Everyman his own Boswell

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The title of this blog is stolen from the First Chapter of 'Autocrat of the Breakfast Table' written by Oliver Wendell Holmes more than 150 years ago.

It is well known that in every Profession one needs to beat one's own Drum. Which is rather a bother.

Myself and DB were very fortunate in that we not only shared the same supervisor SDM, but also the same Office Room, C-239 for 20 years after SDM left. It so happens that SDM was a 'multi-tasker' before that word became fashionable. He was doing Group Theory with DB and Electrodynamics with me. These are rather water-tight compartments. Moreover the interests of DB and myself turned out to be mutually exclusive: he published in JMP and I in AJP. I used to love labs and was allergic to pure math; he the other way round. So, there was no 'conflict of interest', a fairly popular jargon now. We tacitly agreed to 'beat each others drums', a pleasant pursuit. We practically dominated the drum-beating scenario till around 1998, when a large number of extremely talented youngsters joined the Phy Dept.

That was a great relief to a specialist in 'divestment' and 'outsourcing' like me, before these terms entered the Newspaper Columns. I duly gave up my EM & QM courses and got back to teaching First and Zeroth Year Courses which I always loved to teach. And I was fairly scared of talking to these youngsters whose advent on the KGP horizon was preceded and heralded by their aura (sorry for the mixed metaphor).

A couple of years after they joined, Sayan who was the Resident Relativist organized a Symposium in honor of the Golden Jubilee of SDM's Celebrated Paper: 'A Class of Exact Solutions of Einstein's Field Equations'. Apparently Sayan read this 'backwaters' paper and was struck by its sheer beauty. Also, Roger Penrose was attending a Symposium in Calcutta a few years before and was asking about SDM. It was rumored that Calcutta then woke up and went scouting for SDM who was lying in obscurity but was finishing writing his Book on QM. DB told me that SDM was rather brusque, saying that: "I have no need for a Certficate from a White Man at my age now". (You have to take this on good faith).

Anyway, Sayan asked me and DB for reprints of our Joint Papers with SDM, which we gave. Apparently the Celebrations were a great success. I am claustrophobic and so skipped them.

As I said, I was avoiding this younger generation of our teachers, in particular, Sayan, because SSG scared me out of my wits. SSG was my student in M Sc but later did his Ph D in Astro-Cosmo-Gravito-Paarticle-String Theory' and Sayan, it seems, was his Ph D Examiner (as SSG threatened me).

In any case I was a supreme Escape Artist of the Aniket variety, and so myself and Sayan exchanged about 7 sentences in as many years of our peaceful co-existences at KGP. (I was even scared of my student Somnath).

By and by I retired rather honorably from KGP and shifted to Hyderabad and promtly sank into Severe Depression. B Tech students, after staying in the downbeat Halls of KGP for just 4 years rather pine for their alma mater, saying in print shamelessly: "One can take a student out of KGP, but not KGP out of him", a rather fanciful way of putting nostalgia. And you can imagine what would happen to a lad who stayed on in KGP for ten times 4 years! Apart from that there was this vast 'Culture Shock' (another jargon) from SDM's IIT KGP to Satyam's Hyderabad.

Anyway, it took a good two years and prolonged medication for me to take to reading the Daily Newspaper, which lay unopened by me for 2 years. The reason was 2-fold. Hindu became unreadably conservative and DC unreadably Masala. Then it happened: M J Akbar took over DC and transformed it the way he did Telegraph(?).

I was gingerly trying to read it and found the new Op-Ed Page rather inviting. And I sent a Letter to the Editor on Farzana's provocative article on Gandhi. I was very pleased when it got published the next day. And elated when it won the 'Best Letter of the Week' (with a Rs 300 Prize which they never gave me). I found that I could again WRITE! That sure was the symptom of my full recovery.

For some unknown reason, Sayan was mailing me regularly asking about my health and welfare. That was an unexpected act of welcome kindness, which I didn't get even from my Near and Dear. After my recovery, I started replying to Sayan's mails with spicy reminiscences of my sojourn at KGP. Which tickled him very much.

Then came the Phy Society Webzine 'Anstaz' of which Sayan happened to be an Adviser. I knew that just about 4 issues was the average lifetime of such Phy Magazines. Then, as the Sardarji joke goes: "The enthusiasm trickles down".

And the 60th Birthday of SDM's Paper was approaching. It just happened that I was recalling SDM and narrating some of his exploits to Sayan, and he asked me why not write them up for Ansatz.

I was hesitant because I am prone to levity and DB to gravity as far as SDM was concerned. So, I asked Sayan to get one article from DB and one from me, on condition that my article shouldn't be seen by him before his article is submitted, and vice versa.

And the First Draft of my 17-Page Homage was written up in 24 hours in a 'night-out'. Such was the 'flow' SDM provoked in me soon after my recovery. But, as SDM would have it, I polished it, burnished it, word by word, comma per colon, reviewed by a dozen knowledgeable persons over a month and submitted it to Sayan.

Apparently there was some Ghapla and it got leaked to a rival Campus Magazine who approached KK for permission to print it in their forthcoming Issue.

Ah, I finally ARRIVED!

When rival publishers compete for your article (without payment maybe), you have MADE it!.

Although I was pleased, I put my foot down and told KK that its IP Rights, Copyrights, Filmy Rights, Music Rights and so on and so forth go to Ansatz.

Meanwhile, some students leaked my manuscript in good faith to DB without Sayan's knowledge, and poor chaps, wrote to me so. This naturally upset me and I took it up with Sayan, who must have given a 'sound drubbing' to the students involved. I was sorry for them; but this boyish enthusiasm of theirs cramped the style of DB's article which appeared in a later issue; and , worse, robbed readers the pleasure of two genuinely complementary back-to-back pieces on this Wizard.

Anyway, post-publication, I was naturally looking for comments, as every first-timer does. I was new to this game.

I got very few.

Anupam Mazumdar, who was my Project Student and did a wonderful job on Kerr Metric and rose to eminence in his field, called it a "passionately written" piece. But as you know, my pieces have as much passion as a dog has for his bone. Of course such a comment was due from a born-Mazumdar.

Aniket, as usual, didn't say anything to me, being kanjoos with compliments, but spread the word and advertised it; and even forwarded a soft copy to his dad, who I am told, wondered why every Ph D student shouldn't write such a Homage to their Guide!

But I got a totally unexpected mail from the SHY Chap after 20 years of silence, thanking me for teaching him (There was a sentence in my Homage asking folks to thank their teachers before it is too late).

One of my literary uncles, who retired as a Post master and translated Gita into Telugu verse and won fame and laurels, was getting bored while visiting Hyderabad for a few days. I asked his son, who was a Physics Graduate-turned-Banker, to pass it on to his dad hoping that he would read the Introduction which didn't call for any knowledge of Physics. I was amazed and tickled pink when he wrote to me 6 months later that he read the whole damn thing bristling with Physics jargon in one straight sitting just for the charming atmosphere of IIT KGP and its academic environment.

DB made a laconic but terrific remark that my piece is 'inimitable'. A chooser of apt words!

I attached a copy to Professor G S Sanyal, 85, ex-Director of IIT KGP, who knew SDM well and was himself a Radio-Physicist. He replied saying that he got a hard copy printed out and read it again and again: "It is full of information and top-class humor".

Ah, there you are!

I became a Certified 'Humorist'.

As expected, Ansatz shut shop and my Homage got deleted from the web. So, 2 years after its initial publication, I blogged the whole Article on my blogspot six months back.

And lo and behold! I got at least half a dozen ThanQ responses from new readers, many ex-KGP, but a few non-KGPians.

SDM happens to be quite a Great Draw.

Salute from Boswell to his Johnson!



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