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“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”

This is a biographical book on famous physicist and nobel prize winner Dr. Richard P Feynman.
His Lectures on physics (3 volumes) are popular books. Any low day, browsing through few pages of that would resurrect the mood in me.During one program on BBC, a interview of his friends revealed some insights about the person.
But this book show many facets that one can hardly imagine.Highly inquisitive Feynman nursed a great love for Physics, but book covers his many other eye-popping experiments and experiences. Be it about safecracking,drumming,drawing or learning languages, or at various responsibilities, this man did so much in his life will make any reader envious and dreaming about it. He lived so many lives.
His honesty is another point to be appreciated. I would love to have the freedom with which he could make choices, the way he could live and work!
Except for the last chapter (Cargo cult science ) which is out of place, the whole book is entertaining read. Apart from death of his wife and re-marriages of which there are just passing references, most of it are detailed and I enjoyed them. Safe cracking, drumming, painting chapters I just kept asking myself - ” did that actually happen? Wish I experience something close to it.”
Only places I feel sad for the man was when he came in interaction with the work that involved government and all his work goes down the drain - that of
selecting textbooks. It exposes many layers of corruption, irresponsibility and negligence that are applicable even today to various Government undertakings. 13 signature may look blunt and silly from outside but it re-inforces two points - One, about red tapism. Second, How stubborn Feynman could actually get and how committed was he to his words. In honesty and this stubbornness, the book reminded me of Gandhi’s autobio.
I particularily like the entire chapter on safecracker, an incident where his father walks upto a midreader and gets to know his tricks by flattering him(hey–I too try such stuff ; will tell you some other time), the incident where Feynman finds the vulnerable outlet by fluke, his experiences in Brazil, the Nobel episode (imagine a person saying “Yeah..but I am sleeping; why don’t you call me up in the morning” when he was informed that he had won Nobel prize), lucky numbers, attending biology/philosophy classes, learning other languages…oh too many to list.
Miracles, which often happened, I feel, tried to match his genius and mischiefs. At the end, it is a life LIVED, lived to fullest and in colour.

Related Links

Wow! It is finally here. The one I had been wanting! Also I am waiting for the invite to try it out. Update: I got

Got it via Chugs. A word about the blog. The “Links For A Sunday Morning” which is regularly (most often) and promptly posted , like this one, gives a lot of useful information. Unlike other blogmelas which only links to blogs and are, in a way, time bound, the links found here are informative. Some links carry a very short description which helps to pick and proceed!
Spare sometime everyweek and headover to Sunday morning links. Spare yourself the effort of finding good information, the filtered and selected stuff helps!

Jagger got himself a partner to run the marathon life along with him. I was there in Hyderabad to witness that. Happy long run, my friend.

Pradeep too tied the knot. On Independence day! Anyways, best wishes to him too!

Am back in Bangalore after 3 day tour to Hyderabad. I will try and post about Hyderabad tour. I want to do it in detail and I require time. Quite a lot of it.

I have been with jagger all the while from the beginning of this episode. He had told me about his plan to get married before a fixed time frame, unless no girl likes him which was not going to be the case, he had said.
As the time approached, his search began and was on. Once he was visibly tensed and was waiting for a call. “I like one girl man, I wish she likes me too!” I too wished.
Few phone calls later, the things progressed. He was on cloud nine after his meet with her. Bold men too get weak in their knees in front of women. “I was so nervous for the first time in my life. I just could not speak anything” he blushed like a teenager who had just returned from his first date. Or maybe, teenagers need not.
About the future plan, he said “I will try to change her and persuade my plan”. “Or work both the plans out”. Few days later, “Or may be, I will sacrifice my plans and will support her and become a good husband. Because I think she is more organized/determined than I am!”.
Looking back at the troubled past, with watery eyes, he once told “Looks like I will finally get all the happiness I have deserved”. You sure should.

This week was marked with many useful email conversations. It was good to find one or the other person ready(free) to listen, ready(free) to reply !
And the topics themselves were of diverse interests. I absorbed more in some and could put down my views in others. Important point was the conversations hardly digressed and were meaningful unlike the earlier occassions when I was being dragged into heading-nowhere-stupid-conversations.

If friends are meeting after a long time, there will be enough to speak
about the updates and changes. But if the two persons speak daily,
There has to be some external input for their conversation.
Or
They need to share some common tastes (Connectivity)

I had a company with whom the conversation used to end as soon as it had
begun. His life, spent staying in a room, had no added attractions.

Input ? :We were not mean people so that we could “discuss people” (as in
the saying “Mean people discuss people, average people discuss events and
great people discuss ideas”) or because we had no common friends and he was
too disinterested to listen to my friends’ details. We did not discuss work.
He did not read newspaper, nor watched TV or browsed net. No wants, no
opinions, no complaints.

Taste? :Simple things which used to amaze me did not even make him curious.
My talk about internet, movies, songs, even philosophy did not evoke any
response. His talk usually began and ended with the summary of
sleeping-jogging as in : I slept for 8 hours, I jogged 6 rounds..Or
I am feeling sleepy now.It is ok, but daily ?? Politics which was
the only yes for him was a no for me. Cricket discussions couldn’t last
longer than, well, now-famous Ganguly’s batting duration.

Some talks repeated before we realized that. I used to bring some topic or
matter to continue conversation, but it used to be met with cold as in -
Dravid defending-blocking with a straight bat, calmly and killing the speed
of the ball from a pacer, bluntly. If anything, I learnt
compulsorily, from him, to cut-off the conversations. To
create (uncomfortable) silence.

I pondered how can there be nothing to talk between two people who do not
have problems.

Now I fear I am heading towards the same life. With only work as my
companion and rest of the routine life spent in my room, cut off from the
TV,Net,News I will not wonder if I don’t blog for a long while:
No input, no output.

Over the lunch table
He: Eeks! You are eating potatoes again ?
I: Head bent and busy eating
He: Potatoes are bad.
I: Grin
He: They contain fat.You will put on more weight.
I: ..
He: Potatoes will kill you. They are so bad.
I: Hmm
He: Potatoes are injurious to health. Don’t know why people eat potatoes.
I: ..
He: You should follow me. Have you ever seen me eat potatoes ?

I slowly raise my head, look into his eyes “And smoking?”.
He blushes, grins, turns red in face, turns his face away.

We silently finish lunch.