'Whene’er I, fragrant coffee drink, I on the generous Frenchman think...'

Sailor Clieu and our Daily Brew!

The Coffee Story 💜

#coffeemeditations ☕

Well folks, please allow me the honour of getting us all back in the saddle, onto our daily coffee grind!

our regular bistro ;-)

In the past post we had Calvino and the coffee-pot! 

We had Calvino giving us ‘incisive instructions’ on how to read his book, where he also recommends to his reader, ideal sitting positions that would suit you, for ‘your’ reading of the book!

Says Calvino -

‘In the old days they used to read standing up, at a lectern’, but for once, this time alone, ‘why not try a sofa and cushions with a pack of cigarettes and coffee-pot nearby?’ because, you’ll real need them. It dawns on you in a transformative, epiphanic moment, that you are now an actor, not a spectator, in this ‘theatre of reading’.

Can there be a better way of celebrating the primacy of the reader in the meaning-making process, dear reader? Nayver!

‘You are now an actor, not a Spectator’, he says!

Reminds us of Addison’s Spectator, which according to the noble and able duo, catered to the ‘new middle class’, taught them refinement, grace, elegance and style. 

Through this popular periodical of his day, with a circulation of over ten thousand copies for each issue, Addison instructs and exhorts his readers full well, on the need for ‘a constant and assiduous Culture’. 

Parallels abound between Calvino’s If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler and Addison’s Spectator. 

One interesting connect in especial between the two, would be the fact that, both have their authors exhorting their readers to pore over their reads after pouring for themselves a cuppa, from off a coffee-pot! 

Noted critic Scupin Richard, being an ardent devotee of the cuppa himself, used to say, quite very often, in his own inimitable style, on the ‘power in the blend!’ 

Says he, ‘The true mission of a confirmed coffeephile in his/her life is to find the perfect cup!’ ;-)

 Amazing ain’t it? ;-)

And that’s hence he adds to say that the coffeephile’s prayer is so unique and so noble! so pure and so profound! 

Yes! when you take some time off your daily grind, to listen intently to a coffeephile’s prayers, - with a clear mind, a pure heart and a conscience void of offence, - you are sure bound to hear for yourself, the gentle whisper streaming in your ears, that says, 

‘Give us this day our daily brew!’

An amazing prayer, ain’t it folks? ;-)

A prayer where there’s no harm intended to anyone in thought, word or deed! No unwanted vain chatter! 

No frivolous talk! No gossip! And as Tagore says -

‘My song has put off her adornments. She has no pride of dress and decoration. Ornaments would mar our union; they would come between thee and me; their jingling would drown thy whispers’.

That’s one reason why they say that, coffee has been for long the nectar of the gods! ;-)

So next time around, when you see a cloud formation that comes out cute in the form of a kettle, up above the world so high, remember, St. Peter up there is busy brewing the brew!!! ;-)

Presenting the nectar of the gods to y’all, ladies and gentlemen!

Yes! this William H. Ukers read titled, All About Coffee has some tidbits on ardent coffeephiles who also doubled up as passionate literary beings. [litbeees we’ll call them!]

The purpose of this post then, is threefold!

First and foremost, this post, in this little space, would strive to highlight a few eminent ‘literary beings’ from the pages of the past, [litbeees for short] who having rollicked and revelled in the pure, serene delights of the cuppa all through their lives, also desired to transfer their cuppa joys, straight from their hearts into their lines and their lyrics!

Secondly, this post would endeavour to bring us all, the true story of the brew! Let’s call it the ‘true brew story!’ ;-) On how the brew got his present fame and popularity!

Thirdly, this post would love to share Lamb’s take on Clieu and the brew!

Ukers opines that, Alexander Pope very often broke the slumbers of his servant at night by calling him to prepare a cup of coffee; It was his custom to grind and prepare it upon the table, says he!

William Cowper’s fine tribute to the cuppa could be gauged from his power-line where he says, ‘the cups that cheer, but not inebriate’!

Leigh Hunt and John Keats were litbeees [literary beings] who were ‘worshippers at the shrine of coffee’, says Ukers.

Charles Lamb has celebrated in verse the exploit of Captain de Clieu in pursuit of the cuppa, in his verses titled, ‘THE COFFEE SLIPS!’

But who pray is Captain de Clieu? Why do we need to build a huge ‘Statue of Robusta’ for some Captain de Clieu?

Read on for the cues and the clues to Clieu’s claim over the cuppa, right here -

Well, the Arabs in the 1600’s were quite secretive and very much protective of their coffee beans, says Ukers. [Remember the amazing Arabica variety, that’s the most popular type all over the world?]

This blogger, during his cuppa time! ;-)

At the same time, the spread of coffee was also curtailed very much by the unavailability of the plant in most parts of the world. 

Hence it was, that the price of coffee skyrocketed! And since prices were high, demand was obviously high, and hence the drink had a high-value tag attached to it! 

And that’s how it became a drink of the elite in those days!

As we are wont to know, the recent skyrocketing of onion prices in India, saw middlemen indulging in large-scale illegal stocking and hoarding of onions, resulting in a  subsequent import of onions into our nation from Egypt! 

In the self-same way, when profits are high, and demand is more, the product becomes a high-value commodity, resulting in unholy nexus and unlawful behaviour on all sides!

Suchmuch was the case with coffee too!

Shockingly, people were kidnapped and killed just because they were found to be in possession of those high-value coffee plants!

Much evidence points to the fact that, the Europeans ‘hijacked’ coffee plants in huge hordes as early as the late 1500’s, says Ukers.

In such a scenario, when coffee plants were a treasured species of plants, the royal gardeners in Paris, at the renowned botanical gardens, were busy planning to propagate the coffee plant as a rare and one of its kind ‘horticultural marvel’ of sorts! Paavam! Little did they know of its huge economic potential!

However, a sailor by name Clieu, Gabriel-Mathieu De Clieu, who having travelled widely all through his life, and knowing the immense demand and the great sway that coffee had over the market, devised a strategy by which means, he along with a band of masked men, scaled the walls of the Paris botanical gardens, and after whisking away a young coffee tree from off its royal gardens, quickly vanished into the night!

The ship on which sailor Clieu sailed with the ‘coveted trophy’ – the coffee plant - witnessed dangerous storms and bad weather, and was once almost captured by pirates! 

In such a situation, even fresh water was in such short supply, resulting in the rationing of fresh water. 

Amidst this tight-corner of a situation, De Clieu fed this valuable fresh water from off his quota to his highly valued and greatly treasured coffee seedlings. 

As a result of his ‘sacrificial love’ and ‘sincere care and nurture’, the coffee seedling were nursed back to health and survived this arduous voyage!

As soon as he arrived in Martinique, Clieu proceeded to plant this precious shrub all over his lands!

One reason why Clieu confesses later that, he had obtained his coffee plant not by theft but through sheer romance!’ ;-) by wooing and charming a ‘Lady of High Standing’ from off the French royal courts!

Tells us all, ladies and gentlemen, about the ‘charm and the power in the blend’, alley?

Tells us to what great extent people can stretch themselves, to go for a cupful of delightful coffee!

Finally, when Clieu’s coffee shrubs began yielding fruit, Clieu was gracious enough to share the seed and cuttings with his neighbouring planters! 

And within no time, Martinique was filled with coffee plants, boasting of nearly 20 million highly productive trees.

Evidence suggests that, nearly 90 percent of the world’s coffee has spread from this plant.

One reason why De Clieu has for long enjoyed a cult status and a celebrity following, amongst the coffee drinkers’ collective from all over the world!

That’s hence Lamb, Charles Lamb, pays De Clieu a royal lyrical tribute in the year 1810, in which he sings peans to Clieu and to the power of the blend!

Whene’er I fragrant coffee drink,

I on the generous Frenchman think,

Whose noble perseverance bore

The tree to Martinico’s shore.

While yet her colony was new,

Her island products but a few,

Two shoots from off a coffee-tree

He carried with him o’er the sea.

Each little tender coffee slip

He waters daily in the ship,

And as he tends his embryo trees,

Feels he is raising midst the seas

Coffee groves, whose ample shade

Shall screen the dark Creolian maid.

But soon, alas! his darling pleasure

In watching this his precious treasure

Is like to fade,-for water fails

On board the ship in which he sails.

Now all the reservoirs are shut,

The crew on short allowance put;

So small a drop is each man’s share,

Few leavings you may think there are

To water these poor coffee plants;-

But he supplies their gasping wants,

Even from his own dry parchëd lips

He spares it for his coffee slips.

Water he gives his nurslings first,

Ere he allays his own deep thirst

Lest, if he first the water sip,

He bear too far his eager lip.

He sees them droop for want of more;-

Yet when they reach the destined shore,

With pride the heroic gardener sees

A living sap still in his trees.

The islanders his praise resound;

Coffee plantations rise around;

And Martinico loads her ships

With produce from those dear-saved slips.

Hail Lamb! Hail Clieu and his Cuppa!

To be continued…

images: this blogger's

'You derive a special pleasure from a just-published book!'

If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler | A Calvino Delight for this Winter

Well, winters are that part of the year, that’s long delayed, but often longed for! Ain’t it?

A time when the cold winter winds coupled with the divine margazhi music and the blessed Christmas chimes of the season are sure bound to excite all ye literary souls to sneak into a warm [hearth-like] comfy, cozy sette of sorts, with a cup of piping hot coffee in hand, and your favourite book(s) for company, ain’t it?

early morning today... in the very chill of winter @ namma chennai!

This wintry morning, in the thrilly chilly weather, ;-) while walking my way down the sidewalk on our street, onto my usual bistro for my morning brew, I chanced upon a cute little dog ensconced and nestled in such a cozy and comfy posture, in the embers of a dying fire, on a vacant land quite near to where I stay, prompting the little shutterbug in me to start working overtime! ;-)

That fortuitous sight then, happens to be the initial trigger for this post! [Now, gently move your eyes to the first line of this post that starts with ‘If...’ right away, please! Thank you!] And therefore, please allow me, ladies and gentlemen, to thank this lovely little doggy on (y)our behalf! ;-)

late night tonight... to beat the chill @ namma chennai! 

We humans too quite feel the chill to a thrill, ain’t we? That’s one reason why me thought of giving y’all a glimpse into how we kill the chill in the company of the cuppa and comfy friends! [Hence this late night ‘cuppa click’ exclusive, from the self-same day for y’all!]

Now, coming to the post at hand: Well, as eminent critic Scupin Richard avers, ‘After reading through even a kutty little slice of any ‘Italo Calvino delight’, one could say with a reasonable amount of conviction that Calvino offers any of his devotees on a delectable platter, quite an endearing and a seamless journey into the ‘art and adventure of reading’ in itself!’ How true he proves!!!

'The intelligent man who empties these cups of foaming coffee, he alone knows truth'

All About Coffee | A Primer for All Coffeeholics Out There!

This book titled, All About Coffee, is so unique and one of its kind! Well, it’s all about coffee, and it’s got everything you really wanted to know about your daily brew!

Before we quite begin our sojourn into this amazing 1923 book [written by William H. Ukers and runs to a whopping 820 pages], a million thanks are due to Dr. Shibu for so thoughtfully sending across this book to me, one of his own ilk on the coffee trove!

And as a prelude to our journey into this cuppa trove, let me first and foremost take you all straight to chapter XXXVII of the book, that gives some intense poems on Coffee, ;-) that would act the real stimulant and excitant on this, our sacred journey into the divine cuppa!

So here we go with excerpts from this 1923 book! - 

Chapter XXXVII

A HISTORY OF COFFEE IN LITERATURE

The romance of coffee, and its influence on the discourse, poetry, history, drama, philosophic writing, and fiction of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and on the writers of today - Coffee in Ancient and Modern Verse - In Dramatic Literature - In General Literature - Coffee Quips and Anecdotes

Any study of the literature of coffee comprehends a survey of selections from the best thought of civilized nations, from the time of Rhazes (850–922) to Francis Saltus. Rhazes, the physician-philosopher, appears to have been the first writer to mention coffee; and was followed by other great physicians, like Bengiazlah, a contemporary, and Avicenna (980–1037).

Then arose many legends about coffee, that served as inspiration for Arabian, French, Italian, and English poets.

Sheik Gemaleddin, mufti of Mocha, is said to have discovered the virtues of coffee about 1454, and to have promoted the use of the drink in Arabia. Knowledge of the new beverage was given to Europeans by the botanists Rauwolf and Alpini toward the close of the sixteenth century.

The first authentic account of the origin of coffee was written by Abd-al-Kâdir in 1587. It is the famous Arabian manuscript commending the use of coffee, preserved in the Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris, and catalogued as “Arabe, 4590.”

Abd-al-Kâdir’s book has immortalized coffee. It is in seven chapters. The first chapter deals with the etymology and significance of the word cahouah (kahwa), the nature and properties of the bean, where the drink was first used, and describes its virtues. The other chapters have to do largely with the church dispute in Mecca in 1511, answer the religious objectors to coffee, and conclude with a collection of Arabic verses composed during the Mecca controversy by the best poets of the time.

De Nointel, ambassador from the court of Louis XIV to the Ottoman Porte, brought back with him to Paris from Constantinople the Abd-al-Kâdir manuscript, and another by Bichivili, one of the three general treasurers of the Ottoman Empire. The latter work is of a later date than the Abd-al-Kâdir manuscript, and is concerned chiefly with the history of the introduction of coffee into Egypt, Syria, Damascus, Aleppo, and Constantinople.

The following are two of the earliest Arabic poems in praise of coffee. They are about the period of the first coffee persecution in Mecca (1511), and are typical of the best thought of the day:

In Praise of Coffee

[Translation from the Arabic]

O Coffee! Thou dost dispel all cares, thou art the object of desire to the scholar.

This is the beverage of the friends of God; it gives health to those in its service who strive after wisdom.

Prepared from the simple shell of the berry, it has the odor of musk and the color of ink.

The intelligent man who empties these cups of foaming coffee, he alone knows truth.

May God deprive of this drink the foolish man who condemns it with incurable obstinacy.

Coffee is our gold. Wherever it is served, one enjoys the society of the noblest and most generous men.

O drink! As harmless as pure milk, which differs from it only in its blackness.

Coffee Companionship

[Translation from the Arabic]

Come and enjoy the company of coffee in the places of its habitation; for the Divine Goodness envelops those who partake of its feast.

There the elegance of the rugs, the sweetness of life, the society of the guests, all give a picture of the abode of the blest.

It is a wine which no sorrow could resist when the cup-bearer presents thee with the cup which contains it.

It is not long since Aden saw thy birth. If thou doubtest this, see the freshness of youth shining on the faces of thy children.

Grief is not found within its habitations. Trouble yields humbly to its power.

It is the beverage of the children of God, it is the source of health.

It is the stream in which we wash away our sorrows. It is the fire which consumes our griefs.

Whoever has once known the chafing-dish which prepares this beverage, will feel only aversion for wine and liquor from casks.

Delicious beverage, its color is the seal of its purity.

Reason pronounces favorably on the lawfulness of it.

Drink of it confidently, and give not ear to the speech of the foolish, who condemn it without reason.

During the period of the second religious persecution of coffee in the latter part of the sixteenth century, other Arabian poets sang the praises of coffee. The learned Fakr-Eddin-Aboubeckr ben Abid Iesi wrote a book entitled The Triumph of Coffee, and the poet-sheikh Sherif-Eddin-Omar-ben-Faredh sang of it in harmonious verse, wherein, discoursing of his mistress, he could find no more flattering comparison than coffee. He exclaims, “She has made me drink, in long draughts, the fever, or, rather, the coffee of love!”

To be continued…

image: amazondotcom

'It’s as much important to understand, As it is to be understood'

Sai Shri Ramamurthy | Thoughts on an Alumna

We her teachers call her an enthusiastic kid, a vibrant kid, a committed kid, and one of the most energetic kids in town!

I am extremely delighted to do a little post on this sweet kid of ours!

Sai Shri Ramamurthy, ladies and gentlemen!

Sai Shri did her BSc in Plant Biology & Bio Technology here with us at MCC, (2010 to 2013) and I happened to be their Professor for their English paper!

One fine morning, in the year 2013, during coffee break, she came to meet us, her teachers, in the Staff Room.

‘Anna’, she said, panting, ‘Anna, could you all, come and wish my dad and mom on their wedding anniversary today. They’d be overjoyed Anna!’

‘Okay, kiddo’, we told her, and wanted her to keep it a surprise till we descended on her sweet home. :-)

And as we had promised, we five of us, her teachers, with Dr. Ganesh to lead us, and with Sai Shri in tow, made a sweet beeline to their house, much to the joy, the happiness and the pleasant surprise of her parents.

We also got there, on the occasion, the best coffee in town! She’s a coffee lover, like her father, and like us all, and she’s written down a poem on coffee too!

Such is her love for her teachers, and her parents. One reason why, she always consults with us all, whenever she ventures into anything new, be it her studies or her work or her future!

Her anthology of poems titled, Relationships was released by Dr. Ranga Narayanan and the first copy was received by our Principal, Dr. Alexander Jesudasan, on 21 December 2012. Her proud parents had also graced the occasion with their presence. [It’s exactly close to seven years now, kid!]

Her amazing anthology contains 83 poems in all! And it starts off with a loving poem for her daddy! Added, a very unique trait about Sai Shri’s poems is that, she datelines each of her poems! And she has also structured her poems quite meticulously, in a thematic order!

This particular poem on her Dad is datelined, 3 January 2012.

Daddy’s girl that she always is, the poem starts on this very personal and fond vein!

DINNER WITH DADDY

Dad is having dinner with me,

We start with soan papdi

So sweet like my daddy!

Nice vegetable rice with

Raitha cool like my daddy!

Oh, see

How he shares!

Though nothing from my plate

Goes to his,

This is exactly how it is!

Tasty dinner on the table

Best time in my time table!!

'It is my experience that great mind and great heart go together. This Scientific Magnanimity will motivate the scientific community'

Gentlemen of Science | Hanya, Atwood & Kalam

Hanya Yanagihara’s debut novel titled, The People in the Trees, which I chanced upon at Starmark, Chennai, has been sleeping for long on my bookstacks, unattended! Now, when I was working on Italo Calvino’s Baron in the Trees, in a trice I was quite reminded of Hanya’s The People in the Trees, written almost 56 years after Calvino’s Cosimo came to have a permanent literary existence and a literary abode in our little hearts!

Well, for the 1970’s born mighty ones out there, Hanya herself is a 70’s kid! Ketto! ;-)

Hanya Yanagihara, ‘a writer to marvel at’, is a popular travel writer, novelist and editor! This, her People in the Trees is then, her debut novel.

The novel contains for the most part the fictional memoirs of Dr. Norton Perina, in such a beautiful narrative style.

Norton Perina, tells us through this, his fictional memoir that his great fascination and curiosity for science was aroused by his paternal aunt, Ms Sybil, a doctor herself!

While Norton Perina is in medical school, he gets an offer to be the medical doctor on board an anthropological team that was to go on an expedition to an island by name, U’ivu. This anthropological team is led by a person called Paul Tallent. Although the expedition is considered a dangerous mission, Dr. Norton Perina accepts the offer to be part of the team.

Under the leadership of Tallet, Norton Perina reaches the great island of Ivu’ivu. [Oh please, for heaven’s sake, forget Ghosh and his Gun Island, for now! will you? ;-)] From there they enter a still smaller island by name Ivu’ivu. [Hanya’s Hawaii connect could be gauged here, ain’t it? Well, she grew up in Hawaii!] Once they are led inside the deep recesses of the island, into the jungle, with the help of three hunters who double up as guides, Tallent tells Norton about the famous legend of the U’ivu people. 

The legend goes that, there was a lost tribe amongst them who had been gifted with eternal life along with deep stupidity on them. Quite soon they spot a woman, who is totally naked and not able to perform her functions as a regular human being. They call her ‘Eve’ and soon discover a horde of a similar tribes folk whom they call, ‘Dreamers’. One curious case about them all is that, all of them, tribesfolk sported the mark of a turtle on them all, which was an indicator that they had turned 60, although all of them were in reality, more than 100 years of age!

They notice then, the chief of the village celebrating a ritual. And in this particular ritual, he is seen celebrating his 60^th birthday, during which time, he eats up a turtle. Norton Perina’s intuition starts working overtime by now. He quickly starts connecting on the dots, adds up two and two, and surmises a curious connect of sorts between the eating up of the turtle and the ‘eternal life’ of the tribes folk!

Well, that, then, happened to be his ‘Eureka’ moment of sorts, and meant to be a teaser to the story! Nothing more! 

Coming back to what’s at stake on this post for us all! Norton Perina’s take on his lab routine has some points worth a ponder for this, our post!

That takes us to the part in the storyline, where Norton Perina describes his tryst with the lab in which he works, and his drudge of a routine!

Well, on this part in especial, one particularly weirdy sentence attracted my attention! And hence this post! ;-) I began focusing on it over and over, highlighted it with my yellow highlighter, and pored over its import again and again and again!

And that’s the part, reproduced below, where he says that, ‘In those days science considered itself the realm of gentlemen’.

In a nutshell, Dr. Norton Perina observes here that, people of science in those good ol’ days were people of genius! And being a man of genius back then did not mean they should lack social skills, and be unfriendly with the lay! Men of genius back then, had amazing skills and were very cordial and amiable with the lay, he observes! Then he contrasts this quality of a ‘gentleman’ with the present day ‘gentlemen’ of science, who according to him, present a social ineptitude, and a certain refusal to acquire the most basic social skills, along with an inability to dress properly or to feed oneself! The ‘gentlemen’ of science of today’s ‘strongly’ feel that, ‘lacking’ social skills, and dressing up like a ‘nerd’, and being callous, slatternly and slovenly in their habits, is the chief ‘evidence’ of one’s intellectual purity and ‘commitment’ to the life of the mind!

I quote Norton Perina –

But what does it mean to be successful or talented in a lab? For your work there is not truly your own; you are chosen because of your mind and then asked, to varying degrees, to cease thinking for yourself and begin doing so for another. For some people this is easier than for others; they are the ones who remain. And so although you gain fraternity, you forsake your independence.

They are all of them patient, though; I, however, knew by the end of my first term with Smythe’s lab that I could never be that patient, nor that pliable.

Part of this certainty was attributable to the discomfort I felt with the culture of the lab itself. there was at work a kind of conservatism, a fixation on neatness, that I found difficult and dispiriting. In those days science considered itself the realm of gentlemen. This was the era, after all, of Linus Pauling and J. Robert Oppenheimer, both of them exceptional, of course, but not exempt from having to dress a certain way, or from being able to perform at cocktail parties, or from pursuing romance. Genius was no excuse for social ineptitude, the way it is today, when a certain refusal to acquire the most basic social skills or an inability to dress properly or feed oneself is generously perceived as evidence of one’s intellectual purity and commitment to the life of the mind.

Ain’t there a little connect here between the ‘Lucky Jim’ saga [in this past post,] and the ‘highbrow’ gentlemen of the University presented therein, in which a lower-middle class young man – Jim Dixon by name, becomes a professor in medieval history at the University and he finds himself surrounded by despicable ‘high brow’ colleagues from the higher echelons of society, who have such high airs on them, and whom he loathes and despises very much.

Well, Jim was averse to their ilk because of their pretensions and snobbishness and their ‘high brow’ attitude towards other faculty and students! Those snobbish pretensions only tended to show them in bad light, says the angry young man, Jim aka Jim Dixon! Hence Jim decides to be antiestablishment - loathing to the core - the precepts of ‘gentlemanliness’ practised at his place of work!

Something akin to the gentlemen of the University, we find here, practiced amongst the ‘science’ folk too! Reminds of me of my all-time favvy writer Atwood, and her take on the ‘mad-scientist’ archetype, which we’d discussed back here, in our past post. Has got some real interesting connects with this post, as well!

One reason why, Hanya rips through their snobbishness and pretensions headlong!

Now, me thought of ending this post, on a grand note, to the malady that’s been plaguing the scientific community, too! The malady and the peril of ‘snobbishness’ and ‘pretensions’ that make the scientist assume that they are UFOs with some weird horns on them, not quite fit to associate with pavapetta mortals in general and the lay in particular!

Dr. Abdul Kalam, when he was President of our Nation, visited our grand, old Madras Christian College, way back in the year 2007.

I personally feel that, his talk on ‘Scientific Magnanimity’ at MCC, on 26 February 2007, [which I had reproduced in full on our blog, back then, on this past post,] would be a fitting and dignified retort to these science ‘gentlemen’ types whom Hanya here refers to with disdain and scorn!

Well, Dr. APJ stole our hearts on that eventful day, when he spoke from three great scientist- gentlemen from India, who have set us a paradigm worth emulating!

Over to APJ Sir, from his speech to us all, at MCC –

Since I am in the midst students, I thought of sharing with you an incident about Sir CV Raman – a Nobel Laureate in Physics for discovering Raman Effect. Raman gives the view that the color of sky is blue due to molecular diffraction which determines the observed luminosity and in great measures also its color. This led to the birth of the Raman Effect.

Raman was in the first batch of Bharat Ratna Award winners. The award ceremony was to take place in the last week of January, soon after the Republic Day celebrations of 1954. The then President Dr. Rajendra Prasad wrote to Raman inviting him to be the personal guest in the Rashtrapati Bhavan, when Raman came to Delhi for the award ceremony. Sir CV Raman wrote a polite letter, regretting his inability to go.

'Whether he is on earth or on the treetops, he behaves with decency!'

Calvino’s Cosimo | Qualities of a Gentleman!

Italo Calvino’s Cosimo is an ethereal being and a literary being, both literally and figuratively!

Cosimo has already found space in our past post here, over a year ago!

Well, for newbies then, Cosimo is a young nobleman of high rank, who decides one fine day to live high up among the trees and resolves to remain there for the rest of his life!

Quite interesting ain’t it, when a young nobleman of very high rank, suddenly, one fine day, climbs up and up, higher and higher into the trees as an act of rebellion and never ever decides to come back down to the earth?

From here, settled amongst the branches of the trees, he does a soulful connect with the great minds of the Enlightenment with ardent vigour and enthusiasm, and towards the end of his life, steps onto a better, wiser and higher plane.

Interestingly, Calvino, oops Cosimo ;-) comes up with wonderfully unique and ingenious answers to the pressing problems of humankind such as food, hygiene, clothing, friendship, etc through this brilliant text.

Although Calvino’s Cosimo is now a man so confined to the branches of the wildest of trees, he is still able to get the most revolutionary of thoughts and ideas, thanks to the books!

In fact, Calvino portrays Cosimo’s whole life as being guided passionately by three things: books and books and books!

Some of the descriptions found at the beginning of the book are so throbbing with the solace and the luxuries of Nature: on the nature of each tree, the animals, the sounds and scents.

The young baron’s resolve to lead an arboreal existence, makes him one of the most believable characters in the entire gamut of world literature. The alternate reality that enthralls the reader skyhigh with such intense wisdom, connecting so subtly with memory, history and nature, is unique and so one of its kind!

Earlier on, we had discussed the book over the ‘alternate reality’ platform. Hence, for this post we would be looking at the gentlemanly traits that the baron believes in, after his rejuvenating stay high above in the trees!

One fine day, when Cosimo was challenging ‘men on the ground’ to compete with him on his aiming skills, partly to try out his own capacities and discover just what he could manage to do up there on the treetops, he saw his father approaching him on horseback!

Now the baron’s life amongst the trees had a refreshing, therapeutic effect on him to such an extent that, he preferred the life among the trees, with ‘savages’ at the expense of his stately baronly life in his father’s fiefdom.

The cultural milieu of the karisal region is brought out with such ‘reality of representment!’

And Then | Dr. Marx [Poomani’s Piragu]

Dr. T. Marx has established himself as an impactful translator, by bringing out the aura and the cultural baggage of the original Tamil novel, with such a nuanced ‘reality of representment’ in his translation of Poomani’s Piragu into English. On this count, The Hindu ‘Bookworm’ review of 06 December 2019, has a raving caption for this translation which says, ‘True to the Land and its tongue: In And Then, Prof. Marx succeeds in capturing the Karisal flavor, which Poomani did in Piragu’.

Personally, me had the blessed opportunity of going through the manuscript to the book’s English version, way back in July 2018. One cursory glance through the manuscript, and one cannot but be quite astounded at Dr. Marx’s way with words, and the finesse with which he has captured the nuances of the original in all its grandeur! Something that comes to him so naturally, as a fish takes to water!

 My little take on the novel for y’all –

The novelist Poomani has woven a brilliant tale that depicts the pathetic and impoverished lives of the Chakkilyar community, under the influence of an oppressive caste structure and social stratification that has been widely prevalent in society.

The abrupt and conversational opening sets the tone and the tenor to the novel. The hierarchical power structures that are rampant in the village are subtly foregrounded in the conversation between Pothi Naicker and Karuppan! Karuppan, the cattle tender, addresses Naicker as ‘sami’ or ‘Lord’, which is a revered form of addressing a person of a upper caste! Naicker’s insolent spirit and Karuppan’s subdued temperament present a profound study in contrast!

As a representative of the powerful bourgeoisie class that controls wealth and power, Pothi Naicker is shown sleeping or taking rest, and his eyes turn red in anger when one of his sleeping bouts gets disturbed. On the other hand, Karuppan, who tends to his landlord’s buffaloes, has to always be on the alert!

From the hierarchical world of his landlord, Karuppan is shown entering an integrative world of equality, when he meets up with his uncle, Alagiri, a cobbler by profession. When Karuppan narrates the ignomious spat between him and his landlord, Alagiri asks him to take all that abuse and throw it away, as there was no use, whatsoever in getting upset!

Alagiri then ruminates on how he migrated to Manaloothu, after bidding farewell to his people in Duraisamipuram. Although his sickly wife protested his move to migrate to this haughty and bigger place, Alagiri was forced to come to Manaloothu, as the big men of the village had asked him to come there, and he could not refuse them, as they were his landlords.

The writer also highlights some social practices that were in vogue like the kaani system, whereby each man in chakkili cheri was assigned to a landlord on whose land the chakkili worked for a share in the produce. This provided assured supply of labour for the landlords in the village as well as means of sustenance for each chakkili household.

Soon, he gets accustomed to the new place, and he is also allotted a kaani quite soon. He also takes care not to antagonize the landlords, and goes about doing his kaani service in a very obliging and obsequious way.

But unfortunately, however much he earns, it does not prove enough for him. It was like feeding an elephant, since the expenditure on his wife’s treatment had almost wiped out his entire income. Although they tried every treatment and remedy possible, like oils, herbs, salves, etc., there seemed to be no remedy in sight! And soon Kali, his wife breathes her last.

Alagiri is so inconsolable and too stunned for words at the death of his wife. Now, he also has the burden of looking after his baby, and hence he decides against travelling out of the village. He confines himself to his child and the neem tree.

'The poor were very much needed because they constituted a crucial counterpoint for the ideal gentleman!'

The Role of Painters | In Promoting the ‘Ideal Gentleman!’

As we had discussed in our past post, Dalrymple’s forte lies in his ‘historical sweep’ that goes hand in hand with his foray into the realm of visual arts. And through this sojourn into the visual, it becomes quite easy and convenient from then on, for the likes of Dalrymple, to authenticate and to augment their own insightful points of view!

This trend of using the visual arts as promo and ammo for their arguments has been of immense help especially to scholars who sought to specialize in postcolonial scholarship per se!

Simon Gikandi, Professor of English with Princeton University, is one such Dalrymple of sorts, who wades deep into the visual arts, to augment and to articulate his own incisive insights and thoughts on slavery.

In his phenomenal text titled, Slavery and the Culture of Taste, Gikandi, using a range of vast past archives, which include portraits and period paintings, diaries and personal narratives, seeks to bring out the reality out there between slavery and the cultures of taste. His argument is that, slavery and cultures of taste are not polar opposites at all. In fact, it is the ugliness of slavery which in actuality, defined and designed theories of taste, notions of beauty, gentlemanliness, and practices of high culture, he avers!

Like Dalrymple then, he opines that colonial wealth reinvented the category of the gentleman!  And here I quote –

As most of the major novels of the eighteenth century illustrate vividly, money, rather than rank, had become the major mediator of social relationships, the authorized agent of regulating behavior. Rather than serving as the immutable marker of class boundaries, taste had become an agent for prying the old class system; the upper ranks now seemed open to people with money and education; the availability of imports, such as East Indian textiles, provided greater choices of dress and furnishings; and, of course, colonial wealth reinvented the category of the gentleman.

Pointing to the Earl of Shaftesbury’s discourse on the aesthetic, Professor Gikandi observes that, the Earl’s discourse promoted the cult of the gentleman as the custodian of taste and in the process seemed to exclude the lower classes from the elevated culture of sensibility, and with a rider at that, that seemed to double up as a double bind!

And well, er… um… that’s exactly how the gentlemanly class got for themselves their elevated status and nobility! Indeed, for the Earl of Shaftesbury then, although the poor were despised and relegated to the margins, they were very much needed in his society, in his scheme of things, because, they constituted a crucial counterpoint for the ideal gentleman. A gentleman, he contended, was a person who held values at odds with ‘the vulgar habits of the people as well as the luxurious living identified with the court’.

In a similar way, representation of the marginalised and the poor in English landscape paintings in the eighteenth century also proved a shocker to Simon Gikandi. There were vested reasons on why the rural poor were not totally excluded from the domain of art! 

Indeed, as John Barrell has noted in The Dark Side of the Landscape, they became essential to the decor ‘of the drawing rooms of the polite’, says Simon Gikandi.

‘How-o-how?’, you seem to ask! 

Well, here, Professor Gikandi gives you and me an answer that proves a real shocker of sorts! Professor says that, ‘the very social classes that were considered to be outside the domain of taste functioned as counterpoints to the ideals of polite behavior or even as figures of desire; that which was outside the manifest framework of the dominant cultural signifiers was essential to their meaning’.

Professor Gikandi then proceeds to give an illustration of one such painting, through the works of Justus Engelhardt Kühn, a German migrant painter who worked in Maryland. This painter Kühn, specialized in paintings intended to enhance the status of ‘affluent colonialists in the developing landed aristocracy’. 

Young Henry Darnall, a wealthy Maryland planter seems to have been idealized to a great extent as a colonial powermaster in one such Kuhn painting. 

Gikandi asserts that, Darnall’s status as a young gentleman was enhanced not only by his elegant and extravagant royal robes and exotic props, including the bird and the bow, but also by the figure of a black boy, considered to be ‘the earliest known depiction of an African-American subject in American painting’.

Thus, the artist’s desire to inscribe his rank, wealth, power and social standing to his powermaster, within the colonial sphere, was fulfilled with gusto, by roping in one pavapetta black boy into the margins on the canvas, thus giving us all an indicator on how colonial-American notions of being and selfhood were established and authenticated!

The black boy then becomes the mark of the American difference, says Professor Gikandi.

To be continued…

image: Justus Engelhardt Kuhn, Henry Darnall III. Circa 1710. Oil on canvas. Maryland Historical Society.

Your way! Your destiny!!

Student Corner | Making the Most of Your Academic Life 

Ten Proactive Tips from your Teacher 

Well, the other day, a student of mine, from one of my PG Classes asked me, ‘Sir, how do you find time to read this much? And how do you find time to write this much?’

This post, me thought, would be part an answer and part an exhortation to my vibrant students to make the most of your time, - our vibrant students - whom we your teachers always envision as wonderful future pillars of our society!

But before my answer, let me give you my all-time inspirational story that made a huge difference to my perspectives, attitude and commitment towards life! 

Here goes the little story for y’all -

We all know this inspirational story of a chicken farmer who spotted an eagle’s egg, and brought it to his farm. He then proceeded to put it along with his chickens to be hatched. And very soon the egg hatched, and out came a beautiful little eaglet!

Now, the young eagle began to grow up with all the other chicken folk around him! He imitated whatever they did, and ate whatever they ate, because he had been thinking all along that he was one among them, just like them – a chicken!

Since the chickens could fly only for a very short distance, the eagle too learnt flying the way the chickens did! He thought that this was all he was supposed to do, and so he faithfully imitated it!

When you spot the eagle out there! ;-) Up above!
And that's exactly where they are meant to be! 

The gentle farmer then got an idea!

He took the little eagle with him, and went over to the beautiful mountain-side, at a vantage place from where the little eagle could see for himself, huge gigantic eagles of his own folk and ilk, flying gracefully and majestically soaring high above in the skies, sure and steady, enjoying their flight, soaring higher and higher, and diving down and down in their seasoned ways, like jets, to catch their prey.