The water is Blue today, So am I

Roll back 30-35 years. Focus on the entertainment medium. Few homes had TVs, some had the "transistor radio". Neighbours would flock over to whoever had a radio just to listen to some good music, or a cricket match commentary. Latest songs could only be heard on radio, or if you were rich, on vinyls. Even a decade later, tape recorders and cassette tape players weren't anywhere close to ubiquitous. So what would it imply? Let's deduce from the facts - Sources of entertainment (sp. music) were All India Radio, Vinyl/cassette tape players and I might be missing something but the point I will make here is still pretty valid. Who would be incharge of the content played on radio? Some person. Any person? Not just any person. There had to be something to justify this person who would be in charge of all India radio broadcasting, right? It would be safe to deduce that this person would be partial to good music, and would play (by and large, by the rule of averages) good music on the radio. What good would this do? Again, I consider it safe to deduce that it caused some degree of feedback to register with the music producers/composers of the day. That feedback would be something of the following type - Song A gets picked for playing on All India Radio a lot. The audience likes it and the movie also works. So let's try and make songs like Song A. Out came gems like "Tere bina zindagi se koi", "Chalte chalte yuhi koi", "Chalo ek baar fir se".
I bet I'm over simplifying it, all the good songs obviously did not come out of this mechanism. But nonetheless, there was little driving force to pander to the masses, rather the opposing force, of catering to those partial to good music.

Now switch back to the present. Entertainment medium? LOL. Every house has a TV. Mobile phones (with multimedia capabilities obviously) are ubiquitous. Data transfer and/or download is extremely cheap. So its implications are obvious - everybody is the master of their own music! They choose which music shall fall on their ears. Even if your mobile has only FM, at the press of a button you can skip a song, switch channel! This all sounds good though, why do I have an apprehensive tone? Read closer - Everybody is the master of their own music! It means that, not-so-subtly, power has changed hands. From the broadcaster to the audience. From the music producer/composer, alarmingly to the crowd. So the good broadcaster/producer is not just helpless, he is rendered irrelevant by the shameless pandering of the class-less producers/broadcasters/lyricists/music directors, you name it. I hope we can all agree that by and large the public has about as much class as public-toilet wall art. It comes as no surprise then that "Gandi gandi gandi baat", "tera dhiyaan kidhar hai yeh tera hero idhar hai", and oh Gooood "Sachurday Sachurday, kardi rhaindi e kudi Sachurday Sachurday", and not to mention Honey Singh's classy swill of sewage lyrics mixed with 4 bottles of vodka all get picked over a subtle "Dhak dhuk". From the movie English Vinglish ? Music by Amit Trivedi ? I've lost you haven't I? The young un's must be going "Ey ye buddha kya paka raha hai, chal let's party with the bhoothnath while we do sari nights besharmi ki heights!"

Sigh. Bring the chaar bottals of vodka to drown myself in, please.

To my Teachers- A tribute

While reading Eye the Sunday booklet which comes along with Indian Express, I came across an article about convocations written by a teacher. She writes about her teacher, who came to her dorm and waved her Math paper saying "you are usually so bright, how do you explain turning in work like this?". Reading that brought a broad smile on my face and a slight tear in my eye. Teachers are perhaps the most overlooked bunch, especially if compared with the influence they have on your life.

I have recently realized that I am what I am today because of my teachers. So here goes a tribute to my teachers.

Aruna miss (2nd standard teacher) loved me like anything, even today will call me "Sattuuuu", to her I still might be 8 years old.
Romi miss, who was the most compassionate of the teachers in school.
Sumati miss, my Sanskrit teacher, who used to be exasperated and beam with pride at the same time!
Ganu ma'am, the elder Ganu ma'am s daughter-in-law, who I used to go to for private Sanskrit tuition in the 7th grade. I fondly remember her, for she always saw the spark in me in Sanskrit, and was a great (how do I stress this enough?) teacher. She developed my Sanskrit foundation that made it easy in the later 3 years. Though I am out of touch with Sanskrit today, I hope to relearn it some day.
Archana Tai,  oh what to say about Archana Tai. She was the most selfless teacher, who took excruciating effort to reach her pupils, and always always had an eye for well-rounded personality development of her students, not just immediate success in exams. I was taught by this great teacher for 4 years, each of which won me laurels without exception. I still remember her rebuking me in the early days, for not having studied saying "Is this how they teach at St. Lawrence?". I still remember her asking me after 7th scholarship exam,"Will you make it through?" and she always reminds me with the same genuine surprise, about how nonchalant I was in my answer. I remember her incredulous look of surprise when I regaled a scholarship interview. I was being quizzed by the interviewer about which English newspaper I read, and I answered a couple of questions after which I ran out of steam. So the interviewer asked me since when are you reading this paper, I replied since a week. He says, "Only one week? Why did you start so late?", not knowing what to say, I replied "better late than never, Sir". To this day Tai fondly remembers that. She also reminds me that I used to have quite a temper. It is here, in her tuitions that I made some friendships, which endured, and will endure for a long, long time. We regularly meet Tai, we regularly have good chats, she remembers all of our quirks, God bless her. So much more could be written about Tai, but we move on. Oh, and did I miss this? She is the sole credit for laying the foundation for logical thinking, without which all my future endeavors would not have come to be. Tai's class, for me, was the school I never had.
Lakhakar Sir was my 12th grade Engineering Entrance exams teacher, and his coaching center is solely responsible for my excellent results in all entrance exams (which is pivotal to who and where I am today). He was exemplary in his combination of fun and learning. He took us to an almost-all-expenses paid trip to Goa for crying out loud! He would take us on impromptu treks, organize all-nighter marathon class, and worked really hard to get us ready for difficult exams. I met him at a petrol station one day, and I confessed to him that I am here today because of you.
Prof. S.S. Bhagwat, Chemical Engineering professor at UDCT. I learnt 4 subjects under him. Process Computations, Thermodynamics I & II, Interfacial Sciences. He called out after midsems and quizzes one day asking, who had not dropped a single mark till now. I was alone, and I was made to stand up while the rest of the class applauded. I was in for a full 100, but ended at an excellent 96. I supply that memory to my brain whenever I am excruciatingly low on confidence. He was for me, the epitome of Engineering professor. I remember when one day, he spent the whole 2 hour lecture explaining a particularly difficult problem. Not solving, just explaining what the problem statement was! That was the kind of dedication he had. He instilled that in us. As with Prof. Lakhakar, he mixed fun with learning. With him we went on a industrial visit, a Sulfuric Acid plant, a Bulk Pharmaceuticals plant. Sir took us to a trek to Karnala, Panvel, which still drenches my mind with the natural beauty and class bonding we experienced that day. Took us to Alibaug! Organized with our hostel mates a trek to Raj Machi in Sahyadris! He remains one of my favourite persons in addition to professor.
Prof. A.B. Pandit, one effortless teacher, was my B.Tech project guide, who turned my counsellor when I was faced with a dilemma.
Prof. G.A. Viswanathan, my Master's thesis advisor at IIT Bombay. In the course taught by him, I was astounded by the range of his knowledge, Reaction Engineering, Biology, Computing, Mathematics you name it! He would have research papers at the tip of his tongue on any topic! He did not teach through books, rather through research papers. That way, student developed an understanding of how research is to be approached. Through personal interaction, I saw the unwavering adherence to honesty in just about everything (a breath of fresh air in India where copying and plagiarism is rampant), his work ethic (I remember him chiding me when I was being evasive and giving flimsy excuses), his vision for research. He rarely praised anyone, so his grading my work at 10/10 was one of the highest personal honors. He is responsible for instilling character and research rigour in me. Not just a research advisor, he has on multiple occasions given me sound advice on my problems.
Prof. Anurag Mehra is a Mozart of teaching! He would link difficult concepts with mundane, daily experiences and make absolute perfect sense, so that I would never dream of forgetting the concept! Having such clarity and transferring it with such consummate ease is nothing short of a gift. His ready wit, coupled with such enjoyable (believe me, the effort required to make Multiphase Reaction Systems so enjoyable is by no means a simple task) lectures puts him right there at the top.
Prof. S.B. Noronha taught Multivariate Statistics, which would very well be called philosophy or poetry in motion! His lectures required extreme concentration, for his style was not outright slapstick, but rather extremely subtle. His sentence formulations were so long yet stylish, (I only survived through them with undivided attention because I am used to reading P.G. Wodehouse) that one would forget forever that Statistics was supposed to be tedious data handling. I am still using his excellent (self typeset in Latex) notes for concept clarification in my work.
Prof. Sachin Patwardhan took pains to clarify vector algebra, which sadly was made a mess of at UDCT. His love for Mathematics was apparent from his reverent description of Gauss as the Prince of Mathematics! I am starting to appreciate the beauty that Linear Algebra held, as he professed in classes.
Prof. V.A. Juvekar united all seemingly diverse Transport phenomena, and opened my eyes to the common concepts in all three. His lectures were easy to not pay attention to, often at a considerable personal loss. Complex systems were nothing to him! His notes, as well, are invaluable from the point of view of unification of concepts and clarity.
Prof. Soumyo Mukherjee, a Biomedical Engineering professor, had an unenviable job of giving a flavor of Biomed Engg to a diverse bunch of students from Comp Sci, Elec, Chem, Mech and what not. Needless to say, he carried it out with aplomb and left me wanting for more. It comes as little surprise since his favourite sentence was "science is a continuum".
So many more teachers there were, these are only a few that my painfully limited memory serves up at instant notice. Heartfelt thanks to all of these stellar people, I sincerely do hope I can pay you back in some way.
These are obviously the "teacher" teachers, and not inclusive of everyone who has taught me in the broader sense of the word. But here it is, a tribute to my teachers.
Thank you.

2082

I was standing by the elevator in my apartment building the other day. In a brief moment I put my hand in my pocket, and almost smacked myself forgot your car keys. As that moment passed I smiled to myself. The elevator had arrived. I reach the parking lot and my car flicks its lights on and off and honks once gently. I get in and push the pedal down, it moves. Like an obedient bot. No vrooming, no flashy nonsense. See I am in 2082 and I am 57 years old. My Pop used to drive a gasoline car. He always forgot his keys, and I would fetch them for him.

He would always say one thing, “We live in a weird time son. I never get it”, he said, “Why do we still use keys? You encrypt your phone with passcodes, your mails and messages with encryption keys, why are we still using keys like cave men?” Bless his heart. Pop was always ahead of his times. He was a humble professor. He taught Biology and Advanced Mathematics at the local university.

Today I walk into the parking lot, my mobile device identifies my car’s location, starts it, honks its horn to help me locate. I reach my car, the door opens, I get in, I drive. There is an encryption key that pairs me and my car through my mobile device. I wish my Pop was alive to see this. We have electric cars now. Gone are the gas guzzling, burping belching station wagons and sedans. We recently took our kids to the museum to see what those gas cars looked like. I told my kids, “My pop used to drive one of those”, I said pointing at a cheap hatchback by Hyundai. The kids were repulsed by the noise; the smoke coming out almost choked them. The streets are all very quiet now. I live on one of the busiest streets in the city. Yet I can hear my TV at the minimum volume.

How did this happen? Some wise guys, my Pop was one of those, thought why do we focus on two equally inefficient power sources – Gasoline and Electricity. Why not route all the power through one source and try to improve that efficiency as much as possible? Facing stiff opposition from the money crazed powerful Oil Moguls, undaunted they carried on with their research. First task was to simulate everything on a computer. Before even thinking of going ahead with the plan. Which is where my pop came in. He was one of the brainiest Math professors around town. And he literally spoke to computers, fluently! He would coax, cajole sometimes force the machines to do what computation he wanted. It’s no harder than learning German, he would say.

So on the research team went building simulations, coming up with estimates of cost, overall system efficiency etc. to justify the massive paradigm shift that eventually occurred. Today all the worlds power systems are consolidated. All of human kind’s energy goes into trying to make things more efficient at the electricity production and distribution. It’s just better that way! Think about it. You burn coal, you produce tons of CO2, you dump it in the atmosphere, you cry foul over the Petroleum industry. The petroleum industry distils crude, produces combustible hydrocarbons, we in turn burn the hydrocarbons in our cars, dump it in the atmosphere, and the petroleum companies blame thermal power plants for global warming. It’s just easier this way! It’s logical. Have all the energy sources producing electricity some way or the other. Let the end user be faced with just one energy- electricity! Then at the back-end deal, with efficiency of burning Gasoline to turn the turbine. Just one universal turbine, unlike hundreds of thousands of types of cars! Get what I mean? And at the other end, focus your efforts on minimizing distribution losses. In 2030 our scaled energy losses in distribution were 60%; thermal power plant efficiency was 23%; Gasoline and Diesel average engine efficiency was a measly 18%.

Today all Oil distilled products route to power plants, where our efficiency has bumped up to 35% ! Just two percent shy of the theoretical maximum of 37%! Today due to superconductor research, distribution losses have plummeted down to 7% ! It is really an end-to-end optimization!

My Pop worked as a supply chain consultant before going back to research. He worked largely in systems and networks – Systems biology for his masters’ project, Supply chain networks in his first job, neural networks in his PhD. Later on he attributed his visionary research with his teammates to this exposure to different disciplines. He would always quote one of his Biomedical Engineering professors, “Science is a continuum”

It indeed is.

TED video list

Beautiful TED videos I have seen till date:

1. Emily Levine: She is a trickster (I am still unaware of what that is) but she looks to be beautifully open minded lady. awfully witty, loves connections (me too me too!), likes to cross boundaries.
http://www.ted.com/talks/emily_levine_s_theory_of_everything.html

2. Jill Bolte Taylor: Simply what our brain is capable of is shown here! recites her experience of a stroke. beautiful possibilities !
http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

3.David Gallo: Underwater astonishments.
Life that you've never seen before! short clip
http://www.ted.com/talks/david_gallo_shows_underwater_astonishments.html

4. Karen Bass: Informative, beautiful. Nature. BBC and NATGEO footage. short clip

 http://www.ted.com/talks/karen_bass_unseen_footage_untamed_nature.html

5. VS Ramachandran. Simple and ingenious! [brain]
http://www.ted.com/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_mind.html

6. Daniel Wolpert: why we developed brains in the first place. for movement he says. nice, simple and brilliant experiment
http://www.ted.com/playlists/1/how_does_my_brain_work.html

7. this whole playlist. a brilliant one on how we learn to see... by pawan sinha
sarah jayne blackmore- workings of adolescent brains
allan jones- map of the brain.

http://www.ted.com/playlists/1/how_does_my_brain_work.html

8. oh yes. Boaz Almog- quantum locking and levitation!
http://www.ted.com/talks/boaz_almog_levitates_a_superconductor.html

The whimsical kid with constraints!

Suppose there is a boy, 15-16 years of age, in a moderate sized city, just out of X grade. He wears Reebook, Woodland shoes; Wrangler, Lee jeans; Levi's Tee Shirts; drives a brand new Honda automatic scooter/ motorcycle. He has a wallet in his jeans pockets, yes he has, and it contains money of the order of hundreds of rupees. (this is to be inflation-adjusted to present time from like 2003-04; yes it is gonna need significant fucking adjustment! Add a touch screen mobile phone as well.) Mobile phones in itself were new, and even if kids did have them, it wasn't expected to be any higher-end than a nokia 1100.

So yes, this boy. He has friends from school. When there were uniforms. The great thing about uniforms is that it is by and large uniform! The cloth quality might differ, but your innocence has yet not been ripped apart by consumerism, hence, to the child's eye they are pretty much the same. Now, these uniforms did a wonderful job, a job of screening out affluence (or the lack of it) as a decisive factor for friendship. Friendships were friendships. Then, we graduate school. Then, we move to the realm of no uniforms. To the realm of tuitions and travelling and "hanging out".

Where you hung out, depended on- very critically- the amount of dough on your person. I say on your person to include the case of not owning wallets at all; for what do you need a wallet for if all you need to store couldn't exceed 10 rupees? That too was in case of a flat tyre. . . on your cycle. Coming to the hanging out bit, once or twice for the sake of school friendship, the above mentioned kid (the one without the wallet on his person) would hang out with the kid mentioned higher above, at cool and chic places. Now these places had menu cards designed to make the eyes pop out, of the kid mentioned above. And the kid mentioned above, for some inexplicable reason, did not like much the process of popping-out-of-eyes. Whimsical, one might find this peculiar dislike!

So, in a alarmingly short course of time, he learns to forget his old friends. No, it is not all bad; he meets friends, lets just say, more closer to the constraints of boy # 2! There could be two broad kinds of kids facing these constraints- those naturally forced on the kid, or artificially by their guardians. Now the nuances of the existence of constraints matter not; and that matters greatly. Because, in the falling out mentioned in the previous paragraph, it is a matter of great debate and discussion as to who might lose out more, but I opine kid # 1. And because #2 - the guardians of type b, who artificially forced constraints on their kid, advertantly or inadvertantly helped them reach a larger base of fellow kids, quite simply.

Parents of kid #1, or the kid #1 himself when turned a parent (let's hope in the course of time never had to face constraints) would not, nay might not, understand the significance of not fucking loading up his kid with cash or kind (kind being accessories bought by cash, ample of it), and could quite simply skip reading this write up, but having known real gems falling in the type of kid#2, I would urge anybody considering rearing kids, to give this write up a tiddy-biddy bit of thought. Just saying.