For the Love of Bike(s)!

Have you seen a white elephant?  No...? Well, if you want to, just trot down to my place, because I have a couple of them right here in my garage.

The men of the house look after them, wash them reverently, and occasionally take them out for ceremonial outings. They are expensive to maintain – very expensive. And they eat a lot. But its fun to ride on them. Especially if one happens to live next to the Palm Beach Road - Navi Mumbai's answer to Julio Avenue. Whizzing on Palm Beach Road late in the evening, cool wind hitting your face and blowing your hair back - 'This is life', you feel!

Yes, I am talking about bikes... bikes that belong to the ‘boyz’ in my house – the spouse and the son. Try as I might, I don't think I'll ever understand what it is about men and motorcycles... that thing that reduces men to slobbering jelly-like beings who think with their adrenal glands when in the presence of a Harley-Davidson (or even lesser specimens).

And they catch it rather early on in life. My son caught it when he was just 4 years old. At that time, if someone said, “I am going to take away your Dad’s car” - he would just give a dismissive shrug, and say, ‘Theek hai’ in the most nonchalant tone. But if someone dared to say, “I am going to take away your Dad’s bike” - all hell would break loose. One could almost see strobe lights flashing in his nose, eyes and ears like a robot suddenly gone bonkers, and he would launch himself upon the culprit with a yell meant to curdle the blood and pickle the flesh...

But back to the story of our white ellies. One fine day last year, our son sat Sudarshan and me down, and informed us in a low, melancholy voice that life was not really worth living – unless, of course, he had a new bike. That elicited an immediate response from both of us – only, Sud finished saying “Of course!!” much sooner than I could complete uttering “What absolute rot! NO way!!”

The ‘Of course’ won, of course. And the first white elephant came home less than a month later. It was a rather snazzy Yamaha, and we all got invited for free rides, and enjoyed them to the hilt. For exactly two months, that is...

Then, passion took a backseat to convenience. “Tchah, bikes are not really the thing for Mumbai roads... what with the rains and potholes and all!” declared the teenager, like an enlightened Buddha. And since then, white elly#1 has cooled its heels (or whatever it is that unused bikes cool) in our garage, except for its occasional visits to the service station.

But the real shock was last week, when suddenly I found the elephants were reproducing! One fine day, I found 2 bikes in the garage instead of one! I rubbed my eyes and tried to recall what I'd drunk the previous night, but the double vision would not go away. It WAS another bike. And this time it was the older boy who had gone and done it. Sudarshan had indulged himself with a 500 CC Enfield –  covert operation 'Desert Storm' was well on its way!

A bit about our history with bikes here...

The very first bike Sud got was a Jawa. A friend just told him to take it off him, for free... and Sudarshan soon realised why. It would run rather well, whenever it could start - which was about once in 23 blue moons... And it had this annoying habit of stopping at the most inconvenient of places. Imagine, being on the pillion of a bike that stops right in the middle of the busy Raja Garden crossing – with scores of angry Punj commuters spouting gaalis and doing a war dance around you. And once, we almost caused riot police to be called in, when the Jawa stopped (and just wouldn't start again) in an Old Delhi by-lane where it was difficult to find even an inch of road space that was not occupied by a foot, butt, or wheel...

But still, both of us loved the inscrutable old bike - its eccentricity kind of matched our own... and reminiscing about our days of courtship is never quite complete without a few fond memories of our rides on the Jawa!

That was 27 years ago. After that there has been a series of them – begged, borrowed and bought. But the Jawa was special.  As was the Honda – the first bike we actually bought, and the one on which I learnt to ride. (That is a story too – but I’ll save that for another day.)

In recent years, I had thought the yen Sud had for bikes had waned over time... till the Yamaha and the Desert Storm came home in quick succession. Sighhhh... I must say (even at the cost of sounding sexist) - if we girls want our peace with our shopping expeditions, I guess we've got to allow the boys their dalliances with their Enfield or Harley-Davidson!

So now, here I am... stuck with the two gargoyles in the garage. And with every passing day, jokes like - “How do you fit four white elephants in the garage?” “Two on top of the car and two below...” seem less of a joke and more like a scary future possibility...

Our Leh-Days

Leh jayenge!

It looked like it was going to happen after all - the four of us taking off for a family holiday to Ladakh!

This might seem like a simple enough task to some families - but for us, it was not. Let me explain. Honestly, in the past 5 years or so, it might have been easier to get Shahrukh, Salman and Amir in the same room rather than the 4 of us!! Our schedules were definitely mismatched - maybe even our preferences. Sudarshan only took time off from his work and tours to visit home once in a while. Amartya's attitude towards home was that  'it's a decent place for getting a bed, a clean loo, and breakfast - FREE!'. And as for me, people had started commenting that my laptop and I would make a great Fevicol ad.

So, you see, it was no mean feat to get our act together and actually take off for this holiday as a team.. 

'Don't be a Gama in the Land of Lama'

View of Leh

Landing at Leh airport, we were met by our college-time-ka-yaar Amit, now Colonel Amit Srivastava - and promptly given (in true military style) a talking to about the do's and don'ts of being in a high altitude cold desert. This was summarised best in the one-liner posted on the walls of the guest house at the army camp : "Don't be a Gama in the Land of Lama". Simply put - I think this translates into 'Leave your ego behind and don't try to prove your physical prowess when you come to Ladakh.' :)


We soon realised that when they say Ladakh is a place of 'breathtaking beauty', it is quite literally so!! The awe-inspiring visuals hit you even as you land at Leh, but so does the lack of oxygen. We wheezed and panted at the smallest hint of physical activity..

First day at Leh: Much puffing, panting and TT

So, for the next 1.5 days we cooled our heels (or should I say warmed them?) in our cosy beds with the TV, and Asterix & Obelix for company. When tired of resting, we would all troop off to the sports room - where 2 of the adults would take turns to play TT, while the third tried to restrain Ananya from decimating the pool table with the cue...

On the third day, just when we were starting to feel  rather settled in our warm rooms, we had to leave for a day-trip to Pangong Lake - which many now refer to as the '3 Idiots Lake'. On the way, we had to cross Chang-La pass, the third highest motorable road in the world, at a height of 17586 ft. While driving up to the pass, we came across our first snow on the hillside - some old, sad looking, mud splattered snow. Since the kids had never seen snow before, we asked the driver if we could get down and touch it, because we might not find any later. He gave us a look that was 75% amusement and 25% disdain, and said, "Aage snow hi snow hai, aur kuch nahi dikhega." 

And so there was! Soon we were amidst the real thing - deep, pristine white snow all around! It was absolutely fantafabulous! But as luck would have it, we got stuck in a bad traffic jam near the pass. Now, the menfolk - namely Sudarshan, Amartya and an army jawan who had accompanied us, had not paid heed to the warning of the first day. So, trying to be Gamas in the land of Lama, they had come without adequate warm clothing. And at 17586 ft that is not a joke! Well, they had to pay the price for their indiscretions... To cut a long story short - by the end of the trip, the only ones who had not revealed (in grisly detail) the contents of their breakfast, mid-morning snack and lunch, were Ananya and I... :)

Pangong Tso - Serenity unlimited...

But the one hour we spent at the Pangong lake made it all worth the while. As I keep saying, you can't get much closer to heaven on earth than this place...

Over the next 4-5 days, we saw the magnificent Indus (Sindhu) river winding its way through the mountains; sighted marmots, kiangs, and yaks;  travelled over the world's highest motorable road at Khardung-la to cross over into the mesmerizing Nubra valley; saw the sand dunes at Hundar and got a taste of the Silk Road experience on the two-humped bactrian camels ...

(Here, Amartya and Ananya remind me that I have forgotten to mention the most remarkable thing we experienced during the trip - the butter chicken served at the army guest house at Pratap Pur, where we spent the night at Nubra... :) )

We even experienced a fresh snowfall (near Khardungla) and a sandstorm (at Nubra) - within a span of 24 hours...!!!

Seriously, how much more can you live life in one week? :)

'Test your Nerves on My Curves'

:D

Wondering what that is? Well it's only one of the many quirky road signs you see while driving in and around Ladakh. While some of them make you grin ('Lower Your Gear, Curve is Near'), others make you wonder ('Darling I like you, but not so fast')... and still others are pretty bizarre ('If You Are Married, Divorce Speed'). What about bachelors, divorcees, widowers et al, you ask!

Well, if nothing else, at least some people slow down near the signs just to read them for their entertainment value!

Jule, Ladakh!

A word about the Ladakhi people. Initially, we felt quite shocked hearing the taxi fares etc. in Leh - and were just starting to feel that rank commercialization is taking over the place. But once we got talking to the taxi drivers etc, we understood exactly how tough life is for the locals - for most of them, it's severe weather and no income in the six months of winter. But still, they are always courteous and cheerful. The cheery 'Ji ji ji' with which they pepper all their talk stays in your mind and makes you smile long after you have parted...


Mesmerizing visuals. A surprise waiting almost at every turn of the road as the visuals change dramatically. Exotic animals. Amazing serenity. Charming people. Ladakh is a magnificent place indeed, but one of the main reasons for this trip being really special for us was the special people there - our old friends. There was Amit and his family, with whom we shared a few quiet evenings over cocktails or kawa chai in the strategically located gazebo at the army camp - surrounded by the mountains and howling evening winds.


And then there was Colonel Sonam Wangchuk and his lovely extended family - Sudarshan's friends and neighbours from his childhood days in Delhi. What a great yakking session we all had... transported back to those old days in R. K. Puram - those days when we would play outdoors till late in the evening, sleep in charpais out in the open, bunk school to go and catch the latest Amitabh Bachchan flick, and so so much more! All this over steaming bowls of thukpa and some enchanting live music provided by the two boys, Amartya and Riggyal (Col Sonam's son)...


(Incidentally, Colonel Wangchuk is a Kargil war hero, and a Mahavir Chakra awardee. There is even a scene in the film 'Lakshya' that is based on his feat at Kargil - but we really couldn't remember when we last met such a down-to-earth, and totally chilled out person! We felt so proud knowing him!)


We left Ladakh wishing to return someday, with much time on hand. And yes, we felt much closer as a family than we had felt for a long time. So, "Jule, Ladakh!" it is! Jule - that priceless word in the local lingo which means everything from 'hello', to 'thank you'...


Jule, indeed.

Leh Gate

The kids fooling around on the banks of Indus

The silk route experience on Bactrian camels at Nubra valley

Falling snowflakes - at South Pullu
 on way to Khardungla pass

No escape from traffic jams - even at 17000 ft
(near Khardungla pass, the world's highest motorable road)

Of Soaps and Supervamps

My mom is visiting for a couple of months – and there are two main side effects of this. The first is that I find myself on the wrong side of the ‘nagging’ process – I get so relentlessly nagged by her that I forget to nag my own kids. The other, more worrisome side effect is that along with her, I start watching all kinds of Bong soaps on TV.

This time too, it is the same story and I have been watching back-to-back soaps on Z-Bangla. And I made one discovery. Whether it be Hindi or regional language soaps, they have one thing in common – behind every successful soap there is a woman (or women). And no, it is not the goody-two-shoes super heroines of these soaps who guarantee their run week after week. It is the outlandishly dressed vamps with their constant plotting and machinations.

This is not a recent phenomenon, though, since the time of fairy tales, this has been true. Except for a rare Big Bad Wolf or Ogre, the chief villain of all renowned fairy tales is one (or more) of the female characters. Think Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, Snow-white or Cinderella – every story is set in motion  through the intrigues spun by some evil female – witches and step-mothers being the perennial favourites.

And the trend continues till today, at least on Indian TV, if not on our films. Albeit, the witches and step-mothers have been replaced by sundry mothers-in-law, daughters-in-law, aunts, and sisters-in-law, but the stories still revolve around the machinations of these conniving women!

Another interesting pattern I noticed, is that the physical appearance of these women scream ‘VAMP’ the moment they appear on screen. They have the 'Vamp-stamp' on them, so to speak! The more garish the make-up, the skimpier the blouse, the shorter the hair, the more outlandish and intricate the bindi and jewellery - the nastier is the vamp! I observe that my 11-year old daughter has made quite a pastime out of identifying vamps in Bong and Hindi serials. She will walk into the room in the middle of a serial, and announce “Yeh wali aunty gandi hai!”, seemingly taking a lot of pride in being able to identify the nasty lady at one glance…

Sigh! if only we could tell the intent of a person this easily from their appearance in real life... how easy life would be!

Identifying nasty women in Indian soaps - child's play!

If daily soaps are to be believed, about 50% of all women spend most of their time scheming and plotting the downfall of the other 50% - the ‘good' women! And what is worse, most of the time they don’t even do their dirty work themselves, they work through unsuspecting men whose minds they poison incessantly!

But I have a confession to make. Despite knowing all this, I find myself putting all rational thought on the backburner and getting (almost) addicted to these soaps. My mom is off TV for some days now due to an eye surgery, and I find myself being sorely tempted to watch the soaps she follows, to find out the latest shenanigans of these supervamps!

I hope Ekta Kapoor will next turn to making serials full of male villains who take over the mantle of plotting and scheming from their female counterparts. So here’s looking forward to the making of ‘Kyunki Sasur bhi kabhi Kunwara tha’…

Aunts aren't Gentlemen

For quite a few weeks now I have been itching to get back at a particular nephew of mine. And not without ample reason! He not only makes some preposterous statements on his blog, but also makes absolutely no attempt to make nephewly (yes, I just invented that word) overtures to me when I am in Delhi – steadfastly refusing to come and see me.

A small clarification here. In general aunts are of two types – and here I go by P G Wodehouse’s classification. The first category are the likes of Wodehouse’s Aunt Dahlia - the generally affable and indulgent kind, who pull the cheeks of nephews and nieces and slip a few bucks into their grubby hands when their parents are not looking. The other, more lethal kind, are the broken-bottle-chewing nephew-crushers of Wodehouse’s Aunt Agatha variety.  I like to think I belong to the Aunt Dahlia category, but when thwarted or annoyed, I can quickly turn into an Aunt Agatha at her nephew-crushing best.

In particular, I want to respond to one particular blog post of this nephew, where he waxes eloquent about the pleasures and virtues of being single… and how he is hounded by various near and  dear ones bent upon getting him married. Also, how in certain gatherings singles are looked upon with suspicion.

Well, to be honest, I give him this… he is right about the hounding relatives and the suspicious looks, but it’s quite justified. I might sound a little biased here – but for most single men, a large part of their free time is spent in drunken debauchery.  Just take a look at the pics posted on my nephew’s blog (http://deboozedabble.blogspot.com/2011/08/singularly-me_09.html) if you need proof. ‘Families’ generally don’t mix well with boisterous, single, drunk men. Haven’t you noticed, how some restaurants have clearly demarcated areas for ‘families’, so as to separate them from single men making a spectacle of themselves in an inebriated state!

And there is one thing I have noticed – men who keep claiming they want to remain single, have the tendency to suddenly go and jump into the lap of matrimony sometime between the ages of 40 and 55. The lucky(?) female usually being some bimbette they met at a party 2 weeks ago. Along with their discretion, these men suddenly lose all their astuteness, and end up marrying the most inappropriate woman. Single women, on the other hand, remain discerning throughout their life. They might remain single, but at least they don’t end up making a fool of themselves!

So, as my nephew approaches 40, I have absolutely no doubt he too will bite the bait sooner or later now – and I just have to bide my time till I receive that sms saying 'Got married to Sheila last evening' (or something of the sort), and brace myself to have that last, loud, vindicated laugh… 


Does that sound too cruel? To display so much mirth at a nephew's misfortune? But then, as Wodehouse said, Aunts aren't Gentlemen!

The Teen Commandments

In September this year, Amartya, my son, touched that magic number that he thinks allows him to drive, vote, and be legitimately defiant and rude towards parents. Yes, he turned 18.

We had thought there would be some changes once he turned 18. There is some change, but not the kind we expected! He continues in the same vein as before, and is simply more righteous about it… :-/

If he could hand us down 10 commandments on his 18^th birthday, this is how they would go:

1. Thou shalt NOT try to wake me up. Period. At 6 am, 9 am, 1 pm or any other time. I will wake up EXACTLY when I want to. And this goes for ALL days – holidays AND the days I have college.

2. Thou shalt NOT try to ask me about my attendance in class, assignments or exams. You shalt be duly informed if I flunk or have insufficient attendance.

3. Thou shalt make thyselves invisible when my friends are visiting. This goes for Ananya too - if possible lock her up in the toilet when my friends are visiting. Of course, it goes without saying that my friends and I shalt need a regular supply of snacks – I leave it to thee to figure out how to supply the snacks whilst thou continue to be invisible.

Teen Commandment #3: Thou shalt make thyselves invisible when my friends are visiting.

4. Thou shalt NOT ask unto me where I am going when I step out. Ask no difficult questions and thou shalt hear no lies. (This part goes for the next commandment too)

5. Thou shalt NOT ask unto me totally silly, irrelevant, and absolutely unanswerable questions - like ‘What time will you be back from the party?’

6. Thou shalt drop me (and pick me up) at/from wherever I want, and at any time I want - be it 6 in the morning, or 12 midnight, with a smile and without even a little hint of a grumble.

7. Thou shalt buy me my own vehicle ASAP after my 18^th birthday – it is my birthright, and moreover, all my friends have one.

8. Thou shalt not make ridiculous and irrational demands of me - like asking me to put my dirty clothes in the laundry basket instead of strewing them about in creative formations in and around my room.

9. Thou shalt not make even more ridiculous and absolutely irrational demands of me – like asking me to keep within the speed limit when I am driving.

10. In case any of the above commandments are violated, I shalt hold full rights to argue my case with extreme vehemence and without any heed to the words thou speaketh. And hence the last commandment: Thou shalt concede any argument that we have in my favour.

So you see, touching the magic number didn’t really convert him magically into a serious and responsible adult.

But there is hope. He has actually started doing his assignments. Sometimes he actually cleans up his cupboard. And occasionally he comes into our room to discuss the pros and cons of various prospective careers with his dad.

Lagta hai ab Dilli door nahin…

Childwise

KidCommandment#1


Last week, Ananya, my 10 year-old informed me that I just have to take her to watch the just released potboiler, ‘Ready’.

While I do admit Salman’s patented brand of puerility is sometimes good for a laugh or two, I was quite up to my gills in it after Dabangg. Let me put it this way, I was not ‘Ready’-ready just yet.

So I hemmed and hawed and said,“Umm… don’t know how the film is going to be. Let us take a look at the papers and see what Shubhra periamma has to say about it.”  (The periamma in question here being my sis-in-law Shubhra Gupta, a highly regarded film critic with the Express group.)

“Ya, let’s”, she said. So I did that, and duly reported back: “Periamma says the film is a dud... pretty silly and mindless, and not funny at all.”

“Shubhra periamma said it’s silly?” said Ananya, with a furrowed brow.

“Yes”, I said.

“And not funny?” The furrow deepened.

“Yup... not a bit”, said I, barely able to hide a triumphant smile - I might not have to endure ‘Ready’ after all!

The furrow cleared and she broke into a wide smile…“Oh great! Phir toh mujhe pakka achchi lagegi film! Book the tickets, na!”

The rationale, as you must have guessed, being: ‘If a knowledgeable adult pans the film, it must be a great film for juveniles of all shapes and sizes.’ Beat that for logic!

Amazing, how kids instinctively suspect/dislike/reject anything and everything that adults close to them choose to advocate! And the other way round, too.

And I remembered incidences from my childhood… I remember rejecting ice cream - yes you heard that right! (I know those of you who have seen me in recent times tucking into a 1-litre tub of Natural's jamun ice cream or Baskin Robbin's dark chocolate will find this rather hard to believe... :-/)

But seriously, I grew up totally hating ice cream – because the gaggle of 9 adults at home tried to make sure I only had 'healthy' ice creams (Kwality ke vanilla cups to be precise, which they called the ‘doodh-wala ice cream’). My heart, on the other hand, longed for those 20-paise wala orange and cola flavoured iced lollies, which the adults back at home claimed were made with ‘gutter ka pani’. But my tongue would literally hang out at the very sight of those lollies in all those interesting colours and flavours, while I felt like puking if I so much as even smelt a ‘doodh-wala’ ice cream.

Which brings us to…

KidCommandment#1: Anything that adults recommend strongly is uncool and eminently useless.

And the natural corollary to this: Anything that adults discourage strongly is worthy of exploration.

There are other pearls of wisdom that my brats have taught me over the years, which I will put forth in the coming days... those of you who have kids of your own, do share your gems too - along with your learnings, naturally - share your  own KidCommandments!

The Mother of all Technologies

A revolution (to be henceforth known as the February Revolution) took place in our home this month. My mother-in-law discovered Short Messaging Service.

All of us blessed with parents, parents-in-law, and sundry aunts, uncles and neighbours of over 50 years of age must have gone through the ordeal of familiarising them with ‘gadgets’ and technology. I remember trying to teach my Mom the (what I thought) simple exercise of clearing up old messages from her cell phone. What ensued was an hour of struggle, during which I pulled out clumps of hair and gnashed my teeth almost continually. Finally, I gave up. And cleared all the messages myself – all 653 of them, over the next 3 hours.

At that moment I was even weak enough to excuse my teenage son for the ‘nostrils-flare fiery-glare rude-words-fare’ he treats me to when I ask him simple questions like ‘How do I copy songs from my laptop into my cell phone?’

It really is a mental block. The ‘Technology Block Syndrome’, which seems to develop once you cross a certain age, though the exact age at which it develops is a much debated issue. I think the onset age for TBS is 55 onwards. My son seems to disagree – he believes the age is closer to 35.

Anyway, empirical evidence shows TBS afflicts about 90% of people above 55. So, it really was a pleasant surprise when my mother-in-law first caught hold of my 10-year old daughter, Ananya to teach her to send text messages, and subsequently took to ‘sms-ing’ like fish to water.

There was much excitement – and commotion in the initial days. A few bewildered men and women got hit by stray bullets - Amma was unwittingly sending messages to wrong numbers! They got badgered with message after message from her. Sample this:

6 am. Amma to Mr. X: ‘Going for a walk’
6.30 am. Amma to Mr. X: ‘Who am I talking to’ 
6.45 am. Amma to Mr. X: ‘I am Amma.’

Poor hapless souls, who had no clue who Amma, aka Vijaya Srinivas was! Some of them, like Mr. X, actually called back, fascinated by the mysterious Amma - probably wondering if these were some kind of coded messages...

More mirth was to follow – what with the fervent texting spree to friends and family. It gave a whole new meaning to ‘hypertext’... ;)

At about this time, she embarked on a trip to Dindigul, on her own. And thus started a persistent stream of messages! She even started using sms lingo like a pro. ‘R u in for lunch?’ and ‘Call before kma goes to school’... kma here being Kannamma, the pet name by which she calls Ananya.

Here is a string of texts that started with the train journey:

12.05 pm. Amma to Sudarshan: 'Train moving'
12.06 pm. Amma to Madhusudan: 'Train moving'
12.30 pm. Amma to Sudarshan: 'So far so good'
12.37 pm. Amma to Madhusudan: 'Had soup good company'
1.00 pm. Amma to Madhusudan: 'Had lunch'
1.01 pm. Amma to Sudarshan: 'Had lunch'
1.02 pm. Amma to Suchi: 'Had lunch'
4 pm. Amma to Madhusudan: 'In Pune'
5.30 pm. Amma to Sudarshan: 'In Daund' 

and so on, till the next day, when she reached her destination.

Well, I must say – at least one need not worry about the well being of one’s dear ones with this kind of minute-by-minute status updates.... I have to say, most people today (including me) need to learn from this – they just seem to vanish into thin air when on an out-of-town trip!

She even made an attempt to strike a conversation with Amartya... 

4 pm. Amma to Amartya: 'whatsup? answer by sms'
4.15 pm. Amma to Amartya: 'Did you get the sms'
5 pm. Amma to Amartya: 'ANSWER'

As you can see, it started off rather amicably, and ended ... well...! Amartya, of course, is quite immune to all attempts from immediate family to make conversation. You could even say he was the only one who dared violate the hypertext transfer protocol... :)

Initially, the inadvertent typos that crept in while she was struggling to master the keyboard made the messages all the more fun to read – ‘Did kma go to pchool today?’... But now she is pretty adept at it, and has serious conversations with friends and relatives of all shapes, sizes and ages. Yesterday, a reverent ex-student smsed her, ‘Who do you think will win today’s match?’

We were quite surprised. And impressed!

Well, maybe, in telling this story I have taken a few artistic liberties, gone a wee bit beyond the truth – but by and large I have NOT deviated much. So, you see, it really is nothing less than a revolution. And now I have a technologically empowered ma-in-law!

Truly, hats off, Amma!

Here’s looking forward to many more February Revolutions... in every household...

Redefining Probability? Probably.

I am knee-deep in random experiments. Amartya, my teenaged son has his 12^th grade exams coming up, and he seems to have found a simple rebuttal to my ‘Don’t you plan to study’ refrain. It is the simple and effective retort ‘Why don’t you study and teach me? Aren’t you supposed to be a math teacher?’

I have rechristened this simple and ingenious strategy to keep a nagging parent at bay as 'Bayes' Theorem' ... you see, I am studying Probability...

Anyway, my own continued trials and tribulations with my teen terror has inspired me to rethink many of the other terms and examples used in Probability, too. Here are some:

Random Experiment: is defined as an experiment that can be repeated numerous times under the same conditions. Some examples are: the tossing of a coin, the throwing of a die, or calling Amartya every morning to try and get him out of bed.

Now, it should be easy to understand why a random experiment is also known as a ‘trial’...

Subjective probability: describes an individual's personal judgement about how likely a particular event is to occur. It is not based on any precise computation but is often a reasonable assessment by a knowledgeable person.

For example, according to a reasonable assessment made by me, on any given morning, the likelihood of Amartya getting out of bed after being called once  is 0, after being called 25 times is 0.2, and after being called 75 times is 0.5.

Relative Frequency: describes the frequency at which Amartya’s various relatives (his father, sister, grandmother and me) appear in his room to try and get him out of bed.

Impossible Event: is an event that just can NOT happen, whose probability is 0. For example: the event that Amartya wakes up before 11 am on any day when there is no college, including a day immediately preceeding an exam.

Certain Event: An event that is SURE to happen, whose probability is 1. For example: the event that Amartya logs onto FB on any given day of the year, including a day immediately preceeding an exam.

Independent events: are two events that do not affect each other at all - when the probability of an event A occurring is totally independent of another event, B and vice versa.

For example: Let A be the event of Amartya spending more than 5 hours on Facebook on a given day; and B be the event of there being an exam the next day.

Then A and B are independent events - as the probability of A remains 1, it is absolutely unaffected by event B.

And I end by redefining Mutually Exhaustive events...

Mutually Exhaustive Events

The above series of 'Mutually Exhuastive Events' usually ends
 with this - a Mutually Exclusive Event.

TEEN-da-PUNCH

Well, I have already written about one of my inventions - my daughter Ananya... but so far, I have mentioned my other invention, my teenaged son Amartya, only in passing. The time has now come to let my friends and enemies know a bit more about this invention too...

You may say, 'Friends, sure, we understand - but why tell your enemies?" Let's say, it's that time of the year where you are supposed to be kind to your enemies... and in a bid to bring some cheer into the lives of those who have long suppressed their wish to boil me in oil and other such stuff, I bring this unique Christmas gift... exposing the terrific torment I undergo at the hands of my teen.

(I notice the dictionary gives four quite different meanings of 'terrific' - astounding, terrifying, frightful and splendid - here, you can choose whichever meaning you prefer, or a combo of all four....)

I will write no more... but the 6000 words below should say it all...
(using the equation: 1 picture = 1000 words)