Let us review a little bit of history. When the World War II started, only Hitler’s Germany, France and Great Britain were involved in it. United States of America was not a party in the beginning. At that time, Pearl Harbour in Hawaii was one of the most important ports of USA. All on a sudden, on 7th Dec 1941 at 7.55 AM, the ocean carriers anchored in Pearl Harbour were bombed by the German bombers, without any provocation. The reason for USA coming into the war was not the cruelty against the Jews, or the annexation of Poland or the war against Britain, but this single attack on the war ships of USA which ultimately resulted in the defeat of the Germany-Japan alliance.
More than 1177 sailors died on the spot. The
Arizona memorial in Hawaii has been constructed in memory
of these sailors. U.S.S Arizona was the one that
suffered most from the attack. Bombs from four
fighter jets fell on this ship. Three of
them very near the ship and the fourth with a weight of 800 kg right
on the ship which broke the ship into two pieces. Arizona war
memorial 187 ft long is built on the remnants of ship
that is remaining sunk in the harbour. The names of the
1177 sailors who were killed in the attack
had been embedded in marble at this memorial.
This is considered to be the unique among the war
memorials in USA.
On the windward side of the
Oahu island, one important sight is the sea
animal park. There are a few pools in which dolphins and seals play.
For those who are interested , they can play with these animals.
Dolphins can be trained easily and they can play with
human beings wonderfully. Trainers make them do many things like
swimming synchronously in groups, somersaulting rhythmically etc. Only thing is
that after every show, just like for naughty children,
they have to be given special incentives like
their favourite fish to eat. Seals can clap their hands
and show special gestures similar to human beings and
entertain us. Entry fee everywhere is not small ,
anything from 20 dollars or more. Due to the limited time available
and small pocket , we did not spend much time or money there. A special gift
that one can make in these tourist spots is to make
special animals and shapes from a copper penny.
Here they were making beautiful dolphins and seals out of
a penny. In our country misusing coins for
such things is a punishable offense, but here it is ok,
may be only because it is the smallest coin that is being circulated.
We returned to the conference venue by evening
ready for the conference banquet. Usually , banquet is a very happy occasion
where one can eat to their heart’s content.
The banquet is part of the twenty
thousand we paid as registration fee and thought we could make
something out of this special dinner since our lunch was very light
as we were really hungry. But unfortunately, we could not
find anything to eat. Somehow, we managed to take the soup and eat
something similar to noodles and finished off with ice
cream and returned to the university.
From among the list of residents in the faculty
house, I could identify an Indian name, one Prof.Nahata. I left a
message in his pigeon hole expressing my
interest in seeing him. As I was returning to my
apartment, I met him in the elevator. He was a professor
of English from New Delhi, almost 70 years of age. He was speaking in typical
Oxford English and his ripe age was not at all evident in
his speech. In many American universities, age is not
a restriction on senior professors whose faculties are intact. There
are many professors very active in research and
teaching at seventy or more. Think of what is
happening in our country. The teachers superannuate
at 58 or 60 and either sit at home or go to
private institutions to give tuition. Some of
them in engineering may join self-financing colleges.
It is really unfortunate that their rich experience is not being
properly used by the society. Many of them are
highly qualified and have experience in teaching graduate
and masters’ level of 30 years or more. Please do not
think that I am talking about myself. I have superannuated
from N.I.T Calicut at 65 and continued to work in M.E.S.College of
Engineering Kuttippuram for another 5 years. I have no
regrets. Even now, I can take at least two to
three hours class if someone makes a request,
if necessary free of cost. What
I need is only local hospitality
and transport to the location. It is a fact that
I have never enjoyed my administrative work, even
though I was fully immersed in it
during the last five or more years in N.I.T
Calicut in different roles.
Even during those days, I used to take at
least one course for BTech or MTech and
enjoy my classes.
Hopefully many of my students also might have been
benefited from those classes.
Our Bangla lady’s paper was in
the last session on the third day. As expected, many of
the delegates had left the venue
by that time. As a matter of courtesy to the young lady,
we two Indians decided to be among the audience even though the
topic of her research was not familiar to
us. Unfortunately, it so happened that we were the only two persons
in the audience except the session chairman and co-chair other than the
speaker. Anyway, we remained there till the
end of the presentation just to oblige her. She was smart enough to be prepared
with almost a month’s programme including visit to a
few universities on the main land . As I
had my return flight on the next day, I bid
farewell to Prof.Reddy and our Bangla lady there itself.
Other things to see in Hawaii were in other islands including Hawaii, the largest island among the group. Visit to these islands have to be planned well ahead and it can be only by air. They do not have boat trips like those available in our Lakshadveep and Minikoy islands. Since I had to leave on the next day and had not prepared for these trips, I met the Bengali friends in the university and thanked them for the timely help in getting me a convenient accommodation within my pocket. On the return trip, I was planning to stay in Singapore for two days, that too for a specific reason which will be revealed soon.
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