Re: Musical Stares

[Guest guest]

Sir,

you mentioned the name of late Dr.Hariharan in your mail,actually we had quite a

good relations with him. Dr. Mrs. Hariharan is now a days teaching in J.N.M.C

sawangi. I dont have any information about his both daughters. I think elder one

is in dehradun and younger one is in Mumbai. Few years back younger one also

suffered from pott's spine.

Firoz, 02

-----Original Mail-----

From: Shah

Sent: Wednesday, 22nd February 2006 7:55 pm

To: mgims

Subject: Musical Stares

Shyam recounting Dr. Mendiratta's music system has transported me back to

the good old days when we, as students, had all our music coming from

radios. Some of us had cassette players at a ratio of 5 or 6 per block.

However, the quality of sound from these tin patiya players was slightly

better than the singers you get on the trains, which is not saying much.

(Are there still singers on the trains? Gosh, I haven't travelled by train

in the last 10 - 15 years!)

Whenever we had to stage a drama, we had no alternative except to rush to

the staff quarters and search for any music aficionado with a soft heart.

The softest heart was possessed by (the late) Dr. Hariharan, who was a

dentist. His wife was a Reader in the Gynaec dept. But more importantly,

this couple, besides being deeply interested and helpful towards cultural

activities, possessed the most incredible music system. (They lived next to

Ashok Bhaskar's house.)

In those days, a single 10 watt speaker was the height of sophistication. Dr

Hariharan had an explosive 150 watt set of Bass woofers and tweeters. (This

cannot be compared to the present day range of 1500 w and above, but

remember, it was long, long ago, when I could see sharp and clear without my

specs........ because I had my contact lenses! Also, I weighed about 30 kgs

less.)

On one particular occasion, a friend of mine and I were relaxing at Dr.

Hariharan's outer room, which had the music system. Dr. Hariharan was

putting on one LP after another, drowning us with choice. (Note: LP here

does not mean Malini's husband.Yes, there were no CDs then, just plain,

black, shiny and huge discs called LPs for Long Playing discs. In those

days, an LP had 10, even 12 songs, which was considered a huge amount.) Just

finding the necessary piece of music was a giant task because of the

impossible task of shifting and searching the huge tower of stacked LPs.

This task was further complicated by the hot Pakoras which Dr. Mrs.

Hariharan had freshly fried for us. Just as we were enjoying this paradise

of the moment, there entered this imp with a puckish smile. I do not

remember if the couple had  a boy or a girl, but this little child of about

2 or 3 years had a naughty agenda of its own.

We went through the usual motions of buttering up a staff child by saying,

" How cute! " (The child was really cute, but we would have said the same

thing even if it hadn't been, for obvious reasons.) This little devil gave

us a very cute smile and winked at us. We poor, unsuspecting victims didn't

have a clue as to what was going to happen next. Then it nodded its unruly

mop and skipped away into the next room.

We reclined back into the armchairs, listening to the music, when we were

startled back into an upright position by that little child. This little

rascal had gone into the bedroom and brought out a shiny, new LP cover. What

startled us was not what was in, but what was on the cover. Staring

unabashedly at us from the cover was a dangerously beautiful lady who was

dressed only in a smile, and maybe a pair of shoes (I don't remember the

shoes.) Then this child quickly placed this hot stuff on my lap and

giving a small chuckle, fled to the bedroom.

Dr. Hariharan, pretended not to have seen this whole thing. I quickly

dropped the incriminating cover like a hot potato face down on to the table.

Horrors! The back cover had an even more explicit (if that were possible)

photo. I quietly shifted the newspaper on the cover. Smiling sheepishly, I

started concentrating on the music.

Just when my heart beat had managed to return to decent levels, there was

that devil of a child again. This time there were a couple of girls in what

can only be called compromising positions on the Cover it was carrying. This

time they were not even wearing a smile!

The child triumphantly banged the Cover on to my friend's lap and hurried

back to the bedroom in search of more treasures. My friend turned purple and

swiftly pushed this cover under the first one.

What must have happened is that knowing that we were coming over for the

music session, Dr. Hariharan must have separated the objectionable covers

and put them away for safety in the bedroom. However, nothing is safe from a

child' hand. Our faces became just like Shyam's must have become when he

saw the first mail from the normally staid and sane Prabha asking him

to view the F* Kamasutra pictures .

Just as the funny child was returning with another cover, Dr. Hariharan

hurriedly abandoned his system, gave us a sheepish grin and rushed to carry

the child back into the bedroom with the dangerous goods. After some muted

backstage sounds of locking a cupboard and howling of a child, Dr. Hariharan

returned to his music system with a smile firmly pasted on his face.

Kishore Shah 1974

------------------------------

Website: www.mgims.org

------------------------------

[Guest guest]

Ah, Feroz,

Dr. Mrs. Hariharan is one gem of a lady. She was definitely pro-students and

we used to get a lot of cutting work in her unit. Unfortunately, she went

off early from Sevagram.

I was saddened to hear about the Pott's spine of her child. In case you (or

anyone else) happen to come across her, please convey to her my eternal

regards and gratitude.

Kishore Shah 1974

[Guest guest]

Nice recount of an saucy event,Kishoreda.

I never knew,sleaze existed in those benign looking LP discs as well.

I could visualise the expressions on ur faces,as I had that too,when I noticed,

of all the luminaries out

here,Prabha(I mean her virus), too had begun sending such mails.

Well,about Dr.Mrs Hariharan,she had returned back from Saudi Arabia to

MGIMS,around the

time,Seema had cleared her MD and joined as a lecturer in MGIMS,in 1993,Jan.

Later,when we came down to Riyadh,in Dec 1995,and celebrated our daughter's 2nd

Birthday,we had an

impressive MGIMS alumni guest list,comprising of Poonam(82) and Shivkumar,Kiran

Swaroop and Gopa

(76),Subir Mitra(80),and yes Dr.Mrs Hariharan,as she had again returned back,for

a couple of yrs stint.

As I had mentioned before...Good Money is a BAD Addiction.

Shyam(84)

Musical Stares

Shyam recounting Dr. Mendiratta's music system has transported me back to

the good old days when we, as students, had all our music coming from

radios. Some of us had cassette players at a ratio of 5 or 6 per block.

However, the quality of sound from these tin patiya players was slightly

better than the singers you get on the trains, which is not saying much.

(Are there still singers on the trains? Gosh, I haven't travelled by train

in the last 10 - 15 years!)

Whenever we had to stage a drama, we had no alternative except to rush to

the staff quarters and search for any music aficionado with a soft heart.

The softest heart was possessed by (the late) Dr. Hariharan, who was a

dentist. His wife was a Reader in the Gynaec dept. But more importantly,

this couple, besides being deeply interested and helpful towards cultural

activities, possessed the most incredible music system. (They lived next to

Ashok Bhaskar's house.)

In those days, a single 10 watt speaker was the height of sophistication. Dr

Hariharan had an explosive 150 watt set of Bass woofers and tweeters. (This

cannot be compared to the present day range of 1500 w and above, but

remember, it was long, long ago, when I could see sharp and clear without my

specs........ because I had my contact lenses! Also, I weighed about 30 kgs

less.)

On one particular occasion, a friend of mine and I were relaxing at Dr.

Hariharan's outer room, which had the music system. Dr. Hariharan was

putting on one LP after another, drowning us with choice. (Note: LP here

does not mean Malini's husband.Yes, there were no CDs then, just plain,

black, shiny and huge discs called LPs for Long Playing discs. In those

days, an LP had 10, even 12 songs, which was considered a huge amount.) Just

finding the necessary piece of music was a giant task because of the

impossible task of shifting and searching the huge tower of stacked LPs.

This task was further complicated by the hot Pakoras which Dr. Mrs.

Hariharan had freshly fried for us. Just as we were enjoying this paradise

of the moment, there entered this imp with a puckish smile. I do not

remember if the couple had a boy or a girl, but this little child of about

2 or 3 years had a naughty agenda of its own.

We went through the usual motions of buttering up a staff child by saying,

" How cute! " (The child was really cute, but we would have said the same

thing even if it hadn't been, for obvious reasons.) This little devil gave

us a very cute smile and winked at us. We poor, unsuspecting victims didn't

have a clue as to what was going to happen next. Then it nodded its unruly

mop and skipped away into the next room.

We reclined back into the armchairs, listening to the music, when we were

startled back into an upright position by that little child. This little

rascal had gone into the bedroom and brought out a shiny, new LP cover. What

startled us was not what was in, but what was on the cover. Staring

unabashedly at us from the cover was a dangerously beautiful lady who was

dressed only in a smile, and maybe a pair of shoes (I don't remember the

shoes.) Then this child quickly placed this hot stuff on my lap and

giving a small chuckle, fled to the bedroom.

Dr. Hariharan, pretended not to have seen this whole thing. I quickly

dropped the incriminating cover like a hot potato face down on to the table.

Horrors! The back cover had an even more explicit (if that were possible)

photo. I quietly shifted the newspaper on the cover. Smiling sheepishly, I

started concentrating on the music.

Just when my heart beat had managed to return to decent levels, there was

that devil of a child again. This time there were a couple of girls in what

can only be called compromising positions on the Cover it was carrying. This

time they were not even wearing a smile!

The child triumphantly banged the Cover on to my friend's lap and hurried

back to the bedroom in search of more treasures. My friend turned purple and

swiftly pushed this cover under the first one.

What must have happened is that knowing that we were coming over for the

music session, Dr. Hariharan must have separated the objectionable covers

and put them away for safety in the bedroom. However, nothing is safe from a

child' hand. Our faces became just like Shyam's must have become when he

saw the first mail from the normally staid and sane Prabha asking him

to view the F* Kamasutra pictures .

Just as the funny child was returning with another cover, Dr. Hariharan

hurriedly abandoned his system, gave us a sheepish grin and rushed to carry

the child back into the bedroom with the dangerous goods. After some muted

backstage sounds of locking a cupboard and howling of a child, Dr. Hariharan

returned to his music system with a smile firmly pasted on his face.

Kishore Shah 1974

------------------------------

Website: www.mgims.org

------------------------------