29 October 2019

A few good men

Dad and I kept strolling thru the streets. We hit the common spots he and his friends used to sit down at when he could still walk around by himself. Except that no one was there in those street corners. Finally, after about 30 minutes of walking we found a park and some of his old friends there. He got a run down of the old group. Apparently, many of his friends are no more and these three that still have locomotory skills have moved to this spot which is more convenient for them. You can see my dad holding court from his wheel chair.

Category: Family in India, Vacations | LEAVE A COMMENT
26 October 2019

Saturday morning puzzle

You might have heard various variations of this problem before.

You have 2 ostrich eggs in your hand (fairly hard shells) and you are in front of a 50 story building. The basic challenge is to figure out which is the floor from and above which the eggs will break on impact to the ground when you drop them from a window of that floor. Of course, this can be done with only one egg. You start with first floor – if it does not break, go to second floor. And keep doing this till you find the floor where it does break. The minimum number of tries you will need to guarantee finding out that floor is 50. (Basically, in the worst case, you have to keep trying all the way to the top)

But you have 2 eggs. Now, the challenge is to find out the minimum number of tries with which you can guarantee finding out that threshold floor at or above which an egg will break (one try means one dropping of an egg). Needless to say, once an egg breaks, you cannot use it again.

Category: Puzzles | 14 Comments on Saturday morning puzzle
19 October 2019

A puzzle for the weekend

In a remote part of an African jungle once lived a bunch of lions. No other animal ever came there. Except one day, somehow a deer showed up. Of course, the lions immediately wanted to eat it. Now, these lions were very smart and very courteous. Some might even say they took special “pride” in it 🙂

Puns aside, here are the rules of the puzzle:
(*) the lions have an understanding that only one lion – whoever is first to touch – can kill and eat a deer. (when one attacks, nobody else does; that is where the courteous bit comes in)
(*) they also know that this deer has a property that whichever lion attacks and eats it, itself becomes a deer the next day (which can be attacked and killed by other lions then)
(*) Every lion is desperate to eat a deer. They are okay to live the rest of their life as a deer itself – but will not do so if they know they might get killed the next day by the lions.

Question: Will the deer survive?

Category: Puzzles | 25 Comments on A puzzle for the weekend
19 October 2019

Meeting Anita

Anita and I were in the same grade / batch all throughout my school years in Durgapur but I had a chance to meet Anita only once. We were in different schools but I did have a lot of friends from her school. And we had very close common friends. Even her brother – Shishir – was my classmate. We knew of each other but never really crossed paths much. Last evening I realized that when she was in her college – I used to go visit a few common friends of ours in the college literally on the other side of the road – still never crossed paths.

The only one time that we had ever met was when she was introduced to me by a common friend when I had gone to the local high school in Durgapur (it had a mighty name – Bidhan Chandra Institution and Bidhan Chandra Institution for Boys – never understood the repetition) for Saraswati Puja.

Somewhere much later – may be 30 years later – I had located her in Boston and found out her birthdate. So, that at least established a way to keep the connection going – even if thru a ten minute talk every year. A couple of weeks back, I had called her again to wish her happy birthday and we agreed that we should meet some time. Little did I know that within two weeks I would get a text from her that she was going to be in Chicago for some work. On Thursday, after work, both of us were able to free up some time to meet.

I am glad I met her but not before going thru some wariness. I have to explain that she is a very accomplished person in the medical profession. And certainly I have never been accused of having accomplished anything that has amounted to much. Then, she was staying at the Ritz which is an imposing property downtown Chicago. I am the one who you will usually find hanging around in Courtyard Marriott lobbies with one tip of the shirt hanging out and an iPad at hand (you never know when I am going to write another blog). Then she came down in an exquisite dress and I was … well, let’s move on, shall we?

My plan was to meet for an hour and make the trek back again. Landed up talking for three hours. And regretted that I did not have more time. I was absolutely fascinated by her take on so many things in life. What impressed me most was her ability to see any situation from the other side and make a case for it. Not too many people can hold two opposing thoughts in their head at the same time – and be totally comfortable about it. Anita, struck me as a person who has that unique capability.

Of course, given her level of intellectual capability, I was able to engage her on her take on the larger meaning and purposes of life and what our learnings have been looking back. For me personally, looking back, I wish I had sat down with Anita a few more times earlier in my life. It would have cut short a lot of my learning cycles.

Till next time…

Category: Intersection Points | LEAVE A COMMENT
18 October 2019

From the quill of Purnam Allahabadi

(sung by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan)

“Agar’che kisi baat par woh khafa hain

To achha yehi hai tum apni si kar lo

Woh maaney ya na manaey yeh marzi hai unki

Magar un ko purnam manaa kar to dekho”

Roughly translated (improvements welcome)

She seems to be upset about something
Perhaps it is best to just move on
It is up to her whether to accept me or not
But please try to convince her with all your passion

There is a clever play on the word “purnam” in the end. The last line can mean – try with your “full” force to convince OR try to convince her about “Purnam” – which was the name of the poet. In the old days in that part of the subcontinent, poets often embedded their names in their poems – in a form of copyright protection!

Category: Music/Poetry | LEAVE A COMMENT