NAUNET NEWSLETTER NO. 4 OF 2001
"Karmany eva 'dhikaras te, ma phalesu kadacana,
ma karmaphalahetur bhur, ma te sango 'stv akarmani.
Translation: To send mails to Naunet alone hast thou a right and never at all
to replies; let not the replies for thy mails be thy motive; neither let there
be in thee any anger towards Naunet due to others' inaction.
Gita, Chapter II, Verse 47
"
(Mukund; August 1999)
First let me ack. mails from Raghu, Santhanam, Rahul, Prasad, Mukund and Vidya
to my Newsletter No. 3 as well as the one after the earthquake (shocks). I
am separately writing to Mukund on his trvelogue to California. As Rahul has
written, cricket will be here from end of Feb. Will it be 'Waugh'fare as
some paper has written?
Some of you may wonder why this Newsletter has saffron border (assuming all of
you can view this). The reason is that I had been to the Kumbh Mela. Naunet
is twice blessed with two members having taken the holy dip. While Prasad is
assured of heaven, I am not. The reason is he went during the actual Kumbh
of 31 days from Purnima to Purnima, while I went in the extended period.
More details of my trip to Allahabad in 'My Travels in Feb.'
Raghu could not read my two earlier editions. So I am sending him html
versions of both. I hope he can read this. Anyway, I am enclosing the non-JS
version of this also for all members.
By the time you see this letter Aarthi's exams may start. Her first exam
on 22nd Feb. is French.
As usual, I am urging all of you to write at least once a fortnight.
Parthasarathy
|
My Travels in Feb. |
I am generally a reluctant traveller, that too by train. But the first 12
days of Feb. saw me in train for 8 days. First I went to Chennai and stayed
there for the same number of hours (48) that I took in travelling. I went to
see my mother, who is in hospital and my sister, who was in hospital and was
discharged only a few days before I went. It is sad that my mother, who was
one of the most active persons to be immobilised due to the knee-joints having
been worn out. It was only after I had my own family that I wondered how my
parents coped with the large number of guests with little money, no fridge,
no gas and no mixie. With all amenities, we get flustered with one or two
guests, while my mother was routinely managing the catering of over 15 people
everyday. Anyway, she is better now and is taken round by the ayahs on a
wheel-chair.
Though I was in Chennai for only about 50 hours, I visited
almost all the relatives. I also got all the photos of Deepu and Sriram
for scanning and making a CD after including the video. I hope I can complete
it before we go to Chennai after Aarthi's exams.
The day after I returned
from Chennai, I left for Allahabad, which I reached at 9.30PM last Saturday
(10th). Railway officers as well as my batchmate in Income Tax Service were
there. We went straight to Kumbh Nagar, a 30 Sq.km. township to accommodate
25 lakhs of pilgrims in the river bed. Though most of the sadhus (including
Nagas) had left, it was still an impressive sight. I spent the night in the
VIP tent of UP Government. Mr.Singh, who was an officer managing Kumbh Nagar
said that 7 crores had already taken a dip and 60 lakhs are expected on 21st.
I got up at 6.00 and had a walk on the river bank. At 6-45, we went by boat
to the Sangam and had a number of dips. In fact, it was so good we didn't feel
like coming out. Did I feel happy? Yes. Did I feel blessed? Yes.
I left
Allahabad, the same day and came to Jabalpur. On Monday morning I went to a
waterfall and on a boating trip at Bhedahaat on Narmada near Jabalpur. The
boatman was giving rhyming comments, samples of which are here.
Aao Bhedaghat
chandni raat
family saath
camera
haath
Aur suno meri baath
If Mumbai belonged to Stephen Hawking in January, it was taken over by the
International Fleet Review in the first half of February. It was held today.
While the President reviewed it from Gateway of India, we watched the ships,
helicopters and planes from our balcony. We watched 'Beating Retreat' on TV,
but watched the lighting of ships again from our balcony. It is indeed a grand
sight to see over 60 lighted ships of 19 countries. Today (sunday), we saw the
fly-past and acrobatics by fighter planes from our balcony. Though the smog
somewhat spoiled the party, it was impressive. But whether the Fleet Review
should have been cancelled because of the earthquake is a matter for argument.
Aarthi has taken some snaps, but our camera does not seem to be very dependable.
Though we had an active cultural month in January, Feb. is rather quiet for
Amritha due to Aarthi's exams and my being away.
CRYPTIC CROSSWORD SOLVING
The Golden Rule for setting a good cryptic clue was laid down by the late
DS McNutt, an ace composer of the Observer, : "I may not mean what I say, but I must
say what I mean."
A cryptic clue is trying to lead you off in the wrong direction. You need to
deconstruct the clue and concentrate on the separate parts. Don't get
sidetracked by punctuation and the use of capital letters - they are
designed to mislead you.
To help you, every fair clue will contain a 'definition' of the answer
(usually at the beginning or the end), or the whole clue will be the
definition.
Here is the first of the main types of trick used - often more than one will
appear in any given clue.
Anagrams
The definition should still be at the beginning or the end of the clue, but
a disguised anagram indicator will tell you that the answer is to be found
by rearranging the letters of other words contained in it.
Example 1: It rarely turns out like this in books (8) = LITERARY
literary means 'in books'; and 'turns out like this' indicates an anagram of 'it rarely'
Example 2: Tube taken to theatre for three-act play (8) = CATHETER
a catheter is a tube used in an operating theatre and 'play' indicates an ANAGRAM of THREE-ACT
Can you unscramble these interesting anagrams, which also give the meanings
(which was sent by Mukund more than an year ago)?(Solutions in my next Newsletter)
Dirty Room (9)
A Rope Ends It (11)
Here come Dots (3,5,4)
Cash Lost in 'em (4,8)
Is No Amity (9)
Woman Hitler (6-2-3)
Is No Meal (8)
I'm a Dot in Place (1,7,5)
Accord not in it (13)
Moon Starer (10)
End Is A Car Spin (8,5)(Name of a famous person)
A Year To Shut Down (4,3,8)
There are three good clues this time also (no anagrams).
The tough ones are
last November (9)
Gusty change of direction is same (7)
The easy one is
master of many subjects (5)
The solutions to the two clues given last time are
'Not now able to start offering food' (5) is PASTA (Sorry, Rahul. PLATE is wrong)
'Supporters of those who confide their hopes to water'(4,7) is WELL WISHERS
(Rahul got it right)
(Sorry, Prasad. Since I have changed the
Newsletter format, I am unable to separate the clues and the solutions.
Next time, maybe.)
From: Ram.Narasimhan@ual.com
Subject: Chgo99#25 - Thirty Days Hath September
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 12:16:46 -0500
Friends, Romans and Civil Servants:
Lend me your ears. Or at least your ear-pieces.
This is my 25th mail mishmash to the group this year.
At least, I think so, give or take a dozen.
It's been an extremely active week, hasn't it?
Athimber, Chitappa, Rahul, Aarthi and Mukund, not to mention
almost all the others last week.
I will bet you a dollar to a rupee that RaghuC is eager to
send mail and join in the fun -- if at all he is getting
these messages.
One of us should get hold of the password to his mailcity/.au
address and we will find a nice archive of all our messages.
Whether anyone would want to read it at all is debatable.
For those of you who are getting your fill of your
favorite food, you might want to skip what follows next.
This is for the starvin' expats.
*** 25th Mail Special Request to Amritha Athai *****
Athai, for the last few days, an image of tomato chutney
has been tormenting me. (Hey all you others, call me
shallow, but I am honest.) Do you know the one I am referring
to? It is red-orange in color, (no tamarind), is sometimes
provided as a third side dish with coconut chutney and sambar
when you order dosas in restaurants. I don't think I paid much
attention to it then, but I really feel like having some of that now.
And yes, I am willing to work for it, I will make it myself, but the
recipes on the Web seem to be for something else.
So, athai, could you please send me the recipe for it, if you know how
to prepare it? Please send it even if you don't.
*** End of 25th Mail Special Request to Amritha Athai *****
Athimber, when Rahul says that I have been sending a lot of mails,
it is a perception of his. Please don't demolish my reputation
with hard numbers.
Happy to know that the FreeCell virus has infected most of you.
If you can't suceed, redefine success. Leaves your ego intact.
I have been focussing on developing a compact notation that describes
a whole FreeCell game. That wasn't too difficult, and yet it was
fun. Try it sometime.
Now, I am considering writing a C program that will try to solve
a FreeCell game. Seems like a lot of work and I'm not sure that
the effort is worth the results.
Meanwhile, not to take away glory from the
FreeCell Hall of Famers
S V Sriram (1999)
S Parthasarathy (1999)
Please solve 617 without referring to Athimber's solution and earn
your way in.
This Bharadwaj guy seems good, huh?
(EndAbruptCricketReference)
Aarthi, hi. Regarding replies, to paraphrase the Iowa corn farmer
-- "You type it and they will come."
(EndObscureBaseballReference)
Calvin and Hobbes! Ah what a strip.
No, really.
(While Calvin & H is undoubtedly great, I think that Peanuts
shouldn't be underrated)
I think we own a couple -- 'The 10th anniv special'
and 'There's something drooling under the bed.'
Calvin is a big time favorite of Rupal's. As for me, I love Mo.
You all know Mo right?
The six-year old who shaves!
25 n.o. I remain,
Prasad