A good father?

To those who have been readers of my blog(s) for some time, here's a question. What kind of a father do you think I am? Is my daughter lucky or otherwise?

I am not really being facetious here. Unlike most parents I know, I did not convince myself the moment my daughter was born that I was the best thing that could have happened to her. And I have never stopped wondering...

Jeeves forgotten?

I should have thought that P.G. Wodehouse created a true immortal with his Jeeves character. People from the time of Jyoti Basu till yours truly have been afficionados. Now, despite the fact that more people are learning English (after a fashion) all over India than ever before, few people read the Bertie Wooster books - and one of the reasons, so many of my pupils tell me, is that they find the English so 'difficult' that all the humour goes clean over their heads. Well, it is true that Wodehouse's English is incredibly sophisticated, what with its wealth of allusions, puns, innuendos, idioms and idiosyncratic turns of phrase - but if so many 'English-educated' people who have gone to the best schools (and are very snooty about their learning) cannot read what we in our day laughed ourselves to tears over, what price their education?

Of noses and other profound things

It has been said that if Cleopatra's nose had been only slightly shorter, all history would have been different. In the Ramayana, we read of Lakshman cutting off Surpanakha's nose (as well as ears) for being too saucy, and that, as we all know, led to all hell breaking loose! And some people have been known to be extraordinarily sensitive about their extraordinarily long noses - the great (semi-legendary) French romantic and swordsman, Cyrano de Bergerac, challenged people to duels for insults to his nose (which he had often merely imagined) and composed poems extempore to the rhythm of his sword thrusts and parries even as he fought. There are endless jokes about Jews and their noses, and I have wondered whether having small/flat noses makes people feel bad or sad. Having a rather long hooter myself (and proud to know that in ancient Rome they called it 'patrician'), I often point to it to demonstrate what 'aquiline' means. Sharks have no visible noses, and dogs have rudimentary ones compared to us, yet they can smell far better. We weren't given such noses merely to be able to smell. Surely this is a matter that calls for profound thought?

Last post for the first day

'I have a billion,' sighed the tycoon, 'but I am seventy.'

'Why,' simpered the bimbo, 'you look twenty!'

Noticed the quote at bottom?

Now why is it there, do you wonder? I am not clinically insane - in the sense that I don't bite people or go dancing and singing in the buff or way-out things like that - and yet all my friends have known for a long time that lots of people call me mad, and not always very kindly either. Let me see: can you count the ways in which I have been said to be 'mad'? ... and do you think you can figure out why it might be a pleasure, too?

Witty about dying...

There was this king who, when his death was mentioned, exclaimed, 'Die? Why, Sir, that's the last thing I should do!' (I do, do hope people get the pun!)

Then there was the funny man who said 'I'm not afraid to die: I just don't want to be there when it happens.' And Sir Thomas More, who supposedly raised a finger, removed his flowing beard from the chopping block, put his head down, and told the executioner 'You can go ahead now; I didn't want my beard to be harmed; it has not offended the king.'

I wonder, too, if you have read about the monk who was always making his devotees laugh. When he was on his deathbed, he made his last request: that he should be cremated with his clothes on. When the pyre was lit, there was a great burst of firecrackers - he had apparently hidden a lot of them in his robes. Even at his funeral, he was making people laugh...

Apologia

That word above is an old-fashioned one, which most readers may not be familiar with. I am not apologizing for anything, just offering an explanation for why I should want to start another blog.

My other, original blog will continue and, I hope, thrive in the months and years to come. This one is not a separate project; I expect my old and faithful readers to visit it in tandem. But I also hope that this one will create a somewhat different image of me, and draw other kinds of readers…

If you ask why, my reasons are manifold:

· The older blog is getting cluttered with too many posts, and very few people have the time/patience to explore it for older posts,
· Despite my intentions (see this essay), it has started sounding rather too solemn, practical, worldly, and I would like readers to find out other facets of my character/interests too,
· To live a full and good life, one must attend to many things. As with money and work and sex and philosophy and music, pure fun and whimsy (of the cerebral kind, it goes without saying – I have no desire to attract your typical mall-hopper, pub-crawler, giggly teenager or party animal) should have some space for itself, and that is one of the themes I wish to attend to here, in the spirit of Carroll’s most famous ‘nonsense’ poem Jabberwocky

… well, there are other reasons, but let that be enough for now.

Oh, one more thing: I shall be delighted to have suggestions by way of comments here, too!

Love you…