A trek to the insti lake

"Let us plan a trekking trip", Prasanna said.

"How about Tada? Or we can go to Gingee fort", I suggested few places.

"I have a place in mind. It's nearby and not much explored", he replied.

"A place which is nearby the insti, but not much explored? Which place could that be?", I asked myself. "Somewhere in the ECR?", I asked him.

"No. The place is inside our own campus! The insti lake!", came the reply from him.

I knew about the insti lake from the signboard that says "Lake view road" which I saw when I once walked from the main gate towards the stadium. But it never occurred to me to explore the lake area, or the lake itself!

"Excellent choice! Let us go! But when?", I asked him.

"Let us start our journey with the rising sun", he said. "Wear your shoes. We never know what is going to greet us in that jungle", he warned me.

The next morning, we both met in front of Cauvery, and started walking towards the Mandakani hostel, the hostel on the south eastern end of our campus. Until we undertook this trek, I thought Mandakani marked the eastern boundary of our insti!

We reached the back side of Mandakani and started our journey towards the direction of the lake on an unpaved road, when we heard a voice stopping us with the question "Where are you going?". We turned to see that the question came from a man in a blue uniform. "To the lake", we answered him.

"Are you students of the insti?", he asked us. After verifying our identity cards, he warned us "There is no proper route in this direction. You may come across bushes, thorns, snakes and what not. Take care". We thanked him and continued walking towards the lake.

After walking for about twenty minutes, we reached a broad, shallow and dry pit. While wondering if that was our insti lake and if it had gone dry, we spotted a few deer on the other end of the pit, munching on leaves and playing around, thoroughly enjoying the sunrise. We tried our best to capture the moment in our eyes through the lens since we decided not to disturb the deer by walking closer towards them. We continued our walk in the same direction.

A broad, shallow and dry pit

At a short distance from the shallow and dry pit, we reached a marsh land, which indicated to us that we were nearing the lake. Our guess was soon confirmed when we came across another broad and shallow pit filled with water. We observed the deer's footmarks on the banks.

Marsh land

Broad and shallow pit with water. Deer's footprints can be seen on the banks.

"Do you think this is the lake?", I asked Prasanna.

"There is a path further down this pit. Let us continue in that direction and see where it takes us", he replied. "It may lead us to the 'Lake view road', I guessed.

After about twenty minutes of walk, we came across a mossy trail which I guessed was connected to the culvert behind our campus restaurant on the upstream side. "This means what we saw was not the insti lake", Prasanna pointed to me. As we had guessed, we finally reached the insti lake after walking further across the mossy trail.

 

Mossy trail

The insti lake

 

I had heard that IIT Madras campus was carved out of a beautiful forest. But I thought it is so for the number of trees we see in between the concrete structures. The serene and pristine surroundings of the lake area revealed to us what the insti area once looked like!

Dinner at Athai Veedu

"Are you in insti?", Deepak texted me. I checked my watch to see if it's already time for dinner.

"Yes", I texted back to him waiting to see if he has an alternate plan instead of having in the insti mess. Ever since my insti had signed a contract with a new private caterer, I have been dining at the restaurants nearby the insti most of the times!

"Sub in Ascendas?", I asked him. That is the only place we haven't been to in recent past.

"Sub is fine", he replied. I rang Prasanna to find if he would like to join us. We fixed a rendezvous in front of Gurunath departmental stores and I told him that I would meet him there in ten minutes.

I shut down my work computer, picked up my cell phone, locked the lab, and started walking towards the parking lot when I saw Manoj, my colleague who was working on his thesis at the research scholar's room. After exchanging pleasantries, I asked him about his dinner plan to see if he could join us. 

"I am planning to have my dinner at Adyar", he said. Thinking he might have made plans with his friends, I asked him the place where he was planning to dine at.

"I will have it in Athai Veedu", he said. "Athai Veedu? Sounds like a new place. Where is it?", I asked him.

It took me some time before I realized that he was going to have his dinner at his Athai's (Aunt) house!

A man in his early fifties

The red TVS Scooty came to a halt in front of the vacant space near the security desk of Krishna hostel. On the wall next to the security desk was written "No Parking."

Apparently oblivious to the signboard, he parked his scooter, turned off the ignition, picked up his plastic bag, and walked towards the Krishna mess.

His wrinkled face, silvery mustache and near bald head showed that he must be a man in his early fifties. His blue shirt with stripes told me that he works for Hostel management. The wall clock stroke 7 times when he entered the mess hall, the time at which the breakfast begins.

The mess hall was mostly empty, only a few early birds were waiting for the mess cook to serve idly with sambhar. The sleepless night spent on putting a fight with my work was slowly taking its toll, making me feel sleepy. Not wanting to sleep on an empty stomach, I was waiting in the queue to have my breakfast before hitting the bed.

The man in his early fifties went inside the mess kitchen when one of his juniors came out with a plate full of idlis to be served. I waited in the queue until my turn came, picked up two idlis and vadas. "Sambhar will be served at your table," the junior said.

While I was waiting for the sambhar to be served, the man in his early fifties emerged from the kitchen with a plate full of steamed idlis, enough for a family to feast. He kept the plate on one of the dining tables, took the tiffin carrier from his plastic bag, started filling idlis in each of the boxes. He filled the first box with freshly prepared aromatic sambhar.

After filling up the boxes with idlis and sambhar, he kept the carrier inside the plastic bag, took another one out and filled it with the remaining idlis and vadas. He took the water bottles out, filled them with ozonized drinking water from the mess, and collected hot tea in a flask. Content with the quantity, he carefully placed the container inside his bag, avoiding spilling, took the bag and went out.

"Is he going to eat all the idlis himself?" I doubted. "Maybe he is making breakfast for his colleagues as well," I reasoned to myself.

I finished my breakfast, dropped my plate at the wash counter, picked up a glass to drink some tea. It was about 7.30 now, and there was movement in a mess. The table was getting busy serving idlis and vadas to the students where more people in the blue shirt with stripes were spotted, standing in the queue.

"Why are they standing in the queue? Didn't the man in his fifties take breakfast for them in two big carriers?. If his colleagues have come to mess to have their breakfast, for whom did he take the food then?", I asked myself.

"Does he run a shop of his own outside the campus? Is he taking the food to his shop to sell and earn some extra money?", my thoughts started to build conspiracies.

Had it been true, it would not have come as a surprise for I had read enough about corruption in government institutes/organizations, thanks to the print and online media. But do the mess manager and the student secretary know about this?

It suddenly dawned on me that he was not stopped by the mess officials when he went into the kitchen, came out with the plate, filled his carriers, and left the mess! Is it a network of organized corruption at the mess level, at the expense of student's mess bill?

A sudden rage enveloped my thoughts, wanting me to take action to put a full stop to the corrupt practice I just witnessed. I was about to head towards my room to write a mail to the mess secretary asking him to take appropriate action when my phone rang. It was a call from my friend who works in the same lab as me.

"Hi! I have high fever suddenly. I got myself admitted to institute hospital", he said. His voice was too low as if he got drained of all his energy.

It must be a viral infection, I guessed, for several students were getting admitted to insti hospital due to sudden fever in the past couple of days. "I will come to see you in a few minutes," I said.

I cycled to the insti hospital, enquired the way to reach the ward where my friend was admitted. The hospital nurse was leaving the room after noting down the temperature and collecting my friend's blood sample to test for viral infection when I entered.

"Did you take your breakfast? Shall I get something for you to eat?" I asked him, not sure if he had had his breakfast before getting admitted.

"I just had it before the nurse took my blood sample for the test. A man came and served breakfast to all the ward mates about ten minutes ago", he said. 

Being a residential institute, the students of IIT are first tended by his friends or the faculty, before their relatives come to take care of. In most cases when its minor health issues such as common cold or fever, the relatives do not even know about it! "Our insti hospital has made a wonderful arrangement to ensure proper food for the patients", I told my friend.

"Would you like to have some tea?" a voice from behind me asked my friend. At the entrance was standing the man in his early fifties, with the flask in his hand, plastic bag at his feet.

Obituary for MT-pc

A month ago, my office computer had a peaceful death. It was suffering from a problem unknown even to the manufacturer right from its birth. My office pc, which I nicked as MT-pc (after MeghaTropiques, ISRO's ambitious project for improving the rainfall estimation, and not empty pc) endured a lot since it was put to use.

The doctor did his best to find the issue and improve the health of MT. He transplanted various organs, serviced some, replaced others with new, but the issue still remained. He even tried the heart transplant, but of no use. MT did not show much of the symptoms, unlike other computers. It did not hang, crash or freeze. It showed only one symptom every time it suffered a blow, it simply restarted.

We shifted MT from one hospital to another, but there was no specialist available to find and resolve the issue. And then, one fine day, about a month ago, when I was in the middle of the work of an ambitious project, MT had a severe setback. It turned off as usual to restart, but did not start again!

I now realize that I should have talked to MT one last time before it breathed last. There is no way to enter its brain now! Fortunately, it has made quite a few friends from whom I was able to talk and recover some of the precious data it had stored all along.

May its soul rest in peace!

Aftermath:

A better companion, Dell Optiplex 990, has replaced my MT now. It did show some issue at first that it did not detect the network interface card, a necessary hardware that enables a computer to connect to the Internet. I had installed Ubuntu Lucid version then, however, the model is released only recently from Dell. Natty, the latest release from Ubuntu solved the issue and now all the vital parameters of my computer are stable.

Water water water

A group of about twenty students gathered around a hall (which will be called as the mess hall in future), in the summer of '78 to discuss one of the most important issues that were affecting their day-to-day life. The issue: even though the water tank is located opposite to one of the research scholars hostels, the pipeline takes a circuitous route and hence, the water gets dried up even before it reaches their hostel.

"We must protest", shouted one of the young research scholar assuming the leadership position. "Our problem must be heard by the administrators and we must demand an immediate action", he added.

All the scholars acknowledged the speech, and there was a unanimous agreement to the resolution just passed.

"But how to protest such that our problem gets the right attention?", a voice was raised from one of the inquisitive minds. 

"A strike alone will not do. In the worst case, they will ask us to formally write a complaint letter and it will take months before our problem gets noticed!", said another.

"We must call on strike, but with a difference", the leader announced. "Gentlemen, I have a plan".

In the next morning, scholars from the Cauvery and Krishna hostels assembled at the same place where they gathered previous night, all dressed up in their towels and briefs. A few courageous ones were to be found without the latter. There was an empty bucket in everyone's hands indicating the reason for protest and were shouting the slogan "water water water" in unison.

Shouting thus, the protest group slowly started to march towards the director's bungalow, some drumming the buckets, while others raising the slogan in a rhythm. That the leader's novel idea was getting attention became evident with the presence of curious onlookers, who joined the group at a distance to witness the happening.

It was when the group arrived near the central library that the unexpected incident happened. One of the student got carried away with the rhythm, and added four more words to the slogan which totally changed the incident!

"Water water water...water or your daughter" shouted a mischievous scholar, and the new slogan was caught like a wildfire by others in less than a minute! Coincidentally, the then director of IIT Madras had two daughters, both were of marriageable age!

The group marched past the Gajendra circle to reach the director's bungalow, shouting "water water water, water or your daughter" all the while. Fortunately, the director had gone out for shopping along with his family when the protest group reached.

The protest group waited for a while until they saw an approaching car of the director who was returning with his wife and daughters. He saw the group, heard their slogan, asked his wife to take their daughters inside, came outside and stood on an elevated platform, thus making himself visible to the group. There was a rapt attention, and everyone, including the curious onlookers, were waiting to see the director's response.

"Gentlemen", the director addressed the gathering, " the second one can be done. Now, who among you is ready to marry", he asked.

The unexpected direct question startled everyone present. It took a while for the crowd to regain themselves, and burst into laughter appreciating the director's sense of humor.

That the director later promised the group to look into the issue as soon as possible was totally expected then. But what was not expected by most of them was the fact that one of the young research scholars will go on to become a professor in future in the same institute.

Even so, only fewer would have imagined then that after he becomes a professor, he will be invited to preside the Cauvery hostel night as a chief guest, whence he will be recalling this incident to the present batch of students, after 32 years since it happened!

A help that didn't really help!

That about 80% of the students have gone home on vacation was evident when I stepped into the campus restaurant today to have my regular cup of filter coffee. When IIT Madras is in session, the restaurant would be buzzing with activities serving food, beverages, soft drinks, hosting birthday parties, having group studies/discussion, planning events, or just chilling out.

I ordered my coffee, grabbed it from the counter, took up a seat at an unoccupied table and started sipping it when I saw him. He is working as a coffee master in the restaurant, and, thanks to my love of coffee, is my friend too.

"We are having a problem. I have bought a DVD version of a Tamil movie, but we do not know how to play it on the computer", he said with his computer illiterate accent.

"I will finish my coffee and will take a look at it" I replied to him.

The restaurant had undergone a change recently with the installation of a new computer to print bills using an accounting software. Earlier, they were using the obsolete coded machine for this job. It was on this computer that they were trying to watch the film.

"The shift ends at 1 AM and the next shift starts only at 7 in the morning. The servers who worked in the night shift will come to work only at 4 PM the next day. They want to stay awake until morning so that they can have their breakfast before they go to sleep", explained the cashier to me. "Now that we have a computer", he continued, "we thought of watching a film to spend the night".

After inspection, I found that the movie is stored in VOB format which the default movie player, Windows media player, could not understand. I downloaded the VLC player, installed it and gave a short lecture on how to run the movie using the new player.

"Open 'My computer', right click on the DVD icon, and hit on 'Open with VLC media player' to watch the movie", I explained to him. Previously, he was trained only to run the software for producing cash bills.

He closed all the windows and started from the desktop to make sure he had learned it properly. Satisfied with the result, I wished them a good night and left for my lab to continue with my work.

The next evening, I went to the restaurant to have my regular cup of coffee. When I stepped inside, I noticed that they were all in smiles, making it obvious to me that they had a good time. Those smiles made me feel very happy.

"So, how was the movie last night?", I asked the cashier while he was billing my coffee.

"Very good I must say! By the way, thank you so much for your help. We did not know to whom we should ask for, and we are happy that you came last night and helped us with this", he said that in a tone filled with gratitude.

I smiled at him, collected my coffee at the counter and found a seat again at an unoccupied table. When I was sipping my cup of coffee, he came again. "Thanks for your help yesterday. If you don't mind, could you please help us with the audio too?"

It took some time for me to realize that there were no speakers yesterday!

IIT Madras - a treasure hunt

The legend is that Buddha got enlightened when he sat under a Bodhi tree. Whether the shade provided by the tree assisted Budha to get enlightened, or did he just happen to sit under the tree while he was on his way towards attaining Nirvana, is not known.

Following my chain of thoughts, I reasoned out that the shady tree at the bus stop near the Gajendra circle, popular landmark at IIT Madras, is what made me to think about the Buddha and the Bodhi tree.

"It is called as the golden shower tree", I recollected what my friend once said. I thought he just coined a name to that tree because its flowers look like the golden shower.

Later, when I wikied golden shower, I came to know that the name is indeed an alias to the tree whose name is Cassia Fistula. 

The flowers from the tree, that appears like the golden shower, is the state flower of Kerala where, the tree and its flower are being used since ages to extract herbal medicines that was known to cure a lot of diseases.

My sudden enlightenment under the golden shower tree made me to wonder how many treasures like the golden tree are hidden in IIT Madras, waiting to enlighten me with their traditional values!

Gender (in)difference

"Do not sit on the left side of the bus. Those are for the ladies", said the father of a ten-year-old lad, to his son.

"But dad, these seats are empty"

"Maybe, my son. But those are ladies seat. See what is written here" his father replied pointing out to the written instruction on top of one of the seats. "It says Magalir, which means Pengal. Now, what does Pengal means?

"Ladies!"

"You are correct. So you and I cannot sit on those seats", said his father in a closure tone.

"Give us two tickets to Adyar", asked one of the two ladies to the conductor. They were seated in front of my seat, about two rows ahead from where the father and the kid were sitting. "Dad", the lad brought his father's attention to those ladies, "then why are those ladies sitting on gents seats?"

"No, my son. There is no 'gents' seat. There are seats for ladies, and the rest are general. Anybody can sit in these seats"

"Oh! But why are there special seats for ladies alone?"

"Hey kiddo, you are not supposed to ask these questions" snubbed an old man seated behind the two. As expected, the kid went silent for a while. The bus came to a halt in one of its stops and the kid saw that some more gents got into the bus and were standing, though there were some ladies seats unoccupied.

"Dad, why do they have separate seats for ladies? Why can't male who are standing, can occupy one of those seats?" the kid asked with a low voice, apparently afraid that the old man may overhear.

"Son, ladies have separate seats because they are better than men. Didn't you hear on yesterday's news that girls came on top in SSLC exams?"

At this point, I was expecting the kid will say "if men were given separate seats, will they too fair well in studies?". Instead, I was taken by surprise when the kid asked: "give me one more example other than education for why they need separate seats?". Man! this lad is thinking way beyond even me! Or am I not thinking at all?

"Son, gents can stand for a long time. But ladies get tired soon. So they need seats where they can sit and have a comfortable journey", explained his father.

"Gents get tired too! In what way are we different?". It appeared to me that the boy was in a determined mood to find out the real reason behind the gender (in)difference.

At this point, a Swift that vroomed past our bus while it slowed itself to the edge of the road to halt, caught the lad's attention. I was getting myself ready to get down in the next stop, which is my destination. I will be missing the kid's argument with his father, I was thinking aloud when I heard the lad asking his father, "what is the speed at which that car traveled?"

Kids! How quickly they get diverted! I glanced my view towards them as I got up from my seat and proceeded towards the exit. The father seemed to be relieved when the kid shot the new question. Of course, the speed of the car is relatively an easy question to answer!

The conductor called for my bus stop. I got down when it came to a halt, and cycled my way to Cauvery, one of the "boys" hostels in IIT Madras.

Why some people choose begging as their means of living?

I saw him the moment I stepped out of the ticket counter at Saidapet railway station. I wonder if he had made that place his home, for every time I go buy a ticket I could always see him there, wearing the same torn white shirt which looks more soiled, and a blue lungi with stripes of different shades. I often wonder if that's the only garment he possess!

His eyes looked somber and it seems he had lost any sign of energy that day. Fearing if he had caught on with fever, my compassionate heart went out for him. "Are you OK?" I asked him with a sympathetic voice. "Ya...", he mumbled. He did not raise his alms plate which I found to be empty, and so I lowered myself and dropped a coin. May be its a bad day for him.

He declined my offer to buy him a meals. "Should I buy you some medicine? Are you feeling the heat?" I asked him. My concerned voice had softened him it seems, he suddenly opened up himself. "I got my today's quota of alms. So I am not worried about begging anymore for today!" he said. I left him there then, and minded my own work.

But I could not stop contemplating on what he said. First of all, what made him to choose begging as a means to live? Does not we have enough job to live a dignified life?

A visit to T.Nagar, a cynosure of shopping, located nearby Saidapet showed just the opposite! I could see thousands of poor people toiling their day to earn bread for their family which is at hundreds of miles away from here. Having no family to take care of is actually a boon for such people because they feel less pressure of their responsibilities and be able to spend their earnings for themselves. The poor beggar could work on one such shop, I thought aloud.

What made him to choose begging as a means of living? Contemplating on that question again, I walked to my mess today to have my dinner. My mess manager was sitting outside of the mess hall to collect the mess cards and mark my presence on it. Its a routine for him to mark our mess cards thrice a day for breakfast, lunch and dinner during vacation. On his table was a huge fruit basket filled with bananas. A banana is usually given to all students daily during dinner.

While I was picking up my banana, something caught my attention. A spotted deer was standing few feet away from the table, drooling at the sight of bananas in the basket. It did not show any sign of attack to take away the bananas, nor did it show any sign of fear due to the presence of humans!

"Our campus has lots of deers roaming around freely, but I had seen that they are generally shy in the presence of humans", I was conversing with my mess manager. He said, "a couple of days back, one of the students who came to dine at this mess offered a banana to this deer. It has now started begging for its food here daily!".

I now understood why some people choose begging as their means to live!

On the other side of the exam hall

I had an exam duty today which induced the "I have to wake up early tomorrow" effect last night, that resulted in a disturbed sleep. Though I am neither paid for teaching assistance nor for research assistance, I accepted it since I always wanted to be on the other side of the exam hall.

The exam which I was invigilating for, was for an M.Tech level course, the class of which was split into two to accommodate all the students in two classrooms. I was asked to take care of one of the rooms having 29 students seated in three columns, 18 of which are M.Techs and the rest are research scholars.

The end semester exams are usually conducted for 3 hours. Today's question paper consisted of two parts; while the first part was to be answered in the question paper itself in the space provided, part B alone should be answered in the answer script provided separately. It was boring for me because of this arrangement since not many students asked me for answer scripts, and so I could not move around the classroom.

The only time I found my duty to be interesting was while taking the attendance. The department staff had arranged for two cups of coffee (at an hour interval), and a plate of curd vada, which helped me to pass about 15 spicy minutes.

Though I normally would not turn on my cell phone in an exam hall, I was tempted today to do so, not because I was expecting an important call or text, but only to pass my time. Maybe I should have taken a book or a journal article to spend my time usefully! Would definitely consider this option in future.

So, having nothing much to do, I started observing students. Of the 18 M.Techs, two were girls. 14 out of 16 M.Tech guys were in Tees, while much of the research scholars preferred to wear formals. 7 out of 29 were wearing some kind of sacred thread on their wrist (one guy was wearing a sacred rope!), hoping it will help them to clear the subject or score good grade with minimum effort from their side.

One research scholar had apparently gone to one of the temples located on our campus before he took the exam, for I could see the kumkum on his forehead. Only 4 out of 29 asked for an additional sheet to answer B part of their question paper, which had only two problems. I was alerted with even the slight movements from any of the students, and this must have terrorized one of the M.Tech guy, which made me have a suspicious eye on him.

The professor who offered the course made an announcement nearly after two hours since time, that though the maximum duration for the paper is 3 hours, he had chosen questions such that it can be done in two and half hours. As if the students were waiting for this announcement, many of them came forward to submit their final answer scripts and leave the hall.

It was a great relief because collecting the answer scripts from students (sometimes you will have to snatch it from them) is one of the difficult jobs. My duty ended at 3 hours since time, after I counted the number of answer scripts and hand them over to the professor concerned.

"Happy Holi" wishes from Mother Nature

Humans are so obsessed with artificiality to an extent that the distance between us and the nature is ever increasing, just the way its happening with our universe. Wooded landscape are paving way to more concrete jungles, shaded trees are being chopped off, only to be replaced with sheets of plastic, a vast population from the human race have the privilege to see the trees and plants only in the form of a commercial product, such as furniture, papers etc.

Has nature ditched us the same way in retaliation? I guess not. In fact, it is desperately making an attempt to call for our attention. A couple of days back, when the whole of India was celebrating Holi, the festival of colors, Nature was silently wishing us on the occasion. But did we care to listen?

One can't unify himself with Nature unless he/she gives up some levels of artificiality. Try walking the path instead of taking your bike or driving a car. Listen to the birds instead of the song being played in your ipod. Tune to nature, instead of TV/Internet. I am sure, Nature loves to talk to us, the way our parents want to when they grow old.

To begin with, I have posted a few snapshots of Nature, wishing us on the occasion of Holi with colorful flowers instead of artificial, health-concerning powders.

Its now our turn to wish back at Nature.

Pratibimb

The Department of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Nomad Players have been presenting a play in our institute every year since 2009. They started off with their first successful play "Three blind mice", adapted from Agatha Christie's Mousetrap, in 2009. Their second venture, "Black comedy", was presented in 2010, in which the organizers had used reverse lighting scheme to tell the story that happened during an electrical blackout. This year, the team had come up with another interesting play named "Pratibimb".

The director (third from left) introducing the cast of Pratibimb to the audience

Pratibimb is a story of Dhondya, an ordinary man, who wakes up one morning to find that he has lost his reflection suddenly. With the help from his landlady Muktabai, called as Bai, they both attempts to find explanations for the sudden disappearance of his mind, by entering into each others mind. What happens during their course of finding his reflection forms the central theme of the play.

The set designer has done a wonderful job in designing the stage for the play. The concept of "entering into another's mind" is beautifully told by apt studio lighting and using a "window" as the gate of one's mind. The philosophical story ends with Muktabai letting out a scream after looking at the mirror.

A Tale of Two Talks

Two talks on one of the most important issue India is facing is organized by our Extra Mural Lecture (EML) group of IIT Madras.The first one is by Ms. Shukla Bose, who resigned her corporate high profile job to do something to the society. She had founded Parikrma foundation wherein she takes one child at a time, and nurture them in all aspects viz education, arts, athletics etc. She takes a kid from slum area in and around Bangalore at the age of 5, provide education at her school until above 20 wherein the boy/girl is able to stand on their own.

The other talk is by Mr. P. Sainath, a freelancer, who spends about 300 days in rural area on an average, to understand the effects of capitalism and globalization in rural people's life style. I had recently bought his book "Everybody loves a good drought". Its currently in my "to read" list. I'm planning to read it before this summer to get a perspective of rural India's problems.

Both the talks are certainly an eye opener to all those who were present. The social impact of these talks are, no doubt, tremendous as I can see the speakers were able to move the crowd with their oratory skills. I hope this will make elite students to think of returning something to the society of what they have got.

An IIT alumnus talk and the bet that I lost

A special lecture on "India's second war of Independence: Making Infrastructure happen" by Srivatsa Krishna, an IAS officer organized by IIT Madras alumni association recently, was held in our institute auditorium. I was not attending any lectures of recent owing to my work pressure and other issues, and so I decided to opt out of this one too. But my friend insisted that I should attend it for he believed the talk would be an inspiring one.

In order to make ourselves available for the talk, we decided to advance our Friday Research Scholar Group (RSG) meeting at 2 pm. A talk on "Turbulence: What is it?" was given by my friend Prasanna in this week's RSG meet, first in our seminar hall, and then in our research scholar's room, to allow the class to be conducted in the hall. After the forum discussion on various aspects of turbulence, my friend and myself had a cup of tea at campus cafe, and headed straight to the auditorium. The time then was around 4 pm. We do not remember at that time if the talk was  arranged at 4 pm or 4.30 pm. But seeing only handful people inside, we found at once that it can't be 4 pm. Well, but here is the catch. 4.30 pm IST stands for IIT Standard Time, which is equal to Indian Standard Time + minimum of half an hour, I told to my friend. So we are wasting our time by coming so early, for if the meeting is suppose to start at 4.30 pm, they are going to start only by 5 pm!

I don't know what made my friend to contradict me, for he usually agrees with what I say based on my past experience. In this case, he was pretty confident that the meeting will start on time for the speaker is an IAS officer. I am sure my friend was pretty impressed with the speaker's qualifications, nevertheless, he is an Indian government officer, and an IIT alumni. How could he possibly come before 4.30 pm, and start the talk on the dot? Asking this question, I challenged my friend for a Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) bet that the talk will not start before 4.45 pm. However, even before I finished my bet, we found a man in his late thirtieths walking on the aisle towards the stage, with his Mac and was copying his presentation on to the system. The time then was 4.15 pm!

Moment before, I was so confident that I am going to win the CCD bet. That the speaker arrived fifteen minutes earlier and was ready to deliver his lecture on dot was a surprise to me! The 90 plus slides lecture started at 4.30 pm and ended promptly at 5.30 pm which surprised me, and most of the audiences. During his lecture, Srivatsa covered the current scenario of Indian infrastructure policies and ground happenings, and compared our position with the Infrastructure development in other countries.

The talk was pretty impressive, however, I felt that there was nothing intellectual in it. Much of the facts he presented were already known to us, either through media or through some other source and so I was disappointed not to get enlightened after the talk. The tea organized by the alumni association was very refreshing after an hour long lecture, which was followed by a panel discussion on future IAS aspirants which I promptly didn't attend. Now what is pending is to pay the bill my friend is going to produce next time we go to CCD.

Lecture series, a walk in the woods and my friend's birthday

IIT Madras had arranged for two back-to-back lecture sessions: first one was on yesterday with Nobel award winners in Chemistry, Prof. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan on Structural basis of decoding of mRNA by the ribosome, Prof. Thomas A Steitz on From the structure and function of the ribosome to the new antibiotics; the other one was organized today with the former President of India, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. The first day lectures were on hardcore biochemistry field of which I have absolutely no idea. So, while the whole of IITians were assembled at the biggest auditorium in our institute, I decided to take a walk in the woods with my camera and have some fun time.

the woods in the institute at sunset

The woods in the institute is a natural beauty and is the cynosure for all Chennai travelers, for no other city in this world has a forest like environment at its heart! The walk was worthwhile for all my friends who attended the Nobel prize winner's talk told me later that they understood not even a word! Well, its not their mistake. Either the organizers must have arranged for the talk in a small auditorium with interested audience, or the speaker should have made his talk general to appeal to the non-chemistry audience as well.

The icon of IIT Madras with its glow

Since I had already listened to our former President's talk while he was President, and I have read most of his books and lectures and so can guess what he was going to talk, I decided not to attend today's talk too. Instead, I decided to go for a walk again, but this time on the road and not in the woods. I took some pictures of the icon of IIT Madras, the Gajendra Circle, which was glowing with artificial lightings and the fountain was on. However, I felt the icon was not in its real glow, which I am sure it can be seen during the oncoming Saarang days.

My friend blowing the candle and was about to cut the cake, with labmates around

Its my friend's birthday today! Well, it has become a norm than otherwise to organize a cake cutting ceremony in our research room for every of our friend's birthday. However, this time we decided to surprise him by organizing it at midnight, and it did surprise him! We had him cut the chocolate fantasy cake bought from CCD located in our campus and celebrated his birthday in a different way which all of us will remember in days to come.

317

317.

Let's list the above number in ascending order by taking one digit, two digits, and three digits at a time, respectively.

One digit numbers: 1,3,7

Two digit numbers  : 13,17,31,37,71,73

Three digit numbers: 137,173,317,371,713,731.

Now here comes the beauty. Numbers that are less than 317 (including 317) are prime (the number 1 is considered to be prime here in this context)! Numbers greater than 317 are composite! But what is so special about the number 317?

That's my hostel room number :P.

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