Employ-ability of the spirit….and the spirit of Science…

Employ-ability of the spirit….and the spirit of Science…

Speaking my mind about as arcane an idea as “employability” is a difficult task. In what and how many ways can one employ oneself?

And if one does so gainfully while pleasing his spiritual quests it’s an outstanding way of employment.

The more or less unconnected ways are the ones that satisfy one’s needs. The second kind of employment is available in multitude of ways but when you break them down they reduce to just a few.

At the level of needs there are infinite numbers of needs but at the level of consumers it’s a few type defined by the unity of pattern of consumption.

But if you look a little more closely with the first kind the list of opportunities are boundless and the employability can be gainful. Gainful employment that can be pleasing to our spirits.

Isn’t scientific pursuits a bit like that? It’s gainful as long as its pleasing, to our spirits, and as long as we pursue our quests to know. The motto seems to be “Aspire to know and perspire to share...”

The scope of employability with something as arcane as spirit is therefore infinite. It’s not only science, one may argue, which so adheres to a holistic principle of self although in the case of Science it leads to a discovery of self because of its uncanny nature.

One may argue any branch of human pursuit as aesthetic as the arts or music or even writing about folklore can be a spiritually pleasing exercise. This can be gainful and passes the litmus tests of employability.

I do not have any reason whatsoever to deny that. But in retrospect something as aesthetic as the arts or the music or writing about folklores takes away human effort in terms of focus and practice and gives in terms of the art or music-works which is readily perceptible by the common person.

It can be argued that the arts and music and so on are varied and not necessarily perceptible by all alike. True, to the extent sometimes, as esoteric a pursuit as throat music isn’t quite alluring to everyone alike, nor is a big fan-following seen towards the cultural overtures of Mayan aboriginals.

Science on the other hand isn’t quite like that. Its beauty isn’t quite expressed or appreciated like the beauty of a flower or the beauty of a scenic valley. You or I or anyone can’t just open up his eyes widely to appreciate the beauty of science.

It’s not a beauty of emotion. It’s not a beauty of feelings or thoughts. It’s a beauty of vision. A vision which is not necessarily optical or illusive. It’s a vision which is spontaneous and uncanny and spiritual.

Did I say it right? Yes, spiritual. The beauty of science has a connection with spiritual joy. This beauty of science is visible when one truly learns to appreciate the joy of spiritual enchantment.

This joy is like devouring the sweetness of honey and smelling the aroma of a flower. The visual joy of a flower is as captivating as the sensual joy of aroma. Science has made it possible to preserve that aroma in a timeless journey of “culture du jour”.

The spiritual attires of science are often a refined fabric. It can come from the uncanny beauty of feathers of a peacock to the rugged roughness of the “Rudrakshya”. But it has to provide a beauty, wearable by only a few.

While such attires belong to the common place it has a rugged beauty and spirit that often reminds us of the spirit of science. Science is often a great deal of exploration and exploration is often the “el paisaje accidentado”.

Is failure of technology demise of Science?

Is failure of technology demise of Science?

Before I answer that I would like to take some precaution and quell any doubt in anyone’s mind that there is a very unique connection between Science and Technology, apart from the immensely complex nature of Science and the gigantic complexity of Technology, there are a few basic perceptions that I had tried to pen down in an earlier blog. [See “What is Science?”, 20 march 2009]

From an academic point of view or rather a puritan’s pristine view of science, technology is often seen out of the precinct of science because of how technology caters to the immediate needs of a consumer society and how science is often badly understood by even a consumer community that is educated and supports its day to day chores via the ever changing technology inventions.

To quote the famed theoretical physicist Julian Schwinger “Like the silicon chips of more recent years, the Feynman diagram was bringing computation to the masses.” This could be a statement that characterizes another facet of science-technology relationship.

The silicon chips, the computation and the direct linkage of its usability to the consumer community are comparable to the “science in action” of the time. This only surmises the fact that science in the hands of its most masterful architects resembles technology itself, in its output.

Technology can be denied, science can not be denied because it’s always in the making and only in an outstanding or remarkable scenario where a genius like Feynman is concerned science in making can give a quicker lead to technology in use.

Apart from that abstract understanding, to make myself avoid the pain of being incorrect, Feynman was a great Scientist and not necessarily took part in active technology-fication at-least in his days of scientific inventions. Later when his ideas became widely acceptable and usable did he have the opportunity and option to venture into his technology dreams. I can still be wrong and in my mild defense I am not a historian.

So now I have given enough of perspective to link science and technology in a way that does confirm to widely believed notions. I can safely start to relieve my thoughts on the demise of science that is to be or not to be in the event of a failure of technology.

Before that what would it mean to say technology has failed? Because with every need the necessity mother bears an invention child. Well sometimes the child birth can be delayed inadvertently and sometimes the child is of no use for a particular purpose, the child can be too autistic, to procrastinate on my analogies. [Despite of its own beauty, to be appreciated]

To surmise this by an example, you are in Alaska and for whatever reason, say, too strong an aura interfering with the electro-magnetic communication system of your communication device no matter how advance it is, you are out of communication with the rest of the world. You are in a group of ten, all folks the best in their expertise domain, technology, science, computing, mobile communication, you name it. But you can’t fix the problem.

That is by definition a technology failure, because in hindsight you could not have resorted to any kind of technology invented so far that would come to your use. You are transmitting all useful data over to a remote site that is processing these important events and suddenly a “blackout”.

Well if you are smart you note, “No, this is not demise because we can always store the data offline, take it back with ourselves and re-use it”. But “what-if!” we need to, for some unspecified purpose; transmit data on-the-line as we receive it, for some cross-check of an event at a remote site that needs to be done as soon as we have it? We are in trouble; the smart fellow can say, well we are handicapped, not demised. How handicapped do we need to be to feel demised? That’s another route I must take in to to make sense.

So technology can handicap science. There is an inherent traditionalism or say conservatism about technology. Without this conservatism technology can’t be effective, its marketability will be swallowing and its gregariousness can be questioned to the extent of science itself. [How friendly is science??]

The gregariousness of science is often questioned because of the lack of an air of conservatism in it. Famous scientists were greatly accepted only when they showed their conservative sides. They were greatly celebrated only after they showed their religious side and to some degree the accommodation of the central figure in religions, God.

They struggled throughout their life in dealing with their own notion of God and adhered to a silent “E pur se muove” [it still moves]. They did not become a tyrant to their own belief they just showed a great deal of restraint in accommodating the world’s belief, lest they suffer a Maxwellian suicide.

[or Boltzman was that? You see there is an inherent danger to the way coupled or three-some scientists can face in how they are perceived. Its Maxwell that was depressed or Boltzman? Even if you know the right answer if you are aware of Maxwell-Boltzman association for example the M-B statistics, there is a chance you may be confused, like I am]

While science is often, as I said earlier in this article, “always in the making” Technology, to be usable by the mass, the scientific community included, is well prepared, at-least functionally. The other facets or other loose-ends are filled by marketability, social or consumer needs and so on.

This well-preparedness in itself is a diversion from the “making of science” and therefore takes us away from the goals of science. But despite of the diversions the usefulness of technology lie in the fact that it enhances efficiency, facilitates communication, makes science attractive to the lesser concerned about the beauty of science, makes science as prepared as technology, although that signifies an incomplete output.

But science will always be incomplete notwithstanding the hypes of the like of unification or theory of everything. The latter has to be defined to a precinct of confined meaning or else their conclusion will be illusive and as incomplete as their predecessors if not more.

The preparedness and completeness of technology is a cursory knowledge in that direction. The reasoning is: when science depends so much on technology and technology is forthright only when its well prepared, complete and conservative [meaning fulfilling the needs of the consumers] and while science is riddled with open ends, questions, incompleteness, doubts, uncertainties about its own character and future, and they both depend on each other how can we predict our universe with a theory of everything and unification unless they have a conservative meaning itself?? [Conservative: well defined, specified and limited in its scope]

While Technology makes a brilliant case for science it warns us about or forestalls the limitedness of science itself. Science is an ideal human goal, tremendously successful. So is technology itself. But technology respects the bounds of human limitedness. Science has to be seen in that prospect.

Thank you.

Perception and Personality [related to earlier post of "personality"]

Perception.

OK, while trying to hit my nail on personality, I came across interesting and articulate remarks from two folks. One I just made a friendship with and the other possibly a decade long friend [the old Harper]. So they both have their say on my small article on personality and one thing that they throw at me is how perception can influence one's personality. With the example of how a shy person comes forth as an arrogant person and how this is quite commonly held together as reflection of the same inward nature but is quite differently perceived.

So here I will take another shot at pondering over my notions of “perception”.

What is perception?

Perception is again like the matter of personality a subjective one. Your perception of the hardness of an object is different from John’s and John’s perception of a good player is different from the perception of his father’s.

John’s father argues that one who makes quite a lot of tricky movement so as to get the desired result on the ball game is a good player while John swears by the inherent way in which Mr Xenon lofts or swings the ball.

These two folks represent the goodness of the player in different languages but it’s the same thing [trick or natural foot play?] They have different perception of the same physical way the ball is played by the player.

Now coming to hardness while this is not very commonly defined parameter of a large number of objects an obvious argument ensues between John and you.

John finds the hardness of the ball a bit more harsh on his foot and takes a little caution by removing some air. You on the other hand find it perfectly fine. So this is our perception of something which is quite concrete by its own nature, the hardness of an object.

The “goodness” of the player is again a matter of experience and taste and very importantly visual imagination. Its an optical perception if you can in some way equate the other parameters of John and his father.

So perceptions about an object or an optical scene connected with human experience are just two examples where we can form “commonly” held perception [with unequal perception outcomes] There are a myriad different types of “variable” therefore that can be attributed to a notion of perception that can be formed in a human mind.

variable: e.g. hardness, goodness of a player, personality, characteristics.

How then one defines such a notion for something as abstract as personality?

Personality can not defined as hardness can be defined but its somehow connected with another variable, the “goodness” of a player because it is about inner nature of a person or an animal and is abstract in nature.

Personality of a person is quite a significant variable therefore that forms a perception in the mind of the observer much differently than another observer's.

If we therefore talk about perception it offers quite a multitude of perception parameters for understanding the personality of one person [sample person as opposed to an observer person]

The nature of truth is such [in the terminology of scientific understanding] that the nature or personality of a person has to be an invariant, that is, irrespective of the observer’s state or inclination or quality of forming a perception itself.

Once we understand both, the definition of personality [or more aptly inward nature] and the "process of perception" of what we see or envisage there is a readily available conclusion about someone's personality. I think we can direct our understanding in this way for some interesting look/light on the subject of personality.

To respond to some remarks:

Now on to the image of self, image of projection and image we hold of some one else’s self. Lets try to look at these three parameters from the point of view of the above discussion.

Eureka !! Now it sounds like the first and the last one [image of self and image someone forms of some one else's self] are what I call the view of the observer even if the personality of the same person is in question. We have two observers here for the same variable, therefore two images. The second one [image of projection] is a perception of a multitude of observers since its open to anyone for observation, that is its about general understanding.

Addendum: summary of some main points of the analysis, from Sanjay, quite brilliant understanding.

Perception is the interpretation of observer through their own experience and knowledge that may not project same personality for each observer (non-unique).

Personality is the reaction to perception of other. How we choose to react to different observation of others or occurrence in general defines our personality. This reaction also defines our projection (Nico's second point).

A poem I wrote [in English]

Passion.

Am I the only dinosaur living of my time?
Or I am an archaeopteryx ?

Am I a lion or a pumpkin -head?
Am I a buffoon or a funny alien?

Am I an eccentric musician singing lores of love songs or a wind of hope?
Am I a breeze of ecstasy or a smoke of clove?

I promised my papa I won't smoke pot again
My mama calls me at midnight and asks me if I had had my dinner.

My friends call me yet ask me not how I am doing? Cos I am the one who showed them a way out of adversity.

I am no Ruskin Bond or Mark Twain, but sure they would have liked to sip a little wine or boast about the favorite beer they had.

Am I a Professor who likes to keep you on your toes? or a student who wants to learn it all again?

Am I an experimentalist who has forgotten the trade after the great depression or the theorist who nobody listens to?

Am I the whiz kid in the class who cracked jokes on everybody or the class clown who didn't mind spanking his own butt?

Am I the traveller who made it a point to take the wrong exit to discover the wild or the unsuspected nomad to taste on the country cooked potato?

Am I the maverick who made friendship with the theater girls or the wanna be drummer of the exotic music ?

Am I the day dreamer who popped a dozen ideas in the group of ships or a silent passenger in the crowd?

Am I the scholar who woke at 4' in the morning to take a day off into the paddy field and a "before the breakfast call on the restaurant" ?

Am I the student who took it all in the name of good or the loafer who made fun of everyone unsparingly?

Am I the lover who felt with his head while calculating the bill he has to pay ?
Am I the sadistic who took pleasure at everyone's helplessness or am I the loner who needed a pat on his back for being so different?

Am I the one who has done it all or the one who doesn't understand why things happen the way they do?

I have done it all , all in the name of passion cos thats one thing I never begged from anyone.

What is personality?

What is personality !!
[1.30 pm, IUCAA guest house, waiting for lunch,
probably a friend will call any minute now]

I am trying to hit a nail on something which is quite subjective. And its much wider than any one can emancipate just by himself. But its much like trying to describe the taste of coffee. I agree [and can not disagree] that there could be a very generally acceptable notion about how coffee tastes and there are almost cult following towards coffee taste and habits.

But such is also the case of the subject of personality. The epistemological description and study of personal types belong much to the subject of psychology and its customary descriptions vary so widely given to its "marketability" that trying to get a generally acceptable way of understanding such an interesting idea is a time taking venture. I am therefore just trying to gather my ideas into a crude form without much or rather zero recourse to psychological concepts.

Here is what I find a suitable notion of what personality defines. A personality is a very powerful expression of someone's subconscious behavior towards the world such as to get appropriate response from the world to lead oneself towards an understanding by the world.

Again the notion in its entirety is subjective, as one can take the clue, if one were to peep a little harder and say: "well everyone doesn't quite expect the world to develop an understanding in a person, probably such folks belong to a specified category". But in such a definition there also is an essence of a definition for what personality is. Its the outward visibility of a person irrespective of that persons knowledge about such an outward expression.

Having defined such a notion, at-least for the sake of what my understanding of personality is all about, I am trying to tell you something more. Why is it that all living beings have a personality not just the human beings. Well, definitely not the plants, at-least so much which I can envisage.

A tiger as a representation of a particular species signifies one type of personality behavior. Aan individual tiger could be mild or laid back in its approach while another individual tiger could be much contrasting to the former, but as a whole their personality could be different from the personality of the man kind.

[1.45: Lunch break]

Well, so all living beings except perhaps the plants do have a personality? In some its quite visible and in others its not.

Another idea that come to me is that a person has his personality quite laid into his making right from the time that person was a kid. Possibly its just one part of the personality, which we can say, is the persons nature and we can categorize his responses to the world as his visible personality. But I [or one] would like to see all that summed up as a truer representation of ones personality.

A personality is much immensely complex than my naive ideas crudely summed up here, but one way the psychologists try to represent it is through careful analysis of many kind of personalities and their characteristic traits and then try to make a list of personality traits and associate some kind of tests to their way of such descriptions by some kind of empirical observations such as a specific type of questionnaire.

I believe such questionnaires are but a very short and limited way of describing personalities. Otherwise the psychologists would be the ones to completely predict human behavior from their "unattractive" system of description of human behavior. Human behavior changes with every other thought and possibly the psychologists are the least aware of human thoughts in its complete variation.

How did I spend the last week !

2 July 2010, Astrophysics Institute Guest house, Pune University, 1:45 am.

When I try to write stuff like that I usually procrastinate. I try to think what I did the last month, the last year, the last time I was hit by a car or even what happened in my last life, its reality notwithstanding. I realize that I can't get a Professors job with such procrastination and intrusion into my own past because in someway that's become another persons past.

We don't only die biological deaths we also often undergo spiritual death. In such a scenario its therefore a prudent step to think that you have had a "death": coming to you from the immense complexity of the world we live in.

So here is a 3 cheers for the qualification I have for becoming a Professor because I am going to write last weeks trials and tribulations, its immediate connectivity to the past week to that and the coming week which anyway I haven't lived, may be I will be a new person and lose my qualifications in doing that.

Yesterday, I arrived in Pune by a shuttle from Mumbai via the Mumbai-Pune express high way, after the New York like crowd of Mumbai from the Ville Parle area beginning right after the ending of the airport. The Volvo AC did arrive in time if we can excuse a 30 minutes delay given that India does not behave the same way New York or Tokyo would behave, Mumbai notwithstanding because it doesn't make business sense to lose real tourers of the Indian terrain.

Talking about Indian tourers, a young lady that traveled from Mumbai to Pune by herself, that seemed to me like a lifestyle trip rather than one of urgent commute of a frequent flier like me boarded the bus. And I did enjoy the busy crowd, enjoyed the cleanliness of a "restroom" right across the high-way [I have a story to share about the proclivity to call such places a rest room and what kind of danger that one may be led to in India, towards where it would belong in this write-up. ]

The restroom charged me just one INR, was clean to the standard of the international community, don't ask me to elaborate. And that, to the added bonus of not worrying about the valuables I left in the tour operators office, which is a 3 m X 3m cabin opening right to the pavement besides the highway.

I had for the first time experienced how far Mumbai can extend when the Mumbai highway gradually gave in to the Mumbai-Pune express highway. I did take some pictures but realized my camera is out of battery, what a lack of preparation, but I was definitely not going into the pain of uploading all these pictures to the cyber-space community, hence I desisted from calling myself a sloppy insensitive travel tyrant.

And in the same spirit I enjoyed next 3 hours of drive in the beautifully created express highway. It can only match to the best in the world and never in between I saw an area that would be deserted from city-scape. such a large patch of terrain is all well-developed in the standard of the world which only reminded me of my numerous Road travels in the United States of America. I am being formal here about the name of that country because I am too tired of calling it names or looking for a non-existent jargon.

The shuttle stopped in its designated rest area developed by the same company that runs the bus. so my secret desires for the bus to stop at a few McDonald exits that existed along the path was a shocker. I did not have anything to complaint though. I purchased a Chinese noodles [Trying not to mention the name here, Shinzuan or something !]

Worried by the prospect of next commuting means I was waiting to get to the Inter University Center of Astrophysics and Astronomy. Fortunately enough the shuttle had a choice of stopping at a place quite near to where my destination would be. Right by then a young fella boarded the shuttle and chose to sat near me.

I was sitting at the front and this was in exchange for my sit which was carefully chosen in the 30% from the front, to the right, to the window. My sit of choice was in the back therefore, but two ladies [seemingly a mother-daughter combination, I am not to forget, my Indian eyes] were occupying that.

I politely asked if they can have me sit in their place, I would be kind enough to have them sit in mine. The old lady said they don't know if they have a reservation against the sit number so I retorted that would be a bit risky for me as someone else whose sit I would be occupying may wanna replace me. So she pulls out her ticket and I saw A,B written on it so I happily moved to A.

My original sit was M. So now this guy that boarded chose to sit in B. After a while we got talking and I found out about him. He was an employee in one of the big names in Indian software industry and said he has been living in Pune for the last 4 years. Later he offered me his mobile number and said I could call him in case of any help I may need since he has been quite somebody here. I found out that in this 4 years of earning he has bought for himself a nice apartment as well as a nice car.

He wanted to know about me and I told him that I am a scientist. He became very glad to have met one. He asked me what exactly I am doing and where I am working etc. So I told him that I am visiting the astrophysics institute by a prior arrangement to learn something about their research activities such as the gravitational wave detection. I explained him later exactly how.

I told that I am visiting a place here and a place there and for the first time India is having its big experiments in Particle Physics and I am going to take up responsibilities in this experiment. He wanted to know what kind of research I do and it turned out that he was quite capable in understanding what exactly I was doing. I explained him all the technical detail of my previous experiment.

He understood it more clearly when I explained him about the Large Hadron Collider machine in Geneva. He wanted to know the details about neutrinos, what they are and why we want to measure them. So in the half an hour chat we had, I gave him a totally succinct description about what its all about.

He got off at Wakhad and I waited for my bus to reach Aundh. I kept on reminding the care-taker of the shuttle to inform me at Aundh and that I have stuff in the storage in the shuttle. I just wanted to make sure in my mind not to lose my stuff because as soon as I get off, the bus starts moving. Happens yaar.

I got off at Aundh. The friend I met in the bus told me it would be better to take an auto-rickshaw instead of a cab, as the distance is not quite far. He informed me though, that the auto might charge me 2 or 3 times more than usual, because its late.

It was midnight, the folks got hold of me no sooner than I pressed my foot in the ground. They were asking for Rs 150 for the auto. I started from Rs 120 and we settled at Rs 140. We reached the campus of Pune University in 20/25 minutes. The guards that were standing there were closing the gate and said so.

I said "I am a scientist, [OK]" [he probably thought I am a young hook] and he was quick enough to allow me to go in. The young chap that was sitting besides me to help the driver of the Auto wanted to know "What a scientist is" so I said something that I quite don't remember, you know, like a kinky laugh or something. So they wanted to know what salary I draw etc. I said the salary is not high but we get to live in kinky apartments.

[read swashbuckling or something. well if that doesn't make sense read a reasonably well maintained housing which is not in the reach of the average guy].

So we cruised through the dark campus of Pune University, without any respect for the wavy speed-breakers. I was a little worried about the laptops I was carrying in my bag, but it was alright.

Fortunately enough when I reached the Aundh stop the auto-driver guy recognized the place called AyuKa [IUCAA]. Astrophysics Institute was a shocker. [My jargons don't always work so I usually keep 3/4 words handy] Now our job was to locate the guest house. We pulled in-front of a place yelling Guest House.

It was pouring a little by now and not very well lit inside the campus. I asked them to wait for me outside [with all my stuff in the auto] and walked inside, a minutes walk from the entrance of the guest house. I didn't see anybody at the reception and made a few strolls inside. Somebody came down the stairs and was helpful in resolving the situation.

He thought the receptionist should be here by now although didn't doubt about the efficacy of the system of the guest house. [poorly managed is the word he used, pretty nice chap, in trying to find a way out] The guard that was there was pretty dumb-witted as it was clear.

Anyway after a while another chap came in and said he is from the Nagpur University, this is probably not the place we are looking for, that is, this is not AyuKa guest house. So he advised me to get my stuff and somehow I can be arranged to stay put till the morning. But now that I was sure this is not the place I left the place and asked the auto-wala to hang on till we find the right place.

I asked him to drive a little slow so we can read carefully. The place indeed said "SET guest house" The next place in que for a check was the Vice Chancellor's lodge. We pulled in there. The guard in-front said that that's not the place we are looking for. So we kept on through a street which was closed by a barricade. We passed through that place and continued.

It was anyway looking like a very deserted place and quite dark. The iron gate that was closing the few houses there was closed and we saw a guy leaving in his bicycle. We yelled at him, he responded but didn't return. We yelled again. The guard that was manning the area came towards us and gave us the direction to the IUCAA guest house.

So the driver/auto-wala pulled his auto again, but had a problem in starting the auto. The chap that was sitting helped him and we were on our way again. We stopped right in front of the IUCAA institute. The guard manning there came and said this is the place. I went inside the place and found from the well-maintained guest-house that I have a reservation. A chap sitting there accompanied me back to the auto and carried my heavy stuff back to the guest house. I was relieved to carry only the lighter ones.

The auto-wala asked me to pay him Rs 200. I said "What do you think we earn? You think Rs 200 is a joke? I wanted to pay you only Rs 120 because its late, your charge is only Rs 60. Now that we had to make a little effort you want Rs200. Didn't you say you knew IUCAA??" He grinned a little saying something like "empty empty" [his way of saying "khali pili ka"].

I knew I did the right payment. The guest room is a pretty well maintained place and finally I was relieved at the end of the trip.

Now think of the answer I am getting at "what did I do the last week?" You think I am losing my qualification for the Professorship? I am not finished yet.

So here is what I did before I flew to Mumbai from Bhubaneswar, a 2 hrs air-journey, from where I took a 4.5 hrs shuttle trip and another hour auto-trip. I took a cab to reach Bhubaneswar from my home. And I had arrived my home just a couple days ago, back from Bhubaneswar, by a 2 hrs drive. My brothers gave me that ride as a welcome I often demand from my family. I flew from Mumbai to Bhubaneswar via Hyderabad, which this time was a 4 hrs air-journey given that it makes a stop at Hyderabad but you don't need to change the plane.

[The plane makes a loop. It flies from Delhi, goes to Mumbai, goes to Hyderabad, goes to Bhubaneswar and then goes back to Delhi]

Its not easy going back in time, is it? I had arrived in Mumbai only 4 days ago, via Hyderabad from Bhubaneswar where I had reached by driving myself. In Mumbai where I again lived in the guest house because I had arrangements to learn about a possible position with the Texas University, College Station and Tata Institute, Mumbai. This was a pleasant stay.

As purposeful as it was, it was a good memory as well. I learned about the research activity of the whole group that I was possibly going to work with. From graduate students to Scientists to Engineers who have built important components of the experiment and people I know from the last decade, I met them all. I executed the official purpose with several rounds of discussion. This was a place I was visiting for the 3rd time so I didn't really have a problem getting acquainted. Apart from the busy schedule I had I did throw myself to the guest room which had all the favorite TV shows I hoped to see. I did have nice meals in the cafeteria and canteens.

My friends visited me after a span of 10 years and even 15 years who are leading well established professional life. I made important friends who made my stay very pleasant, took me around Mumbai. I had a wonderful drinking and eat outs experience, in restaurants around the city, Suruchi, Shalimar [Try the Lolly-pop chicken fries] and Gokul. [I did smoke a bit] Apart from that I purchased beer from Antiquity in Malbar Hills to drink the night before my trip.

What did I do before that?

Also I promised you another story at the beginning of this blog.

Why you should not use the word rest-room in Indian airports:

well when I was flying from Mumbai to Bhubaneswar the last week, via hyderabad, at the Mumbai airport upon my arrival, after a 1.5 hrs commute from where I was staying in Tata Institute, I arrived at the airline counters. I was looking for rest-rooms.

So I asked one of the crew/staff/folks who move around so you can ask them for information, "where is the rest room??". He said for that you have to go upstairs. Have your luggage checked in. I said can't I take in the luggage to the rest-room?? He said "No you are not allowed". So I said, "OK, I have very small cabin bags and not much heavy luggage, what if someone is carrying heavy luggage, he has to go the rest-room only after checking everything in?"

Clearly thinking what a bizarre situation [or compelling?] that would be, if you know what I mean, if you know what I mean by a rest-room and why we need one. So I tried to preach him "Bad, Very bad, Very very bad" added to emphasize. He just didn't know what to say and left.

I took left to take the stairs and see the ladies toilets [rest-rooms] where you can clearly take your luggage. Why then, is a gaint's toilet up the stairs. So I reached upstairs and there is this very well-maintained clean place looking like a restaurant or something. So I asked another crew where are the rest room? She pointed me inside this beautiful place. I grew more suspicious and went in.

I again asked where are the restrooms, well go in and take left. I did what I was looking to do. And came back and enjoyed the very well maintained restaurant-lounge. After a while I realized this was the Jet-Airways Lounge and then I knew why the original crew told me why I should first check-in my bags before I go to the rest-room.

God, do you have a story like this? I arrived my intended destination because my mind worked in time.