SDM: The Night It Poured

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The Night It Poured

That was a Saturday Evening in August. I knew that SDM religiously took out his wife to the Saturday Evening Show at the Netaji Auditorium, without fail. This was perhaps the only outing the poor lady had in that desolate campus, sans TV, sans phones, sans eateries, sans any sign of civilization. To her, it was a great escape from the routine drudgery. To SDM, it just didn’t matter. Whether it was the sofa in his drawing room or the padded chair in Netaji, it made no difference where he sat. His work needed no pencil, paper or lighting…it was all up there. I read some such remark made by Einstein when he had to stand in a queue somewhere.

Next day was a Sunday, when India were playing Australia. Neither he nor I wanted to miss the ‘commentary’ on our humming pocket transistors. And, I was stuck for three days, unable to determine the limits of an integral that was foxing me in one of our joint efforts. By then I knew what the answer should look like, but I just couldn’t get the limits. Those were my ‘senior’ years with SDM, when he practically withdrew from active calculations, but was helping me when needed.

So, I took out my rusted push-bike and pedaled furiously to his Qrs. to catch him before his rickshaw left for the Netaji. I just made it and showed the thing to him and asked him how to fix the limits. He stared at it for a few minutes, while Mrs. SDM was looking daggers at me (she was a wonderful host and fed me sumptuous loochies in the evenings when SDM wouldn’t let go of me from his reminiscences, but now it was different; the show will start off soon).

He then gave me a hint to draw a parabola; and its intersections with a straight line should give me the limits. The rickshaw chap was hustling and ringing his bells like mad, with Mrs. SDM seated in it. Before boarding the rickshaw, SDM told me that if his suggestion works, I don’t have to report to him; but if it didn’t, I have to go to his Qrs. at 9.30 P.M., when he would be back home from the cinema, so that he could have a second look at it. That was fine with me.

On my way back I saw what an ass I was and how such a simple trick didn’t strike me. His suggestion worked like a charm and the integral was done in half an hour and I proceeded with the rest of the calculation, got very satisfying results as per my hunch; ate my delightful dinner in the tasteless mess and slipped into bed with a Perry Mason trial court scene that I was dying to finish.

And then it started ‘pouring’. You know how it rains in KGP in August, when it decides to. Heavens simply open up. That was smug with me and it was just the weather for a fag or two.

At around 11.30 P.M. there was a knock on my door. I was curious who that could be, in such a foul weather. Opening the door, I found it was SDM himself, with a dripping umbrella and soaked from waist to foot like a wet sock. I asked him to come in, improvised a seat for him somehow, and asked him what the matter was. He asked if his ‘parabola’ worked. I replied that it worked like a wonder. He felt greatly relieved. I told him that I would have gone to his Qrs. at 9.30 P.M. if it didn’t work as per our understanding. He then remarked that he was afraid his suggestion didn’t work, but probably I didn’t feel like going out in such a lousy weather to his Qrs. I was mortified by the misunderstanding and felt that I perhaps should have gone to his Qrs. anyway.

That was SDM!

I gave him a fresh towel, made some black coffee and we two shared some welcome hot drink in wettest weather. I took the opportunity to show him all the progress I made and he was pleased that everything was going swimmingly. We then talked of this and that and I escorted him back to his Qrs; both of us completely wet, but pleased as punch.

Do we have such ‘guides’ nowadays? I wonder!

Talking of drawing parabolas, I am reminded of a story SDM told me (apocryphal, no doubt). It was about a physics student doing his doctorate under a celebrity guide at Oxford. Apparently the two had only two meetings. The first was when the guide gave him a problem. The other was when the student was stuck at one step a year later. He took the problem to his guide, who looked at it and made a pithy remark: ‘Drop a perpendicular’, before hurrying to watch a cricket match. A year later, the student defended his thesis gloriously and, became a celebrity himself.

Epilogue

On the banks of the river Kaveri, the poet-musician-saint Thyagaraja sang that “There are any number of great people in this world”. 

For every great one, there are a hundred greater ones. The really great people know this. And so, they are ever modest.

SDM: Acknowledgments

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Acknowledgments

After my retirement, many of my well-wishers kept in touch with me, and this wonderful gesture on their part helped me overcome my retirement blues.

They also encouraged me to write this article on SDM, read drafts of these files, gave me feed back, and suggested improvements. All of them are either my ex-students or younger colleagues and friends. I thank all of them for their support. Here are their names in dictionary order:

Aniket Basu, Anushree Roy, Arundhuti Ganguly, Indrajit Mitra, Jogia Bandyopadhyay, Krishna Kumar, Pratik Khastgir, Samit Ray, Sayan Kar and Shyamal Chakrabarti.

Professor N. P. Rao (IE & M) was my contemporary and close friend at IIT KGP. All these tales were first told to him 35 years ago as and when these events unfolded, and are being retold to you now from long term memory. He saw SDM and perhaps talked to him too. I thank him for encouraging me, going through these files; suggesting important changes and implicitly vouching for their veracity.

Professor Amalendu Mukherjee (ME), Professor Mainak Sengupta (EE) and Dr. L. V. K. Moorthy (M.B.B.S.) read these files and gave their knowledgeable approval, for which I am indebted.

I am grateful to Professor K. L. Chopra for kindly going through these files and suggesting a much improved sub-title.

Thanks are also due to my wife Rukmini for her encouragement and my son Shreenath for help with the computer.

gps’s ‘Depression’ One-liners for the Wise and the Otherwise

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http://bobsnewheart.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/depression-cartoon.jpg?w=283

1. Depression is not madness; it is life-threatening sadness.

2. Depression can hit introverts, extroverts, perverts; and even stalwarts like Lincoln.

3. All are prone to Depression: men, women, transsexuals, heterosexuals and metrosexuals; they just bide their chance.

4. Depression is as hereditary as libido or the lack of it.

5. Depression can hit the toothy as well as the toothless.

6. Post-Depression life is like the post-marital: once bitten twice shy.

7. Taken sportingly, Depression is cathartic and not pathetic.

8. Those who haven’t gone through Depression are like kids who haven’t yet known that the tool is a two-in-one device.

9. The rich are as prone to Depression as the poor, the bold, the beautiful and the ugly…...it is the greatest leveler after Death.

10. Mild Depression is like mild Virginity.…there is no such thing.

11. You can’t buy genuine Depression across the counter just like you can’t buy genuine Genius; it has to be bestowed!!!!

12. Have a nice Night!

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A Teacher is born, with a LESSON

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A Teacher is born, with a LESSON

The whiff of nascent Freedom wafting through the winds of the early fifties, the sandy, sleepy, seaside village of Muthukur saw me turn from a playful kid into a proper lad.

Muthukur had only three ‘Government Officials’: the benign-tyrannical Headmaster of the High School (my father), the Country Doctor ringed by his array of big bottles of colored concoctions, and the awesome Sub-Inspector, keys of his one-cell jail dangling from his starched ‘uniform’ pocket. They formed a loose team (I recall the evening the Headmaster and the Doctor, as august members of the Official Committee, rendered the convincing verdict that the dead chap in the jail did die of suicide).

As Headmasters go, my father was rather a micro-Arnold, and our School a nano-Rugby in fun and frolic if nothing else. (It is tough to write of one’s late father…..he sort of peers down one’s shoulders.). Truth and Justice were his fixes, but he tended to forget that kids have a partiality to ‘convenience’, and abstract morals are sparingly soluble in their tender hearts. Thus, there never was a day when my father didn’t invoke the Golden Rule: ‘Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child’. Indeed, the one piece of ‘furniture’ wantonly granted to the Headmaster from his ‘contingency’ fund was the 3-foot long Madras cane. Come Monday morning, the School Pupil Leader (a largely nominated idol) would read out the roster of culprits of the past week in the Assembly; and they would file one behind the other to take the allotted number of ‘canes’ from the H.M.: their Judge, Jury and the Executor. I sensed that some of the routine miscreants were rather pleased with this drill, and pushed up their palms cheekily, fancying that the little ladies of their school adored their nonchalance. Attention was all they craved; and this they got one way or the other.

Life is never normal for the son of a H.M. (I had the double trouble of graduating from a Headmaster’s son to a Principal’s nephew……frying pan to fire).

First the teachers: They fall into two sets. One would treat the son with embarrassing deference to try and curry favor with their boss. The other would taunt and bully him for the imagined wrongs of his father.

Then the classmates: One set would converge under the bowers of the cashew tree boisterously laughing and yelling, but would fall eloquently silent when the son tries and joins them. The other would tail him beseeching his attention willy-nilly. He could never hope to have true unalloyed friends, for what he was worth.

Same with the public.

The exception was the Village Master Tailor, Jaan Saab, a pious kindhearted Muslim. I was 13 and he was like 43. But, he treated me as I loved to be treated: just another naughty boy. Whenever I was free from play and more play, I was in his thatched shop housing two heritage Pfaff Sewing Machines, the older manned by his taciturn nephew and the gleaming new piece reserved exclusively for his use. Often, however, he would squat on the floor-mat and set about the delicate job of ‘cutting’ the cloth to order. The pleasing whirr of the pedaled wheel below, the purring whirl of the driven wheel above, the tic-tak, tic-tak, of the sewing needle, the fine brow of Jaan Saab, tape draped round his neck, pencil in his ear; the smooth curves of his colored chalks on the cloth, the hefty scissors waiting to follow, the tribal belles haggling over their bashful blouses, the messy oil oozing out of its wood-pecker can, the exotic scents of fabric fresh from mills, the colored strips and striped ribbons of wasted cloth littering the floor, the rag pickers racing for them…… it was all a heady feast for the surging senses of a growing kid.

Jaan Saab’s sewing machine witnessed my rites of passage into my teens. At first I would climb his stool awkwardly, feet not yet reaching the pedal, and gingerly turn the wheel and watch the needle settle into its dance, Jaan Saab gently warning: Nakore Baeta! Over the three years I ran his shop, my feet landed firmly on the pedal, and learned the subtle art of setting the wheel into its swinging motion. Very like yo-yo, it was a sexy affair. Soon I learned threading the needle, pushing the cloth and pulling it under it; and in general being a nuisance to Jaan Saab, with his constant remonstration: Nakore Baeta!.

After convincing the nephew that I can sew, I begged him to let me do the re-stitching: some works required double stitches for strength. The leading first stitch he would do, and let me do the follow-up job. This suited him as well; but Jaan Saab wasn’t amused; yet he was too mild to shoo me out.

Then came the day of my just deserts: One sultry somnolent afternoon, when the master and his nephew broke for their lunch, I was playing with the machine, stitching the borders of a silk hanky. And soon, the thread in the bobbin gave out, and needed refilling. I had often watched Jaan Saab and his nephew do this delicate task, but never dared do it myself. It called for sliding the palm under the sewing plate and pulling out the bobbin blindfold, deftly releasing it from its catch. I was in a hurry and couldn’t wait for the duo to finish their meal. I stuck in my hand and did some fingering. Failing to feel the release, I finally tugged at the bobbin. Something snapped and I found the broken bobbin staring at me in my palm.

My first instinct was to CUT and RUN. But, I was growing up, and that route didn’t appeal. Further, there was nowhere I could flee; I was all alone all the while: no alibi and the evidence tight. I had to sit it through and wait for the music. By and by, Jaan Saab returned and saw my ashen face. He was aghast looking at the broken bobbin. He let out a grief-stricken cry. And fell silent. And his nephew came in. And found us face to face fighting our emotions. And I gathered from their talk that the bobbin cost a good 14 annas, roughly a day’s earnings for the shop. And, it had to be got from Madras. And that meant a 3-day shutdown for the Master’s machine.

Jaan Saab looked at me and read my face. He mentioned to his nephew that the H.M. was an upright man and would surely fork out the 14 annas, but he would whack me black and blue: my father was hard up, with a platoon of young ones to feed and dress. And Jaan Saab was a pious man. But he couldn’t let it pass. A pristine quandary: A poor noble soul facing a stupid growing kid.

It is at such times that the brain marvels.

I recalled the chink in Jaan Saab’s armor: his son Rahim. Jaan Saab wanted Rahim to be a Government Official; not another tailor like himself. Rahim was a studious lad, all sold to realize his father’s dreams. But the catch was two-fold: English and Algebra. They foxed him. When he passed in the one, he failed in the other. And so, he got detained twice in Class IX losing two precious years. Jaan Saab used to visit my father imploring him to pass his son. But the H.M. was an upright man; and failed his own kids when rules ruled them out. And the Day of Judgment used to be a day of despair for son and the father. And, it was the third and last chance for Rahim.

I got down from the wretched stool and made my plea to Jaan Saab: If he keeps my misdeed all to himself forever, I would coach Rahim gratis for the next 3 months before his final exams.

I was a little precocious in English and Algebra. English came as liberation to me from my mother tongue Telugu. It had only half the alphabet, there were no convoluted conjuncts; the writing was smooth and cursive, not involving letters beneath letters and dots in their bellies; and was devoid of the absolutely mystical half-nulls. Algebra again was free from the interminable transactions of Arithmetic involving purchase and sale and profit and loss and the abominable Janus-faced Rule of Three with its double standards for Time and Work vs Time and Speed.

Jaan Saab jumped up and embraced me, and the deal was struck. I stopped visiting his shop.

From then on, my routine changed. Every evening, at 6 P.M., Rahim would come over to our home and I would curtail an hour or two of my precious playtime. I would take him upstairs and we two would try and find out what could be done. It was a little awkward at first: Rahim was a year or two older than me, bristles sprouting on his upper lip. And he was way bigger than me. But I soon found out that he was as charming as his quiet father. And a couple of weeks were all we needed to get the thing going.

The H.M. was too busy to notice the change in my routine. But my mother was mystified, but said nothing. After a couple of weeks, she apparently liked the change and would send up coffee for two.

The exams were done and I was back with my full-time playmates. But, it seemed I had grown up meanwhile and it would never be the same again.

One fine evening, Rahim ran to me in the foot ball field and dragged me home. And, there he was, Jaan Saab squatting on the floor, his loose limbs spread-eagled, and speaking courteously to the H.M., my mother peeping from the curtains. Apparently, Rahim passed in flying colors and the doors were again ajar for his father’s dreams. Jaan Saab pulled out the tape from his neck and bade me stand beside him. And, measurements were taken for my first FULL PANT and FULL SHIRT.

Jaan Saab knew my own ambition: to get out of the regulation Khakhi Knicker and Drill Bush Shirt, and join the exclusive club of grown ups’ outfit. Parents always lag behind others noticing the dawn of adolescence in their own kids. Apparently, Jaan Saab offered his deal to the H.M. He would stitch my full pant and full shirt for free if the H.M. foots the bill only for the cloth. A quick consultation between my parents settled the deal.

A week later, I walked over to Jaan Saab’s shop all dressed up to display his precious gift. He cuddled and blessed me with all the verses in the Holy Quran he knew.

Very soon, I left Muthukur for college studies. And my father left as H.M. for a bigger school some place else.

I never visited Muthukur again. And I haven’t heard of Jaan Saab and Rahim.

But they remain part of my life, such as it is.

First, I got to know that I could teach. And, Teach I did for the next half century for my bread and pleasure.

Next, I learned the lesson of my life: Never touch another’s gizmos that you can’t replace.

Jaan Saab’s shop saw the moth fly away.

May his tribe increase!


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World Mental Health Day

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World Mental Health Day

Today being the World Mental Health Day, I thought I should write up my own experience of Severe Clinical Depression:

For most of 62 years I was a light sleeper. Between the ages of 40 and 60, I had watched and helped quite a few of my friends who had gone through one or more bouts of Clinical Depression. They had all completely recovered with medication prescribed by qualified psychiatrists, and so I knew that it was eminently curable if diagnosed early and medicines taken regularly with support from family and friends.

But when I myself was struck, I couldn’t at first recognize it, since my symptoms were different. This led to a delay in diagnosis and treatment and caused prolonged suffering and delayed recovery.

It is well known that although there is a genetic component lending to susceptibility, Clinical Depression can hit anyone. It is also well known that though it can be due to a traumatic incident, it can also be caused by a congregation of several circumstances each of which appears individually trivial to onlookers.

In my own case these were:

1. Retirement and relocation at the age of 62.
2. Transplantation from a secure rural campus into an unruly metropolis.
3. Pending family responsibilities.
4. Culture shock due to a sudden shift from an environment of intellectual life of academics to an unaccustomed ‘worldly’ life.
5. Mild financial issues.



I was accustomed to a 20-minute afternoon nap all through my working life. It was refreshing and regenerating.

But one afternoon, I found that when I was drowsy and felt like snoozing, I was struck by an electric-like shock with all its symptoms of heart palpitation; and woke up and couldn’t go to bed again. These attacks went on and a stage had come when I couldn’t sleep at all either by day or by night although I was dying to sleep. And the palpitations became practically a permanent feature.

I never read anywhere nor heard that fibrillations could indicate the onset of Depression, and so delayed going to a psychiatrist. This worsened and made it a severe case. Finally after eliminating all other causes such as heart problem, hypertension etc I myself visited a psychiatrist who at once said it was an untypical case of Severe Clinical Depression (the ‘electric-like shocks’ were apparently symptoms of ‘arousal’).

The treatment started with the routine drugs to cure the ‘biochemical imbalance’ (serotonin uptake), and sedatives; but there was no improvement. My insomnia worsened and after a month of absolutely nil sleep I was becoming crazier than ever. The good doctor tried increasing the dosages but it didn’t help at all. And I was growing more and more despondent. All known tranquillizers in ever-increasing doses were tried but to no avail…….no sleep at all for more than a month.

Finally, late one evening, when the suffering became unbearable, my intimate son and medico wife decided to SOS my psychiatrist, who instructed on phone to buy a tablet of Olanzipine and administer it immediately. I was skeptical and refused but my loving son and wife prevailed on me and pushed one tablet in.




The result was miraculous! Within half an hour I cooled down and slept for the first time in months for a few hours. From the Internet my son gathered that this drug which is routinely prescribed for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia is given in the rarest of rare cases of Resistant Depression when everything else fails.

I continued to sleep well for months but also had pleasant side effects like a sweet tooth (which I never had), an increase in weight over-compensating for the few kilos I lost, a sudden mythical sense of ‘power and confidence’ etc.

The drug was gradually withdrawn and my recovery was steady; and is now complete after nearly 5 years:

1. I found a ‘second string to my bow’ in the form of a literary hobby which helped overcome the ‘useless’ feeling that came upon retirement.
2. I got used to the chaotic metropolis and took to driving on its unruly roads…an achievement indeed.
3. Most of the pending family responsibilities got resolved fortunately.
4. The culture shock is, if anything, on the other foot now.
5. Family finances have improved and are apparently on a sound footing.

I rigorously take the one mild maintenance pill of Dothpriene at bed time which is supposed to ‘protect’ me from future attacks.

Sine Qua Non:

Without the support of family and friends it is very difficult to diagnose and treat oneself. Depression is a vicious circle. In my own case, my relatives, friends, ex-colleagues and students all helped me in various incremental ways unknown to them.



Lighter Side:

My wife and son used to religiously take me to the psychiatrist every week or ten days in the beginning months. The good doctor, apart from regulating the drugs, used to advise me to;

1. Take a walk.
2. Go to a library.
3. Listen to soothing music.
4. Watch TV.
5. Take up some gainful employment.
6. And so on

On the sixth or seventh visit I smiled and the Doctor was curious. I replied that I was feeling like an truant student who comes to the class without doing any of the prescribed ‘home work’. We all had a laugh…but I was bluffing. My smile actually conveyed my feeling that if I could do all those things which he had asked me to do, I would be a normal person and wouldn’t have visited him at all!

Moral:

Depression can manifest with a variety of symptoms, but is ‘curable’ by proper drugs; and needs the support of a capable psychiatrist, understanding family and friends, and ‘luck’. Without these it can be fatal.

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Book of Morals- 3

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Scriptures’re our guiding light,
Wives our homes’ delight;
Harvest’s our labor’s fruit,
Wealth and Pelf this World’s root!
O’ Raadhaa Raadhey Shyam!

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Loaded with fruits, boughs bend,
Laden with rain, clouds descend,
Filled with Love the wise befriend;
For kind deeds where is the end?
O’ Raadhaa Raadhey Shyam!

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Dreaming sans Doing,
Drinking sans Dining,
Fasting sans Feasting;
Is Flirting sans Futtering!
O’ Raadhaa Raadhey Shyam!

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My Own China War

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My Own China War

In March 1962, I stood first in the Mains Physics B. Sc. (Hons) Exams at the Andhra University, Waltair. My friend and benefactor, Linga Murty, (now Emeritus Professor at Raleigh) stood second somewhat way behind (He nonetheless bagged the prestigious Sripati Medal given to the First All-rounder including the Pass subjects Math and Chemistry which I barely scraped through).

And then the Chinese hordes swept Tawang, Chusul and co inflicting a humiliating defeat on our young minds.

The immediate aftermath was that the moribund NCC at our University was reactivated. Students were enticed with a whopping 5% of the aggregate marks to be added for those enrolling for NCC. There was thus a veritable flood from us the Final Year M. Sc.s whose exams were barely a couple of months away. We all thought that if only we slog every evening for a couple of hours at the NCC parade grounds, we would all be in the pink; and we compromised: except one lateral entry offside genius, Trivikrama Rao (later TIFR + NEHU). He took up the challenge that he would spend that time with books and outshine us all.

For two good months we all invented ways and means of cheating the unwonted PT, March Past, ‘dayaee mood’, ‘baayee mood’ and all other bad moods. Creativity of us lazy final year lubbers was met with equanimity from the genuine Junior Leaders, and we all managed to extract the necessary ‘Pass Certificates’.

Final Exams were held in March 1963, and I dropped down to a mean fourth rank, largely because of the Quantum Mechanics Paper. The Cal Univ Paper-setter (I now have reasons to suspect it was SDM, my subsequent Ph. D. guide at KGP) cruelly set 4 of the 8 questions ‘out of syllabus’. I walked out sullenly, but later learned that anyone who attempted those ‘ghost’ questions got 5 marks each gratis.

As expected, Linga Murty stood first and was awarded the Metcalfe Medal. But when the marks lists came out, we found to our dismay that Trivikrama Rao actually stood first sans the 5% NCC grace. I wrote a Letter to the Editor of Indian Express that he too deserves a Prize for his meritorious performance, and was gratified to learn that a Special Prize was awarded to him at a later date (he left for TIFR). Linga Murty left for Cornell.

Those of us who were stranded at Waltair all applied for CSIR Junior Research Fellowships. CSIR used to award at best one or two JRFs @ Rs. 100 each in previous years upon Interviews held at Delhi. So, we were all exploring other avenues too. I lectured part-time at the RSS-run Bharat Tutorial College at a measly but badly needed Rs. 30.

But Chinese invasion woke up the Central Govt too; and our humiliating defeat was attributed to the lack of encouragement for Scientific Research. As a result, all those who applied (22 in all in Physics) were awarded Fellowships at the staggering enhanced rate of Rs. 250 (equivalent to permanent University Lecturers) without any Interview!

And our JOY knew no bounds, thanks to Bloody Red China!

It is a different matter that our University couldn’t withstand the onrushing flood of JRFs with the earlier creaky infrastructure; and many of us had to flee, myself to IIT KGP as an Associate Lecturer with a princely take-home of Rs. 490.

But we did spend a 2-year picnic at Waltair which helped us all get good Govt jobs citing our (frustrating) 2-year ‘Research Experience’!

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