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I didn't know that 'acknowledgment' has an implicit reluctance concealed within it:
....'acknowledge implies the reluctant disclosure of something one might have kept secret (he acknowledged that the child is his)'
...Webster
Ha!
The Research Scholar's flamboyant start-up:
"It is a great pleasure to acknowledge..."
translates to:
"It has been a sustained pain in the arse to work under my Guide but for whose misguidance and nitpicking, this thesis would have been completed within two splendid years and would have been crisper and sharper".
Acknowledgments come in rainbow colors starting from the hilarious:
"But for the advent of my luscious wife and then our (unplanned) lovely kid, this thesis would have been written up a decade ago:
...vivaham vidya nashanam, santhanam sarvanashanam".
And then there is this tongue-in-cheek declaration from that RS whose Official Guide X has been busy globe-trotting drumming up custom while actual help was got from the post-doc Y of some other Prof Z:
"I thank Dr Y for his indispensable and invaluable help and, my guide, Professor X, for being kindly cooperative.."
TRR (who went to USC for his glorious Ph D around 1989) did his M Sc Project with me on Edwin Taylor's Spacetime Software. But he had an unequal tussle with Prof KVR from Day 1 of his First Year when he started asking inconvenient questions in the Class Room.
And Prof KVR took his vengeance by asking TRR to keep standing for an entire lecture hour just because he was 5 minutes late discussing his project work with me. By then KVR however rose to be HoD. When TRR approached me for permission to write up his thesis, I smilingly asked him not to forget the default Acknowledgment to the HoD.
He bristled and shot back:
"What for?"
and I had to tell him that HoDs can in principle have a great nuisance value if they are displeased. What is wrong in pleasing and propitiating an innocent soul after tormenting him for 5 years?
While I was writing up that Joint Paper with TRR for the American Journal of Physics, I told Edwin that the title of our paper on his pioneering Relativity Software contains his name. He demurred and wrote back that it would be too embarrassing to find himself on the title of a paper in a journal for which he was an editor long ago and that a mention in a significant way in the body of the paper would do.
So, body is different from head and the tail!
My Guru, SDM, had this fixation that he should have at least one independent paper every year lest folks suspect he is bloodsucking his co-workers. So, he was working on his own paper on biaxial crystals while I was working on related problems suggested by him.
By then I had won his confidence and he showed me the manuscript of his independent paper that he sent out to Annals of Physics (NY). I then pointed out that his 'generalized uniaxiality condition' must appear as a Section-Head than in the text at an obscure corner. He demurred and said that the so-called 'condition' of his relates to the particular choice of coordinates and is not a feature of the crystal. I opposed him and said it is quite independent of the choice of coordinates and is a feature of the crystal class itself.
He then asked:
"Do you mean to say that it is a minor discovery of mine?"
And I had to tell him:
"It is a fairly major discovery of yours"
and showed him how. We then parted but after an hour he was knocking the door of my digs in our Faculty Hostel. And upon my opening the door, he entered, kept his heavy trade-mark bag on the floor and glumly uttered:
"What all you said and I agreed to is WRONG".
I then asked him to be seated, and showed my detailed calculations to him. He heaved a huge sigh of relief but turned glum again saying;
"In that case I have to acknowledge you in my independent Paper!"
I assured him it wasn't needed because after all I was his own student. He shook his head this way and that and when the proofs arrived, he inserted a handsome Acknowledgment and showed it to me and asked:
"Do you think this will do or should I make it stronger?"
Talking about SDM whom he didn't have the good fortune to see, Aniket ruefully cited these impromptu lines that Tagore had gifted a Santiniketan kid by name Amartya Sen:
I traveled miles, for many a year
I spent a lot in lands afar
I’ve gone to see the mountains
The oceans, I’ve been to view
But I haven’t seen with these eyes
Just two steps from my home lies
On a sheaf of paddy grain
A glistening drop of dew
...Posted by Ishani
******************************************************************************************************************************
I didn't know that 'acknowledgment' has an implicit reluctance concealed within it:
....'acknowledge implies the reluctant disclosure of something one might have kept secret (he acknowledged that the child is his)'
...Webster
Ha!
The Research Scholar's flamboyant start-up:
"It is a great pleasure to acknowledge..."
translates to:
"It has been a sustained pain in the arse to work under my Guide but for whose misguidance and nitpicking, this thesis would have been completed within two splendid years and would have been crisper and sharper".
Acknowledgments come in rainbow colors starting from the hilarious:
"But for the advent of my luscious wife and then our (unplanned) lovely kid, this thesis would have been written up a decade ago:
...vivaham vidya nashanam, santhanam sarvanashanam".
And then there is this tongue-in-cheek declaration from that RS whose Official Guide X has been busy globe-trotting drumming up custom while actual help was got from the post-doc Y of some other Prof Z:
"I thank Dr Y for his indispensable and invaluable help and, my guide, Professor X, for being kindly cooperative.."
TRR (who went to USC for his glorious Ph D around 1989) did his M Sc Project with me on Edwin Taylor's Spacetime Software. But he had an unequal tussle with Prof KVR from Day 1 of his First Year when he started asking inconvenient questions in the Class Room.
And Prof KVR took his vengeance by asking TRR to keep standing for an entire lecture hour just because he was 5 minutes late discussing his project work with me. By then KVR however rose to be HoD. When TRR approached me for permission to write up his thesis, I smilingly asked him not to forget the default Acknowledgment to the HoD.
He bristled and shot back:
"What for?"
and I had to tell him that HoDs can in principle have a great nuisance value if they are displeased. What is wrong in pleasing and propitiating an innocent soul after tormenting him for 5 years?
While I was writing up that Joint Paper with TRR for the American Journal of Physics, I told Edwin that the title of our paper on his pioneering Relativity Software contains his name. He demurred and wrote back that it would be too embarrassing to find himself on the title of a paper in a journal for which he was an editor long ago and that a mention in a significant way in the body of the paper would do.
So, body is different from head and the tail!
My Guru, SDM, had this fixation that he should have at least one independent paper every year lest folks suspect he is bloodsucking his co-workers. So, he was working on his own paper on biaxial crystals while I was working on related problems suggested by him.
By then I had won his confidence and he showed me the manuscript of his independent paper that he sent out to Annals of Physics (NY). I then pointed out that his 'generalized uniaxiality condition' must appear as a Section-Head than in the text at an obscure corner. He demurred and said that the so-called 'condition' of his relates to the particular choice of coordinates and is not a feature of the crystal. I opposed him and said it is quite independent of the choice of coordinates and is a feature of the crystal class itself.
He then asked:
"Do you mean to say that it is a minor discovery of mine?"
And I had to tell him:
"It is a fairly major discovery of yours"
and showed him how. We then parted but after an hour he was knocking the door of my digs in our Faculty Hostel. And upon my opening the door, he entered, kept his heavy trade-mark bag on the floor and glumly uttered:
"What all you said and I agreed to is WRONG".
I then asked him to be seated, and showed my detailed calculations to him. He heaved a huge sigh of relief but turned glum again saying;
"In that case I have to acknowledge you in my independent Paper!"
I assured him it wasn't needed because after all I was his own student. He shook his head this way and that and when the proofs arrived, he inserted a handsome Acknowledgment and showed it to me and asked:
"Do you think this will do or should I make it stronger?"
Talking about SDM whom he didn't have the good fortune to see, Aniket ruefully cited these impromptu lines that Tagore had gifted a Santiniketan kid by name Amartya Sen:
Bohu Din Dhore, Bohu Krosh Dure
Bohu Baye Kori, Bohu Desh Ghure
Dekhite Giyachi Porbotmala
Dekhite Giyachi Shindhu
Dekha Hoy Nai Chokkhu Melia
Ghor Hote Shudhu Dui Pa Feliya
Ekti Dhaner Shisher Upore
Ekti Shishir Bindu
meaning:
I traveled miles, for many a year
I’ve gone to see the mountains
The oceans, I’ve been to view
But I haven’t seen with these eyes
Just two steps from my home lies
A glistening drop of dew
for gps it ought to read:
dekha hoyeche!!!
At times, an honest Acknowledgment could pull you down by a Grade, as it happened with Sumita Das, another Project Student of mine and one of the best. She took as her Seminar Topic the manuscript of my Flickering Bulb Paradox, worked it out, and presented it in a Viva Board in which I was not invited as an Examiner.
DB reported to me that she was hassled:
"Thought Experiments are useless"
...only thoughtless ones can get Ph Ds ;)
And she was finally asked:
"Whose idea is this?".
And in her childlike innocence she bowed her head reverentially and said:
"The most respected Professor gps!"
...She lost her first rank...
All she got was a handsome Acknowledgment in the Revised Version of that Paper of mine in AJP.
DB reported to me that she was hassled:
"Thought Experiments are useless"
...only thoughtless ones can get Ph Ds ;)
And she was finally asked:
"Whose idea is this?".
And in her childlike innocence she bowed her head reverentially and said:
"The most respected Professor gps!"
...She lost her first rank...
All she got was a handsome Acknowledgment in the Revised Version of that Paper of mine in AJP.
Tail Piece
An hour ago I got this handsome Acknowledgment:
Dear Prof. Sastry,
Thank you (really!) for your detailed, amusing and exceedingly interesting account of your experience with Irodov and your knowledge and views of Soviet physics. It has given me some idea about its history in Kgp at least. I will get back to you with more specific questions soon.
Regards,
Kapil Subramanian
gps:
Note that Kapiljee felt the need to insert that bracketed word 'really' with an exclamation mark to boot...which is the Websterian 'reluctance' theme of this post.
Thank you (really!) for your detailed, amusing and exceedingly interesting account of your experience with Irodov and your knowledge and views of Soviet physics. It has given me some idea about its history in Kgp at least. I will get back to you with more specific questions soon.
Regards,
Kapil Subramanian
gps:
Note that Kapiljee felt the need to insert that bracketed word 'really' with an exclamation mark to boot...which is the Websterian 'reluctance' theme of this post.
...Posted by Ishani
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