Wow! I never expected such good comments on FC # 134, the MP Travelogue. I am grateful to all my readers for continuing to encourage me, and would like to share the comments that I received:
Lakshmi Raman writes: “I thought you would skip this week’s post but was pleasantly surprised to see it. You have managed to do it with fortitude despite your sojourn outside. I enjoyed your travelogue this Sunday, as I have done the other Filter Coffee posts. I am fortunate to have happened upon it in Substack.”
Rama Iyer writes: “Madhya Pradesh is one state that I cannot have enough of! Indore and its Sarafa, Ujjain and the majesty of Mahakaleshwar, Maheshwar and the mighty Narmada, and the tiger reserves including Mowgli's Kanha in addition to the ones you have listed are some other gems in MP. Refreshing cuppa as always! Thank you! Another hidden gem is your alaap. Should listen to more of you. Hopefully soon! 🙂”
Shahji Jacob writes: “Since you mentioned Khajuraho, I presume that you must have visited Ellora caves, especially the Kailash temple which was carved out of a stone cliff using those simple tools available then. I see that you have visited the Arwah caves from FC 100. But this must be vastly different.”
Readers: I’m so delighted that Shahji associated FC 134 with FC 100. If any of you have missed reading FC 100, please take a look: 🔗Filter Coffee #100 - by M R Prasanna
Geeta Jaisim writes: “I have not had the pleasure of visiting all the places of interest you have described, but your writing certainly inspires interest. Hope I will be able to travel to these places sometime soon. Also, although I am not an expert, I think your singing is really good! Thank you.”
Ganesh Shenoy writes: “Dear Pras, I do not think you will ever run out of ideas or themes for Filter Coffee given your fantastic talent of discovering stories behind words, sentences, etc etc, and weaving them into an elegant tapestry of your thoughts for all of us ... But, if you ever run out of them (which I think is impossible) you must commence singing a series of Hindustani or old film Hindi classic songs and talk about them … Your voice and words will then weave magic which we can not only read but hear too! It was just a minute of your alaap, and I was impressed with the classical timbre in your voice.”
Arun P V the Quiz Master says: “Adding the places you have mentioned to my 'List of places to see'. Mitawali temple (Chausath Yogini) – remember asking this in the "India Tourism" quiz.”
Tarun Kunzru writes: “Yes, MP has a lot to offer, both historical and natural beauty. I was fortunate to be educated at the Gwalior Fort - Scindia School. You would be interested to know that the then Prince of Datia (and now the Maharaj saheb), Vikram Singh, was my classmate and housemate. Popularly called Dattu!!”
Krupa Murthy says: “I went through your description of your tour of M.P. Needless to say it is a very interesting read, with engaging visuals and the most soothing audio of Prasanna Rangachar!! Your voice aided by the acoustics has made the piece soulful!! In awe of your aromatic doses of filter coffee served with Grace and Warmth, dil mange more!!!!”
🏋️♀️ The Towel & the Gauntlet
When I was struggling to post FC 134, I thought of ‘throwing in the towel’ but then decided to ‘pick up the gauntlet’. Simply put, I accepted the challenge instead of giving up meekly.
All of us, at some point in our life, would have faced situations that have seemed insurmountable or at least very daunting. We may have given up trying or taken up the challenge and accomplished that daunting task.
The word ‘gauntlet’ is believed to be of Italian origin. It is an armoured glove covering the wrist and is very useful during hand-to-hand combat. During the medieval period, a knight would throw down his gauntlet challenging the opponent to fight with him and if the opponent picked up the gauntlet, it meant that the challenge was accepted.
In ordinary parlance, the word gauntlet would represent a kind of challenge. Throwing it down would be to challenge, and picking it up would be to accept the challenge. That’s not the case when one throws the towel in. It means abject surrender or admitting defeat.
Interestingly, while one can throw the gauntlet or pick it up, one can only throw in the towel but not pick it up. These idioms have been around for a long time, though picking up the gauntlet is not heard often. This is simply because ‘gauntlet’ is no longer considered to represent a metal sleeve but, in ordinary parlance, it just means ‘challenge or an ultimatum’. For example: “The company threw down the gauntlet and told the employees to either resign and accept severance pay or face termination, and that this offer was final.”
Another related phrase is “running the gauntlet”. The import of this phrase is: to be exposed to danger, adversarial or hostile situations, and sharp and acerbic criticism. All of you are familiar with the expression ‘foot in the mouth’ (FC 132). If one commits a gaffe while speaking, he will have to run the gauntlet of his colleagues or of the political party, if he is a politician.
The idiom “throw in the towel” has been in use since the early days of boxing. Back in the day, boxers used to fight bare-knuckled and had no gloves. The trainer or the manager would use a brick-sized sponge to wipe the blood. When defeat was more or less inevitable, they would throw the bloodied sponge into the ring to concede to their opponent and stop the fight. In the later years, the sponge was replaced with a towel and so, now, the towel is thrown into the ring to concede defeat. But given the heightened passion of any boxing bout, throwing in the towel is not resorted to, as it would be shameful. Instead, the referee would stop the fight if continuing the bout could be life-threatening or result in serious impairment.
Running a marathon is a good example to demonstrate the two idioms. My daughter picked up the gauntlet to run the half-marathon for raising money for a noble cause. She trained for weeks and on D-day, she was up before the lark and started her run on the whistle. She tells me that once she had covered half the distance, the sultry and sunny weather of Mumbai made it tougher by the kilometer to run. At some stage when the legs too started protesting, her inner lethargic instinct gave her many excuses to throw in the towel but the underlying commitment to run for a cause propelled her to complete the run. Had she stopped, she would have not honoured the word given to the donors. It was as if she wanted to give them a run for their money.😀
In sharp contrast, a friend of mine, rather heavy set, opted for the dream run which is a 7 KM run. Starting from Nariman Point, he sort of half jogged and half walked and managed to reach Hindu Gymkhana on Marine Drive. He was short of breath, sweating profusely and was at the end of his tether. He yanked at the towel from behind his back, wiped himself thoroughly, and threw in the towel, literally.
Similar is the case with trekking. There are countless stories of how some scaled the top and how others gave up halfway. Trekking is almost always along an uncharted path. You may like to read 🔗 Filter Coffee #088.
Speaking for myself, posting the FC week-on-week can be quite daunting. Having picked up the gauntlet that my son & daughter threw at me during the COVID days, I am being complimented and egged on to continue. The challenge before me, over the next 8 Sundays, is to continue this coffee filtering as I am traveling to the US of A from 21st March to 6th May, which involves a fair amount of preparation. Can’t throw in the towel, can I? Maybe I can park the gauntlet on some Sundays? Can I, dear readers?
In a lighter vein:
A grammar teacher asked the students: “How many times can you use the same word in a row, in a grammatically correct sentence?”
So the gauntlet was thrown. Johnny, an indomitable student, picked up the gauntlet and said, “I can use the word ‘and’ in one sentence five times”.
The teacher was amused and asked Johnny to write the sentence on the board for all to see.
So, Johnny goes up to the board and tells his classmates that the story is about Danny, a painter, who was hired to paint large signage ‘Tom and Bob’s’. Johnny then writes on the board what Bob told the painter after inspecting the signage.
‘Hey Danny, the distance between ‘Tom’ and ‘and’, and ‘and’ and ‘Bob’s’ is not the same.’
End quotes:
The most important thing to do as you age is to stay physically active. Lots of people just throw in the towel if they can't do what they used to do, and that's terrible. — Jane Fonda
Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. — Mark Twain
Ciao Readers. Life’s challenges are many, and so are towels 🙂 keep them at bay. Take care!
Early bird that you are, you not only catch the worm but provide people like me with another for the day! It is also nice to know that you have decided to cast your sails to explore new waters later this month. Wish you the.very best and may the ink keep flowing for you to continue to delight us readers!
I threw in the towel on my corporate career to pick the gauntlet of Entrepreneurship.
I quickly learnt that I needed to pick up a towel to dab the stressful sweat of entrepreneurship.
In other words, it's a good idea to pick a towel with the Gauntlet!!!