Blanked out

These two words do a pretty good job of describing my state before I started writing this post. I am taking a small digression from the recent trend of writing about my experiences and, instead, will attempt to uncover a few issues that I read in an article (published in a leading Indian magazine a few years ago) a few moments ago. I strongly urge you to read this article before proceeding any further, so as to understand the points made by me.

The article starts rather promisingly, describing some general notions about IITians. For the uninitiated, IIT stands for the Indian Institute of Technology, a network of Engineering and Science Schools across India that seems to have gained substantial repute for the 'quality' of students churned out each year. The article then moves on to muse on whether the IITs have served the purpose with which Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of free India, envisioned these institutes. All seemed good and I thought I had come across a frank, sugar-free, no-holds-barred view on the ghettos of academic India.

What followed was a shocking self-contradictory diversion into a needless ego trip about how IITians are great and how everything about them is even greater. Passing an examination is equated with academic excellence, which makes me question the very meaning of learning that the honourable author seems to have committed to memory in high school. With colleagues as 'extraordinary' as the author claims he had, I am sure something went wrong later, given the nature of personalities romanticised.

There are simply too many instances to be taken apart and trashed. In fact, I am yet to catch hold of a better example of the narrow, ignorant viewpoints that I came across on multiple occasions during my student days at IIT. In the interest of space and time, I shall limit myself to a only a few more absurd statements made in the article.

IITians are proclaimed as being 'the chosen' ones. I am extremely interested in meeting the 'choosers'. Why did they choose what they chose, and what did they choose them for - tagging them away to farcicial lives, elevating them on the materialistic scale to seats of authority, voice and power (where such ludicrous articles could come from). IITians have also been said to graduate with 'tribal loyalties'. I am sure our respected tribals are better mannered, more cultured and have clearer perpectives in life. And what loyalties are being spoken about here, when cases of students littering their own campuses, cheating in examinations, and abusing faculty members are too many to be quoted.

The article concludes with shocking examples of immodesty, ignorance, pomposity and superiority complex.

It is unfortunate that such narrow minded views are expressed on a public forum. I can only hope that the IITians sharing similar views are a minority.

Gandhi quote

'Be the change that you wish to see in the world' - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

One of his quotes that is really popular in the U.S.

Diwali dinner

I haven't written in quite a while and there is lots to tell. I hope to catch up in a couple of quick posts so that I don't end up writing a history text.

Our Diwali dinner turned out pretty well. The food rocked, courtesy Sankar (who is now the hottest single male in Madison, for obvious reasons!). The chhole and biryani was delicious and the masala for the dosa also came out pretty well. Sriram decided to add a bit of his own to the raita and Vinod finished up with the dosa, alongwith some eager participation by Rohit and Nikhil. With some chips, juice and Nikhil's yummy halwa to start off (and Raja's capsicum as well) you just don't get such dinners every evening.

Add to that, meeting twenty new people over a few hours, it was good fun altogether. Most of the janta was from the BITS-computer science gang, but there were a few lesser mortals as well. The news of the lip-smacking dinner rippled through Oak tree and we had people banging on the door, pleading to be let in (well, not quite, there was one friend who took the liberty, and rightfully so, of coming in for food and gossip). Chitra, one of our next-door neighbours, crooned her way into the dinner, and to me, that was one of the highlights of the evening.

Fruits and ice cream were the perfect finish to the dinner. Photos were clicked, phone numbers exchanged and people started to leave. Once everyone was gone, we cleaned up (and in pretty good time at that! nice to have four people around) and called it a day.

None of the usual celebrations that one would have in India, no fireworks (thankfully!), no getting up early morning for an oil bath, going to each others' homes with sweets and namkeen, none of the boxes and boxes of sweets, dry fruits, no electric lights, no Diwali mela... but a simple, nice first Diwali in Madison.

Vinod's birthday

Monday evening: Chole chaval, ice cream, donuts and chai (Tea in hindi) led to Vinod's twenty second birthday, his first outside India. The lead up to the day was really scary for the poor guy, he was terrorized by all of us of getting beaten to pulp. It turned out to be a bit of a whimper and he got away with just a couple of blows.

After some deliberation, we have settled for a weekend treat at a Mexican place. Before that comes Friday and Diwali dinner at home, followed by Saturday at the Indian graduate students association. About the dinner.. we started with making two columns of recipes, one that we knew to prepare and another that we wanted to eat, and sadly the two didn't meet at a single row. Having been humbled by this simple exercise, we have big plans of learning to cook some delicacies within three days.

More on that as things unfold and recipes are concocted. God bless the guinea pigs.

Nobel pursuits

The big story this week has been the Nobel (and patrticularly one more than the other Nobels). 'Ill-deserved,' 'but, what did he do to get it?', 'oh! this is just a recognition of the aims rather than achievements', 'the Peace Nobel has always had a political twist to it', 'the UN wanted to bring the two wars into focus'.... so on and so forth. These are just some of the comments I heard and overheard in the University.

My interests in all things Nobel started with chemists whom I read about in College. There was something novel about what they did and how they did it. And not just that, many Nobel winning works have also led to tangible results. I am not well read in Economics, but I don't think I would be straying far from the truth in saying that the theories and works of Nobel winning Economists have had far reaching effects on people. This should have been most true for the Peace Nobel.

People in India have always said that the Nobel missed Gandhiji. In fact, the Nobel committee did not give a Peace prize the year he died, citing the lack of a deserving candidate. A similar act here would have looked different and worth appreciation. People have often questioned as to why Gandhiji was overlooked for the prize. It has been suggested that he was only a nationalist, concerned with all things Indian, did not have a global impact, had not held any peace congresses, possessed fluctuating styles of work, went far deep into his principles of non violence and led an enormous mass of population, most of which had no clue of his ideology. If similar arguments would be applied in this year's prize, I don't see a single case being satisfied.

This issue aside, I admire the President for his earnest handling of issues and hope that he delivers the goods. It remains to be seen whether the prize does more harm than good to his image as a leader. This has definitely uncovered some of the issues any committee might consider while deciding an awardee.

News from home: An upcoming Diwali dinner with some friends. Really looking forward to some yummy food and meeting new people. Had a nice chat with Chasha, K Bhai and Saikat after a long time. Nothing like speaking to friends!

More later.

Chicago, classes and Saturday

This last week has been power packed and has screamed through. Friday was exciting in that I had my weekly discussion that went off to satisfaction. I also finalised my weekend in Chicago, which was planned over 30 minutes. From another ditch of a plan to an awesome weekend, it couldn't have been better.

Anupam called up on Friday evening telling me that he would be in Chicago the following morning, indirectly telling me to get there asap. The early morning ride from Madison was smooth and I dozed off as soon as I got on the bus. Something shook me up from my nap as we reached downtown and a monster of a buiding zoomed past me. I was stunned for the first few seconds, this was the first time I was seeing so many skyscrapers in one place. I hurriedly called up Ashish to tell him about what crazy place i thought it was only to discover that his home was a couple of blocks away. He came down and we spent a good three-four hours together. I am hoping he comes over to Madison sometime before the winter kicks in.

Next, I moved to Niladri Da's place and alongwith Anupam, walked to the nearest Puja pandal to catch what was but a glimpse of the festivities shaking up India. I randomly ran into Ruban, an old friend from Noida, having last met him about ten years ago. Now, how often does that happen? It was great to catch up with him and recount our childhood days of him being scolded by his mom, our college days and all the other gossip about common friends.

We moved on to Chicago downtown and took a nice walk along the lake side. Not for nothing is Lake Michigan one of the Great Lakes. I am waiting to check out the ocean on the East coast now. We decided to visit Sears Tower, the second tallest building in the world. A short wait later, we found ourselves on the 103rd floor, overlooking an expanse of 50 miles, four states and a clear view of the Windy city. I also stood on the Skydeck, which is a glass box jutting out of the building... really scary but worth every step laid on it. Its not everyday that you look down and see cars zooming by a 100 floors below! Moving on, I walked down to South Michigan Avenue where I met Nishant, my brother from Chennai. One should have an elder brother in every city :). Mexican food, chocolate and sometime in his wonderful apartment later, I took a cab back home. The cabbie was joking about never every stepping onto the Skydeck, not even for his life.

We moved out early next morning and took a train to what Niladri calls the O Hare airport (making it sound like the most sacred place in the United States!). The idea of renting a car was Anupam's, and it turned out to be great. We drove to a place called Indiana dunes, that has some natural sand dunes and a long beach by Lake Michigan (I thought only oceans formed beaches). We spent the better part of the day walking around the place and got back by evening. A cuppa coffee later, we headed to Devon street, the India town of Chicago, for dinner. It felt different to be in what looked like any market area in south Delhi, but the very idea of huddling together in a foreign country is one that I cannot come to terms with.

I knew that I would stick around in the city for too long and Nishant's suggestion of taking the 6:30 pm bus went unheard. I guess it turned out to be lucky for me and I sidestepped a hailstorm by twenty minutes. Walking through the University at two in the morning was a different feeling and just the sight of the Chemistry building was great. The already quiet town was even more so, except for the lone teenage hung over the weekend party.

What looked like a great weekend was turning out to be less so as the week started. The homework submissions became more daunting and somehow I managed a face saving Wednesday. We have chemistry seminars on Thursday mornings and my chemical instrumentation professor, Prof. John Wright, spoke about his work. I have attended two of his research talks earlier and fared slightly better on this one, having been able to go beyond the first couple of slides, for once! I hope to progress slide-by-slide and I guess I might get something inside my head by the 100th talk.

The Friday lab in chemical instrumentation was great fun as we experimentally verified what we has read in class and worked out on Mathcad (a mathematics software like Mathematica).

I spent most of Saturday shopping for food and clothes. It has been raining lightly over the last week or so and Madison seems to be getting ready to welcome the winter. The farmers market is rather well organised. I was expecting something like our subzi mandi but I guess I will have to wait for some more time to experience the addictive chaos and the spontaneity of the Indian vegetable market.

News from home - Shankar is enjoying his Bose headphones, Vinod has to read five papers over the weekend and Sriram finally managed to get back the money he owed to his wierd friend by accompanying him for weekend shopping.

Looking forward to yet another week of learning.