Monday, January 31, 2011

Prejudice - 2

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Next to SDM, the most important relationship I had in the Physics Department at IIT KGP was with DB: we shared Office a record-breaking 20 years.

And, like SDM and me, we began with a violent prejudice against each other.

When I was joining KGP in 1965 after a disillusionment with Experimental Research, with the specific intention of doing fakee-bajee for the next 40 years, DB was joining Delhi University with a passion to do a Ph D in Theoretical Particle Physics, the Fashion of the Day.

But his disillusionment with the type of Particle Physics he was asked to do (mostly approximate stuff with Feynman Diagrams of dubious validity just to cook up explanations for the plethora of data that the accelerators were churning out) was as swift as mine with Experimental NQR at AU.

So he ran away from Delhi and joined KGP with the specific intention of doing Exact Group Theory with SDM in 1970.

By then I had already logged 5 years at IIT and came to be known as HNB's Pet.

Soon after he joined, he gave a Seminar Talk which I attended out of curiosity and left after 10 minutes because he was filling up the blackboard with mountains of Math which I couldn't follow; and I am claustrophobic.

Decided he was not my cup of Chai.

Soon we had a public spat over a Model Answer he gave for a B Tech Question. He did it by an X -Y integration while I said it was not necessary: a simple trick would do.

We were young, of the same age, but totally different backgrounds: like SDM he hated Electronics and Newton's Rings; and I hated Math and Group Theory.

And then HNB ordered me to join SDM (of all people) for my Ph D!

But SDM was double-edged: he was doing Physics with me and Math with DB; so our territories were clearly non-intersecting.

Soon after SDM left, HNB forced us to share the same Office: C-239, with the prescience that this would be an ideal combo by and by.

In the first few weeks we fought bitterly over almost everything in Physics.

But we soon realized that our interests and strengths dove-tailed neatly to encompass all of UG Physics. Since then we never looked back: we were like Ishani's two birds Peter & Paul:

Two little dickie birds, Sitting on a wall;
One named Peter, One named Paul.
Fly away Peter! Fly away Paul!
Come Back Peter! Come Back Paul!

When students used to enter our Office to get some doubt cleared, we used to direct them to each other appropriately.

We approached everything in academics differently.

If we had to read the same Physics Book, he would at once whip out his pencil and long note book turned sidewise and go from one Equation to the other till he triumphantly reached the end and would close it without reading the matter between Equations but guessing it. He was like a bloodhound more interested in 'how he got there' than who he is.

I would put up my feet on the Table and with relish read the text and what it is saying because I knew that I could always go from one equation to the next with my training under SDM.

It is as if we were given a ripe red juicy cashew fruit each: he would throw away the flesh and get to roasting and cracking the nut out. I would relish the juicy fruit and boil it in sambar and feel too lazy to tackle the nut till the last moment.

Almost none of his Papers has any diagram. Almost none of mine are without diagrams. The longest Paper of mine in AJP had as many as a dozen figures with very few Equations.

He never read Jenkins & White, the Bible in Optics during our days, since it had very few equations but was full of figures and text. I devoured every word of that Experimentalist's Book with misleading figures that took a lifetime for me to redraw.

And of course I would never even open his Gel'fand Volumes on Group Theory.

I used to teach 2 Courses in the 4th Year for long, while he used to teach 2 Courses in their 5th Year.

With the Bengali penchant for Ranking, students of IIT KGP, most of whom were like him rather than me (almost all of them did fakee-bajee in the Phy Labs and went into Theory) used to sort of award DB an Honorary A Grade and me a B Grade; but as I wrote in the blog: "To B or not to B", I always preferred a B Grade, so it was fine: 'A' Grade being a Crown of Thorns.

But there was a 3-year spell when both of us had to concurrently take a Second Year B Tech Course on QM: He asked to take the Computer Science Section while I asked for the Chemical Engg Section. The result was hilarious....students of our Sections comparing their Class Notes the night before Exams found nothing in common; so they guessed that the Notes of the 4 other Sections that had everything in common would appear in the Question Paper. Everyone was happy!

Although we shared Office together for two decades and SDM for 5 years, and each of us was publishing one Paper per year on the average, we had no Joint Paper.

DB was gadget-fearing while I was a gadget-freak. He didn't even know how to ride a push-bike and traveled in his Patent Rickshaw all the time; I graduated from the push-bike to Chetak and then to Maruti 800. While returning home after lunch or evening I used to drop him at Dreamland on whatever vehicle I was riding.

When PCs were forced on us, I set mine up in 2 days flat and learned e-mailing and Word 6.0 within a week from my son; DB's PC was mostly ornamental.

In Literature too we were poles apart. His favorite was Dostoevsky while mine was Wodehouse.

But we had a few things common though: both of us were incapable of managing people or funds and sedulously avoided administrative positions that required the one or the other.

We loved our Tea and used to go to the Co-Op Canteen together half a dozen times a day. We loved gabbing and gossip and indulged in it in our Office all the time when we were not 'working'. And we were aghast at the erstwhile Kanpur Culture where Teachers craved Single Rooms and 'backed' each other when forced to share an Office. We loved our Double Room and refused offers of Single Rooms till we were forced to move.

Much like SDM, DB was a child in worldly affairs and prone to Idealism. I am a cynic and not easily taken for a ride. Any student of other Departments praising SDM or Gel'fand or Group Theory could walk into his Class. I allowed no foreign body at all to sit in my Class, including one Director.

Pratik, who just about scratched the surfaces of our personalities, made this comment:

"Anyone can fool DB by buttering Group Theory; but none can fool gps".

That only shows that Pratik can't be fooled easily {;-}. And I suspect he is a happy combo of gps & DB: he enjoys Lab & Math; and Dostoevsky and Wodehouse. One in a million. But I suspect he prefers a Single Room and avoids wholesome gossip in the now-serious Physics Department; so he has to act like a double-barrel gun {;-}. Tough!

DB continued his Group Theory after his retirement and compiled all the invaluable knowledge he acquired in that subject into a valuable text-book.

His last phone call to me a couple of weeks before he left us was: "Yes, the Bloody Book is over". And he enjoyed my Piece in the Now & Again Column in The Statesman "In Praise of Laziness" read out to him by his daughter Dola.

That shows how close our relationship was despite our skin-deep differences.

As soon as I could, after my retirement, I bade Good-Bye to Physics, not wanting to do any more harm to the public.

It is lamentable that DB was snatched away just when he was most needed and at a juncture of life when he could at last enjoy the fruits of retirement (away from Electronics Lab Classes).

Like his Idol SDM, DB must certainly be in the Honest Physicist's Heaven, if there is one.

And I am already entrenched firmly in the Gul-Blogger's Heaven.

So I guess it is a consummate end to an enjoyable couple of decades of togetherness.


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Sunday, January 30, 2011

Bug-Bear-English

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A few months back we had the lovely company of Pratiks and Anikets as honored guests with us in Hyderabad bringing with them a whiff of Bengal and KGP.

All of us conversed in English which is the mother tongue of none of us.

Mrs Aniket & I discovered that Wodehouse novels are our Soothing Pills. And we happen to love Ukridge. So I went to town displaying my intimate knowledge of Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, pronouncing Featherstonehaugh in all his glory as:

"Feather-stone-haa!".

Mrs Aniket corrected my pronunciation as: "Fanshaw".

She did well. I liked the short pronunciation.

Just now I Googled for it and found this hilarious entry:

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

....The surname generally said to have the most pronunciations is Featherstonehaugh, which can be pronounced in any of five ways: "feather-stun-haw", "feerston-shaw", "feston-haw", "feeson-hay" or (for those in a hurry) "fan-shaw"......

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070403125424AALq2ye

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$


Mrs Aniket must have learned her English from a Convent School in the early 1990s; I learned it in the early 1950s in my Village School.

Youth of nowadays (like readers of this blog...yes...there ARE some!) just cannot imagine how gloriously we learned our English: it used to be taught in Telugu, our Mother Tongue (except by my HM Father in School Leaving Class XI).

In the early 1950s the youngsters in our sprawling State of AP capable of speaking a single sentence of flawless English (however they mispronounce it) could be counted on the fingers of our Arch-Archer Ekalavya (the chap who had his right thumb cut off by his Online-Guru...SOME Gurus in Hamara Bharat Mahan...).

The trouble we had in our Village School with English was twofold:

1. Its spelling: It is not a phonetic script. Unlike German and most Indian languages, you write something and read it something else...like my Featherstonehaugh.

2. German and our Mother Tongues, unlike English, have scant respect for our verbs: we shove them towards the end of sentences. With the ghastly result that when asked to translate from Telugu to English most of us wrote:

"I yesterday Calcutta to went"

and get zero marks. Only one student had the gumption to get up and quarrel with our Teacher that he was writing English in Poetic Order.

One of my schoolmates, a child prodigy in Math, scored 100% in Math and sundry other subjects but got 23% in English and failed grievously in his SSLC. In subsequent attempts in MSMs (March-September-March) he kept up and improved his scores in all subjects but his marks in English dwindled in a rapidly-converging-series to ZERO...a Case of Acute Allergy. He gave up after seven attempts and became a District Player in Chess and Cricket...a weird combo. (His name is Susarla Srinivasa Sastry...all Sastrys are weird..).

But I was lucky.

English is in our genes and my good Father taught me English from my age 4 and saw to it that good story books in English are at my fingertips. Whenever possible, he used to make me sit in his English Class of my elder sister two years senior to me. Once, he threw a question to the Class: "Tell me a sentence with 'after' used as an adjective instead of adverb, expecting the answer: "The cat ran after the mouse". The whole Class of us Village Kids fell silent, but since I read those Story Books, I stood up and replied: "The Cathedral is named after St Paul". He fell silent for a couple of seconds and asked me to Sit Down.

Thereafter he never asked me to sit in Senior's Classes since, I guess, it was not prudent to antagonize Senior Students.

Now I am sure that the number of English-Speaking Youth in our AP seeking jobs in BPOs sprouting all over, after a 3-month Voice Training in Hyderabad, far exceeds the number of English-Speaking Youth in England, where my medico nephew serving for long in their NHS says proficiency in Punjabi and Gujerati is compulsory for Doctors...proving Parshuram prescient in his Ulat-Puran written almost a century ago.


In our SSLC English Text-Book we had a wonderful Lesson by the famous Historian Ramesh Chandra Majumdar titled: "Why should we learn English?". I just fell in love with it and got it by heart without any intention to do so. I attempted a Question on that lesson (we had Choice) in my SSLC Exams and got a State First score of 85% when the State Average was hovering around 15% (Village Schools mostly). I would have loved to meet RCM during my Bengal life-term, but unfortunately he passed away in 1980; the Rest of Bengal asking: "Why should we learn that wretched English?"

I am sorry for Bengal:

They abolished English from her Village Schools for over 30 years!



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Saturday, January 29, 2011

Prejudice- 1

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....Jane Austen? Why I go so far as to say that any library is a good library that does not contain a volume by Jane Austen. Even if it contains no other book.

- quoted in Remembered Yesterdays, Robert Underwood Johnson

***

To me his prose is unreadable -- like Jane Austin's [sic]. No there is a difference. I could read his prose on salary, but not Jane's. Jane is entirely impossible. It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.


- Letter to W. D. Howells, 18 January 1909

***

I haven't any right to criticise books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.


- -Letter to Joseph Twichell, 13 September 1898

***

.............Mark Twain Quotations

http://twainquotes.com/Austen_Jane.html

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Of course Mark Twain is talking through his funny hat as usual just to provoke, which is his profession.

I have rarely taken the trouble of beginning a blog with a hilarious quote only to differ with it heartily. Mark Twain said worse things about Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose Autocrat of the Breakfast Table I read 5 times in 5 decades at regular intervals; and blackmailed Edwin Taylor of MIT to gift a copy to me if he wants me to send him the 30-page Manuscript of a Paper of mine on his Spacetime Software. He told me that he scouted for it all over the Harvard Square and at last could get a 150-year-old-well-preserved- gilt-edged copy in a Used Books Stall. I wanted to get it re-bound the other day, but my Binder-Friend advised me against it since the papers have gone too brittle for fiddling with them.

When that Paper appeared in AJP and (naturally) delighted him, he offered to send me Holmes's Poet at the Breakfast Table but I wisely declined it politely for fear it wouldn't stand up to his Prima Donna so to say, since I had made that mistake with Jane Austen. I am sure I am a crank since NONE of the dozen book-lovers (including Edwin) on whom I tried the Autocrat could wade beyond the first three pages, although they love to read the Quotes of this most-quoted author (at least in Readers Digest).

In my late teens I read Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice thrice in three years and still think of it the most romantic novel ever written (that was imitated by later tuppence romances). At IIT KGP I bought and read (with difficulty) her Emma and Sense & Sensibility which turned out to be poor followups. I promptly exchanged them with a rare copy of the Autocrat in the Faculty Club Library. I think Harper Lee was wise in not writing any more novels after her To Kill a Mocking Bird.

Fortunately for me Pride & Prejudice was not a prescribed book for exams; but it was for my fair elder cousin in whose hands I found it at 14. The book had a lovely color picture of a Man and a Woman dressed up in the Pre-Victorian fashion. and scowling at each other. My cousin pointed her cute finger at each of them and said: "This is Pride and This is Prejudice". I thought it a lovely way of introducing a book to a young fool who had to look up 'prejudice' in his Uncle's COD at once.

I may be a fool to read that book 3 times but, if that were so, Benjamin Disraeli, the First Jewish British PM who integrated India and the Suez into the Hallowed British Empire must be a fool 6 times over, since he is reputed to have read it 17 times.

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Although etymologically prejudice is just : 'pre-judgment' (or 'premature judgment') it has mostly a negative connotation: judge a person or thing hastily as undesirable if not avoidable, to say the least.

I have so far never had occasion to pre-judge people 'good' and discover later that I was too hasty in my judgment. You may call me a cynic, somewhat rightly, but the truth is that I have always been a withdrawn and unenthusiastic friend...almost never sought another's friendship...the few friends I have were the first to form an opinion of me (mostly negative) and correct it later on. This excludes most of my students and younger colleagues with whom I have always had cordial relations due to age-gulf that precludes any unhealthy sense of competition.

The prime example of Pride & Prejudice in my professional relations is no doubt with my Ph D Guide SDM. When he insulted me in public the first time I ever sat in a Grand Viva, I was almost in tears and walked out of the Hall in a huff wondering how anyone could behave so obnoxiously.

Only to discover later that he was not allergic to me but to Electronics; and that was his typical off-hand way of reacting to a situation in which he finds himself uncomfortable.

On my second one-on-one session with him (forced on me by HNB) I dropped my prejudice instantly since I discovered that this guy is DIFFERENT. And I stuck to him for five years and more not only because I wanted to do a good Ph D but also because he was INTERESTING.

Very unlike DB who found him a GOD from the word GO because both of them excelled in Math (and detested Electronics) unlike me who was the other way round.

But SDM was as keen as a child to learn the basics of Electronics from me as I was to learn (to his dismay) that the Determinant of an Orthogonal Matrix is Unity, a thing that every Class XII student knows nowadays. Oh, well! I too was aghast that any Professor of Physics from Calcutta University due to retire in 2 years never heard of a Pot or a Pentode not to talk of the routine Thryratron. Wisdom quickly dawned on both of us that we both were maverick in different ways...and that welded us.

After his retirement SDM was delighted with the many reprints I used to send him of my Papers in Teaching Journals, declaring that he never could understand Newton's Rings and avoided that Lab, or that he slept for 12 hours on my Flickering Bulb Paradox in Relativity (on the mathematical aspects of which he was the undoubted Maestro) and had to look at the hint in its Solution; and he then wrote it in cold blood that "Such a Paper can be written by one who is not only a Master of Relativity but also EMT"; just because it mentions the word Transmission Lines which, for him, was as foreign as Electronics {;-}.

A Charming Man intellectually and I treasured our differences and celebrated them in my Homage to him which was composed overnight in silent tears that such a person would perhaps never grace IIT KGP if not the Earth...just a grown-up KID!

A classic case of Professional Pride & Prejudice on both sides...


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Friday, January 28, 2011

Conceit


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Let us hear what Autocrat says about Conceit:

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-- Little localized powers, and little narrow streaks of specialized
knowledge, are things men are very apt to be conceited about.
Nature is very wise; but for this encouraging principle how many
small talents and little accomplishments would be neglected! Talk
about conceit as much as you like, it is to human character what
salt is to the ocean; it keeps it sweet, and renders it endurable.
Say rather it is like the natural unguent of the sea-fowl's
plumage, which enables him to shed the rain that falls on him and
the wave in which he dips. When one has had ALL his conceit taken
out of him, when he has lost ALL his illusions, his feathers will
soon soak through, and he will fly no more.

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I don't know about fish, but among reptiles cobra is the most conceited. I blogged my encounter with a resident cobra on two successive Saturday Afternoons, in "Snakes @ IIT" in an earlier Post. Just because she has a fancy bespectacled retractable hood, she thinks she is a Scheming Pot of Poison; de-fang her and she is as defenseless as a Retired Professor.

Among the airborne birds the Indian Crow takes the cake for sheer conceit just because Mark Twain devoted an entire Passage dedicated to him. He has no scruples in snatching the piece of bread li'l Ishani is holding in her tiny tender frightened hands. But in Shraddh ceremonies when I am asked to lay out a Pind (morsel) of rice studded with dal and ghee and delicious vadas to entice him, a dozen of his clever tribe would be hovering but none would touch it....they suspect that if gps is offering them Free Lunch it must surely be laced with poison. But he is caught square in the gully by cleverer Benarasi Birdies who let you release him from his cage @ one Rupee each so you can reach Heaven by and by. When DB told me this story I didn't believe it; till I watched a TV Ad for Visa Card featuring a certain Hollywood India Buff who implanted an American (not French) kiss on our own Big Brother Beauty in public on stage, much to the chagrin of our custodians of Hindu, Hindi, Hindusthani.

Among the grounded birds, hen is (unfairly) said to be the most conceited as she cackles as if she laid the Universe (Brahmanda) when she has only laid a tiny egg (just one Anda; she may just be rejoicing her relief from labor pains).

In the four-legged Kingdom, the KGP Street Dog has the most conceit. He will wag his tail and lick your legs for a morsel of your veg meal, but after 10 PM he thinks he owns the KGP roads and chases you barking alongside your Chetak Scooter till you halt and pretend to reach for your chappal; and then he will flee with his tail tucked between his legs. But if any kind Professor in an act of misplaced mercy hangs a collar around his swollen neck, he will stop mixing with his friends thinking he won a Ph D from IIT. And expects Free Conference Lunches and hopes to lead a Pensioned Blogger's life here and hereafter.

Rising higher up the Animal Kingdom, Sage Durvasa was the most conceited. Instead of thanking Ambarish for a Free Lunch, he curses and chases him for a perceived insult till Lord Vishnu counter-chases him with his spinning wheel.

Among Brahmins, the Pandas of Gaya are convinced that nobody can help their ancestors go to Heaven until they are first pleased. When I landed there at 3 AM by Neelachal Express on the Railway Platform with my old parents, I felt a strong hand gripping my shoulder trying to pull me aside. I looked back and found a Giant Panda hovering over me. In spite of my lean and mean figure 25 years ago, I was so angry that I pushed him back with all my might. He was stung by this unexpected assault much like a lion stung by a tiny scorpion; and we fled to the Bharat Sevashram Sangh's Reception Hall to take shelter there.

Among the Physicists I met, one Kaan-Poor Professor I worked with for three days and nights acted certainly the most conceited. He not only dismissed me when I kept mum when asked my 'Field', but also pretended he never heard (kaan being poor)of my pal DB, although DB was a well-known budding Particle Physicist before he was spellbound by SDM's Group Theory. Unfortunately I deleted the blog about my encounter with him instead of Saving it as a Draft. But those who wish to hear the story in its gory detail may consult Dr (LA) Don Quixote discreetly.

Finally, among all gran'pas, gps is certainly the most conceited since he fancies his li'l Ishani is the cutest and cleverest thing the Universe has ever created and brings out of his hat cheap booklets in her name every three months and distributes them all over the Universe for free, like so many flier-ads.



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Mavericks

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Ishani is just into her second year, but being a girl child, has already outgrown her hundred toys and dolls that move, spin, squeak and blink (I still play with her spinning tops).

Her mom's kitchen-work from peeling vegetables to boiling her milk fascinates her. She also assists our maid Parvati in her broom-work, snatching it and undoing whatever has been done with it (the broom is twice her height).

And fetches her Picture Books and asks her mom what each picture does by pointing her finger on them.

This morning while I was going out I found the two absorbed deep in their studies, her mom showing a rooster and saying it crows: "Coacko-row-co!"; and passing on to their next pic.

I couldn't resist poking in, and asked Ishani what a hen says: cupping my mouth I called:

"Peckack-peck-peck-peck---Peckack-peck-peck-peck!...".

She then lost all interest in her books and chased me around for repeat performances, grinning wide all the day whenever she saw me.

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If you ask me what I had been doing at IIT KGP in and out of the Class Room, the short and pithy answer is:
"Peckack-peck-peck-peck---Peckack-peck-peck-peck!...".

And my Guru and Guide SDM was even worse: he had no interest at all in crowing.

He never read any Book or Paper at KGP as he admitted to me for fear they would 'influence' him, nor attended any Conference; and his Class Rooms were famous for his off-the-cuff remarks on the subject he was supposed to teach laced with pearls of insight not to be found elsewhere; and I never saw him get to the black board (the doors were always open and he would be found sitting in his chair and talking Quantum Field Theory...his students loving it like li'l Ishani...his Question Papers were formal and anyone who cared knew the standard essays and got good enough marks in the classic Calcutta University tradition...high second class).

Maverick!

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Webster defines Maverick as "an independent individual who does not go along with a group or party".

I have always been enchanted with by-lanes rather than highways even when they led to dead-ends like a curious wall or a palatial mansion.

Sidestreams vs Mainstream.

Today's Maverick may turn out to be tomorrow's Mainstream, but then the charm gets diluted.

Bernard Shaw was the typical Maverick of his times, both in his writings and life (he met his match in Gandhi and the two met up):

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Gandhi meets George Bernard Shaw

"This leader from India, Gandhi, was a mystery and a wonder for the British. The way he lived everyday was news in London. His day began at four and he kept on working well past midnight.

Attending the meetings, taking part in discussions with leaders and his visitors, writing replies to the letters received, and preparing articles for the journals.

One day George Bernard Shaw, the famous thinker and playwright visited him. “I am also a sort of a Mahatma’’, Shaw said as he grasped the hands of Mahatma Gandhi. They discussed various topics of common interest for about an hour.

“Is not this Round Table Conference testing your patience”, asked the playwright.

“Infinite patience is needed in matters like this” Gandhi, the great Indian leader responded".

http://www.indiavideo.org/text/gandhi-met-george-bernard-shaw-80.php

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Among Physicists Feynman was certainly the Maverick Supremo in all senses of the word. His book: "Surely you are joking, Feynman!" annoyed as many as it thrilled.

His Feynman Lectures are maverick: his Third Volume turns QM on its head..he starts with a Two-State System and the Free Particle Schrodinger Equation comes last.

Another QM Book by Levy-leblond and Balibar titled Quantics is equally maverick: it has hardly any Equation, but hundreds of graphs culled from the latest papers...QM as it is done in the lab by experts in the subject.

Landau-Lifshiz's Classical Theory of Fields (First Edition) was an eye-opener for me; and S Chandrasekhar said he learned all his GR from that single book (as usual, the later editions are more than double its size and half as good for a beginner like me). Instead of starting from Coulomb's Law it started its EM with a Lagrangian Formulation.

String Theory was maverick when it began...and it is Mainstream now, I guess.

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Coming to myself, I published a couple of dozen Articles and Papers on the by-lanes and alleys of undergraduate Physics in Teaching Journals and am rather proud of them all. Sayan found my first Note in AJP 1970 helpful after a good 35 years and that made me so happy.

Vinit says he downloaded them all and read them with pleasure; and Vinit is not one to be pleased easily...he sat in my QM Class but missed my EM.

My retired blog-life is certainly maverick...all my contemporaries are into more formal pursuits.

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For me Edward Lear is the Maverick in Eng Lit.

I had to mug up Classical Love Poetry in my School and College days, terminating in the Tennyson lines:

'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

But any day, any number of times, I can re-read Lear's: The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bongy-Bo:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/search?q=Lear%27s+Best

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I asked Shyamal, the maverick Physicist-Poet why he doesn't blog his poetry.

He replied that he was afraid folks would steal them.

Like "Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays virtue", I guess "Plagiarism is the tribute mediocrity pays excellence".

How I wish my blogs get plagiarized please!!!



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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Who Built the Taj?

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In the 1950s Nehru and Raj Kapoor were favorites of Moscow.

Maybe because they portray in their own styles the Poor & Pure Indian Nation.

It is a different matter that during the Chinese Aggression in 1962 Russia demurred: "India is our Friend while China is our Brother" (Blood is thicker than Vodka).

In 1955 Nehru visited Moscow as PM and was delighted to watch school kids waving Banners and Buntings proclaiming: "HAPPY" writ all over them. He boasted to his comely Translator how Happy Muscovites were with his visit; only to be pulled a peg down when he was told that HAPPY reads NEHRU in Russian.

On his reciprocal visit to India Khrushchev was led to Agra on his default pilgrimage to the Taj Mahal. The naughty Khrushchev asked his Tourist Guide: "Who built this splendid Taj Mahal?".

The cute Guide gave her routine reply triumphantly: "Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his lovely third wife Mumtaj Mahal".

Khrushchev then scowled (much like Didi) and remarked, shaking his head in staunch disapproval:

"Nyet, Taj was built on the blood of thousands of starving proletariat laborers, artisans
and artists".

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"Whose baby is it? Mother's or Father's?"

This question was settled in India (except perhaps in Kerala where Matriarchy prevails in some communities) by the contrivance of the baby getting the Gotra and Title of the Father rather than its Mother (Seed vs Soil).

In the Hindu Code Bill the Father is the Natural Guardian of his children if there are Divorce Proceedings (Fathers can bully kids better).

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Who wrote the Sanskrit epic: Mahabharata?

The text itself says that the 100,000 verses were written by Lord Ganesha acting as scribe to the dictation of Vyasa at the latter's request (Vyasa's handwriting was worse than Ishani's, perhaps).

Apparently Ganeshjee agreed to do the job provided Vyasa never halts or pauses in his dictation (Ganeshjee was in a hurry to finish the Project and go feast on vast bamboo groves; remember He has the head of an elephant capping a human torso).

And Vyasa retorted that Ganeshjee should understand what he writes (no joke...ask any student of IIT KGP!)

That is why every once in a while when Vyasa needed to sip his Coke he would come up with verses of loads of top spin.

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Those were the good old days when Joint Papers and Books were not in vogue (not to talk of Joint Ph D Guides).

Nowadays whenever one appears for an Interview for a Faculty Position at IIT the first question asked is: "Who wrote this Paper; you or your Collaborator (s)?"

And the answer is never easy.

SDM himself confessed that it is impossible in a Joint Work to tease out which portions are whose, the ideas being interlaced.

**************************************************************************************************

Tail Piece:

Talking of Declaration of Joint Paper Intellectual Property Rights there is this story:

An unemployed bachelor A who badly wanted to get married to any employed Lady asked his friend B to accompany him to the Bride-Seeing Ceremony (one can't go alone since he would be suspected friendless).

During the First Interview, B declared ab initio: "The favre-leuba watch my friend A is wearing is not his but borrowed".

B was later cursed by A.

In the Second Interview, B said: "The favre-leuba watch A is wearing no doubt belongs to A"

In the third Interview, B washed his hands off:

"Don't ask me to whom the favre-leuba watch A is wearing belongs...for, I have been asked to shut up about it".


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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Donkey's Feet

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In our Culture there is nothing wrong in prostrating and catching someone's feet (before pulling their legs) {;-}

In North India catching elders' feet is a routine ritual. In Bengal it was as widely prevalent as adda and kola-koli during my time; I don't know now.

In AP of Southern India in our childhood it was a symbolic sham-show of respect to Gurus and Gods of whom there is never any dearth. And in return they were supposed to bless us with pocketful of marbles, toffees and Pass-Marks.

But all over India it is the best way to propitiate a man or a woman for instant goodies like Lok Sabha Tickets and Ranji Trophy Chances.

And kicking them as soon as they are delivered, if they happen to be, say, Ph D Guides; although the latter can be spoilsports even after their retirement (if not death.. even Death can't us Part!)

I guess even in the icy chair-sitting West where there is no floor-sitting-prostrating Culture there ought to be equivalent forms of propitiation, Human Nature being what it is.

I don't know.

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I read that Ramakrishna Paramahamsa found the similarity in the Birth of Jesus and Lord Krishna, and the several miracles attributed to them so striking that he used to refer to Jesus Christ as: "Jesu Krishno"

King Herod ordered the execution of all young male children in the village of Bethlehem
so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the Jews whose birth had been announced to him by the Magi.

Likewise King Kangsa, who inexplicably allowed his sister Devaki and her husband Vasudev to stay put in a single cell together, decreed that he be informed of any childbirth there so that he could visit the cell and kill their new-born baby gleefully.

When their eighth child Krishna was born however, Vasudev was ordered by a Voice from Above to smuggle the baby soonest in the dead of the night before Kangsa got to know.

And when he was preparing to obey the Orders from the Heavens, Vasudev discovered a Donkey preparing to bray his heart out at the dead of that night (for reasons best known to other Donkeys) and thereby risking waking up Kangsa (although he was not of the donkey clan to the best of my knowledge).

Legend has it that Vasudev fell prostrate on that Donkey's feet praying to him to press his Mute Button for the nonce till he and his baby boy had a head-start of a couple of miles.

I don't know if Josef had to face a similar ordeal.

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In our South Indian Brahmin tradition, the Brother of the Bride has to wash the feet of the Bridegroom in the Marriage rituals, ostensibly because the Bridegroom is cajoled into doing immense good to the Family in general and the B-i-L in particular by his audacious venture (which he would rue by and by when it is too late).

I had to wash half a dozen pair of feet
willy-nilly (Supratim!)

I myself was embarrassed beyond measure when my wife's brother prepared to wash my tender corny feet in my own marriage. I couldn't protest too much since I was afraid they might find someone else more amenable and thus deprive me of my hard-earned Bride.

*****************************************************************************************************

Although I lived in Bengal all my Working Life, I didn't touch the feet of either HNB or SDM: one gave me undue promotions, and the other an equally undue Ph D apart from endless intellectual fun (and does so even now blogwise).

But last January when we revisited KGP after five years I and my wife touched the feet of Professor G S Sanyal (90) in his Office rather abruptly. He was taken aback.

This is because I have a peculiar sort of admiration for him.

Apart from being a Great Teacher, he took care of his students so well while they were at KGP that he won their hearts. I came to know of this first-hand when I was at IIT Delhi on an official visit and a famous Physicist and Bhatnagar Awardee whom I came to admire gave me a letter to be delivered in person to GSS saying: "GSS is God!".

Also Sri and Srimati Arjun Malhotra (of the 1965-70 ECE Batch) funded a thriving School of Telecommunications in the name of GSS at IIT KGP (rather than their own names) in 1996.

And decreed that they will bear the expense of housing GSS in the Campus in Qrs and Office as long as GSS wished.

I happened to be riding (parasitically) in GSS's car one of those days and I said honestly to GSS that it is a symbol of the greatest respect any student can show to his favorite Teacher.

Upon which GSS blushed and confessed that he avoids going anywhere near 'his' School since it embarrasses him so.

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Of all Investments, the one that gives unfailing returns is Investing in Love of one's students...it never obeys the Law of Diminishing Returns...

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Monday, January 24, 2011

Mixed Feelings

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It is my thesis that when folks have mixed feelings, they prefer to show off their bold and tough in public rather than their timid and the tender.


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!946: Seaside Village:

I was 3 and my naughty elder sister 5. All of us were sleeping outside our house, of a summer night.

My sister woke me up shaking me early one morning and said sotto voce; "Let us go to the Kodanda Ram Temple and watch the Annual Fair".

I rubbed my eyes and followed her there. And we had lots of fun watching and riding free merry-go-rounds and eating Holy Prasad thrusting it in our unwashed mouths.

And when the Sun turned too warm we ran back fearing the worst aftermath of our escapade.

There was a crowd in front of our home, several Search Parties apparently reporting No Show since they looked everywhere like the Village Pond, the Bus Stand and the
Rajareddy Gardens, which were our familiar haunts.

Except the Temple.

Father had his default moist eyes fearing the worst.

But as soon as he saw us, he dismissed the jubilant crowd, promptly shut us both in the Coal Cellar and bolted it from outside since he was the HM of the School and had a reputation for discipline to keep up in public.

Our loving aunt released us from our Prison and fed us our milk and snacks as soon as the HM's back was turned.

******************************************************************************************

Hyderabad, Saturday, 22 January 2011:

Pratik and his wonderful wife and daughter were here in Hyderabad and agreed to grace our Place and partake our simple lunch and exchange gas and gossip of KGP on Sunday,

And talk to lisping li'l Ishani whose pictures they saw on the web.

Saturday morning my wife and d-i-l discovered that our punctual Maid Parvati didn't turn up even two hours after her usual 9 AM In-time. And it was tough on them to start and do the dishes, clothes and brooms from 11 onwards, cursing Parvati for being AWOL.

Sunday morning, they both woke up at 6 AM for their Kitchen Work preparing the half a dozen chosen dishes for our honored guests. As the 9 AM Deadline approached their hearts were thumping with trepidation fearing that Parvati wouldn't turn up again, in which catastrophe both of them would be still in their workplace-dresses when the honored guests arrived at 11 in their Formals.

And praying to all Gods on either side that Parvati's problems whatever they were would have been sorted out in the intervening 24 hours (it turned out she was beat up by her hubby for the first time in their six-month-old marriage...she will have to get used to it by and by).

As soon as the doorbell sang Parvati's musical chime (every visitor has their signature chime) both of them heaved several embracing sighs of relief with broad smiles between them.

But as soon as they opened the Front Door, both of them fell on Parvati like a couple of starving wolves tearing her to pieces before hearing her story and sharing their hot Tea with her in their kitchen.

********************************************************************************************

1974 IIT KGP:

This Final Year Student X wanted to submit his Project Thesis early and quit IIT like a Bat out of Hell.

But his youthful Guide Dr Y living in our Faculty Hostel discovered that his enterprising student did too much faakee-baajee (copy-paste) and reported what he thought were spurious results.

And was damn angry and refused to sign his Thesis.

Which meant that X would lose one whole year, his Citibank Job, as well his US Schols.

When Dr Y returned leisurely at 10 PM to his Room after playing Bridge in the Faulty Club and having his Weekly Special Dinner and Yak-Yak Session in the Dining Hall, and opened his door, he found a fat envelope and pulled out a long letter from X timed 2 PM.

The crux of the letter was that if Dr Y refused to pardon him and sign his blessed Thesis by 6 PM, he would find his (X's) body hanging from the Ceiling Fan of his Single Room in RK Hall.

Dr Y got scared and cursed himself for not returning straight from his Office and ran to his HoD's Qrs by 10.15.

The HoD collected the Dean (SA), HMC Chairman and Warden, and all of them reached RK Hall by 11.30 PM. They recruited the Hall President, and a large crowd gathered in front of X's Room, which was found bolted from within and all lights off.

They knocked and punched and battered the Door for 15 long minutes without any response.

And were talking hush-hush of fetching the Police and Crowbars and the Mortuary Van.

Then the haunted door slowly creaked open and X came out rubbing his sleepy eyes and asking them in an offended tone what the Hell they were all doing there.

Everyone heaved several sighs of sleepy relief and quit.

But Dr Y confessed to me that despite his earlier Prostrations and Prayers to Lord Puri Jagannath, his first urge on seeing X alive was to throttle his Dear Project Student with his bare hands and kill him outright and feast on his dead body....

=========================================================

viva la kgpia! - 5

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I would then ask Chandra to fetch a wire-wound
and a carbon Pot each of 20 K and show them to SDM.

And ask a student nearby which of the two is used in the plate circuit and which in the grid circuit and why. He would hum and haw and would go away to consult his classmates.

Meanwhile SDM would ask me what the answer is. And I would tell him the standard answer. The why part would puzzle him till I tell him that it is a matter of Wattage, not Ohmage. His eyes would glow like twin stars since he knew everything about Wattage.

And then he would ask why not use the higher Wattage one everywhere, since it would make no difference. I had to tell him that the higher Wattage one cost ten times more than the lower. He would ask why...and it went on.

To give him the greatest pleasure, I would look for Chandra to bring a screw-driver and would be told he went to the Agriculture Gate to fetch three cups of Tea from the stall outside that Gate.

Eventually Chandra would arrive and serve us Tea. He relished his Tea but would ask if the Tea was from the Lab Funds, which question I had to duck with the expertise of Sunil Gavaskar.

When the screw-driver arrives, I would open up the two Pots and hand them over to him for inspection and he would play with them as Ishani with her new toy, turning the stem this way and that.

And then two partners would arrive with their Lab Records of the Series LCR Experiment for their Lab Viva. I would ask them to go back to their Table and see if they could find an unpredicted resonance at a high frequency around 500 KHz. They would return in 10 minutes to report that there IS one at 486 KHz. And I would ask them why. The two would look at each other and I would then give them a hint to remove the Capacitor altogether from their LCR circuit and see what happens.

All this while SDM would be watching the proceedings silently but couldn't contain his curiosity and finally ask me to explain what was going on and I would reply (I had a policy to never answer a Question gratis unless it was ASKED).

He wouldn't be convinced that the Self-Capacitance of a Coil could be that much as to be seen in a Student Lab.

Ultimately next Wednesday when the Lab was free I would build a VHF Oscillator, remove its shielding and when SDM came next Tuesday, I would take him to it and ask him to insert his hand into the chassis and see how the waveform on the Oscilloscope Screen shifts continuously.

That was a Moment of Rush for him...all in all he was like a child...

And I would tell him that the automatic doors and taps work on this stray capacitance those days (I don't know now).

Over the Semester the Number of Rushes I gave him in that Electronics Lab were as many as those he gave me over 5 years of Theoretical Work under him.

As he dispelled the Fear of Math for me forever I can boast I removed the Fear of Electronics from his mind forever...unfortunately he retired a year later...

viva la SD Mia!

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Last Laugh:

Talking of Vivas, Grand and Little, I am reminded of this joke Dr Chitnis told me that was popular then in the US whence he returned to India and stayed with us in our Faculty Hostel during 1967- 68 for a couple of years before getting back to Cornell.

It is important to remember that Dr Chitnis was one of the fairest gentleman I met and was as shy as RGC while narrating off-color jokes:


There was this Public Exhibition of Mute Show & Viva Questions at Cornell those days. Later on this came to be known as Dumb Charade. Two partners would do some Dumb Act on the Stage and ask the Viewers to guess the Title of the Film they were portraying.

Like a bearded giant with flowing hair would enter displaying his muscles and then a dame would come on stage with a shaving razor and start trimming his beard.

The Public would shout: Samson-Delila!


Eventually this Sardarjee would enter, strip down his pants and bend, and his wife would come on with a hand-fan and fan his bare bottom.


The Audience would give up and ask loudly what was going on.


Our Sardarjee would then zip-up his pants and say into the mike:

it is simple: "Gond pe Wind"

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Saturday, January 22, 2011

viva la kgpia! - 4

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To put it in a nutshell, every Tuesday Afternoon in the Autumn Semester of
1973-74 turned out to be an intensive but pleasant session of Lab Viva with me as the target.

In 1963 my alma mater, AU of Waltair (the Port City of Vizagh), in its own wisdom, was pleased to award me a beautifully calligraphed parchment paper on which it was spelled out that I deserved an M Sc Degree with the following particulars inked in:

1. First Class; 2. Physics (Main); 3. German (Foreign Language); 4. Electronics (Special Paper)


First things first: That First Class simply meant that I was damn good at ingesting without digesting an enormous amount of hard stuff like the Perturbation or Variation or Heitler-London or whatever Method of Solving the Schrodinger Equation for the Hydrogen Molecule approximately; and vomiting it on plain paper.

Second: The Physics I learned there with pleasure could be written on a grain of rice; it took me five long years of Teaching to progress from Resnick-Halliday to J D Jackson (the slim and beautiful First Edition...the Second Edition 25 years later was three times as big and worse...it omitted completely the lovely solution of the Electrostaic Field of a charge Q dumped on a thin circular conducting plate).

German: The only German word I still remember even now is: Madchen with an umlaut on 'a'. It means a girl. Now we had this young Pudding Teacher just returned from Germany and proud of his ready wit. A naughty boy in our Class once stood up and asked innocently why Madchen is prefixed with the neuter gender article 'das' instead of the feminine gender 'die'. The Teacher guffawed and joked: "Madchen is a young girl child not yet ready for sex". And bit his tongue and blushed pink when he noticed that there were two sari-clad girls in our Class who presumably were 'ready for sex' by implication.

Electronics: Here our AU did us proud. We had possibly the best Electronics Student Lab in the Region. For three afternoons every week for two years we were allowed to play with gadgets we liked. The summum bonum came towards the Final Month when we had to build a Superhet Radio Receiver and also calibrate it; which meant that we had to build and connect in series an RF Tuned Amplifier, Local Oscillator, Converter, IF Amplifier, Detector, AF Class A Voltage Amplifier, Class B Push-Pull Power Amplifier to a Speaker; and demonstrate it by catching signals from Radio Ceylon playing a Lata song. We became such experts in hands-on Electronics that we were sure we could be employed as Post-Graduate Assistants in any of the dozens of Radio Repair Shops sprawling in Vizagh if we didn't get any other job. Moreover, I spent two years there building high-frequency Super-Regenerative Oscillators for my NQR work. So when I joined IIT KGP as a Teacher, Electronics Labs held no terror for me; thanks to AU.

*******************************************************************************************************

After his post-lunch siesta, SDM would cycle down leisurely to the Electronic Lab which was then housed in the Old Building where now the Nehru Museum muses ponderously, knowing that I would start the ritual Allotment of Experiments to students with the help of the then-Lab Assistant Chandra.

And would sit across the Teachers Table and start talking about whatever happened to be exercising his mind, mostly reminiscences pleasant and otherwise or propound inane theories on the Political or Economic Situation in the Country of which his understanding was somewhat less than Electronics.

Then a student would walk up to our Table to report that his Colpitt Oscillator was not 'oscillating'. I would then ask him to bring his Circuit Diagram which he must have topoed from his equally innocent seniors. And then suggest he replace his fixed 10 K Plate Resistor with a 20 K Pot and try swiping it. The student would go and won't return in a hurry as this is a common complaint with as common a remedy.

SDM would then bend forward and ask in a hushed voice what a Pot is.

I had to tell him that it has nothing to do with the earthenware thing in his house or the other thing that was then popular in the Third Floor of Block D of a certain Hall of Residence, but a lousy abbreviation for Potentiometer.

He would then grimace since the only Potentiometer he knew was the ten-wire meter-long Pot with so many screws that won't fit in a circuit chassis.

To be continued in viva la kgpia! - 5


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viva la kgpia! - 3

=======================================================

By and by I learned that Electronics was SDM's Blind Spot (he was a terror in the Spectroscopy Lab though; he did breathtaking work in Theoretical Molecular Spectroscopy solving the Polyatomic Schrodinger Equation in a novel way that led to his famous Majumdar Formula for CG Coefficients).

I guess in his Presidency College days he lectured passionately and patriotically that Marconi stole the circuit for his first Radio from Sir J C Bose amidst claps from his juniors; and then cut his Electronics Labs and left for their Harry's Coffee House for a rush of heady nicotine. He was a chain-smoker alright. But unlike other reformed smokers he never used to decry smoking. On the other hand he used to say that it is impossible to do a Ph D in Theoretical Physics without smoking.

Reformed smokers, like reformed sinners, are better avoided by and large.

There was this gifted writer Chalam in the 1940s who became famous for his series of novels called Chalam Sahityam that advocated Free Love, Liberation of Women from the fetters of Marital Vows, and the Works, which together were brave and rave and sold like hot cakes and helped societal reform.

Unfortunately however, after his hormones dried up, Chalam came under the spell and became a Devotee of a famous Guru and started preaching Sublime Love and Devotion.
Had he consistently indulged in soft-porn mixed with Divine Love he could easily have written prose versions of Jayadev's Geet Govind.

SDM was the antithesis of Chalam, hormones or no hormones.

Maybe due to his allergy to Electronics, SDM was unhappy with his M Sc (Physics) results and did a brilliant M Sc (Math) as an add-on. His intuition in Physics was marvelous but his ability in Math was unparalleled. He told me that Teachers in his Sylhet School used to learn Math from him (he stood First Class First in the Pre-Partition Combined Calcutta University Matriculation Exam).

Returning to SDM's lifelong aversion to Electronics:

Four years after I joined him in my Ph D work which was more or less through by the end of 1973, by some wicked evanescent Rule, SDM was posted as a Teacher in the Electronics Lab for a Semester (the Semester system took over by then).

One day when I went to his Office he showed me his Routine with the Tuesday Afternoon Electronic Lab Class with a grin of chagrin. But he was too proud to ask for a repeal (by contrast later on when I became the TT-in-Charge for a couple of years, Senior Professors used to rush to my Office with Requests).

I then went to the TT-in-Charge (Prof RGC) and saw to it that I was posted as SDM's Co-Teacher in that Electronics Lab on Tuesday Afternoons.

What happened in that Lab for a whole Semester, I reserve for
viva la kgpia! - 4


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Friday, January 21, 2011

viva la Wodehousiana!

===========================================================

They may say so or not but most of the dozen regular readers of my blogs
envy my time on this planet and refuse to believe that I have always been heartbroken {;-}

As my contemporary B-i-L Sri G Ranga Rao, IAS said: "Fact and fiction merge so seamlessly in your writings that it is impossible to decipher them, but who cares!"

Some may love to denounce me and my writings but the principal characters of my stories can't be contacted except via Planchette.

I wish however that DB were here and net-savvy: he would have loved each word of what I write even though he might be cursing me for my half-truths with his familiar: "Saalah B*****d!" oath.

Let us take my Magnum Opus: SDM Homage:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-magnum-opus.html

It was supposed to appear in the same issue of Ansatz as an independent Piece by DB; but unfortunately he got to see my manuscript before he wrote up his. This is a disappointment because our independent versions of SDM would have been like the two sides of the Moon.

As such my SDM Homage stands like the original Valmiki Ramayan: many dozens of versions of it from Tulsidas's (not DT's) to RKN's via Rajajee's have had to follow Valmiki's script even when the screenplay differed. The couple of Dravidians whose Raam was the Devil himself and Raavan the sublime Angel couldn't call their works Ramayan but had to title them as something like Keemayan.

I was re-reading the Piece: Bharavi's Atonement yesterday:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/07/bharavis-atonement.html

Saswat (who prefers to be labeled: Shashwat) and Aniket called it a Riot. The original story is poignant and serious if not sublime. My version is indeed a travesty of the original:

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Travesty:

1: a burlesque translation or literary or artistic imitation usually grotesquely incongruous in style, treatment, or subject matter

2 : a debased, distorted, or grossly inferior imitation

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/travesty?show=1&t=1295670831

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But there were indeed a couple of touching moments alright.

Hear what Wodehouse says:

"I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is mine, making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going right deep down into life and not caring a damn"


viva la Wodehousiana!




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viva la kgpia! - 2

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For me, my first Grand Viva as a Teacher was a heart-wrenching disaster:

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For the first three years at IIT (1965 - 68) I was given only First Year (B Tech & B Sc Hons) Classes to teach. In my fourth year I was asked to teach the 3rd Year B Sc (Hons) Class, mostly on the insistence of Seema Bose, HNB's daughter, who was previously in my First Year Class (God Bless Hers!).

That was an Outgoing Year, as some students like Dharam Vir and Subba Rao used to leave for other IITs, mostly Kanpur for their M Sc; and a few to Special B Tech (Post- B Sc- 3 Year) at KGP itself like Prof B of IEM who I talked about a couple of days ago.

There was no Semester System then and Courses used to run the whole Year, with a Half-Yearly Exam in December (80 marks) and Annual Exam in April (120 marks). Both the Exams used to have Grand Viva for 3rd Years.

I was asked to teach EM- 3, after EM- 1 in the First Year that I had taught earlier from Halliday & Resnick. I asked HNB what I should teach and he said with a smile: "Whatever you think is best for the Outgoing Students; and then give me the syllabus" (what a lovely privilege!).

In my li'l wisdom, that the students who left for Special B Tech appreciate...even now, I decided to teach AC Circuit Analysis and Electronics till the Half-Yearlies. For the next half of the year I taught EM Fields starting from Electrostatics till Maxwell Equations and the Field of a Uniformly Moving Charge in Vacuum, leaving the last 10 Lecture Hours shared among the 20 students where they could pick up any topic of their choice from Sommerfeld's Electrodynamics or Feynman Vol 2 (many of them did a better job than me). EM- 4 came in their 4th Year (I taught this till I retired almost).

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At the end of the Half-Yearlies I was asked to participate in the Grand Viva as one of the Teachers of the Class. I didn't know the System then.

As I entered C-229 I found a fat squat fair gray-eminence in the middle of the first row of chairs, accompanied by another Senior Professor, neither of whom taught this Batch any Course. I gathered that the fat chap was the Chairman of the Viva Board. The other six or so Class Teachers occupied the next row and I sat near the Exit in the last row, dying to participate wholeheartedly and get a feedback from a Class that remembers me to this day as one of them (I was young and leaner than the others):

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20030322/windows/main3.htm


As the first student walked in, the fat chap in the front row opened a khata he brought and started bombarding questions that were jotted down in it (perhaps over 30 odd years). The questions were very cute and thought-provoking and I liked his compilation.

But he forgot that the time available for the Grand Viva was Finite; and had to be stopped by the Rest of the Teachers who also wanted to ask their quota of questions.

When at last I got my chance to ask a question, I picked up Hartley Oscillator and asked the Student to draw its Circuit Diagram and explain its Positive Feedback Element with phase inversions.

Half-way as the Student got going, the fat Chairman chap in the front row objected vehemently saying aloud:

"This is not Physics!"

Everyone turned back and looked at me as I was fuming with anger and embarrassment.

But I was the juniormost and youngest and it was my First Grand Viva and I was speechless and felt intimidated and fell silent and the student was asked to leave by the Chairman.

I quietly walked out and didn't return.

For the Annual Outgoing Grand Viva (120 marks), HNB himself was the Chairman by default and he made me feel much more at ease.

***********************************************************************************************

Two years later when HNB ordered me to join a Famous Theoretician called SDM for my Ph D, I walked into his Office and found to my chagrin that this was the same fat guy who threw me and my Elecroincs questions out.

That Hair-Raising Encounter in SDM's Office can be found in:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2009/10/sdm-qualifiers.html


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There is a hilarious sequel to this too:
"SDM & Electronics"
which I will post tomorrow as:
viva la kgpia! - 3





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Thursday, January 20, 2011

viva la kgpia! - 1

=========================================================

My son, who did his M Sc from IIT KGP from 1999 to 2004 says that the three most helpful things of the KGP System are:

1. Innumerable Vivas
(both grand mal & petit mal)

2. Common First Year Curriculum

3. Central Library

Each of these would require several blogs if honestly written, but let us focus for the moment on Vivas:

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Soon after his M Sc, he joined the splendid Software Firm, Ocimum Biosolutions @ Hyderabad, floated by our enterprising Physics Alumni Couple as a Software Developer Trainee and took about a year of Day & Night labor to master Java, Sumatra, Borneo or whatever, of which I know a little less than nil like of Solid State Physics.

Then one day in his second year his Boss met him and told him that he needs a KGPian in Pre-Sales and sent him off to Paris to demo and sell their Software Product to a renowned Multinational Drugs & Pharma Lab.

He was grilled there
for a couple of hours by two no-nonsense CEO & Project Manager Ladies apart from a dozen other formidable Users .

He says that but for his KGP Grand Viva Training he couldn't have survived it and would have fled with copious tears...nothing short of Mass-Screwing.

A year after Bringing in the Project, Managing it, Delivering it and Training them on-site, there is this Group Photo at Paris in which he and his colleagues are surrounded by the User Team with the two Tigresses beaming.

And daily he thanks his Grand Vivas, Seminar Vivas, Project Vivas and hundreds of Lab Vivas for the training to stand up to an intimidating, bullying, jeering and smirking crowd of highly respected and knowledgeable people (he didn't know it then and must have been cursing unmentionables beneath his breath).

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Among the hundreds of students whose Grand Vivas I attended (unwillingly), I had to pull up only one who also happened to be the Topper and my Project Student in GR and a favorite of DB (I had to stand sweating in a long queue at the KGP Post Office to dispatch his several gold and silver medals, checks, certificates and prizes to his home address later on at his request...at KGP the winner used to take them all).

He had everything that was needed for success: communication skills, knowledge, information, persistence, perseverance, IQ...except that he unfortunately displayed an Attitude Thing in that Outgoing Viva, which bugged me.

That Grand Viva had the External Examiner, HoD, lots of Senior Professors of all Branches and back-benchers like me sitting and helping conduct it.

Whenever an honest question was asked in a subject he ought to have read but perhaps didn't consider important enough, he would shrug his shoulders, turn his hands out and say: "I don't know!" off-hand.

After a repeat of this several times I had to tell him off:

"Too many IDKs means IDC" (IDK was short for "I Don't Know" and IDC for "I Don't Care").

That worked; and pleased everyone; and he got his Ex alright!

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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Pudding- 2

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3. One of the advantages of starting teaching IIT students at the young age of 21 is that you learn with the students since there is hardly any Teacher-Student Divide at that age.

And, as the Pawnbroker of the Red-Headed League said: "My business comes to me". Physics being such a tough subject, IIT students keep asking interesting questions if one is willing to listen.

After my first decade at KGP I stopped attending Physics Seminars for the simple reason that most of the Speakers were from Solid State Physics of which there was an active group in our Department. And, although I started publishing with a couple of rather high-sounding Papers in SSP, I found the subject too involved and forbidding.

A few years before I quit, however, Prof B of IEM, who holds a B Sc (Hons) Degree from our Dept and kept his interest in the subject alive, requested me to attend a Seminar that his nephew was giving in our H N Bose Seminar Room. This young man was with a University in England and was staying with his Uncle in the Campus. He had developed and was marketing a Software in QM. I told Prof B that not only will I make an exception and attend the Seminar but also shepherd my entire 4th Year Class after my last Period with the inducement of Free Tea and some Knowledge.

As usual I sat in the last row with the students while the first row was occupied by our HoD and Senior Professors.

Very soon I found that the young man wrote some Programs for getting the single-particle Wave Functions of the one-dimensional Schrodinger Equation
in Potential Wells by curve-fitting. Nice, but I soon lost interest since the topic was dealt with wonderfully by Schwabl in his excellent Text Book; and I started gathering my own wool pleasantly.

Somewhere down the line after about 45 minutes the young man halted his Talk and asked: "Any questions?"; but found no hands raised, for some reason or the other.

He then smirked and blurted: "Good Class!".

I woke up with the exclamation: "Pudding!" on my lips and raised my hand from the backmost bench. And he was all condescension.

I asked him to draw a Half-Parabolic Well with an infinite Wall at the origin and get its Wave Functions. This is the advantage I was talking about: this question started appearing in Physics GRE at that time and students brought it to me and we found it very diverting (later on it became cheap).

The young man was not aware of it and lost his bearings and was staring at the black board and a couple of our students prompted hints but to no avail. The Talk fizzled out soon.

4. A similar Pudding was once giving a Seminar starting with as simple a thing as Hartree-Fock so flamboyantly that I got unusually negative.

He started saying, shrugging his shoulders: "All of you must be knowing that we start with the famous assumption that the ground states of all atoms are spherically symmetric".

I stopped him and asked: "How come? We use all those famous Hund's Rules to find that most of them are p, d, and f states which are anything but spherically symmetric".

And a couple of students echoed: "True, True!"

And as the Speaker was fumbling, I slipped out to Harry's.

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Every Speaker must remember the Golden Rule:

"Any fool can ask a question no wise man can answer"

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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Pudding- 1

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In every region there are certain flash words in its lingo that are impossible to translate. They are ineffable.
Any attempt to translate them into single words is doomed to not only failure but derision. These words may be native to a State, District, or even an extended family in a Village. They are of uncertain etymology. And can't be precisely explained in other words except by giving Examples.

They have an inimitable Force, Power and Charm of their own.

One such word native to our Nellore District is: "Pudding".

It has nothing to do with the sweet dish at all; not even remotely. No one knows how or when it came into existence. It is not understood by folks of even neighboring Districts.

Here is a short explanation before proceeding to Examples:

In every gathering of people there is an implicit, invisible, un-protocolled but accepted hierarchy. Anyone who overtly breaches this hierarchy in an obtrusive way is said to act like a "Pudding".

It is not brashness, arrogance, ignorance, know-all-ness, uppishness or any known combination of such traits subject to a Formula...it is just that...

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1. Around 1978 I was trying hard to quit a 14-year spell of chain-smoking, rather unsuccessfully, by fits and starts (it needed a loving wife later on). I was then staying for the summer vacation at our home in Nellore District.

One evening at dinner time all seven of us siblings were eating seated together (on the good old floor), my parents watching. None of my six sisters or my parents knew a whit about smoking or nicotine addiction. As a matter of false respect to elders I was not smoking at home but used to do a vanishing trick every once in a while.

Talk somehow veered round to addictions and suddenly my youngest sister, 12 good years younger to me, started sort of lecturing about will-power, heath-consciousness, wastage of money and such irrelevant things in a roundabout but obviously pointed way.

I kept quiet for ten minutes, and when she was through, I simply said: "Pudding!"

That's it!

She got up like a rocketing pheasant from her seat, accused me of unsportiveness, vindictiveness, arrogance, insensitivity; and burst into tears and left in a huff.

Just one word did it!

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2. 1960s and 70s were field days for what were called Elementary Particle Physics. Everything was in a mess and the Standard Model yet to take hold. Anyone who did a Foreign Ph D in it thought he was Someone. And pronounced himself thus.

There was this young man Dr S fresh from Canada who joined us as a new Faculty for a while. Very quickly he became a friend of me and DB (who were sharing Office in C-239) by virtue of the legend that we both shared SDM as our Guru. A charming fellow full of enthu and a very good sport otherwise.

At that time I was cajoled by our HoD, HNB, to do the Time Table Work, much against my will. The TT-in-Charge was then powerless as far as allotting Courses went which was done by HNB himself. So it was a routine clerical job with lots of false prestige and good nuisance value.

At the beginning of the Semester, Dr S suddenly barged into our Room and asked me if I was the TT-in-Charge. I mumbled yes. He then declaimed rather abruptly:

"Give me either QM 3 or 4 or QED or Particle Physics Elective or Stat Mech or GR or Math Phy at the Final Year Level....I can teach them all since I studied them for my Ph D Qualifiers in Canada".

I replied softly that Course Allotment was done by HNB and he should meet him with his special interests.

He left, perhaps straight to HNB's Sanctum Sanctorum which none of us dared do.

And I winked at DB and said: "Pudding!" (I had taught DB the nuances of this magic word) and both of us laughed uproariously and adjourned to the Canteen.

A couple of days later, I was into HNB's Office after School Hours with my Red-Register (Lal-Khata), which had the Course Allotments from the inception of the Phy Dept and was handed down generations, to jot down the Allotments for the coming semester.

As I was reading out the Courses one by one, HNB was giving out the names of their Teachers. When it came to First Year B Tech, HNB said: "Give the First Year B Tech Chemical Engg Section to Dr S who is a newcomer (and needs Orientation)".

I looked up from the Lal-Khata and saw that familiar naughty smile playing on HNB's lips and joined him (I didn't teach him "Pudding" but I knew he was muttering to himself whatever was the nearest word in East Bengali lingo).

More Examples in the Next Post

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