Prejudice - 4

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It must be around 1988.

There was this Junk Infrared Spectrometer Room housing a makeshift nascent Computer Lab in the Ground Floor of the Phy Dept @ IIT KGP.

It sounds like a joke now, but there were only two first generation IBM PCs seated on a Hot & Dusty Old Table, one of the two always out of order. They had no hard drive, only slots for 2 huge floppy diskettes (ten times the size of biscuits), one for reading and the other for copying...

On a Wednesday Afternoon free from Classes, I was there with my brilliant but quiet Project Student, TRR, who went to USC, LA next Fall. I was demonstrating to him the two diskettes of Edwin Taylor's brand-new Spacetime Software, the topic of his Project (on which we wrote a Paper later in AJP, 1990).

You can't imagine how slow the computer speed was: to draw just one hyperbola it took an entire minute. So, my Demo to him was taking a sweet one hour.

Midway through our Wednesday Afternoon Privacy (when all students were supposed to be in their Halls of Residence doing whatever they do there in their leisure hours), the door creaked open and a young lad (BB) barged in without a "May I come in, Sir!", the default etiquette expected of UG students by most Professors.

The reason was two-fold:

First, BB expected that on a Wednesday Afternoon Professors would be at home doing whatever they do there in their leisure hours.

Second, I hardly looked to him like a Senior Professor with 25 odd years of 'Service with a Smile': I was shorter, thinner, much less fair, less spectacl'r, no more grayer, and much less well-dressed...BB told me later that his neat and clean outfit was talked about wherever he went in the World...his dad used to tell him that this is the least one can do as a mark of self-respect. As a rule I found Punjabis well-dressed and keep their Drawing Rooms so gorgeous and spruce with potted plants that I never dared enter them a second time. On the other hand, Visitors to our Drawing Room feel instantly relaxed and say it is very 'homely', a euphemism for 'dirty'; so homely that I have to launch them like ships from the Vizagh Port Dockyards {;-}

BB took me to be an FRS (Frustrated Research Scholar) whiling away my ample leisure there with an Accomplice.

With a flourish of familiarity and intimate knowledge of PCs (he was from Delhi Public School where he was made to write Programs for Reflection and Refraction in BASIC), he inserted his floppy diskette into its slot on the other PC and pressed all its buttons with aplomb...only to discover that his Monitor was as unresponsive as Balaam's Ass.

He then turned to TRR who was working and said: "I want to test with your Monitor"

TRR looked at me and I said: "Let him!"

He tested and found that it was not his Monitor that was the culprit but his CPU that was as dead as the Dodo.

He then turned to me and asked abruptly: "How much more time you guys will take?"

That got my goat

I was instantly prejudiced against this kid and said coolly: "A couple of hours".

He gave me a dirty look through his shiny specs and left in a huff.

And TRR & me left in another ten minutes.

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DB & myself had a Policy of not nailing our Name Plates on our Double Room C - 239 (a thing that newcomers would get to do first). We wanted ourselves to be undisturbed from our Gossip & Smoke Sessions by unwanted 'Peers'.

Our students however knew they were always welcome...they could walk in without knocking. And they knew who was which: gps facing the door and DB glancing it, smoking like a chimney.

A couple of days after my Close Encounter of the First Kind with BB, there was the gentlest and most discreet knock at our door, and I said: "Come in!"

A gentle push and there was this young BB looking squarely at me and then at DB.

He asked: "Professor Shastry?" praying that it was the other goon.

I could hardly help saying: "This is He!"

He looked shell-shocked and it was I who recovered first and said in my usual style with students: "Avoo! Baitho!" showing him the broken chair beside me:

"Two old chairs, and half a candle,
One old jug without a handle,
These were all our worldly goods:
In the middle of the woods,
These were all our worldly goods"

Then he said he was in his Second Year, and his Teacher Prof STA asked him to meet Professor Shastry to get some doubts cleared in Electrodynamics (that being the subject I was teaching for Donkey's Years).

And before I could speak, he took out businesslike from his backpack a crisp new Volume of Landau & Lifshitz covered with brown wrapper, opened Page 152, and asked how Equation 25 follows from Equation 24.

One of those thousands of Impromptu Vivas a Teacher has to face at IIT (...but it is their students who bitch about the handful of Prepared Grand Vivas they have to face).

He left as coolly as he entered after his job was through.

And from then on for the rest of the semester BB would be waiting at our door after his Classes to clear his innumerable doubts in various books.

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There is a certain type of intimacy that develops automatically in that God-forsaken Campus between any student-teacher combo meeting that frequently for over 4 years.

We soon got to know each other: this is what I got to know of BB:

1. He doesn't read Newspapers or watch TV (except Cricket).

2. Neither novels nor story books.

3. He coaches school kids for IIT JEE during his Vacations @ Delhi and buys Physics Books with the money he made (a sort of vicious circle).

4. He bought the Full Set of expensive Volumes of LL, hoping (Haa!) to read them all.

5. In the serial public ragging of each Fresher in their Intro on Stage, when quizzed by our cute Final Year Impresario: "What is your Ambition in Life?", he deadpanned: "To become the Greatest Physicist of All Time!"; and continued to look as cool as a cucumber when there were whistles, catcalls, jeers and paper-rockets flung at him.

6. He likes Labs (!) and gained entry to the Research Labs of all Professors and helps their Scholars and manages to handle their costly equipment. When I wondered how the forbidding-looking Exptl Profs allow a novice like him to enter their gold-plated Labs, he replied: "You have only to ASK!" (much like Feynman boasted he was advised in some other context).

7. He avoids his Hall and Hallmates as far as possible and likes to spend time in the Department or Central Library.

8. Although he is handsome and can switch on his charming smile, he doesn't look like that geek SRK in that stupid movie where he has a mooch and specs and serenades a rickshaw-borne Love prancing like a racy horse...BB is above such trivial 'pursuits'.

9. He spent every Winter and Summer Vacation from his Second Year in either TIFR (Bombay) or II Sc (Bangalore) or IUCAA (Pune) and such weird places.

10. He is one of the few students who didn't register for Training & Placement and never attended Campus Interviews for IT jobs. But when I asked him to meet the Prof-in-Charge after his Final Year to keep himself profitably busy for a couple of months in his home town, he so impressed Prof Bhaskaran who told me that he took a special interest in arranging a 2-month Survey Job for a Delhi-based Company.

.....and so on and so forth.

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When BB once said he was going to Bangalore for his Summer Training, I gave him a Box of Cadbury Chocolates to be delivered to my cute nieces (4 and 6).....the younger of the two figures in my story: http//:gpsastry.bluffmaster.com.

He agreed and after his return told me his Story:

As he approached their Apartment Complex, he saw dozens of kids playing, and asked one of them at random which one was my sister's Apartment. The kid asked him to follow her and led him 3 floors up, showed him the door and ran down to resume her play.

And, as he was sipping the hot Tea my sister prepared for him, the door bell rang, and in came that very same cute girl of 4, saying: "Hi!" to him, and ran indoors for her bath etc as he sat stunned: BB didn't know how smart and cool gps's nieces could be!

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When I next met my concerned B-i-L (I have 7) he told me his version of BB.

This B-i-L is a General Manager (as opposed to our Specialist Manager BB who managed to get duplicate keys of all Research Labs in the Phy Dept by switching on his consummate charm).

B-i-L: I tried to put your student at ease while your sister was making Tea; and tried Politics

gps: What happened?

B-i-L: He said he wasn't interested in Politics. Then I tried Economics and Business. He said he wasn't interested. Then Films, then English Novels, then Poetry, then Oil, Gas & Petroleum... but failed

gps: What did he talk about?

B-i-L: Absolutely NOTHING! He coolly sipped his Tea refusing biscuits, and after his cup got emptied he stood up, said BYE, picked up his backpack, smiled at my younger daughter and sprinted like the devil downstairs!!!

gps: What do you make of him?

B-i-L: An absolute dud...will come to no good with that sort of abysmal lack of General Knowledge

I got wild

These folks outside IITs don't know that students who enter them are far ahead of the Gaussian Peak and expect everyone to be like them.

And I got furious at his abysmal Prejudice and said:

"Watch my words...In 3 years BB will be at Princeton (B-i-L did hear of Princeton; naturally!)"

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And he WAS!

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Prof BND (who happened to be BB's Project Guide in Experimental Surface Physics), once told me:

"Sir, if any Brahmin happens to speak nothing but Truth for 12 years, then on, whatever he utters will come true!"

And I am a Half-Brahmin who spoke nothing but Half-Truths (guls) for 12 X 2X 2 = 48 years and so Beware! Whatever I say will come Half-True for the rest of my Half-Life!

Ask Prof BND if you don't trust my guls!!!

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Fourfold Way

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Lemma: Without doubt SDM was the most INTERESTING person I ever met.

Proof: No one has written as many thousands of words as I have about him; nor I about anyone else.

He was also a most difficult person to understand and appreciate in his entirety.

He was like the proverbial Elephant; and many half-blind men touched him.

I know only four such blind men whose views of the Elephant I give below:

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HNB:

HNB knew the Elephant's legs and was 'guiding' him to his watering holes at IIT KGP so that he comes to no harm.

As HoD he brought SDM to KGP when SDM was languishing in Calcutta to say the least.

And tolerated his eccentricities (including SDM's needless quarrels with HNB as a Senior Professor 4 years older to HNB as well as a neighbor).

It was out of a sense of 'Appreciation' although HNB knew next to nothing of SDM's work or abilities closely. HNB was an out and out Experimental Physicist who worked almost exclusively in Luminescence at KGP for 25 years.

He was like the father of a prodigy. And he discharged his paternal duties marvelously.

Proof: SDM told me many times that his decade at KGP was his most enjoyable.

An envious HoD could easily have made SDM's life miserable.

And HNB, the man with the most ability to read others, gifted DB and imposed gps on SDM both against SDM's will (SDM preferred someone else in the Interview as DB himself told me...and accepted me unwillingly since Research Scholars he was given were running away).

But for HNB, SDM would have been mired in Calcutta and his career would have been in ruins both as a Person and as a Researcher.

DB:

To DB, SDM was God: Because DB saw only the Elephant's head and it looked very like Ganeshjee's.

Anyone who criticized SDM (there were many at Cal, KGP, and Visvabharati) was not loved by DB, no way, to put it mildly.

DB didn't care at all about SDM's weaknesses because he shared many of them (I loved them).

By the time DB joined him, SDM was already fed up with bread-and-butter Theoretical Physics like GR, QM & Molecular Spectroscopy and was concentrating on Exact Mathematics of Continuous Groups imperative to certain branches of Particle Physics,.

If SDM was God to DB, DB was the most-beloved Devotee to SDM: There was no doubt about it. No one else could actively collaborate with SDM in Group Theory.

None!

Their interests as well as abilities in the subject matched perfectly. The collaboration continued for some years even after SDM left KGP.

But SDM taught DB Group Theory in the beginning and enabled DB to launch his own boat later on till he breathed his last.

From 1971 to 2009, DB published little else than in Group Theory of the type not done by any other Indian Physicist.

DB's absorption was so complete in the subject that it resulted in his Book.

Certainly it was an Intellectual Love Affair.

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gps:

I am truly on the very periphery of SDM's Research Interests.

Before joining SDM I didn't even know much of Algebra (Matrices and Tensors) or Anaysis (Real or Complex).

SDM taught me the little Math I needed for the Cherenkov Radiation that we did together.

SDM got interested in this topic purely by chance at Cal. When Cherenkov Radiation got a Nobel in 1958 (after its discovery in 1934!) SDM was at Cal. And some Physicists there, as expected, joined the Cherenkov Bandwagon soon. A Research Scholar working with some other Professor used to meet SDM for 'sideline' guidance. Since SDM was an expert in Relativity, he changed the Game by jumping to the Particle Rest Frame and solving the Problem there.

So SDM's interest in the subject was not the Physics of Cherenkov Radiation (no Poynting Vector at all!) but Relativistic aspects of it. Everyone else in the world stuck to the Medium Rest Frame that was more Physical (cameras and counters) but less intricate (and beautiful).

I, on the other hand, was always interested in only those aspects of Physics that can be observed; like Newton's Rings and Rainbow that I took a quarter century to understand to my satisfaction.

So, after my second year with SDM, I constantly dragged him towards observable predictions, like the Cherenkov Rings on the photographic plates, their size, shape, intensity distribution etc in uniaxial and biaxial crystals.

I am happy that I made SDM agree to include some Diagrams in our Papers....none else could do it. And he loved them when I gifted him some color photographs from the Russian School at JINR, Dubna that I got from the stalwart Zrelov.

And SDM kept that photo-frame on his Table till he breathed his last.

Although (or Because?) I was not in the Mainstream of his Interests and therefore not intellectually intimate like DB, I served another quaint purpose to SDM:

He could talk about his views freely with me, which he couldn't with many.

The number of hours he logged with me is phenomenal. He could easily air his intellectual grievances which he wouldn't with others; he knew I was more mature than many.

I saw the Elephant's trunk moving this way and that periodically towards DB and me: We were his only collaborators in the Phy Dept at KGP.

To me SDM was no God.

I call him Guru...the difference is that God is ethereal but Guru eats, sleeps, takes bath, rides his wobbling bicycle...all the time talking, or instructing when needed (mostly by hints), and telling stories when in the mood....

I learned how to write crisp English Prose from SDM; before that I tended to write junk.

To SDM, I was perhaps more of a Science Journalist: As I said, I wrote exhaustively on all aspects of SDM...in many words interesting enough to Students of Physics who never saw SDM.

This brings me to the Leader of that Tribe: Aniket.

Aniket must have heard a lot about SDM from DB: I don't know. By the time Aniket was meeting DB regularly in his Class Room and perhaps outside, I moved out of our Double Room C-239 and DB's circle.

But I found the normally quiet Aniket's curiosity about SDM insatiable: SDM simply turns him on.

So, I arm-twisted Aniket to write what he thought of his SDM; I can't follow Bengali Poetry that well but I guess he saw the Elephant's soul; while most other Calcutta contemporaries of SDM saw only its wee tail.

And this is what he wrote a little while ago:

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Aniket:

Dear Sir,

I am kanjoos with words, to be precise.

If the topic is SDM, then only a stanza of Tagore would suffice:

bohu din dhore bohu krosh dure
bohu byay kori bohu desh ghure
dekhite giyachhi parbatmala,
dekhite giyachhi sindhu |

dekha hoy nai chokshu melia
ghor hote shudhu dui pa felia
ekti dhaner shisher upore
ekti shishirbindu ||

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Auction! Auction!! Auction!!!

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Chandamama Story, 1950s:

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The King of Ujjain was riding his caparisoned Elephant on the streets of Ujjain along with his retinue.

And met the Richest Merchant of Ujjain coming in the opposite direction riding his gold-pleated Elephant along with his retinue.

They greeted each other and were about to part when they discovered the poor Flower-Seller, Sucha, with a most beautiful Lotus in his hand, touting it.

The King was so pleased with the Lotus that he offered an astonishing price of 10 gold mohurs.

Sucha was thrilled at his day's luck, touched the King's feet and was about to hand the Lotus to him, when the Merchant cried: "Stop! I will give you 100 mohurs for your Lotus!"

As the bewildered Sucha was watching, the bids increased tenfold and hundredfold till at last the King said:

"Sucha! I give you half my Kingdom for your Lotus!"

Sucha came to his senses meanwhile and was wondering what was going on and asked:

"Raja! How does this poor Lotus deserve such a whopping price?"

The King and the Merchant revealed:

"Lord Buddha is camping today under the Banyan Tree on the outskirts and we wish to gift Him this Beautiful Lotus and get His Priceless Blessings".

Sucha then started moving away with his Lotus and everyone asked:

"Sucha! Where are you going?"

Sucha replied:

"To the Banyan Tree to place this lucky Lotus at the Holy Feet of Buddha".

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Chandamama Story, 1950s:

The King of Ujjain used to stand in his balcony, and watch Ramu (20) walk every morning from the Southern half of Ujjain towards its Northern half, with a garden hoe on his shoulder, and return back in the evening.

And he loved this lad for his work culture.

One morning however, the King found Ramu racing back South soon after his morning commute.

The King grew curious and ordered his PA to fetch Ramu to find out.

Ramu was flush with excitement and revealed:

"Raja! My dreams are fulfilled today. For more than a year I was in love with this beautiful maid, Janaki, but was afraid to ask her to marry me lest she decline to marry a poor gardener. But today I decided to try and she accepted my Proposal heartily just now."

The King asked Ramu: "Congratulations, but why are you flying home in a hurry breaking your irrevocable work schedule?"

Ramu replied shyly:

"Raja! With great discipline, I had saved half a gold mohur over the year and hid it behind a loose brick in a hole in the Southern Wall. I am running to fetch my life's hard-earned savings and gift them to Janaki as a token of my undying love for her."

The King was so pleased with Ramu that he ordered his PA to give Ramu 100 gold mohurs as his Royal Wedding Gift.

Ramu pocketed the 100 mohurs bowing and touching his beloved Raja's feet.

But as soon as Ramu was released, the King found him again racing towards his Southern Wall.

Ramu was brought back to the Presence of the King who this time ordered 1000 gold mohurs.

But the King found Ramu racing away again to his Southern Wall.

The King's auction instincts got aroused and he went on offering higher and higher bids to discover at what level Ramu would be pacified and desist from racing South and turn North to offer his Royal Gift to Janaki.

Finally, the King's instincts got the better of him and he said:

"Ramu, I will give you half my Kingdom if you stop racing South!".

Ramu said:

"Raja! Please give me the Southern Half!"

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True Story, Durga Pujas, October 2004:

My wife Rukmini and I were traveling in the Sleeper Compartment of the Coromandel Express to attend my cute Niece's Wedding at Madurai. So, my wallet was fairly full.

We were pleased to find a newly married couple right across our window seat. For, it reminded us of our own honeymoon trip 25 years ago.

As the train entered the Danger Zone between Tuni and Rajahmundry, we found as usual the familiar face of a Traveling Auctioneer touting his wares.

He first tried a leather bag and started his bid from ten rupees.

The young Bridegroom (BG) was rather excited and playful and bid twenty Rupees. But there were no takers and so the Auctioneer gifted BG a cute fountain pen.

BG and & his Bride (B) were smiling and laughing.

The next item on the menu was a suitcase and BG went on his bidding spree and got a gift of a plastic belt.

This went on....and on...

By then everyone was aroused from their slumber as the next item was a Synthetic Sari- Pant-Shirt-Piece Combo.

BG was still in his playful mood and to impress his B he started at 100 Rupees. There was another stranger from a far-off cabin whose bid was 200 Rupees. By now BG lost his balance and kept raising the bid to 1000 Rupees.

The other guy from the remote cabin stopped abruptly and the Auctioneer announced aloud: "Done!" and dumped the cheap (stolen?) Combo in the lap of B and asked quickly for his 1000 Rupees.

Everyone was smiling and laughing as B & BG turned pale.

BG said he doesn't want the Combo and is willing to return all the gift items he got.

The Auctioneer clapped and suddenly there were half a dozen men, all friends and conspirators of the Auctioneer, swooping on BG, practically attacking him till he fished out his wallet which had only 500 Rupees.

They snatched the currency notes and asked B to empty her handbag which had another 200 Rupees. They took them too and were asking B & BG to relieve themselves of their wrist watches and other ornaments.

By now there was a commotion and co-passengers were shouting for the Conductor (who went invisible) and then the Police.

The Coromandel Express halted at Rajahmundry and in a fraction of a second the entire gang got down and vanished!

Many co-passengers scolded the couple who were already in tears, some jeered, and a few quietly pooled their resources and gifted B & BG a handsome amount for their honeymoon.

It was a gruesome lesson for all....

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Last Laugh

There was this absolutely fictitious and malicious and outrageous story that Culbertson, the Founding Father of Contract Bridge, divorced his wife when she got excited and started and closed the bidding with a Grand Slam of 7 No Trumps with a Full Suit of Clubs!



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Blogsworth - 1

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November 1, 2008

Dear Sir,

Does my name ring any bells ? :) Hope you still remember me.

How are you? It's been a long long long time; hope things are good at your end. I have been thinking of writing to you for very long actually, but it just kept slipping. I am also doing good, completed almost close to 9 years in Software Industry, right now in Netherlands working for a R&D Company in Enterprise Software. I also got married 3 years back :)

How r things with you? I was trying to look for your email id for quite sometime, I guess you have retired from KGP now. I don't see your name in the faculty directory.

I finally found your email id today from your blog.

Where are you living now?

I am applying for grad schools in US and UK in CS and today when I found your email id it was like a wish come true :) I would be really happy and honored if I could get your recommendation letter for the same.

Hoping to hear from you soon.

Regards

AB

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Fast Forward:

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July 1, 2010

Dear Sir,

Hope you are doing great. I keep reading your blog entries and they always manage to bring back my kgp memories. They are so enlightening and are full of lessons for your students like me.

I have survived 2 semesters at CMU, and currently in the middle of the 3rd one….one more to go after this. Last semester I took a course on Quantum computing, just to get back in touch with good old Physics again and it was an awesome experience, sir.

Thanks to your QM-2 class, I was able to connect back to the concepts very easily and quickly. In case you are interested in knowing what I learnt, you can find the course contents at http://quantum.phys.cmu.edu/QCQI/ . I also wrote a paper on Quantum search algorithms as part of this course.

This semester is full of research work for me which I am quite enjoying. I finally finish my course in December and then need to decide what to do next. Rest all is well here…..hoping the same at your end too.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Regards

AB

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God Bless AB & Family!

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Bitter Pills

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

If you have lived as long as I did, you will know that Life occasionally administers you Bitter Pills in Public.

And if you are as wise as I am accused to be, you will realize that it is better to swallow them rather than puke in Public.

Here are two ABSOLUTELY MYTHICAL stories:

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

1. This one I heard from the Horse's Mouth:

This smart aleck student (SA) joined as a Research Scholar under the Joint Guidance of a Senior Professor (SP) and a Junior Professor (JP) for his Ph D.

SP was busy attending International Conferences & Seminars, bringing in Gigantic Project Funds and Interacting with VIP Professors worldwide; and thought that JP was taking care of SA.

JP was new to the Game and thought SP was taking care of SA.

Pure Academic Misunderstanding!

After 3 years SA applied for Extension of his Scholarship.

SP & JP conferred and discovered that both of them had neglected SA; but summoned SA to horsewhip him for not meeting either of them for 3 long years but having a Fine Time instead.

SA then presented them with Reprints of 6 Papers in Prestigious International Journals: 5 Singly authored by SA and one with the names of all 3 of them in the order: SA, SP & JP.

They got FURIOUS and complained to the HoD.

HoD listened to them, looked into the 6 Papers, and advised them to sleep over the matter for 24 hours and meet him the next day.

Next day arrived punctually and SP & JP met the HoD, who advised them to ask SA to write up and submit his thesis pronto and award him his Ph D as soon as possible before scandal breaks out.

They both agreed but asked: "How can we see SA's face after this?"

HoD replied:

"Professor Z from Scandinavia urgently wants a Smart Ph D for a Post-Doc Schol. I will gift him SA {;-}"

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2. This one I heard from my HM Father (May his Sublime Soul Rest in Peace!) as an Example of Unintended Repartee (UR):

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This Prince P (25) was a Narcissist and would spend hours facing his Godrej Mirror and scrutinizing with great pleasure his handsome features.

One day when he was watching from his balcony, he found the Young Palace Dhobi (YPD) bringing in the Palace Wash.

P found that YPD was the same height, weight, build and age as himself.

And ordered his two Personal Peons (PPs) to urgently fetch YPD.

YPD was shivering with fear; but P saw as he suspected that YPD's facial features also matched his own.

P smiled naughtily and asked YPD: "Was your Mother ever a Palace Employee (PE)?"

YPD shook his head dumb and replied with great trepidation: "Never, sir! But my Father was".

P ordered his PPs to release YPD and banish him to Scandinavia URGENTLY

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Prejudice - 3

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Shyamal is the only Published Poet in English that I had the privilege to meet, shake hands with, and embrace.

He traveled all the way from KGP to Hyderabad to attend my son's wedding in February, 2008 and it was a pleasure for me and my wife to return the visit to KGP to attend the wedding of his cute daughter in January 2010.

I have seen none who is so well-versed in English Language, Literature, and Poetry in particular. English Poetry comes to him as naturally as song to a thrush.

Last year when he hosted us in the Technology Guest House, my wife and I were woken up early one morning by Shyamal who pulled me out to the Garden in the Quadrangle and off-hand recited a long Milton poem celebrating the beauty of dawn (In our B Sc Hons at AU more than half a century ago I had to mug up two long Milton poems, L'allegro and IL Penseroso, in addition to his quaint Prose Booklet Areopagetica ).

Shyamal and I saw each other once in a while and had a mere nodding acquaintance at IIT KGP for a couple of decades. He was not one of my students in the Phy Dept although his classmate and buddy Sudip Bhattacharya was my first Project Student in 1976 (We have a Joint Paper in Journal of Physics A to prove it).

Suddenly he appeared in the Phy Dept towards the end of my stay there when I was teaching half a semester of QM & its Applications to 2nd Year B Tech students (one of my most satisfying Courses...I put all the topspin I had acquired in the subject for 4 decades). He was allotted its Tutorial and naturally we had a couple of cordial meetings.

During my Fond Farewell from Phy Dept KGP...fond from both sides {;-}, I was astonished to hear a heart-felt speech from him in addition to a limerick (the existence of which breed of verse I had forgotten for a couple of decades and then remembered with a vengeance after my retirement). Till then I had no idea that this Physicist with a Ph D from Material Science Dept had an interest and proficiency in Eng Lit.

Soon after my retirement I had a surprise gift from Shyamal...a booklet of wonderful Poetry: Grasshopper's Dream & Other Poems written by him. Ever since, there have been a plethora of regular gifts from him...his own Compilations of his soulful and beautiful Poetry, his Translations of Tagore Poems, a lovely English translation of Parashuram by famous English stalwarts of Calcutta, a cute compilation of The Statesman's Now & Again pieces with lovely B & W Drawings, and it goes on and on till now.

He was also instrumental in getting three of my blog pieces published in Now & Again.

He also wrote many impromptu Poems on Ishani and co. Poetry just flows from his heart.

All in all, a treasured surprise friendship that continues to this day although he is too busy to read my blogs nowadays just as I am too busy composing my daily blogs to read his wonderful Poetry.

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Shyamal once told me that his impressionable childhood in the 1960s was spent near Hedua (Azad Hind Bagh) in North Calcutta comprising his Home, Tagore's Jorasanko, Vivekananda's ancestral home, SN Bose's home, Iswar Chandra's and Raja Ram Mohan Roy's mansions. Apparently this imbued him with such a sense of Pride in his North Calcutta that almost amounted to a feeling that he was sitting on top of Mt Everest; while the Rest of India was just a collection of mounds, dunes and barren hillocks.

Prejudice!

And when he won an Admission to the Mech Dept through IIT JEE (1970), a Seat in B Sc (Hons) Physics at the Vidyasagar College, Calcutta, was preferred!

It took the Naxalite Movement in the late 1960s and its immediate aftermath of murders and mayhem and a loss of two precious years for him to realize that all is not so well with his proud Calcutta....but it was during that spell of enforced leisure that he read his Milton, Shelley and other Poets.

Later he joined IIT, Kharagpur for an M.Sc. in Physics and an M Tech at IIT Kanpur, and after a hiatus of a few years in Industry he did his Ph D at KGP, Mat Science; but was posted in the CRF rather than in the Phy Dept. Since CRF had no UG Teaching he must have lost his touch with Bread & Butter Physics.

It was only towards the end of my term there that he was inducted into the Phy Dept.

And he at once became an expert in the Jumbo Tutorials which had a huge number of interesting but tough Problems from Irodov, particularly in Fresnel Diffraction.

It was then we met up and discovered our mutual interest in UG Physics.

Had he been admitted to the B Tech in Mech Dept after his JEE, his worldline would have been entirely different, perhaps like that of his batchmates Supriyo Dutto (EC&E, PGM) and Partho Majumdar (EC&E) who moved to the US and shifted to Physics after their B Tech and are now world-renowned Physicists (I had the privilege of teaching their Section in their First Year and was immensely gratified that Partho waited in the Phy Corridor with Sayan to meet me at KGP in my last Semester at KGP).

And perhaps Shyamal would now be at UC, Berkeley; and a World-Renowned Poet too.

Once again a Classic Case of Pride & Prejudice!

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Potpourri

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Saswat writes:

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Dear Sir,

A funny article that my Professor friend sent a few of my langotia yaars. I am forwarding it to you for fun reading (I almost feel the readers of your blog might find it funny too. Well, at least those who don't mind laughing at own's expense).

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/01/why-most-published-research-findings-are-false/

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Supratim writes:

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Dear Sir,

Since you blogged today about "Conceit", I thought I would send all of you an article on "arrogance among physicists" that I came across recently via the "nanopolitan" blog.

http://ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_56/iss_2/54_1.shtml?bypassSSO=1

The more recent rebuttal can be found at

http://blogs.physicstoday.org/pov/2010/12/the-humble-physicist.html

What do you think ? Are Physicists more arrogant than other scientists ? I think so based on my limited experience in both the physics and bio worlds.

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Pratik writes:

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Dear gps,

DB's `obituary' was moving...

I don't know about others but for sometime I am feeling that there is an implicit sad note playing in your blogs intermittently.

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Dear All:

There is no doubt that I feel sad and depressed when I write about DB since our Joint Occupancy of C-239 lasted a mere two short decades.

And a sense of jubilation when I write about SDM since my sentence under him lasted a long 5 years.

But a sense of equanimity has been restored after I read yesterday the following Postscript to the latest Edition of Parashram's Ulat Puran:

Yours

gps

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2030 AD:

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Ishani (20) is rudely woken up by her mom at 9 AM (TLT: Telengana Local Time) so she can start her 5-minute commute to the Punjagutta Branch of the State Bank of Telengana (SBT) where she slogs between 10 AM and 4 PM everyday for FOUR long weekdays.

There are long queues from NYC to Boston, LA to the Bay Area, and Houston to Dallas for limited seats in Voice Training in Telenganu at the Telengana University, KCR Nagar, Telenganabad (Bharat;...earlier known as India).

The Governor of Illinois is on hunger strike in front of the Chicago Branch of SBT for more jobs for his State in SBT BPOs.

Terrific demand for American BPO workers of SBT Branches all over the USA:

They have to work for a mere 12 hours between 6 PM evening and 6 AM next morning just seven days a week.

The attraction is that their pay is in the strong Indian Rupee instead of the weak Dollar (1 Rupee = $ 45.3 ).

The Rupee gold coin minted in Telenganabad has the cute picture of KCR on one side and the map of Telengana on the other...this is a Bonus Privilege if they want to be paid in coins instead of currency notes which are also gold-plated.

Also the Americans will be served Free Unlimited Chicken Biryani and Neera (Coconut water with 1% alcohol).

But they have to wear Jeans and T- Shirts (white, with picture of KCR on one side and the names, in chronological order, of the 2567 Telengana Martyrs on the other in close print which they have to mug up.... a small concession to their payment in Rupees....) manufactured in NJ Factories working overtime...

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