An Open Letter from Dean

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Just now I got this mail in my Inbox:

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DonQuixote has left a new comment on your post "My Swan Song / Duck Quack":


Dear Sir,

If you could just convert yourself into a degree granting
Institution (officially) using but a little of your immense
clout- I could claim the fulfillment of a life long ambition
of becoming a Ph.D .....then I could retire from everything
else and become a woolgatherer. Congratulations to each
other among a few of those you decorated with the 'Dr.'
have been exchanged all right but still without a diploma
in Hand....it's cumbersome to refer everybody to a website
to prove my claim.

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gps writes:

Dear Don (Quixote/Juan and/or any other Classical Hero):

I have several impertinent points to make in this connection:

(1) With my 'immense clout' in the World of Physics & Literature, there is no need for any 'Official Degree-Granting Convocation' .

Just mention my name.

(2) I do agree that referring to a website is cumbersome. Just give me your mailing addresses and the names of the 'gps-Deemed (or damned) University Degree Holders'. I shall air-mail the requisite number of signed copies of my forthcoming booklet named appropriately: "Tall Tales" in which all these names occur in hard copy.

This will also stimulate the moribund Indian Posts & Telegraphs Department in spite of my several grouses (or grise) against her.

(3) Don't ask (like that youngster on whom I bestowed the equally Official 'Best Teacher Award') the other day: "What shall I do with this?".

In Life every little thing helps:

45 years ago, I had a young and 'literary' colleague Professor B K Mohanty (the Royal BKM of the 'Physics of Sex'). He told me that his first appointment as an Associate Lecturer at IIT KGP happened thus: The Director and Chairman of our Selection Committee was Professor V N Prasad (May His Soul Rest in Peace!) of the Department of Architecture (no Town Planning then).

Midway through the Interview VNP was getting bored and feeling rather lost with the Experts' silly questions on Physics and asked BKM:

"What is your hobby?"

"Reading Wodehouse"

"My God! So is mine. Who is your favorite Wodehouse Character?"

"Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge"

"So is mine, and you remember his FULL Name! You will be a wonderful addition to the drab Physics Department. You may go".

This is as true as Death...ask BKM if you can (I lost track of him). He left Physics & IIT KGP soon after becoming a Full Professor in 1985 or so. The loss was on both sides.

(3) Coming to the importance of odd bits and pieces of paper, remember, if you know it, the story of the Sanskrit Poet Bharavi who wrote: "Kiratharjuneeyam". If you don't know it, just confess and I will blog it tomorrow.

(4) 'Woolgatheirng' and the 'Acquisition of a Ph D Degree' (at least in Theoretical Physics, I don't know about Experimental Physics: as students we were unpardonably and unethically cooking up our Readings in our Physics Labs at AU, which however required a sound knowledge of Theory) are not mutually exclusive; rather they are irretrievably intertwined; just remember Newton: What the hell else was he doing under that Apple Tree in his Garden of Eden?

(5) Your "life long ambition of becoming a Ph D" is a little misplaced. Mine was more like what Kapeeleshwar Krishana (I am truly 'spell-bound' whenever I have to write his full name), Ph D (Experimental Physics) from Princeton, more of the same as Post-Doc at Harvard charmingly used to narrate:

"Beta, badey ho key kya karogey?'

"Aadmi banoonga"

"Aaadmi tho banogey, lekin karogey kya?"

"Shaadi karoonga"

This KK (unlike his more sensible senior KK who was my project student) embarrassed me endlessly by referring to me as his IDOL (didn't specify gold, silver, stone or clay though) in his M Sc Project Thesis, thereby threatening to antagonize his young Guide (who however charmingly turned his Approver).

When my son was hosted by him in his palatial 'Residence' in a posh Boston suburb last year, Kapeel, now a father of a cute 8-year-old-son, seemed to have given up his un-Christian Idolatry, Bless him!

(6) RSVP about your names and mailing addresses.

My first Bengali Classmate at my alma mater AU, Tathagata Sen, younger brother of Professor Ila Rao (nee Sen), used to decode RSVP as:

"RSVP: Remember Send Valuable Presents"

So long for now!