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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