Not a joke!

I have heard this joke and am not sure if it had really happened. The joke goes like this. It happened during the rule of Joesph Stalin in Russia. One of the costly wrist watches of Stalin was missing (Interestingly Stalin was a watch collector as some netizens discuss here.) He immediately alerted the police chief and asked him to trace the thief and the watch. However, after half an hour or so, Stalin could locate his watch and realized that he had misplaced it. He called the police chief to convey his regrets and stop searching. As soon the police chief lifted the phone, he informed Stalin, "We have arrested five suspects and one has already accepted that he has stolen. Don't worry. We will get your watch soon." This may be a joke. However, it has just happened in Delhi in real life.

The real story goes like this. A boy has fallen in love with a girl. The boy and girl were missing for few days. A dead body has been located by the police and the boy's parents have identified that the body was of their son. The police have arrested that girl's brother and he has accepted that he has murdered the boy. The news attracted the media under the heading of 'honor killing'. The next day, both the boy and the girl have appeared in front of the police. The boy was alive. You can read further in the following links:

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article425797.ece

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/-Honour-killing-victim-reports-to-police-station/articleshow/5910378.cms

Mervin

Eavesdrop

The dictionaries ask us to pronounce as 'eevz-drop'. The word appears to have originated from architecture. Eave is an overhanging lower edge of a roof. Eavesdrop is a small, but not very visible hole specifically designed to listen what 'drips' from the eaves. A picture of eavesdrop may be found here. Henry VIII of England used such a set up at his Hampton Court palace and appointed spies to listen what his staff were talking. These spies were called eavesdroppers.

Thus, an interesting meaning of 'eavesdropping' is derived. It is an act of listening secretly to a private conversation. I was curious about this term because the eavesdropping of telephone conversation is a serious issue in the modern age. It often makes furore in our parliaments when the phones of the members are tapped. The word 'eavesdropping' generally suits to the act when a telephone conversation between two parties is recorded or listened by a third party without the knowledge of the two who are involved in the conversation. There is another variant where one of the two parties records the conversation without the knowledge of the other. Nowadays most of the mobile phones are in the market with a feature of recording the conversation. Even if the feature is not provided by the manufacturer, we can have it by installing a software designed for that purpose.

I tried to find out from the net if it is legally allowed in India or elsewhere. Can we legally record our conversation on phone without the knowledge of the one who is on the other side of the phone? It seems that it is legally wrong unless the government authorizes to do so. Agreed. If it is recorded illegally, can it be produced to the court as an evidence against the person without whose knowledge it was recorded? It seems that it is also allowed. Perhaps the one who recorded may also be punished independently for the illegal recording. Let me search more on this and write about it in another occasion.

I came across this adage: "eavesdroppers seldom hear anything good of themselves"

The Purpose

Anything can be a starting point for learning. Knowledge is hidden everywhere especially after the information revolution. Paying attention to a pin (just a pin!), which may be in front of us, and surfing the net with a key word 'pin' will take us to different domains of knowledge. What all required is our passion for the knowledge that is hidden behind the pin. Pin is only an example. The starting point may be a book, a comment by a friend or just a spark of thought in our mind. Once absorbed by the mind, it creates a chain of thoughts leading to a kaleidoscopic path. The knowledge, thus, transforms into wisdom. Most of the times we do that, but forget to register it or lose the track. Knowledge is volatile and it just evaporates unless it is stored appropriately. I started this blog to keep track of such knowledge - probably turned into wisdom - and store it. Of course, the definition of wisdom and knowledge varies from person to person!