evening, the young man is asked to go into a room where a girl with all the characteristics is waiting. He walks into the room, screams and falls unconscious.

Soon, he marries a comely girl and lives happily thereafter.

The elders had created a mannequin with lotus for eyes, roses for cheeks, a champak for nose, arranged over a picture of the moon. The face is adorned by a rubber snake for hair, banana stems for arms and legs, all draped in a saree. The boy sees this abomination in the dim evening light and faints.

This is the gist of a delightful kannaDa short story by M K Indira, if I remember right, I read decades ago.

I was reminded of this story when everyone went hyper because URA talked of leaving the country. I felt that they all acted like this immature young man.

Instead of taking it as an exaggerated expression of his dislike, they took it as literal truth. They urged and taunted a feeble old man to leave the country a la Husain.

"Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech" - Wikipedia

Maria, Sachin and all that - 2

Sequels hardly ever match the first creation, whether in movies or novels. I am almost certain that the same fate befalls this post too. But these stories are struggling to get out. I will let them out and inflict it upon whoever reads them. The other reason for writing this is a comment to the original post.

Dr M R Raghavendra Rao had narrated another story. A bit of background: MRR Rao had played cricket in his college days. He had represented the state and had played in a few Ranji Trophy matches too. Later, he thought that cricket was a silly game and a big waste of time - especially for a poor country like ours.

He was once on a flight from Bangalore to Delhi. I tall and handsome young man came and sat next to him. He soon realised that the other passengers and the air hostesses were all excited and were fussing about him. Once the flight took off and things settled down, he talked to the young man. Now I switch to the as-if-in-his-own-words mode.

"I said, "I see that everyone is making a fuss about you. May I know who you are?" He said, “I am Roger Binny, Sir". He spoke with great respect and he was very well behaved. I said, "I see that that is your name. But, what do you do?" He did not seem to be offended and said, "I am a cricketer, Sir." I asked him, "At what level do you play?"  "I play for the country Sir", he said.

"I told him what I thought of cricket and gave him my lecture on cricket. You know my lecture. (This was said with a self-deprecating smile). He agreed with all I said - smiling and with respect. Finally I asked him, "you agree with all that I say. Then, why do you still play cricket?"

"He was completely disarming and said, "I simply love the game Sir" "

This speaks volumes about both of them.

The next incident I want to narrate is something I read about forty years ago. I take no responsibility for the accuracy of my version of it. I just tell you the story as I remember it. This is from the autobiography of Mohammad Ali, "The Greatest".

It was the height of the Vietnam war. Ali was to be conscripted into the US army. Ali refused. He even wrote a poem which went something like "I ain't got nothing against the Viet Cong" He was to be arrested and sent to jail. When the world was abuzz with this news, Ali received a transatlantic call. The caller announced himself as Bertrand Russel and asked Ali if it was true that he was against the Vietnam war and that he had refused to join the army and was ready to go to jail for it. Ali confirmed it. Russel congratulated him on his stand and the courage to stand by his convictions.

Ali said to Russel, "Hey man, you are not as stupid as you look". Russel chuckled and ended the call.

Ali indeed went to jail, lost his title, came back from jail years later and regained it. A sporting legend to beat all legends!!

After this, he was in his publisher’s office in connection with his book - "The Greatest". He had some free time and was browsing through the Encyclopaedia Britannica and came across the entry on Russel. It described him as one of the greatest mathematicians and philosophers of the twentieth century, a pacifist, Nobel laureate in literature and so on. Ali had remembered the name of Russel after the phone call and was mortified that he had talked so lightly and disrespectfully to so great a man.

He called Russel and apologised profusely. As Ali puts it, the two years (?) of school education he had received had not prepared him to know about Russel. Russel brushed off the apologies and made light of it.

Maria, Sachin and all that

Dr M R Raghavendra Rao was a friend of my father from their college days. He was the deputy director of CFTRI in Mysore. A gentle gentleman who was enormously well read, with highly cultivated interest in the arts, especially Hindustani classical music. He used to travel  often on work and he once narrated the following incident from one such journey. He spoke very softly, had a wry sense of humour and thought very logically. Here is the story - as if in his own words.

"I went to Delhi last week. I was seated in the aircraft when a gangly young man, not very handsome, walked in. There was a buzz around and many craned their necks to look at him. I also looked to see what all the fuss was about. My neighbour looked at me excitedly and exclaimed, "Amitabh Bachchan", as if that was explanation enough. It was not.

"I asked him, "who is he?". He looked at me contemptuously, almost pityingly, and said,  "he is a film star". I was not impressed since I had not heard of him at all. I felt a little superior - not knowing a mere film actor.

"On the return flight I saw Ravi Shankar (Sitar maestro, Pandit Ravi Shankar, not the triple Sri) walk in to the aircraft. I was excited and turned to my neighbour and exclaimed, "Ravi Shankar!!". He craned his neck, took one look at him, was not impressed or excited, sat back and started turning the pages of the in-flight magazine. He did not even ask me who he was.

It served me right. I was exicted about one man and others about another. There was no need for me to feel superior."

I remembered this incident when I read about the brouhaha about Sharapova and Sachin. Sharapova not having heard of Sachin is an incident that could tell the fans that their god is a god with a very limited sphere of impact and tone their admiration for him.

In another incident from days gone by, when Borg won Wimbledon for the fifth time, in a row, reporters asked him if he knew of any other sporting achievement that could be comparable to his. When Borg said that it could be Eddy Merckx winning the Tour de France four times in a row the reporters were pleasantly surprised that he knew about that at all! 

Most do not realise that at that level of most sports, especially individual ones, the players live like hermits. Every minute of their days accounted for in activities oriented towards achieving excellence in their chosen sports and practically nothing else.

Sharapova has not heard of Sachin. So what? Perhaps our admiration for her should go up a notch or two.

A Gift

My father built our house, in what was then an extension of Mysore, in 1967. Our family often went to the construction site in the evenings to see how the house was coming up. On the way, we would pass another newly constructed house and became friends with the family that lived there. The family was that of one Sri K R Shankar a much loved high school teacher, soon we realised. His daughter was my classmate in middle school too. Soon, we were referring to him as Shankarmaama and by extension, Mrs Shankar, Shankarmaami. The two families have been friends ever since. 

The year was 1969. I was to take the SSLC (Secondary School Leaving Certificate) exam during the summer of the coming year. I was not a disciplined student. I would not exercise the rigour needed to learn Physics and Mathematics to do well in the exams.

My father must have been a worried man.

One day Shankarmaama proposed that I and the children of a few of his other friends go to his house every Saturday and  Sunday afternoons and he would make all of us work on the two subjects. Thus started the twice a week visit to his house around two in the afternoon every weekend. He taught us the subjects and made us work on umpteen number of problems. He would also give us numerous problems to work on during the rest of the week.

Every day we went to his house for the work out sessions, a table with six chairs around it would be neatly in place. Once we took our seats, Shankarmaama would come dressed in a brilliant white dhoti and a white shirt and the sessions would begin. We knew that he had cut his customary weekend afternoon nap short for our sake. Soon Shankarmaami would come with six cups of hot Horlicks. She thought that it would help us keep the post lunch drowsiness at bay. It did.

Thanks to this imposed rigour I did much better than I would otherwise have done in the final exams. Once the results were out and the marks cards were received, Shankarmaama was very happy that we had all done well.

Soon after, we were all invited to their house to celebrate our success. We had a very pleasant evening with nice things to eat and strong coffee and then came another surprise. He gave each of us a gift!

This is a fine one. A man foregoes his twice weekly naps, sat for hours with us and taught us - the same thing he had done the rest of the week at school - supplied us with Horlicks, rejoiced at our success and gave us a gift too – expecting nothing in return!

I have always wondered how my life would have turned out but for him and his family. Who knows? I wish I could say that the rigour was instilled in me and remained with me the rest of my life. But alas, it did not.

How does one thank a couple like that?

This is the gift he gave me that day - a carved sandalwood pen stand.

Is that

an accusing finger

pointed at the skies

for the inequities of

the world

a craning neck

scanning the horizon

for the beloved

a raised arm 

of 

protest

of

seeking

attention

a tall being

to shed light

on a 

dark world

just a symbol

saying 

stand up

and be counted

of foolish

arrogance

of elitist aloofness

impervious

to stay upright

in a sea of temptations

to stand

up to

injustice

or

- just a reliable ol'

light house

to warn against

the rocks?

Ramesh Jhawar and his Art

I have been travelling for the last couple of weeks and more. I have been to or passed through Delhi, Dubai, Amsterdam, Maastricht, Tongeren (Belgium), Hyderabad, Kolkata, Kharagpur and Manipal. Ufff...

All I wanted to do the first free weekend after many was rest - basically do nothing.

But, Ramesh Jhawar's solo exhibition of watercolours is on at Karnataka Chitrakala Parishat (usually referred to as CKP). Visiting that would be sheer pleasure and hence I went. Nor was I disappointed.

He is an artist I admire a lot.

Ramesh hails from a business family in Erode, TN. He has been interested in drawing from his childhood triggered by the comics - Phantom and Tarzan to name only two. He was introduced to oils in his college days. Milind Mulick's (whom he always refers to as Milind Sir) book on watercolours changed it all and he has never looked back!

I love his works for various reasons. Unlike many watercolour works, his works are full of details that never appear contrived or painstakingly executed. His eye for colour and composition are very highly developed. Works that appear to be full of details when viewed from a distance reveal the abstraction and reduction to essential shapes that are used to achieve it,  viewed close up.

Here is a picture of Ramesh with some of his paintings.

The exhibition is on till 26th Jan 2014 - one day left as I write this. 

Please do visit!

About Time

Recently, I came across a Youtube video of Javed Akhtar reciting one of his poems called Waqt which means time. Beautiful. On the video, his face reflects his wonder about this transient thing called time, which he has distilled in his poem.

One poetic thought made an impact on me. He asks, is time standing still and we are moving along and it only appears to move, like the stationary trees that appear to move when I travel on a train.

Wah wah!

And then today I read an article titled "Saving time: Physics killed it. Do we need it back?"  It describes a scientific theory very similar to the poetic thought I just described; that time is an illusion. The past, the present and the future coexist if we view the universe from a vantage point outside the universe.

That is uncannily close to what scientists are theorising. (Let me temporarily discount the possibility that Javed Akhtar read about this somewhere and developed it poetically. Even then, no mean achievement, really) Is this why G.P. Rajaratnam said, "ravvi kANad kavvi kaMDa"? ರವ್ವಿ ಕಾಣದ್‍ಕವ್ವಿ ಕಂಡ - A poet sees what the sun cannot see, based on a poetic idea that the sun sees everything.

A quirky idea popped up. There are some who jump in to the ring to claim that Indians knew "all this, long ago, "western" science is finding this only now". Would they claim something similar now? Or, does the language of the poem, Urdu, come in the way?

We need not say TIME will tell, do we?

Humour with Strangers

Recently, I was in the queue at the cash counter. There was this guy with a fairly neat beard, holding a Philips trimmer. 

I tapped him on the shoulder and said, "you have done well" and pointed to his purchase. His eyes lit up and he said, "Oh! Is it good? Do you use it too?" before he had seen my practically bald head and clean shaven chin.

I smiled and pointed to my t-shirt that carried the Philips logo and said, "I work for Philips". 

We both had a good laugh.

****

Last Sunday, my son M wanted to eat chaat. When we were at the self-service counter a gentleman came to the counter and ordered a bhel puri. But the way he said it was bel. (ಬೇಲ್ ಕೊಡಿ)

I told him, "If you want bail, you should go to the court, not a chaat shop!"

Fortunately he had a good sense of humour. He guffawed and told his wife too and we all had a good laugh.

You are the Buddha

Here is a translation of a kannaDa poem I wrote. (Here)



If hirsute growth is the measure,
you are a dullard for sure

If saffron robes and religious marks are,
you are uneducated for sure

If you can't fool with eyes half open, weaving meaningless words
you are an idiot for sure

If you can't fleece and give nothing in return
you are poor for sure

Don't worry, if you look at all such charlatans
with skepticism, you are the Buddha, said Omar

Sir MV, Amartya Sen and Bharat Ratna

The cabinet decided to award the title Bharat Ratna to Sir M VIshweshwaraiah. Knowing his character, none in the cabinet wanted to write to him and seek his acceptance of the award. Nehru was up to the challenge and wrote.

True to his nature - straightforward, upright - Sir MV replied that he is ready to accept the award only if it did not rob him of the freedom to criticize his (Nehru's) government if the need arose. Nehru wrote back that it was precisely for this that he was being awarded the Bharat Ratna.

This is a long story in short.

Nehru did not place the condition that Sir MV could comment only when his opinion was solicited. He did not stipulate: "Don't foist your UNSOLICITED opinion on the nation".

Sen's opinion, right or wrong, needs to be foisted on the country. This is the "job" (unpaid) of an intellectual. If the nation has any Sen_se, it will listen. And think.

I can anticipate a retort that Sen is no Sir MV. Perhaps. If so, the government should have had enough sense not to anoint him the Bharat Ratna.

Merrily go on Bharat Ratna Sen. Even if you get senile and speak nonsense there is a distinct possibility that you make more sense then than others who are supposed to be sound of mind.

Ravi Shankar – A Tribute

It was in the early seventies. I was in Mysore – studying Engineering. Ravishankar was billed to perform in Bangalore. The cheapest ticket was a whopping ten rupees. I asked my father if I could go to Bangalore and attend the concert. The answer was a no, we could not afford it. It was also a matter of principle – we should not spend that kind of money on entertainment.

I was crestfallen but there ended the matter.

In 1980 I was working in Bombay and there was this all night concert at the St Xavier’s college with N Rajam and Sangeetha concert followed by Ravishankar. I bought a ticket, weeks ahead, and went and listened to him. When he came on the stage the organisers announced that he was to receive the Padmavibhushan. An electric moment. The audience cheered and clapped and whistled for minutes. He was very gracious and he had this magical quality that created excitement wherever he went.

The story that I want to remember is what I heard from someone. He was there when this happened. All my facts may be wrong but the story is true or accurate.

There was this all night concert in the race course in Calcutta. Ravishankar’s was the second concert and the first one was by a great artist but, with a drinking problem. He was half an hour or more late coming to the stage. The audience was getting restive. Finally when he was escorted to the stage, he was weaving and staggering. He could hardly sit and play his instrument. There were loud protests and there were signs of things turning violent. Ravishankar came on stage with his accompanists and the first artist was taken off the stage. He was at the venue far earlier than his time – he wanted to listen to the first concert. His tastes were eclectic.

Ravishankar was all grace. He requested the audience to quieten and they did. He said something like, “The man who has just gone off the stage is a real genius with prodigious talent and accomplishment. Such geniuses sometimes have problems and we should ignore that. When they do play, they play like no one else can. We should take that and leave the rest. I know that you have come here to listen to good music. In his place, I will play for you and hope I can compensate in some measure.”

He went on to play through the previous artist’s time and his own too.

A tribute to Ravishankar by my friend Anwar - a brilliant artist.

That defines Ravishankar like nothing else can. He was a lover of music and musicians and a phenomenal, almost unparalleled, man and musician himself.

There is another incident that gives one a glimpse of the man. He was playing in Dharwar and the venue was close to the railway track. As he was playing, a train approached and blew the whistle. The listeners were disturbed by this harsh intrusion. Not so, Ravishankar. He just pulled the string hard and reached the note of the whistle and thereby included that into the raga he was playing. What could have been, actually was, a harsh intrusion was converted into something the audience cheered!

Now my own pigment liner line drawing of the man.

A Short Holiday in Dakshina Kannada

Onwards to Mangalore

A quaint station on the way

Exiting one of the fifty odd tunnels the train passes through

Panoramic view to the right of the train

A small waterfall to the right of the train

One of the bridges that spans a deep ravine. See the three locos required to pull (actually push back) the train

 Entering one of the tunnels





















Yours truly in front of a cave, called Parasurama guhe, on Kunjalagiri, near Pajaka - the birthplace of Madhvacharya.

E

A Garudagamba in one of the Devi temples, with the moon

An old old bridge on the way to Dharmasthala and is next to the sangama of Netravati and Kumaradhara

A butterfly trapped in a cup full of natural rubber being collected from a rubber tree.

 Devotees at a rare open air Ganapati temple

A rainbow in broad daylight without rain! Never have I seen one such before.





















Garudagamba (?) in front of the the Thousand Pillared Basti in Mudabidri.

The view of the Basti with evening sky




















 A storm threatens us at the Ullala beach.

Statue of Rani Abbaka Devi of Ullal. A figure that fascinated my sister and I when we had a lesson describing her heroics during her war against Portuguese invaders in the mid-seventeen hundreds. She formed a part of our games too.

Remembering Shivaram Karanth

It was in the mid 60’s. My father was invited to give a talk either in Puttur or Mangalore. The man who had invited him was none other than the polymath Shivaram Karanth. He was already familiar to me through his encyclopaedic works in Kannada. Though I had read little, I had devoured all the pictures in that book. I meekly put in an application to my father that I wanted to go with him. In retrospect, I am amazed that he agreed to take me along, after he sought the permission of Karanth. Those were the days before the telephone, so to say. The unendurable anticipation ended when Karanth said I was welcome and soon we were off.

The magic element started soon after we left Mysore by bus – I saw a mongoose cross the road in front of the speeding bus. I screamed in excitement and went red in the face when the whole bus turned to look at me.

Karanth had sent a car to the bus stand to pick us up. When we reached his house, I gaped open mouthed when I saw Karanth come out in kacche panche and banian. In my childish imagination, he was always dressed in a full kurta as in the photographs I had seen.

His house had two parts. An older Mangalore tiled part and a newer brick and concrete roofed structure standing a little apart from the older part. I was sleepy soon after dinner, in the older part of his two part house. We soon moved towards the newer part before which Karanth lit a cigarette and smoked, sitting on the steps leading to it. When we entered the building my mouth fell open. The walls were lined on all four sides with hundreds of issues of National Geographic magazine. There must have been a thousand other books there but all I could see was the golden yellow!

Soon, Karanth explained the sleeping arrangements: Lakshmana Rao and I will sleep in this hall. Anila will sleep in the next room on the tiger skin. In the night the tiger will wake up and kachch (kachchu in Kannada means to bite) him. Now this was a revelation! How can such a great man indulge in such jokes? Such thoughts were drowned in the fear of the impossible happening! I peeped into the next room and there was indeed a huge tiger skin on the floor with its mouth wide open and glassy eyes staring straight ahead, fortunately, away from me. He told my father how it came to be but I do not remember it since I was staring at a large framed oil colour canvas, perhaps 2m by 3m, resting against a wall. Years later, when I first saw a picture of a Gauguin, it reminded me of that painting. Was it Karanth’s himself? Or was it a Hebbar?

Thankfully, I did not have to sleep in that room alone and we slept on beds spread on the floor and quite close to my father.

The next morning, at breakfast he introduced us to his daughter who came to serve us, “she is my daughter, kShAmadevi….” (Thanks to the simple transliteration in English, the name could be pronounced with the first vowel short or long. When short, it means goddess of mercy or pardon and when long it means goddess of famine!) The item she had come to serve was a dark brown/black halwa with ghee oozing from it. He instructed me, “ತಿನ್ನಯ್ಯಾ ss ss s, it is genuine Indiyaaa rubber” in a theatrical style and voice.

He later asked me, “ಏನಯ್ಯಾ ನೀನೇನು ನೋಡ್ಬೇಕು? ಮಂಗಳೂರಿಗೆ ಹೋಗಿ ಅರಬ್ಬೀ ಸಮುದ್ರ ನೋಡ್ಬೇಕೋ? ಕಾರ್ಕಳಕ್ಕೆ ಹೋಗಿ ಗೊಮ್ಮಟನ್ನ ನೋಡ್ಬೇಕೋ? (My man, what do you want to see? Go to Mangalore and  Arabian Sea or got to KarkaLa and Gommateswara) I chose Mangalore and the sea. And that is what we did. On the way there, he challenged me, “ನೀನು ಇಂಜಿನಿಯರ್ ಆಗಿ ಪುತ್ತೂರಿನಿಂದ ಮಂಗಳೂರಿಗೆ ಹೋಗೋ ರಸ್ತೇನ ನೆಟ್ಟಗೆ ಮಾಡಿದರೆ ನಿನಗೆ ನೊಬೆಲ್ ಪ್ರೈಜ್ ಕೊಡಿಸ್ತೀನಿ.” (If you study Engineering and straighten the road from Puttur to Mangalore, I will get you a Nobel Prize) Unfortunately, I never took up the challenge.

As with childhood memories, perhaps aided by some of these things recounted by father later, my memories stop there. I have some visual memories of the lay of the land near his house, his fair shiny hairless shoulder and upper arm peeping out of the banian, the remarkable twinkle in his eyes which would suddenly disappear when deep in thought and so on.

I write all this to show how childlike he was while dealing with me as a boy – a facet of a great man that hardly ever gets described.

Note: This was written on Karanth's 110th birthday -  this year - 10th October. 

An Explanation

I posted this picture on Facebook and commented that people who collect blood - like blood banks - might have missed an opportunity here. (The last line in the banner says "we are ready to give blood but we will not give a drop of water")

Three of my good friends took objection to this. One of them (F1) said I was being insensitive. Another (F2) said that he felt bad. I am particularly fond of this friend F2 and hence his opinion matters to me. If I make him feel bad, even unintentionally, I feel very bad. It so happens that the third friend is also someone who I am very fond of agreed with F1 and F2 and said that he is sensitive to social and farmer related issues.

Starting from the last one, my response is - so am I! But the question is, are farmers in Tamil Nadu not farmers? Having said that, I do not know if the demands made by the TN government are just or not. Since the dam was built by Karnataka (The erstwhile princely state of Mysore), it is in Karnataka, Karnataka "loses" large tracts of land to store the water and the major part of, if not all of, all the people displaced by the waters are in Karnataka, the catchment area for the dam is in Karnataka and Karnataka bears the maintenance charges for the dam, does Karnataka have a greater claim on the waters?

(The plight of the displaced people is something ignored by all. Some of those 'new' settlements have drinking water shortage. Since their numbers are smaller their cries are unheard. All of us are guilty.)

If I remember and understand right, some agreement was reached on the water sharing issue and Karnataka was supposed to release x units of water but TN is asking for 6x. Upping the ante like this is not fair if my understanding is right.

The other reason that makes me not take the banner seriously is this. Is it really the directly affected people who feel so or is it the politicians of both TN and KA whipping up passions for their gain and let the people (farmers and others) be damned. Do we really know either way?

And one final point is that is it not better that we share waters justly, the only measure of it is optimising or maximising food grain production for the nation? Yes, it is right to be sensitive to famers' issues - even if it is purely out of self interest! But that is not my interest. Assume that KA hoards water, a not inconsiderable part of it will evaporate over time, and we as a nation produce less grain than we could, who are the worst affected? The poorest of the poor - farmers and other workers - industrial or otherwise and every one of us

The slogan quoted above is emotional. I do not reject emotions but distrust them. When rational solutions are the need, emotions are at best distrusted!

Dear F1, F2, F3, I rest my case.

* Note, when I talk about Karnataka above, I do not say "we" - only when I talk of India.

Amusing Anecdotes with Scientists (ವಿಜ್ಞಾನಿಗಳೊಡನೆ ರಸನಿಮಿಷಗಳು)

My father, J R Lakshmana Rao, wrote a book called ವಿಜ್ಞಾನಿಗಳೊಡನೆ ರಸನಿಮಿಷಗಳು (vijnAnigaLoDane rasanimiSagalu) - a collection of humorous anecdotes involving scientists. It was a great success and saw at least seven reprints.

At my father's suggestion, I have translated that book and here is a sample of three incidents.

Mr. Ramamurthy, the great cartoonist famous through his Mr. Citizen cartoons for the Deccan Herald created brilliant cartoons as illustrations for the book. 

The way it came about itself is interesting. A friend of my father, who knew Mr. Murthy, requested him to provide the illustrations. Like the true artist that he was, he had to be coaxed and finally agreed to provide some ten illustrations. He had to be provided the pictures of some of the lesser well known (to him) scientists so that he could draw using them as reference.

The anecdotes apparently caught his fancy and he ended up doing 52 cartoons that enhanced the book immensely! 

I am looking for a publisher to take up the publication of the English version. Anyone interested may please contact me. Suggestions are welcome too!

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The Boy who Would not Let Read

If you are asked to name the three greatest mathematicians of all times, it is difficult to leave out the name of Karl Friedrich Gauss, the German mathematician, physicist and astronomer who lived during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

As a professor at Göttingen for many years, he brought name and fame to the university. His mathematical acumen was recognised from his childhood. He was a child prodigy.

Gauss’ father was an assistant to a civil contractor. He had the habit of sitting in the courtyard of his house and doing all his paper work. He was sitting there one payday and was paying the labourers their weekly wages. He called out the name and mentioned the wage paid to each labourer. Then he noted it down in a ledger. After every one was paid, he totalled up the wages. He read out the numbers aloud while he did so. When he finished the list and wrote down the total, Gauss who was playing in the yard said, “Your total is wrong. It falls short by eighty-three Marks.” The surprised father did the addition again and found that the child was right. Gauss was just a toddler of three at that time.

A few years later the boy started going to school. One day the teacher was in no mood to teach but could not let the students off. He hit upon an idea to keep the students busy. He asked the boys to write down all the numbers from1 to 200 and add them up. He was sure that this would keep them busy for quite some time. He then settled down to read a novel, sure of an hour of peace and quiet. To make sure, he added, “No mistakes! Once you are finished, check it all again.”

            He had not read even half a page when Gauss stood up and said, “Sir, the answer is 20,100”, and the answer was right. The teacher, in shock, asked, “How did you do it so fast?”

            Gauss said, “I used the formula”:       (n × (n +1)) ÷ 2

                                                            = (200 × (200 +1)) ÷ 2

                                                            = 20100

         

            “Who taught you the formula?”, wailed the teacher.

            “I arrived at it myself”, said the boy.

            “When?!”

            “Just now”, said the little imp.

Ah! That Elusive Word . . . .

A student of Norbert Wiener, the renowned mathematician and father of Cybernetics, had great admiration for him. But, he had not had an opportunity to talk to him. One morning, when the student went to the Post Office, Wiener was there. He was looking intently at a sheet of paper on the desk. The student, being an ardent admirer, saw immense concentration in that look. He did not know if he could talk to him. Wiener suddenly left the paper, walked to the opposite wall, stood there for a moment and returned to the paper and started staring at it again. The admirer still did not know if he could talk to him. Wiener left the paper again but, this time, walked directly towards the admiring student. Now he had to, at least, greet him. He did. “Good morning Professor Wiener”, he said. A smile broke out on the face that was so serious until then. He stopped, stared at the student for a moment. He then slapped hisforehead and exclaimed, “Ah! It is Wiener. Isn’t it? I just could not recall that elusive word, however hard I tried. Thanks!” He now returned to the paper and continued filling the form. 

Different points of view

When the first experimental nuclear explosion was carried out in a desert in New Mexico, all the scientists and officials connected with the atomic bomb project had gathered in a safe place, a good distance away from the explosion site, to witness the test. Both Leslie Groves, a two star general, who was the military director of the project and Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director of the project, were there.

A newspaper reporter, awed by the explosion, asked Oppenheimer, “What did you see?” A perturbed Oppenheimer replied, “….the end of the world”.

The reporter asked the two star general the same question. “The third star”, was the prompt reply.

Not a Question, a Statement

Paul Dirac was notorious for his extreme taciturnity. Once he gave a talk in an American university. At the end of the talk, the chairman invited questions from the audience. Someone got up and said, “I did not understand such and such in your talk” and sat down. Dirac sat comfortably without saying anything. Everyone was curious and after sometime even uncomfortable. The chairman asked rather hesitantly, “Prof. Dirac, could you please answer that question?” 

“That was not a question but, a statement of fact” replied Dirac nonchalantly.