We had a Halloween party

A Bengali Halloween party. Also known (for slightly confusing reasons) as Bhoot Chaturdoshi. It was rather awesome.

The awesomeness of the new B-school

The B-school has a new building. I was enjoying an afternoon constitutional the other day when I decided to make a slight detour and take a dekko inside the building. Snazzy. Uber snazzy.

More credit card fees?

Apparently, BoA is planning to impose extra fees on people who pay off their credit card loans before the interest period kicks in.

Thesis writing, Shutki machher jhal

Is a very uphill task. You certainly know of a certain Frodo Baggins who started his dissertation under Gandalf the Grey, a wise tenured PI. That story is detailed here. So, I visited the bigsis at Urbana. Did you know that city is the home of Miss America 2003? There, I have improved your day somewhat with that leetil factoid. Also, I made Shutki Machh with dried fish from the Chinese store. Here are a few facts about Shutki Machh.

1. It is made with dried, salted fish.
   
2. The original recipe is Bangaldeshi.
3. I am part Bangladeshi, at least by lineage.
4. The best prep of Shutki is the low-on-gravy-high-on-chilli version. This is also called the 'Jhal'.
5. Shutki machher jhal is usually mind-shatteringly hot and spicy. As in your insides will melt and your read end might think it is a Kilimov RD33 afterburner.
6. Shutki stinks to high heaven. People of a delicate disposition, and of a genteel upbringing have been known to faint whilst walking past a place where they were just drying out Shutki.
7. The same people will fight each other to eat more Shutki. But they cannot make it.
   
8. Trade secret: soak said dried fish in hot water for a while. That will kill some of the stink.
9. Bigger trade secret: the process of cooking will drive your neighbours out of their shantys (Shutki is rarely cooked in American Suburbia or any random Manhattan co-op).
   
10. Shutki is sometimes made with Loitta fish. Here is a recipe. Here is another.
    

I moved

About a month ago to this new place. Packing up was hard, and I had a very Jerome K Jerome moment. Here is a pic to go with it. The only thing missing is, you guessed it - Montmorency!

Busy... busy..

Tail end of my PhD. Working hard. No time to blog.

This is what happens when you have a pissed of crystallographer

Half a million dollars worth of research down the drain, not to say several the possibilities of several PhDs. This woman has a lot to answer for. Details follow:
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_13108834?nclick_check=1

Reddit on relationships

1. Reddit is full of losers. Read this thread to find out why.
2. I am one of them.

Yes! Prayers can also be outsourced!!

To India, where else?

What meteor shower?

So, I found myself standing out in the parking lot, trying to block out the glare of the halogens with my hands. And then suddenly a meteor streaked by. I legged it upstairs and pulled my camera out. And drove off on Pontiac Trail to find a spot where there would be no pesky ground level lights. And no meteors. None at all. Disappointing. But then, on second thoughts, today meteors, tomorrow Triffids. Perhaps it is better this way.

captcha of the day

10 wildly historically inaccurate movies

(mostly pertinent only to Hollywood)
are here. Observe that our man, Mel Gibson makes it to the list thrice. As SouthPark would have it, it hurts, it hurts!

Lakshya, Dhoom and Dhoom 2.

There are Hindi fillums and there are Hindi fillums. I have often wondered why really good Hindi cinema does not get the attenshun it deserves and why crap floats up to the top and makes so much money. A case in point is Drohkaal, a cinema I have already blogged about. A more recent example is Lakshya, which is based on the 1999 Kargil war.

Briefly, a slacker finds his way into the Indian Army through the proverbial series of unlikely cooincidences. The discipline of the Indian Military Academy proves too much for him to handle and he decides to quit. Except that he just goes AWOL. When he gets back home, he is greeted by (in sequence): relief (his mom), disapproval(his dad) and contempt(his girlfriend). Something inside him goes, quite audibly 'click', and he heads back to the IMA. His CO takes him back, but not before hammering out a very well deserved punishment. They say that the life of a GC (Gentleman Cadet) at the IMA is harsh to the point that after graduating as Second Lieutenants, these young men find life at the LoC(Line of Control in Kashmir) quite relaxing. This is what our protagonist goes through, and after graduating, he is promptly posted to Ladakh (the highest battleground in the world, where the Indian and Paki armies have been facing off for 25 years). His regimental CO is the venerable Amitabh Bachhan who in one of his most masterly understated roles yet, points out to the youngster at the unit welcome dinner that "one billion Indians sleep secure in the knowledge that you and I are awake, and watching over them".

Prophetic words, for shortly afterward, in the spring of 1999, an Indian goatherd spots armed men sneaking across the LoC. Afghan mujahideen, backed by Paki Special Services Group and the Northern Light Infantry had built fortified bunkers on our side of the LoC. The Indian and Paki forward commanders have long had a gentleman's agreement to collectively withdraw from the border in deep winter, a time where both sides lose men to exposure and not bullets. The Pakis, not being gentlemen, decided to use the opportunity over the winter of 1998 to move men and materiel over the LoC. This started the Kargil war, where over 500 Indian officers and men died. The Pakis admit to losing 350 regular Army soldiers. Unofficial estimates put the number of Paki and mujahideen dead at above 3000. Perhaps we shall never know how many people fell in the snow. But what is known and recorded by scribes from the front was the immense bravery of the Indian Army. The Indian officer ethos is summed up in the simple words 'follow me'. The disproportionately high officer casualties suffered in the taking of Tiger Hill and Tololoing came from brave young men leading from the front.

Lakshya means 'goal' or 'objective', and the objective of our hero in the film is an unnamed hill, which is a Paki artillery observation post. Was it Point 5353? It is never mentioned in the film. We share our hero's desperation as he leads his team in an almost sucidal assault up a sheer cliff. Lakshya was a rare film, one that showcased bravery and sacrifice without ever descending to jingoism. And Indian audiences rejected it at the box office.

In return, Bollywood gave us movies like Dhoom and Dhoom 2. Both of which are lame and brain dead. And people loved them. We deserve that shite that is served to us in the name of cinema. Before leaving, check out these clips from Lakshya:
1. IMA graduation
2. The unit welcome
3. The ascent

Drohkaal

The Naxalite movement/revolution/terrorism scourge (take your pick here) has been a major issue in the Indian political stage for several decades. In 1994, Govind Nihilani directed 'Drohkaal', (literally 'The time of revolution'), which is a film about the battle between Naxalites and the police in an unnamed Indian state (Andhra Pradesh..?).

I am not going to delve into the politics of the issue. But the film... dear Gawd. That was brilliant. The way the interrogator, Abhay Singh (Om Puri) sees himself folding to the will of his enemy, Bhadra (played by Aashish Vidyarthi) is nothing less than the best of le Carre. The story hinges around two double agents in Bhadra's terrorist cell. Their controller is DCP Abbas. Then Bhadra is himself taken in a chance encounter at a highway checkpoint. But to the consternation of Abbas and Abhay, Bhadra appears to be pulling strings from inside his cell. Bhadra proves to be totally immune to interrogation, and matters suddenly escalate when he orders a hit on his interrogator's family. Loyalties blur and every other man who wears a khaki uniform could be working for the other side. This is a hauntingly powerful film which does nothing to prevent the feeling of rising hopelessness which we share with Abhay Singh, and to a lesser extent, Abbas (Naseeruddin Shah). A movie to watch and think about.

WTF Iowa?

The world's most pointless city

Is Dubai. This city, not Manhattan or London is the cruel face of unfettered modern greed. But first, a bit of history. Several hundreds of millions of years ago, gigatonnes of zooplankton and algae were buried under a settling sea and underwent endothermic reactions to create what we know as petroleum in that region of the world we call the Middle East. In the last couple of millenia, a band of feckless nomads wandered into that desert and claimed it for their own. Said nomads then spent the next few centuries plundering each other's tents. Early in the twentieth century, that most intrepid and rapacious of all the European colonialists, the British found a use for them. They decided to turn these camel riders into a weapon against what was probably the longest lived Muslim nation ever: the Ottomans. The war ended, and the British left.. well sort of. They came back when they found oil. And that began the greatest historical example of an entire people becoming parasites. It is merely the value of oil, and the epic coincidence of those nomads wandering on this particular piece of soil that makes the Mid East the battleground and the promised land that is is. But for the machinery of extracting oil (not even refining it), there is scarcely an ounce of industry there. By industry, I mean both the noun and the verb...

What passes for society there is a collection of xenophobic and misogynistic laws that some apologists call 'culture'. And wealth. Wealth beyond measure, wealth beyond imagination, but only for a select few. And the former nomads love to show off their wealth. They have constructed the world's most luxurious hotels, indoor skiing ranges in the middle of the desert and countless other temples to greed. Sadly, Universities, research centres, schools of engineering and other such trivialities have been somewhat ignored. Who needs PhDs and patent offices when you can have indoor skiing ranges, right? Just as long as suburban soccer moms keep insisting on driving their Escalades and Explorers to malls, petrodollars will keep flowing, and with it, this bubble of prosperity that Dubai stands on will keep expanding.

The dirty underbelly of this colossal construction business is what happens to the migrant workers who actually build skyscrapers. These people are poor workers from India, China and many other parts of South/South East Asia. They are the subhuman detritus left by the expanding bubble Arab hubris. What keeps them there? Certainly, China and India are not 'forgiving' economies. Making a living in modern India is not easy if you are not a software engineer. But for all our considerable demerits, we have just voted a passably decent government into power and we have the most egalitarian Constitution ever written. In a brief conversation with a Kuwaiti kid who goes to school in the town I live in, certain matters of perception become apparent. He thought I had studied at some posh 'English school', as he put it. When I told him that I went to a government school which charged my folks a pittance (and does not charge girl students anything at all), he was taken aback. My point is that India and Indians, for all that we have going against us, try! Emiratis are perfectly happy to sit on their bloated arses and have essentially slave labour working their streets and Caucasian engineers keeping their power plants running. That is not a sustainable economy, neither is it a sustainable country. And when the bubble collapses, as it inevitably will, this arrogance will be remembered.

Article: Sordid reality behind Dubai's gilded facade

Cambridge

Kalyan and I were hopping around Harvard Square, looking for a suitable pub. It was drizzling with that half-hearted melancholia that I have always associated with North American rain. The hour was half past six, and the summer residents of Cambridge, graduate students and other bums were making their way wearily home. We found this tiny pub which actually had some garden seating. The equally tiny waitress was nice enough to clean up a table for us. We sat back and the pils gradually brought in this blissful feeling of well being. The first three songs played (off the tiny waitress' iPod) were a Metallica, a Queen and an Eminem. This piqued my curiosity. I ambled over to the bar and demanded to know if she had flicked my playlist. We struck up a conversation about the relative merits of Eminem and why Kanye West is awful... and then I felt that abandoning Kalyan to his beer was not nice, so I headed back. Then, the next thing I know, this bloke is at our table and wants to know where I am from. 'Michigan', I reply. 'Michigan? Fuck Michigan!' says he.... to which I raise an interrogative eyebrow. He lets me know that he is from Connecticut, and I should know that people from the Constitution State have issues. (I did not know this for a fact). Anyhoo, our friend (turns out to be a local pastry chef) hands me his iPod in a spirit of cross-broder cameraderie and insists that I listen to Eminem's latest album, which, I have to confess is not that good.

Just another reason why I like Cambridge. Oh, and that tiny waitress with tha rad playlist is Nepali. Practically Indian, except for a few mountains.

Cussin' takes the pain away

I fuckin' knew it. Now the BBC has backed me up.

Economic reality and the decline of machismo

One of my friends posted this article on FB today, which I think you should give a read. The main thrust is that the declining economics of today will herald an age where traditional 'manual labour' jobs will decline drastically, leading to massive societal upheaval. The model of the male breadwinner is going, fast. Will this lead to better equality for the genders? Or will this create a backlash which will only worsen things where they are already bad. Read on.

What happens to a society where the gender balance is disturbed? Some of those questions are addressed here, and here. India is particularly vulnerable to this. The gender ratio is 0.97 (ie. 970 females for 1000 males), which is disturbingly low. Further, India is split by a gender divide, where the Northern states have a shockingly low ratio of females to men. This does not correlate to education or prosperity, as some of our most prosperous states, such as Punjab and Gujrat are the worst offenders. But the implications are scary. Female abortions are the norm in modern India where a male child will bring 'happiness' to the family. We are heading for massive trouble.

Awesome women, chapter 1: Hedy Lamarr

This should become a recurring post.. about the most awesome wimmen who have ever lived. Yeah, the list is long and will have everyone from Enid Blyton to Rani Laxmibai to Marie Curie. But lets start off with Hedy Lamarr, possibly the only person ever to be described as a scientist-actress. Hedy was an actress who was not afraid to take up risque roles, very daring for someone of her Jewish Austro-Hungarian lineage. And then she co-invented the first form of frequency hopping, which was intended for homing torpedos, and is today seen in in most forms of radar guided interceptors. Pretty awesome, nein? Here, look at some pictures of her.

Need band members

We are looking for a couple of guitarists and a percussionist. The band is a spectroscopy themed band. Experience in spin physics is required. We welcome solution and solid state spectroscopists with open arms. Ability to write NMR themed songs is a plus. A few possible names for the band are below. Please contribute suggestions:

1. The Hard Pulse
2. The Hartmann Hahn Condition
3. Fermi's Golden rule
   

Drones for the PAF?

Such a bad idea!

UNIX, beer and photography

This last week has been lots of work. As, I have to do, if I am to publish, defend my thesis and graduate before the big crunch. But what if UM becomes creative and gives me more than just a PhD? Yes! Abstruse goose has the answer!!

In the middle of all this work, I have pretty much missed out on the summer festival. Such a phookin' loser. But, I legged it out late yesterday and found an old friend, who has moved on to awesomer things (a real job, a family, etc). So happy for him! And then Smith and Ronnie toddled along, and the evening was spent in some low light photography, the pursuit of beer and knowledge. Allow me to explain the last bit: Smith and I decided to ask people around us if they used UNIX. We got asked if we were engineers. (no). The most hilarious answer was from this huge heavily tattoed bloke... "UNICKS? What's that? I just like pu*sy"

Things to do at your thesis defense

This is the first of what will hopefully turn into a series and bring me the kind of fame which has so far eluded me, in spite of me being a fifty feet tall firebreathing dragon with an elven blade in my right hand, and a Shigemi tube in my left hand. Wearing RayBans. And a three wolf moon tee-shirt.

Anyhoo, the list follows: please add to it as you see fit.

1. Begin every third sentence with the phrase 'according to the prophecy'
2. Respond to questions with a full throated 'you want the truth? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!'
3. Rap out the thesis defence
4. Liberal use of jazz hands
5. Employ a mariachi band to provide accompaniment to the more intricate points of string theory/hard condensed matter/large protein studies
6. Invite Robert De Niro as your 'special friend'. Failing that, Jack Nicholson. NOT EDWARD NORTON. NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
7. Spike the coffee
8. Have a friend dressed in a dark suit sitting near the back of the room taking down the names of people who come to the defense. Start a rumour that he is from Homeland Security/MI5/IB/BfH/Mossad/FSB/whichever security-intelligence agency calls the shots in your part of the world
9. Reward your thesis committee members with candy for asking particularly tough questions
10. Ask Jon Stewart to introduce you