OF SPELLING, NOMENCLATURE AND INSIPIENCE

INNEWVATION
Innovation is the buzzword these days. My quest for an innovation in innovation culminated in a valuable addition to the English language. The new word on its way to the "Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary" is ""Innewvation". Why not? The "newness" of innovation is aptly incorporated (and that is the etymology of it!!!). Though I will claim originality, I should acknowledge the motivation. Some time back I saw this on the shutters of a jewellery shop in Kottayam: "Shop closed for RENEWVATION". Ever since I saw this, I started hunting for more of this stuff. I found a lot of shops at COLLECTRATE P.O and even COLLETRATE P.O! And of course there was no dearth for RESTAURENTS. Some of these were VEGITARIAN or even VEGETERIAN!!! And in a decently "spell checked" restaurant the VEGITARIYAN BIRIYANI costs only Rs75. Cheap indeed!!! There are any number of banners announcing the INAGURATION of shops. Last year at Thiruvalla, I saw a huge flex board FECILITATING a Padma Bhushan recipient. The list is endless.............

WHAT IS THERE IN A NAME?
Some time back I read in the news papers that a small tea shop in Alapuzha was sued for crores of rupees. The poor shop owener had named it "HOTEL HILTON"! After reading this I stoped buying the milk packet from the "TAJ HOTEL" at Chungam in the outskirts of Kottayam. Recently while driving to Kochi airport this restaurant caught my attention: "ZERO STAR HOTEL". Modesty or honesty or ingenuity - I do not know. The "Best Bakery" in Kottayam is well known for its yummy sweets. Be it Halwa or Cake or whatever it is simply the best true to its name and tradition. Then one day I saw this "BETTER BAKERY" in Kanjikuzhi, Kottayam. "How come?" I asked. Even as I was learning to live with it, I had the good fortune of seeing this; again in Kanjikuzhy: "THE NEW BETTER BAKERY" ! Areyaar, this is what Innewvation is all about.
::BEST, BETTER, BETTEREST::
All these were in my mind for quite some time. But the immediate provocation for writing these now, is the name of a pickup van I saw at Kayamkulam while driving to Kollam. It read "REBBISH MON" (in Malayalam Mon means Son) !!! I prayed, this be no spelling mistake. For, no father will like to have "Rubbish Mon".
Now tell me. How about this one though spell checked: "SHIBU MOBILE MORTUARY".
To me it is nauseating. This Mr Shibu must be the honourable owner of the freezer or his loving son!! In either case....Oh! Horrible!
But, will any of these beat this one at a petrol station that read "OPEN 25 HOURS"!
It is only a coincidence that the following three stories are from Chemistry classes. The first one is an innocuous one (colourless and odourless too). It is about the Chemistry teacher asking the students to "consider a V-shaped U-tube". The second:
The curious student: "Sir, what is the meaning of INFLAMMABLE and HIGHLY INFLAMMABLE"?
The scholarly teacher: Inflammable is something that does not usually catch fire and highly inflammable is that never catches fire, like water!
The third and final:
The teacher proclaimed:"RADIUM WAS DISCOVERED BY MARY CURIE AND HER HUSBAND MADAM CURIE"

When a cool gentle breeze turned into a Tornado

Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas
Again it is an Agra tale.I really wonder. I left Agra in 1979 completing my MSc. It is 31 long years now. But I still "live" there. There is not a day in my life when I dont think about St: John's college, my Alma mater. This is no exaggeration and I speak with all my honesty. In the year 2000, I was there in Agra with my son Renjan and my colleague Prof C.O. Philip (COP), affectionately called Pochen, another St: John's college fanatic. I went there to attend the MSc(Physics) old student's meet. (Dr J.K Sharma was gracious enough to inform me of the function). COP had done his MA in English literature there long long back! When I told him that I was going to Agra, he jumped the band wagon without inquiring the purpose of the visit. See, for us so crazy of St: John's, being there itself was the purpose. During the function which was a very emotional reunion, I was asked to speak a few words. I was not prepared and I had not spoken in public before. Yet I walked to the dais and these words came spontaneously from from the bottom of my heart: "St: John's college to me is like an old Kishore Kumar song. PAL PAL DIL KE PAAS".

The Mother
Oh God! I had started off to tell another story.
1978. That year's Agra University convocation was held in St: John's college. A huge shamiana was erected on the lush green hockey court in front of the main building built in red stone with unmatched architectural splendour. The chief guest of the day was Mother Theresa. But I decided to stay back in my hostel theHaileybury House. I was down with severe viral fever. I thought I would complete the book I was reading, "Ninety minutes at Entebbe" by William Stevenson. The book depicted the unbelievable rescue operation by Israeli commandos nick named "Operation Thunderbolt".

On July 4, 1976 an Air France plane with 248 passengers was hijacked by PLO terrorists and was forcibly landed in Entebbe airport in Idi Amin's Uganda. At Entebbe all non-Jew passengers were freed. One French nun refused to leave saying she remain a hostage in return for a Jew who shall be freed. But she was thrown out. I have heard a similar story from Hitler's Germany. When the Nazi soldiers were stuffing a gas chamber with Jews, a Jesuit priest offered to go in, in return for a Jew.

The "Operation Thunderbolt" was carried out by 100 Israeli commandos flown in from Tel Aviv. During the 90 minute operation all the hijackers, 45 Ugandan soldiers and three hostages were killed. The commander Lt. Col Yonathan Netanyahu also was killed. (His brother Benjamin Netanyahu later became the Prime Minister of Israel). 103 hostages were rescued. Till date "Operation Thunderbolt' remains the greatest commando operation executed anywhere in the world.

Even as I was lying sick in my hostel and reading the book, I felt an inner voice urging me to go to the function to be addressed by Mother Theresa. When I reached there (some 50 meters from Haileybury House) , what I saw was an ocean of humans. I reached there just in time. The Mother was to start her speech. She spoke of love, care for others, universal brotherhood and a host of such things. She spoke of destitutes and the depressed. She spoke in a cool low tone. No high sounding words. No jugglery with words. No histrionics. It was plain simple language understood by all. People assembled there felt a cool gentle breeze of love and compassion flowing over them. People sat mesmerized by the divinity of her words. Believe me,at the end of the speech the audience forgot to clap. Rather, they couldn't. I saw many people wiping their eyes. A day I will never forget. The function came to a close.

You will not believe what I tell you now. This really happened. I am honest. I am not trying to mystify anything.

The mother had just left. All of us came out of the shamiyana. Suddenly a tornado came roaring and the shamiyana was tossed up in the air like a toy and it came down crashing. We all wondered, what would have happened if the tornado had occurred 15 minutes earlier. It is with horror I still remember this incident. Elders told us that a tornado or a strong wind never occurred during that time of the year. People remained perplexed. I am still clue-less.

BEYOND PERFECT TEN !!!

1976 Montreal Olympics is remembered as the Olympics of the 14 year old Romanian girl Nadia Comaneci. In gymnastics she created history by scoring the first ever Perfect Ten. The electronic score boards were not equipped to display a score of 10.0 . Thus the first ever perfect 10 was displayed as 1.00 !!!
That was long back. Come 2010. No gymnastics. No Nadia. Some down to the earth students at the George Sudarshan Centre (GSC), CMS college produced some marvelous results at the GATE 2010. Hold your breath. 9 students from GSC got qualified in the GATE 10 in Physics. Stupendous by any yard stick. But I was not excited. This time I had dreamt of a perfect 10. I had even designed a poster in my mind: "PERFECT 10 @ GATE 10".
Now a little statistics. ( History I shall elaborate in another post). Starting from2002 till 2010, 43 students qualified in GATE from GSC. 15 students were selected for UGC-lectureship and UGC-JRF. Of the 43, Prashanth Narayanan had a percentile score of 99.36 and an All India Rank (AIR) of 22. That was in 2005. And last year Rajany was among the top 25 of the UGC-JRF winners. Currently our students are there in the top academic and scientific centres in India like IIT, IISc, BARC, DRDO and IGCAR. Six of our former students are in various European Universities. (Surprisingly these victories are not celebrated in the college)

Coming back. With only 9 successes, the caption in my mind, ie, PERFECT 10 @ GATE 10" remained in my mind as a soft copy. But suddenly three girls from the final year BSc class sprang a surprise. They qualified in some national level examinations. Veena passed the JAM and joined IIT Madras. Roshni joined Pondicherry Central University and Devi got selected for the PG programme of the University of Hyderabad.

A Teacher's Dilemma: So from one short of a Perfect 10, it is now 9+3 = 12.
What shall I call it?

A "DAZZLING DOZEN"??

HOWZAAT ???