End of a busy week in an awesome way :)

I was pretty busy for last 2-3 weeks. I know the word busy sounds very unusual with me. But this exception happened this time due to accidental presence of my guide in the institute campus for almost one month. Just like accidental presence of some symmetries become useful for us in Physics, so did my guide's presence, in a academic sense of course. I could almost finish editing my draft with him. We sat together 3 times (twice in his home), and edited it. I have to go through it carefully now and mail it to him for his approval so that it can be uploaded in arXiv. Editing the draft was not a very heavy task, but I had to be busy waiting for him in the department the whole day ;) . Out of them some days were successful when I could meet him. Apart from these three days when we edited this draft, there were some other discussion sessions as well where other group members also came to discuss on another problem which we are doing right now on metastable vacua in supersymemtric theories. Anyway after being busy with editing the draft, giving talks, taking part in discussions and of course waiting for guide in the department finally yesterday I said bye to him for next three months ;-) Last night I went for a party thrown by one of my senior in one of the canteens in the campus itself. That canteen has the peculiarity that they arrange such party if informed earlier. They cook the items separately in a much much better way than they serve usually. Yesterday the food was amazing and reminded me of my home food. Another awesome thing was today's football match between the students of our department. After a gap of more than 2 years I played football, that too with bare foot. Although I played for just half an hour, it was really nice. It's difficult to play such a tough game after such a huge gap. Anyway, my busy days are over now, don't have to go to the department for next three months except the day when I have TA duty :)

The most shameful act an IITian has done ever....

I came to know of a horrible incident today involving two IITians, one from IIT Roorkee and another from IIT Delhi. Although suicide incidents are very common in IIT's, this one is however more shocking and shameful. The IITR guy brutally murdered his girlfriend from IITD in a hotel in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. The guy who has been taken into police custody, has revealed that the reason behind this murder in the past affairs of his girlfriend with someone else. Whatever be the reason, nobody can justify killing someone. And personally I never expected such an act by some BTech student who usually are of very chilled out type. Anyway I never heard of such heinous and shameful act by any IITian before.

Eightfold celebrations of Holi, the festival of "color"

There was something special this time in the name of Holi. I played it (infinitesimally although) after three years, that too because some of my friends in the hostel put colors on my face when I came out of my room to have some tea. I used to enjoy this festival a lot when I was at home till my class X th. I used to go with my friends to various neighboring places in bicycles, specially to those places where the girls of our classes live. It was funny in the sense that the boys in our class hardly had any interactions with the girls, but still we dared to go to their villages in search of them just to play Holi, but never succeeded in doing so. After I came out of my home Holi became like an alien festival for me, I started preferring to stay inside than getting those sticky chemicals pasted on my face. Till I finish my student as well as hostel life Holi would always be like this for me. Any festival loses its true meaning when we are away from our close ones. May be after I go back to my state after finishing studies and all, these festivals will regain the same importance as they used to have during my childhood.

Congratulations Sachin

Yesterday he finally made it what people might have speculated for years. His knock will keep all his critics silent forever I believe. I too felt I was really wrong when I used to criticize him for not playing well up to the expectations on many occasions since my childhood. Although I missed most part of his innings, I was lucky enough to watch the last two overs. I was rushing to my hostel from my lab in the evening and thank God I could reach the TV room before the innings ended. It was really heart-touching to watch him taking the 200th run. Although the place where I stay is a bit solitary, I heard of celebrations across India when he reached the mark, my brother called me up saying the atmosphere near his house in Guwahati was like some big festival. It was really a never before occasion in the history of cricket and of course was worth celebrating.

Incredible Gujarat

Gujarat represents a completely different picture of India. You stay here for few days, you will see the differences from other parts of India. From power cut to water supply, law and order to infra-structure, from education to agriculture, Gujarat has a different story to tell about than the remaining states in India. If we count all these bright sides of Gujarat, the chaotic traffic situation here(as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts) can be neglected without any real difficulty. A person living in Gujarat won't believe that almost half of the Indian population are below poverty line( Magsaysay Award winner P Sainath has claimed more that 70% of the population under poverty line, although Government report says only 30%). Today I went out of my hostel just to buy a toothpaste. I walked for around 2 kilometers but did not find any general store although there were many other shops. Finally I had to go to the shopping mall known as Vishal mega mart just to buy a toothpaste. Then I realised somebody said it correctly that the mall/supermarket culture was brought to India by Gujarat first. This is just a small difference which I noticed today, may be many more such surprises for me are on their way ;-)

Aloo Pitika and Kukura Xaak @CCD, Guwahati ;-)

During my recent trip to Guwahati, I went to the Cafe Coffee Day, Dighali Pukhuri. I thought I will order some frappe which I do every time I go there. But when I had a look at the menu I was surprised to see some new items there. They have included some local food items. One of them was Aloo pitika Puff: Potatoes cooked with green herbs filled in a puff pastry, and the other was Kukura Xaak Sandwich: Chicken cooked with green herbs and stuffed in rice bread. Kukura and Xaak are Assamese words which mean Chicken and Green Herbs respectively. I ordered both of them, and although they are not very great, but the taste was really different, a never before experience. I hope CCD will keep including many new exotic items into the menu in future.

Back in Bombay

I came back last night from Guwahati. The train was awfully late but the journey was peaceful as I got some nice company, a family from Jorhat and Chetan Bhagat's latest book Two States. The book is not a very good one but gave me a good company during the journey which is otherwise horrible as always. The story is dramatic, like many bollywood movies which describes the problems with inter-community marriages in India. The way Chetan has written it looks as if he has just copied everything from his diary with little changes in the names of different persons involved. Anyway although this is his fourth novel, it is the first one I have read, that too under compulsion as I had nothing else to do during the 58 hour long train journey.

The cold weather in Guwahati gave me cold, cough and a very bad throat which I am yet to recover from. Just after coming back I got two good news: I got AA in the quantum optics exam (I have no clue how it happened) and I got an invitation from the SERC main school organizers to attend the school in April. With the coursework finally over and me passing them, it seems like everything will happen in the next semester like I had planned. But I am still not sure about the PRL thing, whether I will be able to shift from IITB to PRL for the whole semester. Hope that will happen otherwise I am screwed again. One headache now is to appear the NET exam on Dec 20th which I had registered without thinking if I would be able to prepare for it at all. I got photocopy of the NET guide book almost two months back but yet to open its first page. With just nine days remaining for the exam, I am not being able to gather courage to go through it. Anyway I am not sure at all if I will appear it, lets see..if I feel I know at least 30 percent of the syllabus by Dec 19th, I will probably appear it.

Next semester will be more into travelling than research :P

As suggested by my supervisor I have finally decided to attend both WHEPP (02-12 Jan, 2010) as well as the Asian Winter school (organized by ICTS from 11-20 Jan, 2010). However I will be missing three days of WHEPP since I have to leave Ahmedabad on 10th Jan and go to Mahabaleshwar where the winter school will be held. I am also hopeful of getting selected for the SERC main school in Punjab University during the month of April. In between I am also planning to go home for two weeks. As of now, it seems I will have to travel like hell from next month onwards. Just after this sem gets over, I am planning to go to Gandhinagar for one or two weeks for some work, then will come back again to Bombay. In the last week of December I will go to Delhi for new year eve celebration from where I will directly come to Ahmedabad for WHEPP. Since nobody is going to pay for my travel expenses, I have booked all the tickets in sleeper class of Indian Railway to keep my expenditure low. I am wondering after all these journey till 20th January, whether I will have any energy left to go again by train to my hometown which takes around 60 hours from Bombay by the only train in that route. I have to look for some cheap flight tickets for sure. After my home trip I may directly go to Ahmedabad to work with my collaborators in PRL. But that's not yet decided, I am just hopeful of going there. Otherwise there won't be any progress if I stay in my home institute since my supervisor will be off for Canada for one year starting January 1.