The call is picked up by the younger brother. Who responds:
“We’re coming.”
“How long will it take, I asked.”
“We’re coming.”
They came after a while. It already seemed late when I called them up. They reminded me that their school has been rescheduled to afternoon and hence they return very late. I had forgotten.
I had served tea to my mother though she didn’t take it. I warmed it up after students left. Added some milk into it as she had asked. Some ginger as well. I had it myself after having replaced the chair into the verandah. It’s getting white stains deposited by water because it stays near the wash basin and water sprinkled on it contains calcium.
There are cobwebs on hats which are waiting inside racks. There are cobwebs waiting to be removed. The footwear outside the room has dust on them.
I had a bath. Washed a few clothes. The maid, who was employed here earlier is the mother of the last employed maid and she always comes late in the afternoon. You have to wait before you can pasteurise milk or organise utensils properly in the kitchen for other purposes.
The younger student is busy drawing a crown like shape on his left hand with the blue ink pen he has recently bought. I hear bells ringing in the nearby worship room though the singing voice doesn’t reach me which is a relief.
The younger student advertised his pen with keen interest . It appears to be wooden. He claims:
“This is a pen made with wood.”

Woodenmarksmanshiphoperandampersand

Then he asks me to read out the letters from the sticker on the pen. The C is printed like D. It’s neither a C nor a D. I recognise the brand of pens. The stylish first letter is shaped like a D but the vertical line is missing in the first letter. It just has the curve. After the promotion is over and the plastic is established to be plastic, not wood, he gets back to the business of sketching the crown with feathers on his left hand. His signatures are on it.
He’s quite young for being eligible for a personality assessment. He spends a lot of time making his signatures on the paper. He admits:
“I am not getting proper signature.”

Singatureutersevereverseverallyinglenookrasesamestreet

This interrupts my flow of reading. I was reading the chapter fourth from Science. Rutherford’s model:


In 1911, Ernest Rutherford overturned the previous “Plum Pudding” model (which, funnily enough, fits Bloom’s food-based metaphors) to propose something much more “astronomical.”
The Gold Foil Experiment
Rutherford fired positively charged alpha particles at a thin sheet of gold foil.
* The Expectation: Based on the “Plum Pudding” model, the particles should have passed straight through.
* The Reality: Most passed through, but some were deflected at sharp angles, and a few even bounced straight back.
* Rutherford’s Reaction: He famously said it was “as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you.”
Key Features of the Model
Based on these results, Rutherford proposed:
* The Nucleus: Most of the atom’s mass and all of its positive charge are concentrated in a tiny, dense central core.
* Empty Space: Most of the atom is “empty space” through which electrons move.
* The Planetary Analogy: Electrons orbit the nucleus like planets orbiting a sun (a concept Bloom would have appreciated, given his musings on “gasballs spinning about”).
Why it was “Incomplete”
While revolutionary, the model had a major “economic” problem in terms of physics:
* The Energy Crisis: According to classical physics, an electron orbiting a nucleus should constantly lose energy by emitting radiation.
* The Collapse: If it loses energy, it should spiral inward and crash into the nucleus. This meant Rutherford’s atom was technically unstable—it shouldn’t exist for more than a fraction of a second.
This “instability” was eventually solved by Niels Bohr, who introduced the idea of quantized orbits (fixed energy levels).

I recommend him to just write his name. It’s beyond me why he needs to create dashing signatures though he’s unable to read or write. He can copy. He has seen others making signatures. This makes him create his own. I recall how some of my friends used to keep making signatures which used to fill whole pages during our conversations.
He takes my advice. He writes his name and then  surname. I am reading it upside down. It’s written in methodical uneven style if you were to recall Morettian Graphology by Lidia Fogarollo. The first two letters are larger than the rest. Then again: he uses upper case letters mostly but in his name’s spelling there are two ‘a’ letters which are lowercase. I tell this to him. It’s irrelevant.
He shows me the completed drawing.
Reads it as:
“….mafia don.”

Zeitgeistarattamarinderpestuaryennoblendinglenookramptonnagemmatrialsomeshugasconademantoidiomatictactoeuvrevueuropeanemone

Zeitgeist or peculiarly narcissistic personality?
Or both?
He’s into drawing today. He shows me a box drawn with green ink. He calls it DJ:
In music, DJ stands for Disc Jockey. While the core definition is someone who plays recorded music for an audience, the role has evolved from a simple radio announcer to a central figure in performance and music production.
The Evolution of the DJ
* Radio DJs: The original “jockeys,” who rode the “discs” (vinyl records) to keep a broadcast moving.
* Club/Mobile DJs: Focus on selecting and “mixing” tracks to maintain the energy of a dance floor.
* Turntablists: Use the turntable as a musical instrument, utilizing techniques like scratching, beat juggling, and cutting.
* Producer-DJs: Musicians who create their own electronic tracks and perform them live, often the focal point of festivals (e.g., EDM or Techno artists).
Key Techniques and Tools
To keep the music seamless, DJs use specific techniques and hardware:
* Beatmatching: Adjusting the speed (BPM) of two different songs so their beats align perfectly, allowing for a smooth transition without the “clashing” of rhythms.
* Crossfading: Using a fader on a mixer to gradually fade out one song while fading in another.
* EQing: Adjusting the Low (Bass), Mid, and High (Treble) frequencies. For example, a DJ might “kill” the bass on the incoming track until the moment of the “drop.”
Etymology: Why “Jockey”?
The term was coined by American radio commentator Walter Winchell in 1935.
* Disc: Refers to the phonograph records (vinyl) used at the time.
* Jockey: Just as a horse jockey “rides” or manages a horse, a Disc Jockey “rides” the music to control the pace and mood of the broadcast.
Another picture- it is a picture of mitochondria – the power house of the cell. They have made a labelled diagram. It was classwork. It was done in school.
There is another half page of writing in unstable handwriting in English. That’s all.
I explain to them it’s not homework.
The elder had copied some math problems though the younger had escaped from the school by then. Many students were running away. Excuse?
“I told my Sanskrit teacher that I had a stomach ache. She’s anyway quirky.”
“Won’t you get caught tomorrow?”
“No.”
She had asked him to go to the office. To take permission and he escaped. Both of the brothers had a hard time pronouncing “office” which they do nonetheless.
Then he spends some time looking into the mirror as usual though I soon call him back to the lesson. They first wanted me to give them some Arithmetic problems.
“I am using my scientist brain.”
The younger brother copies just two problems out of ten. They’re written in haphazard handwriting.
The elder wants me to copy. His eyes, his hands have pain. I refused to do that. Then he notes them down.
I evaluate:
The elder has committed too many errors. Just two problems out of ten are done correctly.
A week of celebration at his house.
Now he can’t even do addition problems correctly.
The younger one rejoices because two of his problems are also correct. The scientist brain. They both scored 20%.

Now they’re eager to know if 15th is a Sunday. It’s a festival. A holiday. The elder thinks that it should have been another day to give him an extra holiday. It’s hardly fifteen days of school yet it’s intolerable.

I count days with dates on paper. Yes, it’s a Sunday indeed.
My mother gave me a plate full of snacks with ketchup. They have too much of salt and too much of oil.
Mangodi (or Mungodi) essentially refers to sun-dried dumplings made from spiced Mung Dal (yellow or green gram) paste.
What exactly are Mangodi?
They aren’t usually eaten “straight” as a snack like a potato chip; rather, they are a preserved ingredient used to add texture and protein to dishes.
* The Process: Mung dal is soaked, ground into a thick paste, and seasoned with spices like cumin, hing (asafoetida), and green chilies. Small droplets of this paste are sun-dried until they become hard, shelf-stable nuggets.
* The “Snack” Version: When deep-fried until golden, they become crunchy and can be eaten as a snack (often called Moong Dal Vadi). However, most people know them as an addition to curries (like Mangodi ki Sabzi).
Regional Variations
* Rajasthan/North India: This is the heartland of Mangodi. In arid regions where fresh vegetables were historically scarce, these “lentil nuggets” provided a vital source of nutrition that could be stored for months.
* Bengali “Bori”: In Bengal, a similar concept is called Bori, often made with Urad Dal (black gram) or Mung Dal, sometimes shaped into artistic cones and used in dishes like Sukto.
Etymology and Linguistics
* Mung: Derived from the Sanskrit Mudga (the name for the lentil).
* Vadi / Mangodi: The suffix “-odi” or the word “Vadi/Bari” comes from the Sanskrit Vatika, meaning a small lump or pill.
The elder asked me how many hours it has been. I looked up into the timer. It’s been just twenty minutes. The boredom is evident.
“Who was the person to propose the Atomic Model?” I asked this to the younger who was busy drawing.
“Some bald guy.” We all started laughing to it.
We discussed brief introductions of Neils Bohr and Rutherford.
Then we read about the distribution of electrons in various shells. It’s based on the formula 2n^2. There were 18 elements for which a tablular distribution of electrons was provided in their textbook:
The formula 2n^2 determines the maximum number of electrons that can be accommodated in a shell, where n is the orbit number or energy level (n=1, 2, 3, \dots).
For the first three shells:
* K Shell (n=1): 2(1)^2 = 2 electrons
* L Shell (n=2): 2(2)^2 = 8 electrons
* M Shell (n=3): 2(3)^2 = 18 electrons (Note: Although the capacity is 18, the outer shell of an atom cannot accommodate more than 8 electrons according to the Octet Rule).
Here is the electron distribution for the first 18 elements:
| Atomic Number | Element | Symbol | K Shell (n=1) | L Shell (n=2) | M Shell (n=3) | Electrons in Outer Shell |
|—|—|—|—|—|—|—|
| 1 | Hydrogen | H | 1 | – | – | 1 |
| 2 | Helium | He | 2 | – | – | 2 |
| 3 | Lithium | Li | 2 | 1 | – | 1 |
| 4 | Beryllium | Be | 2 | 2 | – | 2 |
| 5 | Boron | B | 2 | 3 | – | 3 |
| 6 | Carbon | C | 2 | 4 | – | 4 |
| 7 | Nitrogen | N | 2 | 5 | – | 5 |
| 8 | Oxygen | O | 2 | 6 | – | 6 |
| 9 | Fluorine | F | 2 | 7 | – | 7 |
| 10 | Neon | Ne | 2 | 8 | – | 8 |
| 11 | Sodium | Na | 2 | 8 | 1 | 1 |
| 12 | Magnesium | Mg | 2 | 8 | 2 | 2 |
| 13 | Aluminum | Al | 2 | 8 | 3 | 3 |
| 14 | Silicon | Si | 2 | 8 | 4 | 4 |
| 15 | Phosphorus | P | 2 | 8 | 5 | 5 |
| 16 | Sulfur | S | 2 | 8 | 6 | 6 |
| 17 | Chlorine | Cl | 2 | 8 | 7 | 7 |
| 18 | Argon | Ar | 2 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
Summary of the “Outer Shell” (Valence Electrons)
The distribution follows a periodic pattern:
* Period 1 (H-He): The outer shell is the K shell, which fills up at 2 electrons.
* Period 2 (Li-Ne): The outer shell is the L shell, which fills up at 8 electrons.
* Period 3 (Na-Ar): The outer shell is the M shell, which reaches a stable “octet” at 8 electrons for Argon.

The feedback I expect for my blog articles:

This is a fascinating piece of “slice-of-life” writing. It captures the chaotic, almost stream-of-consciousness energy of a tutoring session or a shared household afternoon. You’ve successfully blended domestic chores (tea, laundry, calcified furniture) with high-level academic concepts (Rutherford, Graphology, and Valence electrons).
Suggested Title: The Scientist Brain and the Mafia Don
Alternative Titles:
* Octets and Oily Snacks
* 2n² and the Twenty-Minute Boredom
* The Chronology of a Sunday Fortnight
Editorial Feedback
1. The “Joycean” Integration
You’ve used our previous discussions (Rutherford, DJs, Mangodi) as “info-blocks” within your narrative. This works surprisingly well for a weblog; it acts as a “hyperlinked” narrative where the reader learns alongside the characters.
2. The Contrast of Details
The transition from Morettian Graphology to a child drawing a “mafia don” crown in blue ink is brilliant. It highlights the gap between adult intellectualism and the raw, “narcissistic” playfulness of childhood.
3. Sensory Grounding
Your description of the “white stains” from calcium-heavy water and the “cobwebs on hats” provides a gritty, realistic texture. It makes the reader feel the “stagnation” of the house, which contrasts with the “restless” energy of the students wanting to escape to the office (or the mirror).
4. Areas for Polishing:
* The Transition to Content: When you move from the boy’s drawing to the “DJ” definition, consider a brief connective sentence like: “He calls it a DJ, which reminded me of the true evolution of the term…” This helps the “educational” blocks feel more like your internal monologue.
* The “Escape” Story: The dialogue about the Sanskrit teacher and the “stomach ache” is a highlight. You might want to expand slightly on their struggle to pronounce “office”—it’s a very relatable linguistic touch.
Technical Graphics for your Weblog
If you publish this, these visual aids could help ground the academic sections: