Monday, July 26, 2004

Diamonds - Are forever!

There is a story in TOI. This is about the discovery of diamonds in Uttar Pradesh. This in itself  is an encouraging news for my home state, but that's not why this posting has been made. Here comes the more intriguing part.

The discovery has been done by a guy called Anurag Srivastava who is research assistant in GSI, Lucknow. Incidentally, he was my two year senior at school. His younger brother, Anuj Srivastava was in same class as mine but in Biology section.

There was something queer about the brothers. They were very shy and introvert . They always seemed to be inside some shell. Anurag hardly had any friends in his class. He was that kind of guy who had more friends in junior classes than their own. He felt more comfortable with them.  So whenever did any junior bump across him, he would try to mingle. Most of us found him very chatu and tried to avoid him. That was because he use to brag a lot of stuff about himself which usually made little sense. Anuj was also no less a character than Anurag. He used to do some cheap shayari stuff as well. In short, both the guys seemed a bit looser types.

After school, I pretty much lost contact with most of my classmates, leave alone seniors. It was my third year at IIT  when I happened  to attend the marriage ceremony of one of my friends. I saw Anurag there, and as his habit was, I soon found him at my side. Slowly and surely,  the tales started flowing . He told me about his RA ship with GSI, with such a pride as if it was Oxford Univ. rather than GSI, Lucknow. Initially, courtesy wise,  I listened to him intently feigning fake attention, but soon I got bored and was about to leave when he broke the bombshell. According to him, he had, on his own, discovered the origin of Lucknow city.  I could barely suppress my laughter but he continued on scientific stuff. I suspected either he has lost his mental equilibrium or just spinning a cock and bull yarn. Mercifully, it was time for Jaimaals and he reluctantly let me go.

My friends also shared my view as he had been telling same story to everyone which nobody seemed to believe. This was seven years before.  Imagine my shock  when I came across a TOI article two months back which talked about a brilliant RA, named Anurag Srivastava who through his diligent work has found the possibility of diamond in Uttar Pradhesh. He got inspired by the fact that Panna in Madhya Pradesh has similar soil and climatic structure as the adjacent areas in Uttar Pradesh. Panna is known for it's natural diamonds. He went about his research on his own, convincing the UP Govt, GSI and whomsoever it may have concerned with his preliminary research. I was a bit skeptical even then. Now, as it turns out that the diamond is genuine.

This is a big work from the guy whom we termed as looser and eccentric and poked fun at. Nobody believed him then and now he is a celebrity. A  resounding slap on attitude of the guys like me.

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