A few days ago Saswat got the idea that SDM should be on wikipedia (how and why he felt so, I don't know.....ask him....these thing just happen!).
At once a handful of us got together and supplied him 'material' and moral support.
The result is this:
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Saswat:
'...One can either Google "Sudhansu Datta Majumdar" and find his wikipedia page link among the top five Google results.
Or, go to Wikipedia and do a search for "Sudhansu Datta Majumdar".
Or, if feeling lazy :), just follow the link:
Or ...even better... do all three! As they say, All roads lead to ... SDM!'
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The 'material' part of it is from the hoary Ansatz issue:
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The 'material' part of it is from the hoary Ansatz issue:
which I thought was lost from the web but Sayan had saved it from the Phy Server.
The 'moral' support part is as usual ephemeral.
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Would SDM be pleased?
Oh, mighty...this is just the sort of gift from his students, grandstudents and admirers he would love: the large stainless steel double-photo frame with colored Cherenkov rings from Zrelov that I gifted him as a memento was found by DB on his bookshelf (colors all faded) 25 years later.
And he would have loved to read these blogs, in a record 90 Posts of which he (shared by DB) figures: in most of them as a pop-up icon. (Ishani scores the next place with 63, followed by Aniket with 56).
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In everyone I met closely, I saw a child...that is why I could never quarrel with anyone...if I don't like someone, I just drop them.
My mom is 88 now; the last time we two were a twosome for 5 weeks a couple of years ago I told her she was a kid of just 8 (eight only as they say in Bank Checks).
SDM would be close to a hundred now and I would place him in his early teens.
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SDM was fond of food: loochies and milk.
Whenever Mrs SDM announced "Tea-Time!" during SDM's 'at-home' Review Meetings of my Thesis (a Review that never happened), and we sat down at the Dining Table, she had to reassure him that she had made plenty of loochies taking me into account (I was a starving bachelor living in the Faculty Hostel then, and she knew it...I lost count of the number of people whom I owe a debt of gratitude...a Hundred (?) as that cute Ad for the Hundred Pipers says.)
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One evening I was in the Guest Room in his palatial A-Type Qrs, doing my calculations that he wanted done and the result shown to him then and there.
And he was in his Drawing Room sitting on his sofa with his ancient portable Remington Typewriter, typing out his Independent Paper (as he used to proudly call them) on the Volume Element of SU (n) that appeared in Journal of Physics A.
Suddenly he called me and with a pained look told me: "I just am unable to get this right...'how to say it'...for the last ten minutes".
I asked him to tell me what it was that he was trying to say.
Then he 'narrated' to me in a few words what he wanted to say.
I then repeated aloud whatever he told me and asked him to type it out.
His face brightened like he was given a lollipop and said:
"Discussions with you have always been fruitful".
And my knowledge of SU (n) or even SU (1) was less than that of Economics.
By the way, that was my trade secret with DB too. Whenever he was perplexed and said so to me, I would ask him to go to his Blackboard (we had one each) and 'say' it aloud....that's all...if you can 'say' it aloud, you find your own way out....it is things that you can't speak out that bug you forever.
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A couple of months later, when I visited his Qrs, he was in a great mood and started reading out the relevant sentences of the Referee Comments.
All Referees of his Papers could see that here was something original and bewitching. They could follow the crystal clear SDM prose, but it was his 'steps' that maddened them. He would hide and gulp many intermediate steps mischievously. And any Referee sitting down to go from one Equation to the next as a 'sample' would get irritated and ask him to expand.
And in his Revised Version, he would 'feed' a couple of trivial steps.
Just naughty!
But the final result would be so cute that neither the Referee nor the Editor could reject such a lovely Paper.
Playing games all the time...
.
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Well, there is some more to his childishness:
One evening when I visited his Qrs, he was sitting alone in a glum mood...his family must have been away on an outing.
And on seeing me he opened up and said that he had never been insulted as he was that day. That must be late 1973 or early 1974:
The Great Teachers of Calcutta wanted to pat themselves on their mutual backs. Feynman was rather eloquent about this tendency of scientists.
So, they organized a mela (Conference) called:
"Eminent Teachers of West Bengal".... typically.
And SDM found out from GB that he was not invited: but GB and HNB were.
And, as he narrated to me this 'slap on his face', I could see that tears were welling up; not that he ever claimed that he was an 'Eminent Teacher' of West Bengal.
So far so good.
After a month when I was visiting him, he was in a great mood.
Reason:
He 'gatecrashed' into the Conference Room and went to the podium at an opportune moment, grabbed the mike, and 'told them off'.
And he was chuckling like nobody's business, because when SDM 'tells off' someone, the result would be hilarious...ask his Research Scholars who routinely faced what he declared was "Public Snubbing":
http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/11/public-snubbing.html
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For me personally, it is good that Saswat took the initiative when I am still around and 'kicking' like a fleet of donkeys.
Because, I am about the only surviving soul who saw SDM from close quarters; and wrote up several thousands of piquant words on him.
Otherwise, the tendency is to hold Melas in honor of some sixty- or eighty- or dead- greats among themselves and bring out a sober Conference Proceedings that nobody ever reads...
Maybe Boswell would like to compete with me but he didn't have to do a Ph D under his Johnson, who, I am sure must have been an equally 'interesting' man.
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