A Story in Snapshots

Chandigarh, India. January 2002

Two boys sixteen - seventeen years of age are walking down a deserted tree lined boulevard in the twilight on a cold north Indian winter evening. To a casual onlooker they might seem like any two jaunty and excessively happy boys incongruously loud on that mute road, thick with the absence of people the way only an Indian street can be. A more interested observer would have noticed an ecstatic glow on their faces, joy and wonder in their voices and a strange awed exultation in their manner. If the observer had sidled in to within earshot, he might have heard them searching for adjectives to follow "brilliant", "beautiful", "superb", "amazing".....and they seemed to be interspersed with a smattering of topics in general physics and math along with the recurring phrase "N**** Sir".

Surathkal, India. January 2005

A young chap in a loose t shirt and jeans with longish hair and some stubble walks along a beach lined with palms and thick tropical shrubbery. The sun is setting behind the restive waves and he is vaguely aware of the beauty of the scene that surrounds him, the long evening, the tropical breeze tempered by winter, the lighthouse on the hill some distance ahead of him, the people who all seem impossibly distant - their voices carried to him intermittently by the winds. His mind is far away, his spirit is defiant but cracked - though he does not know it yet. He thinks back to the last semester - the ragging and the pressure, his marks, electronics, the stress and his lab partner who went home and never came back. He wonders at his friends who burst into tears in class and others who stood around the campus staring into nothingness.

His mind wanders further back, to the stunning failure that brought him to this place, the indescribable year that went before it and the original failure before that. And finally, with a touch of bitterness he thinks of the two boys walking down that street in Chandigarh - excited and happy in the knowledge that a master had assured them that they had exceptional talent. He remembers the advice the master had given him - do physics, you'll do well at it. He does not regret having ignored those words, (this is India, he could not do a BSc ! and besides, engineering secured his economic future) but he marvels at how quickly his dreams have disintegrated and how quickly "talent" seems to vanish.

Gent, Belgium. January 2008

A young guy in a big black climbing jacket hurries through a cold drizzle on a dark chilly winters' evening. He does not notice the cobbled streets or the lovely medieval buildings. He is mentally kicking himself for not studying when he could have, and getting himself into a tight situation just before his exams. He does not know the hard labour that nanotechnology entails and he is enamored by the power of the concepts he should have absorbed. He is desperate to impress the brilliant professors who taught him so much in the preceding 4 months, and he thinks happily of all the classes he sat through excited and thrilled. "Almost as good as N**** Sir" he thinks to himself. Almost. Deeply grateful for the scholarship and the brilliant teaching, he really wants to do well. He splashes through a puddle and promises to do a good job.

St. Andrews, Scotland. March 2009

A slightly tired looking man in a long black overcoat enters his comfortable room late at night. He has had a good Saturday, though his masters thesis is not going too well. He has interesting friends and plenty of good conversation. He also knows what he is going to do with the next 5 years of his life - an engineering phd with the general aim of someday starting his own company. It seems a little dull and he is vaguely uncomfortable, but he knows he is good at it, his most likely chance of applying his skills to an exotic field has not worked out, and there is nothing that good company and good food along with a spot of cricket cannot cure. He is teeteering on the edge of settling down in life.

He slips into more comfortable clothes and switches on his computer, his mind peacefully sifting through images and snatches of conversations from a day out with friends. He opens his mail box and clicks on the only mail among dozens whose subject line is different from the ones that he sees everyday. His mind does not register the words, but suddenly it hits him. He has been admitted to a elite, intense, 10 month masters course in theoretical physics that pays for all the expenses and needs of the students. He cannot believe it. He is an engineer. He comes from an Indian business family. He will have a masters degree in a few months. He wants and needs to make money. Theoretical physics means completely flying off the rails ! A jump into the unknown ! All these things flash through his mind in a second, and he smiles and knows he will go for it.

He tells his parents (and is relieved at their obvious delight upon hearing the news) and friends. Once the initial euphoria has died down, he takes a deep breath and thinks of N**** sir, childhood dreams, engineering, all the trials and tribulations along the way....and he knows that soon, he will write the most proud and satisfying mail he has ever written.

Dear N**** Sir......

Contemplation and Cricket

Life can get very boggy and slow at times, lonely and low and stuffy. When everyday work seems like a drag and things dont seem to be going anywhere, when there seem to be no friends and no fun, when nothing seems interesting and the mind withers before a flickering screen and the body atrophies into despairing weakness. And then, onto the flickering screen appears a notice, a message offering not just hope and solace, but rebirth. The Staff and Postgraduate Cricket Club is hosting indoor nets. All are welcome for a fee of 2 pounds.

There is trepidation and hesitation, painful memories of awkward and clumsy performances with old comrades who are forced to be polite out of respect for old triumphs shared, humoring the team mate who cant play anymore but has not realized it yet. Painful memories accentuated by the mind shrunk over many cooped up harried and stressful years, needless needless, a youth needlessly thrown away for an adulthood improperly received. Can the old chap play again ? Can the cobwebs of the mind be cleared away by the winds of graceful freshness and sage history that blow and watch over every cricketing green ? They give 22 minds in pure white the chance to test themselves, their subtlety, character, health and peace, and they imbue them with those qualities. Can it happen again ?

Oh the joy to be had from the satisfying sound of ball hitting the sweet spot of the bat and flying away with no perceptible effort, the ease of instinctive movement to play a good shot as if this was what the hands were born to do, feet getting into position, head still, the bat a graceful arc, batting more akin to kenjutsu than baseball, more to do with meditation than with hitting.

There is hesitation, yes, but there is also for some reason the knowledge that this is an idea, a dream, whose time has come. And so the nets come to pass. He marks his run up. Shoulders aching, feet stiff, there is not much pace in the deliveries but the run up seems rhythmic and the action smooth, and the balls land on a good length again and again and again. He can play. And thus the ice is broken, players introduce themselves without cause, the ball seems to snuggle in the hand, there is suddenly an extra nip off the matting wicket. A few balls are dispatched to the boundary and a few beat the bat and then it is time to pad up. This is the real test...this is where things can go wrong, but the mind is surprisingly calm and focused. The bat seems perfect, the first ball comes in and rattles the stumps. The possibility of panicking is considered and discarded. Know where your off stump is, take guard, go through the rituals, look at the ball and cleanse the mind.

A tall fast man races in with a newish red cherry in his hand, it pitches at a goodlength outside off holding its line, but suddenly its path through to the keeper is interrupted by the smooth swing of the bat close beside a front foot that is already in position to hit the ball on the up and through the line and the sweetest sound in the world sends a red blur careening towards the covers before the net stops it. Time stands still, clarity. The bowler at the end of his follow through nods and claps "Good shot sir !"

Rebirth.
There is no going back.

Cheer up Fed, Cheer up.

It was heartrending to watch Federer break down after his defeat in the Australian Open final after what turned out to be a tame and sloppy final set by him. It was really too much to watch.

But Victory, when it comes, will be sweeter for all this.

On Politics.

When I say "politics", I mean it in the broadest and loftiest possible sense of the word, not the petty machinations of lying knaves which is what it has come to mean to most people in India. A prosaic working definition could be "The process by which groups make decisions.". I will start by defining what I consider to be the "National Interest" and by 'national' I do not mean 'Indian' but more generally, the interest of whatever interconnected and interdependent human society we happen to be considering. I will outline a goal of sorts - what I think we ought to try and achieve - and then I will give my thoughts about how/why it might or might not be attained and then Ill conclude with a few remarks about India.

The Magic Carpet.

The aim should be a society which carries every member on a 'magic carpet' and does not allow any of its members to fall below a certain standard of living. This magic carpet is something that the society as a whole provides to every one of its members - each of whome contributes to its upkeep. The following ought to be guaranteed -
1> Security. Everyone should be free to conduct their lives without fear of death or material disruption. This includes protection from severe weather etc. The basic resources necessary to exist.
2> Food. Everyone should have ample access to varied and wholesome food.
3> Healthcare. Everyone should have access to medical facilities.
4> Education. Everyone should have the chance to attend university level education.
5> Opportunity and Freedom.
6> Leisure. Yes, leisure. Each and every person in society should have the time, the resources, and the security needed to indulge in leisure activities, because it is from these that human happiness most often flows. Everyone should have time in which they are free to do whatever they like, it is such activity that most often leads to the breakthroughs that take our civilization forward.

Is it Possible ?

From a purely engineering point of view, the answer would be a definite Yes. The resources and the technology needed to bring this about exist. I might even go so far as to say, it has been technically possible for a long time now. The real problem is an economic one - How to allocate resources and lay down norms to create and sustain this sort of system. An ideal society has many other characteristics of course, like sustainability, but we will not go into those at the moment.

The State.

The state is the agent through which a society carries out its collective responsibilities (such as security, health, education, law and order etc) and regulates itself. For example, if a society collectively decides that "stealing is bad, and those who steal must be put in prison", then it is the responsibility of the state to conceive and enforce this law. This is of course, in theory. In reality, the state - whatever its origins, history or ideology - consists of a ruling elite which looks after its own interests rather than those of the society it rules. Laws in this situation, are a tool to manipulate and regulate society in order to enable the ruling elite to pursue their aims. All too often, their interests are divergent from the interests of the society, and this is illustrated by human history which is filled with rich aristocrats ruling for millennia over impoverished and helpless populations.

Again and again, civilizations and societies have come to grief because the short term interests of the elite did not coincide with the long term interests of the people. Again and again, the existence of an unchallenged ruling elite has inevitably led to suffering, poverty and eventually, to collapse. This is precisely the issue that Democracy attempts to address. By making the ruling class dependent on the people to continue in power, it forces the elite to factor into its calculations the interests of the masses. If the elite wants to continue to rule, they must be seen to be looking after the interests of the majority of the population. A fairly good solution one might say, though of course, whether the elite is taking care of the long term interests of the society or not is entirely a dependent on how demanding and perceptive the masses are. Which also seems fair, they get what they deserve. There are many other institutions that a democracy needs in order to function, but those will be considered to be implicit when we use the word 'democracy'.

The subversion of Democracy

As one can see, for a democracy to function - i.e. for the ruling elite to feel the imperative need to look after the interests of the masses - there needs to be choice. There needs to be an option that the people can vote for, an alternate set of people who promise and can deliver what the current ruling elite have failed to do. And if such an alternative does not exist, then a democracy (a good one) provides people with every reason to jump into the fray and provide the alternative themselves. This is crucial - for a democracy to be properly functional, common people should be able to contest elections and provide the alternative to the ruling elite that has not delivered. It is here that most large democracies - and especially India - fail.

The bane of Indian Democracy is the rise of a political class with very high barriers of entry implemented through a multi-layered system. Basic neccessities of Indian politics such as vast quantities of (black) money, availability of street muscle and so on, ensure that the vast majority of Indians cannot venture into politics. Thus, the Indian political elite remains - to a large extent - unchallenged. They swap power among themselves, and the elections are bitterly contested, but they all belong to a class who have broadly common interests. None of them want an enlightened, educated and empowered population. None of them want fair and effective law enforcement agencies or an efficient judiciary. None of them are interested in cracking down on organized crime, enforcing financial laws or cleaning up hooligans from the street. All for the simple reason that even though these things are obviously desirable for society at large, they are not in the interest of the Indian ruling elite and it is these interests which the Indian state - as of now - most closely defends and promotes.

Fundamentally, the Indian political class is not interested in removing the socio-economic conditions that ail our people and cripple our country. And they can get away with it because they have ensured - as a collective - that Indian Democracy cannot throw up a credible alternative that better looks after the interests of its people. Thus, it is the high barriers for entry into politics that most subvert our democracy. They maintain their power in the crudest possible manner, by beating up the new comer who dares to stand for election, by threatening his family, by buying him out. And anyone who 'makes it' in indian politics, is forced by the political class to become one of them - he needs the hooligans, he needs the money, and thus, he needs the political class and cannot rebel.

To sum it up -

Low barrier for entry into politics => Choice => state protecting interests of the people and a mature evolving functional democracy => evolution towards a better society with less suffering and more enlightenment and peace, thus freeing up more resources for endeavors of vision and courage such as the exploration of space, the quest for longevity and the search for truth and meaning.

The Next Small Step

Exams done, and one last semester to to before the grand title of 'Master of Science' is conferred upon me, and the inevitable question that has been bouncing around in my head with many strange effects : "What next ?" is decisively answered. As I outlined in a previous post, I have already made up my mind about that : I will do a phd, and increasingly I feel that it will be in Belgium that I will do it. It will be a four year thing, and for the first time really, I'm looking forward to it. But thats not what this post is about. This post is about the next six months - the six months I have to do my thesis and enjoy myself here in Scotland.

Even so, I am plagued by indecision about some of the most important things in my life. When should I go back to India ? Whome should I marry and when ? What am I looking for in life ? To be honest, now that I've given up on pure physics as well as astronomical instrumentation, anything seems okay as long as it provides decent opportunity and a good quality of life. I gave up my dream in 2008 and in 2009 I am beginning to realize that everything else is just that - it's everything else. Phd in photonics is great, I seem to be good at this stuff, and if I play my cards well now and stay awake and perky for four years, I'll probably have something along the lines of what I want to show for it - the beginnings of a hi-tech startup. I'll then move it or a part of it to India or I'll sell it and go home. I want papa to retire early and relax, but I don't see how I can make that happen short of flying home and helping with the business and slowly easing the burden from his shoulders to mine. That is what dutiful sons from business families are expected to do. But I feel I owe it to mummy and papa who educated me and introduced me to books and showed me the world and encouraged me to dream, I owe it to them to make something of my life in these faraway and lonely places where I have been brought by all that is good in me and all that they taught me to be. I know papa agrees and mummy too, even though these days she wants me to come back.

The point is, now - stripped of idealism - apart from the fact that I have done two years of photonics, there is nothing to hold me to the subject - I like it but it is certainly not my passion, - I might as well have done an MBA or something in software or electronics. So, in the medium term my goals have very little to do with the pursuit of knowledge and beauty in academics, and a lot more to do with getting me a interesting and comfortable life. And in the near term - these six months before I graduate - I'm going to concentrate on keeping fit and healthy and happy :) Ive bought Lonely Planet's Walking In Scotland and I mean to work through as many of the relaxed and scenic walks as I can by the end of June and Ill certainly spend the whole of June relaxing and walking in Scotland, and anyone wanting to join is welcome ! I would also like to learn some application development for the iTouch and most of all I want to remain emotionally stable and physically fit.

And the word marriage is beginning to crop up too many times in too many private reveries as well as conversations. That'll have to be kept at bay I think, right now the priorities have to be to handle the immediate technicalities of life well enough to ensure stability and comfort along with leisure and travel. How happy and healthy and interesting my life is depends purely on how well I handle mundane things like thesis work, cooking, cleaning the room and keeping in touch with friends and thus free up time and resources for interesting activities. It's strange that I have to reaffirm these basics of life, but I as well as the one or two friends I have with me here on this exceptionally challenging 2 year roller coaster through western Europe, have had to discover and rediscover ourselves in order to make sense of the myriad possibilities and choices that lie before us. Most of all, we have had to accept our personal weaknesses, the responsibilities we have or will have and the finite nature of lives, our own and those of the people closest to us. This is adulthood. But again I have digressed - the next small step is to manage the little things in life well, have fun, be comfortable and choose an interesting phd topic. And sorry for the slightly solemn post, but I think I have most issues sorted now, and now for the next four or five years things should be calm, stable and lighthearted and interesting :)

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Where I have been

1> Watching UFOs :) no kidding.

2> Visiting family :) lovely lovely break that was ! Thank you so much ?&4U:). I don't think anyone will decipher that :)

3> Exploring my new iPod touch and marvelling at the amazingess of it. I absolutely adoooore it. I want to write code for it ! 'nuff said.

4> Dreaming of traveling. The wilds of Scotland in June, and then later in the year, India ! Ladakh and the north east perhaps. the islands maybe, perhaps some really random place finances permitting.

I wrote that on my iPod touch sitting in my favourite coffee shop which has finally reopened post the holidays. Each of the above deserve nice long posts themselves and I did document the ufo sighting quite well, so maybe I'll write it up sometime. And I'll definitely be writing more about my itouch in the coming days. There is so much I can think of doing with it ! First and foremost, I want to get a gps of some inexpensive variety attached to it and accessible reliably enough to venture out with. But these are subjects for another post, perhaps even a different blog :)

Philosophical Catharsis

As a child I yearned to know everything. I read everything I found, I remembered as much as I could, I asked every question I could think of and argued every point that did not satisfy me. I was always filled with questions and wonder, and only constant reading and asking and learning could hope to quench my thirst. Over time, I lost the obsession, but the wonder stayed, I grew more entangled in the world, and over time, decided that Science was the only discipline capable of answering questions about the world. By definition. I considered the humanities and economics as fraudulent and misleading studies, I dismissed god in a deluge of convincing and impenetrable arguments, and I enjoyed it. I rejected religion, I laughed at spirituality, I mocked the arts. I tried my very best to find in science the right attitudes to life, the universe and everything, I tried to find in science the key to happiness and fulfillment.

And this is the answer I got - there is no meaning. There is no greater purpose. We are marvelously complex self replicating, persistent structures. When we die, the structure dissolves. What we do is immaterial. The universe is too vast for us to comprehend, if we had an appreciation for its vastness and beauty, we would never have been foolish enough to think we were special. And this disturbed me not in the least, for I was young and knew that I could never die, and I delighted in the weakness of my fellows as they clung to their crutches and tried to be happy in the face of the immense insignificance and pointlessness of our existence.

I grew older, and forgot about such matters in a few years filled with the excitement and tribulations of any young adult, but the attitudes I had developed in my impetuous youth remained with me. I took random turns on the road to life and ended up doing this very interesting course bordering both science and engineering on the beautiful and lonely continent of Europe. Thus separated from my country and my friends and all else that was familiar I was forced to live with myself again, and to think and examine life. I naturally slipped into the intellectual framework I had already developed, and with further reading and thought I made it harsher and more brittle. As loneliness set in, the first signs of uneasyness began to appear. I began to wonder what I wanted to do and why, and what, if anything made sense. I grew disenchanted with politics, literature and people (since I hardly ever saw any).

Divorced from common small pleasures that make the day livable, my own life seemed meaningful only to the extent that I understood the beauty and immensity and mystery of the universe through science, and I gravitated toward that all absorbing task like a moth toward a lamp. My work - which had seemed so exciting a few months ago - began so seem impossibly dull. Every day I strained against the ties and responsibilities that bound me, I despised the mere engineering research I was constrained to do. I yearned to gaze at the stars and contemplate the worlds and realms of truth and reality beyond our experience, I yearned to delve into the secrets of space and time and chance, to contribute my little bit to my poor species' understanding, and thus spend my life doing the only thing that had any value in my scheme of things - deciphering all that surrounds us.

In effect, I had given mankind and myself a purpose and a meaning - Understanding Everything. What more worthy goal could we possibly set before ourselves ? What more could we possibly aspire to ? Nothing.

As the strain inside me grew, between the role I was blindly walking into (an engineer and a man of the world) and who I wanted to be (an observer and student of all that is) I grew more unhappy and uneasy. I hated the fact that I would die and cease to part of things, I hated the thought of leaving without understanding. I thought about loss, and about suffering, and I grew ever more strained and uncomfortable. I saw no point in the immediate and the transient, and I saw no hope of the eternal and true. I struggled to find a way to reconcile what I considered the only worthy pursuit (lofty science) and the aspirations and worldly matters I was loath to abandon.

I had (and still have) avenues leading both ways, but yesterday, I made my choice. I will be an engineer and a man of this world. I will do everything I intended to do in the confines of the society I come from and I will enjoy myself, learn and life a healthy life with enough time left over for study and contemplation. I will be happy and cease to be bothered by mortality and the pointlessness of humanity in the larger scheme of things. An appreciation of beauty (science), inward contemplation (peace) and the pursuit of worldly happiness seem to be excellent things with which to fill up the time that is given to me.

Intertwined with this immensely relieving reconciliation among the powerful forces that once threatened to pull me asunder, is a new appreciation for the value of individual contemplation. I am willing to grant the possibility that philosophical insight gained through non scientific meditation may have value, though the vast majority of "spiritual seekers" ingest and spout nonsense of the worst kind. I am not talking about insights into the universe, but insight into human life, and what one should make of it. The universe has overwhelmed me enough for me to believe that the vagrant sadhu with an honest and clear mind is just as close to the mysteries that surround us as the brilliant physicist, though they would never agree, and the scientist is far more useful and accessible to me. Beyond a certain point, science ceases to give answers, but illustrates questions with more power and beauty than anything else.

"Why does the universe bother to exist ?" I will probably never know, but on the whole, I'm glad it took the trouble, and last night, I slept peacefully after a long, long time.

I will not Bend

"..they dint just kill some of us, they asked us a question. "Hum tumhein aise hi marte rahenge, tum kya kar loge ?" YES, they asked us a question...."

- A Wednesday

I am not in the country at the moment, but if you know anyone who is doing something, please put it up !

Im following this on tv and Internet. all I can say is, Mumbai is my home in many senses, and I will not bend. When next I am there, I will not hesitate to visit all these places where I have spent so many happy times since I was a baby. I will not let them scare me or introduce doubt in my mind.

I will not bend.

The Cats Eye Nebula

I'm wondering where the passions went
As I ponder the times I spent
Dreaming of whales, planets and you
Walking along beaches,
Thinking things through.

I'm puzzled by my lack of will
To find the path I remember still
Winding through strength, beauty and you
Clambering over mountains,
Not only for the view.

I'm trying to recall the people Ive met
Who helped me build the goals I set
Thinking of glory, eternity and you
Blundering through the darkness,
Trying something new.

I'm marveling over what I meant
When I showed myself how far I went
To touch electrons, light and you
Staring at the stars,
Looking for a clue.

-Yours Truly

A Prayer (of sorts)

I find myself often idle, vagrant, stupid and hollow. This is somewhat appalling and, if I do not discipline myself with diligent care, I shall suffer severely from remorse and the sense of inferiority hereafter. All around me are industrious and would be great, I am indolent and would be insignificant. Avert it, Heaven ! avert it, virtue ! I need excitement.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pride

India launched the Chandrayaan aboard the PSLV-C11 rocket on 22nd October, and even as the craft was nudged carefully into a lunar orbit by controlled firing of its thrusters watched over by the bureaucratic, modest but surprisingly effective scientists at the ISTRAC down in Bangalore, an old gentleman wearing a tweed coat and well into his eighties poured me a liberal portion of liquid nitrogen from a large pressurized gourd shaped container.

He is almost completely bald and spends most of his time reading sheets of results and other arcane papers in a nice airy sunlit corner of the lab. Its a pleasant lab too, one entire side of the large hall is all windows and it reveals a wide vista, encompassing parking lots, the sea, the beach and the famous Old Course. He looks very dignified as he hobbles around the lab - looking at each of our setups in turn making sure things are on track - always with a cheerful expression and a twinkle in his watery blue-green eyes with which he peers at the world. In our first session he gave us an introduction to semiconductor physics (the experiment is to determine the band gap energy of Germanium) and he obviously knew and liked what he was talking about. Along with the typed out instruction sheet he gave us photocopies of a page of handwritten notes which he said "Happened to be lying around". Notes neatly written long ago by an old scientist for his students, he enjoyed giving them to us and explaining from them.

He can barely walk, but he handled the experiment impeccably, he got us the deionized water from a machine all the way across the hall, he poured us liquid Nitrogen, it must have been heavy in the large insulated container and he walked slowly across to each one of us and poured us our portions from a smaller jar. He never once showed discomfort or expected us to help, there was just that about his demeanor that let us know that offers of help would be unwelcome. I don't know his name and I don't know his background. I hope he has had a distinguished career and many peaceful and healthy years. I cannot be sure of any of those things but I do know this - in the evening of his life he is a happy and proud man. In his wavering but cheery voice, in his slow but purposeful walk and in his wrinkled but innocent smile there was something that warmed my heart and makes me proud to have been taught by him.

He did not tell me anything I had not been told before by other teachers - people and books - but the manner in which he ensured we went over all the basics - punctuated by self effacing "as you probably already know.."s, his small voice shaking but never hesitant, his words measured but never dull - made a deep impression on me. He told us about semiconductors as if he were introducing us to old friends, he pried the equations open to reveal elegant and pleasant pictures full of cheerful electrons and fussy bonds, he told us how when an acceptor impurity is introduced into the semiconductor, an electron is trapped by it to complete the lattice and "plays no further part in the proceedings" while a hole is left in the valence band "and conducts merrily away..". He made things interesting and ensured we listened and he wanted us to learn. I admire him for it. I admire him for not giving up, for insisting on teaching and teaching well. Even as his body was tired and worn, his mind seemed to carry with ease the weight of the years and the memories of three quarters of a century.

Pride. It can mean so many things, it can mean having discovered a comet, it can mean having married the boss's daughter, it can mean having reached the moon, but at its most elevating and touching it means doing one's job with dignity and enjoyment in the face of weakness and vulnerability, to think about the mundane nuts and bolts of a lifetime - the remnants of one's karma and dharma - with love and humor and cheer everyday even when facing the last abyss.

Off to Oxford and pondering diffraction

The OxiMUN starts tomorrow and I'm hoping to have a bit of fun and meet some interesting people. Besides that, I have some interesting diffraction phenomena to investigate and explain. When linearly polarised light is incident on a reflective diffraction grating, it does not go onto all orders of diffraction in the same proportions as does unpolarised light. When the linear polarization incident upon the grating is rotated, one can visibly see some orders losing intensity and others gaining intensity. Generally, negative orders go one way (all increase or decrease to various extents) and the positive orders go the other way (again, variable). Its not immediately obvious to me why this should happen, and it'll be interesting to see if I can figure it out Buddha ishtyle. He would appreciate a challenge like this, I'm sure.

Meanwhile, I'm to debate a New Space Treaty at Oxford. I have the vaguest of ideas about what has gone before this, and strong opinions on the subject, which generally makes for an entertaining combination :D lets see how much I can bluff among the best in the country. Well, more or less the best, I think I must be the only person geeky enough to voluntarily opt for the Space Commission !

And I find that my mental abilities have degraded alarmingly in many respects ! I am not as agile as I used to be, and simple calculations and integrals etc which I would not have had to think about at all once upon a time now seem to vex me. This obviously cannot be allowed to continue and so I have already spent lots of money and no time (typical !) on a possible solution - The Art and Craft of Problem Solving by Paul Zeitz. I intend to work through the book and see if my brain can pick up the ropes and go the old Indian rope trick again :P lame.

And on top of all this, I'm supposed to be looking into control systems for a lunar lander and lunar bus even. (Go Frednet !) I have the books, I just need to spend some time and learn some stuff ! and that's what I mean when I say Ive lost the spark and the sheen a bit, the zest for a long tough problem solving and concept crunching session has more or less been evicted from my personality by the mind numbing influence of the Internet, and instead of doing the wonderful stuff I could be doing, I spend time refreshing the same 3-4 pages over and over again for hours.

My thesis is beginning to look up too, I have some nice mask design to do now, and then some modeling and fabrication side by side. The modeling is for some innovative new devices and the fabrication is for an old device I had tried over the summer but it dint really reach a full and satisfactory conclusion. Apart from that there is all the totally fascinating slow-light stuff which I just adoore, and I intend to get into that majorly. Plus there are the awesomely exotic essays I have to do for the Lab course and the "Experimental Quantum Physics at the Limits" course (dont you just love the "At the Limits" part of it ! thats what made me take the course :D )

So all in all, life looks good :)

Untitled Poem. 27-06-2005

Something I wrote a long time ago, as the date indicates. But I thought Id put it up here anyway.

The tides of time rock the isle of the mind.
The world mirrors that interminable sequence.
A welcoming door on an empty street,
The unconscious patter of well shod feet,
Its the most random thoughts that make most sense.

The air is heavy with the smell of rain.
The twilight softens the garish hues.
A cute girl with a smart lad,
The waitress with her note pad,
Its the obvious things that are most abstruse.

The cafe is mellow with the sound of voices.
The music lightens the sombre mood.
Blinking lashes and twinkling eyes,
Stunning truths and prosaic lies,
Its the highbrow things that are shallow and crude.

The curtains are billowing with the freewheeling winds.
The landlady brightens the room with her smile.
Hot coffee in a large mug,
Tired feet on a soft rug,
Its the forgotten heroes who were devoid of guile.

The dull grey skies are darkened by ominous clouds.
The flowers splash colour on old wooden tables.
A haggard face and a meditative sip,
A lovelorn gaze and a quivering lip,
Its the most honest men who are acting out fables.

The cobbled walks beyond the windows are wet.
The smell of fresh bread perfumes the air.
Faded paintings in bulky frames,
Old men playing quiet games,
Its only tired folk who want the world to be fair.

The raindrops carried by the swirling winds are cold.
The slight smile cannot hide the determined chin.
A broken nest by a fallen tree,
A lonely speck on an empty sea,
Its when the storm without is loudest that peace reigns within.

Run !

There was a time when I could run. I could run and not care, I could run and not feel my legs, not feel my body at all, I could run and imagine I was flying. I ran through the countryside simply to remind myself I was alive, I ran in races to feel my heart thumping within me, to taste victory and defeat, to run faster and harder and further, I woke up every morning when I did not need to and ran by myself, I missed parties and trips and movies just so that I did not miss out on running. It was purifying, elevating and liberating.

Years passed and I became careworn and tired, I had faced disappointment and become cynical, I had become unhealthy and unhappy. I worried about victory and was afraid of defeat, I no longer relished the race (any race, for I no longer ran) and its uncertainty and its drama. I was scared of life. I became indolent and fat and bald, I became unfeeling, unthinking and long winded. Gone was the direct and carefree demeanor, I was now timid and obscurantist, needing mindless sophistry and convoluted words to have an identity beyond the obvious lazy heap that I had become. I quizzed and I relished the power of knowing intricate trivia and pitting my wits against fellow obscurantists, I wrote and enjoyed exercising the imaginary power of impotent words. With time on my hands and a world to explore, I became more and more involved with vague fears and complexes and more dependent on verbosity and trivia for my self respect. I had long ago forgotten what freedom meant.

Then - due to what little honesty and steel remained in me - I got a scholarship and came to Europe, I did well, very well. I clenched my teeth and dived into the deep end. I wasted time, I buried myself in TV shows and movies and Causes, but I did enough to do well and hence Im still afloat. I scrambled to keep myself above the dark and corrosive waters of fear and weakness that I have let accumulate around me. I was still enslaved and worse, I was beginning to think this was life. And then St. Andrews with its broad playing fields and open spaces, the vast beach and the North Sea reminded me of freedom.

I must Run and be free. Run despite the wind and the rain and the fear, I must run to tear from my mind the suffocating cobwebs of vague mistrust and cynicism that have enveloped and weakened and stunted it ! I must remember what it was like to walk erect, stride confidently and think boldly, and for that I must run with freedom in my heart and wings on my heels ! :)

To hell with News !

Because this is the sort of news that is dished out even by the BBC - the best of a sickeningly bad lot. What have we come to ? is this really the sort of thing that the public care about or want to read ? Why does making money have to mean that only the most stupid crass, gross and sickening things get printed ? Im through with this. Im done with mass media and conventional ideas of culture and entertainment. It makes me angry and sad. how did things come to this ? bombs, death, fun, murder, sex, lust, consumption consumption and god. I hate the whole lot.

The Opportunity for a New Rennaissance

Image Source BBC

A Soyuz rocket leaves the Bainkour Cosmodrome to take a new crew to the ISS, representing the greatest achievement of our species and all that is good in it. It is symptomatic of a remnant of the pioneering spirit that has led us to the domination of our biosphere and made us the most successful species (in terms of complexity and versatility) that our planet has ever seen. It is no mean achievement, and many times in our past we might have become extinct had it not been for some fortuitous circumstances coupled with our own ingenuity. What has distinguished us from all other species goes beyond what we label "intelligence". It is not merely the capacity to process information and manipulate the environment with our opposable-thumb-equipped appendages, but the desire and the drive to learn and explore and stick our neck out, that has set us apart.

In the past the great expansions of our species and the great migrations (including recent ones like the American conquest of the wild west and the Russian conquest of Siberia and the far east) have been driven by economic factors - a thirst for resources and food, driven by the people at the bottom of the pyramid, who had the least to lose and most to gain from taking risk and braving the dangers of the unknown. The rich might finance the discoveries and administer the empires, but it is always the poor who actually make the land their own and make it productive, and provide the expendable numbers who die and reproduce to push ever further the boundaries of the domain of mankind.

We already dominate the land masses of our planet, and we are fast stripping them bare and the unsustainable nature of our civilization is making itself obvious to even the most obtuse among us. Millions of our fellow men go hungry because we just cant be bothered about feeding them, our civilization has insulated most of us from human suffering and has insidiously sucked us into a vortex of shallow entertainment to the point where we are perpetually bored. This is a result of the complete lack of opportunity for worthy exploration and meaningful risk in our societies today. The only risks we take - in mountains and rivers and jungles - are for our entertainment and pleasure. Perhaps today, even when so many of us have so much leisure and vast resources and knowledge bases at our command, the number of explorers and pioneers as a percentage of the population is at an all time low. And so our kids do drugs and play video games and preach jihad when they should be picking up the skills that will stand by them on some worthy task.

The reasons for this web of interrelated problems lie in the fact that our species is at a crucial point in its history, we are at the base of a great leap, one that we cannot break up into manageable hops and cannot hope to take in the natural course of events - because, the next phase in the expansion of our species must play out in the vastness of space and the depths of the ocean. It is not possible for individuals or small groups to participate in this,without heavy investment from the defining institutions - nation states - of our era. The very nature of the challenges we face is such that they require us to act together as a species rather than as a collection of random individuals, and so far, we have shown ourselves to be quite incapable of doing anything of the sort. We have been vacillating for decades if not centuries, bickering and butchering, we have become soft and feeble minded. The lives of men - and any meaning that might be found in them - are determined by the quality of the ideals and utopias they choose to pursue, and we have spent too much of recent history in the bloody and perfidious pursuit of narrow, contradictory and stunted ideas. Men need worthy challenges and dangers to bring out what is best in them, men need impossible odds and mighty causes to bind them together and it is up to our leaders, who are in the privileged position of being able to allocate the truly vast resources brought together by our civilization to give mankind the chance to galvanize itself, to sally forth into the unknown and conquer and toil and set up new worlds.

The conquest of the oceans and of the solar system will provide inspiration to a disillusioned race, it will revitalize the population, it will provide chances for the risk takers to seek fortune and the the frustrated to redeem themselves, it will be the most splendid stage men will have ever had to cover themselves with glory. It will distract the devout among us from the rantings of priests and save the skeptical from the blatherings of politicians, it will force the greedy to be brave and the offer the bored a chance to be audacious, Men will see vistas and wonders hitherto unimaginable, and that is why we live is it not - to go further, venture deeper, learn more than ever before ! What can be more pointless than stagnation and the pursuit of money and riches without tying it into exploration and knowledge ? what can be more boring than living exactly like our forefathers, seeing only what they have seen (now polluted, and on a computer screen), what can be more sad than young men looking for adventure in computer generated illusions !

It is time mankind dared to live and dream again. It is time we realized, as our faraway ancestors did, that our species and the pursuit of knowledge and the exploration of the unknown are things glorious and magnificent enough to die for. The physical and psychological challenges of space and the deep ocean await us, we must accept them, we must live again !

St. Andrews

The Playing fields of the University

The landscaping along West Sands (beach)

A view of the beach.

Tri-colour :) I am rather fond of this one :)

At least Google has them figured out.

The Scientist

In lonely valleys
along forgotten streams
In solitude and peace
the scientist dreams.

With eternal questions
and wondering eyes
he dreams up celestial catastrophes
and quiet blue skies.

Glimpsing subtly vast infinities
And profoundly delicate forces
With arcane equations
From elementary physics courses.

He ponders equanimously
waltzing galaxies and life on mars
unconcerned by his airy prison,
Splendidly encrusted with glittering stars.

Writers and Poets and Painters
Talk pompously of beauty and art
but in the revelation of the loveliness divine
theirs is a minute and transient part.

In Churches and Mosques and Temples,
Fools dish out answers and lies,
In the minds of the god fearing faithful
Truth withers silently and dies.

Beset with Gods and fears and fairies,
He champions the freedom of thought
In books and classes and bars
Battles for our future are fought.

He asks nothing of his world,
He does not expect life to be fair,
In his humbleness he sees the truth,
Which is that It just does not care.

He has touched the beauty of this realm,
So it does not pain him to see
The Void that lies past the moment
that he stops and ceases to be.

- Yours Faithfully

Kashmir and beyond : Further Thoughts

In my last post (Kashmir : Give them Azadi) the implicit assumption I had made was that the entire Jammy division was predominantly Hindu and would thus stay with India. As the map above indicates (if it is accurate), this is not the case. This changes several things since this means that the section of Jammu that is likely to stay with India unequivocally is not contiguous to Ladakh (in which sector India will not have any problems winning any plebiscite) making the strategic cost of giving all the Muslim parts of Kashmir azadi a lot higher, and making it very very difficult to contain anti-India activities (should there be any, and as I have indicated previously, we must expect the worst) in Himachal, Jammu and Ladakh. Also, this leaves Ladakh very exposed indeed, since it will then be precariously placed between 2 hostile powers, with only one road connecting it to India (the Manali-Leh highway) which is open only 2 months or so in a year. In the case of large scale aggression, the defence of Ladakh will be untenable.

Of course, it is possible that the Muslims of the Jammu division will not want to be part of a new state dominated by the Kashmiri's of the Valley (and such a split was indeed indicated in the participation of Muslims in the recent protests in Jammu). If this is indeed the case, then my analysis of the previous post holds. There is of course a third possibility - we hold on to the whole of Jammu division regardless of how it votes, but that rather defeats the purpose of the whole exercise I think. However, as the map below indicates (IF it is correct), the Muslim parts of Jammu division share a common language and culture with the Valley, so the reports of Muslim participation in the protests in Jammu likely referred to the Indian Muslims living in Jammu the city and surrounding areas.


This does severely restrict the possibilities that India has in terms of granting Independence. I am inclined to view these maps with scepticism however, since they originate from a site that seems Pakistani, and both the maps just might have a certain amount of disinformation built in. (It is however, a fascinating site with lots of geographical information about Kashmir and the surrounding region and detailed survey maps)

The more I read about the tensions and conflicts in our neighborhood and beyond, the more convinced I am that India needs to scale up its military in a significant way, the debilitating shortage of officers in the Army and pilots in the Air Force is shameful, and the Govt. of India must take urgent steps to rectify these circumstances. Also, a blue water navy, AWACS and in Flight Refueling systems to increase the range of our aircraft are necessary if we are to harbor hopes of power projection into the heart of the Eurasian landmass. Kashmir is the closest modern India has ever been to this region, and Indira Col above the Siachen glacier is the magnificent watershed between the Indian Subcontinent and Central Asia. We have spent a lot of blood and money on being there, and handing it to anyone on a platter is hardly an option.

I am thinking in terms of "empire" of course (Arundhati Roy would be very angry indeed), and in many ways that is not helpful, but one has to appreciate the fact that there are places which from time immemorial have been points where races, cultures and peoples (which organize themselves into Empires ) have crashed into each other. Never in history has the Himalaya been straddled by a kingdom, never has the Gangetic plain and Tibetan plateau been part of the same nation. Never has India broken through the Northern wall that isolates us, this is the nearest we have ever come - at Indira Col. Will an Indian force ever control lands on either side of that dramatic, beautiful and immensely powerful geographic laxman rekha ? Not in the forseeable future. But we are making progress - there will soon be a fully functional IAF base in Tajikistan at Ayni,/Farkhor which is 2 km from the Afghan border, not very far from the Wakhan corridor and Pakistan, and if we can maintian good relations with Russia (which is not a given any more, after the fracas about the Admiral Gorshkov and our current affair with America) more can follow.

How many ironies History throws up ! Once upon a time the Wakhan corridor was given to Afghanistan by the British to create a buffer between the ever expanding Russian Empire and Britains Indian possessions. The British fears of a Russian invasion of Afghanistan (which prompted the Brits to fight 2 disastrous wars in Afghanistan themselves) in order to threaten the greatest colonial prize of them all - India - never materialized as long the British were here. When the Soviets (Russians by any other name..) did invade, it was the Americans who were most worried, because they had interests in Iranian oil, so they financed and helped (through Saudi intermediaries - Osama) a Tajik warlord - Ahemed Shah Massoud to make the war too expensive for the Soviets who ultimately withdrew after suffering heavy losses. In this process they used Pakistan (formerly a part of British India) to create and train the Islamic army of brainwashed irregulars, who later went out of control and overran Afghanistan. When America wanted to go after these guys because they were hiding Osama (who after 9/11 was Public enemy No. 1), the Americans turned to - guess who - Ahemed Shah Massoud, relying heavily on Russian(!) and Indian support to equip and train the Northern Alliance of warlords which eventually overthrew the Taliban. Through this, India finally got a foothold in Afghanistan, and opened a military hospital in Farkhor on the Tajik-Afghan border (with blessings from Russia of course). When Al Queida (formed by Massoud's former comrades in arms) managed to attack the Lion of Panjshir, the hero of the war against the Soviets, using a bomb concealed in a camera taken by 2 chaps posing as western journalists, he was rushed to the foreign medical hospital in a former Soviet country and breathed his last tended by Indian doctors.

Central Asia is extremely energy rich (alone reason enough to go there), provides access to immense resources and trade routes, is a reasonable sized market, has vast spaces for Indians to settle on, and is important for our security - if we are in a position strong enough to open a Western front on Pakistan, they will never attack us. However, if India is to have a realistic chance of breaking out of the subcontinent in terms of influence and economic reach we must find a way to stabilize Kashmir and consolidate our military presence there in terms of large, long range, sophisticated airbases and eventually, we must open the ancient trade routes to central Asia, and we can only do this if we are in a position of overwhelming strength which we will never be unless there is Peace in Kashmir. Apart from Kashmir, India needs to settle the fires that rage through it before thinking of exerting its influence overseas. Naxalism and the closely related phenomenon of alienation of poor rural and tribal communities, infrastructure development and a subtle but implacable nationalism achieved through a vigorous and positive campaign to engage and integrate the minorities into the mainstream. Carefuly chosen infrastructure projects and wise investments in heavy industry and careful nurturing of the agricultural sector to preserve social cohesion in rural India are all vital to ensure that India grows out of the "sub" and takes its rightful place on its continent and the world.

Image sources : Blank on the map, Maplandia