Mysorean Musings

My Mulberry friend Devanath - tributes and memories

2012-01-10T10:13:00.000-08:00

I had noticed "C.J.Devanath" on a small old inconspicuous wooden name board, its paint distorted by exposure to weather and facing the harsh western sun. It was hoisted on a wooden heritage balcony, behind which his 'lawyer office' was, upstairs. I had this habit of looking up at those beautiful old balconies above the shops beside Sayyaji Rao Road. This was in the early 80s.

Around the same time, I happened to be in front of the old-coin vendor on the pavement, looking at some old coins, in front of Cauvery Emporium also on Sayyaji Road. An old man was also showing some interest in the coins, spread on a sheet of plastic. I asked him if he too was interested in coins. He nodded and said, just looking. 'Devanath' he said when I asked his name. I said I have seen that advocate's name board down there. He smiled. When asked if he had heard my advocate grandfather's name, he nodded with a grin. I was happy. That was our first meeting and I had forgotten about it.

In the 90s he had written a short letter in our local eveninger about how birds, esp. the Koel can be attracted to our garden. Birds are very important in the system for various reasons. Growing cities have affected bird life to a great extent what with authorities and even public carelessly chopping off trees which are homes of various species of birds even in cities. So he was showing some concern about this and he had observed in his garden that Koels love Mulberry fruit.

I had some space in our garden as well. Koels, among other birds were already visiting my yard, but I thought there must be something special in it. So wasting no time, I soon went to his house. Road name was familiar, but the only thing left was to locate the house. It was not difficult at all because on the other side of the Church was all too familiar to us because a relative was staying there.

He had some space in his spacious front yard filled with excellent greenery, between his house and the entrance gate, in silent Yadavagiri. His home was next to a Church with added to the serenity of the place. Since I was also interested in matters related to Nature and Gardens, this letter in 1992 attracted me.

I went in through the little gate that evening. This man, probably around 70 then, was relaxing on a comfortable rattan chair in his garden, looking at the trees and shrubs. He watched me walk towards him through the shady walkway. I introduced myself as the grandson of K.M.Subba Rao, whom he knew as they were in the same profession. He was glad to see me. When I told him about the letter in the paper and the reason for my coming, he was gladder! Very soon, he started explaining how much the Koels love to eat the mulberry fruits and how important it is for us to attract birds.

Morus alba - [Mulberry] - image from Wiki. The taste is pleasantly sour but likeable.

He was pleased to know that I wanted to grow it too. His garden servant was working in his yard. He instructed him to get a few cuttings from that bushy shrub, which had grown quite tall. As it was already getting dark, I took leave, thanking him profusely for the Mulberry cuttings.

The next morning, the first thing I did was to plant the cuttings in my garden. After a few days of care, I noticed that one of the 4-5 cuttings was showing healthy signs of good growth. Once it was big enough, I transplanted it to the ground at the chosen spot.

In a few months, it grew tall and needed pruning! It is a quick grower and grows without much attention, much to my liking! It bore berries and I noticed that Koels, as he had told, got attracted to this little tree and were frequenting it. They also loved the Curry plant (Murraya koenigii - 'karibevu') for its fruit which was growing close to it. I enjoyed watching the koels for a few years until I noticed that the tree was dying. It had grown quite big. Probably termites had attacked the roots. So there ended the mulberry tree but later our friendship begin to grow.

Devanath used to write columns and letters to the local paper loaded with historical information. So I thought of meeting him again because it was yet another common interest. Since he had a good library and he being a voracious reader, his articles, usually about Mysore's past, were very informative. He had a good collection of old pictures also. He had shown me B.L.Rice's Gazzeteer of Mysore and Coorg, in two large volumes. It is considered a great work by Rice. He would not part with his books easily, but he trusted me and gave me some other books I wanted. I also gave him some very old books for his reference, from my library. When I delayed returning his books, he would call to remind.

I used to meet him after calling him over phone once in a few months and chat about Mysore's past which he seemed to know in and out, and authentically. He had that amazing knack of reeling out names of persons and the posts they held, when he told about something. So sharp was his memory. It stumped me. Sometimes his wife, who also knew our family, used to prepare a cup of tea as we engaged in our chat. Since they had no issues, they stayed together here and spent time leisurely. They used to go and stay for a few weeks in Bangalore also where they had a house. This he did when he went for his medical check-up or when he was unwell.

In 2009, I was shocked to see his picture in the paper informing his death. The following day, it carried a small tribute. Some days later, I called up his wife to convey condolences. I delayed personally meeting her, but by the time I went to meet after a few months, the house had a dry look, the garden greenery was now 'brownery'. There was none in the premise. Windows were closed as if to indicate their association with that premise had ended, once for all. I assumed the expected fact - she vacating it. I returned disappointed and also thought about his fine library of books and other old articles he had preserved with care. I only hope they have ended up in their rightful places. His passing away was a great loss to the city of Mysore.

The Hindu reports his passing away [screenshot image of online edition - click to enlarge]

From our chats, I had come to know that Devanath's father was Rao Bahadur H.C.Javaraiah, who was the first Indian Horticulture Director [credited for designing Lal Bagh at Bangalore]. His younger brother was Capt.C.J.Ramdev who was a famous cricketer who played for Mysore State and served the Army. He proudly showed various photos of Ramdev and his cricket book collection. Devanath was a former Member of Legislative Council, a respected citizen of Mysore, a respected advocate and a great historian whose knowledge about Mysore and Mysore's Royal Family was astounding.

I was not knowing that he was a true Gandhian, having served as an 'ashramite' at Sevagram with Mahatma Gandhi between November 1945 to April 1946 along with his uncle H.C.Dasappa ["Dasappa Circle" near J.K. Grounds is named after him - Devanath used to proudly recall it] who was later Railway Minister in the Jawaharlal Nehru Cabinet, that he served the Indian National Congress for four decades and also served as a member of the executive committee of the Congress Legislative Party. I learn that he also worked as Secretary of the Mysore Branch of Kasturba Gandhi Memorial Trust and as President of various Trade Unions. A very active person indeed!

He was 87 and lived between November 12, 1921 and April 9, 2009. He used to tell me how frail his health was 'inside', though 'I look okay outwardly'. On the few visits I made towards the end to show my old vintage albums, I had not taken my camera with me even when I had one. As such, there is no picture of him with me.

The Mulberry tree died and our friendship culminated with his death. Little did I know when I went to ask for the mulberry cuttings, that he was such a great person!

Earliest memories of watching a movie

2012-01-09T03:20:00.000-08:00

There are numerous memories, some hazy, some vague, some unusually clear, that I carry from the time when the brain cells had begun to hold impressions. I tried to make a short list of only the memories related to movies.

My earliest in my memory timeline of watching a film in a theatre dates back to the early 1960s. It was a matinee show. The theatre was Ganesh Picture House. The movie was Absent Minded Professor. [click on the link]. My late uncle who was fond of children, had taken me. Some scenes from it have clung in my mind. Fifty years on, my mind's eye can project those scenes much the same way Lee Falk's Comic hero, Mandrake the Magician, could project images [on the wall] from the minds of others using his magical powers!

Before I made a web search on this old movie, let me first make an attempt to briefly describe what I had in memory of those scenes in Absent Minded Professor. I had seen only once, probably as a four-year old: A flying car, some people playing some ball game where players are jumping like springs and a little black rubber ball that goes bouncing everywhere; there were two cars crashing head on, both their fronts go up together and then come crashing down with a loud thud, throwing clouds of dust from the road. This scene I used to animate using my toy cars for quite some time! It was a fun sight!

As I grew up, but still very young, elders used to discuss about this film. I used to give an ear to their talk. So I learnt that the movie was about a professor, who was renown for his forgetfulness, yet, a genuis. He calls one of his wonder-inventions in that story as "Flubber". There was a game of basketball in which the players are using flubber. This is all I knew for a long time.

Then, when the internet arrived, I have wanted to see if this is available to view online, by what we now call 'googling'. Lo and behold! It was there! I could not wait! I started to watch. That was a fine copy, very clear. I watched it in full for 100 mintues and drove down memory lane. It stretched well past midnight and I wonder why Dear Drowsy kept away! With a great feeling I went to bed having a sense of some great achievement! Reliving some fond old murky memories from that young age was simply thrilling. I was now able to compare with my memory those very scenes I actually saw now after a gap of nearly 50 years.

The players with flubber-shoes were unstoppable with their amazing 'slam dunks'. Then there was the professor in his car that goes flying like an aircraft. I did not remember the dog sitting by the professor's side during its flight. What creativity! I now wonder how such amazing scenes were filmed 50 years ago and how much trouble it must have been to bring out such magnificent effects! I also learnt that not for nothing it was one of Walt Disney's most hilarious productions as well! There are some really wonderfully funny sequences which make me think of watching it again!

That car in the movie was a Model T (Ford). My great grandfather also had a Model T for a few years in the late 1920s. Here is the operation manual of the same car, just FYI!

Here is a link I found from Walt Disney site itself, about the movie.
During my web search, I discovered that the original model used in the movie is preserved in the wax museum. See this 2-minute video.

So much about the movie, now a bit about the famous Ganesh Picture House which screened it and enthralled thousands of people. It was just a few furlongs down the street where we lived and could be reached within 5 minutes by foot. It was one of the very few theatres which screened English movies and so had become popular with the English-movie-loving public. Later at Christ the King Convent [which was adjacent to GPH] where I studied, we had a boy in our class by name Vishwanath, but everyone called him "King Kong". Probably in our 2nd or 3rd Standard class, I came to know that he was the son of the owner of Ganesh Picture House. He had probably been nicknamed after "King Kong" which was the name of the film in which the famous wrestler Dara Singh had acted. It was also popular in the early 60s! Our little King Kong was a daringly naughty fellow too, if you know what I mean and fully deserved that nickname as much as Dara Singh was prefixed with the same name! But we adored that that theatre was 'his'!

It was not a pleasant sight, many years later to see the theatre building being demolished. As of today, a new venture is coming up. There have been so many fond memories of great movies thousands of people have watched there. When I last saw a movie, the ticket rate was one rupee sixty paise. I had seen a few with friends when it was only 80 paise too. It must have been much less when my uncle took me there when I did not need a ticket.

Another murky memory is from the film 'Hatari'. It may be around 1964-65. My late uncle had taken both me and my little brother along, to Gayatri Talkies for this film which was actually released in 1962. It was an action movie involving an African Safari. I remember two scenes where a fast running Rhino is caught by a hunter using lasso from his open jeep that is moving close to it. The Rhino also gores the jeep with its horn. It was a thrilling sequence that has stuck in my memory. I remember the theatre because I was now a little bit older. Gayatri Talkies also screened English movies. Some theatres were content with Kannada or Hindi. This theatre is still active, though not with English movies due to changing times, but still in the news. See this write-up (most recent) relating to this historic theatre.

Gayatri Talkies on Chamaraja Double Road

Deccan Herald, November 2011.

Woodlands Theatre near the Clock Tower is another old theatre. It also screened various fine films.
I remember a particular scene from Sant Gnaneshwar, a Kannada film, where a poor boy who is spiritually energetic bakes some rotis on his back. He goes on 'all fours' exposing his back to the hot sun and the roti puffs up like it does on a hot pan! The rotis were for another poor boy who was very hungry and had nothing to eat. Vague memory of the only scene but I clearly remember it was a morning show. Some years later, I was taken by my mother and late aunt to watch Arunodaya, also a Kannada movie meant for children as it was featuring some animals and birds. The movie was very nice, but somehow, the suffocation of the theatre hall was too much for me and I was feeling breathless - this word I can say now, but I never knew how to express it then. Instead, I complained of 'stomach ache' and relented to quit at intermission. We had gone to the matinee and I remember that we walked back home that evening all the way, past K.R.Circle and Lansdowne Building. I was very relieved to be out of the theatre, not one bit regretting missing the movie. They would not believe my seriousness because I was already renown to make these 'stomach ache dramas' when I wanted to skip school [I hated school-going]. But that evening, it was really discomforting. We could never watch that movie again. Sound of Music was another English movie I remember vaguely in the same theatre. I think this was the evening show - it ended in the night - it seemed a very very long time in! I am not too sure if this was the movie in which it required two intermissions because of the length of the film. The movie was filled with soulful songs which I never understood, but one particular scene stands out - two people are singing under a garden gazebo. It was a movie that everybody spoke about. "Did you watch it?" was a common part of conversation!

It was fun to watch the ushers coming in with battery torches to show late-comers their seats by pointing the beam of light on the empty seat/s. When we were already seated, it was a nuisance when someone came in the way of the screen! The smell of cigarette smoke that filled the hall was awful. The huge fans added more misery. The darkness inside the hall was not a pleasant sight!! When someone moved in and out, the light from the door/curtain distracted people. Balcony tickets were slightly higher priced. During the time when we had entered the theatre hall well ahead of time, lights used to be on and I wondered why the wall on which we see the movie was a curved surface. When the lights were switched off, everybody went silent as it was a sign that the show would start. When the movie started , I could not 'notice' that curve on the wall!

In the olden days, bed bugs was a problem not only in homes but in theatre seats as well. They had coir cushion seats in the pre-foam seat era! It was heaven to those little blood suckers. We boys wearing shorts used to scratch our thighs by intermission time and kept scratching the areas even after we returned home! The suckers also used to ride with people's clothes into their homes to infest there too. It was a heck of a problem. I hope theatres have got rid of this pest!

[Image of Bedbug borrowed from the web]

I used to derive pleasure from watching the beam of light passing from the projector lens on to the screen and the dust wafting across the beam adding effect! I used to wonder about how the beam from such a small window diverged on to a big screen!

Small booklets were sold in theatres for ten paise. It contained the lyrics of songs and a gist of the story of the film that was being shown. My late aunt had a great fancy for collecting these and I have salvaged a few from her collection.

There were also Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy comedy movies that were screened in Mysore, but I cannot remember having seen any in my young age in theatres, but I have some weak memory of watching probably one of Chaplin's, which was shown at CFTRI by its film society. In fact, my late father had taken me pillion on his bicycle specially for this and I used to sit by the 16 mm projector which he operated there.

I cannot remember huge crowds at theatres for buying tickets. Queues were short and people walked in leisurely to the ticket-issuing window. There were four shows per day. Morning show, Matinee, Evening show and Night show. Our normal choices were morning or matinee probably because my Ajji - Grandmother wanted us back home safe before dusk!

Mysore can boast of theatres dating back to the 1930s. Krishna Talkies near Gandhi Square was perhaps the oldest. It had become non-functional in my time itself! The building is still in existence - Kaveripatnam Market. Picture below. Opposite/behind this, was my grandfather's famous office on Rave Street.

Lakshmi, Gayatri, Uma, Prabha, Padma, Shantala.... all female Godess names. They are all names of theatres in Mysore, besides Opera, Olympia, Sri, Prabhudava, Rajkamal, Sangam, Ranjith, Ganesha, Krishna...

Though I do not remember having watched Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai - a hindi movie released in 1960, the song sung by Mukesh "Mera naam Raju..." has embedded in memory. It was very frequently played on the radio. On hearing it, my ears would straighten! My mother had found this out. I can vividly remember, when this was being aired, I'd open my mouth and accepted spoonfuls of cooked rice-rasam without a fuss, much to the delight of my mother as it saved her some trouble feeding, which usually was a circus! We can now watch the song sequence here.

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A magazine called 'Sport and Pastime'

2012-01-08T10:02:00.000-08:00

The Hindu, started in 1878, was a much sought-after daily newspaper outside Madras also. From my great grandfather's dairies, I see quite a few interesting paragraphs he has copied from it - in the early 1930s. So he had access to it in the Mysore area as well, which testifies its wide circulation.

The Sports pages was very popular for its action photographs and crisp articles by renown writers. Action photographs was The Hindu's forte. Collecting Cricket pictures was a favourite pastime with many cricket followers and these action photographs added a lot of value to the collections. Not many newspapers carried action pictures but The Hindu was ahead.

The Hindu is also probably the first to publish an exclusive magazine dedicated to sports. It started "Sport and Pastime" in 1947 under the leadership of S.K.Gurunathan, who was the Sports Editor at The Hindu. He was a renown sports journalist, a cricket statistician and a player himself in his younger days. Gurunathan passed away in 1966, but the weekly magazine limped for two years after his death before it ceased publication in 1968. Sports-following public has always been on the rise and the stoppage of this unique and popular magazine disappointed many.

The magazine was unique because it tried to cover varied hobbies and pastimes besides popular sports events.

Photography:

Stamp collecting

Bridge

Chess

It featured even the film festival in 1965. Sir Richard Attenborough was here!

It had a centre-spread from time to time - in colour. Here it has B.S.Chandrashekhar who was a rising star in 1965. I must tell that colour pictures were a great attraction in those days.

Demonstration of cricketing strokes with a series of photographs - here it is Don Bradman's cover drive. Pictures borrowed by them from Daily Mail, London. People had no access to films of action in those days but such series photographs helped learners of the game.

Cooch Behar Trophy - which was Schools Cricket, also got coverage in Sport and Pastime.

Sunil Gavaskar was coming to limelight in 1966. This is from the issue dated January 1.

There was an athlete by name Akhande from Kenya who was studying in Mysore and represented Mysore University in the inter-varsity sports. He was a star in his own right and his name was on people's tongues in Mysore in the mid 60s which I remember. I have very unclear memory of seeing him at Maharaja's College Grounds where at that time, there was a long jump/high jump pit where he used to practice. He was a runner and also a footballer. He was also featured on Sport and Pastime Cover [Nov.1965]!!

Contents list

"Laugh it off" page full of cartoons. I liked Sporting Sam the best! It came in "Sportsweek" also later in the 1970s from Bombay, for which I used to subscribe.

Action photographs were its forte. They were supported and given value addition with beautiful, informative and meaningful captions:

Tennis action:

Varsities cricket and other sports at that level also got good coverage. Through this, it gave good encouragement to upcoming players.

These magazines are all not mine! They were given to me by my good friend and our team captain Kashi. This lot was among a huge collection of cricket pictures which he handed over to me when he left for the USA many years ago. Here is the pile of the few issues he gave me.

Came 1978 there was a great surprise waiting for sports fans. Much to their delight, there was sort of a rebirth for Sport and Pastime. It was to bring a similar magazine out, larger, like a mini newspaper with a new name "Sportstar". I have the inaugural issue, Vol.1, Issue 1 for which I waited for, went to Newspaper House in Lansdowne Building and bought on the day of issue. It was thrilling. I used to buy from the pocket money of Rupees five which my father gave me. Each issue would cost one rupee and fifty paisa. By month end, I had to use the small savings in the piggy box!

I have kept the pen to compare the size of the new format.

The back cover which they called 'mini cover' also had a picture. Look at young Martina Navratilova there! Wimbledon '78 had just been finished and Bjorn Borg had won the Men's final (see above cover pic).

Of course the publishers needed no introduction!

True to its promise, action pictures continued to delight readers and fans, not to speak of the quality of articles. I used to buy mainly for its pictures and articles were secondary. Collecting pictures [cricket] was a hobby among many prior to the 70s. Afterwards, this hobby has lost popularity.

It has successfully won over competitions from Sportsweek from Bombay and Sportsworld [which Tiger Pataudi wrote editorials] from Calcutta and is still growing strong. I have stopped subscribing or reading many years ago due to various reasons. I have many old issues gathering dust. It is a tough decision to dispose them off for want of storage space and want of interest to bring them down for a re-look/re-read. But let Sportstar continue to shine.

A strange coincidence of WTC 9/11

2011-09-10T07:13:00.000-07:00

It is already ten years now since that fateful day which came to be referred as “9/11”. The US has got rid of its mastermind (OBL) recently. I don't need to decipher. I would like to share a strange coincidence I came across in relation to this infamous terrorist act which has stuck in my memory.

I was in Chennai for a cricket engagement. If any old friend lives in the city I visit, I make it a point to meet. My childhood classmate Gopi lives in Chennai and so I took this opportunity to meet, as we have done ever since we renewed contact after a very long gap. It was decided that the best time to meet was over dinner at Gopi’s house itself so that we could indulge in some school-day nostalgia.

I went as scheduled, but Gopi had not arrived home that evening due to some (I must add 'usual' in his case) work pressure. So his son and wife tried their best to keep me occupied with some informal chat. After some time their telephone rang. It was a friend calling to inform Gopi's wife about a tragedy that had stuck in New York and that it was being shown on a certain TV channel, live. It was the deadly act that had brought the massive structures of the WTC down just about an hour ago and news of it was spreading around the world faster than wildfire. She changed the channel from the remote as she was still speaking to the friend and found it.

Watching screaming people run helter-skelter, collapsed building’s dust flying, rescue teams trying their bit and the upset reporters trying to hide their shock on the screen made a terrible sight that left us shocked as well,despite it happening half way round the earth.

Gopi arrived to see dazed, dull faces glued to the TV as he had also been informed on phone about it. His wife prepared a simple rice-rasam dinner in a most depressed mood, which was quite understandable. Even the dinner seemed tasteless in such a disturbed state of our minds as we had dinner in terrible mood as the hand to mouth action became perfunctory. The expected nostalgia did not take place as the NY disaster buried all else.

Now the coincidence. Before Gopi arrived, his little son was telling me that he was asked in his class to draw something that came to their minds as that particular class was free. He had drawn a picture of the twin towers, because Gopi and family had only recently toured and visited the huge WTC and the young fellow was impressed by its massiveness. In fact, he was showing that drawing to me while we were all watching repeat telecasts of the two giants crumbling to dust. He was shocked too. I left, in a strange mood and joined my team at the place of stay only to be greeted by the same news.

The site is now called Ground Zero and is being reconstructed.

[all images web grabs]

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This link will show about some of the weird coincidences about the numbers in that date which also went into wide e-mail circulation afterwards.

Click here

Click here to see how someone discovered and interpreted to coincide with that event by folding some US Banknotes.

9/11 has since been chosen as 'Patriot Day'.

Click here.

56 photos of the terrible tragedy.

Click here.

Salvaging steel from the debris of the WTC, a navy ship has been built.

Click here to read some information on this. And go here to see it was true and also more pictures of it!

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Unfortunately, the boy somehow did not preserve that drawing. Came to know of it when I asked him if he has it to show it here in this post.

Let peace prevail!

CITY IMPROVEMENT TRUST BOARD - ITS FORMATIVE YEARS

2011-09-02T08:58:00.000-07:00

At the outset, let me reproduce my compilation which was published in our local eveninger, Star of Mysore in 2005.

Reference source: Handbook of the City of Mysore, 1915, by T.G.Lakshmana Rao - Author's complimentary copy presented to my great grandfather K.Mylar Rao whose name appears " -- For Officiating Secretary to Govt." in the Appendix section ('Rules and Bye Laws).

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CITY IMPROVEMENT TRUST BOARD - ITS FORMATIVE YEARS

In the early 19th century, Mysore was confined within the limits of Hale Agrahara, the Fort, Dodda Petta and Lashkar Mohalla. Municipal activity began sometime during the reign of HH Krishnaraja Wadiyar III about the mid 19th century. As decades passed and the town gradually evolved into a city, there reached a stage when the need was felt for a separate body that could handle the city's development, improvement and health matters.

The deadly epidemic Plague struck Mysore and took a heavy toll of life, esp. in 1898. The root cause was poor sanitation and unhealthiness. It was a grave public concern. The Municipality, with the help of the Plague Commissioner, tried to combat future ravages. Spreading the populace apart, opening out lanes and streets in congested localities and creating extensions seemed the best answer. It required heavy expenditure. By the time plans took shape, HH Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV had ascended the throne (1902). The inadequacies of the Municipality's resources to handle the demands of such crises, surfaced. The Government of H.H. Maharaja came to the rescue by appointing a committee with the Chief Engineer as the President to formulate proposals for the improvement of the city.

Improving sanitation and removing unhealthiness in the city received prime attention. During the first (1894-1902) of two important stages in Mysore's sanitary history, a Sanitary Division under Mr.Standish Lee, was established by Dewan Sir K.Seshadri Iyer. It is pertinent to mention some of the works carried out during this period before the creation of the City Improvement Trust Board:

- A portion of Purnaiah's Nalla, a deep drain cut by the former Dewan to lead water from the Cauvery to the town, which was a source of unhealthiness, was filled. This is now the Sayyaji Rao Road.

- The ditch around the Fort was filled and was converted into a park.

- Main sewers serving the KR Mohalla and Devaraj Mohalla were laid.

-Chamarajapuram (called after HH Chamarajendra Wadiyar), the first important and successful measure carried out in extending the town, was constructed.

- The supply of wholesome drinking water by a system of water pipes from the Kukkarahalli Reservoir and from the Cauvery by pumps worked by turbines. This was a material step in the interest of the general health of the city.

The second stage (1902-10), coincided with the beginning of what became the 'golden reign' of Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar. Many important developments took place in right earnest, following the passing of Mysore Improvements Regulation III of 1903. Work was pushed forward vigorously by the "Trust Board", under the able officers lent from the Government Public Works Department. Mr.Seetharama Rao was the Chairman and Mr.D'Cruz was the Executive Engineer. The Mysore City Municipality was governed by Regulation VII of 1906 (Mysore Municipal Regulation). It was also a Corporation with a President as its head. He was also the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Improvement of the City of Mysore. The Health Officer was the Vice-President in Sanitary Matters. It is worthwhile to quote excerpts of the Govt. Order No.4168-79.L.F.3602, dated 18.9.1902. The general lines on which improvements designed were:

"The slums of the city, wherever they exist, should be first improved, by knocking down unsanitary buildings, providing against overcrowding, bad drainage and otherwise defective sanitation. Proper quarters should be found for surplus population from such localities, and such assistance as is possible and reasonably practical should be extended to poor people for building proper houses. A comprehensive scheme for proper drainage should be devised, not necessarily with a view to attain theoretical, but impractical, perfection, but to meet the reasonable needs of the city."

Accordingly, unsanitary areas were removed en bloc in some localities, all the narrow lanes were widened, conservancy lanes opened for the facility of drainage, many low-lying and ill ventilated houses dismantled, and extensions were formed to provide room for the displaced population. Drainage facility was made possible practically for every house.

Up to 1911-12, the Trust Board acquired about 6,000 properties including open areas, of which 3,616 were houses, paid Rs.13.5 lakhs as compensation, spent Rs.9 lakh in drainage work and other improvements were of the highest beneficial utility and added much to the comforts, convenience and the health of the public. In 1911, Mysore had a population of 71,306 as to 68,111 in 1901. The city was divided into seven mohallas: Fort, Lashkar, Devaraja, Krishnaraja, Mandi, Chamaraja and Nazarbad. In 1913-14, there were 12,122 houses, out of which 701 were terraced, 10,838 were tiled and 583 thatched.

The appearance of Plague gradually waned away as the city's design as well as healthiness, noticeably improved, thanks to the excellent work carried out by the Trust Board. Time-honoured housing requirements, where each family needed a house with a compound or backyard attached for outhouses, cattle, etc., necessitated the creation of extensions for housing those displaced by the demolition and rearrangement of parts of the city. The work of acquisition and demolition of properties, for opening conservancy lanes, leaving air spaces, admitting light and removing congestion was completed in Ittigegud, Nazarbad, Fort and Lakshmipuram (built on the site of Old Dodda Holageri, for some time a hot-bed of plague, etc.). Edgah extension was also created.

By then, Sir M. Visvesvaraiah was the Dewan and also the Chief Engineer of Mysore. It was under his leadership that saw the system of drainage undergoing a complete change. From his vast experience, he favoured the underground drainage system that worked by gravity, to open surface drains. Many of those are still functioning - an example of "made to last" quality! The sullage water from every house in this system was directly connected to the underground street sewer and the whole sewage was brought down to one common out-fall in the valley below Doddakere, where it was treated for purification in a septic tank, and the effluents were utilized for agricultural purposes.

For many years, the CITB offices were located at the Rangacharlu Memorial Hall (Town Hall). CITB (now MUDA) built its own office buildings on Jhansi Laxmi Bai Road in the early 70s, at the very place where a very old, dilapidated set of 'dungeons' (rumoured to have had an underground secret tunnel), existed. (Is that why the 'underground dealings' still prevail in the area?).

Is Corruption Impossible To Banish from Mysore's Ultimate Defraud Authority? That is the common man's FAQ! But when someone like Mr. Pankaj Kumar Pandey comes and tries to answer it, in as transparent a manner that would have pleased Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar, he is quickly packed off! Preserving such persons to serve the public would only serve the real purpose of the Authority. Let us wildly hope that, even in this 'kaliyuga era', there will be more of Seetharama Raos and Pandeys at its helm!

****************END****************

The CITB started functioning on 1st January, 1904. Brief history is also here along with two old maps (poor quality) of the city: http://www.mudamysore.org/home.asp

=============

K.Mylar Rao also mentions "Trust Board Meeting" in his diary of the 1920s, indicating that he was also in the committee being one of the elite persons of Mysore, even before he retired in 1924 after serving the Govt. in various capacities and accepting the post of Chairman.

When I read one of the old letters from a bundle, which I very long later salvaged, it came to light that he was the Chairman in 1924.

[Offer letter to Mylar Rao for the post of Chairman, which post he accepted.]

Web grab of MUDA site. See year 1924.

If my memory serves me right, the present Offices were built in the early 70s by Jhansi Lakshmi Bai Road. [The Cosmopolitan Club is situated behind it]. Before the CITB building was built, it was a spot where wild bushes had grown and no one ventured. But there was some brick structure almost buried in the earth, close to the adjacent Dr.Radhakrishnan Avenue and the lovely little 'Scouts and Guides building on the opposite side [now demolished]. We used to call it as 'dungeons'. Once I had joined our street boys (many elder) on their wild roaming one summer evening when we were bored with cricket. They went to this place and it was quite scary to me. I tried to picturize the spot from memory and this is what I remembered from the same angle.

There was a soil-debri-slope leading to the ground below the arch on the extreme right. I don't know if there were steps. We tried to enter there and see what was inside! It was dark and had more debris and wild growth. I think there was a wall about 8-10 feet away from the 'entrance' arch. That was the only time I had gone there. Its roof was also ground for lots of moss, some lantana shrubs and some grass. We used to wonder what it was, since no elder discussed about it.

Recently, when I mentioned about it on facebook, one of my more knowledgeable friends came up with a response that the 'dungeons' were nothing but a structure built [in the 19th century] to filter water drawn from Kukkarahalli Tank [before the Vani Vilas Water Works came into being] to be supplied to the city. There is a natural slope towards the Palace and its surroundings where the then Mysore city existed. It is said to also connect the other lakes towards the east in the city through small canals one of which is still seen in Subbarayana Kere.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Toy Cars and Buses

2011-09-02T08:23:00.000-07:00

An LGOC B-type bus from my showcase

Often, we young boys did not need a toy bus or a car to play the game of driving. Just some running space was enough! What a pleasure and feeling it was to 'drive' barefoot, making the most pleasant sound of the engine using the lips - 'brrrr brrrrrr' and sometimes 'bbrrrooooom', when we sped! While we had to make a horn, the engine had to 'stop'! The 'vehicle' can be made to turn in sharp angles as well without changing gears. When there was an opportunity to travel by a real bus or car [taxi in my case], I wanted a front seat to listen to the engine sound and watch the driver steering the wheel, changing gears and applying brake.

In childhood, toys are part of growing up. Cars, buses and things other than dolls greatly fascinate boys. Rarely do the toys outlive boyhood and almost never make it to showcases 'later on'. It is true in my case also. I did not possess a destructive mind but a curious one. I was renown for opening them up for 'inside investigation'. This killed many a toy, among many items other than toys, that included a couple of wrist watches! Blame the brittle plastic in the 1960s. Once broken was permanent enough. 'Quick Fix' was not always useful for multiple fractures! There were also other toys made of thin metal sheets. They lasted longer and could take the 'shocks' better by taking in dents! All of the toys that passed through my hands have met their expected ends. But for two special ones. One is that LGOC Bus [shown above] and a Franklin Car. Will show and tell about them as I go on.

My grandfather was of the opinion that if the child plays with a toy for one minute and breaks it, the purpose of him buying it was served! He, nor my father could buy costly ones. But we used to envy our tenant Bhima upstairs who for his girl-kids, had bought a big van [about 8-9 inches long], neat looking, nicely shaped, ran on propulsion of the rear wheels and produced a pleasing sound as it was let go. We often used to hear this sound through our ceiling also! This toy was like Rolls Royce in our eyes! It looked something like this:

~Image borrowed from Web.~

Our cheaper toys were spring wound and it took off from 0-300 cm. with the blink of an eyelid often crashing to the wall or legs of furniture. It was fun to put our heads beneath furniture to fetch them! Before the body of the toy broke, the spring winding mechanism would go kaput and that was a funny feeling to wind the slipping key! I had to see inside, why it went kaput and that was the end of the toy.

The biggest toy car I had seen was lying on the opposite house balcony [Capt.Srikantaiah]. It was a huge pedal type sheet metal toy car which one child could sit and 'pedal-drive'. The young user-owners had outgrown it. It was in very bad shape, rickety, very rusted and exposed to all weather for many years. Yet, it used to work! We kids used to climb over their attic and out on to the small balcony to have a 'feel and thrill of driving' - just for a few feet distance! It was something like this:

Grabbed this pic from the web.

A family friend in Bombay gave us this little white model truck (Mahindra Jeep) when we visited there in 1969. What a delight it was!

I bought this school bus on the pavement at Bangalore for Rupees Seventeen many years ago for my little daughter. Since she played with it carefully, it still works and so carries a good resale value, despite losing a rubber tyre on its rear wheel!

For her birthday, I had bought this self-winding van (Maruti Van design) for Rupees twenty. This is also in reasonably 'playable' condition.

As the kids grew up a bit, they added new ones to the small fleet. By now sturdy little metallic models that could withstand and survive wall and furniture-leg crashes were available. They have what is called 'hot wheels'. A little push with the finger, and it zips across!

My gardening friend Debi from the US wanted to send some gifts for my little daughters. She had packed up among a few interesting knick-knacks, this lovely big 'Barbie' car, much to their delight. This one would have dwarfed our tenant Bhima's van!

Coming back to our "B-type" now, I used to play with it very carefully whenever it was allowed to be removed from the showcase. I knew it was a special item, but I know not who played with it originally - but it could be some grand uncles or grandaunts or even my father. Its roof-top seats had become loose and the 2-3 which were left, vanished over time. But I took care of the lovely stairs so that it wont detach and disappear! It was fun to rotate the steering wheel and see the front wheels turn. It has a spring winding mechanism to make it run, but as expected, is worn out. Its slim wheels move very freely. Its rubber tyres have not survived.

People all over it!

I recently happened to closely look at what is printed on our red toy bus - "Motor Omnibus Company Ld." I knew it was a British toy and had also observed such buses in vintage picture postcards from England, in our album. From that I guessed the period of this toy to be between 1910-20.

My 'googling' resulted in some information about that company in London which thrived a hundred years ago. It is the "LGOC B-type bus" [click on wikipedia link]. Some more interesting information in brief is here.

Imagine the days prior to the petrol engines when the buses were "real horse-powered" with set routes!

~Another picture postcard from the collection~

Lastly, I will show my other favourite car which still gets a special place in the showcase. It was a gift from a relative's family in the 1960s to me since the only child in their family had outgrown it. The child's father [C.Srikantia] had bought it during his stay in the US for higher studies in as early as 1930s.

Look at this beautiful 'Franklin'!

It had lovely little head lamps, a tail lamp and a spare bulb underneath. Everything was in tact when it came to me. All the four bulbs did not survive my handling and other experiments. Below the chassis, there was a place for batteries to be connected to glow these bulbs. This car was also powered by a spring. The front wheels can turn left and right and what a sight! My 'googling' took me here to some information on a Franklin. Bhima's van was quite inferior!

No outgrowing at all! The carpet border design was the road for my indoor car play - 'brrrrrrrooooom'. When it idled, 'brrm.....brrrm..... brrrrm....'

I tried to make a bus using bottle caps and toothpaste cartons, buttons and a match box, but later I had made an electric motor bus in high school for the science exhibition using a toy motor. I will tell about this little adventure in a separate post.

The real car is not as fascinating as toys! Traffic snarls though part of urban life, is never a pleasure!

Butterflies in my yard

2011-08-23T11:40:00.000-07:00

I rate this very colourful, Common Jezebel as the Queen as far as my yard is concerned. She rarely flies low, leave alone sit, except for that one time perhaps when I was ready with my camera! Luck! The above shot is one of my best which inspired my friend Nancy to prepare a special greeting card for me using that picture I posted on "Dave's Garden"!

Who does not want to stop and watch a colourful butterfly flutter by? If you have a few flowering plants, shrubs and trees in your yard, the butterflies find them. It is for many reasons butterflies are great attractions to children and I grew up watching them in our yard, which hosted much greenery. I still do. Earlier we just watched them without observing much. We chased them fun. We wanted to catch them by their colourful wings, but they always flew away beyond reach. When they were resting, they sensed our approach and quickly escaped to safer places. Cats can catch them with their skill! But we had to content ourselves when we found a dead specimen in our garden occasionally and wondered about their lovely pattern on their wings. How weightless it was! We studied the butterfly life cycle in school and wondered how they were caught, mounted and exhibited in laboratories in colleges for study and research. Long later I learnt that they used a butterfly catching net for that purpose and it was through a comic book, of all places!

Have you ever wondered how different are moths from butterflies they appear similar on first glimpse? Just look at this link and find out: http://library.thinkquest.org/J002124/moths.htm

Left - butterfly; Right - Moth

I recently learnt that in the US there are butterfly farms that sell pupae. I reproduce below some lines my friend, Sandra, wrote to me when I asked how she managed a picture of a butterfly sitting on her hand. What she wrote was interesting. Interesting because I did not know.

"Find or buy the pupae once they are out and ready to fly put them in a container and into a cooler with ice(do not let the butterfly touch the ice) for 15 or more minutes. This gives you enough time to take their pictures, before they warm up enough to fly. Here these kind of farms raise butterflies for release at weddings and such. It also sells eggs, caterpillars, chrysalises and plants for butterflies. If you can catch a butterfly without harming it you can do the chilling and get it to sit for your pictures! I plan to build a butterfly raising house this winter. I will have the food plants for the caterpillars and nectar plants for the butterflies. As soon as the caterpillars turn into chrysalises I will move them to a cloth cube. When the butterflies emerge and ready to fly I can then chill them to take their pictures."

Here in India, such things may be unheard of! But we can boast of butterfly parks. Butterfly gardening is a branch of its own. See this Wikipedia link for some information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_gardening
Mysore's Karanji Kere boasts of a butterfly garden.

Ever thought of how the word *butterfly* came into being?

http://blogger17.hubpages.com/hub/Flutterby

No need to open the link as I have extracted the content below:

Many things are named for obvious reasons. In example, an orange was called an orange because of its color. Butterflies could be called butterflies because of a couple of different reasons...

1. The word “butterfly” has been around for a long time. One thought about where it's name may have come from is the theory that the name was supposed to be“flutter-by,” because of the way they flutter by... If that is truly the case, then somewhere along the way their name has been switched around to butterfly.

2. A false etymology claims that the word butterfly came from a Spoonerism of “flutterby”; however, the Old English word was buttorfleoge and a similar word occurs in Dutch, apparently because butterflies were thought to be witches in disguise who stole milk and butter at night.

3. An alternative folk etymology, current in Great Britain, is that the name originated as a contraction of term butter-coloured fly referring to the Brimstone Butterfly, Gonepteryx rhamni, often the first butterfly of Spring.

The word butterfly later lead to idioms, phrases, riddles, quotes and what not. There is a style in swimming called 'butterfly stroke' and there is a 'butterfly valve' in mechanics!

Here is a popular riddle "Why did Tom throw butter out of the window?".

Answer: Because Tom wanted to see "butter fly".

There are myriad quotes on the butterfly. A few impressive ones:

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly. [Richard Buckminster Fuller]

I'll be floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. [Muhammad Ali - boxer]

The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly get all the publicity. [George Carlin]

Butterflies have been visiting my yard dotted with a few shrubs and trees. But once the digital camera came, I was able to observe more and see how many varieties visited. Trying to shoot pictures of them is a thrilling circus and great fun.... if you have time! Some varieties prefer the grass [see two pictures below] and if they are to be shot, we have to sometimes wait in the prostrate position!

I was simply amazed at the number when I sorted and counted. I have got many of the fluttering visitors identified through books or from my knowledgeable friends on the internet, esp. from Dave's Garden. There are a few still waiting to 'get a name'.

When a digital photo is seen on the computer screen, it looks beautiful. When it flutters around, we miss the actual colours.

Shooting close-ups is a very tricky exercise. [I cannot do the chilling which my friend Sandra informed.] The slightest disturbance we may cause with our movement or to the leaves of the plant on which it sits can make it to fly away. They are usually extremely sensitive. It may never sit for a shoot again where you can step and reach for a full view! It requires a lot of patience and I tell you, a lot of luck. A zoom lens is a boon if you have one. But I managed this one of the 'Green Triangle' from just a few centimetres.

Take a lQQk at some butterflies that have been *captured* in my yard:

Lemon Butterfly

Blue Mormon - lQQk at its wingspan!

Common Mormon

Lemon Pansy

Tawny Coaster

Wonder why it is called as 'Crow'.

And this is a "Plain Tiger"!

This was taken in a field near Chamundi Hill.

Blue Tiger!

Yellow Pansy

Common Peirrot

Red Peirrot

Common Emigrant

Common Grass Yellow - note the dark brown tipped wings

Common Wanderer

This is commonly called as Green Triangle - also called Tailed Jay.

A dead specimen of Large Oakblue. It rarely sits for a 'breather' so to say. As such I could manage only that!

Common Five Ring - it is a small butterfly

I wondered what this butterfly - a Common Baron was doing in the mud. Observe its green glowing proboscis pictured below.

Later I learnt that it was 'mud-puddling'.

Let me share about this from http://insects.about.com/od/butterfliesmoths/f/why_butterflies_puddle.htm

On sunny days after a rain, you may see butterflies gathering around the edges of mud puddles. What could they be doing?

Here is what:

Butterflies get most of their nutrition from flower nectar. Though rich in sugar, nectar lacks some important nutrients the butterflies need for reproduction. For those, butterflies visit puddles.

By sipping moisture from mud puddles, butterflies take in salts and minerals from the soil. This behavior is called puddling, and is mostly seen in male butterflies. That's because males incorporate those extra salts and minerals into their sperm.

When butterflies mate, the nutrients are transferred to the female through the sperm. These extra salts and minerals improve the viability of the female's eggs, increasing the couple's chances of passing on their genes to another generation.

Isn't it interesting?

I've more images in this web album. Please do see.

Separate album for moths - 28 images as of now.
https://picasaweb.google.com/dinakar58/MothsUpload?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Caterpillars are sorted here, but many are not yet identified.
https://picasaweb.google.com/dinakar58/CaterpillarsUpl?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCL7Dtr6Y0e6XLA&feat=directlink

Young nature-lovers like Abhijna Desai can be an inspiration. In fact, she has helped in identification of a few butterflies!

About Pencils

2011-08-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

THIS BLOGPOST CAN CHANGE THE WAY YOU LOOK AT A PENCIL HEREAFTER BECAUSE

Note: You can click on pictures to have an enlarged view.

Changed text colour indicates a hyperlink .

Do not miss them.

As young kids we yearned to get promoted from the slate and chalk (baLapa) level to the pencil and paper level. The newer generation urban kids begin with the latter and they may not even be aware of the slate and baLapa though they know the blackboard in schools. There used to be a 'slate baLapa' in the form of a pencil! I used to write with this one in the early 60s (pictured below). See the mark 'Slate' on it. The slate chalks were in different qualities. The best was called 'BeNNe BaLapa' (butter) because it wrote smoothly without that irritating scratch on the slate! Slate was also of stone and later, tin sheet painted black.

The pencil was one of the most fought for item among school-going brothers or sisters at home. Everybody wanted the longer or new pencil. When I used to visit my maternal grandparents' house, I used to get attracted to the shortened pencils of my uncle lying in the shelf with his books. My grandfather's study table also had a pencil with which I used to scribble. Those were earliest memories of handling a pencil.

In those days, we were bought a new pencil only when the one we were using was too short to grip.
The speed with which the pencil reached that stage was amazing! Half of it would have spent up while shaving itself, because either the lead would break when almost done, or the poor lead quality made it to snap easily. We demanded a new one when down to 25%. Pictured below may be 10%!

Had we known this some decades ago, it would have saved many parents some money! Two short pencils attached!

We found great pleasure in using the eraser more than the pencil! Pushing the eraser dust with the little finger while writing was an involuntary habit! I think it holds good for all generations! I'm trying to put together some old memories of the pencil and its great and inseparable friends - the eraser and the sharpener.

"Perumall Chetty Pencils" were popular in our days. It was a popular company in Madras (Chennai). I have managed to save one or two without the intention of saving them. The bottom most is the 'Shorthand' pencil, made for stenographers because they have strong leads. 'Nataraj' and 'Apsara' also were popular brands.

Click on the picture so that you can read the embossed prints.

In about 1967-68, some of our classmates were bringing their pencils in beautiful oblong tin pencil boxes. I wanted to have one too, but never knew where they had procured them. They were so nice! So I pestered my elders to get one such. Every visit to the stationer would attract my attention if a box was lying empty in his shop! I was disappointed when he used to say 'it is not available'. In fact, the pencils were supplied in those boxes. Finally one evening, I was lucky. He charged fifty paise each and gave me two, much to my delight. They are still in use! I was in 7th then. One pencil cost ten paise.

The inside of the lid.

I bought this Perumall Chetty box in the early 80s when that company was still in existence. I wanted to keep my painting brushes in it.

The inside of the lid had this information.

Pencil sharpeners were a little costly. As such many of us used old shaving blades of the father, grandfather or uncles at home. Doing that, we often got a cut on the index finger and bled, making most things difficult for the next 3-4 days. That wasn't fun. It was as if to pressurize the parents to buy us the pencil sharpener - we called it as 'mender'. By the time a safe, handy, durable, foldable pencil knife came about, we had finished our education.

The mender was a great attraction to kids worldwide - they were manufactured in myriad designs. Shown below are menders at home, that are of my children who used them a few years ago. Nowadays, a box of pencils carries a mender free!

I found out that there is a museum for Pencil Sharpeners also!
Another link here, says 'The World's only Pencil Sharpener Museum'.

Who thought pencil shavings that we dispose in the bin could be used for artwork? Look here what Kyle Bean did - he created portraits out of them!

And look here the unbelievable art from two Japanese pencil carvers, whose patience can be classed as bordering on almost insane!

Education up to the fourth class was with the pencil. From the fifth, fountain pens were slowly introduced into the little growing hands after many kids chewed up the top of their pencils which was considered a bad habit. I never resorted to it despite not knowing it was a bad habit.

Above image is from the Net. I never chewed my pencil, so ........ !

We also used to fancy pencil caps just for fun. This one is of wood and the head shakes while writing. In our Mysore Dasara Exhibition, in the 70s, long pencils with a plastic cap shaped like small fingers were popular. They were actually meant for scratching one's own back also!

The best feel of writing can be had only with a pencil. Second comes the fountain pen. I'm sure thousands, if not millions of pencil-users will agree. The pencil has been around for a long long time. Click here for some interesting history.

Writing with a pencil requires a certain amount of pressure that results in a good handwritten script. That does not come about with the ball-point, fountain, felt or roller pens. What makes it pleasurable is that melodious sound produced when the lead runs on paper! Listen to it in that link - 27-second audio!

The pencil is even compared to life! This information was in e-mail circulation sometime ago. It is really interesting. See here. Someone went still further on that. Click here. Truly inspirational!

If you think the pencil is merely an instrument for writing, you are wrong. It amazed me when someone sent an e-mail with images of the art by Dalton Getty. Click here to see amazing miniature carvings of pencil lead.

My great grandfather's eye prescription was in pencil - 1906. See picture below. I still have that pair of spectacles!

English language also has its use - 'pencil thin mustache', 'pencil thin poop', etc.

The pencil is a useful size-comparing tool for many things. Just show a pencil in a picture and it will avoid further complicated description. I do this now (keeping the standard yellow pencil) to show the smallness of the tiny pencils that some pocket diaries included.

Since a pencil 'wont leak', it can be carried in pockets in aircrafts and spacecrafts and can be used underwater! If you want to see some more basic advantages of the pencil, click here and know! But you cannot sign a cheque (check) with a pencil!

Carpenters and other job workers' must-have is the pencil. When not in use, the pencil is just of the right thickness to safe-shelve it horizontally on the ear lobe!

Colur pencil set was another item we enjoyed. This was the next step above 'wax crayons'. This was the tin box that contained the set, bought in the late 60s.

Its interiors! The set of pencils methinks is the third and surviving - rather less used as I had outgrown it by that time. The leads are so soft that we break them while sharpening and half of it is wasted and only half is spent for colouring.

Here are some remnants of colour leads used by my father in his schooldays around 1930. See the wooden container. Wonder if he used them on slate. The baLapa was like that!

Nowadays, technology has grown and even 'water colour pencils' are available. Just colour the work and paint with water with a brush to get that water colour art!

Coloured pencils were also used by students in college and by professionals for marking important paragraphs, lines or words. They normally came in blue and red, red on one side and blue on the other. The tiny one shown here was my grandfather's. He used it in his office for many years. Now glowing fluorescent highlighter pens have replaced these.

These markers (below) are 'Made in Bavaria', which is in Germany. They were gifted to me by my old friend Mr.Brown. They should be from the 1930s or 40s.

This pencil is an all-lead one. Bought at our Mysore Dasara Exhibition in the late 1990s. Wonder if this is a charcoal pencil used by artists.

This flexible pencil is the silliest pencil I have come across. It is long, thin and most unsuitable for writing, because it falls like a dead snake! It was a fanciful purchase in recent times!

A fancy pencil. This is FAT.

Another fancy pencil. This one is FLAT. Or is this a carpenter's pencil?

There was also the copying pencil. I did not exactly know how it was actually used, until I came across this link. Click on this. Observe the violet colour when a drop of water is put. It is indelible.

After reading information in that link, I thought of this testimonial of my great grandfather from 1888. It is signed by M.Venkatakrishnaya, the Head Master of Marri Mallappa's School. I think the violet copying pencil is used for this. See this link for the interesting process! The methods employed in those days were incredibly cumbersome, but only when we compare it today!

The brass pencil seen below is my grandfather's. It has provision for putting tiny leads in 3 colours - red, black and blue. This could be from 1940s. A Japanese product! The second diamond shaped one has a scale and screw to push the lead out to use. The bottom one is from the recent decade - they called it 'pen-pencil'!

Some erasers. I always remember the incident related to the eraser. See here in my blogpost. The soft rubber was a real boon when it arrived in the mid 60s. Engineering students were already using imported ones for their drawing work. Ink erasers were hard and often damaged the paper. I used it for my rubber-stamp carving! It costed about 3 paise or so. The small pencil eraser was 2 paise. The round one shown below is the 'typewriter eraser' (German) which an uncle gave me. I was delighted when a friend gave me that 'pencil-rubber' in 1978. It is a typewriter eraser. It came in handy when I was using the typewriter for sometime. That was the only substitute then, but now we have the 'backspace' in our computer keyboard!!

Rubber-stamp carving - I learnt this skill from my classmate (bench mate) Shankar Nadig in the 9th class. His work was neat! I was so impressed that I wanted to do it myself after watching him do when lessons were on in class. I preferred to watch his work when he did, to listening to the lessons! His tool was the shaving blade. He had broken it in such a way that it was like a pointed knife. It was used for the curves and for scooping.

Below are two impressions of different stamps I made. In the second stamp, I tried small letters. I have lost both the rubbers, but these remain on books.

This is another I manufactured in the late 70s.

We never thought of how pencils got manufactured, though we used them everyday.

Watch the video, it is really wonderful. Click on link showing most of the steps that are undertaken. See how pencils are made at Staedtler, a renown German manufacturer.

If you want to see how many types of pencils are there, visit this Wikipedia link and get amazed!

Our garden hosts two bird nests

2011-07-27T11:59:00.000-07:00

There are 3 trees and a few shrubs in our garden. Commonly seen birds in the locality are House Crows, Crow Pheasants, Mynas, Barbets, Koels, Great Tits, Rose-ringed Parakeets, Red-whiskered Bulbuls, Indian Gray Hornbill, Purple-rumped Sunbirds, Pigeons, Spotted Doves, occasionally Spotted Munias, Kites, Kingfishers, Magpie Robins and Common Tailorbirds to name most of them. That's quite a handful! House Sparrows, of course are extinct from our locality long ago due to various environmental and social reasons. I'll show pictures of the birds later. But first I'll show how the Sunbird and Tailorbird made their nests in our garden.

Since there were so many birds visiting the garden searching for seeds or insects to feed upon, I have always wondered where they could be nesting. One day in March 2008, I noticed a knotty thing overhanging the yard passage. It was the long branch of the Holmskioldia shrub. The knotty thing was about 8 feet above the ground. I thought it might be some nest.

This is the Holmskioldia shrub with attractive flowers. The sunbirds love it for their nectar and frequently visit it but at that moment, I never thought it was the work of these sunbirds .......

until I took a closer look from another angle after some time. Lo and behold! I could recognize the curved beak of the sunbird! Here was the young one peeping out!

There you are, closer! I used the flash and the eye mirrors it. Look at the nest. The white papery material is the cellulose which these Weaver Ants secrete to build the nest. These sunbirds use it for their home as it is also a nice cover. The white colour means the nest is newly built, in this case at least. They collect the fibrous material and also some soft cottony material for the bottom as a cushion. I got to see it after it abandoned and went when the siblings grew and flew away.

Instantly, it became a routine to watch the nest. Fortunately, they were not much scared about our movement right below the nest. The parents of course visited when we were at a safe distance. I could hear two distinctive tweets from the nest made by two little ones, but I could see only one peeping out. It was confirmed only when I saw this picture of the mother feeding the young ones - look at the two open beaks.

Even the father helped in feeding, bringing in little insects. See the change in colour of feathers.

By this time it was 3 weeks of observation and see how the cellulose has faded in the summer sun.

After some time, I could hear the tiny tweets near the shrub as it was already flying out and getting lessons about searching food and flying to safety from their parents. Gradually, I began to realize that the nest was no longer required as there were no visits or signs of activity in it. I was not wrong.

Watching it for over a month was such a joyful experience for all of us at home. I had kept the abandoned nest for many months until it withered away. Lovely Nature! I had watched so much that I could recognize the tweets of the young ones even after 3-4 months when they flew in!

Here are a few more pictures:

One of the very rare occasions the sunbird took a dip in our birdbath, at least when I could capture it on camera.

This is the female Sunbird.

This variety is called as "Purple-rumped Sunbird" (click for Wikipidea info.) - notice the distinct change in appearance of the male bird. These are very commonly found birds the size of the Sparrow.

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There are also many Common Tailorbirds in our area. I've seen it from the time I was very young. This is also the size of the sparrow, maybe a wee bit smaller in my estimate. Tuvvi Tuvvi is its famous call, often used by poets and song composers! Its call is quite melodious, but listen to this noisy song with 'tuvvi tuvvi..' lyrics in a 1986 Kannada movie, a shame to the bird's reputation!

Now listen to its pleasing melody I captured in my garden in my YouTube video. My garden fills with this music every now and then when a few of these fly by at their own times and it has the 'power' to absorb the heavy traffic noise outside!! I knew this was called a Tailorbird because it sews up its nest. But had never seen one, except in pictures.

Very recently , while my morning coffee was going down the gullet during my beside-the-pond-sitting-on-the-stone-bench session, I noticed the huge leaf of the Almond Tree folded like a packet. Closer observation revealed that it was a nest of the Tailorbird. I could confirm instantly that it was that because I had by chance come across a fallen dry nest while sweeping up the leaves of that tree in February (when they all fall off).

It had a nice cotton cushion in its bottom and the sides of the huge leaf was neatly hemmed using strong fibre through holes to pass the 'thread' - not for nothing it is called the tailorbird! After a couple of months, I was pruning the branches of that tree. While clearing up the fallen branches, I noticed another nest. Oh no! I felt.

It was still under construction and still a lot of work to do. Now more work after losing it. I could not do anything now. In the meantime, my friend Krishna Rao, knowing my interests, told me about a 'sparrow' making a nest in his home on his Betel leaf vine and even showed me a picture. Now I could tell him that it was THE Tailorbird's nest.

After that happened, my pond-side 'spotting' took place. See now. I was prepared with camera.

There it was! They were flying in and out frequently now, meant that there were some inhabitants already in the nest and I could notice some vibrations too, just like the shake of a car when someone in it changes seat!

In the afternoon, I could hear the tiny 'tuvvi tuvvi' near the window. I grabbed the camera and caught the above scene through the wire mesh. Indeed it was the baby already out with its tiny wings. LQQks like a real baby!

Again in the evening, there was a photo session as I noticed the entirely family out, making a lot of noise and the tiny tweets sinking in with that of the parents'. I noticed this fella up there not having any fear or not knowing what to do next.

The parent was tweeting hard while perching close to this intruder. Sensing danger is their top priority esp. in these times when they have additional responsibility of protecting its siblings. When they are not 'nesting' they would not do that or come as close as this. In the meanwhile, the tailless youngster had managed to fly up to the cornice where the parent had come with a dose of food. Notice in the above picture the long tail feather plumage. It will be elongated during the breeding season.

It is now feeding into its beak.

I think there were two babies. This one (right) was some distance away and here it seems to be asking for food - it was getting dark by then.

After that I went in home and when I saw in the morning, interestingly, the nest had its bottom up! The branch had grown a bit making the nest to tilt. I now thought that it might have been the reason for them to be out of the nest as its entry was facing down! See here.

The garden appeared silent today. Wonder where those Tailorbird family was! Hope the two youngsters survived.

As a matter of coincidence, my friend Krishna Rao sent this video footage only yesterday. He has compiled beautifully. See and enjoy.

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Here are 'collaged' pictures of our 'Winged Visitors':

Most birds need water to dip or to drink. Let's provide them a bit of facility with birdbaths, which is not difficult at all. Look how they enjoy splashing in the water!

I got a stone birdbath made a few months ago and here the RW Bulbul enjoys the splash.

Hope splashing in this blogpost also was enjoyable!

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Rooftop Rainwater Harvesting - how I have done

2011-07-24T08:40:00.000-07:00

I like this logo!

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HOW I STARTED

In 2008 I had contributed an article on rainwater harvesting for a garden website. Read it here in this link. (Click on it). There are many pictures showing how I began to do with crude methods using mostly available-at-home materials with little or no investment. But the purpose was served for the time. I have also given some basic information about the subject there and so repeating here would only amount to duplication. So, please visit that link.

GENERAL INFORMATION

The amount of rooftop rainwater that can be collected during a season can be estimated using this calculator in this link:

http://www.rainfoundation.org/index.php?id=161

or here:

http://www.friendsoflittlehuntingcreek.org/description/roof.htm

Here is an interesting site.

http://www.save-the-rain.com/world-bank/

You can view your house rooftop using Google's satellite imagery to calculate the catchment area!

Mysore's rainfall is about 80cms. per annum (in about 52 rainy days). If it falls on a 1000 sq.ft. roof area and the whole lot is collected, it would amount to about 1,88,640 litres of water, which is a lot of water! It is calculated @1 inch of rain on a 1000 sq.ft. area will have 2358 litres.

I collect from a rooftop area of about 380 square feet into the sump through filters. Using that calcuator, I get about 65,000 - 70,000 litres per annum. A rough figure from wastage from 'first flush' deducted. The sump capacity is about 7000 litres. We will be using municipal water supply usually but during the regular rainy season, I stop the supply and utilize rainwater which keeps topping up the sump. Without watering the garden our daily consumption would roughly be 500 litres. I do not use the hose pipe to water plants, nor do clean the car and vehicles with it. I also collect directly from other spouts in barrels and use it for gardening. If it is more than sufficient for gardening, I divert it to the main sump by which time, water will be clear of sediments. Since we do not use it for drinking or cooking at present, I have allowed both to collect in the common sump. If space affords, a separate sump exclusively for rainwater is the best option. One can also make a partition in the sump. Bigger the capacity, the better.

THIS IS HOW I COLLECTED RAINWATER FROM THE DOWNSPOUTS AT OTHER PLACES

In the yard.. helpful for gardening

PET bottles can be useful as it has many options like that!

Simple direct collection on the balcony.

PET bottle again. It has many options for angles!

Collection from 3 spouts at a single point. Small balconies above bays.

In the open yard - they can be used to flush the bath and toilets (requires carrying by hand, but it saves flushing and hence, pumping up from the sump). This part gets a lot of water. The extra outflow runs out into the yard.

In the open yard again... more collection. Useful for washing clothes (after all the particles settle at the bottom and the water is clear) and flushing the drain or gardening. Water must be emptied within 5-6 days to prevent mosquito breeding as it stays open. This area no longer gets the flow because of some renovation.

THIS IS HOW I SET UP THE EXPERIMENTAL FILTER

My high school classmate and friend Ramesh Kikkeri who is an organic farmer and environmentalist, suggested me to try a full sand filter that works from the bottom. So tried it.

It works on this line:

It worked well for sometime, but there was clogging of the central inlet pipe sooner than I expected and removing it for cleaning was quite cumbersome. It was supposed be easy, but even if I flushed the water from the bottom, the clogging was too much and it did not drag down the particles. So it was time to have a rethink. I met U.N.Ravikumar who along with Ramaswamy was among the first to implement rain water harvesting methods in the city. I invited him to take a look at the system. He saw all the other crude methods and suggested me to go for a fixed system. It was enough inspiration. So, upon his suggestion, I replaced the 'Ramesh filter' with the new one which that worked with gravity (inlet from top and outlet from bottom). I procured the filters from one Gururaj, though I could have made them myself. He made the first flush and the sand filter for me, including stones, sand, net, sponge and all fittings for the barrel. He charged a reasonable Rs.1,300/-. See next part.

HOW AND WHAT I HAVE DONE NOW - THE MODIFIED VERSION

Rooftop rainwater that flows down carries many particles. I found out that in our house and location, the dust particles are way too much, reasons being the closeness to a road with heavy traffic and old gabled roofing. Such dust is called 'fugitive dust'. It is almost amorphous. The 'Gururaj set' with one 'first flush' was insufficient to cope with and it quickly clogged the main sand filter.

Look at that! It's too much. You can't see the blue sponge, now clogged up with particles! Picture taken during a heavy downpour.

The first flush is like this, inside:

There is a plastic ball inside the holed pipe. It blocks when the barrel fills to that level and all the water that flows thereafter will flow into the main filter. This barrel will hold up heavier particles. Flushing this often esp. during a rain will help keep water cleaner.

This is the 'improved' set of filters. The first flush tank is seen at the back. It collects the first flow. This picture was taken in unused condition when I set it up. The main sand filter is topped by sponge layer 1" thick.

Later, I added one more filter using a sponge to reduce the load on the main filter. When it is raining, I wash this sponge often esp. in the first few minutes so that dirt does not escape to the main filter and quickly clog the sponge layer there.

It is collected in a small bucket. I have made a 3" diameter hole in its bottom. I keep it on a collection basin which I have made too. You can observe how I have cut the hole in steel and fitted a pipe to it. This is similar to the one to which the conical mesh is fitted at the first stage.

The picture below was taken when it actually rained and water is flowing through the down spout, conical mesh, first flush, first sponge bucket filter and then into the main sand filter.

This system was insufficient to keep out the fine dust particles and even some chips of cement paint (old house with lime plaster) that collects on the crevices of roof tiles and other corners and they flow down with heavy rain. They seem to mix up almost continuously for a longer period. The main sand filter clogged too quickly which resulted in overflow and wastage of rain water before filtering. So what did I do?

I added a 'second flush' in between the first flush and the main filter so that clogging of the sand filter is further reduced, also its maintenance. I bought a recycled barrel (30L, food grade) and removed its lid to use my own. See it in the picture below. Luckily, it was a barrel that previously contained enzymes for agriculture and narrowish, suitable for my purpose. The higher it is, the better the chances of the heavier particles of dust staying down! The inflow to this fills up from the bottom through a pipe with holes in the bottom. This is to reduce splashing which would disturb the particles and aid in its escape from the top.

This is how the new filtration set is:

See below, how the conical mesh filter at the initial stage works in holding back bigger particles which can be leaves, little twigs etc. In our case, there can be a lot of caterpillar poop (like tiny mustard seeds). Those hairy caterpillars abound the city in the rainy months, more in old houses with gabled roofing. Some live beyond and their poop come down with the first rain many weeks later - as you can see here. We use the water that gets collected in our main sump only for washing purposes. For drinking, we collect the 'municipal supply' directly in the mornings.

This has to be removed manually.

This is what I made for the 'lid'. This barrel would fill from the bottom and 'overflow' into the sand filter, leaving behind more heavier particles at the bottom. The force will make some finer particles to escape and we cannot stop it. An old plastic bucket bottom was cut up to fix the pipe as here. After one rain, I saw that it worked nicely as you can see particles stopped here before entering the barrel.

This is how the second filter gets its inflow. Observe the sediments trapped. Picture taken during a heavy rain. I have aligned it in such a way that water first falls into the bucket area and then overflows into the central pipe and also through the holes, into the barrel. The brim of the cut up bucket is higher than that of the central gray (inlet) pipe.

Lots of debris trapped! Otherwise, it would have gone further to clog the sponge and sand. Now I can remove it easily from here!

This is how dirty water can be in the second filter. With continuous rains, it will be progressively cleaner. You can see the pipe that allows overflow diverted into the sponge bucket filter which is actually the inlet for the main sand filter.

Picture below shows the valve to flush out dirty water from the bottom (cleaning purposes).

THE MAIN SAND FILTER

Let me now show how the main sand filter is made. It is a 100L barrel, sufficient for the volume of inflow for my location. Bigger the catchment area, bigger the filter volume. Inflow pipe on top right and filtered outflow pipe with holes at the bottom. 90mm pipes are fine for my location.

The bottom is filled with stones up to the level of the holed pipe, which is about 6 inches from the bottom.

Fine Nylon mesh is used to hold sand. See the fingers for comparison of mesh size.

The clean coarse sand 'bundle' is kept on the stones.

We can tie the corners of the nylon mesh for easy removal. The second bag will be placed on top of it and then comes the sponge.

In the meantime, I also learnt that dividing the sand into two parts will help easier removal for cleaning as it would also be lighter to lift up. So I put one half in another separate mesh bundle. The sponge on top will hold up the escaped particles and when they further escape, the first bundle catches them. So it will be the first bundle that would require cleaning up more often.

HOW THE SAND IS CLEANED WHEN IT GETS CLOGGED UP

In this picture I have removed this sand bundle out for cleaning. You can see the dark colour which is nothing but fine dust which prevents good filtering and causes clogging. The gaps between sand particles are extremely tiny.

This is clean, coarse sand. See the difference in colour.

Since this sand is coarse, we can clean it easily by rinsing it in a bucket of water a few times. On the right bucket (pictured below) you see it darker. It is the first step of cleaning. Running the fingers or some implement to stir the sand while in water, will remove the very fine dirt (which is actually fugitive dust). Pour the 'dirty water' out (may be into some plant bed). The left bucket is cleaner sand as it is waiting for one more rinse. This should be done till stirring brings out no further floating particles and this sand can be put back into the nylon mesh.

This is cleaned sand ready to be put back into the mesh. You can observe the colour difference with the above picture.

The filter is asking for cleaning when we observe an overflow from the top even during a moderate rain and by observing a thin outflow into the sump. It means the sand filter has clogged. This operation could be necessary about twice a year or more depending on the amount of dust in that area. Cleaner surroundings may require less cleaning.

We get crystal clear water. If rooftops are clean and well maintained, the water is potable. Many who are practicing it vouch that they use rainwater for drinking also (tastes wonderfully - water is 'tasteless'?) which is supposed to have cured some ailments too, besides rainwater-cooked food being tastier and vessels remain free from scaling. It is the purest water we are letting go by. Catch it, it is free. In some states of the USA, there are laws to prevent such collection!!

One thing that is yet to be done by me is preventing runoff.

Runoffs could be diverted into wells or pits - not into drains! But in our case, we have to divert at present into the open drains - to flush out man made garbage - in the absence of regular cleaning. There is a worse picture which I will not show here!

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During childhood I used to play in the rainwater that flowed near road kerbs and floated paper boats in the fast stream that eventually flowed into storm water drains. Many times when it rained after my school, I used to walk home making the feet with shoes and socks wet in such roadside streams soon after the heavy rains. It was such fun, but did not realize that it was awful to wear the shoes the next day! As I grew up, I began to wonder how much water went down the drains.

It is time the citizens realized the value of water. It is a horrible sight for me to watch the servant of a rich family (there are many who do this without a care) close to our house use a huge hose pipe every morning to clean the owner's two cars and the pavement next to their compound! Water floods the road!

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Harvesting and conserving water is every individual's duty.

Every drop of rainwater is precious - save it.

It might be the very drop that will quench your thirst one day.

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Collection of rooftop rainwater is easy and not expensive! Let's do it - when we can wherever we can!

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Wild Elephants run amok in Mysore City!

2011-07-07T23:37:00.000-07:00

Morning of June 8, 2011, the news about a few (wild) elephants which had entered the city was spreading like wildfire all over. Our mobile phone received a call too. Those who had cable TV network were watching live coverage of the 'event'. The local TV cameraman was there to catch the action. The newspapers that evening and next morning carried detailed accounts with pictures of the pachyderms' Mysore adventure.

For safety reasons, schools and colleges were declared a holiday. Declaring holidays for 'bandhs', strikes, curfews were common, but this was one of a kind - wild elephants intruding the city. But in reality, the reason is man encroaching upon elephant-land through his greedy activities. Some said there were four elephants, but two had wandered in from the eastern side of the city after they had trekked about 40 kms. One was a young male and the other older was bigger and without tusks. It was thought to be the mother-son duo, but it later turned out that the 'mother' was indeed a 'makhna' (male elephant without tusks).

They were first noticed around 6 am near Bamboo Bazaar. At this time of the year, there would be enough skylight at 6 am. Click on this picture to enlarge and see where the jumbos went:

Mysore was being visited by the Elephant God. Gaja Raja in original form!

In this 1880 photo showing the old Mysore Palace where a function is being held and elephants (tamed) being part of it as is the usual Royal tradition.

Another old one from Mysore Palace.

Elephant is a favourite subject finding itself in various materials. This was at Cubbon Park last year in the Horticultural Show.

In fact, they were not rogues. The citizens were rogues who teased them in many ways - they would have felt really funny and they unleashed their anger at the crazy humans in the most emphatic manner.

This video captures quite a bit, including the action when the young tusker killed a poor security guard and mauled a couple of tethered cows . Needs a tough mind to watch. Both these were happening on Narayana Shastri Road hardly a mile from home. They were not rogues, they had wandered in search of food.

After it had shown its fury it had entered the Athletic Ground (Oval Ground) opposite Crawford Hall by climbing a moat wall in a small portion of the fenced ground.

It tried to cross over the arrow-edged fence but failed. This is the ground where many walkers, joggers and sportsmen spend their morning on their fitness (including yours truly, frequently). That morning I had missed the routine. The next morning when I went, this was the only issue on everybody's lips and one stranger was showing me where it had crossed. "Just there Sir.." and I was looking at that moat wall! This net-grab picture shows the poor fellow probably in some pain.

This picture was taken from the opposite side. So, seeing people everywhere around it must have really angered him.

After tranquilizers were shot, it was captured near Kukkarahalli Lake. Well tamed jumbos and trained mahouts from the Mysore Palace were summoned to do this job - preventing further damage.

The 'makhna' elephant was captured in a farm as they had got separated.

The next day, it was loaded into a truck and sent away to the forest. The Royal Jumbo seems to be bidding 'good bye' to the rare visitor.

The young fellow had injured a few people on its sojourn. Some persons had providential escapes! But the Govt. is yet to pay them compensation (as I post this, a month later).

Before I close this, a couple of objects to show:

This is my favourite toy plastic elephant, bought at Mysore Dasara Exhibition in the mid 1960s. See this 13-second video how it walks!

This Brass heiroom Jumbo WAS majestic!

This is the manually opened bud of Delonix regia (Gul Mohur). A colleague told about it recently that it was called 'Elephant flower'. I wondered. She asked me to bring a bud that was ripe to open in a day or two. So when I brought such a one, she showed me this!

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Clocks and Watches: Part - 3

2011-04-11T08:21:00.000-07:00

We continue from Part 2

This is the third and final part of this series.

Read also how some wrist watches survived my fiddling!

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Wrist Watches

Possessing a watch was something special esp. in the first half of the 20th century, why, even until about 1980 or thereabouts. A watch was for many years the second important item, next to the ring, gifted by the bride's family to the bridegroom at weddings! Or should I say a watch was demanded by the bridegroom's side! It was gossip subject for inquisitive people during the wedding!

In the early part of the 20th century, people walked barefoot and only those well-placed in society wore sandals or shoes. Boys went to school barefoot and there are many instances of them getting their first footwear when they finished school and not a watch! Now we see even kids boasting of a dozen watches in myriad designs!

Come to think of it, we also have 'use and throw watches' that are also sold by weight! It is no longer a 'luxury item' or a special gift at weddings.

My first watch came in 1975 of which I brief as I go on. There were a few watches at home that belonged to my elders.

This Favre Leuba Zenith tops them all. My grandfather's most cherished watch. It was his wedding watch - 1914. He wore it with great pride and I have seen him enthusiastically show it to people that asked about it and always mentioned '1914'.

The lovely snow-white dial

Front door can be opened - probably to aid the blind to feel the hands and know time.

Silver case number, inside

The machine is beautiful to look and the sight of the balance wheel's oscillation is one to behold!

This Favre Leuba Zenith stands out whitest on his wrist as he gets a trophy for golf from His Highness. Once the case's strap hook had snapped. He got it soldered from a known jeweler in the same street not trusting any other jeweler near his office, where there were many. That's how close to his heart it was.

After the departure of him and also my father, I began to use it often. When I was wearing it during a picnic, my hand clapping made the machine to jump out and break a few parts. I felt extremely bad and I thought that was the end of this. Years later, I discovered a colleague who knew my father and also a 'trustworthy' hobby clock smith. "Please put it back in motion at any cost" I requested him when I handed it over. After many reminders and 2-3 years, he said he had fabricated a tiny part as it was unavailable anywhere and that it was working and he had kept it for testing, much to my relief. After some time, he finally handed it over to me. I was absolutely delighted to see it ticking again. Mr.Khabade collected his nominal fee for this extraordinary work. Lesson learnt, I am now choosy about when to wear it and careful while doing so.

May be in the early 40s, another watch came to my grandfather in the form of this "Skymaster".

It was a gift from one Mahadevappa who had toured Europe with the Royal Party that included the Yuvaraja of Mysore. This was another machine I meddled with and repaired it during my 'learning process'! This is still my favourite, because of that square design in the centre and the magnifier for the date.

I was with him when this picture was taken in a studio in 1972 or so. He was taking me to his office that evening. Hope you noticed the Skymaster.

This Enicar was my late uncle's. In 'irrepairable' condition because its 'escape wheel' is damaged and is unavailable.

My father used the Enicar or any of the two above when his favourite "Lamania" fell into the hands of a known hobby-clock smith in the next street. This man never returned it, despite me asking him at the behest of my father to return even if it is unrepaired years later. He never showed it to me in whatever condition it was. So one can understand its fate. As a replacement and after much pestering, he gave a very cheap watch which did not work for long. I think my father had bought that Lamania during his stay in Bombay in the early 50s from his very modest earnings while working for the Films Division at a sound recordist. That was the end of Lamania. I only got to observe it in a few of his older pictures:

Seen here during his wedding

Lamania is seen here. I don't know if the cuff was pulled up intentionally! I sometimes used to do that with my first watch and while wearing a full slack so that others could notice my wearing it!

Wearing a watch to school was really something! Hardly anyone wore because even adults at home bought their watches after they joined jobs. Those who had an extra watch at home would wear it and show off with classmates in school!

Though these watches were at home, I felt shy to wear them - don't talk of meddling their machines! It was only after a watch came to me that I got over that feeling. It was my first watch - a gift by an uncle on the occasion the cousin's wedding. It was some lesser known Swiss brand and belonged to her brother who had died prematurely, some years before the wedding. Gifting this to me for that occasion saved them a few rupees! A watch was a big thing even in the 70s.

Long later, I replaced its machine with a 'quartz movement' and gave it off to my FiL who was in urgent need of a watch at that time. I used to see him use it for some more years. It was a victim of the learning process.

My 'achievements' in meddling these time machines

I used that watch for some years and when it developed a snag, I got curious. I saw a clock smith in me. I opened it with some crude tools - one was a tweezer I had bought for zoology specimen dissection at college! I accidentally bent a spring and its condition still worsened. Handling the tiny machine requires very steady hands. Skill comes from persistent practice. Drunkards cannot become clock smiths. I had already 'laid my hands' on the two alarm clocks which 'in the end', met their premature end!

During my market errands, I got clues while inquiring for spares for the watches that suffered under my hands. I also observed how the professional smiths handle the tiny parts. I bought the basic tools like the eye piece, screw drivers, little trays and boxes at a watch spares shop. I wanted to try and see for myself what could be done to make it work again.

I learnt that the balance wheel is like the human heart. If it stops, the machine goes lifeless. But the "machine's heart" is replaceable. Handling the balance wheel with its 'hair spring' is a highly skillful job which I could never master, despite being a teetotaler! It was a tough learning process nevertheless. I could remove and replace all the parts after cleaning them with 'aviation petrol' and putting oil to the 'jeweled parts'. This was also the beginning of my hobby as a clock smith, which helped me maintain the watches and clocks at home and even helped a few of my friends that knew of my ability at this. For things that were beyond my basic skill, I had to engage professional help.

I have spent hours searching the floor and desk, for those nano screws that slipped from the tweezer grip! I had even used magnets to 'find' them because I thought then that the broom and brush might still worsen the situation! I used to wonder how they even manufactured such tiny parts with precision.

That Favre Leuba is one watch I never wanted to open even though the temptation was there. But for once, wisdom prevailed.

After my entry to a job I bought my first watch for Rupees 225. I sold it off after a few months for 175 to a colleague and bought another similar watch in 1984 only because I liked the design on this one! It is the traditional spring wound watch from Hindustan Machine Tools. This one, still fine:

In the late 80s, quartz watches became popular. I found out over time that they are reliable and durable. My next watch was a quartz watch brought for me from Singapore by a friend for Rupees 200. It worked nicely for almost 20 years when its life ended in 2007.

Like many organizations that presented employers with watches when they completed many years of service, there came a day when I got one too from mine.

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Another dial design I made on the back side of the original dial of this clock which did not suit my taste. I have designed the hands here.

The new generation is never satisfied with one or two.

Some Swiss Watches through the 'window':

Showcases at night

Cuckoo clocks are famous in Switzerland

"Expensive cheaper watches"!!

Huge shop full of watches

Not unexpectedly... expensive.

More watches and mementos

TIME AND TIDE WAITS FOR NO MAN.

Clocks and Watches: Part 2

2011-04-11T07:38:00.000-07:00

Continued from Part 1

Part 2 of 3

This post in the series is about

Alarm Clocks and a couple of pocket watches.

There were two alarm clocks. One was a "Rhythm" clock from Japan, with 'radio design' and 'radium hands and numbers' that glowed in the dark. That was new in the 50s. It was a gift to my father at his wedding from one Dr.M.L.Mariswamy, a renown physician in that time, a good friend and client of my grandfather. The Doctor had a clinic on Sayyaji Rao Road. A clock was considered a very valuable gift in those days because not many homes had an alarm clock. As such, the presenter was always remembered through such a gift! Alarms were getting into fashion at that time.

It was working beautifully for many years and every time an alarm was required, it was wound up and kept close to the bed of the one who wanted to rise at a particular time, usually early in the morning. This 'Rhythm' was also to become my first 'scapegoat' as I tried to meddle with its parts in my quest to satisfy the curiosity about its working mechanism. I tried to repair when it stopped but failed many times and succeeded in some but it became erratic. There came a stage when I had to give it to a known clock smith as it was beyond my ability to put it back to motion again. Little did I know that I was to be cheated by him. Finally, I had to raid his shop and to take my clock back in whatever condition it was. As I had rightly thought, there were some parts missing as he kept with him for 2 years! It is only a 'showpiece' now.

That fellow even took the alarm gong.

The other alarm time-piece was a Wehrle from Germany. This was my second scapegoat as this developed a snag later than 'Rhythm'. Probably this was also my father's wedding day gift, I do not know. This is what remains of it now, just the dial and gong. Both the clocks served well until they found me!

I had seen that on the dial of Mysore's famous Clock Tower's clocks on all four sides having 'Roman Numerals'. Somehow I have always appreciated the look of these Roman Numerals. I thought of making one myself using my skills and painted one on paper with Indian Ink for this 'Rhythm' clock which by now I had fitted with a quartz machine which was available locally. I spontaneously gave it a name - Roman-tic-tic. In the 70s, my eyesight was sharp and hence those tiny lettering was possible to write! I derived great pleasure from the way it turned out.

I made another (less impressive) dial for another quartz machine (movement) I bought. It is a so so in art. By doing it, I learnt why the '4' has ' IIII' instead of 'IV'. It is to bring in harmony and balance to 'VIII' on the left! I had also learnt why in clock and watch advertisements the time they show is always about 10:11:40.

Pocket Watches

There was one beautiful little pocket watch with Roman Numerals and a flat glass cover. It was being neglected because it had stopped working some years before or it was not cared to get it repaired. I cannot recollect its brand name, but I was using it as a toy, turning the globular knurled knob as the sound of the clutch wheel inside it gave a certain pleasure! I had kept in my 'draw' and used to fiddle with it as I studied. It also had a removable chain.

These pocket watches were supposed to be kept in a separate 'watch pockets' stitched inside coats. Mostly the elite people owned one such. I do not know how it disappeared from my draw. I could not locate it anywhere when I raided the house in search of it many years later. It is really a mystery. It looked something like this - the watch on the left and the chain on the right picture:

(Pictures borrowed from the Net)

Notice the pin here in my great grandfather button hole. That is to secure the pocket watch. This must be the one inside there which went missing from my desk draw.

But I have salvaged that pin and also the chain till this day.

Below is a picture (1900 or thereabouts) of my grandmother's father. The dangling watch and chain is part of costume. It was an item to be 'displayed' in that time!

This is the coat's watch pocket on the left side.

About 15 years ago, a colleague gifted this watch (pictured below) to me as it was not working properly. I keep it as a reminder to that mysteriously missing pocket watch.

These type of watches became famous as 'Gandhi Watch'. Looking for some information on this, I found this blog very informative and interesting: http://maddy06.blogspot.com/2008/06/gandhijis-ingersoll-watch.html

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The alarm clock deserved a special place in the corner shelf and protected with its own special case.

This little clock belonged to my maternal grandfather.

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The 'clock dial' is also used in some playing card tricks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uirspi_t3xM

This may be the largest Garden Clock in the World:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xd7vus_garden-clock-in-western-india-could_lifestyle

Another Garden Clock:

http://www.wayfaring.info/2007/07/10/as-a-part-of-beautiful-landscape-flower-clock-brings-us-pleasant-feeling/

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The next and final part is about some Wrist Watches.

Please take time to visit!

Watches and clocks: Part 1

2011-04-11T07:34:00.000-07:00

Preface

I gathered material for this blog and in the end, found it to be too lengthy for a single sitting. So I broke it up into three parts in separate posts. Click on the pictures if you like to see the enlarged version. There are some links in changed colour of words. Click on them to visit the link.

In this, the first part you will find something about
Wall clocks. Read on, "if you find time"!

My late old friend Mr.Brown was fond of telling this: "Time will not find you, you have to find time."

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Wall Clocks

The clock has always been a curious object wherever it is. I grew up admiring a few of them at home as they ticked and showed time, effortlessly. I also used to wonder how they worked and what made them tick. When I was old enough I discovered it when I laid my hands on them.

The vintage Ansonia Gothic Clock, manufactured by Ansonia Clock Company, New York had adorned the wall in the hall majestically. It was the main clock for the house and visible from the kitchen also, but not from the street as in many houses. It was patented in 1882 and I guess this is one of the earliest possessions of my great grandfather. No one knows when and where he bought it, but in all likelihood it should be before 1900.

This is an eight-day/30-hour clock, meaning it runs for a week on one full winding of the spring. In my time, my father did this without fail, every Sunday. It had a bell inside to strike the hours and half hours. I do not know if some clock smith had removed the original gong which could have been a spring gong because I had seen such a one in a relative's similar and older Ansonia. I was wondering why ours was fitted with a 'cycle bell'! I dreamed of finding a spring gong for our Ansonia. This dream got to fruition 20 years later when I found one with a clock smith cum dealer of old clocks. Without second thought I bought for Rs.175/- and replaced it myself. Picture below. By then, I had learnt to meddle with clock mechanisms also.

Watch a video clip of its working and striking.

This Ansonia also had a alarm feature. But it was never used. I have removed this separate unit as it came in the way of the new spring gong. This little dial in the centre could be adjusted. Here, the alarm is set to 10 O'Clock.

As far as I knew it never asked for repair. Oiling this lovely machine is such a pleasure as its design is so beautiful too. In 1998 when I moved to the old ancestral house, an old relative visited us reminiscing his younger days in the same house. He showed me the place where this Ansonia was kept originally. So, I placed it at the same spot. (See picture below).

It continues to be a few feet away from the place even now after some changes that took place. In all likelihood, the clock was on that wall ever since the house was built and occupied in 1911-12.

The swaying pendulum and the striking of the gong have always impressed me. It was/is my habit to observe these wherever I see this. There was one in my friend Gopi's house - a 'Scientific' (brand) clock. It was beautiful. There was another in my grand uncle's house in Bangalore. I was delighted to watch these almost no end. Almost hypnotic!

Just a trifle away from the subject - Ansonia had other products too, like this nail clipper with 'button lock' (lock not seen here - it is on the other side).

There was another large round clock which was mostly idle. This was showing time correctly 'only once every twelve hours' if you see what I mean. One fine day, my grandfather gave it to a clock smith sometime in 1974-75. We had no clue whatsoever about who that smith was because my granfather also suddenly departed in 1976 and my father had no further information on it. It machines are problematic, they tend to keep it for months and years as is their wont!

That clock looked very similar to the picture below, borrowed from the net. It had a pendulum inside as well.

Below is the picture of my grandfather in about 1930 with his trophies. Observe the medals there. This rosewood 'medal display stand' was no longer serving its purpose by 1970. It was lying here and there with its hooks as the medals had been transferred to the rosewood showcase he got made in the 1940s.

In 1991, I thought of converting it as a clock. By then quartz machines were available. A machine was procured with the help of a friend from Delhi for as cheap as Rs.45/-. I used my carpentry skills to fit the little machine at the back. I marked the dial accurately and stuck plastic numbers I found in 'trash' at the workplace. It is almost 20 years now and this is still working nicely competing with Ansonia for accuracy. After a nice polish to this lovely rosewood plank, it has added some more beauty to the wall! The tiny hour and minute markings in yellow are stickers I cut up from a sticker strip.

In olden days, not all houses in the street had clocks or watches. So those who had, used to put it on the wall in such a position to make it visible from the street for passers by who wished to know the time. Doors also used to be kept open in those days as the houses were seldom locked. Someone or other used to be present at any given time. One example of this in our street was at late G.Sachidananda's house.

I must now tell about the 'Big Ben of Mysore', the Jubilee Clock Tower. It was built in 1927 to commemorate 25 years of the golden reign of Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar. The clock tower was built in a prominent place to enable people to see the time because that was the main market area at that time. The original dials had lovely Roman Numerals (my favourite) till 'forces' replaced it with Kanarese Numerals around Y2K. It is a landmark monument of the city and I cannot forget the melodious vibrations that filled the air when its huge bell struck the hours or half hour. It was heard for miles when it was silent before dawn or late in the night. In recent years, engineers noticed some cracks on top of the tower and decided to stop the striking of the bell sensing that vibrations from it would further damage the tower. It is a very heavy bell.

Below is the picture showing Kanarese numerals on the dial (2010). The bell is also seen.

My grandmother made a model of this tower using paddy around 1950. She had made one before 1931. It is a unique and eye-catching craft that won her many prizes in various exhibitions. My uncle had tried to put a real clock in this model (picture below), but this proved to be unfeasible and cumbersome.

Bronze Medal (Certificate) awarded in 1931.

This prize was for the first model she made for Dasara Exhibition in 1931.

',',',',',',',',',',',',',','

The famous vintage French Clock at Jagan Mohan Palace Museum is another impressive object esp. when it strikes12. Visiting people flocked around it to watch the spectacle. This clock has a mechanism that makes the miniature doll soldiers to parade at 12 O'Clock, a drum beating soldier marks the seconds and another with a bugle marks the minute, all having movements in little dolls. I only hope it is still there and functional! I had seen this many years ago. Also at Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad there is a similar clock but not as grand as this one in Mysore. I saw this in the mid 90s.

There are some impressive clocks at other places. Switzerland is a renown clock producer. See a few unique designs from a few different places:

This is a most impressive dial in gold, black and red!

Kloster, Engelberg, Switzerland

I was visiting the National Physical Laboratory in New Delhi a couple of years ago. A friend who worked there took me to the 'Atomic Clock' which is one of the most accurate clocks in the world and they are the time-keepers of the nation. Here is a picture I took with their permission:

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We had other clocks also at home.
Go to Part 2 of this series and have a dekko.

Memories of Cricket World Cup Final 1983

2011-04-01T08:08:00.000-07:00

The historic moment that changed the course of Indian Cricket
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Ever since I watched the magnificent 1983 Cricket World Cup Final (at Lord's in England), of course, on TV, each final of the subsequent World Cups never fails to pull me back to that evening when India made history.

TVs were only in Black and White. Colour TVs were yet to arrive. TVs had arrived in Bangalore prior to 1980, but in Mysore, cumbersome antennae on very high poles with many 'elements' in it had to be erected, at times it necessitated tying wires to neighbouring houses to prevent the high pole from collapsing in the wind. All this in an attempt to watch programmes from the Bangalore Doordarshan (Television Station). Signals were beamed in certain directions only and rather feeble in other 'out of focus' areas.

Not all matches were telecast like today. TV coverage was still in the developing stage. Doordarshan had telecast the semi-final match in which India beat England and the World Cup bug had bitten many. A month later, video tapes of this match were available and we had watched it at AIISH campus where some people had arranged. I had watched the semi-final live in bits and pieces on my friend Keerthi’s TV and it was sort of a circus! It was not at Keethi's home, but at his friend’s. It was in a locality called Gokulam which was beginning to grow at that time. His friend's TV had broken down and since signals were 'in focus' in that area, we took Keerthi's huge TV there. What a craze! TV signals were reaching there in good quality from the TV Station in Bangalore 90 miles away which was so heartening. Repeating this circus for the 'final' was not possible with Keerthi for some reason and I was wondering where to watch. It was a ‘final’ that HAD to be watched, no matter where. India was to meet the mighty West Indies. I was not alone in this quest.

Come June 25, I met Girish Nikam, my cricket teammate and another cricket buff. He was as determined as I to watch the Final, somewhere! Girish told he would find some place as he had many contacts. So as planned, I went to his house on my bicycle that afternoon. It was about 3 O'Clock and the match had begun. India was batting first. We were listening to the commentary from BBC on his Bush 8-band vacuum radio.

After some time, he inquired on the phone (luckily there was a phone in his house) and found that there was a friend close by who possessed a 'telly' (TV). I left my bicycle in Girish’s house and pillioned him on his scooter to catch the action. But we were disappointed to see such an awful TV reception there. For that moment, we felt contented even as the dots and scratches annoyed us to form very fuzzy pictures which was quite a strain to the eyes. It was ridiculous but that was the only choice for the time. We wondered how they watched other programmes on it! Come to think of it now, we cannot tolerate even a minor disturbance on the screen and we call up the Cable Network chap and complain! That radio commentary guided us to know who was doing what. Such was the extremely poor quality. By then, West Indies had already begun their chase of 183.

Girish tried another source over the phone from there. By that time, West Indies were already two or three down. Viv Richards was going great guns. Soon, we heard a huge roar on radio. The commentators were describing Kapil Dev taking a beautiful catch to send back the danger man Richards, while we watched the 'snowy' pictures. But we could not make out anything from the 'visual'. Audio was equally worse.

Richards' airy stroke that turned the match India'a way.

While that brightened India’s hopes Girish’s telephone call brightened ours – to watch better pictures. Lo and behold! He had found someone in Gokulam, the 'in focus' area. So we rushed to the new venue, a 15-minute ride. It was Girish’s friend’s friend’s house. We felt like having won a jackpot!

(Watch the video of that catch - it looks easy, but it certainly was not!)

Our joy knew no bounds. The reception and quality was almost crystal clear! What a soothing sight after the snowy picture! And to our greatest delight, it was a rare colour TV as well! The Lord's ground was such a sight to my eyes esp. after that previous experience! We witnessed West Indian wickets tumbling. In a short while, about 15 lucky strangers gathered in front of the telly! It was 'someone's home! They were so kind to entertain such an unforeseen audience for such an occasion!

The mighty Carribeans had incredibly perished, like bunnies, that too to India, for 140.

Victory! Stumps suddenly become mementos to Indians!

I must tell here that till 1983, they were 60-over games. It was in vogue probably because English summers have very long days and the first three World Cups were in England. India were all out 183 in 54.4 overs and the West Indies were all out 140 in 52 overs. Talk about run rate!

After the TV coverage ended, all of us profusely thanked the residents and left, ecstatic, having enjoyed every moment of live action that we could. Nobody had ever experienced anything like that before.

On our way back, some youngsters were shouting and celebrating on the streets. The Medical College Hostel students were already making merry on Jhansi Lakshmi Bai Road. It was well past midnight. Girish dropped me back home. I told him I would take my bicycle from his home the next morning. Worried and anxious elders wondering my whereabouts heaved a huge sigh of relief on my arrival. In those not-too-many-telephone-days, I neither thought of informing them or cared for dinner either. Such was the intensity of thrill that we forgot hunger! It was an unforgettable adventure.

The next day in the office, our cricket-loving colleague (late) Srinivasa Rao wanted to share his joy of India's victory with us, four in number, our 'cofee group'. He was a fine gastronomer also. He announced he would host a breakfast for our group the next morning at the famous "Mylari Hotel" in Mysore's Nazarbad renown for Masala Dosas (picture below). It was also the beginning of a new chapter for our coffee group that also earned another name - "Mylari Group"! Read about it and more in my exclusive blogpost here:

http://mysoreanmusings.blogspot.com/2007/11/masale-dose-memories-and-mania.html

In the days that followed, it was time to hunt for magazines on news stands for issues covering in detail about the World Cup, esp. the Final. They were supposed to be 'ones to collect', for their pictures and articles! They were in great demand, quite obviously. Video cassette tapes of this final were also available many weeks later and I got to see the full match. But nothing to beat live action.

It's time now for the 2011 edition - tomorrow, April 2.
India Vs Sri Lanka (Rama Vs Ravana?).

I will be watching Doordarshan which has devised yet another novel way to harass the viewers - by switching off original commentary from the venue and attaching its own team of commentators who describe the game sitting in the studio at Delhi, watching TV just like us!

Our City Improvement Trust Board, now 104.

2011-03-15T10:05:00.000-07:00

Preamble

The following is a reproduction of my own article published in Star of Mysore, May 2007. It was for the occasion of the Centenary of the formation of "Improvement Trust Board", which is now called the "Mysore Urban Development Authority".

I found out in my collection of old letters that my great grandfather K.Mylar Rao was Chairman of it soon after he retired. Find that letter at the bottom and do not miss the expansions of CITB and MUDA (shown in red in the last para - they came spontaneously!)

When I 'googled' for his name, I was glad MUDA still has it on its records, here:

http://www.mudamysore.org/board1.htm

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CITY IMPROVEMENT TRUST BOARD - ITS FORMATIVE YEARS

- A portion of Purnaiah's Nalla, a deep drain cut by the former Dewan to lead water from the Cauvery to the town, which was a source of unhealthiness, was filled. This is now the Sayyaji Rao Road.

- The ditch around the Fort was filled and was converted into a park.

- Main sewers serving the KR Mohalla and Devaraj Mohalla were laid.

-Chamarajapuram (called after HH Chamarajendra Wadiyar), the first important and successful measure carried out in extending the town, was constructed.

Is Corruption Impossible To Banish (CITB) from Mysore's Ultimate Defraud Authority (MUDA)? That is the common man's FAQ! But when someone like Mr. Pankaj Kumar Pandey comes and tries to answer it, in as transparent a manner that would have pleased Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar, he is quickly packed off! Preserving such persons to serve the public would only serve the real purpose of the Authority. Let us wildly hope that, even in this 'kaliyuga era', there will be more of Seetharama Raos and Pandeys at its helm!

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[Reference source for information: Handbook of the City of Mysore, 1915, by T.G.Lakshmana Rao, a complimentary copy given to K.Mylar Rao who in his diary from 1924 mentions his schedule "Trust Board meeting". I later found this letter of appointment that indicated that he would take over as Chairman of the Trust Board from Sri Srikanteshwara Iyer!].

(Click to enlarge and read)

Books that 'nostalgiate' my childhood

2011-03-11T08:56:00.000-08:00

There will be some little things we want to keep for life just to ‘nostalgiate’ childhood because of the strong impression they create on the very young mind. This small picture-story book in particular, is one of a few.

It was a Russian publication with English usage, a cartoon book for children with beautiful drawings that was so 'real'. This book had to be open almost each time when my mother fed me morsels of food forcibly with the spoon. Morsels of food or water dropped on its pages as I had to be looking at it in that process. I never remember the book to be in 'mint condition' but torn at many places at the edges or pages loose with repeated use. Later it was further damaged by careless handling by others and most of its pages gradually disappeared! After many years, just a page or two remained and there came a stage when they too were untraceable! Somehow my memory of this beautiful book has never faded.

My elder daughter was repeating what I did – being cranky when it came to feeding morsels of food and many methods had to be thought of, but showing books at that time usually was a wee bit easier and quicker for the mother, among other things which included me taking her for a small round on the bicycle for one morsel!

A book exhibition arrived in the early 90s. We had gone there with the little kid. My glance at the children's books on the shelf was suddenly stopped when my eye spotted this one, my favourite that had 'vanished'. It was now translated to Kannada from Russian and English. It testified how popular that book has been for decades, perhaps all over the world. I hope it is still published! The child in me jumped out and without a second thought, it was 'added to the cart', as we say nowadays in times of 'online shopping'! It was a fresh replacement to the one that had had given me hundreds of hours of pleasure. I had lost hopes of seeing it again. Her sister who 'arrived' later also loved to often play with this beautifully illustrated book which was such a joy to watch. It is a timeless book.

Another big book was being shown to me at that time during the meal-feeding sessions. It was heavy, old and hard bound (it was a rebound book sans the first 4-5 pages) and in reasonably good condition. A sample of a page showing food-stains is seen in this picture:

A few years ago, when I was visiting yet another book exhibition, a book titled ‘Glimpses of India’ by J.H.Furneaux, caught my attention. It was the same one, a reprint. The old edition we have is from 1895. I was wondering about the title and author for many years as these pages were missing. I had lost hopes of getting the information anywhere. It is a book full of hundreds of old pictures and a wealth of information on many places of India, a truly monumental work. It is actually a collector's item. I made a search also on the Internet when this became accessible to me and was glad that to find out that it is still available. Here is a link to the portrait picture of the author, Furneaux. (click)

Yet another book which fascinated me was also full of pictures. It is titled "World's best photographs". It is a book in which The Times of India is involved in publishing, before 1950 or so. There are some really fantastic pictures and the ones that I always liked to look often were these:

I never tire from turning their pages even now. Doing that, I backtrack in the time-machine, relive those times and hop back to reality!

Zoology Practical Dissection

2011-03-10T08:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's newspaper carried a write-up of my friend Niranjan about his experience in 'specimen dissection' at Sarada Vilas College. I thought I would reminisce about mine too, from 1975 at the same college.

In the two-year Pre-University Course (equivalent to 11 and 12), Zoology Practicals was part of the curriculum. Dissection was only in the second year and not in the first year, if my memory is not failing me. As soon as our first Zoology classes began, we were told to buy a 'dissection set'. A pair of small surgical scissors, a scalpel and two types of tweezers were basic implements that were needed to start with. I think I bought the tweezers from Anand Bhavan Stores and the rest were bought from a stationery store. Those students who had great plans to join the medical course later had bought better sets!

The same tweezers from 1975.

For our syllabus, there was the Earthworm, Cockroach and Frog/Toad to be dissected during the course. The Practical Record Book was another important part and neater illustrations drawn by us attracted more marks. The entire Practicals carried 25 marks out of 100.

This fellow lived in my pond last year.

I have always been one - not one in a million, but among millions! - to nauseate and run miles at the sight of a cockroach, leave alone slap at it with a broom when they were sighted in our house in their nocturnal outings. The roach is a horrible little blooming pest. Earthworms were found when we dug the earth in our garden and this slimy creamy creature always reminded of the worms that infested our intestines and since we had seen a few pass out, this was also absolutely awful. The toads were making their appearances with their croaks before the rains and they were not that repulsive.

Well before our practical classes started, my classmate-friend Gopi on Bajjanna Lane had a neighbour in Srinivas, our senior (happens to be Niranjan's classmate). Srinivas arranged to demonstrate the dissection of a cockroach in his home, at the behest of Gopi who invited me also. It was such an awful sight to see the dead roach kept on its back and pinned to the board, ready. I am feeling awful as the mental video is playing now and so I will not elaborate further! With great reluctance I watched Srinivas' demonstration from a distance and he touching it with his hand itself was nauseating to me. That I was to do it later, esp. the horrible roach, was the greatest fear and already I was contemplating ways of my skipping the class at all costs. What if it came in the final exam?

If I remember right, the staff put off dissections of earthworm and the 'wretched roach' for reasons best known to them. Perhaps it was their scarcity or trouble to catch so many to supply to students, I will never know. Whatever, it was sweet news to me. But the news always used to come out after great suspense and at the 9th or 10th hour, if not the 11th! Anyway, I was prepared to escape these two 'subjects' but had to manage 'doing' the toad because minimum attendance was an absolute requirement to qualify for appearing in the exam.

Luckily for me, there was only one Practical that I attended which featured toad dissection. That toad given to all of us were still alive inside and even as we cut open its skin, the heart was still pumping. Awful sight for me and we had to kill it to get marks. The brain was removed, the digestive and reproductive systems had to be neatly separated and 'shown'. That I did manage to do all this without touching it with my fingers at any stage is a great achievement for me, though I had to tolerate the sight and that typically bad smell of formalin. With the help of the tweezer, I held the nails and hammered its legs to the wooden board to start with. Some students wanted to show how brave they were by holding the toad by its legs and did the dissection as if it was only a vegetable!

The dissection ended satisfactorily and the next one many weeks later was the final practical exam. We knew that only the toad would be given for the exam. Again, I did it without touching the specimen and did the 'separation of the reproductive system' okay, much to my great relief.

The two tweezers I had bought for that purpose continued to serve me in my watch-repair hobby that got stuck to me soon after and they still come in handy when I find the need to remove some small wood splinters that get into my skin at times. They always remind me of the awful feeling from 1975 and for the way I went through it that time. The small scissors and scalpel have disappeared.

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Tail:
Kemar Roach! What a name! Roach! He is now playing for the West Indies Cricket team in the World Cup that is going on in India.

The Enrichment of Life

2011-02-07T07:04:00.000-08:00

This Blogger's Note
Dr. Kudli Rama Sastry was renown in Mysore's Devaparthiva Road. He resided in the house that was famous as "Liver House". On one of my casual visits to late Dr. Sastry's house some years ago, I noticed a pile of booklets in a corner. I picked one up and read one or two paragraphs and was instantly impressed by the conciseness and clarity. I asked his great grandson what they are going to do about those little booklets. He was too happy to hand me all of them saying that they were the remaining copies of the lot late Dr.Sastry had got printed and distributed free. I thought such great wisdom contained in that very innocuous looking booklet must not be kept refrained. I gave many copies to those whom I felt would like. Now with the Internet it has the potential to spread further. Hence I thought of bringing it up here.
I hope the purpose of Dr. Sastry's magnanimous efforts will not be wasted. I have the pleasure to reproduce the entire text of the booklet here. It has 43 paragraphs that are good food for thought!

Here we go:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THE ENRICHMENT OF LIFE

RAJADHARMAPRAVINA DIWAN BAHADUR K.S.CHANDRASEKHARA AIYAR

[Retired Chief Judge, Mysore]

First Edition: 1948, Reprinted: 1979,Republished by: Kudly Rama Sastry

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

FOREWORD
Sri.K.S.Chandrasekhara Aiyar, the author of this invaluable essay, was an outstanding personality of this state and was held in the highest esteem throughout his long and distinguished career. He won the first rank in the very first competitive examination held for the Mysore Civil Service and rose to be a Member of the State Executive Council and Chief Judge of the State. He was a judge of the Chief Court for a record period of seventeen years, and it will surprise many, when we all take the theory of separation of powers for granted, that he held his post as a judge and that as a Member of the Executive Council together for some time. He has left his hallmark as a great judge in the reported decisions of the Court. But he was much more than a distinguished public servant. He had absorbed the best in al cultures though he was firmly rooted in the ancient wisdom of our land. He lived a life day in and day out fully in conformity with the highest standards of mobility, dignity and compassion. He was one of the earliest to join the Theosophical Society and held a position of high respect there throughout his life. He was fortunate in having as his life companion a wife who was equally noble and humane. Srimathi Parvathamma's contribution to the cause of the uplift and welfare of women and children has found concrete expression in the institutions she founded and built up.

Sri Chandrasekhara Aiyar lived for almost four decades after his formal retirement from his official career. And they were also years equally dedicated to the service of the public. The Government availed itself of his mature experience and wisdom in several ways. He was for many years the president of the Public Library Committee on Co-operation, the Committee on Jail Reform and the committee on the Revision of Hindu Law relating to Women. The reports of all these Committees are of outstanding value; and his Committee's report on Women's Rights resulted in Legislation which led the way to similar reform in the All-India field.

He was a great connoisseur and patron of Music and was largely responsible for the promotion and maintenance of high standards in that field, particularly in that of Karnatak Music.

This essay may be said to incorporate the guidance that such a noble mind with its rich and varied experience could give to illumine the path of young and old alike. The writing is of the best literary quality. It is simple and yet sublime. Many sentences can be picked up which will ever live in one's memory. Here are a few:
"We reap as we sow. We sow an act, and reap a habit; sow a habit, and reap a character; sow a character and reap a destiny."
"Labour that is enjoyed becomes so much easier to perform."
"Accuracy is another name for love of truth."
"Exercise is labour without weariness."
"Reflection is to knowledge what life is to food, the way to make it a living part of ourselves."
"To be able to discern excellence is the next best thing to possessing it."
"Every Truth agrees with all others."
Music is the language of the spirit, an echo of the invisible world."
"Solitude is often the best Society."

While the matters dealt with in this essay are of universal and permanent value, there are many enlightening guidelines of practical utility in one's daily life.

Though the author lived a long and distinguished life and many knew him and virtually everyone knew of him in his day, it is but natural that as time passes, people's memory of this noble personality will fade. But the fruits of his contribution will ever remain by the way it has influenced the lives of the people.

It is as much a tribute to the high quality of the contents of this brochure as to the discriminating mind of my life-long friend, Dr. K.Rama Sastry, who has done me the honour of asking me to write this foreword, that he should have thought of making it available to the public by undertaking its re-publication and in this manner also served to perpetuate the memory of a sage-like personality.

Bangalore, 17-6-1979, Nittoor Sreenivasa Rau

Publisher's Note

It was by chance I came across this essay by the late Justice K.S.Chandrasekhara Aiyar. I was struck by its profundity and how it could be of inestimable value in enriching the lives of people if it could be made available. So, I approached his grandson Sri N.Balachandran, for permission to reprint, for which I am deeply grateful to him.

I should not fail to express my indebtedness to my old friend, Sri Nittoor Sreenivasa Rau (former Chief Justice of Karnataka), for having responded to my request and contributed a very informative foreword.

I am thankful to M/s Triveni Printers for their neat and prompt printing.

I venture to place the brochure before the public with the earnest hope that many persons will profit by it.

17-6-1979, Kudli Rama Sastry
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THE ENRICHMENT OF LIFE

1. LIFE A TRUST:
Life is by universal assent the most precious endowment of mankind, man's dearest possession on earth. The ultimate nature of life may be a mystery, of which little more is known than that it is some kind of purposive activity associated with organisms. But the process of living is to all creatures the most absorbing of all experiences. Life, says a Greek proverb, is a gift of nature, but to live beautifully is the gift of wisdom. Conscious, intelligent existence is a thing beyond price, entrusted to each person. It is something to be made the most of, and not squandered away without due return.

2. THE ENTERPRISE OFLIVING
Life has been likened to a fairy tale written by the hand of God. To every individual his own career may well be romance, however drab its external aspects. To make the most of the flying moments, always (as far as possible) to think truly, to act worthily, to feel deeply and kind-heartedly, to be sensitive to things fine and elevating, to resist temptation, rout out mean impulse, and master unruly passion, to maintain under all circumstances an inner reserve of courage and fortitude - is this not in truth to treat existence as a marvelous enterprise, full of incident, instruction and inspiration? A whole day lived in this adventurous, this lyrical manner, may bring a man nearer to his goal than years of stagnation and half-hearted endeavour.

3. EACH DAY A LITTLE LIFE
Each day of ours is itself a little life; and no one day is exactly like another. Every morning we awake to a new sense of being, a new birth under fresh conditions and prospects of its own. The past is done with save for its results; the future is yet to come. The critical, the decisive moment, is that in front of us. Out of the eternal present is woven the texture of our lives. Wisely laid out, its every unit should make an effective contribution however small by itself, and help to epitomize the progress of a life time between the rising and the setting of the sun. Progress does not depend on length of days, but on achievement and its quality, which is not the same as its size. It is a matter of experience, not of years.

4. THE MOULDING OF DESTINY
Life is opportunity. It is made up of a series of opportunities for making decisions and acting on them. The art of living (which is the practical side of philosophy) consists essentially in the seizing of opportunities big and small: not merely waiting for such as many turn up, but also on occasion creating them. In this way we can make of life very much what we choose it shall be, a triumphal march or a funeral procession. As a matter of fact, we are engaged every moment, unconsciously for the most part, in fashioning it. We begin to do so in the early years of infancy, and keep on at the task till our last breaths. We are ourselves largely the products of our own thoughts, habits and actions. We reap as we sow. We sow an act, and reap a habit; sow a habit, and reap a character; sow a character and reap a destiny.

5. PURPOSE AND ENDEAVOUR
How important, then, it is that we do not simply drift along, but exercise choice and discrimination in regard to our aims and ways in life. The man who has no clear, steady purpose to guide him is like a ship tossing about on the high seas without a compass or rudder. Purpose and endeavour, combining in well-directed effort, is the double-sided wing which lifts the soul to higher altitudes.

6. DELIBERATION AND ACTION
Action must be the result of deliberation, of prudent forethought. But once a decision is reached, it must be carried out with firmness and promptitude, undeterred by thought of possible dangers, unless they be very great. It is a good maxim to embark on nothing rashly and without good reason, and to fear nothing once action has been launched. Many of the noblest enterprises of life might never have been undertaken, if all the difficulties and defects could be foreseen.

7. FAILURE AND SUCCESS
The conflict with obstacles makes for strength and self-reliance, and brings out capacities that might otherwise remain dormant. Failure as such should not dishearten; for it is the seeking, not the finding, which helps the soul to grow. More valuable lessons are often to be learnt from initial frustrations and misadventures than from easy victories. Those who work for success are generally anxious and troubled, ever reckoning their chances and pre-occupied with results. But one who cares nothing for success as such, and only for doing that which is right, adds joy to duty.

8. CHOICE OF WORK
Out of all the work which comes crowding in to be done, the wise man will accept so much only as he has time, capacity and aptitude for. Where there is room for choice, he will give preference to something useful and important in itself, which comes directly in his way as if seeking him, or which carries a strong appeal to his mind. Labour that is enjoyed becomes so much the easier to perform. But even drudgery ceases to be irksome, and becomes interesting, if accepted cheerfully and entered upon with zest, instead of in a mood of repining.

9. SPIRIT OF SERVICE
The man who strives whole-heartedly to be the instrument of God's will, and has trained himself to do everything as though the Lord were doing it through him is able to work with unerring aim. "You have a right to action, never to its fruits", says a well-known scripture. "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not unto men", says another. Ours is the duty and the privilege of rendering service in the spirit of dedication and non-attachment. When we have done our best, making full use of our resources and opportunities, we shall have done enough, and may contentedly leave the issue with the power with whom rests the final disposal.

10. EFFICIENCY
We do our best only when we perform efficiently all that we undertake, with earnestness and perseverance, order, method and accuracy. Accuracy is another name for love of truth. It can be made a matter of habit, just as easily as the opposite fault. Order implies a time and place for everything, and the doing of all things in their proper turn, without hurry or slovenliness. System or method makes even the hardest designs easier to execute. The shortest way to do many things is to concentrate attention on one thing at a time, and not fritter it away among several. A complicated task becomes simpler by beginning with the most general outline, and then gradually filling in the details. Instead of being dismayed by looking too much at all there is to do, a difficult undertaking should be split up into convenient parts, and each tackled by itself. The separate results may afterwards be fitted together into a comprehensive whole. Time and energy, moreover, are multiplied by prudent distribution and proper use.

11. HEALTH
Health is the physical basis of efficiency, as also of happiness and comfort. The body has been compared to a well-set clock, which keeps good time as long as it is not indiscreetly tampered with. Once it goes out of order, it is not likely to be as satisfactory as before, however skillfully it may be repaired. The physical body is a living instrument, and must be neither coddled nor neglected, but treated with proper consideration for its legitimate needs. It must at the same time be trained to function in close co-operation with its owner. It is better and easier to maintain it in condition through a regimen of "health unbought" than to rely on drugs and doctors for the recovery of lost vigour.

12. THE PRIMARY NEEDS
The primary needs of sound health include some with which nature provides us freely, such as fresh air and bright gentle sunshine; others, such as food, which call for man's co-operation to produce them; and yet others, such as rest, exercise and temperance, which lie mostly within our own control. A healthy diet must be nutritious without being too rich, and toothsome, without much seasoning. A certain variety adds both to excellence and relish. The best of sauces is hunger, while an occasional fast purifies the system by reducing harmful accumulations. Equally important with assimilations the thorough elimination of waste, through lungs, liver, bowels and skin. The surface of the body must be kept clean and free from malodour. Dress has a moral effect on character and conduct. Garments, in case of both sexes, may well combine the three requisites of being cheap and simple, comfortable and protective, tastefully chosen and worn with grace.

13. REST
Repose, the foster-nurse of nature, is the greatest of restoratives. The still hours of the night should be devoted to its soothing action, for as long as will bring recuperation to the tired frame and refreshment to the weary mind. An occasional difficulty in going to sleep may grow into a permanent obsession, if habitually relieved by resort to drugs. The gentle goddess is best wooed by natural methods and the strengthening of self-confidence. Lying in bed with limbs relaxed, the sufferer from insomnia should divert his mind from present preoccupations to scenes and events not closely concerning himself, or recall soothing phases or melodious verses from memory. An unexciting book or even an easy piece of work may help to bring on slumber through lassitude.

14. EXERCISE
Exercise is labour without weariness. It helps to relax the mind, keeps the muscles in proper tension and the joints supple, and promotes free circulation. Specialized athletics, which over-develop some muscles at the expense of others, are less useful for health than exercises like running, climbing and swimming, which bring as many parts of the frame as possible into play. Walking is one of the best, as it is the simplest, and is adapted t all constitutions. It has the added recommendation of giving one the choice of silent thought or congenial company.

15. MODERATION
Nervous resilience and energy are conserved by prudence and moderation in the exercise and in the indulgence of the natural appetites. They are wasted by intemperance and indiscretion, and impaired by prolonged neglect of maladies like eyestrain, teeth troubles, and irregularities of blood pressure. Surges of intense emotion, such as sudden anger or fright, may cause serious nervous leaks, or interfere with normal secretions and even injure blood vessels. Conversely, many psychic disturbances are traceable to morbid physical conditions.

16. EMOTIONS
Mind and emotion are closely intertwined, and continuously influence each other. The emotional nature acts through a vehicle much more fluid than the physical, more sensitive and delicate, and very apt to be unstable. It likes violent vibrations, whether of excitement or of depression, and wants to change them frequently. Ill-balanced emotions, uncontrolled desires, unchecked appetites, these not only grind out the forces of mind and body, but open the door to a host of mischiefs and perils. They account for much of the unrest and unhappiness in the world. The passions are like fire, useful in a hundred ways, and dangerous only through excess. They are not to be maimed or suppressed, but purged and purified and harnessed to the service of the soul as channels for its aspirations, affections and sympathies.

17. INTERNAL ENEMIES: [ENEMIES]
Our greatest enemies to peace are internal. Pride, it is said, robs a man of God, and envy, of his neighbour; but anger robs him of himself, by depriving him of his reason. To be angry beyond limit is to revenge another's fault on oneself. By controlling a moment's anger we may avoid the remorse of a lifetime. It is cheaper to pardon than to resent; it saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, and the waste of spirits. The brave man knows no malice. Equally the man that is wise will not cherish hatreds or jealousies, which can but embitter the full enjoyment of the good things he already has. He will be big enough in mind not to feel hurt or humiliated by what some other person may do to him. Over-sensitiveness does not make for felicity. Another common failing is irritability, often about comparative trifles. Peevishness, if habitual, sours a man's disposition, and not only undermines his own happiness, but acts as a menace to domestic peace and social harmony in his circle.

18. NEEDLESS APPREHENSIONS
Of all the foes which seek abode within us, fear, is the most formidable, because it is the most insidious. Fear cripples the spirit, and makes it as impotent for effective action as for calm deliberation. The apprehension of evil often does greater harm than the evil apprehended. Most fears are exaggerated, if not baseless. Anticipation is usually worse than the actuality. Allied to fear is anxiety, which is more difficult to throw off than sorrow; time assuages most sorrows, but anxiety grows with time and thrives upon indulgence. Care is "no cure but only a corrosive"; it is but folly to worry in advance about trifles which may not after all materialize. Life is difficult enough as it is; why spoil it by introducing an element of melancholy apprehension?

19. CONTENTMENT
Cheerfulness and good humour make for health of body and mind, and conduce to the proper enjoyment of life. Contentment is a sovereign remedy for the ills of life, an equable temper, an invaluable shield against most of its troubles. The man who finds no satisfaction in himself seeks for it in vain elsewhere. To think too much about oneself and one's needs, about what one would like to have from other people, and so on, is a sure road to disillusionment and discontent. The best plan for living happily is to depend as far as possible upon oneself, to make the most of the good things one already has, and to easily satisfied, eschewing those which are redundant or imaginary. As has been well said, to have what we want is riches: but to be able to do without is more than riches, it is power. Simple tastes are as much matter of habit as luxury. Practice can make self-denial not only facile, but even pleasant.

20. HABIT
Habit is the best of servants, but the worst of masters. Kept under scrutiny and control, it is a great help to rational living; left to grow as it likes, it may become a serious fetter and a drag. Habit, says a proverb, is at first a cobweb and at last a cable. To suppress a first desire is easier than to stem those that follow. "A sapling may be easily uprooted, but with a tree an axe is needed". To dally with temptation is to start a hidden fire which may grow into a conflagration. The most fearful characteristic of vice is its irresistible fascination, the ease with which it sweeps away resolution. Familiarity strips vice of its enormity, so much so that "he that has committed a sin twice no longer considers it a sin". The bonds of an established bad habit may, nevertheless, be broken by weakening its grip through diminished indulgence. Every determined effort of abstinence makes easier the next, until, when a certain point is reached, the victim becomes able to assert his new-found strength and achieve full freedom.

21. WILL
Often a sudden or intense initial effort succeeds in uprooting the evil tendency once for all, and restoring the authority of the will. No man indeed is really free, really safe, who is not master of himself, and cannot enforce his resolution at any crisis or emergency. People succumb, not so much for want of understanding, as through lack of will and habitual disobedience to its behests. Like other faculties, the will is strengthened by cultivation and use, and progressively enfeebled by neglect. The enlightened will is guided by reason and the dictates of conscience, and never swayed by mere passion or impulse. The will is most effective when it acts in conjunction with the imagination. Where the two are in conflict, the imagination usually carries the day.

22. IMAGINATION
Imagination is the visualizing power of the mind, and can conjure up all manner of shapes actual or fanciful, and lend them body and substance. It is a creative faculty with an almost illimitable range of operation. But it may work for good or inure for evil, according as it subserves the higher self, or runs riot at the whim and pleasure of the lower nature. As has been acutely remarked, a vile imagination once indulged, gets the key of our minds, and can get it again very easily whether we will or not, bringing with it other spirits more wicked than itself. On the other hand, the well controlled imagination greatly enhances the quality and the beauty and mystery of life. By presenting to the mind scenes and characters more perfect than those we are acquainted with, it creates a healthy dissatisfaction, and so stimulates improvement. The imagination can influence not only our mental and emotional constitution, but even the physical conditions of health and vigour. In these and other ways it is capable of releasing invisible forces which bring about tangible results.

23. INTELLECT
The mind, like the body, is nourished by what it assimilates, and not by all that goes into it. It is the part of education to train a man to observe and think, and not simply fill his mind with accumulations of others. Reflection is to knowledge what digestion is to food, the way to make it a living part of ourselves. By turning an idea over, by considering it in various aspects and in relation to other ideas, by chewing the cud as it were, we extract its valuable elements. Thinking, to be worth the name, should be orderly and precise, one idea leading to another related or relevant idea. It is on the regularity and perspicuity of our thinking that memory itself depends. Meditation is a further and more difficult step, in which the attentions centred on some one definite idea, instead of passing from one to another. This often leads to an intuitive knowledge of the object meditated on and a direct realization of its true nature.

24. THE VACANT MIND
The mind is an instrument restless and changeable by nature, and resistive to control. Hard it is to curb as is the wind. Further more, it always wants something to work upon and turn over and over. 'If the brain sows not corn, it plants thistles'. The vacant mind generates evil thoughts as naturally as a stagnant pool breeds worms. It may be compared to an untenanted, unguarded building, which offers strong temptation to vagrant ideas and malefic suggestions to intrude. The prudent owner will choose wholesome thoughts, true, wise, beautiful, cheering, elevating to occupy the tenement; and he will see that it is kept bright and clean, lighted by cheerfulness and good humour, and warmed by human sympathy and kindliness.

25.POWER OF THOUGHT AND EXAMPLE
In our power to think and feel, we possess a force which we are ever using, without always realizing its potentialities. Thought power on its own plane is just as real and definite a thing as money in its: sometimes it may actually be of greater help. A strong thought-form will protect its object from temptation, from fear, or from danger, acting for the purpose as a real guardian-angel. An earnest wish or fervent prayer works towards its own fulfillment according to its clearness and persistence, and may evening deserving cases draw down help from above. Apart from the conscious exercise of thought, there is the quiet but none the less pervasive effect of life and example. Every individual, great or small, is a centre of radiating influence, touching at many points the lives and characters of the people around him. The strength of it will naturally vary with the individual source.

26. CHARACTER
More powerful than the influences, palpable and impalpable, which play upon a man from outside, is the accumulated effect of his own thinking. Every idea, every desire or feeling, however evanescent, leaves its trace on personality. The dominant thoughts influence the habitual outlook, and sooner or later find their way into action. Each man is thus the architect of his own character, that which represents what he is in himself, more surely than he is the architect of his fortune. The foundation of character lie deep in the motives and principles actuating the individual, in the ideals towards which his life is set. The corner-stones of the edifice are the great virtues in which all systems of morality and religion lay stress.

27. VIRTUE
Virtue is not a negative attitude, the mere abstention from wrong-doing, but implies a positive disposition to see and do what is right in the various relations we sustain, to ourselves, to our fellow-beings and to God. Some virtues like truth, justice, wisdom, compassion, are so grand in their ideal perfection that they serve to imagine Divinity itself for our comprehension. Others, such as courage, fortitude, patience, gentleness, humility, delicacy, forbearance, moderation, are among the noblest attributes of humanity. Virtue is, in the best sense, its own reward, its possession may, no doubt, often bring some incidental advantage. But if it is practiced with an eye mainly to this, and not primarily for the unmixed satisfaction of doing that which is right, it loses its purity and becomes alloyed with selfishness. It is enough recommendation for virtue that it enormously enhances the quality and multiplies the value of life.

28. AFFECTIONS
Life has been described as a flower of which love is the honey. The love that seeks no return purges the heart of the taint of selfishness. The wealth of a soul is measured by how much it can feel of genuine affection, its poverty by how little. Pity is the tenderest part of love; and where pity dwells, there abides the peace of God. Nothing but infinite pity is sufficient for the infinite pathos of human life. Next only to love and pity, among the noblest attributes of human nature, is the warmth of sympathy. To sympathize, runs a fine saying, is to share the inward fragrance of each other's heart. Genuine sympathy combines both charity and understanding. Itself valuing truth above everything, it freely pardons error; and it loves the offender even while detesting the offence.

29. ASSOCIATIONS
We know our fellow-men only so far as we can feel with and for them through close association. Our ways and manners and not infrequently our opinions and prejudices, are unconsciously formed and moulded after those of the people with whom we habitually associate. No man can live for himself alone; a thousand threads of sympathy and mutual influence and advantage connect us all intimately. Happiness is multiplied by being shared: and there is no greater blessing than to have true friends, staunch and select, in few. Truest of friends, and the greatest source of joy and comfort, is a good and faithful wife. A hundred men (it was said) may make an encampment, but it needs a women to make a home. Beyond the circle of friendship, a sociable person will add to his enjoyment of life by cultivating congenial acquaintanceship. Good company is better than rich food, and no seasoning can equal the relish of instructive and agreeable conversation.

30. USE AND ABUSE OF SPEECH
It is sad to note the lax and callous way in which the wonderful faculty of speech is often used. There are some who say or write cruel things with deliberate intention to wound. Many more indulge in careless or inaccurate statements which cause as much harm as a willfully false and malicious one. Gossip is among the commonest of social evils. Much ordinary conversation is idle and superficial. The golden rule as to speech has been thus stated: "It is well to speak little: better still to say nothing, unless you are quite sure that what you wish to say is true, kind and helpful". Its strict observance will not make one a "good talker". But a good talker in the conventional sense is not always a good worker, or necessarily a centre of healthy influence. In any case, one who follows the rule will have less cause for repentance on account of vain, careless and injurious speech.

31. OUR JUDGMENT OF OTHERS
There is nearly always something to praise, even if there be something to blame, in everybody; and it is the part of brotherliness, as well as a valuable exercise in appreciation, to discover by preference that which is praiseworthy. It is best to judge well of others, even if our judgment be better than the actuality. By giving a man credit for meaning well, we shall not only be right in nine cases out of ten, but shall be helping him to grow out of a lower into a higher incentive. To think evil of another, on the other hand, tends to aggravate any wrong predisposition that might already exist in the victim's nature. It may even implant in him the seed of a new fault or evil motive, or expose him to temptations to wrong-doing which might not otherwise have come in his way. In addition to all this, the offender fills his own imagination with debasing ideas and injurious suspicions. To mind one's own business, and abstain from needlessly interfering with other people and criticizing their ways, is a wholesome principle of conduct.

32. APPRECIATION
Appreciation has close affinity with sympathy, differing mainly that the head rather than the heart plays a more decisive part. It presupposes a critical judgment which, without being blind to faults, is quick to recognize merit. To be able to discern excellence is the next best thing to possessing it. By looking out for points to admire, instead of casting about flaws to condemn, we shall nearly always find something at least of what we have been justly remarked, takes from us the higher pleasure of being deeply moved by beautiful things.

33. TRUTH, BEAUTY, GOODNESS
To discover what is true, to admire what is beautiful and to practise what is good, are among the primary objects of philosophy. Truth is not always easy to recognize at sight; else would not error be so rampant. But speaking generally, truth illumines, while error confesses. Truth, moreover, brings increasing conviction the more carefully a matter is considered. Then, again, every truth agrees with all others; and once established, it falls into its own place in the vast body of knowledge. There is in most things of nature a core of beauty, apart from utility; but beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and not only reveals itself to those who have in them the sense of beauty. Moral beauty, the "daily beauty" in a person's life, is more impressive than even the beauty of nature, and gives to those who possess it a strange, an inexplicable power. Goodness is the better part of godliness. It is another name for love, which is the realization of the unity of all sentient beings within the One Divine Life.

34. OBJECTIVE INTERESTS
To much pre-occupation with self dwarfs the nature, and leads to boredom and unhappiness. The cure for morbid self-centredness is to make more of our objects, and less of ourselves. The man who can forget himself in a wide variety of objective interests, keeping mind active and curiosity awake along many roads, is always fresh and bright. Fortunate is he whose ordinary avocations take him out of himself; still more so, if he can switch on at will to some cherished task outside the daily round, and appealing to tastes and talents not otherwise regularly engaged. A well-ordered life must provide leisure for those higher satisfactions which contribute so much to rational enjoyment and happiness. Some of them are also delightful forms of recreation, like the theatre, cinema, and musical concert.

35. FAVOURITE PURSUITS
Of hobbies so called, there are those which combine change of occupation and relief from ennui with renewal of energy and renovation of spirit. Typical of them all is horticulture, the laying out and the gradual evolving of a garden of one's own with the unadulterated joy of open-air activity. Travel, over and above its value as relaxation and change, is an important accessory to education and worldly experience. Even the stay-at-home can have some of its benefits vicariously; books of travel are often enthralling; they spare one the trouble and annoyances of wayfaring, not to mention the question of expense! A mine of fascinating instruction lies open to those interested in a comparative study of languages. The intimate connection between thought and expression, the close similarities and often significant differences among the families of speech, the labours of linguists to simplify existing media or to fashion new ones on rational lines, - things like these yield abundant food for intelligent curiosity.

36.TREASURES OF THE MIND
Language holds the key to the treasures of the mind, through the written and printed word. The praise of books is an inexhaustible theme. Of all the sources of unalloyed pleasure and profit open to the literate man, the richest by far is a cultivated taste for reading by means of books chosen for their quality as well as to suit the individual need. We can command at will the society of those creative minds who live in their works. Without fee or reward we can take counsel with the best intellects of all ages and countries, and converse day by day with the wisest, wittiest, tenderest, bravest, and noblest characters who have adorned humanity. When we are weary of the living, who alas are not always easy to associate with, we can betake ourselves to the illustrious dead, the immortals who have nothing in their composition of querulousness, envy or scheming. With their aid we may build around us an atmosphere of quiet content very different from the humdrum round of restlessness and inanity.

37. SELF-EXPRESSION
To write is a great help to reading of the profitable kind which is study. It is besides, an efficacious way of keeping the mind from brooding and from aimless wandering. Above all, it has an important role as a medium of self-expression. Any literate person of average education may express himself interestingly, if he has something worth saying and can say it simply and naturally. But literary power, - the ability to clothe thought in clear, effective, and appropriate language,- demands assiduous cultivation and some natural talent. More important than style or manner is idea or matter. There are few who can offer really new ideas about old facts. But even common things may be put in an uncommon, arresting way, and known truths told attractively as seen through a fresh pair of eyes. An apt quotation is often as good as an original remark.

38. THE SPELL OF MUSIC
Music is the language of the spirit, an echo of the invisible world. It is not easy to depict in words the subtle, soothing, lingering spell of melody, that "inarticulate speech which leads us to the edge of the infinite", and lets us for moments gaze into its depths. While its highest graces flow from the feelings of the heart, its charm and beauty are enhanced by rhythm, the ordered movement of sounds in regulated succession. There is hardly a mood which cannot find expression in appropriate measures grave, gay or sad. Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life, and is entitled to its place among the primary wants of our nature, next only to food, raiment and shelter. Almost all persons can enjoy music of some kind. But its higher and more refined types can only be fully appreciated by the cultivated taste.

39. THE MISSION OF ART
The same is true in other spheres of art also, in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture. The mission of art is to reveal the hidden or underlying significance of things, concrete or abstract, through idealized forms and images shaped in material appropriate to each art. It holds the mirror up to nature, not by mere imitation, but by the more adequate rendering of a beauty or a truth, seen or imagined. Art may be said to begin where nature leaves off.

40. THE MARVELS OF NATURE
Unlike the conceptions of human skill and genius, the works of the great architect of the Universe do not depend for their full enjoyment on man-made rules and conventions. The marvels of creative activity which issue from the loom of time and space come home to all unsophisticated minds, simple and learned. Nature is prodigal of her gifts, and scatters almost at our doors, in endless variety and profusion, things of loveliness and grandeur calculated to evoke sheer delight and wonder. The sensitive person can always find comfort and refreshment in the lap of Mother Earth, gazing on her mobile countenance in all her shifting moods, observing the manifold shapes and colours of scenery and vegetation, and marking the swift passage of the hours and the slow rotation of the seasons in their course. For the contemplative spirit which enjoys the free air and wide open spaces there is indeed "a pleasure in the pathless woods", "a rapture on the lonely shore", and society, where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar."

41. THE SUBTLE REALM OF SOLITUDE
Solitude is oftentimes the best society. We are least alone when we are most at home to our real selves, in the company of noble thoughts and pleasing memories, and away from the distraction and turmoil of the busy crowd. The rigorous exclusion of disturbing elements, - the body's obstinate assertion of itself, the unceasing suggestions of the baser inclinations, and the self-centred worries of the lower mind, - makes it possible for the soul to contact a subtler environment, the spiritual realm which extends all around us. In its stillness and silence, when other sounds are hushed, mystics of all times have listened to the Voice of God, and gained intimate revelations of things real. Not all of us can have, as yet, the inner illumination which comes in moments of spiritual exaltation. But since the Divine Life pervades the whole universe, some realization of its power and influence can be had even at lower levels.

42. THE INWARD LIFE

As we submit ourselves to its quiet creative action and strive to "live with God and in His Presence", our real self will undergo a marked transformation through purification and enlargement. And with it our inward life will grow in seriousness and intensity. It is the inward life which is the really significant part of our existence. The outer life of vicissitude and circumstance is but an episode in the long pilgrimage of the soul. We have to go through with it because there are lessons which can only be learnt in the gross surroundings of earth. When we have mastered them, we shall pass on to other and higher spheres of being.

43. PERFECTION THROUGH DAILY RENEWAL
Continuous progression is the law of eternal life, and there is no limit to possible perfection. The urge to evolve is ever at work in all beings, whether they are conscious of it or not. But to the extent that they severally understand and co-operate with the forces concerned, the pace of progress will be quicker and surer. Peace as well as strength consists in finding out the Will of God which represents the Scheme of Evolution, and going in the way that it is working. Perfection is a matter of degree, and development stage by stage the appointed way. And though the graduations which lie between "man who is God upon a small scale" and "God who is Man upon a scale that is vast" are immense and seemingly infinite, they cannot daunt the awakened spirit ho realizes his Divine affinity and is bent on attaining his heritage. The glorious consummation is brought ever nearer, as we take our lives in our own hands and renew them on higher levels day by day.
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