| THE VANISHING TRICK |
|---|
080222
updated 080222
the british library in trivandrum is closing down i am told. or have they done so already? well it is of no moment to me; i had stopped going there months back though i had a valid membership till january 07, 2008. all the same, i would like to bring up an incident that took place there some six months back.
as was my wont in those days i had dropped in at the library and as was the standard practice showed my membership card at the entrance. at that moment i noticed a german couple being told by the staff at the entrance that they could not go into the library as only members are allowed. i was wondering if i should intervene and tell the foreigners that they can approach the librarian. ( it is most unlikely he would have said no to the foreigners. the current library manager is an old timer and i remember seeing him in the library as a young man during my student days). then i thought better of it and decided that it will not be proper of me to meddle in other people's affairs.
my attention was deviated for a moment by this incident. as i started walking towards the door of the library i just felt inside my pocket to ensure that my library membership card was there. lucky that i did so for it was not there.
i turned round and the person who checks the membership card agreed that i had shown the card and that it was returned to me after noting down the membership number in the register. so the card has to be on my person.
i turned all my pockets inside out; the card was not there. then i searched thouroughly the only possessions i had with me - the books i had brought along for returning - in the most unlikely event of my keeping it inside one of the books. - "kuntham poyal kutathilum nokkuka" says the adage. (when the spear is found missing you look for it even inside the earthen pot!) the card could not be found. at that moment i had not moved more than a couple of feet from the entrance and i searched the whole area; the card was no where to be found.
the whole thing, the checking of the card by the staff member and the card going missing had all taken place in an area of one square meter and within less than five minutes. the only people in this space during that time was myself and two employees of the library - the one who checked the card and the security person; the germans were outside this domain. the card for all practical purposes had disappeared into thin air.
there was nothing more i could do about it. luckily, for returning the books the membership card was not required and i went into the library and returned the books i had brought with me. i told the staff member there that my membership card was missing. i also told her that i am not going to request for a duplicate for i had a hunch that the card will come back to me - things were a bit too obvious even for my dull intellect!
and come back it did. the next time i visited the library the staff handed it over to me. i did not bother to ask them where they found it and who found it or any such thing. " appam thinnal mathi; kuzhi ennenta" that is the principle ( you dont worry about the number of air cavities inside the cake; just enjoy eating it)
this time i was not that lucky
about it and more in the next installment; see ya then. * * *
EPILOGUE
what you see above is only part of an article i had prepared yesterday - that is 080221. i had finished it by 1500 hrs or so and as is my usual practice i left it there, for me to come back after an interval with a fresh mind so that i can approve it and upload it. you see i dont have any one to give me a second openion on any thing and this is a technique i adopt to in effect get a second openion of sorts - from myself!
i looked it up late in the night - that means actually in the early morning hours of today- and found that the copy which i had on the disk had only part of the material and the major part that i had added up and the editing i have done over hours is not there.
could it be possible that i did not save the final draft i have made?
most unlikely; you see i am making these pages mainly using an old html editor i have with me for quite some time now - cute html. the charm of it is that one can view it on the browser as it is being typed in and get the exact picture of how it is going to look. so every time i make even a minor change in the formatting or the text i view it in the browser. to view the change in the browser the document has to be saved. so there is no chance that i did not save it for long.
then how did it disappear? ask the indian gestapo or his pimps.
the long and short of it is that i have to retype the whole thing again. i do remember the matter but not the exact words and my typing speed is rather limited. i do touch typing; that means i dont have to see the alphabets. but that capacity is limited to only the three lines of the alphabet. to type any thing else, even to press the shift key i have to have a look at the key board ( that is why you see that there is no capitalisation of the first letter of a sentence).
so on second thoughts i decided to publish it in instalments rather than wait to finish the whole article.
and i am going to be careful. i am backing it up on a usb flash drive. of course i could have used a cd as well. but the problem is my cd drive is completely in the hands of the gestapo and the number of compact disks being chewed up every month is un believable. that way usb i find, at least till now, a bit more rhobust and tamper proof.
incidentally, i remember that another article i have made for uploading went missing a couple of months back. but then i thought it might be that i have deleted it by accident or some such thing. with hind sight i feel it must have faced the same fate as the older issue of this article!
MY CHOICE
| reading |
|---|
| movie |
| podcast |
| blank |
RELTED LINKS
| pic |
|---|
| latest |
| message board |
| quotable quotes |
| movies online |
| online diary |
| blank |
| blank |
| home |
|---|
viceman
080222
updated 080222
* * *
