Pure Gossip

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Pure Gossip is different than Adulterated Gossip which bristles with hedge-words like 'alleged', 'so-called', 'apparently',...

Pure Gossip can safely be indulged in only when the affected parties are dead and defenseless.

It is a mean thing.

But it is not my fault that all interesting people have predeceased me.

So, here we go after a long time:

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Prof MSS, a good 15 years senior to me, was my earliest Guru at KGP from whom I learned much else besides Classical Physics in general and Mechanics in particular.

He never uttered a lie but didn't condemn himself to speak the truth whatever happens.

He told me that he gave up attempts to become a Doctor of Philosophy on the strength of 'doctored' data.

Instead, he bought all sorts of books, read them, and became an expert in many subjects, and so a very interesting person to mix with.

Books cost money and so he wanted to supplement our meager Socialistic Pay by taking up a Part-Time Position as an NCC Officer, Air Wing (sardarjees have a weakness for Armed Forces).

He was interviewed by a pucca Defense Engineer who asked him:

"What is the crucial difference between a Propeller Plane and a Jet plane?"

As MSS was trying one or two answers, the Defense Engineer shook his head and answered his own question with the NCC dictum:

"Propeller Planes use Newton's Second Law while Jet Planes use Newton's Third Law".

Upon which, MSS bowed his pugreed head down, and acknowledged:

"For the first time I am learning Classical Mechanics in an Interview".

He got the job with 3 advance increments.

(Incidentally this is the same Officer who banged MSS later on for not saluting him in the Tech Market, and was immensely pleased by MSS's excuse that he is lost in thought most of the time and will gladly salute him as and when he is reminded...he got 3 more increments...).

MSS then told me:

"Sastry, remember that we are paid to teach students but not senior colleagues".

An advice I followed so scrupulously that 40 years later I got one of the best Departmental Farewells, with wife invited and given a bouquet, despite everything.

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In one of my 4 IIT interviews (all successful in spite of myself) the Seniormost and Powerful Prof A started off with a Bang and asked me what he thought was the canonical question in Electrodynamics, but which I felt was a matter of semantics.

I answered as best as I could and was at once contradicted by Prof A who gave me his answer; to which I at once agreed submissively and made him very happy, I thought.

But the External Expert (Prof B) didn't agree with Prof A and gave his own answer, to which also I agreed heartily, knowing that the fight is now reduced to a slanging match between A & B and I was out except for nodding my head agreeably to both.

I got the thoroughly undeserved and unexpected promotion by following MSS's sage advice to the letter.

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I got my Ph D just before SDM left the Campus after retirement, and wanted to take some much-needed rest after 5 wholesome years...

Wanted to read the back numbers of Punch, Life, SEP, New Yorker etc.

But 3 Professors (X, Y, and Z) of the Department had other ideas:

Prof X was the juniormost and wanted me to guide Ph Ds jointly with him so we could both go up: I as Ass P and he as Full P. I replied that I was then more interested in getting a wife....later perhaps...

Prof Y was already a Full P but he didn't trust raw scholars to carry out successfully his vision of combining Atomic Physics & Solid State Physics at a fundamental level. I said I didn't know either of them, and declined his offer to teach me them both.

Prof Z was a powerful Senior Professor gunning to be HoD in a few years. His offer was the most interesting since he was basically an Experimental Hand but with serious ambitions in Theory.

He caught me and asked me to visit him in his Office where he would show me his successful attempt to formulate an Exact Quantum Electrodynamics of Condensed Matter.

I was curious because till then there was no Exact QED even for vacuum...only Perturbative attempts with which even Feynman, with all his famous Diagrams, was ill at ease.

So, I went over and he covered 2 long blackboards starting with Maxwell's Equations in Media, with all sorts of epsilons and mus.

And finally landed up with a Differential Equation of 4th order.

Till then it was all Classical.

He then replaced (triumphantly) every E that occurred with hv and tossed his piece of chalk.

I had lost track of the whole logic after the first 5 minutes.

But at the end I got up and pointed to one E on the blackboard and said that it appears it is not the E for Energy but the E for Electric Field.

This silenced him for 5 minutes, going back and forth, during which time I slipped out.

He never forgave me, as well as DB to whom I told this story.

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