ATM &c

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I first came to know of the existence of a device called ATM through an internet joke that was doing the rounds in around 1998.

I just got my Office PC and an e-mail id which spread somewhat in a dendritic growth among my ex-students in the US. And I got regular e-joke forwards then on.

It was an MCP joke that went something like this:

Man: Parks his car in front of the ATM, walks jauntily into the joint, pushes his ATM Card in and out, punches a few buttons, draws the cash, slams the door shut, and drives away whistling.

....Now you can let your imagination run riot, like:

Woman: Parks her car. Opens her hand bag to get her ATM Card. Finds a mirror. Lipsticks. Shuts the car door. Tries to open the door of the joint. Succeeds after two attempts. Pushes the Card in. Forgets to take it out. Fumbles. Enters the wrong PIN and is cursed by the Machine. Opens her handbag for the PIN noting. Finds the mirror and the powder puff. Punches buttons. Cash comes out. Lost in thought. Cash goes back. Pushes the Card in and out. Finally grabs the cash. Enters her parked car in sweat. Starts the car and chugs along for 100 meters. Stops the car. Releases the parking brake....

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Right away, you see the acronym above:

MCP: KGPians were then familiar with the degree Master of City Planning. But of course I meant the Male Chauvinistic Pig.

Along with MCP we also had MTP for Master of Town Planning and not Medical Termination of Pregnancy.

And MRP for Master of Regional Planning and not Maximum Retail Price.

And you see above PIN for Personal Identification Number and not my Postal Index Number 500 049.

I looked up the expansion for ATM in the internet (there was no Google then) and found it stands for Automated Teller Machine. And could only guess how it looked like...we had no ATMs at KGP then.

By the time I stepped into Hyderabad streets my son was already a one-year-old veteran here and he took me to the first ATM I saw in SR Nagar. And with a few flashy punches drew crisp hundred rupee notes and slipped them into my pocket, while I was gazing bewildered (I took six months to master the demons, somewhat).

I then quizzed my son what ATM stands for.

"Simple: Any Time Money"

I liked the new and crisp expansion.

This morning I had to draw cash urgently to pay our Carpenter (see tomorrow's blog). My son drove me along the Hyderabad boulevards and we found that all shops are closed. And we recalled that today is one of those frequent Hyderabad Bandhs (courtesy WB). Half a dozen ATMs were closed too, surprisingly.

However, to our delight, one ATM Counter was open, it looked. We walked in and found that the establishment also housed an Apollo 24/7 Medical Shop. And we asked if the ATM is on. And he asked for our ATM Card and smiled and said that he meant the green one. And we learned that his ATM sign meant:

"Any Time Medicine"

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The point I am belaboring is that the 26 or so English alphabet are hopelessly inadequate for acronyming purposes. And so the plethora of bewildering expansions.

How rich are our Indian Sanskrit-based languages!

We have about 53 single letters; and if we include single letter conjuncts, the number would be in hundreds.

Like my erstwhile girl friend in Class VI named:

"Lakshmiprasanna" (15 characters or so).

In Telugu she would just be 5 characters (what characters!)

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In my school we had enormous trouble mugging up expansions of the various UN Organs that were then nascent and went haywire in enthu.

We could just get UNESCO ok.

But we were bowled by: UNMOGIP (I had to Google for it just now).

On a lighter note, PM was Prime Minister and HM was Home Minister.

But in my home HM was my Head Master father and PM meant our Maid Servant in our lingo (Pani Manishi).

Of course PC there meant Personal Computer and not our troubled present HM of GoI, who was FM (not the radio) when the trouble brewed.

And you would have noted WB above.

Before I landed (luckily) in Bengal, WB always meant World Bank in our SS.

SS meant of course Social Studies but in our History lessons it meant the Nazi stormtroopers.

Damn!

That of course, the online Free Dictionary tells me could be one of:

Acronym
DAMN	Direct Action Media Network
DAMN	DC Action Medical Network
DAMN	Distributed Architecture for Mobile Navigation (robotics)
DAMN	Dallas Area Male Naturists (nudist group)
dAmn	deviant ART messaging network (chat)
DAMN	Dallas Area Motorcycle Network

OK???

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False Dusks

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Last night around midnight my son returned from his Office, piled some dinner on his plate and sat before me while I was trying hard to get the word: 'alchemy' to describe the changing facial color of KVR in my blog.

And he said:

"There is this American Lady visiting us in our Office"

I raised my eyebrows and he dismissed it saying:

"Oh, she is a very old woman"

"How old?"

"64"

I slapped him on his wrist. And he said:

"Oh, Sorry!"

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While I was passing through my post-retirement-trauma, most everyone including me, except my son, felt and declared that it was the end of my road. As they say of KGPians rather wollily:

"One can get out of Severe Depression, but it won't get out of you"

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The other day I got one of those rare mails from Professor KLC (Director, IIT KGP, 1987-97). His mails are briefer than tweets:

"GP: What keeps you busy these days? Attached is my tribute to GSS"

I then replied in detail that a handful of my students (led by that taskmaster Aniket) are taking revenge on me asking me to submit online sessionals (webnals without webpo) daily. And attached that day's blog titled: "Pilgrim's Regress". I knew he would read it between the lines. And he tweeted:

"GP: Quite a rising Ruskin Bond. Keep it up!"

KLC happened to be the Director during my best decade at KGP. IBM PC arrived just then and so did Ed Taylor's Spacetime Software. It was a terrific learning experience. I learned more of SR in 15 days than I did in 15 years past. And Somnath's batch submitted an illegal mass-petition to the HoD asking for GR to be taught. And I was working out Weinberg and enjoying it. And Amitabh Chaks brought the oven-fresh Sakurai's MQM from Purdue and asked me return it to him within a fortnight...

KLC was always curious about me and used to shoot tweets every six months:

"GP: What are you doing nowadays?"...a terrific taskmaster.

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If you get hooked to daily blogging in your so-called old age, there will be no time to think of your ailments. And if you have the great good fortune to have a li'l kid like Ishani always eager to keyboard your blogs, time evaporates like a piece of sublimating camphor.

The beauty of old age is that the two basic hungers that possessed you and made your life compelling just about vanish.

One is food. In your prime time, you have to eat well because you have to work. And digest it by walking, gymming, swimming and stuff.

But if you are as old as me, you don't need much food to blog...the calories needed for keyboarding are supplied by one meal a day, square or circular.

But you enjoy it thoroughly because you don't have to rush to the 4th Year Lab Class.

In your youth food is a necessity...in old age, it is a luxury...since all your teeth are gone or broken, you enjoy the color, the smell and the flavor of dosas, samoses, mirchi bhajas on the dining table, without having to eat them.

Much the same with the other primordial hunger...

It is the nearest state to what the Upanishads call: "Pure Existence"...like a Hyderabadi Rock.

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Keep this to yourself, and I haven't done a survey, but I suspect that all IIT KGP Directors are Great Survivors. The greatest of them all, unarguably, Professor SRS, I think was into his nineties.

And GSS was so many times in and out of ICUs that he almost winked and said like Mark Twain:

"Stories of my death are greatly exaggerated"


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webster

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Four years ago, Sayan told me that the Phy students at KGP are calling their online magazine: "webzine"

Today, I learned from Amazon that they are going to hold a "webinar"

So, I thought why not make some contributions to the "webthings":

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webjee: online JEE

webture: online lecture

weboratory: online laboratory

webshop: online workshop

webcutting: online masscutting (of webtures, weboratories and webshops)

webbunk: same as webcut

webzing: online dozing (in webtures, weblabs etc)

webmo: online demo

webpo: online topo

weberence: online conference

webotorium: online auditorium (like Netaji)

webgates: online collapsible gates

webhackers: online Thackers

webreco: online reco

webking: online sucking (for fellowships in the US)

webva: online viva

webdate: online date

webding: online wedding

webvorce: online divorce

weberal: online funeral

webtionary: online dictionary

.......and finally

webster: online Webster


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Distemper

========================================================================

"...'Try another Subtraction sum. Take a bone from a dog: what remains?'

Alice considered. `The bone wouldn't remain, of course, if I took it -- and the dog wouldn't remain; it would come to bite me -- and I'm sure I shouldn't remain!'

`Then you think nothing would remain?' said the Red Queen.

`I think that's the answer.'

`Wrong, as usual,' said the Red Queen: `the dog's temper would remain.'

`But I don't see how -- '

`Why, look here!' the Red Queen cried. `The dog would lose its temper, wouldn't it?'

`Perhaps it would,' Alice replied cautiously.

`Then if the dog went away, its temper would remain!' the Queen exclaimed triumphantly..."

.........Alice Through The Looking Glass

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Lord Krishna was ever the naughty boy...he knew everything past, present and future as He declared in Gita. So He was the embodiment of composure...ever smiling.

But He famously lost His temper once and that too in the battle field of Kurukshetra where He accepted the Position of the Charioteer of His B-i-L Arjun. There was this tacit agreement between the two that Krishna would expertly drive Arjun through the enemy lines and keep giving tactical and strategic advice to Arjun; but never would take up arms and start attacking the Kauravas.

Everything went on well in the beginning but the fight between Arjun and his granpa, the venerable Bhishma was turning out to be one-sided. Arjun couldn't cope with the missiles of Bhishma, and Krishna was getting irritated. According to one version of Mahabharat, one of the missiles grazed past Krishna Himself while Arjun could do nothing to protect his charioteer which is supposed to be the primary duty of a warrior.

THEN, Krishna loses His temper, curses Arjun for his pusillanimity, forgets His solemn promise not to take up arms, jumps down His chariot, calls up His Wheel and was about to launch it; while Bhishma jumps down his chariot, kneels in reverence to Krishna declaring that his mission in life would be fulfilled if it takes the Lord Himself to vanquish him; and Arjun jumps down his chariot, chases his B-i-L with profuse apologies and entreats Him to heed His promise and please turn back to His driver's seat...which He does after His temper cools down.

The description of this dramatic episode is wonderfully done and sung in Telugu by that absolutely adorable artist Balamurali Krishna: "Kuppinchi Egasina..."

http://www.raaga.com/channels/telugu/album/A0002009.html

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The sight of handsome Krishna losing His temper must have been delightful.

Unfortunately, the sight of all persons whom I watched while they were losing their temper was anything but delightful...most people look uglier than they are when they lose their temper and throw tantrums.

Except one.

That was Professor KVR. He was very very fair, delightfully rotund, extremely courteous...almost to a fault, smiling and bowing and exuding cheer and goodwill...except when he was enraged, which was often. As I mentioned before:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2011/09/protocol.html

he was a stickler for his own version of protocol.

But when he lost temper, his red face would GLOW like a furnace, his words would flow like a Niagara, his white hair would turn red...all in all it was a beautiful sight to watch. But he would be himself in a couple of minutes and smile. This sequence used to happen invariably in Faculty Meetings while he was chairing them as HoD.

Once, Professor CLR was a wee late and entered the Seminar Room casually, but was stunned when KVR rebuked him as if he was a student of his final year Dielectrics class. And, before CLR could recover, KVR asked him to "Sit down!"; and Professor BKS, the earlier HoD had to intervene and cajole CLR who was preparing to stage a walkout.

I generally used to cut all Faculty Meetings, but during KVR's tenure, I used to go early, take a back seat and pray that KVR would lose his temper, which he did; just to watch the alchemy of his face.

KVR once narrated to me the famous episode when he was a Junior RS in B C Roy Hall. He was upset with the poor quality of mess food, and one day he barged into the Assistant Warden's Room and started shouting at him. It just happened that the Warden, who was the Seniormost Professor and No 2 in the IIT Hierarchy happened to walk in and finding the young chap losing his cool, attempted to cajole him and lovingly placed his arm across the young KVR's shoulder. KVR turned around, brushed off the Warden's hand from his shoulder as if it was a lizard, and asked him never to repeat it. The good old Warden didn't know what hit him and KVR staged a walkout before everyone could gather their senses.

KVR also told me the episode when he himself was at the receiving end. That was 20 years later when he became the Warden of the selfsame B C Roy Hall. Apparently he threw a tantrum in public and abused the Hall President for his indecent attire.

They had a GBM and a No-Confidence Motion was passed against KVR.

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I don't remember to have lost my temper at KGP except with one HoD, which episode I described in one of my earlier blogs...I forget which.

After settling down in Hyderabad there was only one occasion when I blew my top. And that was against a Traffic Policeman. The chap was so taken by surprise that he didn't know what hit him...otherwise I could have been hauled up.

That was one morning at around 9 when I was driving my good old Maruti to drop my D-i-L at her Office in Balanagar. It was peak commute time and the Y-junction at Balanagar was notorious for its traffic snarls. As I approached the junction and was taking a right turn, I noticed that the Traffic Cop deserted his post and was buying a beedi maybe and chatting up the sales girl...he kept the traffic on auto-pilot...i.e. signals.

And I didn't see the signal turning amber, so I moved on and was stranded plumb in the middle of the oncoming traffic with horns screaming and truck drivers howling.

The Cop heard the noise and ran in to me and brusquely ordered me to drive into the kerb. I kept my cool and refused to do so, but asked him to give me the challan. He didn't have the challan book on him...maybe he left it with the sales girl. The traffic went pell-mell and he started shouting.

I then lost my temper and shouted back in such fluent English of which he could make out only the words: 'beedi' and 'sales girl' and 'duty' and 'Commissioner of Police'.

Gruffly he asked me to get going...which I did.

That was the only time when my D-i-L watched my rage...and that serves the purpose {;-}

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Quotable Quote

From DC today:

"Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children"

....Charles R Swindoll

gps: If you are a teacher, replace: 'children' with 'students'.

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Kuchlachati College

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Wood work is going on in full swing in our Nile Valley Apartment these days. That means it is full of wood and saw dust.

My son drives me there regularly for 'inspection'. As usual I am a shirker and I pull out the plastic chair and doze in the spacious and breezy verandah while my son pretends to inspect and instruct the know-all carpenters...they are the only species that refuse to obey the rule: "He who pays the Piper calls the tune"...you pay and they call...

This morning while I was dozing, my son woke me up and introduced a youth who bought another apartment in our floor and works in their Thomson-Reuters outfit...birds of the same feather.

I lazily nodded and was falling back into my reverie, when my son said: "He is a Bengali." That made me sit up and smile.

He then said: "He is from KGP". That made me stand up and shake hands.

He then said: "He is a student of Kuchlachati College". That made me embrace him like a brother.

I asked my Bong friend: "Do you know Professor G. S. Sanyal?"

He started to almost cry and replied: "He passed away last month...oohoom...oohoom..."

I said I am aware of it.

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That took me back 25 good years.

The Left Front had by then established itself as the perennial ruler of WB, despite the tantrums of Didi.

And the first thing they did was to abolish English from the Govt Schools...the land of R C Majumdar whose piece: "Why should we learn English?" was my favorite in my School Final and which I had by heart.

This didn't effect the Calcutta folks who sent their kids to Convent Schools. But, rural Bengalis of an entire generation lost out in the job race that was just then picking up in Bangalore and Hyderabad IT Sectors, courtesy Narayana Murthy and Chandrababu Naidu.

Unkind people said that this abolition of English and disabling the Bengali youth from "knowledge-careers" was intentional...they needed Party Workers.

Anyway, IIT KGP was like a Crystal Palace in a desert, out of bounds for the rural youth born and brought up around it.

Then Professor G S Sanyal became the Director of IIT KGP and decided that what was needed for the Kharagpur and Midnapore youth was a semi-professional College which would train the local youth in courses like Commerce, Accountancy, Computers and IT, so that they can earn a decent living in a growing economy.

And once GSS sets about a task, he would leave no stone unturned. As a Director, he used his position for the good but unconventional purpose of raising donations at the rate of Rs 1000 (a whopping amount) from Faculty. Followed by his well-wishers he used to go round the Campus in the evenings and knock and enter the Qrs of unsuspecting Faculty and squeeze donations for a good cause.

He skipped my Qrs for the simple reason that I was an applicant for the upcoming Professor Interviews and so there is a conflict of interest...I heaved a sigh of relief because I would have to borrow the thousand rupees from himself.

But he didn't leave me ultimately...

Soon after that, he gave me what everyone except my wife thought was a thoroughly undeserved promotion...wives are funny...they look down upon you at home but look up on you in public...they offend you at home but defend you outside...

A few years later, when he was the MD, STEP at KGP, he called me up and gave me a bundle of 200 pages to go through and come up with a 5-page Prospectus for the upcoming Kuchlachati College.

That was ok, because SDM taught me how to write Abstracts of Papers for PRS.

By and by the College came up, with the help of IIT infrastructure (paid) and was trying to find its feet when I retired.

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So, when I embraced our Banga-Babu Lead-Software Engineer in Thomson-Reuters, I felt that he was the Dream Child of GSS.

Apparently he was from a village in the Midnapore District and did his BCA at GSS's Kuchlachati College, worked in an IT Firm in Noida for five years and shifted to the Dream City of Hyderabad, got married, bought an apartment in Nile Valley and became my neighbor...

Long Live GSS!


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Sinking Feeling

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Apropos of Sweet Sixty:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2011/09/sweet-sixty.html

Saswat writes:

Dear Sir:

Regarding your recent blog "Sweet Sixty", Indra's piece is funny. I also remember feeling quite confused upon seeing the wash basins in lecture rooms. Wash basins usually belonged to bathrooms. It was very distracting to see the wash basins in the lecture rooms every day for the first 3 years! It was only when you did your almost algorithmic ritual of erasing the blackboard and washing your hands that it all made sense - almost an aha moment for us! It became clear immediately, once you did your ritual in front of us for the first time, that here was a teacher who will shine light on many mysteries by the sheer power of simple and clear demonstrations.

As for the grumpiness that Indra refers to, you did seem a bit unapproachable to the freshers. Perhaps it was the aura that had built up around you due to all those GP stories we heard from seniors all the time. But, of course, it just took one class from you for us to realize that you were not only approachable but also the ideal person on whom to unleash all our questions.

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Dear Saswat:

Well, Truth is truth even if it turns out to be disllusionmenting {;-}

When the Physics Department started its M Sc programs way back in the 1960s, it had only 2 floors (ground and the first) in the C-Block. So, most of the rooms in our C-Block served as labs. All lecture classes were held in the F-Block which don't have any 'wash basins' as you call them. They still don't have. When I had to take my lecture classes there, after erasing the black boards (which later turned green, with envy), I had to use my hankie to clear the 'white-collar' dust and I resented it.

Suddenly, the ECE Dept which was occupying the top floor suffered a Free Expansion as SDM called it and got their own building. When they moved out, Prof HNB of Physics and Prof. Bhattacharya of Chemistry fought for exclusive possession of the entire top floor. The Director did a Radcliffe Award and divided the spoils between Physics and Chemistry Depts. The rule was that if any contiguous room is left unoccupied by either dept, it would go to the other. So, HNB shunted Research Scholars and CLR upstairs and me too. I was allotted the Wagah Border post for one year as a sitting room. It was an ECE Electronics Lab earlier and so, it had 3 ft angle irons jutting from the walls, used as brackets for their electronics equipment like oscilloscopes. SDM once visited my room and remarked in his own style of graveyard humor that if all my papers get rejected, the angle iron projections would come useful. So, as HNB ordered, I had to hold fort till the angle irons were removed and it was converted into a lab, much later occupied by RNP.

Coming back to the Radcliffe Award Rule, we had to shift all our Lecture Classes from the F-Block to within our C-Block to use up and thereby save our Space, since obviously you can't build so many labs to fill the huge number of rooms acquired overnight. So, the labs in our first floor were uplifted to the top floor and we were asked to take our lectures in what used to be the first floor labs.

That is the reason you find so many 'wash basins' as you call them in our lecture halls. They were not wash basins but huge 'lab sinks' meant for draining our chemicals and stuff and wash our hands. You would also have noticed if you cared that these 'lecture rooms' also have sockets for what was a DC 300 volt line charged by a central battery bank in the ground floor; the reason being electronic equipment those days were vacuum-tube driven and these required 300 volt supply for their 'Plates'.

So, what I was happily using for washing my hands were really lab sinks...sorry!

As to grumpiness, it was a post-marital phenomenon.

gps

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Big Brother Bull

=========================================================================

Apropos of Father & Son:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2011/09/father-son.html

Aniket writes:


Dear Sir,

While this remains topical, my gmail inbox has 844 unread messages.

Sincerely,

Aniket

gps:

This reminds me of the Big Brother Bull of the Wild West:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/11/big-picture.html


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Sweet Sixty

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It is not often that one turns sixty in one's lifetime...some (un)fortunate souls don't make it there at all.

I was supposed to retire at 60 when I joined IIT KGP in 1965. But by one of those decisions of the GoI (much to do with her finances), our Service (!) was extended by 2 years. So, I was very much at KGP on my 60th Birthday.

And decided to ignore it.

But on that morning there were three biblical wise men ringing my door bell (they knew that had they announced their intention to invade our Qrs, I would have slipped away).

I was taken by surprise when Professors Krishna Kumar (the main culprit), V. Srinivas and P. K. Raina barged in and seated themselves on my ramshackle sofa and gifted me a lovely silver memento with appropriate inscriptions. I could understand KK because he had not only sat in my Classes but also did a Project with me. But the two others were a surprise...they were just my colleagues. It was nice of them.

They also handed me a file folder that had some fond 'obits' which they collected from across the world...web got woven by then. And my son of a fun, without my knowledge, was in collusion with them and had launched these verbal mementos on a GeoCities site, whose address also was presented to me.

It is not often that one gets fulsome praise without expecting any return. So, I was visiting that site whenever I was down in spirits (which was not often). The last time I tried accessing that site was a couple of years back and it said that the whole damn thing is no longer existing..."Sorry GeoCities has closed".

Quite naturally I was forlorn...but you know my son...he went up the attic and brought out the hard copy file and asked me to stop moaning.

Well, Blogger still exists. So, I thought that I would better kill my time (I know the Alice Quip...Time won't like to be killed) by uploading the contents on my blogspot...Vanity being what it is.

So, here it is verbatim:

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Krishna Kumar

I saw Professor G. P. Sastry first when he came to teach us Electrodynamics and Special Theory of Relativity. Most of us in the class were hesitant in asking him questions in the first two weeks. He realized this and started asking questions one day to all of us about what he taught in the previous two weeks. This removed hesitation. We all started asking him questions. We discovered soon it is best to ask him as many questions as possible. His teaching benefited everybody in the class. I saw first time a great teacher. Later he taught us Quantum Mechanics. Everything appeared much easier and understandable. He knew most of the difficulties all of us faced, he really cared to make things clear to all students in the class. I have never seen another teacher so much concerned about the whole class. I was fortunate to be introduced to theoretical research by him. I had my first experience of "research" while doing a project under his guidance. I am very grateful to him for that. During the research project I learned he was an equally great human being. Now I know him as a senior colleague in our Department. He has not changed even a bit. He is always inventing new ways to explain difficult problems of physics. He remains a very modest and humble person in spite of being a great teacher. I salute him on the occasion of his 60th birthday.

WISH YOU A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Krishna Kumar
Department of Physics, IIT Kharagpur

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Dharam Vir

The Sastry I had known

By Dharam Vir, B. Sc (Physics, 1969)

Prof. Sastry was a young teacher (about 25 years old) when I was his student in the B. Sc (Physics Hons) final year. He was so simple and humble that he could hardly be recognized as teacher. He looked more like a final year B. Tech. or post-graduate student.

He taught us Electricity and Magnetism, usually considered a very difficult subject. We used to wonder how this young teacher with not much of experience could teach such a subject and we were quite skeptical about him.

As the time passed, everyone began to get impressed by him. He was sincere and methodical. He made the subject very interesting as well as challenging. He consulted and referred to the best books of those times and picked the most typical problems from them for us to solve. He was very patient with the students and never lost temper. He happily tolerated my stubbornness in the class and cared for me.

For many of us, his course turned out to be the best. I started consulting the books he used to refer. I still remember books by Pugh and Pugh, Bruno Rossi, Panofsky and Phillips and Jackson. In fact, I landed up buying a few of these books. The book by Panofsky and Phillips is still with me. Of all the subjects that I learnt at Kharagpur, I vividly remember the contents of the course given by him!

From Kharagpur, I moved to IIT, Kanpur for Master's. There we had two semesters course on Electrodynamics. Whenever I attended lecture on this subject, Sastry used to come like a flash and disappear. He had made a permanent impression on my mind.

I had an occasion to visit IIT, Kharagpur in January, 2003, after a lapse of about 34 years. I was fortunate to have met him. He remembered me and all our classmates. He turned emotional. He remembered the rare moments of pain and pleasure. He said that I had made him 34 years younger. He was like the Sastry I had known. He had not changed.

Indeed, Prof. Sastry is a perfect human being as well as teacher with right mixture of head and heart. I owe my success to teachers like him and pay my humble tribute to him.

I wish him a long life. Our country needs such teachers.

Dharam Vir, IAS
Principal Secretary, Technical Education, Government of Haryana
1009, Sector 24
Chandigarh 160 023, India

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Pratip Bhattacharyya

Professor G. P. Sastry is the best of the teachers I have learnt from and certainly far above the rest. He is a great teacher, a great physicist and a man with a huge heart.

He taught us quantum mechanics. He began with a mathematical prelude, simple and extraordinary, which deeply motivated me to follow his course of lectures. His lectures were such brilliant expositions that during the course it was not necessary for me to read any books on the subject. However, in the same year he was not assigned to teach us the special theory of relativity (which he was doing the previous years) and it left us deprived of another great experience.

When Professor Sastry was working on Cherenkov Radiation it was the last major area of classical electrodynamics to be solved. His discovery of the Cherenkov ray cones in crystalline media was an outstanding theoretical feat; it was subsequently observed in experiments, exactly as predicted by the theory.

Besides being a superb teacher and an outstanding physicist he is also a man with a huge heart. He was always magnanimous in helping me out of severe difficulties; I can never forget what he did for me.

On his 60th birthday, as also on any other day, any tribute to my teacher will be to little to appreciate the epic dimensions of his mind and heart.

-Pratip Bhattacharyya

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Kedar Khare

Dear GPS: It is my great pleasure to wish you on the occasion of your 60th birthday.

I am sure everyone who ever had a chance to share the same space-time coordinates with you, consider themselves very fortunate. The time spent with you in your lectures, in the laboratory sessions, at your office / home / Hari's, forms some of my fondest memories of Kharagpur. Your official age may be 60 but we all know that you are much younger at heart.

Once again, thank you very much for everything you have done for us students and wish you a very happy and long life.

-Kedar Khare

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Somnath Bharadwaj

Prof G. P. Sastry is the best Physics teacher I have encountered. As a student I learnt Special Relativity, Electrodynamics and Quantum Mechanics from him. The memories of his lectures still continue to inspire me now when I teach these subjects nearly two decades later. It gives me great pleasure to contribute these few lines to felicitate Prof. Sastry as he turns sixty. I wish him many more very fruitful and enjoyable years of existence.

Somnath Bharadwaj
Department of Physics and Meteorology

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Parag Ghosh

On the occasion of GPS's 60th birthday my prayers for his continued good health and peace of mind. It is tempting to go back to those wonder years in Kharagpur, those myths and legends about GPS (even before I got an opportunity to interact with him), his bewildering lectures, his solutions to numerous apparent paradoxes....touche.

Let me rather take you to the future. After all these glorious years of teaching one day GPS would have reminded himself that he no longer needed to carry the attendance register to the class, for there would be no students waiting! He might rather be glancing through the potpourri of portraits he had collected on his table. Somewhere in a public university in Alabama or in a teachers' convention in Kodaikanal one of those faces might be teaching the "Flickering Bulb Paradox" then!

Some years ago I was entasked for this challenging job to archive all the research articles written by Sudhanshu Dutta Majumdar Memorial Lecture organized by CTS, IIT Kharagpur. I was astounded by the immense breadth of his research activities: General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Anisotropic Crystals, Vacuum Pumps, you name it! That was GPS's mentor. All who know GPS know that the cycle continued...

And the show must go on. The students of future generation are not to be deprived of the GPS's style of learning Physics, the same enthusiasm is to be inculcated in them. That in my mind is the best gift we can think of to offer him.

I take this opportunity on GPS's birthday to quote one of his favorite Oliver Wendell Holmes:

"To be 60 years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be 40 years old"

Wishing you a great birthday and many more to come.

Your student as ever,

Parag Ghosh
Dept of Physics
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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Anand Kumar Jha

I am Anand Kumar Jha. I graduated from IIT Kharagpur in 2002 with a 5yrs Integrated M Sc in Physics. Currently I am an Optics Ph D student in the Institute of Optics, University of Rochester. It has not been long since I graduated. So my memory with Prof. G. P. Sastry (we call him GP) is very much fresh.

I really feel excited having gotten an opportunity to write something about GPS. Right from my first year, whenever I met any senior in the physics department, he would talk only about GPS and his experiences with him. On the contrary when i used to watch GPS in the department I never felt that he was as much lively as my seniors used to tell me. In the fourth year he taught us a course on "Electromagnetic Theory and Special Relativity". It was this 7th semester when I could actually see and feel the liveliness in GPS, my seniors used to talk about. His method of teaching, his way of explaining and his ability to motivate students were just perfect.

Due to lack of enthusiasm in my batch, he decided not to take the course on Quantum Mechanics III, which he used to teach in the 8th semester. This was very unfortunate for us and we missed a great chunk of energy, which he would have shared with us, had he taught us the second course. To a great extent I feel myself responsible for that.

Last few months at IIT was a great time and it was when I saw the other aspect of GPS. He has a unique way of looking at things. I used to find some reason to talk to him. It used to be recommendation letter or advice on something. Whatever the reason was, every time I met him, I had some new experience. GPS talks a LOT. Whenever I went to his house, he would just give me a plate full of sweets to finish. While I am on my way of finishing those sweets GPS would keep talking. I used to enjoy each and every word of his. Once in a while he also used to give me a chance to speak. To be honest I used to prefer listening.

GPS is not only the best teacher I have ever seen in my life, he is also the best person I have ever been in contact with. I learnt quite a bit of physics from him unfortunately not much. I always loved physics but it was after coming in touch with GPS that I felt Physics as part of my life. His way of looking at life has certainly guided me on various occasions.

Today on 22nd of August, i would like to convey my Birthday-wishes to GPS through this e-mail. I have earned and learned so much from GPS and I'll always benefit from his blessing and teaching. I'll have my happiest moment in life when some of my work could keep GPS happy for at least 60 minutes.

Wishing for his good health and blessings,

Anand

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Edwin Taylor

Dear GP: We have never met, yet you are one of my closest colleagues and friends. Beginning with pen on paper, we graduated to email with attachments. Beginning with special relativity, our dialog has covered physics from quarks to cosmos. Beginning with physics, our conversation spanned the human condition from history and literature to philosophy and religion. You have introduced me to the culture of India and its academic world, as well as providing an outsider's clear-eyed, wry but generous view of the West.

Along the way you and your students pummeled, corrected, and refined in detail the general relativity text that John Archibald Wheeler and I wrote. You and your students composed the solutions manual, for which dozens of harried instructors thank you daily.

Only sixty years? My days have been illuminated by the friendly wisdom of an elder who turns out to be ten years old when I graduated from college. But what is such a time lapse to a relativist? A simple time inversion better represents our relationship, and allows me to express gratitude and affection to my mentor and friend.

Warmly,

Edwin Taylor
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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J. S. Pandey

Prof. G. P. Sastry: The Best Professor and the Best Human Being I Have Ever Come Across

When I joined IIT Kharagpur in July, 1977, library used to be the most favoured place for me. This was primarily because of two reasons: firstly because it was for the first time I had come across such a huge library with equally huge amount of resources, which generated immense excitement for learning and grasping as much as possible in the shortest interval of time. Secondly, if one wants to escape ragging and at the same time not miss the studies, this was the safest place to do both.

Well, by now you must be wondering as to what all this has to do with Prof. G. P. Sastry! In fact, most of the time whenever I entered the library, I found that there was a slim, handsome, intelligent and sincere young-looking gentleman sitting at one remote corner, highly absorbed in the book he was holding in is hand. Needless to say how much I was impressed by such an attractive and dynamic personality. And then, I was really curious to find out who he was.

Soon it so happened that one day while we were waiting in our Physics class for the teacher whom we had not seen earlier, the same gentleman appeared entering from the door. Really, it was my first encounter with the ideal teacher. What an excellent lecture he delivered---clear concepts put forth in a rhythmic (simple harmonic) style combined with the fluency in English, which very few academicians even in IIT possess. I have seldom seen Professors who are good at 'Science' and 'Language' simultaneously---an extraordinary (human) combination of 'Science' and 'Arts'; 'Knowledge' and 'Emotions'. It was as though 'Keats' were teaching us 'Optics'---strange supernaturally radiant electromagnetic phenomenon.

Prof. G. P. Sastry happens to be the best human being I have ever come across. As one of my recollections unfolds, once I was delivering my lecture as the then President of Physics Society at the "Departmental Freshers' Introduction". I quoted a few lines from what I thought from 'Yeats'. It was during the snacks-break that Prof. Sastry who must have been listening to my words very carefully first patted me on my back for the seemingly well-received lecture I had delivered and then, very affectionately pointed out to me that the lines which I was referring to in my lecture were actually not from 'Yeats', but were from 'Keats'. The style and smile which he combined when he told me all this showed me the brilliant 'theatrical' abilities he had and the tremendous knowledge he possessed even in areas not directly connected with Science. An interesting interface of knowledge---par excellence indeed!

Professor Sastry happens to be one of those few Professors who could give you 100/100 marks whenever you deserved. While I can go on forever describing this excellent human being (probably 'God' has created him from his own hands) the editor of the magazine must be waiting to give others also a chance for similar descriptions, and thus (although very unwillingly) I must stop now. But before I do that, let me record the warmest personal regards of my own, my parents, my wife, my son and all my near and dear ones who must have heard from me anecdotes of my interaction with Prof. G. P. Sastry, time and again. We all wish him and his family all encompassing good luck and a very happy and successful future life.

J. S. Pandey
Sr. Asst. Director, NEERI, Nagpur

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Sougato Bose

Few people in the world are fortunate enough to have a teacher like G. P. Sastry at some point in their life. His approachability, the lively manner of his teaching and the uncomplicated nature of his explanations kept me hooked to physics during my years at IIT Kharagpur. He is the person who first suggested that I start reading quantum mechanics from the most 'quantum' of all systems, namely the two-level system. This approach has much to do with the kind of physics I have taken up as a profession. His course on relativity is a classic example class room teaching at its best. I have never taken a more interesting course elsewhere and can only hope to emulate his interactive and lively style in he future. Inspired by his relativity paradoxes, I was able to formulate one with a tippe top and Professor Sastry provided an elegant solution of the same. Subsequently (with the help of others at KGP), he also took the initiative in writing this paradox up as a paper which enabled me to have a joint publication with my most respected teacher. With deepest gratitude, I wish Professor Sastry a happy and active life on his sixtieth birthday.

Sougato Bose
Lecturer, University College of London

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Aniket Basu

You do not need to hear from me how great a teacher GPS is, anyone who attended his classes knows. He himself would downplay his ability to coax us into swallowing and digesting the stuff he taught us. Quoting Feynman (who quoted Gibbon), he would tell us that his teaching was effective only when we would come at least half way and put in some effort.

I really got to know GPS after I had left KGP. It was through that strangely addictive thing called email. I was (and still am) in love with my own writing, and quite by accident I found an audience at a faraway computer terminal, who reciprocated with (often outrageous) anecdotes from his own life, with quotes from diverse range of literature---occasionally we also discussed a little physics---but more importantly with words of advice in times of trouble. I am grateful to him for every bit of it, and for much else besides that defies cataloguing, and it seems to me the right words to express my gratitude will always elude me.

But most of all, I could not help admiring him for his ready wit. Of many instances, one that readily comes to mind is: "If the plural of mouse is mice, shouldn't the plural of spouse be spice?"

Aniket Basu
Department of Theoretical Physics
TIFR, Mumbai

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Indrajit Mitra

I first saw Prof Sastry as this rather grumpy looking person who shared an office with Prof. D. Basu (who happened to be our fac. ad.). My first impression was that this is a scary person and one to stay away from. And so, when on several occasions during my 2nd year, when Prof. Basu would ask me to go to Prof. Sastry with some doubts, I used my intuition and stayed away.

Then, in our 3rd year, I saw to my horror that he'd be teaching us our first Quantum Mech course. Day 1: Sir walks in, cleans the blackboard, takes the eraser to the nearest window and cleans the eraser there---all without uttering a single word. This same phenomena would be repeated everyday without variation for all the 3 sems that he'd teach us! Then, he cleaned his hands in the wash-basin (and suddenly the reason for putting the wash-basins in classrooms became clear to all of us!), opened the class-register and took the attendance. And then he started teaching.

From lecture 1 till his final lecture, it was pure poetry! I still remember the first question that he asked in class: "What is quantized?" and we were taught something important that a lot of standard QM books forget to mention. Indeed it is the point of entry into the path integral method of quantum mechanics.

It would take lots of pages to write about all the wonderful things he taught us in that first course. I am absolutely certain, that without that first course, I certainly would not have learnt quantum mechanics in the same touch-feel way that he emphasized. Soon, the machinery of QM: Linear Algebra and the weird world of the quantum became more manageable.

Actually, after the first few lectures, I thought, "He looks like a harmless person, maybe I could ask some of the doubts I have." And so began a long process of harassing and often nonsensical questions and patient hearing and precise answers. Very quickly, I realized that Sir's sense of humor was absolutely wonderful. Lots of wonderful jokes both in the class room and also some at Harry's. I must hasten to add here that I've heard a bulk of Sir's jokes from him after I came to Princeton. He's often accused me of being a fellow without shame---well I have this to say to you "So are you!" Indeed his disarming smile on the 3rd/4th day of lecture told us that there was a wonderful human being beneath this grumpy exterior.

Anyway, apart from acads Sir also has been a great friend to whom I've always turned for advice. I owe him so much! I'm really sorry I cannot be there to celebrate this wonderful occasion, but we all wish you

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SIR!"

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Samit Ray

I have the rare opportunity to interact with Prof. G. P. Sastry as a student, as a faculty colleague and as a co-lab-in-charge in the fourth year laboratory of the Dept of Physics, IIT Kharagpur. His contribution as a unique teacher is well known. What is worth mentioning is that his personality and nurture for the students motivated me to finally stick to IITKGP just when I was bewildered like any other lateral-entry boys. This all happened in the very first month when we met him personally in his house at IIT Campus to clarify some of our concepts on "Special Theory of Relativity". Later I came to know that it not only happened to me but also many of my junior/senior friends. But that is not the real surprise!!---not sure how many of us has seen him doing experiments in the laboratory with the students. So that was the beginning of a new experience of learning for me.

I will be nowhere near to articulate his great contribution as a physics teacher, a researcher and a mentor of thousands of pass-outs from our department, but I can only express my feeling about him by quoting from Granth Sahib:

"A hundred moons may be born
A thousand suns may blaze
In this intense brilliance
Without my teacher, There is pitch darkness"

S. K. Ray
Dept of Physics, IIT KGP

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P. K. Raina

In my opinion, it is impossible to characterize a human being completely. But still we as individuals have some ways of perceiving/interpreting and describing each other. We do get grouped into professional world and simultaneously have some non-professional world to interact with. I find that the personality of an individual mostly gets divided into these two aspects of life. There are very few great people who can command both of these aspects of life to highest level.

I did not have opportunity of being student of Prof. G. P. Sastry. But from the day I came in contact with any student of IIT Kharagpur (nearly 20 years back first at IIT Kanpur) there was consistent acknowledgment about his possessing both these aspects of life to exceptionally high level.

On joining this department some seven years back, I could see this human figure described very well by some of the brilliant alumnae of department. I consider them to be very fortunate for having enjoyed one or both these aspects of a great man.

My very occasional interactions with him have been as a colleague (team-mate for the assignment given to him from department / institute). Whatever small interactions I had with him left deep impressions of the overall personality of the great man and every word
seemed to be meaningful, every action seemed to be in the welfare of broader sense of society. Recalling the people I have come across in life, the depth of enjoyment these interactions with Prof. Sastry gave me could only be felt with very few.

On this 60th birthday, my felicitations and congratulations to Prof. G. P. Sastry for such a great success in life with best wishes and highest regards for future.

Prabhu Krishan Raina
Department of Physics, IIT Kharagpur

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V. Srinivas

I still remember that I met Professor G. P. Sastry in the departmental seminar room where grand viva of M. Sc (1992) students was in progress. Since then I have constant interaction with him in and out of the department. Many of his students say that they are fortunate enough to have a teacher like him. On the other hand I feel I am fortunate enough to have interaction with such a teacher to learn more intricacies of physics and physics teaching. In other words I feel he is not only a students' teacher but also teacher of teachers. Each time I entered his chamber I gained more understanding on the subject in question. Some of these discussions even appeared in the form of a journal article (Eur. J. Phys 17 (1996) 275). I thank Professor Sastry for his support and I wish him a VERY HAPPY 60th BIRTHDAY!

With love and regards

V. Srinivas
Dept of Physics
IIT Kharagpur

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Amalendu Mukherjee

Dear Sastry Garu:

Ever since I came in your time and space my life has not been the same. You taught me how to look at both life and science. You banished lots of murky fog and unshackled me from dwarfing chains of self-glorification. You taught me how to learn and unlearn. I came to you whenever I had problems in my life and in science and always wondered to whom do you go.......

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Is that ALL?

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Father & Son

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The greatest Father-Son Pair in Literature that I have read are the Wellers: Tony & Sam.

In Politics and Cricket there are dozens; like the topical Pataudi Nawabs.

I don't know if there are Father-Son Pairs who are quite unlike each other. As I said earlier:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2011/03/games-old-men-play.html

my son doesn't look like me, unless you are an expert in 'pattern recognition'.

The first time when someone saw him (without me) and guessed he was my son was Nikhilesh Bhattacharya...but he was a Computer Graphics Expert.

Recently, Saswat remarked, on seeing my son's photos, that he wondered how he missed our striking resemblance while he was at KGP.

The day my son got admitted to the Chemistry Department at KGP as a student (for the next five years), we came to a gentlemen's agreement that I would never visit the Chemistry Department to be seen together.

And we stuck to it.

The Chemistry Professors knew me and also came to know that my son is in their Department, one of the 14 odd chaps in the Class. Apparently there were tea-shop meetings to decipher which of these 14 blokes is gps' son (Chemistry Profs are not into Pattern Recognition).

Some of them decided that this fair, tall and smiling guy in the last bench should be Professor Rao's son since he was always found riding on his scooter, first as a Pillion and later as a Driver (Professor Rao is popular, tall, fair and smiling). But they were told that Professor Rao's son was admitted to the CSE Department and couldn't reconcile how a swap between Chemistry and CSE could take place...very unlikely.

My son is orthogonal to me in all respects: he loves music, hates English literature, is very good at workshop practice, has many friends, can understand spoken American English, sleeps soundly, and is likable to one and all....

But these differences are obvious.

The most fundamental difference between him and me, I discovered last evening, is this:

His Yahoo Inbox has 174 Unread Messages....

QED


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Frog Party

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http://www.freeoboi.ru/images/532104492.jpg

For almost 3 decades at IIT KGP, DB used to live in a dilapidated Quarters close to the Tech Market...well, that proximity to the Tech Market was its only attraction. DB never owned a vehicle and was too lazy to morning walk and that explains why he chose to live near the Market...one has to get up early and run if one wants the best fish in the Market which the early worm alone gets...and the glint in his eye when he talked about the hilsa he grabbed over the head of a dozen contenders almost equaled his narrative of the latest hypergeometric function that came up out of the blue.

The dozen or so of such Qrs that nestled in the vicinity of the Tech Market can be termed the Amphibian Enclave. For, however many Summer Nor'Westers hit KGP, nothing happens...but, come the First of July (BCR's Birthday) which heralds the advent of the sumptuous KGP Monsoon, the Enclave suddenly wakes up to its nightlong welcome...a million frogs and fraulins singing their hearts out.

The remarkable feature of this Frog Party Cacophony is that everyone is singing, but no one is listening.

DB was all excited one Friday evening, because he was going to Cal to attend a Reunion of their Class of '64 after 3 decades. And he was talking about the Dattas, Guptas, Chowdhuries, Banerjees, Chatterjees and Ghoshes....all his bosom pals whom he was looking forward to meet and exchange worldlines.

But the Monday morning after the Party, he was dull, morose, not willing to speak...till I took him to the Canteen and fed him two cups of hot chai and charminars.

He then let out that the Reunion recalled the Tech Market Frog Party sans its divine music: everyone was keen on talking about himself and his achievements and no one was willing to listen to his prepared talk on SDM and Gel'fand...on the other hand the only fond nostalgia they indulged in with him was how DB missed his Rank because of their Nuclear Physics and Spectroscopy Labs...

And he cautioned me to never attend any Reunion of Classmates.

He need not have worried.




Here is a typical phone call I receive in Hyderabad once in a while:

"Is it gps speaking? Oh, well, you b*****d! What is it that I hear that you never come to our Reunions at the Potti Sriramulu University?...Yes, I heard that you were not well...Neither am I, but I religiously visit Hyderabad whenever I am in India and host a Party to all our batchmates who are settled here...no, I live in LA, but I do visit my home country every year...well, it is not all patriotism, I have a couple of real estate and business interests in Hyderabad...US is a great place to live and work in, but your money doesn't grow there...no, you should buy your own home and not waste on rentals...I have a couple of friends here who can help you...yes, I always thought you made a great mistake in joining an IIT...my cousin at IIT Bombay tells me that IITs are meant for Engineers, and Science chaps are looked down upon as second class citizens...yes, I left Physics as soon as I could and did an M Tech in Electronics...yes, Germany, Japan and then the blessed US...no, I don't work, people work for me...I own a couple of firms, all doing well...no, the recession didn't hit me hard...I don't keep all my eggs in one basket...yes, I meet Murthy once in a while...he made a mistake in sticking to the East Coast...it is the West Coast that is the happening place...yes, my son and daughter are doing well, one at Cornell and the other in SF...no, you must ask your son to use his B1 visa and smuggle himself in...yea, there are health issues for me too...but I have good insurance and replaced several body parts...you must tell me all about yourself tomorrow...you are not coming? Strange...I can send my driver to pick you up from what is that place, Madinaguda...never heard of it...you folks wrote me off because I missed my First Class...but everyone in our batch peaked early...it is the post-M Sc that matters...yes, I met him...he says he had been to Antarctica on a scientific mission for six months...not a happy place to spend time...ok, I met her too...she is no longer the slim heart-throb she was...now she is twice as heavy as your TN CM..yes, her kids are settled in the US too...but in Boston...too much snowfall there...you are coming, no?...Did I tell you that they made me President of the local Telugu Chapter...well, someone has to take up these responsibilities...yes, they do eat into your time...but, you know, it is a pleasure to think that one is serving the Community...I will send you our brochure...my wife's picture adorns its cover...she is a darling...see you tomorrow then...pips!..."

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Varun N. Achar has left a new comment on your post "Hyderabad Inc":Sir, reading this reminded me of your bhalobasha for bongo:

http://maami.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/a-gitanjali-for-the-gurudeb/

Enjoy!


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Argumentative KGPian

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In all these seven decades, I never lost an argument. Nor won any.

That is because my life centered around Physics, and it is a hard science. There is little scope for arguments in it. Things are settled by recourse to experiments and not lung power or vote or semantics.

Arguments belong to the Courts of Law.

But, Physicists also are human beings...and at times they resort to arguments on matters besides Physics.

This "I am also a human being" appeal was made the other day by a Bollywood Director when confronted with his Casting Couch.

But most Physicists have a keen sense of humor and that subverts all arguments outside Physics.

Take for instance Theology...a topic on which debates raged for centuries as to how many fairies can be accommodated on the tip of a needle.

For a man famous for his laconic remarks, Dirac spoke up, on the sidelines of a Conference, that there is no need for invoking a subjective God, now that Physics explains everything in the Universe in an objective way.

And Pauli, the naughty, came up with his quip:

"There is no God and Dirac is His Prophet."

Physics has to do with understanding and not argument.

This reminds me of the quip by Churchill or someone equally clever to his Opposition MP:

"I am obliged to give you an argument but not an understanding."

Well, I was never happy with my understanding of Physics...but so was Feynman with his...

When I was in my First Year B Sc (Hons) at AU, on a Sunday morning, I was troubled by this foolish question in Elasticity which topic was being taught by a good Teacher (Again, as Jeeves said of Bertie's tailor: "I have nothing against his morals"):

"Take a metallic wire hanging from the ceiling. Apply a load of 1 kilogram. Because of the stress, there will be a strain and the wire extends. But because of the linear extension, there would be a lateral contraction and the diameter of the wire decreases. But because of this reduction in the area of cross section, the stress increases...so does the strain...and the extension increases...and so does the contraction...ad infinitum...and the wire should break...but it doesn't...why not?"

I walked 5 miles to my Teacher's Lab (they used to work on Sundays too) and confronted him with this puzzle of mine. He hummed and hawed and talked about this and that for an hour and I returned home no wiser than before.

I then decided that there is no use asking questions to Teachers and it is best to struggle by myself and understand things my own way to my satisfaction with the help of books. Some questions took years, others like 'localization of fringes' decades.

But there were a few arguments I was witness to that remain etched in my memory.

There was this Hiralal Yadav who once happened to enter our room for a chitchat with DB, who was well known for his understanding of Quantum Field Theory. They spoke of this and that pleasantly while I was reading my Ukridge. Suddenly I heard voices being raised, the two bulls rushing to the blackboard and tempers turning nasty; till I raised my voice and shouted: "TEA TIME!"

In all those 40 years I had never any arguments with my hundreds of students. This is because IIT KGP gave me the liberty to teach what I understood (somewhat) and omit what I didn't.

And since I never interacted with colleagues other than DB (our interests were complementary and mutually exclusive...we never published anything together), I was at peace with myself.

Till the JEE Picnic started.

Once a Senior Professor (with a lab under his 'occupancy') rushed to the Table where myself, DB, CLR and RSS were merrily chatting away, and collared me and said I was talking nonsense when I had defended the Model Answer for one simple question on Electronics.

And I was enraged and gave him several arguments which didn't convince him.

I had to then tell him off to go at once to his Lab, rig up the circuit and tell me the result.

He went away and never returned to me...to this day...


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Protocol

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Remember that I am a Pre-Independence kid. So, on every coin and postage stamp those days I used to see the grotesque figure of King George VI. It has been my observation that statues and figurines and mintages look far more ugly than their originals.

The British were (and are) suckers for protocol...who should bend to whom and by how many inches. Remember the incident between Michelle and the Queen:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2009/04/queen-and-cauliflower.html

My friends who were preparing for the IAS exams had to mug up the titles of aristocracy and order of precedence not only in Britain but our own Free India.

Talking of King George, there is this huge hospital in Vizagh called the King George Hospital. I always thought that it is named for the Emperor. It was only recently, when I was Googling Vizagh that I came to know that this particular King George was a surveyor of this fabulous district (where I spent 7 inglorious UG years trying to learn some physics in vain).

Anyway, my Physician Uncle, Dr K K Murthy, MD, was the renowned and much feared Superintendent of this KGH. And I always used to envy his powerful and honorable position. But one day, he was inconsolable because it so happened that the Secretary of our bachcha Collector & District Magistrate, IAS, rang him up and asked him to visit the Collector's Bungalow at once, since His Majesty was suffering from a bout of cold and cough.

He had to go, leaving everything, as required by the protocol.

And when the marriage proposal of my elder sister materialized with an IAS Officer, through his efforts, my Uncle's joy knew no bounds.

But my IAS B-i-L was stumped one day by my innocent Goods Clerk F-i-L. They got together during my son's baptism ceremony; and I was witness to an embarrassing scene. It so happens that the Supremo and Showpiece of my F-i-L's family turned out to be the General Manager of the State Bank of Hyderabad. And my F-i-L, while singing the GM's rhapsodies, offered magnanimously to escort my IAS B-i-L to the august chambers of his SBH GM on his next visit to Hyderabad, and introduce him graciously.

Shit hit the fan.

My IAS B-i-L was fuming for the discourtesy shown to not only him but his entire cadre...this 'cadre honor' of IAS chaps rivals that of the Platoon (paltan) of the sepoys. But he couldn't let out his anger in public since that would be out of form...my F-i-L has precedence in the ceremony due to his age.

Later on however, I had to hear a mouthful from my B-i-L who shouted:

"What does your F-i-L think of himself and his bloody GM of SBH? I have to only ask my Secretary to ring the GM up when I am next in Hyderabad and the GM has to drop every gold coin he happens to be counting and run to my Hotel."

But recently when I let out that the current Governor of RBI was our student at KGP and sat in my EM class, my B-i-L said only one thing:

"The RBI Gov's Bungalow in Delhi is faaaabulous!"

I thought that Teachers are always teachers and there is no protocol for us to obey. This is largely true. I recall our Abdus Salam visiting the humble home of his ailing Math School Teacher and paying his respects after he won his Nobel.

But not for teachers in the Armed Forces, it looks like. I saw this wonderful movie: An Officer and a Gentleman, where the Teacher Sergent who is saluted by his Trainee Cadet during training, has to suffer a reversal of roles as soon as the cadet passes out and is metamorphosed into an Officer.

There was no protocol for us at IIT KGP, except our beloved senior colleague, KVR, who insisted on his own version of it.

During the time he was HoD, he would ring me up and ask me to go to his Office whenever an official matter like a Meeting was scheduled (which was rare). But whenever he had something to get from me by way of academics, he would take a prior appointment from me and walk down to my humble room (which was often); and insist that I don't get up from my chair, since he was then a student of mine although he was my Boss otherwise.

One afternoon, my proud M Sc Project Student, Arti Tandon, was having some doubts in Weinberg cleared in my Room. As usual, she was sitting in my Visitor's Broken Chair and was working them out in all concentration. The phone rang and Prof KVR announced that he would be coming to clear some of his doubts. And as he entered my Room, I got up and welcomed him, while the girl was completely absorbed in her math unaware of his arrival.

While leaving, KVR shouted at her and asked her to stand up; which she did demurely (everyone knew KVR's protocols). But still, he banged her:

"Your Teacher has the courtesy to stand up when I entered; but you are so very arrogant that you didn't even notice my arrival!"

There is this charming story told by KK about KVR:

Once KVR had to go to Delhi on some personal work and he was stranded, not getting any accommodation for the night. So, he landed up at IIT, Delhi and walked into the room of his erstwhile Project Student at KGP, who was then doing his M Tech at IIT Delhi and staying in a single room in hostel. The student welcomed him and agreed happily to put KVR up for the night. And offered his single cot for the night.

But KVR refused it saying that since he was the Applicant Visitor for the night, he would be most unhappy to snatch his host's bed and deprive him of his comfortable sleep: he just spread his bedsheet on the floor and insisted on sleeping on the floor.

And his student naturally couldn't sleep on his cot with his guide sleeping on the floor; and so he too had to sleep on the floor, pushing the cot into the corridor outside.

It was like the story of the Father, Son and their Donkey...


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Hospitality

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This is the 'true' story of my one and only encounter with the Campus B C Roy Hospital, which took place in 1967. That was a long while ago but the event is etched in my memory.

When I joined IIT KGP in 1965 as a youth of 21, the showpiece of the Campus was this newly constructed BCRH building. It was laid out in a sprawling maidan with lots of greenery, shrubs, winter and summer flowers, and the inevitably beautiful bakul trees with their umbrella-canopy.

And the building itself was a two-story affair that looked like an architectural marvel, with broad staircases, and sunlight and breeze wafting through the building. Rumor had it that the building was designed by a promising faculty member of our own Architecture Department and it became such a feather in his cap that he was recruited elsewhere on a triple jump.

But sadly there is this line: "where every prospect pleases and....."

The trouble with BCRH then was Calcutta.

Post-Independence Calcutta was like Boston a century before that. Listen to our Autocrat:

"Boston is just like other places of its size;--- only perhaps, considering its excellent fish-market, paid fire-departments, superior monthly publications, and correct habit of spelling English language, it has some right to look down on the mob of cities. I'll tell you, though, if you want to know it, what is the real offence of Boston. It drains a large water-shed of its intellect, and will not itself be drained..."

First-rate folks of Calcutta were reluctant to leave it and join KGP (till the Naxalite killings in the 1970s.) So, good doctors were tough to find for our BCRH. And it didn't help that their salary structure was so skewed that their patients (like me) were drawing more pay than themselves. So much so that the only doctors willing to join BCRH were those fed up with Calcutta.

And as the saying went: "He who is fed up with Calcutta is fed up with life itself."

Anyway, I was then staying in our Faculty Hostel, smoking like a chimney and eating little of the uneatable mess food. And so was having this constant burning sensation in the stomach. But got used to it, and would miss it if it skips a day or two...which it rarely did.

One fine morning there was this new boarder in our Mess and by and by we came to know that he was Dr Bose, who joined BCRH leaving his Calcutta job. And in our Hostel we had this other Bose (my life was full of Boses and Bosons), by name Sanjoy Bose. Sanjoy was the representative of the Calcutta Aristocracy at KGP...he had it in his very bearing. Moreover he was an IITian from Nehru Hall and charmed us all with his breadth of knowledge and depth of info.

And he discovered that Dr Bose was a direct descendant (if not the very son) of the celebrated Devaki Bose.

And one day when I was talking about my tummy troubles on the dining table, Dr Bose asked me to come to his chamber in BCRH, which I did, of an evening.

Without touching me, he wrote something illegible on a slip of paper and asked me to see the Matron with it, which I did, of the same evening.

The forbidding Matron in her white overalls and lenses asked me to come the next morning at 6 AM with an empty stomach (that was no problem...it was always empty).

When I landed there at 6 AM, the Matron escorted me to a High Table in her Lab and asked me if I had any last wish, so to speak, because the 'test' would take quite a while. I went out for a couple of fags and returned and took up my supine position, in wild expectancy of what is in store.

She came up with a long thin rubber tube and asked me to close my eyes. Before I could say, 'no!', she pushed it not very gently through my nose right down into my tummy, much like a vet.

And brought a beaker full of some colorless liquid and poured it down the tube before I could sense what was happening.

And she went away.

Strangely, I was soon transported to a fairy land and was relishing the sensation, before a soothing sense of drowsiness enveloped me.

The Matron came back after about half an hour or so and woke me up and 'drew' some stuff from my tummy into a test tube and went away.

I made a signal asking if I could jump down and run away. She shook her head and asked me to keep shut.

The pleasantly dizzy sensation was slowly fading and it was another half hour before she came and 'drew' some more stuff and went away.

By then I was wide awake and dying for a smoke...but you know...I was sort of handicapped by that tube.

When she next came for her 'draw', I was protesting and she was threatening...

After about 6 hours and 12 'readings' she released me and asked me to come tomorrow for her Report.

I asked her discreetly what was the liquid she poured into me (and if I could have some more of it).

She peered through her glasses, and liked my face, and uttered secretively:

"Ethyl Alcohol"

The next day she gave me her Report which was a graph (or more like a bar chart) with time on the x-axis and water on the y-axis, maybe.

I could then see what went on...my tummy on empty stomach possibly was full of hydrocholric acid and even a sixth grader would tell you how it interacts with the blessed ethyl alcohol that she poured in...it was one of those 'exchange' reactions, leaving a salt and water.

I took the Report to Dr Bose, who examined it critically, and without speaking much, as was the style of physicians fed up with Calcutta, wrote down on his prescription pad:

"Tab...Digene"

ThanQ!

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