Sorry,Signor Leonardo

I am a kid lost in Amazon forest, as far as sketches, drawings, paintings; colours, brushes and the personality who stood behind the brush are concerned.

Enigmatic smile of Mono Lisa, the mystery surrounding the identity of the “poser”, a collector’s item raining money is beyond my comprehension. I am just familiar with famous names such as Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent Van Gough, Rembrandt and Picasso to name a few.

The super security arrangements made for these paintings, while they are on the move, display or in auction houses, is similar to the gaudy display of Zzzz security cover thrown around our so called popular leaders.

Signor Leonardo da Vinci was a famous painter. Probably when getting bored with paintings, he focused his attention to drawing conceptual sketches to fine tune his designs of ships, flying machines or mechanical devices.

This genius was far ahead in foreseeing future machines. He might also have felt sad on account of inadequate technology & inferior materials of his times. This might not be 100% correct, if we travel down the lane to pre-Leonardo inventions.

Forgetting all these for  a moment, imagine that now you are in possession of a unique listening device that can transcend space and time, to capture the sound bytes from the debates. Then, if Signor Leonardo happens to meet with Signor Archimedes, senior to him by centuries, this is what you could have heard, on earth!

Signor Leonardo chides Archimedes for shouting “Eureka, Eureka”, from a bath tub, for a royal cause rather than developing innovative contraptions, using his findings.

This indictment must have hurt Signor Archimedes, like the sting of an angry scorpion.

Rebutting, Archimedes tells him, “Eureka was my joyous expression on discovery of the principles of floatation & Psychometric method. I could make these contributions to physical and maritime sciences, even while immersed in a bath tub!”

Leonardo did not want to let go these contributions unanswered. “Mr Archimedes, I have also left a rich legacy of - paintings and innumerable conceptual drawings, as my own contribution to science & engineering”.

Mr Archimedes was not much impressed. “Your paintings dated back by centuries, fetch hundreds of millions, now, for the “collector” that too not in your country’s currencies. In what way this benefits you and the “poser” now?”

Let me remind you, “Even before you were born Mr Leonardo, Syracuse had war machines. Historically it was the Romans & Greeks who were sailing on the seas, in the 4th century BC even before my shouting of Eureka!”

He pointed it out to Mr Leonardo, “ Vikings from Scandinavia raided Northern Europe in the 10th and 11th century A.D. and are  credited  for coining the term “starboard” – denoting the right side of a sailing vessel”.

“Mr Leonardo, I don’t want to sound boastful but I had a concept for a single span bridge of nearly 700 feet. I would have done it myself at that time, but we did not need it. I left it for the Norwegians proved it in the modern world!”

It was the turn of Signor Leonardo to fall silent and slip away from the uncomfortable encounter. Mr Archimedes' soul, satisfied and mumbling something in Greek floated out from the scene.

Signor Leonardo’s soul was actively yearning to confront Sir Isaac Newton, on some issues of gravity. He thought that he had better arguments to put forth.

 It was Sir Newton who, unfortunately, came face to face with Leonardo. Waiting for such a chance, Signor Leonardo grabbed it gleefully.

“Ahaa! Mr Newton, I heard you were a nature lover and especially fascinated by falling fruits and leaves. Was it so?”

Sir Newton blushed a little in being complimented by such a soul like Leonardo. He admired his versatility and to be praised by such a person made him happier, than what he felt when being knighted.

Newton replied, “I was contemplating on nature and the fruit of inspiration was the falling apple”.

“Mr Leonardo, that apple triggered me to mathematically explain the laws of motion, flow of fluids. I could explain the spectrum of light, formation of Newton’s rings". The poor knight was not aware of the verbal duel Leonardo and Signor Archimedes had some time ago.

Leonardo asked, “With your treatise on gravitational force, did you do anything to benefit the people?”

“Did it not occur to you, Sir Newton that my conceptual design of a flying machine would have succeeded under the gravitational force of yours?”

The knight was furious. He pointed out “The flying machine was all that the birds were, from time immemorial. Surely, Mr Leonardo you must have watched them flying. Were you not a Nature watcher then?”

The rebuttal continued. Next he chose Leonardo’s famous painting for getting even with the Painter cum Inventor. “All your skill in painting did it benefit anybody – except you? You have no right to talk about my gravitational theories, in the light of this”.

“Mr Leonardo, You knew how to mix different pigments to get various colours. Do you know that it was me who showed the white colour to be a composite of 7 colours?

Nature was trying to explain the very same to you in the form of a rainbow. You failed to grasp and I did. So what is the harm in being a lover of Nature?”

“Mr Leonardo, you painted “what” you saw but I tried to explain the “why” & “how” of what you saw. But did you ever tried to explain?”

Miffed on being cross questioned, Leonardo ridiculed Newton saying “Was it necessary to provide a bigger & smaller opening, on the door, for your cat and kitten to come and go. Did it not strike you a little odd?”

Not to be out done Sir Newton replied, “Not at all! I was providing the kitten another entry option. The future lies in the hands of kids and all the options should be made available to them, including the knowledge of science.

That is my philosophy and now you know why I had a smaller opening for the kitten. If providing a smaller opening was odd what shall I call your peculiar habit of writing words as they appeared in a mirror – would it be odd-squared or odd-cubed?”

Getting little annoyed, Sir Newton continued in an accusative voice. “Mr Leonardo, you are remembered mainly for your paintings and in passing references to your notebook containing futuristic concepts.

Refresh your memory with the list of my contributions - Newton’s law of motion, Universal gravitation, Newton’s rings, Newtonian & non Newtonian fluids, and Newtonian telescope and so on.

Mr Leonardo, my third law of motion is very apt to be quoted here, but in a different context. The law is very explicit: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction ”

Leonardo cursed himself, in what sounded like garbled Latin. Newton thought probably the genius also possessed the art of speaking Latin the way he writes it – mirror imaging!

Leonardo’s soul decided it was high time to perform a vanishing act, like paint-less brush stroke, dissolving into thin air, with out leaving a trace!

For a moment, Sir Isaac Newton’s soul stood looking heavenwards and then slowly diffused in to a beam of light.

Static…rrrrrrrrr….. It is time for you to switch off your guessing machine as the ‘spirited’ debates have ended. If anybody doubts your claim, simply refer them to Mr Snowden, who will be happy to educate on cyber leakages. When eavesdropping is possible now, in real time, why not then?

If he is still unconvinced, then tell him that you had secretly tapped in to the radio telescope searching for extra terrestrial intelligence!