Phoenix Fire and Phoenix Tears

Information

2008-11-10T02:33:00.004+05:30

I don't write in this blog too often.

Almost always I write here

Thats where I have been writing over the last 1 year.

A great undergraduate system I came to know of.

2007-07-24T16:49:00.000+05:30

In the 3rd week of my stay at TIFR I came to know a nice guy here. He is Jesse. He is a fan of Curt Cobain and his email id also reflects that. He is a very jovial guy and he has lots of energy in him. His consistent way of relaxing happens to be reading comics on the net and reading news on the net and blogging. He takes off his spectacles while reading something.

He is a student enrolled in the undergraduate degree (BS) at the Northeastern university , Boston. He has to do a 5 yr BS before he can apply to grad school. Some prof there with whom he had been studying has recommended him to study under some prof here at TIFR. His interest is condensed matter theory and experiment and statistical physics. Though currently I see him reading Dirac's book on General Relativity . .. recently I was reading the same book too and I really enjoyed how through physical arguments one can motivate the covariant derivative concept.

I was really thrilled to know the kind of undergraduate he is in at Boston. He has a 5 yr BS program. During which for the first 2 years he has regular classes. From the 3rd year they have alternatively 6 months of classes and 6 months of research work. During that 6 months one is expected to pursue his/her own interests.

Jesse is interested in statistical physics and condensed matter physics and hence he has been pursuing them in these 6 month gaps. From the last 6 months he had free he had got 2 research papers! Now he hopes that by the time he applies to the grad schools he will have about 3- papers to his credit.

I wonder why Indian universities cant come up with such amazing systems which will instead of suffocating explorations by threat of exams will allow one to explore the frontiers and one's interests and creativity.

Of course the "cost" Jesse is paying is that he has to remain as a part of the education system for about 10 years (till he gets his PhD ). But then those who apply to grad schools from India with an Integrated MSc also do the same.

Some how I feel that Boston's system is far better given that a fast 3-yr BSc almost chokes the possibility of undergraduate research. which is fast becoming the vital component of science education these days.

At the top universities of US undergraduate research has started to mature from being just filling in calculations to innovations but somehow in India such cases are still rare though quite a few of my acquaintances have papers during their undergraduate work.

But at any rate 6 months of free time to explore your own interests is a better thing to opt for in comparison to any option.

When I asked him about the issue of him having to spend a greater time as a BSc student he promptly replied with his characteristic smile

" Whats the hurry? "

I dont see a reason why I shouldn't quit science.

2007-07-18T19:38:00.000+05:30

There are things in life that one wishes never to hear and never to face. But then one must do so someday or the other. There have been many things that I have known since long to be true but have always been afraid to face. But the way my life goes none of them turned out to be wrong. And I keep hitting such truths brutally , again and again. Somewhere deep down I am feeling the end.

One more big crash is perhaps all I need to reach the end of my life energy. One more fall and I know I will never be able to pull myself up again. I perhaps no more have the phoenix in me that I believed to exist.

Primarily I have always felt sure that I just don't have the calibre to do science. In both the 2 important tests of competence in India in India, I have failed pathetically. I know I shouldn't have taken up science as my career but then my blind love for it was too strong at the end of class 12 to let me see reason.

One who loves blindly , begins to hope blindly and then crashes brutally.

Time and again I have felt this recurring phenomenon in my life but I have continued to err.

At the end of class12 the biggest place where I could imagine myself doing a PhD was at TIFR. I was unable to relate to anything beyond that. When I first came to know of this process of applying to US for graduate studies , I felt sure that they take students who either are from IIT or have been to the olympiads. I was happy knowing so and had very naturally pushed such ideas out of my mind. Somehow I was in a state of happiness being in a state where I believed my theory to be correct.

How I regret that the people who have been telling me that I have a chance of making it to the good US colleges , had never ever told me so and would have let me be in my blissful ignorance. How I hope I could have shut myself away from all those people who have been trying to motivate me to apply to the US.

But then temptations have been very strong and over the past 2 months I had gotten myself to resolve that I will apply. How I wish I had convincingly resolved otherwise.

The world of scientific research belongs to the upper strata , of which I have never been a part of and will possibly never be. But then temptations have been too strong at times to try to get to derive some knowledge from that strata and hence I have made attempts to study under the tutelage of Prof.Ramanan , Prof.Shiraz and Prof.Raghunathan and some students too from the same strata.

But such mindless adventures ( as they sometimes seem to be in retrospect ) of trying to study under such experts always comes at a huge psychological cost. The continuous feeling of defeat and inferiority complex when studying under such people is very tough to fight against when in class but after the class ends, reality collapses brutally and one is made to realize the hardest truths in life.

The subconscious comes and reminds that just because some stalwarts have agreed to do some charity to you doesn't make you anything like them. Just because Suvrat agrees to teach me certain things will not make me worth even a millionth part of him. The rich man's charity to the beggar wont make the beggar rich.

Perhaps one of the main reasons why I came to TIFR to study under Prof.Shiraz when there were easier options available , was primarily to get to see how the upper strata works and thinks and to judge whether I have it in me. After about 2.5 weeks in TIFR , I am convinced that I don't. I just don't have the basic substance in me to be in those ranks.

I done even get close to even a millionth of their thinking speed.

I have been a slow thinker and a worker since my childhood. Perhaps that was the main reason why I was expelled or rusticated from my first nursery school apart from being inattentive in class. All that I used to do then was to sit by the window an gaze at the skies. It looked beautiful. Of course the teacher didn't take nicely to it and the principal called my mother.

About 16 years since then I am having to face the same problem again and again. The nursery teacher had great foresight. Again I am having to face the deepest of my fears that slow thinking implies lack of intelligence.

Even in CMI most of the times while discussing with my college students some technical things I have faced this problem. I have always been completely unable to keep pace in the discussions and I was stuck realizing the first statements made by the other students while the discussion had already moved into other aspects of the concept.

Today with Prof.Shiraz I was brought to realize and face the same truths and beliefs. I was asked to keep explaining the concept of the stress-energy tensor while running down the stairs with him and then while sitting at the security office where he was waiting for his wife and finally he took me to the beach and there sitting on the rocks by the Arabian. The session was dreadful. I fumbled in almost every step of my analysis as I was pretty much unfamiliar to the approach to the stress-energy tensor which he took. I was completely unable to keep pace with his speed of thinking. I made lots of errors and made a few incorrect analysis and statements about the conserved tensor current.

Things got worse as I realized that I had not brought my regular pen with me and was having only a few refills with me. The refills stopped working and I was left to scratching with some bad refills on the loose sheets of paper how the stress energy tensor will vary on a curved space-time with a dynamic metric.

And Prof.Shiraz keeping a sharp eye on my paper as he tried putting his baby to sleep on his shoulders.

In between he needed the concept of how to write down the variation of the determinant of the metric to first order. It seemed from his tone that perhaps I should have known how to do it. So he started to make me derive the formula and then given that I had already got too nervous I got confused as to what is the meaning of the term "minor" in the context of determinants.

Of course it was then of no use to explain to him that I know the proof of how to differentiate the determinant map since neither was I able to recall the weird derivative formula that it gives nor was I able to apply that theory here since in the physics context the question was not formulated in a way which could allow me to apply that directly.

The mess was already complete.

Somehow I struggled through the bizarre calculation..with frequent helps from Prof.Shiraz...my first experience of doing variational calculus on a curved space-time with a dynamic metric. Intermittently he kept saying "good" and "very good"..but over the last 2.5 weeks I have learnt not to read these comments of his since he seemed to use them on anyone and everyone....he obviously cant mean these comments on an idiot who cant differentiate the determinant map..at the end of this horrifying session by the Arabian sea perched on the rocks he said .... "so finally there is nothing left for you to learn in this topic..you have completed almost everything that is there...now I will give you a very tough exercise to do.."

He then stated a deep question of equivalence that could be seen between dynamic fields on a constant metric and dynamic metric against constant fields.He asked me to tell him the answer tomorrow!

I am yet to precisely understand even the question!!

But the worst was yet to come.....I then tried raising the issue of my US admission..and after making the expected statement " The most essential ingredient in your application is your recommendation " he said the following 2 statements ::

1. To get to Princeton or Harvard , the people recommending me must state that I am the best student in India in that year.

2. After knowing my pathetic CGPA of 8.89 and that there was no 10 in CMI in my batch he said that I can have a chance to getting into an US college but may not be something consistent with Princeton or Harvard.

There was nothing positive in his voice and there was nothing encouraging in all that he said. The situation looked clear to me. The fact that I am not the best student in India is not something that I need to be told but then it is always terribly difficult to face it.

The realization of the essential truth at the end of the day , inspite of all my attempts over all these 2.5 years in CMI to explore the boundaries of my abilities by taking up advanced topics to study in physics and mathematics , to get out of my mediocrity...I am still just an ordinary student. I am just a part of the mass.

There is nothing in me like Suvrat that will differentiate me from the mass and will set me apart. At the end of all my efforts to understand the subject deeply and from more and more advanced points of view..even at the cost of my CGPA (most of the times I found my regular courses boring )...I am still just another ordinary student.....there is nothing in me that will lift me out of the life long mediocrity to which I have been cast.

I tried drowning my utter frustration at the end of the session in a cup of ice-cream but in vain....I flopped down on the top of the rocks and I almost started crying...I stared into the Arabian sea and the fact that I had known deep within me cam back...from India only IITians and Olympians are fit to do science..not mediocre like me..science is not for the mass....I felt that tremendous urge in me to jump down and kill myself and end all this pain...of course it was not the first time I felt it.

As soon as I had almost decided to jump , torrential rains started and loose sheets of todays calculations started getting wet...I felt a strong urge to save today's derivations and to prevent the writings of today from getting washed away..and this superseded my urge to end my life...

I just ran at a break-neck speed back into the institute...

I was scared.

Of the future that was looming ahead..I felt scared of the decisions that I have been taking over the last 5 years..I felt scared of my past my present and my future....

In the evening a great physics student with whom I have had email contacts over the last 6 months was coming to TIFR. Today morning we had chatted that we will meet and discuss and I was excited about this in the morning.

Now I felt scared to meet him or face him. He is successful and I am defeated.

A collosal sense of defeat now clouds my life.

Ultimately I didn't go to meet him. I saw him come to TIFR and meet his other friends at TIFR...luckily he didn't notice me pass by.

A beautiful article on the web on a subtle connection between Mathematics and Physics.

2007-07-12T17:48:00.000+05:30

My exploits in physics and mathematics has almost convinced me of the synergetic and mutually rejuvenating relationship between physics and mathematics. Without physical motivations calculus wouldnt have developed and without mathematical motivations gauge theory wouldnt have developed.

The interdependance between differential and Riemannian geometry and physics has become a folk lore since Einstein-Elie Cartan letters and the development of General Relativity.

But generally the interdependance of Algebraic Geometry and Physics is not so popular/apparent among the undergraduate students or elsewhere ( I have almost no knowledge of Algebraic Geometry at this current moment..I am optimistic that this situation would have drastically changed within the next 3 years).

Hence the following web link from a place none other than IAS quoting the mestro of both these fields Edward Witten , would be an eye-opener and a very illuminating article to get a glimpse of this stimulating interface ::

http://www.ias.edu/newsroom/news-briefs/#geometry

I hope that if any mathematics or physics student reads this blog then they would be motivated to study physics and mathematics respectively.

Second day at TIFR..First academic work

2007-07-05T19:31:00.000+05:30

Second day started off a bit later than I was expecting since I wasnt aware that Prof.Shiraz comes to his room at about 10:45Am.

Either way the start was great and very promising. Prof.Shiraz told me to give him a 30 min "talk" highlighting the most advanced and beautiful things in physics and mathematics that I have studied. He seemed pretty excited after the talk and he has decided to guide me through an immensely advanced topic called "Quantization of non-Abelian gauge fields" and he gave me a lecture/class on how the ideas that I had presented at IGCAR seminar can be done through a more sophisticated approach. Lots of things that he said that "one must obseve that.." were actually things I had worked out on my own while I was reading "ASpects of Symmetry" by Sidney Coleman at IGCAR!

He gave me a genral lecture on complex fields , constructing the lagrangian for the interacting field theory and on boson fields.

Prof.Shiraz said that given my background , the ideal starting point for me would be Volume 2 of Steven Weinberg's "Quantum Theory of Fields". He told me to read the first 14 pages ( the classical approach ) to non-abelian gauge field from that book.

Later I attended with Prof.Shiraz a video recording of a lecture on string theory at the recent String conference at Madrid ( which he had attended ). After that seminar I had the great fortune of witnessing a string theory discussion between 2 of legends from India , Prof.Shiraz and Prof.Mandal and there was a post-doc fellow Kevin Goldstein and another one from China and another from India.

I had a chat with Kevin later and I came to know taht he had done his undergraduate from University of Cape Town in South Africa and then he had done his PhD in Strings from Brown University (in US ... somewhere near Boston)

Kevin was of the opion that one shouldnt spend a huge time first learning the advanced mathematics and then get into Strings instead after one has grasped QFT at the level of the book Peskin and Schroeder and General Relativity at the level of Hartle's book one can take a plunge into Strings and learn the mathematics along the way. He said " One must jump in there and get one's hands dirty"

He told me that for Strings Polchinsky's book is a better starting point than Grenn,Schwatz and Witten's book on Superstrings as the later starts at a higher level. But then he clarified that unlike what the name suggests Superstrings is not a superset of the String theory though they have overlaps.

Kevin also said that in Polchinsky's book one is likely to read quite a lot of stuff without motivations initially and only much later one realizes why he was emphasizing on that earlier in the book.

Prof.Raghunathan also seems very friendly and he gave me his home telephone number to call him up if he was not in office! Over a walk ,he gave me some interesting insights about connections.

Let me see what happens next The opening was great!

First day at TIFR

2007-07-04T16:19:00.000+05:30

I have been given a chance to study for 1 month in TIFR. It was accomplished by the recommendation of Prof.Gautam Mandal and due to the astounding efforts of Prof.Shiraz Minwalla. A sequence of perhaps more than 50 emails over the last 3 months with Prof.Shiraz Minwalla got me through the red tape that is required to get an accomodation at TIFR. Its ofcourse superfluous to mention thatmy advisor here at TIFR is Prof.Shiraz Minwalla.

Broadly speaking my attempt here is to get a firm hang of the concept of gauge group , gauge bundles and gauge transformation and other related areas that can be accessed from gauge theory.

But then the qualitative aspect if lady luck seems to be smiling at me with all her cherubic countenance. I also happened to meet Prof.Raghunathan here !( whom I had earlier met at CMI through our professor at CMI Prof.Ramanan (I have been studying mathematics under him too ). Prof.Raghunathan has also agreed to spend some time interacting with me on topics of Connections ( as in Riemannian Geometry ) and how such structures make sense on principle bundles.

My instinct/experience tells me that if I am able to attain the conceptual deepening about fiber bundles that I am hoping to achieve from Prof.Raghunathan then that will help me in my pursuits of advanced physics topics under Prof.Shiraz.

Some first reactions ::
Prof.Shiraz is no doubt the most energtic ,active , enthusiastic and inspiring physicist I have ever met.
His normal walking speed is
almost a person's normal cycling speed and he climbs stairs 2 at a
time and climbs down 3 at a time. Never seems to be using the lift.
His accent is typically American and he is always in a T-shirt of some shade of blue and bermudas and sandals. And nothing
about him except his name seems Indian!

His normal walking speed is almost a person's normal cycling speed and he climbs stairs 2 at a time and climbs down 3 at a time. Never seems to be using the lift.

The first time I went to meet him I felt that typical chill down my spine and the heat wave up my neck that I had felt the first day I went into Prof.Ramanan's room. It always takes a finite time to get over the effects of the sympathetic nervous system and to stand before a legend and say " I would like to study so and so topics. Can you please teach me? "

Like Prof.Ramanan , Prof.Shiraz ( he is most probably less than half the age of Prof.Ramanan ) too surprised me with his energy and friendliness.He almost gave a loud shout of joy and excitedly exclaimed "Aha..you are Anirbit I presume , So finally you are here" He immediately jumped up from his chair and shook my hands vigorously and standing up with his charismatic personality and structure said "Let me show you around and make yourself comfortable". Then he asked "Have you ever been to TIFR before?".

I was already taken aback and floored by his enthusiasm and friendliness.

I had to almost run , skip and jump with him as he almost ran along the corridors and glided up and down the stairs and excitedly showed me around the campus and took me to the library , the canteen and the offices and personally introduced me to the people there!

Accomodation ::

I was initially elated when the Professor arranging for the accomodation said that I would be the sole occupant of the room C-1903 in Wadala Apartments ( later I came to know that technically its the Llyods Estate in Wadala and there are blocks of apartments here , mine is C ... most of the people whom I know here are stationed in block-F but then here the occasion is too big for such trivialities to affect me )

By evening my hopes had crashed as I came to know that there were 5 other occupants though 2 of them have not been living here for some time.

But the acomodation is grand with almost posh interiours , 7 luxurious sofa-cum-beds , 4 beds , an equpped kitchen , a Godrej double door fridge and a fully automatic washing machine.

Most importantly as my room number inicates the room is on the 19th floor. Its an awe-inspiring view of light-speckled Mumbai from the 19th floor with sharp wind blowing intermittently.

A retrospective birds eye-iew of human civilization of which bear testiomony the light dots embossed on the land called Mumbai in comparison to the superficial darkness of the helpless Arabian Sea which relentlessly carshes on the rocky beaches but never letting go Mumbai off its periphery almost like the frustrated lass-lorn lover who repeatedly crashes on his own thin boundary of hopes as if in hope of a miracle.

The view from the 19th floor also gives a "World at your feet" feeling which in excess harms governing bodies but something which is required time and again in the research world either to give seminars or to psychologically prepare oneself for challenges which every other person around tells is insurmountable.

Ofcourse I am active with my digital camera capturing the passionate ballet of hopes , frustration and rejuvenation between the sea and the land.

Just like in the research world where one crashes to return stronger and to realize that what one crashed in was trivial compared to what one conquered now.

2 interesting links for physics and mathematics enthusiasts.

2007-01-21T17:25:00.000+05:30

1. http://www.superstringtheory.com/people/witten.html

2. http://www.superstringtheory.com/people/atiyah.html

My first experiences and fascinations with Physics ... Part 1

2006-11-30T01:43:00.000+05:30

THE INITIAL QUESTIONS ...

I will tell you the velocity field of the wind blowing in the garden and i will tell you the geometry of all the leaves in the tree . Can you tell me how the leaves in the tree will sway ? Can you predict while a wave is rising what its geometry will be when it crashes on the sea-shore ? I will tell you the climate in the morning . Can you tell me whether it will rain when at 5 Pm I want to go to play cricket ? ....... . These were some of the questions that had occurred to when i was in class 3 or 4 or 5 and these are what motivated me to do science and to enter the research world .

When i was in Class 2 I had 2 large magnets at home . They were really very powerfull magnets . I am yet to see a physics laboratory which has magnets as strong as those . It was a great wonder for me then as to why these apparently pretty much lifeless pieces of matter happened to attract or repel each other . It was magnificient to watch them do weird things with themselves and also with other magnetic materials in the house . I wanted to know why . Then i came to know that there is some subject called "Physics " which supposedly explains it . I remember that i used to put those two dough nut shaped magnets at the ends of a metal rod and let it roll on the floor . I was mazed as to what weird kinds of motion it had . I spent hours trying to find patterns among them and tried to qualitatively predict how the rod will turn and swing . My success in this prediction was pretty much unpredictable and I wanted to be able to accurately predict its future . I searched through numerous books then ( most of which i today know to be pretty much insufficient and vague books ) trying to find the answers to these questions and i discovered the existence of this subject called " Physics" .. which was just a name to me then .

{ Let me remind those who might be thinking that the behaviours of those magnets can be explained by a simple use of bio-savart's law then let me tell you that thou art mistaken . Permanent magnetism is an extremely difficult phenomenon ( any explanation from classical physics is necessarily a pack of trash best not listened to ) which only pretty much sophisticated quantum theory can explain thorugh " spin interaction and coupling" processses which i am even now in the process of understanding. The question of class 2 has even now not been answered to me. }

I WANTED TO BE A TEACHER ....

But even when I was in class 2 or 3 there had formed in my mind a distinction between all other proffessions of life and research and teaching . I remember that when i was in kindergarten all that I fancied was to become a teacher . Then I found only my mother obliging to be my student ! I had a cupboard at home ( then in orissa) which was black in colour . I used to spend hours "teaching" my mother with a chalk on that cupboard all that was taught in school and all that i used to pick up daily from the various encyclopaedia's at home!

Teaching was my passion . That was the dream career for me since I was in my kindegarten and somehow I found it to be the best thing to do on earth . But my dreams went slowly beyond just being a teacher . The first named theory that i came across was "The theory of relativity" by Einstein . I wanted a theory by my name . I wanted a subject by my name !

Slowly I wanted a school of my own and then a syllabus that i would design and then by class 9 I wanted to establish an education board of my own .

{
These mainly stemmed from my total frustration with the pathetic education system in India which ensures that it produces "herds" of people who cant think but can reproduce the books on the exam day . Why have people ? Lets have a country of photocopiers ! That would serve the same purpose !!

Our education system does not enable the student to think that what exists in the books is not the ultimate but can be challenged and changed . It on the other hand convinces that the syllabus book is somehow God sent and the teachers are truth themselves so much so that all that say should be reproduced on the exam day with even the punctuations intact !!
}

BUT WHY PHYSICS ?

Anway that was an aside . Till even class 3 my path of life could have very well been chemistry and then the big thing happened in my life which convinced me that it has to be Physics . Recently then in my art classes ( anyway for those who do not know .. I have some art skills and I believe that I have done some non-trivial work with dry-pastels , water colours and oil paints and charcoal and pencil and chinese ink media ) my art teacher introduced me to the concepts of dimension and how the light and shade effects change and become non trivial when you try to depict on a 2 dimensional paper the fact that the world was 3 dimensional . And that was my first introduction to the concept of dimensionality and that has become an integral passion of my life since then and more so even now ...... It was the first time that i realized through the art class' concept " an object has a length , breadth and height " that the world is 3 dimensional .....

.....Slowly it became a natural part of my life . I then had simultaneously realized that the motions in this universe was also in a 3 dimensional space and that the elliptical orbit of the earth around the sun was also a motion in the 3 dimensional universe ( as i perceived it then ) .

THE FIRST MAJOR IGNITION ....

But then in class 3 itself within a few months after the above introduction to this fact by my art teacher I came across the following line in the book "Brief History of Time " by Dr.Stephen Hawkings which roughly translates to :

" The earth follows a straight line in this 4 dimensional universe which appears to be an ellipse , a curved path in our 3 dimensional stereoscopic vision "

{ I obviously had no idea of geodesics or metrizable manifolds then ! :D }

This line was a total trauma for the next few days .. neither could I sleep nor do anthing properly .. I just kept thinking about what it meant ... . The above line which I came across in class 3 made very little sense to me then except that it convinced me that the dimensionality of the universe is not all that meets the human eye but is a much more deeper concept .

I knew that Hawkings was a physicist . So i concluded that i must be a Physicist to understand this line .

Hence I became sure that I want to do Physics . Physics and nothing else could answer the questions that were bursting in my mind in class 3 as a consequence of the above sentence .

Till I met Prof.Ramanan ...

2006-11-09T16:54:00.000+05:30

I finally met Prof. Ramanan on the 2rd of November 2006 !! He agreed to teach me some advanced topics in mathematics !!

I have been hearing about him for quite a long time . He is known as one of the dons of algebraic and differential geometry of the past 50 years . My first awareness of this great personality was when during my first semester in CMI when he was taking a course in "Global Calculus" . Although the name of the course made no sense to me then I still found within myself a strange attraction for the course and its contents . Perhaps it was because of the fact that 2 of the students in CMI whom i idolized Swarnendu and Vipul were doing the course .

I had first met vipul in my KVPY camp at IISc Bangalore from 3rd o 8th May 2003 . An unforgettable experience ! I had known about Vipul since i was in class 10 as some great mathematical brain from Delhi . I was thrilled to know that he would be coming to the KVPY camp . It was a number theory seminar by Prof. Balasubramaniam ( that was my first acquaintance with him .. currently he is the director of IMSc and I get to see him quite often). An odd looking guy was sitting next to me and unlike others he had no pen or paper in his hand . Balasubramaniam wrote down 6 congruence equations on the board and he wanted to demonstrate the use of chinese remainder theorem . But this guy within a minute just spoke out the answer in a very solemn voice . ( If i remember correctly the number was 1729 ) . That was vipul naik ! .

Swarnendu has been a idol figure for me for a long time though i had never seen him till i came to CMI . I had known him though a friend of mine called Sandeepan ( he was a genius at chemistry .. Qualified for the IChO camp in class 9 and knew Finar thoroughly by class 10 !!! and had also qualified RMO quite a few times ) . Sandeepan is a great friend of Indraneel ( another of illustrous CMI ites.. had a bronze medal at IOI and had been to IMO camp quite a few trime .. now in princeton.. ) and Indraneel knew Swarnendu for long . Hence through these connections i had grown up with the name of swarnendu since class 9 .

It was only when Indraneel came to CMI that I got to know of this institution and then sandeepan told me that Swarnendu was also here !! Few months after returning from the KVPY camp a friend of mine who was a friend of Late Deep Roy ( should have been in the Physics 3rd year of CMI now .... I have heard that he was a great student ) told me that Vipul was also in CMI !!!! .

What more reason did I need to come to CMI !!! ... Though i had never known about CMI but the very fact that these 3 great people whom i knew had come here was motivation enough to come here . My mother was very apprehensive about this unknown place . I only told her that if the likes of Swarnendu , Indraneel and Vipul can choose to come here leaving behind all other options then it cant be too bad a place .

When i first asked Swarnendu about what is taught in the "Global Calculus" and whether it has anything to do with the calculus as i knew then . He gave me one of his charismatic smiles ( enough to floor everyone of the opposite sex ;-) ) and told me " Its far too different from anything that you know or can relate to " .

I then decided to study this subject in details someday . Now that Prof.Ramanan has agreed to teach me . I hope I will achieve this aim in near future .

Happiness ?

2006-11-09T13:53:00.000+05:30

Happiness = Satisfaction = attainment of what i want = fulfillment of wishes

Of the many things that I want to attain is respect from others and being felt useful by those for whom i care .
But there are a huge number of dilema's on my way to attainment of these 2 aspects of happiness.
Most of the things that I would like to do for the people i care about will surely and eventually cause them unhappiness !! Or for sure they wont respond positively to these activities of mine . Some who are very courteous will just be silent . Anyway neither of the above end results can possible make me happy .

This is a matter of fact that i cant deny . This has been an unfortunate aspect of my life that i have had to face for all these years .

I dont see a way out of this dilema .

What makes me happy will not make the people for whom i care for happy .

No matter whether the rest of the world thinks me to be a dictator or an autocrat I am not that bad .
So self-sacrifice is the only way out of this circular problem.

I will not try to gain these aspects of my happiness .

Atleast it will keep happy the people for whom i care .

Aficionado of this world . A Phoenix . How is it created ?

2006-08-28T07:23:00.000+05:30

Phoenix is not a creator of itself but is created by the times and society around it.

This society creates Phoenixes as an by product out of its ever constant mechanism of filtering out the best from the rest . It is fruitless to debate over whether it is right or wrong because it seems to be the way the world has evolved and in betterment of the best lies the future of this world and not in the unpliftment of the base and the mediocre . Most of the filtered rest settle into acceptance of their positions and believing their microcosm to be the global scenario as if an unconscious induction of placebo effect . Butnot all of those who are filtered out do this . They keep fighting from within their constraints . These are the Phoenixes that the world creates out of its filtering process .

The Phoenixes never say die . They meditate on this world and keep burning themselves at times when they find that what they are is not enough for this world or when they se that the world is moulding them into something that they dont want to be . But at times it is an act of frustration . An act of desperation whose genesis lies in it not being able to change the world around .

The Sphinx keeps smiling whenever the Phoenix burns itself . A smile of sarcasm at the naivity of a solitary phoenix in its attempts to affect the rest of the world without being among the chosen few of this grand filter of existence. The Sphinx feels happy to be sprawling across the arabian desert like a monumental observer of history as if an interlocutor with the charming lady who turns the wheels of time around distributing the alms of destiny to the mere mortals with the arrogance of the creator if any .

The Sphinx does not admit or accept in its world any iconoclastic desperado or a threat to the settled symphonies of harmony that seems to string this world . The Phoenix is just one of the naivities of the human mind that the grand old Sphinx claims to have been habituated to.

But the Phoenix hopes not to be one among those relic thinkers getting lost in the myriad memoirs of the Sphinx but it hopes to be the one constructive thinker whose fire shall of self imolation will create the new world and whose healing tears will settle the new symphonies that shall restucture the new world .

The Phoenix is singing its age old tunes to infuse life in the world around and then to immolate . The song floats over the mountans of time across the aeons of pre-ordained destiny with its depth of solitude . The Sphinx still keeps smiling .

The war rages on .

What is " Fire of the Phoenix " ?

2006-08-26T03:22:00.000+05:30

When life is a struggle for existence its just not with the world outside but also within one's own self . From these conflicts arise the genesis of innovations and the fire of creativity . This fire not only burns the world outside but also burns the creator . It burns what exists and from there arises the new phoenix . A new life .

Then the music of creation sings to the tunes of time to re-establish the empire within and outside . Then the Phoenix cries . The healing tears of Phoenix that heal the wounds caused to others in the process of recreating itself . But these tears are generous . They heal wounds irrespective of whose it is and what caused it . It heals the wounds of the enemies too .

Thus the Phoenix heals its own heart , mind and conscience by healing the wounds of others .

The phoenix perches on a solitary tree in the middle of some arabian desert in the middle of nowhere to see the evolution of this world and again burns itself when it is dissatisfied with the world around . Thus the cycle completes . Thus life evolves . Thus the world is the way it is .

The world is for the Phoenix to meditate over . The Sphinx just keeps walking in and out of this round table conference in the halls of its mind giving its smile at everything that the Phoenix thinks and goes and sits down in an egyptian desert in its eternal stagnating penance on the fruitlessness of all and everything .

The Phoenix is fighting the Sphinx and the war wages on .