A Rapid Update and (Equally Rapid) Comments…

There has been a flurry of activities… I barely find the time to list them here…

1. I have conducted a 7-day course on FEM for a group of about 20-25 working engineers. The trainees were a mix of both highly experienced engineers (with 2 to 3 decades of work experience) and 4–5 IIT trained MTechs. All of them came from a couple of government organizations active in civil engineering design and research.  The course, though nominally meant for 7 days, actually ran into almost 10 calender days. It was a big success. … In conducting this course, a very senior faculty-member from IIT Bombay had also very graciously joined me for a couple of days. (I esp. appreciated it because, these days, normally speaking, I find IIT Bombay hateworthy—for a very good set of reasons.) The course happened in end-May—early June. More on it all, later…

Both these organizations were government organizations. I am still looking to receive my paycheck. However, being government organizations, it is guaranteed, in a way, that the check will certainly arrive some day… (How I wish the organizations were not being run by the government!)

2. About my earlier undergraduate course on FEM at COEP. I finished teaching it. And, also grading the students for their performance… There are times when one wishes god existed so that he could be on one’s side in performing tasks like these—I mean, grading… In the end, one makes as best choices as possible, though!

This course, too, was a wonderful experience for me, and, if informal student reactions is anything to go by, it too was a great success.

The students themselves took a lot of interest… There was a query, rather, a couple of them, right at the beginning of the course, which had caught me not just “unprepared” but actually “ignorant.” … Somehow, I had always associated the word “ignorance” with the word “disease” (not to mention “darkness” etc.)… Little did I know that the same word could be associated, in a way, with “joy,” too!

Anyway, despite such brilliant querries, I had enough of a “teacher” in me to sail smoothly through the course… More on those queries and all, later. (I will surely share them, but later on… You know, this is supposed to be a real *rapid* update.)

3.  More serious. All concerning Congress (I) and Times of India… (If you know me, you expect this off me.)

Kapil Sibbal, my favorite debater on TV (and if I let my emotions interfere, more favorite than his enemy Arun Jaitley), has recently become HRD Cabinet minister. Our PM ManMohan Singh, the Cambridge graduate, has a way of learning, albeit late—he should have removed Arjun Singh long time back.

Immediately after assuming his charge, Kapil has done something about 10th standard examinations. … Now, I do have a lot to say against exams and ranks; e.g., see my informal writing on my Web site (and also the earlier entries on this blogs)… Yet, this decision left me, say, wondering.

BTW, why don’t I see a single article from Ramchandra Guha (of Bangalore) or Prof. Dipankar Gupta (of JNU) on this topic—whether the 10th board examinations are to be outright canclled or not? Or, from Gurcharan Das (yet another Harvard fellow to Kapil, apart from PC). Or, others…

My thoughts, once these two (or others) share theirs…

4. I have joined, part-time, with a Pune-based firm, a software producer in the Civil Engg. Design field, as a Consultant in software development. The domain is CAE. … Ashutosh Parasnis of PTC, Most all at Geometric Software (and sister companies like 3D PLM), MSC Sofy, and all others like them ought to find this particular development offensive. (Or, very offensive.)

I am happy about it. … And, about my work. (It does take a lot of my energy though…)

The time of transition is a time of feeling whether one is missing something… Others (many of them actually idiots) may call it a time of opportunity, a time of excitement, a time to be prudish, and so on… But if you are like me, you not only get excited and try to make best of your opportunities but you also tend to grow apprehensive—about the direction in which all the development goes… With my first corporate training program in the CAE field already delivered, and now with this opportunity, these sure are times of transition for me… I have waited long for things like these to materialize.

These opportunities have come after going without a job for 6–7 years, after running my own Web site for 3-4 years, and after running my blog at the Harvard-based iMechanica.org for roughly two years. Clearly, lack of information (including that found on the Internet) couldn’t have been the cause why I didn’t get such opportunities before… Clearly, the reasons had to do with politics—including international politics.

And that’s why I am worried as to what game of international politics I am being subjected to… Why should I get encouraged, by the world (the bold-letters is not an accident), to do in-depth research in Civil, but not in Mechanical…

Hey, Ashutosh (Parasnis, of PTC, working under a lot of BA types in USA), do you have answers? I want to ask the same question to yet another Harvard graduate running Geometric Software–do you have any idea why I was going without job for all these years even when you kept paying Brahmins and Reserved Category alike for all these years? Was the word “competence” ever a part of your processes?

5. That brings me to one more item of news that I consider as nothing but positive and encouraging for me… Mr. Narendra Jadhav has finally given up the much coveted position of being the V/C of University of Pune. Yes, he is gone! Finally!! But not before awarding himself (if the printed rumour is evidence to go by), 10/10 points for his grandiosly poor performance on this particular job.

Hmmm….

(Sometimes, Naryaa, one doesn’t even have the energy left to LOL! But one wishes to!! Honestly!!!)

Let me get back to the business of living my (difficult to live (on several counts)) life though!

Pandit (i.e. Mr. Pandit Vidyasagar), since you were mentioned this morning in ToI, for selection in some committee etc., let me make this public. (And I have already let you know of my feelings—no matter what consequences.)

I think you will make for a very poor V/C. Of, University of Pune—as poor as Mr. Narendra Jadhav was. (One has read about how the Mahamahopadhyay ran the University…)  (Cost? I could give up my PhD degree, though, I already know, this isn’t going to be the case even if I do oppose incompetent Pandit’s nomination/application.) He may add “feathers” to his (possibly existing) cap by being committee member here and there… But he should not be made the V/C… As a student (still) of University of Pune, this is what I wanted to say—and let the (rest of) the world take notice.

6. I also attended a funny interview on being a teacher of Mechanical Engineering in University of Pune… The interviewers did not bother introducing them (I was the first person to be interviewed), and when I enquired about them, they over-emphasized the title “Dr.” in front of their names… I mean, “Dr.” Jain of Padmashree DY Patil College of Engineering in Pune, and also, one “Dr.” Ghanegaokar… That particular stress on having got a PhD was the funniest thing in that interview… If the title was supposed to generate respect in me, exactly the opposite happened.. LOL! (Mr. Jain, Mr. Ghanegaokar, I do hope that you do read this.) … As happens in such interviews, neither of them never ever came to considering (or questioning)  my ability to teach technical mechanical engineering subjects. Yet, they both were insistent on mentioning that there were some “technical” difficulties in hiring me as a teacher of Mechanical Engineering in University of Pune.

Mr. Jain, and Mr. Ghanegaokar, I pity your interviewing skills. And, in response to your emphasizing your doctorate degrees, I must say, I also pity your creativity in the engineering field…  Here, I am not exceeding my limits… I am willing to exchange our respective PhD theses, just for personal reading. I am sure you, too, will come to form the same judgment, no matter in how implicit and unacknowledged terms. And, even without inviting comparisons of that sort, one could always raise the point: Why be so bureaucratic in education, Mr. Jain? Mr. Ghanegaokar? Don’t you think you pull the standards of education down when you engage in that kind of a mindless conformance to the mindless bureaucracy which informs today’s University of Pune? You evidently conform to its mindless norms—with more than a shade of authoritativeness coming forth off you. That is, even while interviewing someone like me. Isn’t it hight time someone pulled you up for that? And nothing in this is personal… The same applies to anyone else like you—anyone else who serves only to extend the mindlessness of the University of Pune.

The fact of the matter is, there are intellectual pygmies staffing the various private engineering colleges (not to mention also the government colleges, but to a somewhat lesser extent), and they all form a closed system, and feel threatened by open talent and merit. That’s what has become of today’s engineering education under University of Pune.

Yeah! Go ahead!! Delay my PhD even further you [expletives not written not even the very first version so that the issue of their deletion does not arise, but a note must be made that they would apply most fittingly here].

7. With that said, if I still get a teacher’s (i.e. an engineering professor’s) post this season, consider it an “Allah Ki Marzi,” “Will of God,” “Devaachi Ichhaa” etc. Wouldn’t that be right, Barak—the first one?

And, why, come to think of it, since it’s July the 4th today, … why is it that Americans don’t call Barak Obama by his first name, or affectionately call him, say, BHO (like “JFK” or “Abbey” or whatever) but instead prefer to mention him by his last name: “Obama”? What gives?

Anyway, I was not thrilled when he was running for Presidency, and I don’t find him very interesting today either. It’s between him and Americans—what to call him. … One just wonders the moral distance between the American presidents of the late-20th/early 21st centuries and the Founding Fathers, that’s all…

8. All this flurry of activity of mine is OK—it gets me money, in the field I have fought years to get in—namely, CAE… But, for the time being the researcher within me is yearning to get out and get going… I don’t find any time at all for my FAQ-related research… There are so many ideas I have in there…

Oh, well… Some other time.

- – - – -

PS: I have already replaced my initial “brain-storm” version for this post with a better written one, and may be I will streamline this present version too, once again in a couple of days’ time… Also, I need to upload some thoughts that I had written each time I finished teaching FEM—both at COEP and as a corporate trainer…. More on this all, later. Hopefully, soon enough…

Someone Is Ready to Call Me a “Genius” + Something (Almost Random) on Sleep + My Joblessness

(1) Someone Is Ready to Call Me a “Genius”:

Yesterday or so, there was a message in the famous Lounge of CodeProject, asking people something like whether an IQ of 147 was high enough or not… I followed a few links in the ensuing discussion, and a few clicks later, was led to the following Web page:

http://hem.bredband.net/b153434/Index.htm#Conversions

Do have a look at this page. … I entered my GRE scores and lo and behold: I was a genius!

My V+Q score of 1510 correlates, the above page informs me, with an IQ level of about 155 on the Stanford-Binet scale. Wow! … Now, of course, you know about my GRE story (of Oct. 1989 batch): how the Americans canceled the GRE scores for all centers in India out of a suspicion of mass copying at centers like Hyderabad (the same city where today Americans pay Rs. 1 Crore per annum as salary whereas I go jobless), and then did nothing to act in time so that valid scores could be made available in time; how they bungled up even the make-up examination, canceling also the make-up examination score so that no GRE scores at all were available at the time of decision-making, etc. So, my score of 1510 is, really speaking, refers to the very first GRE, the one that got canceled. I got to know of that score because UAB had directly made that enquiry to ETS and used the answer they got. I never got to know my score the second time round because, as I mentioned above, that particular make-up examination also was canceled. My third-time GRE score, done up as a “time-pass,” more or less (because all my application money had already gone down the drain because all other American universities had already declined my applications for a lack of GRE scores, and because UAB had already offered me a Fellowship anyway), was: 800/800 on Quant and 680/800 on verbal. Even if we use this score, it still correlates with 153 on the Stanford-Binet scale! Wow!!

Really speaking, the only thing I find to say Wow! about my scores is that I never lost any point in Quantitative. There is a reason for it. This was the first maths examination in my entire life which I had answered without any mistake—otherwise, despite my excellent record right from school days, including winning scholarships and all, I had never actually scored a flawless 100/100 on any maths examination. Even though my brother and sister had, on many occasions, I had not. So, GRE brought me a wow because I scored 800/800 without a mistake both times. I mean, in our times, there used to be people who did score a perfect 800/800 score, but still had up to 2–3 mistakes. I, on the other hand, had made none every time I came to know of scores.

Another wow thing about GRE was—and remains—even more important to me. It was that I never lost a single mark in the verbal Reading Comprehension section. Not even once. Never in practice examinations (some 10 odd that I took) nor, I believe, at the actual examination. That, actually, meant far more to me. It does so even today. I mean I have known IITians (of high ranking branches) and medicos routinely miss at least one mark after answering both Reading Comprehension sections on each GRE; I never ever lost even one mark even once.

And the reason I find this performance so satisfying is… Well, we have to go back to my school-time to see why it feels so important to me.  … I had finished reading almost all of Vivekananda’s writings while still not even in 10th standard. Even before beginning reading his books, I had been distinctly fascinated by the tales of his extraordinary capacity for mental concentration, his extraordinary mental abilities.  There were those famous tales of how he had a photographic memory (stories which, even back then I had suspected would be probably somewhat exaggerated; stories that I myself, nevertheless, also repeated, adding a bit of mirch and masala too while retelling them to my friends…) And then, there also were the stories of how Swami Vivekananda could rapidly get the essence of what the next person was saying to him, right on the fly. It was this ability which had made a distinct impression on my mind. In any case, for certain reasons not yet known to me back then, I had concluded that it would be wonderful not to miss any such thing which was within one’s own means/control. (It was almost like a self-administered Hypocratic Oath: First, not to miss any thing actually there, not to introduce something of one’s own as far as this was possible. I don’t remember when I administered this oath to myself, but somewhere in the busy-ness of reading a book after another book, I had noticed, after chatting about how one reads with friends, that I had made a resolve or a commitment of that sort to myself.) So, not to miss something while reading has always been important to me, in a way.

And, there always has been one odd mental picture which I have associated with a mere rapid proficiency in mathematical manipulations. I have always  compared such an ability with a lean pole that could easily buckle. I mean I had implicitly grasped a sense of seeing abstractions built over abstractions, and the only way in which I could express a “dizziness” of that sort was by formulating a graphic metaphor like that. It was not that I didn’t understand the maths or that I was afraid of it. No. It was just that I was apprehensive of this way of using my mind to a major extent in my life. I was apprehensive of it, and had developed that “thin pole that could buckle” as a mental picture even as a school-going child. [Update on May 12, 2009. I tried hard to recall the specifics about this, but no longer remember them. So, I really can't tell today when it was that I really formed this picture. It's likely that it was formed sometime later, early on in my college---11th standard to FE/SE. Certainly it should have been there by the time I was in my TE---the time when I came across Ayn Rand's epistemology.]

And, I had thought, right back then, that the way to make the tall pole stand was to “support” it laterally, and this, I thought, can be had by expressing things in words, using ordinary language, and by drawing geometrical figures, graphs, abstract logical diagrams etc. to a lesser extent. [Update on May 12, 2009. Though not the pole analogy, the need to "support" mathematics with plain descriptions has been with me for a long time. I certainly remember that the sole preparation I had done for my 8th and 9th standard mathematics annual examination was to write down definitions once in my notebook. My family was worried about it. Maths, they had told me, was meant to be studied by solving practice problems, not by writing down theory like definitions and theorems. I had ignored them (which got them even more, say, disconcerted). After all, I pointed out to them, I could prove any theorem of geometry that the teacher could think of posing (and many others outside the textbook(s) as well). And, as to practice problems, could they guaruntee that the same specific problems/sums are going to appear on the examination? If  not, what was the point? But definitions and theory were different. They are interesting and can be useful also later on, I had argued... I couldn't convince them or anyone else with my logic, but was clear that theory and its explanations in different terms is what mathematics was really about. ... Apparently, I still disagree with a lot of people even today. So, the importance I attached to the theory of mathematics was still there right in 8th standard. But not the specific pole analogy, I think after rethinking about this issue.]

And, I had also thought (right in school time) that it was more important to be well-rounded in all cognitively possible angles than strive for an outstanding (a world-beating) mastery in only one thing or two. I still do think so, though today I can also place that thought in the right context: today, I will say something like that the broader-scale integrations are a must no matter how much of a mastery you gain in your specialty(ies) such as abstract mathematics.

It is for these reasons that the so-called “theoretical” (as opposed to “numerical”) questions also are important to me; it’s the reason why I have valued competency in Reading Comprehension; it’s the reason why I have been so delighted in having good scores in that section on GRE.

Being seen called a “genius” is just a time-pass. Really. Knowing that your first reading itself is (still) being done energetically enough, with as much liveliness or awareness or mental stamina as is possible to you regardless of your intelligence, is far more important (and, far more deeply satisfying. Really.)

In fact, my simple test is that reading (or exercising understanding through any other modality such as listening, watching, observing, recalling, mentally considering, etc.) should be done with such energy and focus that you ought to feel exhausted after a while. If you do not get tired by thinking, you are not exerting yourself right enough. If you get tired this way, even a couple of hours of study is good enough!! More on this, may be, some time later… (In Pune, I routinely run into school children or their parents who claim that they study for 4+ hours a day at home, on every day of the school! I can only marvel at them!… I mean, general reading for 6 hours is different. But studies… Well, it’s entirely different ball game… “God” knows how they study for such a long time. But sure enough, it does not show up in their examinations, writing, talk, or action.)

(2) Something (Almost Random) on Sleep…

The question of what does and does not form a proper philosophic query can be sometimes difficult to settle.

It is well known that philosophic ideas are abstract, that they are the widest abstractions possible to man. Also, being basic, they often are simple (i.e. simple, in a difficult way). But characteristics such as these, it seems, are not always special to the ideas of general philosophy.

For example, consider the question of instantaneous action at a distance (i.e., IAD for short).  This is a well-known issue from basic physics. In the last century, once Einstein’s relativity theory came forward, it became a focal point for a lot of nonsense as well as some philosophic discussion. One of the satellite issues that the relativity theory brought forward was that of the IAD. Of course, relativity theory is not the only context in which one can possibly think about this issue; I, for example, have discussed it in the context of the diffusion equation during my PhD research. Of course, speaking in general terms, my discussion is rather an exception. There is no gainsaying the fact that today physicists know about IAD almost exclusively in reference to Einstein’s famous postulate that the speed of light is a constant. If c cannot be infinite, IAD is ruled out. [Update on May 12, 2009. Notice, it's not enough that something might move faster than light. The point is, the speed of interaction has to be infinite for IAD to happen.]

Now, thinking about this IAD issue, I was of the opinion that it did qualify as a proper topic of general philsophy. But then, a few years back, I chanced upon on the Internet some writing from David Harriman in which he had taken the opposite position. It is not for philosophers to debate, he had said, whether one end of a see-saw would go down precisely at the same time that its other end goes up. (In case you didn’t realize that this example actually involves IAD, you are too dumb to read this. (LOL!))

David Harriman’s argument seems to make sense. The see-saw problem does seem to form an issue that is specific to some special observations pertaining to only a special group of existents. … Or, is it?

Consider this: Somewhere at the base of our system of justice lies a particular form of the law of the excluded middle. (It came from Aristotle, not Plato or any other mystics.) Now, of course, Aristotle’s law, when taken as a fundamental philosophic truth, is far more abstract and wider of application. (Indeed, it’s just a corollary of the law of identity—and the latter applies to the entire existence.) Yet, in the judicial system, there is one particular form of the excluded middle which is recognized: A person cannot be at two different places at the same time. For instance, consider what happens if you are innocent but get caught. If you can prove that you were in a different city when the crime happened, you are let go, your honour completely intact. Indeed, the lawyer trying to nail you down may even be able to prove that you were wielding a knife precisely at the same time that the crime happened. But what if you were cutting vegetable in Pune at that time when the murder actually happened in New York? It is a very particular form of the law of the excluded middle which saves you in such a case. It’s a metaphysical denial of the IAD which saves you. After all, jurisprudence is not a technology based on the science of physics, is it? Obviously then, it has to be a metaphysical denial of the IAD [Update on May 12, 2009: even though case such as what we considered here is easily settled by reference to the fact that the body of a person cannot be so long as spread over the two cities; we don't have to refer to IAD or its denial to settle this particular case. But, I was just taking a big example in general, that's all].

The case with issues like IAD is, perhaps, similar to the idea of individual rights. Rights is a concept that is at once both moral and political in nature—it’s the bridge between the philosophy of morals and that of politics. Similarly, I think there is this possibility that some concepts are sufficiently basic that they can simultaneously be both scientific and metaphysical in nature. They would, thus, satisfy one of the requirements to be considered as axioms of the relevant special sciences. For the science of physics, one might perhaps consider the following concepts/laws/ideas as falling into this category: space, time, sensory qualities like temperature (i.e. the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics which merely establishes the objectivity of a quantity like temperature), color, etc.

As to David Harriman’s argument, there also is yet another way to approach it. This is a more indirect way. It consists of going through the concepts that philosophers in general have used over the centuries; apply reason to separate the chaffe from the grain; and go on from there. This second approach, thus, rather relies on what other men have thought the scope of philosophy to be. Now, since men aren’t always consistent, obviously, this is not at all a fool-proof method. But it can be helpful.

Consider, for example, what Harriman would himself consider to be the prime example of a philosopher, namely, Ayn Rand herself. Refer to her epistemology book. In this book, she discusses at length the classification of concepts, e.g. concepts refering to physical objects vs. those referring to the aspects of consciousness vs. those referring to the products of consciouness, and so on. Then, she comes to talk about concepts like “but.” Pause for a moment and ask yourself: When you read this particular chapter, does it feel like a grand first-hand inductive generalization proceeding from the concretes, or does it rather feel like a good review of the philosophy of the special science of grammar? Even if it’s brilliant, original, and first-hand writing, does it not feel like elucidating her views on the concepts of grammar—a special science just the way physics is? If you ask me, I would say that it means just the latter, even if obviously her more general purpose here obviously also is to lay the groundwork so that a future discourse on how individual concepts—words—are linked together, and so, how proper cognition can be defended from its enemies at a coarser level of cognitive granularity, would have some rational grounds already laid down. That, evidently, seems to be her more general purpose. But look at the actual methodology: She is not being deductive  here, sure, but neither is she directly integrating from concretes as such either. What she is directly doing here is rather a process of isolation, one of contrasting the narrower subdivisions from each other. Now the point I am trying to make is this: If Harriman were not to have the benefit of the knowledge that Ms. Rand is writing this all in a specifically philosophic context, would he so easily accept the idea that an indication of the meaning of the word “but” is (or can be) a philosophic matter? I mean, doesn’t it look a bit too special to grammar?

Overall, I believe, many times, it’s not so much a word or the outward point of debate which determines whether it is philosophic in nature or not; it is the depth of the treatment, the kind of integration which is demanded, the fundamentality of the discussion.

The reason I went at such a great length is because it is good to know what philosophy is. (Smiles.)

A particular thing that I really wanted to write about is this (but I have no longer any patience left to type any more—even though I am a touch typist).

Sleep.

Is this topic philosophical? Can it be? Or is it doomed to be examinable only from the narrow perspectives of special sciences, such as biology, physiology, medicine, and psychology (and worse: mysticism, religion, folklore, etc.)?

Now when this thing occurred to me recently (once again, after many decades), I tried to think very hard if Ayn Rand had even indirectly indicated anything on the topic. But I couldn’t recall anything except some indirect hints. For example, recall that passage from The Fountainhead when Roark goes to sleep right in the office late in night, his work finished (and if I remember it right, his body falling into a contorted position sheer out of exhaustion). So, the idea hinted at is that sleep is for relaxation, rest, perhaps even rejuvenation (though the emphasis clearly is not on this).

But is this all we can think about it? Can’t there be more refined and more fundamental philosophical remarks about it?

As I recently thought about it, I happened to consider what the ancient Indian wisdom says while highlighting the difference of man from animals. Man, Indian wisdom says, does have some qualities/drives that he shares in common with animals though qua man he is not limited to these. The qualities in common with animals (and birds) are: “aahaar” (eating), “bhay” (fear), “maithun” (sex) and “nidraa” (sleep). The Indian wisdom then goes on to add many things which I don’t buy. [Update on May 12, 2009. And, for that matter, even for the characteristics that Man shares with animals, the actual qualities are distinctly human in nature. More on this, later.] But still, this particular list is in itself interesting in that it brings together highly disparate facets together, and therefore, to that extent, it is indicative of some original observations. The pithy remark has, of course, survived millenia. Naturally, it prods one to see if there is not something deeper to sleep.

Here, I also recall Feynman’s experimentation with sleep deprivation. Or was it Carl Sagan? I’ve forgotten who it was. … I mean the guy who went into that sensory deprivation cell just to figure out if he gets any weird experiences or not. I guess it was Feynman. In the writing below, tentatively, I will assume it was Feynman, and correct myself later if I am wrong.

Stated simply, if you are deprived of proper sleep for some time, you will (temporarily) go mad. If it continues, you will die. … Sleep is one of the basic conditions of life for the organisms who show such behavior.

Is sleep a requirement of consciousness—the way it is of sustenance of life? In other words, is sleep special only to those organisms that possess the faculty of consciousness? Do ants go to sleep? How about worms? bacteria? amoebae? viruses? Where do we draw the line? How? This last “how” is, of course, a question of special sciences—not of philosophy. But consider the next line of thought.

There are cycles in the physical universe: high tides and low tides, day and night, changing phases of moon, seasons, motions of stars, etc. Aristotle was among the early thinkers to take a special note of the cycles—-he put forth the idea that time is cyclic in nature.

Similarly, there are cycles in the biological processes too: the process of breathing, the beating of the heart, the electrical and chemical waves of the brain and the nervous system… And, of course, the cycles of sleep and waking hours…

Further, considered from the teleological angle, sleep would be serving certain teleological functions towards furtherance of life.

But my point is that oftentimes the Western culture has thought of sleep only in the physical/biological terms—not of the requirements of consciousness. If what sleep serves are certain basic purposes towards sustenance of life, then, it can’t be for only the bodily sustenance—consciousness, considered as an invisible organ of the individual who possesses it, must also both require and be benefitted from it.

If myths, legends and folklore are any indications, to the primitive man, the state of dreaming would be indistinguishable from that of being woken up. But despite thus introducing this thread of thought here, I must make it clear that I am not therefore going to accept the hypothesis of the fourth state of consciousness as an established fact of science. Science requires far more care than Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his disciples have displayed in this regard. God knows (humourously speaking!) it’s so tough even to just isolate the right concepts with which to work, when it comes to building science. Indeed as Leonard Peikoff has clarified, the proper status of psychology is that is is “pre-scientific” in nature. So, even if touching on dreaming, I am saying, let’s keep it aside and search for something of more fundamental or basic nature and state: What is the philosophic nature of sleep?

Frankly, I don’t know…. Sorry if you thought I was going to give you an answer. (On second thoughts, I now start LOL!)… But I myself am not very clear about it…

Yet, all of this I stated only in order to advance the idea that a philosophic treatment of sleep is not a bad idea (from an epistemological—i.e. philosophical!!—viewpoint). After all, Ayn Rand has even given a philosophic treatment to sex—a treatment that does not regard the biological fact of reproduction as its focal point. … At a time that the Rationalistic fantasies of immortality were a routine fad of discussions in the USA, she remained (not so) surprisingly in touch with reality in that she pointed out the broad inductive basis to aging—how aging and death are the things that are only to be expected as natural things… So, I certainly wish that she had written something on something as simple and natural as sleep, too.

If not, at least the other philosophers… But, off hand, I don’t know of any too… [Have they been sleeping on this issue?]

One reason I happened to think about this issue a few times the past few days is because I really do not expect people to have a good idea of what reincarnation is and what it can possibly involve if they are not even clear about what sleep is and what sleep can possibly involve.

Sleep is far too easy a topic, comparatively speaking. If you are already senseless about it, there is no reason for anyone to take you very seriously about your views of reincarnation, no matter how old or widely circulated such views might be.

But what my thinking finds interesting is that sleep involves a periodic (i.e. natural and orderly) loss of consciousness—the tool of human survival.

Here the term consciousness is to be taken in its primary sense. You may be conscious of your dreams—right while dreaming and later on after waking up. But there at least is some time when you are in the deep sleep wherein you lose consciousness. And regain it, in a systematic way. Again and again. All throughout your life. Even when it comes to dreaming, that still is not at all random but follows certain natural laws. The consciousness alters its modality during dreaming and it’s a very definite change. Sleep involves all of these.

Like every process of life, sleep fulfills some pro-life function—even if it involves a loss of consciousness—which, paradoxically, is the very tool of survival. What’s its philosophical nature?

This is one question that I don’t even have so much clarity that I could first form a riddle about it, and then go ahead and crack…

Indeed, as the discussions in Ayn Rand’s seminar on epistemology indicates, people first grasped the nature of existence, then Aristotle discovered identity, and, then despite Rand’s formulation that consciousness is identification (both qua faculty, and even qua awareness) we are still only grappling with understanding the nature of consciousness. As Rand agreed, when it comes to consciousness, mankind—or most of it anyway—still is very much in the Dark Ages. Consider, for example, what do you know about the metaphysics of memory? Why can memories be so vivid, and yet, in general, they are so fallible? Why do they fade? What happens when you recall something? … People are often likely to give answers in analogy with what computer does, but except as broad analogies, it’s utterly inapplicable—human memory is not a mechanical reproduction. … Isn’t it wonderful that here is one proper force of nature—one that is actually active, actually brings about changes in reality. And, despite being the tool of survival, this force can also so easily act against the same individual who wields that force. A faculty that apprehends reality but can so easily also go on to keep within itself only the purely imaginary. (Though, this “so easily” is perhaps not as easy as it’s often thought, as Rand pointed out: there is an immediately accompanying feeling of guilt—at least a mental uneasiness—with every act of evasion.)

Anyway, wrote a lot but without formulating a nugget out of it… But not a stream of consciousness exactly either… More, later.

(3) My Joblessness

Be moral. Write an email to any suitable employers from Pune, India, that you know of. … Tell them that they should give me a good, well-paying job in the field of CAE, or preferably, in software development for CAE (including allied fields like CAD, computer graphics, etc.). Thanks.

= = = = =

[I will probably update this post a bit later on, but not much.]

[The post was updated on May 12, 2009 at about 8:00 to 9:00 PM IST. The additions are given inside square brackets like these. Plus, there were a few editorial changes, streamlinings, etc.]

“Explaining” My Failure in the Prior PhD Program at UAB + A Little Bit Philosophic + Other Notings

You mean to say you want me to explain to you why I was failed at UAB?

Actually, I don’t know the actual reason. So, all this explanation is, really speaking, only an “explanation.”

If you want to have an answer, you will have to go and ask that bustard who was the most directly responsible for that bad decision: Mr. Raymond Thompson May be, this white Southern Baptist Christian will be able to tell you why happened what did. In any case, to ask the question to “Pat” (Prof. Burton R. Patterson), my guide, isn’t going to be terribly productive. As far as I know, Pat didn’t want me to fail, but didn’t fight it out on my behalf either.

But far more interesting is “Ray.”

This guy was so “competent,” he couldn’t derive an ordinary static equilibrium equation for the surface tensions acting at along three surfaces coming together at 120 degrees angle at a junction of soap-film bubbles. (Materials folks study soap bubbles because it’s a good starting model for grain boundaries in metals). I mean it might appear humorous, but it’s a fact that this guy could not model in the class the tension along the dihedral angles right, because he was too dumb to work out cos(2 theta) because he was too dumb to recall the formula for cos( A + B).

He based his entire course on research articles, and expected me to memorize every small detail of sulpher seggregation. He expected me to reproduce those empirically found graphs and data that are best relegated to handbooks.

The course he taught (and I have forgotten the title by now, but it probably was something like) “Surfaces, Interfaces and Grain Boundaries in Materials.” It, decidedly, was not a core course. But in UAB’s quaint qualifying examination system, I had to clear 8 courses individually. Since this guy was on my committee (and was also a Director of UAB’s Materials Science program back then), I had to include his course in those 8 courses. (Out of which, 3 or 4 were core and the rest were like applications or off-shoots. Like, the above course).

The first time I was failed in the qualifiers, this guy was the only one to fail me. I, then, did a “mistake” (given the sort of morals he practises and his compatriots love him for doing so): Despite being an Indian student, I went into his cabin and demanded to know what kind of answers he expected for the essay type of questions he had posed. (The level of detail for the experimental data that an ordinary student could commit to memory and recall at the time of examination within 45 minutes was unacceptable to his the then arbitrary whims.) He smiled indulgently (and I believe this was because he had made up his mind in advance the outcome of my second attempt at qualifiers too, no matter what I wrote.) He then told me that if as a graduate student I didn’t know how to answer questions like that, … And he let it go at that—I mean, he stopped explaining. Altogether.

A few months later, the “tamaashaa” of the qualifiers was repeated. This time round, Pat and Greg (i.e. Prof. Gregg Janowskii) had altered their questions. But this bustard repeated exactly the same question paper. I, too, repeated exactly the same set of answers (probably to 10 % less detail—out of exasperation.) He again failed me. Looking at his resolve, Pat too failed me in *his* own section. I had lost the enthusiasm the second time, and had not done too well on Greg’s section, though, had he wanted, he could have let me go. But, I guess, looking at the other two, Gregg too failed me. (Both were senior to him; he was on tenure-track back then.)

The system still had an interview left. In that interview, this bustard Ray simply bullied me, though he did it with a smoothness that was extraordinary given his personality. Sadly, Pat simply witnessed the tamaashaa that was going on.

Now, since I am not easy to bully (and you could’ve guessed it, couldn’t you? … Am I not a non-Brahmin, a 96-Kuli Maratha, a warrior and whatnot?), you might be curious (i.e. if you are not as dumb as Americans are) to know what technique might the bustard Ray have used. He did this:

He, first, asked me questions in, what else, sulpher seggregation. (What else could he have talked about, anyway?) Looking Pat’s discomfort at whether reproduction of concrete details is what interview could be about, Ray went into thermodynamics. In particular, chemical potential.

Now I no longer remember very much what precisely were the steps that Ray led me through, but he did manage to get to the idea of diffusion rates and chemical potential.

Now, this was easy stuff. The Late Dr. Chapekar had taught us in SE (i.e. second year undergraduate) so well, and I had perfectly understood that point right then—in SE. In short, the point is: you never mistake thermodynamics with kinetics. Thermo. deals with the hypothetical equilibrium situations; kinetics with the rapidity at which reactions proceed, their rates. But just because some reaction is thermodynamically favorable doesn’t mean it’s going to occur with a faster rate. Simple and clear. (Indeed, if the energy hump is big enough, it may not even “spontaneously” occur at all.) All of this is elementary stuff. (Some of it was taught to us in Std. XII.) There was no way I—*I*—could have made a mistake about it.

But, this bustard Ray made it appear as if I had made one. That, in a nutshell, was his skill. The particular technique that he used was to tear a remark I had made out of context, and used it to put words in my mouth. By that time, I guess, Pat and Greg too must have had decided that anyway this guy (namely me) is a better fit in a “stress analysis” sort of (i.e. mechanics-related) program. So, they, too, didn’t object to Ray bustard’s tearing things out of context.

Ok. What was the statement I made? I did make it clear to them what I said above. That free energy won’t tell you about reaction rates. But then, once Ray asked me fourth or the fifth time (and I am not exaggerating the number of times he asked me), and since he had kept his face straight throughout, I mistakenly thought that he was asking for a more speculative or “creative” sort of answer from me as to what could happen if an attempt were to be made to relate the two together in a basic way. (As to keeping the face straight: Many Americans, esp. white ones, are esp. adept at this particular skill, I have later on found out via my job experience as well—the bustards are masters of talking the talk, walking the walk, and keeping the two separate in a politically correct way.)

So, with an emphasis on the word “hypothetical,” I proceeded to give him an answer. This answer of mine was based on a certain type of thinking that had already become a part of my own thought process even back then. With my recent publications in the current PhD research, I may rightly say that this was an original way of looking at things. However, I did not had had enough of time thinking about it that I could explain it any time with Pat (during our research meetings or even otherwise, dropping in his cabin.) According to this particular thought process, a potential, indeed, could be built out of a diffusion process. (And by now, if you are familiar with my research, you should be able to tell how this comes about.) Now, of course, this result was already known to, say, random walk researchers. But I had not known about that thing. I had worked it out on my own. Since my thoughts were new, I was assuming too many things as known to the audience, and rapidly going through my answer. While doing that, I made a remark which seemed, to bustard Ray, as if it meant I was saying that greater the free energy difference (or chemical potential) faster the reaction. (To know the sort of lines on which my actual answer was based, refer, for example, to the groundwater seepage problem I have set in the very recent End-Sem Examination on FEM at COEP in Spring 2009 semester.)

But then, sharing this line of thought had produced precisely the sort of atmosphere of hand-waving and all (primarily because none of them knew this line of thought) that it gave bustard Ray his chance to make the killing. He moved in swiftly.

A few minutes later, even Pat was found nodding his head as to how I could make a statement that thermodynamics could predict reaction rates.

Now bustard Ray finished it off. Since I did not show mastery of even simple fundamentals such as thermo vs. kinetics, he said, I couldn’t possibly be allowed to pursue the doctoral program any further in his opinion. Pat agreed.

That’s how my timely PhD, greencard, even US citizenship and the earned benefits that these would get me, were summarily denied me. Not in an open challenge, but via a skillful use of politics, pressurizing, and, by way of the basic epistemological essence, context-dropping.

- – - –

Of course, it doesn’t at all surprise me that this bustard should have been given ASM’s fellowship precisely during the Republican regime—a party that is basically religion-based these days, a few Tea Parties here and there notwithstanding. (Indeed, regimes, the periodic rules have by now become in the USA. An objective rule of the law is no longer the de facto condition in the USA these days—and by “these days” I mean a time scale of years and decades, i.e., as compared to the 18th and 19th centuries.) It is not a matter of surprise at all. But what I am really curious about is: whether the republican bustards had asked our Indian bustards to delay my PhD admission here until the time that all business had been taken care of, in the USA. After all, notice the coincidence. I started trying for my PhD admissions in 2002 (first trip to IIT Bombay in March or May—I don’t recall now). I published my first paper in 2003 (sent Sept., published Dec.). My guide accepted me in August 2004. This bustard got inducted into ASM fellowship in Nov. 2004. And only then did Pune university ratify my admission, in Dec. 2004. (An otherwise just a formality—-After all, how many engineering experts does Pune University keep on its own pay roll anyway?) So, this is entirely possible that before I could utter anything about him, he was made into a respectable one. Even if this was not actually done, the point is, today’s power-lusting American bustards can so easily do it.

They do consider Indians in that poor a light. Many of them do anyway.

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As usual, since something has been said about my professional losses, the way I have been made to suffer by the Powers That Be, (so that even in your possibly pathetically short attention span you are kept sufficiently reminded), it’s time to talk a bit about something I like.

This is an easy one—what I am writing about. I had sent in an email about it to ARI, but it’s the first time I am talking publicly about it.

Assume, for this question (and without being like the bustard Ray Thompson) that reincarnation has been proved. Consider the Aristotelian position (also accepted by Ayn Rand) that at birth, man’s mind is a “tabula rasa”. But the reincarnation type of cases necessarily indicate the evidence for having a certain mental content—memories of the previous birth—right at the time of the birth.

Two questions: (i) How can the two be reconciled? (ii) Is this an instance that a finding in a special science is negating a philosophic principle?

As I said, I’ve already cracked this one. (I mean both the above two sub-questions). Also sent my prelim. thoughts about it to the ARI, who, as expected, did nothing by way of appreciation of it at all. But I know that my reply stands as a truth. The point now is: Do you know how to crack it? (But no prizes for this one. First thing, American and Indian bustards, as you know by now, trap each and every one of my emails. Secondly, even otherwise, I guess, I might have included the newspaper media in the cc field—just in case it helps clear up someone’s confusion.) So, no prizes, but see if you can crack it. It’s an interesting one. … Something—one among (too) many—that bustard Ray couldn’t have cracked at all. … Give it a try…

=====

Oh yes. “Chemical potential” reminds me of what I am about to write about.

I think Ayurveda is boring. And not at all deserving of what Mr. Raghunath Mashelkar, FRS, thinks of it…

I mean, Homeopathy is in a different league altogether. There, finding out a mechanism to explain its workings is a good challenge. (And I believe that it does work some times.)

But, in contrast, Ayurveda is almost fully based on the normal and “materialistic” view of medicines. I mean there are chemical molecules present in those herbal remedies, right? Indeed, its Hindu packaging apart, Ayurveda, come to think of it, is actually nothing but a preliminary, vaguer, cruder, less refined version of the usual Western medicine as the latter practised today. This does not mean Western medicine is a proper superset of Ayurveda. Some plants, medicines, methods of preparation (or of introducing changes) might be known to Ayurveda, say through trial and error, but these might be new to the Western medicine. Yet, both their approach is one and the same (at least when it comes to medical materials or drugs being administered).

And in a way, both are boring, just the way boring is most of chemistry once you leave the QM effects.

The reason I mention this all is because (i) Mr. Raghunath Mashelkar, FRS, sits on Tata board even if Ramadorai or Sherlekar don’t give me a job (but they all give jobs to Hindu Brahmins esp. if from IITs); and (ii) in view of my yesterday’s posting, rather than approach the Tatas to urge them to give me a good and well-paying job that is in line with my interests and competences, our Indian bustards have gone ahead and arranged for a 12th Oct. born Ayurvedic doctor to get matrimonially in touch with me. Note, my thesis happened to have got submitted on 12th Oct. 2007 to the Uni. of Pune. (Now you know one more reason why I call these Indians as bustards, don’t you?) And, I will give you one more reason. She is an OBC category girl. I am not going to hold this against her—it doesn’t happen that way when it’s me—I don’t or rather can’t even think on those twisted or “convoluted” lines. But I must note that Brahmin bitches, if they are good-looking and well-educated, never do get in touch with me on their own for matrimonial purposes. Indeed, Brahmin and CKP bitches don’t even respond me. Ever. (I have experience of running my matrimonial profiles since 1998—roughly the same time that American and Indian bustards and bitches have been oppressing me with their power games, including psychic.) Anyway, Indian bustards are what they are. Bustards. Let’s leave them here…

Mr. Raghunath Mashelkar, FRS, it would behoove you to let Ayurveda alone (despite any Hindu, Hindu, Hindu, thoughts of yours or those of your colleagues in Tatas) and instead focus on science and engineering. Also giving the right people good jobs. (And asking a question or two as to why their PhD defences get indefinitely prolonged…) Or, is this, too, too much to expect of you? Especially, by someone like me?

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I will “revise” this post, too, later on… (I have learnt to be shameless in matters like these. … So, I could even delete this post if I later on find it to be inconvenient to me, my career, etc.)

Explaining My Joblessness + A Little Bit Philosophic

If you have been reading my blog (or are one of those bustards who are responsible for following me up), then it would be obvious to you that my joblessness is deliberately planned for by the governments of USA and India together.

Notice that my joblessness has occurred at the same time as the graduates of Hyderabad’s management school got Rs. 1 Crore+/annum salaries. (And, CapMag.com, shut up; if your only reaction is going to be to defend the high salaries of CEOs, I will begin considering, you, too, as outright bustards.) It has occurred at the same time as young and incompetent IIT Bombay graduates got contracts and jobs in CAE field (e.g. Alcyon—remember the name, Kanwal?). It has occurred at the same that COEP graduates have got Rs. 75,000/month salary (e.g. Shirish Deodhar’s daughter, who got such an offer with Microsoft India. That, despite the fact that those Sun Java vs. Microsoft wars being played out in his own company, i.e. Frontier Software, with him inwardly taking Sun Java’s side. I mean, this guy supported Sun Java, and still got his daughter inserted into Microsoft India. And he still lied to me through his teeth that he had only Linux projects even when he had Microsoft projects… But then, it’s not particular to the body of Shirish Deodhar alone. It all is explained with this combo pack: Brahmin + IIT Bombay education + being a Congress (I) man’s son! (And, he would have been worse if he were a BJP or a Communist man’s son))

Now, the other side of this story. The jobs that I did get offers for/was permitted to do. The linguistically interesting things the bustards arranged.

The way these American + Indian bustards run the things, Google happily supplies links to my course material on FEM. But Google bustards and bitches don’t include my scholarly research papers into Google Scholar. … But then, what Google is doing now was only to be expected. (They are just Americans—no need to qualify them, is it, with any swear word such as a bustard and/or bitch.)

Before I came back to India in 2001, the last company who had sponsored my H1B visa was softUltimate, Inc., a small company of Hemant Pathak’s. Hemant later on closed it down. (While he dilly-dallied about immediately beginning my GreenCard sponsorship, by delaying it by one year, the smart fellow stayed back in the USA until he got his own citizenship… But then, at least he had the least decency to offer me a job once again.) Eventually, the only time the Indian bustards allowed me to get a job was with SunGard, where Hemant was working. Now, the games… Did you get the play on the name? No?  Recall that I had publically supported Microsoft in its moral defense. With the sort of bustards we have running our Indian IT industry, with the sort of principled amorality which these bustards want to promote (if it’s not Hindu Brahminism, it has to be principled amorality), they got it arranged with a company name of SunGard.

I have been shouting about these bustards from rooftops. That is what these blogs are. But the only software development company who happened to have called me for an interview was… Can you guess? Its name was “Fugro”. Now, you might be tempted to think that this was a play on the words: “Fuck” + “Row”. Nope. Wrong. The way Indian and American bustards want industry and commerce and run, the intended hint is actually at: “Fu” + “Gro”, a stand in for “Few” + “Grow”. And, what’s the meaning of that, you ask? Well, in mid- 1998, it so happened that just when India tested the nuclear bomb, I was very fresh in beginning writing emails to Leonard Peikoff. Indeed, it was only in 1998 that I had begun writing emails to him. (I have stopped doing so for years by now. I never got a reply from him, but when I once brought up the matter by calling him in on the radio show, he did say that he wrote my emails. That was, I believe from memory, in 1998.) In the very first email I wrote to him, I had written humorously: “When I really really grow up, I will be able to tell if I am an Objectivist or not.” This particular comment, I noticed, led to a lot of activity among the socialists in media (which means, about 95% of media men and women, including Jug Suraiya (shame on you, Jug!) and Mukul Sharma (yeah! Konkona’s father)). As usual, the American bustards had begun it—Bill Clinton’s supporters in the San Francisco Bay Area began it (with local newspapers in Palo Alto being the first to do so), and then it spread to others in the USA, and then, it spread, slowly, to India. And when I say I noticed, I am being inexact. The matter was thrust into my perceptual field—both “sensory” and “extrasensory”. (Which means, media bustards and bitches inserted such things at inescapable places in newspapers. And the Powers That Be also inserted such things in my mental “space” and in my dreams, sometimes awakening me up at night—giving me stress in the process.) Though the matter began with the American socialist bustards in the SF Bay Area, it very soon spread also to the Republicans, and the right-wing Christian bustards also milked it (including my life) to what it was worth. (But, yes, when I complained at Harvard’s iMechanica about it, the Microsoft/right-wing controlled msnbc.com were the first stop “using” my life. This happened in the year 2008. Until then, the right-wingers, too, were among the bustards to give me stress and squeeze life out of me. So, if they have stopped now, it only means that the right-wingers are more disciplined in exploitation unlike the left-wingers who tend to be a bit more scatter-brains about it.) So, our Indian IT bustards, wanting and trying to protect the cash kept compressed under the ass of Azim Premji, Ramdorai/Ratan Tata, and Narayana Murthy, obliged the American bustards and thus, the only place I got shortlisted since this blog began was in “Fugro.”

The reason I mention this all is because I have sent my resume to “Softtech Engineers”  (http://www.softtech-engr.com) and have not yet been shortlisted for the interview. Actually, they are conducting walk-in interviews

But I have gotten sick of the Indian employers bustards and bitches all finding excuses not to hire me. So, I have now decided to ask them to actually shortlist me and only then to attend the walk-in interview. (In fact, even at  Fugro, their employee incompetent Java bustard Rajesh Thorat asked me to architect not one, two, but three systems, all of which dealt more with networking than the domain of Fugro because that bustard knew only Java and only the networking domain and not petrochemical engineering. Thorat, then, smilingly found flaws in whatever answers I gave him. And asked me go back to him for a second interview should I better myself technically… Now, it  is true that I have forgotten some of my software engineering. But I am 101% sure that this pure CS-bustard was afraid that I would eat him alive should I get a chance in his company, and so, out of turf-battles, wanted to keep me out. Right, bustards Nayak? And immoral Retired Commodore? Didn’t you oblige your bosses in Delhi in shortlisting me and then treating me the way you did?)

So, even vis-a-vis Softtech, I did some homework. Here are the “lovely” aspects about them. (i) The name Softtech, if I mistake not, also was being used for her business by one lady engineer I have known—one Mrs. Kamal Purandare, my class-mate at C-DAC’s Diploma, also a COEPian herself, and a COEP classmate of my friend the Late Dr. Rajendra Kulkarni. (ii) Softtech’s board of advisors includes one Mr. Ajit Pawar, an engineer, i.e. a namesake of Sharad Pawar’s  nephew and a current cabinet minister in Maharashtra (and a political enemy of Suresh Kalmadi). (iii) On their Web site, their CEO has been shown accepting an award from none other than Sharad Pawar himself.

Now, all this could very well be a mere coincidence. Sure. But we don’t have to wait for too long to find out either. I have applied to them, called them up once, and have been told that they are going to get back to me after going through my resume.

If you browsed their requirements (and I am not sure if they have any honest requirements for all the advertised posts or not), professionally speaking, my resume fits them (and their company, to me) perfectly. So, if they at all call me for the interviews, I know to that much of an extent that they were being honest. Simple.

But then, today’s times are what they are, and for the reasons I have given you above, none can be sure if I would actually get shortlisted, interviewed the way I should be, or offered a job.

But then, one to cut the evil networks is to expose them. Accordingly, I have decided, from now on, to blog each and every “attractive” advertisement that the Bustard Rajah, Bustard Jyotiraditya Scindia, Bustard Ashok Chavan (the by-default IT minister of Maharashtra, following the scheme the scheming Bustard Vilasrao Deshmukh and cooked up to inflate his own cash-ass), and others have released .

Also, I am going to jot down here each and every advertisement that I respond to. And, why.

I am applying to Softtech Engineers because the domain for the software development concerns engineering.

Anything else, American and Indian bustards?

I will also be applying to Sharad Pawar’s Vidya Pratishthan’s College of Engineering.  Last year Mr. Prataprao Borade had conducted my interview for the post of Principal, and had informally indicated to me that I had been selected and that they could release their offer if I had a PhD in hand. Since then, I have taught a course at COEP. Naturally, I believe that even if not as a Principal, I should get Asstt Professor’s post. If I have PhD in hand, I qualify for a Professor’s post. With that, I also qualify for the post of Principal. Right now, I have to be satisfied with Asstt. Prof’s post. Pune University has this seriously idiotic rules that MTech in Metallurgy does not count towards Mechanical. Otherwise, I can also be a Professor even if I have no PhD. But I take it that Narendra Jadhav and others, even if they don’t t say so, have take a personal enmity with me, and therefore, aren’t going to change these bureaucratic rules so that I could sit as a Principal and make some decent money somewhere. Anyway, I believe, 99%, that Asstt Prof’s post at VP COE,  Baramati, should be mine. There are some disadvantages to that post too, like the distance from Pune and all. But I am applying there as a matter of job security.

I also plan to apply to COEP whenever these exalted ladies and gentlemen release their advertisement. Rather, I plan on being inside that interview hall on looking at their faces at a close view—what they think of me when they see me in there—once again!

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I began writing a small piece on the issue of the physical vs. volitional causation. I began that way, but ended up writing a plain text file of about 22 KB. (Which means, a lot.) I will post it, but only after I feel like it.

The bustard Americans and Indians must learn to respect me better. Including the IT industry bustards (including ministers, including Congress(I) and NCP ministers) must learn to respect my mind better. And begin to give me concrete evidence. Not through their “regular” channels. But using decent, rational means. Until then, I have no particular desire to add new words and phrases to their fucking gossip circuits aimed to keep IIT Bombay bustards exalted, IT Bustards moneyed, and me, without credit—financial, intellectual, moral, etc.

Got it up your ass and therefore into your brain (because there is no other way you have left of reaching your brains/heads) smart Indian and American bustards and bitches?

Good. Now, act.

PS: I want Indian Objectivists to know that Harry Binswanger won’t, in the last analysis, support you. Neither will ARI. Not when it matters the most to you—in your own most vulnerable moments, when you should have been protected. Whether to call him a bustard or not is a matter I have not yet finalized my mind on. But, yes, it is a possibility too. (One does not live giving one’s actual enemies every benefit of doubt they have not earned. Got it, HBL excerpt-picker for today “Sunny Soloman” i.e. Sunni, Solo, Man? Got it? If, as an American he is going to rather protect bustard/bitches Americans at my expense, he too, becomes bustard—wouldn’t he? That is the matter important here.)

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Needless to add, I will “revise” this post later on. Probably, after I get my next job—of the sort I want.

Has Anyone Cross-Checked This One (Reported at Anti-Matters.org)? + Microsoft and My Joblessness

This post is going to be short. It is about a single issue, concerning the following report:

“Acquisition of Donor Traits by Heart Transplant Recipients,” by Paul Pearsall, Gary E R Schwartz, & Linda G S Russek, Anti-Matters.org (an Open Access e-Journal), No. 1, Vol. 1, 2007, pp. 107–114

The above report is available as a PDF file from the Web site of Anti-Matters.org. (Note the plural form in the name.) The URL to directly access the above report is the following: http://anti-matters.org/ojs/index.php?journal=am&page=article&op=view&path[]=7&path[]=7.

Although anti-matters.org is supposed to be a journal (described as “an open access e-journal,” it even has an ISSN), the above report is not written in the typical style/format of a scientific article in the usual kind of a scientific journal.

This, by itself, need not diminish the value of a report. But then, the contents of this article are somewhat surprising. The tone of the writing seems to be pretty OK, but the facts themselves are rather different in nature.

In short, this collection of fact tells one story: In heart transplant operations, recipients sometimes acquires certain mental characteristics of the donor, and, if the reported facts are right, even some parts of memory of the donor in some vague sense. (Note, the donor, here, is a dead person—this is a heart transplant operation we are talking about—not the kidney transplant.)

The findings are surprising because surgery has been such a common practice for so many decades/centuries by now. (BJP’s claims state that surgeries were a routine practice in ancient India.) Even if transplantation of hearts is a relatively recent development, people have been receiving other organs for a much longer time. Yet, one has never heard of even wild stories of this nature (call them old wives’ tales if you wish) … Why did it take so long for such things to surface? That is one of the questions to strike someone brought up in India.

I noticed this report many months back (possibly more than a year or so back), but, somehow, the matter kept on slipping off my mind.

Let me now raise two specific questions via this post:
(i) Has anyone (apart from the authors and publishers of the report) cross-checked the veracity of the facts stated in the above mentioned report? the accuracy of those facts?
(ii) Do you know of any refutation of this particular report coming from the skeptical quarters?

Let me also add that ever since I came across Stevenson’s book on reincarnation, many such things have ceased to surprise me. So, in that sense, even this report would not surprise me much either—assuming that no one finds any flaws with the reported facts as such. (I came across a couple of  Stevenson’s books way back in the first quarter of 1993, while generally browsing the shelves in the library of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, in the USA. I had then noted (perhaps in those two books), and subsequently had also came across, some news articles and stories etc. concerning the researches of one of his students/collaborators, one Ms. Satwant Pasricha in India. (If I recall it correctly when Ms. Pasricha did her Stevenson-style reincarnation-related research, she was working with the University of Rajasthan. Later on, she probably moved to some psychology institute of “national importance” in Bangalore.)) In short, I am pretty well-prepared if the matters stated in the above report turn out to be factually true.

Yet, taking something on the face value is not what one does habitually. And, one never does that in science. One always cross-checks.

Also, a collection of “facts,” by itself, hardly amounts to anything. One must also have proper philosophic premises and concepts, and at least some conceptual hypotheses if not fully developed theories to explain all those data. For example, even while narrating in a rather journalistic or naturalistic manner all his mass of concrete data, Stevenson does ponder in his book about the theoretical clues suggested by those data. He pauses to consider some specific hypotheses which neither involve fraud/forgery but which do not directly substantiate all ideas concerning the specific hypothesis of reincarnation either. He does that with an unmistakable honesty. I recall all about Stevenson’s research in a vague way and from memory alone—this matter is now 16 years old matter (I hardly read up anything on the matter again), and it always has been, decidedly, a side reading for me. I mention it only to point out why the above report need not be surprising and how some minimum hypothetical/theoretical clues must exist.

The important point here is that nothing on the theoretical lines can be found in this report. Indeed, if you do an Internet search, you don’t readily find any followup study for this report either…

Hence this post.

Drop me a line if you know of any URLs  concerning the abovementioned two questions that I have raised. Also, any theoretical clues as to how this might be happening (assuming it does!)—clues that are serious and which refrain from being wild speculations alone. Finally, although I do not consider myself to be a skeptic, I would still like to know if you can readily spot any weaknesses in the above mentioned report right in its present form. (I found nothing, not at least on my very first reading.) In other words, this post also is something in the nature of a request for (well thought-out and relevant) comments. Thanks in advance.

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And, of course, you know that Microsoft apparently happily sponsors things like “Women in Science;” obviously benefited from my contribution towards its moral defense; and yet doesn’t give me a job. Yet another company that keeps me jobless. (And you should already know the terms in which I would describe them—or anyone else with this kind of a moral behavior—in my private conversations.)

Loksabha Elections + My Joblessness

(1) Loksabha Elections:

(1.1) I went out to the polling booth right at 7:30 AM, and voted for Suresh Kalmadi. (Who else?)  [No, I didn't get up so early on my own---my parents woke me up.]

(1.2) This time around, with so many NGOs and all conducting so many awareness campaigns about asking people to go and vote, one might have expected a greater turnout.

Yet, the preliminary estimates are that the percentage who actually voted is only average or even somewhat below the average. The figures are: about 38% (IBN Lokmat) to 55% (Times Now). I already suspect some spin at that magic figure of 38%… But anyway, to put these figures in context, consider this: in India, the record for greatest voter turn-out was set in the 1957 Loksabha elections; the figure was 62.8%.

(1.3) One often hears complains to the effect that the elected government is not at all representative of the people in general. The basis put forward is that the total voter turnout typically is only about 50% or so. (What this translates into is the fact that the winner typically does not have even one voter in four backing him up by going to the polling booth, and yet he gets to make decisions for all…)

Yet, I have always had an argument about it.

You know about opinion polls… They take such a small sample and yet produce such accurate predictions. Accurate, assuming the right standard of judgment. …

If you contact just 2,500 people and still if your prediction is already within 2 to 3%—as in a pre-election poll—then how far wrong can you really go if you contact, say, 700,000 (7 lakh) people—as in the actual election? …Any consideration regarding the required randomness of the sample is wiped out simply because the “sample” is so massively large.

I mean, it’s a height of contradiction, rather, of punditry. Journalists vouch by the accuracy of their small-scale surveys, and yet manage to cast doubts as to how the actual elections could not be representative.

It’s high-time that our intellectuals understood that the trouble doesn’t lie in the non-fulfillment of the applicable mathematical or statistical criteria. The trouble, really speaking, lies with the idea of unlimited democracy.

Our intellectuals typically complain that the better “ghaTak” (factors, or parts) of our “samaaj” (society) do not get represented in the parliament. This, incidentally, itself is a manifestation of the pervasive Platonic-Kantian thinking prevalent in India—namely, the idea that man does not exist primarily as an individual but only as a part of a society… The language itself is not an accident; such things do not happen by accident; it only is a give-away about the nature of the premises. By default (i.e. as a matter of habit), Indian intellectuals all think that it’s the society (”samaaj”) which has the primacy—not the individual.

Indeed, I do tend to think that the blame here primarily lies with the intellectuals. In comparison, many practical politicians, even when they use such language, actually are better when it comes to the actual decision making—even if almost all our intellectuals routinely blame politicians as a class. (Recall here the discussions following 26/11. Everybody—from cine actresses to editors—were busy blaming politicians.)

(1.4) I think it would be a good idea to make a small PDF document mentioning some of the more prominent instances in which our intellectuals (e.g. editors/journalists) have subtly (and, perhaps even deliberately) spread ideas along the axis of mysticism-altruism-collectivism.

(1.5) It’s been an old idea with me, and a blog seems to be an ideal medium for expressing it. The idea would be to run a column, or a blog, of a title on the lines of, say, “The News That Was Not!” One would write down just the news that should have been, but isn’t. How editors and journos and professors and intellectuals are hell-bent on giving spin, or making mountains out of mole-hills and vice versa… Or, even, the plain case  that things simply don’t happen the way they should. Let me give you a few examples of “The Fake News” or “The News That Was Not”, in the days to come…

(2) My Joblessness:

Suresh, would you now look into the matter of getting me a right sort of (a well-paying) job? Would you tell your superiors and subordinates about it? Thank you.

Employers Who Don’t Give Me a Job + Some Topical Notings + Something about Psychic Attacks on Me

(1) Employers Who Don’t Give Me a Job—A Partial List:

One obvious advantage that employers in Pune have in remembering Yeshwantrao Chavan is that what the latter had said once: “Look in even a minor bylane of Pune, and you would find world-class intellectuals by dozens.” Chavan’s comment did carry a bit of a humourously oblique reference to how Pune people view themselves, but it also did carry an honest appraisal and more: an actual admiration that Chavan did feel about intellectuals; an admiration which was so authentic that it almost looks romantic in comparison to what today’s politicians display towards intellectuals. Indeed, if anything, there is an inversion of sorts: If you are intellectual from Pune, you have to be so nondistinct that you need not be taken seriously in any sense.

But then, politicians are not alone. Evidently, editors of Pune newspapers, and also employers in Pune, including educationists, derive their views about employability of a man on more or less exactly the same lines. If you are a world-class engineer, you would know how to survive taking in wind alone—that is their working view of the merits of a case. Consider the potential employers who evidently have taken such a view (and the list is in random order):

– Padmashree Maharashtrabhushan Mr. Vijay Bhatkar. (No call for interview at I^2IT despite my being from the first batch of C-DAC’s flagship educational product: DAC)

– UGC Committee Member Ms. Vidya Yerawadekar. (No acknowledgement of application, so that nothing further can at all arise.)

– Potential Lokasabha Candidate for Congress (I), Vishwajit Kadam. (Promise of a job made in person to me verbally. Broken without any letter, call, or explanation. Perhaps KD Jadhav’s comment that “anybody who is “inconvenient” to Balasaheb gets thrown out of Bharati Vidyapeeth” was telling; was it, Jadhav?)

– PTC’s Blue-Eyed Boy Ashutosh Parasnis. (Yes, he probably made more than Rs. 50 lakhs the last time I wrote about him. Also his communist assistant in HR, Shejwalkar’s student Taposh.)

– Shejwalkar’s Blue-Eyed Boy Mr. Deepak Shikarpur. (No acknowledgement of the emails sent and no phone calls returned including the message left at his home, with his son. (No, I wasn’t being more pushy than needs be the case.))

– Ratan Tata’s Blue-Eyed IIT Boys at the Computational Research Laboratories. (No acknowledgement of the job application made in response to their Web-based advertisement. If they are made of the soil they are, probably, they will use their influence to publicly wonder aloud why one of the ministries managed by Sharad Pawar isn’t buying their computer. Right, ex-IIT Bombay professors and students?)

– IIT Bombay’s SINE’s Blue-Eyed Boys at Zeus Numerix. (More details given on more than one occasion on my blog and elsewhere… I wonder if Irshad Khaan was under pressure from Taliban to dismiss me. What do you say Irshaad? Do you have either the guts or the arguments to face my question? Note, either or both will do. … BTW, they find the same roof as provided by Padmashree Maharashtrabhushan Mr. Vijay Bhatkar, Warkari.)

– I will revise and expand this list as it strikes me… If the employers aren’t bound by any sense of shame as to who is to employed and who not, why should I be bound by any such a thing as keeping a timetable of convenience to them concerning when and how I update the list and who all do I include? As I said, “hamaam mein sab ke sab hain nange”…

(2) Some Topical Notings:

M J Akbar’s column in today’s ToI made for a greatly interesting reading. Also similarly interesting have been the many recent writings on the new “American” President at CapMag.com, though I don’t always find the time to catch it all (no matter how much I may like to do so).

Anyway, returning to Akbar’s piece, one was struck at the remarkable similarities between the views of Taliban held by Obama, the occupants of seats of power in Pakistan, and, far more interesting to me, Californian businessmen. Also, American “scientists” managing the order in which articles get published at arxiv.org, and the “scientist” reporting about them at the TechnologyReview.com’s arxiv-related blog. This last B+ (it’s a regular expression) can especially be singled out. He “digs” at me shamelessly but doesn’t want to give me even this of a credit that it is me who he digs.

I mean, if you work in the IT industry, esp. in California (or, increasinly, work in anything to do with the Americans managed scientific establishment) you will always get subjected to power-maneouvers at least indirectly cajoling you to shun all forms of extremism (bad, as well as good), as well as to shun any form of judgment (a considered judgement i.e. an act of deliberation, or a blind emotionalism) on any form of extremism. This goes on all the time…

…. You can’t judge anything … None is too better than anyone else … You are not better than us (and if you try to show that you are, here’re our Internet warriors and/or psychics to bring you “in line”) … I don’t understand what you are saying …

It all goes on all the time, full-steam, in USA, esp. in California, and in every business dependent on California… It suits perfectly the judgment-avoiding spineless pseudo intellectuals from India too—whether working here in Pune in IT sector or in Washington state under Bill Gates, or in California…

(It’s no accident that soon after I began exposing the Hindu Brahmin connection of TiE.org, their Pune chapter awoke from slumber and organized an event involving an actually innocent guy, Raja Vaidya. …. Kanwal, don’t try to fool me. You might be a BTech from IIT Bombay and I might not have passed JEE. Yet, by now, I know, to paraphrase a recent Hindi film song, that “XXXX QM nahin kar saktaa saalaa,” where, Kanwal, do feel free to insert your own name in place of XXXX, too (LOL!) )

Returning to nonjdugment as the principle guiding all human action—the present-day hallmark of Californians—consider its practical outfall…
Consider the fraction of revenue of Indian IT industry directly or indirectly dependent on such whims (as of, e.g., of men supplied with Kanwal’s money, or the whims expressly issuing forth off Barbara Boxer’s consciousness) and you can plainly see why there cannot be an appreciation of Akbar’s writings from Pune simply because it has not been laced with the BJP bromides… Also, why I cannot get a job in s/w development for CAE field in Pune.

Do you have any other ideas on the matter Rajiv Gandhi SangaNak Sarathis Shikarpur, Barhate (whose “social” events are reportedly attended by only his board of directors!), or Padmashree Maharashtrabhushan (Warkari) BI hahatkar?

(3) Something about Psychic Attacks on Me:

I have been psychically attacked since at least July of 1998—the time when I was working in the San Francisco Bay Area. It continues, on a DAILY BASIS, till date.

The spectrum of trouble currently in force includes: bad dreams, inducement of a “zing” like physically felt sound and feel (which, I have been careful enough to isolate, is not of direct physiological origin such as high BP, aspirin-induced or otherwise ringing voice in ears, etc.), pain in the three or four typical points, etc. (The “zing” or “ssssak” like thing is, to an extent, associated with visits to my blogs. I emphasize the word: “to an extent.” But first continue reading in a general way about it all… ) The “zing-thing” mostly occurs just before waking, but is noticeable at other times of the night,  and recently, even at daytime. [The only morning in the recent months on which the "zing-thing" did not occur and thus I could have a peaceful sleep was the night following the day when I had publicly mentioned on this very blog how my grand-father and a few ancestors knew the  Pawar family. That night, all "zings" were somewhat less virulent or mild, and they occurred up to around 11:00 PM. Later on, they had abruptly stopped so that I had a nice sleep all through up to waking up the next morning.]

After carefully applying Mill’s method (of induction), I have distilled the essential fact that these attacks originate from Americans, but not from Russians, Pakistanis, or for that matter, even Indians, though let me hasten to add that such things could easily have been outsourced to any of these… I mean, the man actually doing the attack could very easily be an Indian citizen or come from any other country. But the nerve center—the direction, the *thought*—it originates in the USA.

Now, it could very well also be the case that such an American origin actually can be traced back to China or Pakistan’s power-centers. Possible. Namely, that it’s only a contract PR agency based in Washington DC that does this with Islamabad or Beijing-based clients, ultimately. Possible.

But what I mean to say is that my analysis thus far isn’t accurate enough to point this out necessarily. (No matter how inconvenient it is to the analysts on the payroll of DoD of Government of India, or to the children of ex defence personnel now settled in USA, or others of their ilk.)

I mean to say, I have informally, but very very carefully, monitored my own acute physical pains, on a daily basis, for more than the decade since June/July of 1998. (The pains are sometimes extremely acute—acute enough that my mother, when she too receives such pains, is actually found crying for hours, even though I, for some unknown reasons, do not find myself crying as such, as if it were not biologically possible, even if my own pain too is acute enough when it occurs.) I have monitored my pain through the ups and downs of Bill Clinton’s high-profile Monikagate, Kargil war, the Internet bubble bust, the election controversy over counting of votes and George W. Bush’s becoming of the President, my returning to India (in Aug. 2001), the 9/11, the aftermath of 9/11, my physical beating in Pune (by unidentified Muslim youth), the Parliament attacks, the American wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, BJP’s decision to deploy Indian troops at Indo-Pak border for years, my visits to ToI Pune office asking why they cover my personal life so incessantly, the removal of the BJP government, the communist’s power-sharing in India, the movement to and the signing off of the nuclear deal, Musharraf’s removal, the election of Barack Obama, the kicking out of the communists, and the announcement of the current Loksabha…

So, the span of my careful monitoring has encompassed: the power-switch from the Democrats to the Republicans and back; the initial stage of BJP’s power-grab through their rise and fall; an Indo-Pak War; two major wars of the United States; a power-switch in the UK and a Pakistan; apart from of course, assasinations, coups, etc. etc. etc. Even a streak of largely undeserved Oscars “won” by the Bollywood.

All through such times, I have experienced highs and lows in the psychic attacks that I suffered. But, without any major relief. The first noticeable relief in my daily psychic attacks began in the initial stages of the nuclear deal; the most acute of my pains still do occur whenever America considers any major or minor decision w.r.t. Islamabad and/or Delhi. (There have been times when I have predicted to my family that though it is not as yet reported in the media, someone from the USA Department of State must be visiting New Delhi and/or Islamabad today, with the meeting actually going on in the afternoon, simply because that was the time when I was feeling the most acute pain… Every time, the correlation has come out right.)

There have been differences, though. Prior to nuclear deal, whenever the Ayn Rand Institute published anything, I would scream in pain here in Pune. Today, exactly opposite happens. I am experiencing a basic level of pain which is helped eased whenever some Objectivist publishes something at AynRand.org or CapMag.com or so.

Similar correlations I have experienced with respect to blogging activities elsewhere too (to a minor extent, also at iMechanica—my pain would depend on whether someone was *apparently* criticizing me or not.)

Naturally, I do *not* charge my fellow iMechanicians with any conspiracy against me. None. I have chosen to bear my pain through the years because, right from the beginning, the pain also was accompanied by subtle messages, all to the effect that I give up Ayn Rand’s Objectivism as my philosophy, and, given the fact that Objectivism is politically still a non-entity, it all made me even more curious about the *origins* of all these attacks—in whose consciousness did they originate specifically in my case (and even more strongly to support Ayn Rand, up to a level that I doubt she herself could have managed it on her own were to she be alive today). At other times, the messages were to the effect that I should not continue with the Reiki meditation (I have done two levels), etc. (No, Mill’s method does not indicate Reiki as the cause. I had been doing Reiki meditation for more than a year before the pains began.)

Here, I am, indeed, reminded of a curious invention by Japanese. You know robotics. They all try to make robots having appearance of man. But since kinematics of the human form is so tough to get right (including walking, going upstairs, etc.), that the progress has been slow… But one guy (I suppose he was a prof. at a Jap. univ.) really thought of a completely new approch. Instead of a standalone robot that is programmed to do some simple task, why not “armor” a man with robot-like arms and legs? That is the idea. So, basically, you have “motorized” steel arms-like cover or sleeves which are worne by a *normal* human being. Not someone with physical disability or amputated arms, but a normal man. These steel arm-sleeves carry motion sensors with them. Whenever you naturally lift your arm, the sensors sense your motion and direct the powerful but lightweight motors attached on the sleeves, to lift the mechanical arm too. Ok. That looks complicated, but here’s the advantage. Suppose you want to lift a 500 kg steel casting lying on the factory floor. You can’t do it with your natural strength. But wear these robotic arms, and now, it is the arms and the electric motor which will take the load. You will, of course, also wear a mechanical torso like shield and a mechanical pair of legs, which, actually, will take the load and transmit it to the ground support. Thus, the design includes the complexity and the naturalness of the thought of an actual human being, and a mechanical robot’s capacity to take great loads like 500 kg. Obviously, such a robot will easily outdo every other robot on the combination of brains and brawns.

In a sense, such a robot is nothing but an amplifier of your mechanical power.

That, precisely, is what I have thought about these psychic attacks. Their mechanism is the following. They follow a few role-model like people to the hilt. Employ detectives and unearth as much information about their personal life, history, sextual history, class-mates, lovers, books, music, foods, political involvements, crime history, and whatnot. Everything. I guess some dedicated team must be required to do so… Then, they also employ psychics. And then, whenever someone—say your offshore development team member in California, Colorado, Cambridge UK, or from India—expresses something, they amplify it… They often have a smashing success of it. (Pun, sadly, is intended.)

Exactly the same, they tried to replicate at iMechanica. But, so far, they have had only success. A few things came in the way… (i) iMechanica is Harvard’s baby, and there is that Harvard’s famous sense of tradition, plus the historical accident that both Harvard and USA happen to have had a better tradition than what they have in the present, with the result that better things seem to prevail at Harvard (even today); (ii) The sense of professional courtesey and integrity, again traditional virtues in the area of science; (iii) Prof. Mr. Zhigang Suo’s own sense of better values that has saved a few virulent attempts to induce a more powerful streak of communalism to develop at iMechanica (read the honesty of his thoughts as expressed on issues like book burning, his experience of living under the more direct form of the Chinese communist dictatorship, etc.), plus, probably, his earlier Engg. Dean Venky’s sense of values too; (iv) The fact that the intended victim happened to be Ajit R. Jadhav. I won’t comment more on this, but enough to state that when the reason I got attracted to Ayn Rand was not The Fountainhead The Objectivist Epistemology, which I first read when I was still in my teens. Yes, today even I find it amazing that I had understood almost 70% of that book right on the first few readings, and certainly within the first year; 70% was all that I had read in the first year. BTW, coming from a Marathi medium school, I was so less exposed to the English writers and Western names that at least for the first month I did not at all know that Ayn was a woman’s name. If Ian (of Ian Fleming) was a man, Ayn must be so, it must be a different spelling—that’s what I had actually guessed. (I still remember how awestruck my friend had become once he heard my explanation. He later said that he had fallen silent not because I mistook the name but because I was raising questions that he had not thought of… Oh yes, did I tell you that I had *not* become an Objectivist for a full one year or so—the time when I was still evaluating it? Again, it’s a remarkably unlike any other Objectivist I have known of….)

Anyway, I have had enough of a post here…

More on the nature of the pains, how they are distinguishable from the other pains of more mundane nature, how they can nevertheless lead to real physical after-effects (to what extent, with what seriousness, and how do I determine such things), etc., some other time…

For the time being, I know that the psychic attacks originate in the USA. Even if the controllers could be some organization sympathetic to Talibanis. Or not. I don’t know it. But I know that USA’s official foreign policy has a direct bearing on the psychic attacks. I have distilled this last statement using Mill’s method of inductive generalization.
And, I mean it.

This is neither a mystery novel, nor a sci-fi fiction, nor an attempt at cheap publicity—which I, with my scientific engineering achievements, certainly don’t need—nor a political ploy against USA who, anyway, have repeatedly failed to appreciate me whether in giving me a green card or earlier giving me a PhD… None of that sort. It’s an objective fact.

(And yes, if anyone—Objectivists included—cannot handle it, go to hell: the pain is real when it happens.)

I will also mention the positives: The only places/times that I have found relief from pain (notably, in temples, and with some men of authentic goodwill having an unknown psychic “power” with them); how I have never been able to find anything that *always* works against these psychic attacks (e.g. how even visiting temples don’t always give me the needed relief in full—in other words, why the American psychic attackers must be more powerful than the powers left at the temples, and how all BJP and other religious idiots are plain wrong about it); how (and why) I do not associate religion with any of it… (This last is easy so let me state it right away: Religion, as such, is a theory, and, cognitively and morally, a very poor sort of theory at that, even an evil sort of theory. In any case, it is too poor a theory to approach any unknown—including your own “peace” or pain, your own life or death. This does not mean that saintly men—who themselves often take a very noble view of religion—cannot offer something of value to you… As I have said, I have not only often found my ongoing pain disappear, but, over a period of years, I have even learnt to “detect” a different kind of peace with different saintly individuals/places. Yes, it’s true. That “peace” too, is very individualistic a thing… Ayn Rand’s individualism works right in the realm of spirituality too, and why not? (This last, to those Objectivists who still are shell shocked).)

I will write, but don’t force anything on me… I honestly find science and engineering more interesting… (Or, rather, more interesting more number of times anyway).

I thought I would write about my unemployment. But, everything is inter-related. Including the spiritual fraudulence of a Vijay Bhatkar or others (some of who I listed above (unfortunately, even I don’t remember all of them all of the times)), and of Pune Brahmins (including the by-birth Marathas and low-castes working at Sakal and Indian Express and Times of India), and others’ lowliness to Americans’ exploitation of it to the better Americans’ losing fight against them… (I do not mean political fights—I mean at deeper levels, at *philosophic* levels)

Thanks for reading. And thanks to all my well-wishers over the years… It’s a frightening thought (esp. to me) but it’s entirely possible that I survived to tell the tales only because of the latter…

More, in a more systematic manner and with more details, later. (No, you don’t have to read my blogs.)

[This post, certainly, is to be streamlined/updated/clarified in a little bit greater detail later on. Originally published April 12, 2009, about 2:10 PM IST.]

Something on Betterment of Syllabii at COEP + My Joblessness

The FEM course that I am teaching at COEP is now drawing to a close. The time is, therefore, conducive to take a review; a time to reflect upon what went wrong, how things could have been done better, etc. Naturally, this thinking mode also spills over into other things, and that is what I am going to note down here today.

I believe that COEP should take a major initiative into multidisciplinary areas of computational physics, computational mechanics, computational and engineering. In short, computational science and engineering (CSE).

I mean it in a much deeper sense than just saying that COEP should hire me with all due respect to my background and work, and allow me to pursue my research in CSE without any hassles. The issue is not about my career, primarily (though this aspect, too, is relevant). In fact, the issue is not even about introducing researches in the multidisciplinary area of CSE at the PG level…

What I am actually advocating here is a fairly major revamp in COEP syllabi, and that too, right at the UG level—a basic change right at the very course-structure level. Let me indicate in brief what I mean by that.

Every academic institution (of some note) has a certain unique set of historical, cultural, intellectual, environmental (including geographical) factors which together decide what course of action would be best for it to pursue. Here, given certain special factors specific to Pune in the recent times, I believe that COEP is extremely well-positioned to take a quantum leap into computational science and engineering. Consider some of these factors.

In the recent two to three decades, Pune has seen major developments occur in the field of computer science and software engineering. Two decades ago, Pune had become home to C-DAC, the designers and builders of India’s first parallel supercomputer. Today, Pune remains home to a top-10 supercomputer in the world (Tata Sons’ Eka).

Pune has had one of the two foremost laboratories of CSIR, namely, the National Chemical Laboratory. (The other lab comparable to NCL being the National Physical Laboratory at Ahmedabad.) Today, Pune has compounded the presence of NCL with the IISER—the institutes which are designed to go at par with IITs but with an emphasis on basic sciences. Pune also is home to some other finer talent in the field of physical sciences and engineering: IUCAA, NCRA, DoD labs, etc.

Finally, Pune also is home to many educational institutions. (I do have a great deal of reservations about their quality—but they do keep education going in some sense).

Speaking in overall terms, in India, Pune is exceptionally strong on the two components that CSE requires and depends on, namely: science (including engineering), and computation. For example, Pune has the greatest penetration of PCs for the past decade or so (which means, on a per-capita basis, Pune buys more PCs than any other city in India, large or small, including Bangalore, Bombay, and Hyderabad, and Mysore, Indore or Nasik.) Another point: MCCIA has identified Pune as the next major hub for animation and gaming industry. In any case, if I remember it right, Pune has already overtaken Bangalore in terms of software exports in USD terms. (If not, Pune would be second only to Bangalore, and a very close second at that… Pune does have companies like PTC and Geometric Software who don’t give me any jobs.)

What does it all translate into, for a UG/PG student, you ask? Let me give you a simple example.

Step inside some of the bookstores in Pune (most notably, the Technical Book Services), and you will always find a lot of movement in there—a movement of books, rather than of customers. … You see, what happens is all these labs, universities, institutes, and software companies together order a lot of books and journals. Many of these orders are handled by these small bookshops. Anytime one steps in a bookshop like TBS, you will always get a sense of how ideas possibly are moving in the city.

For example, I have seen the very latest American conference proceedings touching on topics like, say, simulation of fracture in random nanocomposites, or the use of the LB method in modeling fluid dynamical problems from tribology… Titles like these appear in these small shops literally within a few weeks or months of actual holding of these conferences in the USA… (And, I was naming just two topics among an array of them)… Now I am not sure if all these volumes actually get bought by the potential customers who order them for a review or not. But the shop owners do oblige their regular customers and get these proceedings and all from those bigger shops/agents from Mumbai and Delhi, for a quick review by the customer on a returnable basis, no questions asked and no strings attached. … Precisely one of the reasons why I hang around these bookshops a lot. (Some, like the TBS and I have grown older together—15 years is a long time in the human life-span!)

OK, so, people here in Pune are aware about the technological developments… My only concern is that it doesn’t translate into anything tangible for the UG student at COEP.

That, plus the fact that I have always had a lot to say about the way they teach mathematics and other related topics at COEP… I also used to have a lot to say about the stupid if not vengeful way in which they used to examine the hapless UG engineering student in earlier times—some three decades ago. A lot of that has now changed for the better. But still, the teaching of mathematics, even the syllabus, haven’t changed… Also, the UG program composition as such…

Now, whenever someone mention such things, people give some very typical reactions. Some of these reactions are listed below, in no particular order:
(i) Yes, I agree that we should introduce some more career-oriented courses at COEP… We should make the syllabus more practically relevant
(ii) We should cover the very latest instruction sets of the latest chips
(iii) We should introduce biotechnology
(iv) Etc.

Let me tell you my take on these:

(i) “We should change our coursework at COEP to make it more career-oriented.”

An outright stupid idea.

Yes, you read it right. An outright stupid idea.

Engineering education is meant to be theoretical. If, as a student, you cannot digest it, give it up and join a road-side garage to turn yourself into an auto mechanic.

If, as a potential employer you happen to carry the same ideas, then check out what I have to say about the sort of employer you are, below…

Indeed, here, Rahul Bajaj himself (the father of Rajiv and Sanjiv Bajaj) or, if not himself, at least responsible people (managers and all) from his company (and also managers from Bajaj Tempo/Force Motors, and TELCO/Tata Motors) used to say, when I was an undergraduate student at COEP, that they wanted to see engineering disciplines like, say, “Maintenance Engineering” at the UG level … Yes, this is serious—not a joke. Grown up and highly paid managers used to say such things to us at COEP in those times. Indeed, it should not be any surprise; Bania companies actually are known to say things like that…

I mean to say, disciplines like Mechanical / Electrical were not enough, they wanted the Sandwich training program. Then, it was not enough, they wanted super-specialization like Production Engg, right at the undergraduate degree level. Then, it, too, was not enough and so they began wanting to have Maintenance Engineering too, to be made into an engineering discipline… The only way to counter such suggestions was to ask: How’s the idea of introducing a BE in “Boiler Design for Thermax,” and another BE in “CNC Machining with Fanuc” for the smaller components-suppliers to TELCO, and yet another BE in “Maintenance in Plant No. 6 of Bajaj Auto Factory at Waluj…”? All these degrees, of course, to be awarded by the University of Pune?… (BTW, my use of the term “Bania” is more generic than being just carrying a caste-ist kind of interpretation. I don’t care for castes. All that I want to counter is some false tears being shed in certain quarters such as those by Swami in a recent ToI column. So, Bania is to be taken in a generic sense, in exactly the same way that Brahmin/Pandit is.)

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that the practical businessmen and engineers running those automobile or engineering or components-manufacturing industries don’t face some really acute problems when it comes to staffing engineers or making use of whatever engineers they do find… The employers do have a lot of problems in finding good engineers. But what I want to point out is that all these problems, essentially, are of their own making.

These Bania idiots have no idea (not even a vague sense of an idea) as to how to employ a talented engineer with them, or how to make his theoretical skills productive in the environment that they themselves have created within the factories/offices which they own. Why, they have no idea that such a thing is even practically possible. (Despite their Harvard MBAs, and regardless of whether they are Parsis or Hindu Marwaris by Religion or caste, they all remain Indian Bania idiots at heart. The inability to perform integration is the chief attribute of whatever substitute they use for a working epistemology.)

The fact is, if you are going to make herd management the primary duty of a well-educated BE engineer, making it appear as if you are doing favor (Hindi: “Upkaar”) to him by giving him a job, it’s very obvious that he is soon enough going to cram English words for a few months so as to get a good GRE score, and then leave you as soon as he gets the I-20 form in hand. If not, similarly try to beat the system by joining a coaching class for the CAT examination… What you are going to be left with, then, are going to be mostly second-rate folks. The engineers themselves might be great personally, at least in the initial years. But the interface that you impose on them permits only so much of their productivity to come out. Over a period of time, they then loose that too, and become thoroughly second-rate themselves… By and large…. In such an environment, both the employer/manager and the employee come to develop a faulty working epistemology for approaching anything in life—their professional work included. Understanding how theory is, or can be, integrated with practice, is a theme that would be far too much for such a mentality to even think of handling. But since you have none better to employ anyway, you continue employing them, the height of creativity in cost-cutting being, what else, to employ a thinner sheet metal for automobiles… (LOL!). As a decade or so elapses, you then make that guy your Manager. Once this idiot (he has become one by now) gets the management power, the only folks he is going to feel comfortable managing are obviously going to be only the second-rate sort of folks… The thing continues. Then, something happens… Our man—the employed “engineer”—crosses three decades of his working in the same company. He has been sent on short trips abroad, has acquired public-speaking skills (including the skill to tie a tie and perhaps a tie with the tie.org organization too), and on strength of these “qualities,” he gets invited to share his “thoughts” on how to shape engineering education in the next century (the first decade of which, BTW, has already passed by.) Now, problems—real problems—do not disappear simply because someone unworthy of managing them has been promoted in his job. Naturally, our guy does carry a vague sense or an awareness that something needs to be done w.r.t. engineering education… This, he thinks, is because the syllabus is bad—it is not practical enough. And so, he advises, in a sufficiently grave and sufficiently civic tones: “Make education practically relevant…” Et cetera… (I am sure you have heard out these idiots often enough, though I am not sure you had the clarity of thought to judge them as idiots—or the inclination to judge anything any time in life at all.)

(ii) As to the next two suggestions (”engineering education is absolutely bogus and worthless if the very latest instruction sets of Intel (or AMD or RISC) processors are not included right in the next semester” or “we should include biotechnology”), you can see that these represent nothing but somewhat more informed kind of mistakes using the same, faulty, working epistemology. (As to the biotechnology-related suggestion, it often results not only from a faulty working epistemology, but also an outright lack of understanding of either biology or technology. It just happens that the speaker has heard that biotech is now in vogue in the USA (after computer science the metaphorical bus for which he missed), and so he wants to talk something about it here, that’s all… What is displayed in such cases, oftentimes, is nothing more than the favorite working mode of Indian Pundits; I call it the Parrot Epistemology. (It’s very favorite with Indians—all it involves is memorization of sounds and their hi-fidelity reproduction, emotional undertones faithfully included.)

May be I will write about them some other time… For the time being, I have to finish this post…

So, coming back to the main theme, what I want to emphasize is that for higher-quality education, we actually need not more of but less of an emphasis on practicality—especially at COEP.

In other words, I am arguing for making the COEP UG education more theoretical—but also more interesting and more solidly grounded in reality…

One way to do this is by including an emphasis on computational physics in the engineering curricula.

I will expand upon this theme (and certain other related matters) some time later on, but for the time being, let me note a few things about them quickly. (I am sure many in the USA and in India will be quick to both understand what I am saying and following it up, but without giving me any due credit—e.g. linking to my blog or dropping an email to me explicitly.)

(1) Concerning Mathematics

What I say is: Thrash away all those “Engineering Mathematics” courses. Yes. Throw them away. Completely. Two reasons:

Firstly, the contents of these courses haven’t changed in any essential way from the times three decades ago when Wartikar brothers’ very poorly written text used to be the gold standard in Pune. (And, nowhere else!) That book is indeed fairly good, but only on that count for which an author can hardly take any credit—namely, the set of (unsolved) problems contained in it. But the main text itself is pathetic or worse on all the other important counts: (a) explanations providing appropriate context and highlighting conceptual understanding, (b) maintaining a good hierarchy in the ordering of topics, (c) the tie to physics and engineering, and (d) the production values of a book. It’s a real pity that this third-class book continues to inform the design of the syllabus in mathematics courses at University of Pune and at COEP.

Secondly, calling them “Mathematics” courses itself gives very wrong ideas to professors in this country—a country which is already so heavy on mysticism, paternalistic attitudes, deductions, etc. The effect of intrinsicism and mysticism could be easily found in any subject, but they leave an especially inescapable imprint on the teaching of mathematics. The reason is, mathematics by its nature is so abstract and “mental.” (The referents of mathematical concepts themselves reside only in the mind—not in the physical reality. When two mangoes exist in the world, what actually exists in the concrete reality is only those separate mangoes. The concept of “two” itself doesn’t exist in reality independent of the consciousness of man who has reached that stage of learning/thinking.) Since mathematics is so mental, it is so easy for the teacher to get carried away into deductive complexity upon complexity without caring anything for either the subject, or its physical correspondents, or its application, or the student learning it all. And that tendency only grows in a mystic country like India. A mathematics professor most directly insulting a student’s mind would be easy to find anywhere in the world; but they are a regular feature in India. (”What, you can’t even derive this? It’s so simple! Start with nonlinear equation and go down to linearity. Yeah, right. Start with NS and derive the Euler equation—not in a revision, but the very first time you run into it! You should be able to do it if you are smart!! Look at Narlikar. He is so smart… He became a Wrangler at Cambridge! And now, look at you… You don’t only study hard enough…” Etc. Etc. Etc. … See, how easy it is for people to get wrong ideas as soon as you mention they are going to teach “mathematics”!)

It is for this reason that I advocate that those Engineering Mathematics courses should be completely abolished. In their place, what I suggest, is to (a) begin calling them mathematical physics (which would work as a temporary band-aid) (b) completely alter the order and sequences of all the topics, (c) reduce the complexity of examination question but go ahead and introduce some more advanced topics, esp. their conceptual treatment, (d) extend the lengths of all these “mathematics” courses.

Don’t get shocked at the last suggestion! Don’t say that we have no place left for an additional course or two in maths. There is. Because, I am also advocating to also do away with all the numerical analysis courses. And also, many others (e.g. the “Applied Science” courses that do no good to anyone.)

Instead, we need to have a sequence of four to five courses on “Mathematical and Computational Physics,” all to be completed by all engineers (including the IT and CS engineers) within the first two years.

Today, at University of Pune and COEP, the situation is so bad that the IT and CS majors have absolutely no idea about, say, 3D boundary value problems, what the term stress means, what Fourier’s law of heat conduction is, and why, even about EM fields, really speaking. (They cannot even properly do visualization of a 3D wave-field… all that they can sketch is a static wave in 1D. And, theywill invariably fail to tell in which direction it would move—to the left or to the right.)

It’s for this reason that all engineers, regardless of their branch, must be taught a common curriculum which is strong on physics and basic engineering sciences, in the first two years.

These courses should emphasize the teaching of mathematics from a conceptual and physics-based viewpoint; they should keep the engineering or technological applications in sight but only as distant ends; and they should make use of computational physics as an indispensably important tool for both pedagogy as well as professional preparation.

For example, currently, COEP has no separate course on differential equations (DEs). Instead, some of the topics on DEs are distributed piecemeal, and are covered without depth. (For instance, COEP/UoP students are not taught the diffusion equation in 3D, only in 1D; most of them cannot tell when they will use Fourier’s method vs. Laplace’s even though thousands of them could easily solve the examination type of questions on either method.) Instead, there should be one complete dedicated course on ODEs and another on PDEs (possibly with vector Analysis), and more: both these courses should have not mathematics as their central focus but mathematical physics. Further, these courses should integrate the computational physics part within them. For instance, not only should the UG student be taught about the well- and ill-posed problems, but he should also be shown, with the help of some simple C++ code snippets based on the simple finite difference method, what kind of unphysicality creeps in if an ODE/PDE problem is made ill-posed. The students should be made to appreciate that they need to learn differential equations to be able to tackle the IV-BV class of problems—not in order to deductively manipulate Euler’s identity so as to satisfy an orthodox MSc in pure mathematics who would smirk disdainfully at the student’s lack of technical proficiency in rapidly performing meaningless manipulations involving it.

Needless to add, the situation at IITs is not very different. However, they are slightly better in that they do refer to Kreyszig or other books while designing their syllabii—not Wartikar—and so, the syllabus at least tends to be somewhat better—even if the students themselves or the professors themselves are not very different anyway. (Indeed, at IITs, the tendency to be rationalistic is even more pronounced.)

(2) Concerning Physics

Contrary to what the Indian Bania industrialists (or the small-scale “industrialists”) come and tell you, reduce the share of technology-specific courses, and instead, increase the share of physics (or basic engineering scienes-related) education in engineering and technology UG curricula.

A room for greater physics can be made by downsizing (or altogether dropping) technological courses. After all, going by my own practical experience (and that of hundreds if not thousands of working engineers), picking up technology is so damn easy if you are sound on fundamentals (and impossible if you are not). And, further, one way or the other, you are going to take some time to pick up technology anyway because you would be working one or two decades later… How is it possible for an e-School to prepare you for the next generation technology when none has any idea about it? So, much time is, really speaking, only wasted in “teaching” technology at e-Schools. Instead, such topics could easily be relegated for self-reading plus technical reports or seminar (say for 1 credit hour).

Let me give you one specific example in reference to the mechanical engineering curriculum even though the same essential argument can be easily extended to any other branch of engineering as well.

There is no need to have three separate courses, one on Fluid Mechanics, another on Fluid Machinery, and one more on Energy Conversion, and one more on Power Plant Engineering, all with partial overlap of contents on each. (And, we are leaving aside Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer etc. courses too.)

Instead, make it just a two-course sequence. This will become possible if students are already familiar with concepts like differential nonlinearity and differential coupling, via their earlier courses in computational and mathematical physics. (That is, the revised maths course and sequence I spelt out above.) Today, the situation is: mention these two terms and the students would look at you blankly. (They continue to do so until after their BE/BTech graduation.) Forget nonlinearity, they don’t even know that beautiful theorem by Helmholtz which says that you can always split up any arbitrary vector field into a sum of one irrotational field and another one, a solenoidal field. Now, if you go and ask any engineering mathematics professor, he will laugh and say, “no, that topic is far too advanced for an undergraduate; it requires far too much advanced mathematics.” He would say so, in the process completely ignoring (or even evading) the fact that Helmholtz himself was trained only as a medical doctor (i.e. not even as an engineer let alone as a mathematical physicist or a mathematician proper). Now, I fail to understand why is it that a 19th century medical doctor can, with self study, originally invent that theorem, but a 21st century graduate engineer cannot handle it in his curriculum? Why does this impression persist—namely, that Helmholtz’ theorem is too advanced to be presented to UG in engineering at UoP/COEP/many IITs?

The impression persists not because the topic itself is advanced, but because the teacher himself sees nothing but a further bout of meaningless symbolic manipulation which must precede before the theorem can be taught. He foresees that bout of deductive complexity whenever he happens to think of that topic. The teacher himself doesn’t consider the inductive reasoning behind Helmholtz’ theorem, he doesn’t bother visualizing fields or tracing the geometrical and physical lines of thinking about it, he doesn’t consider the simplicity of the essential argument behind that theorem. All that he foresees are those threateningly complex mathematics, because that is what his teachers had made out of that topic by overemphasizing deduction, by indulging in a dance of ideas progressing from one idea to the next each of which was necessarily kept divorced from reality. Naturally, being a well-meaning teacher, he cannot imagine unleashing that kind of atrocity upon his students while they are still in their UG years. (They need to mature, become thick enough, and then, the atrocity could certainly be unleashed against them. That’s what he means. … Everyone likes them young!)

Anyway, to return to this sub-point concerning reduction in the time spent on fluid mechanics, if basic physics (like conservation of angular momentum) and basic engineering sciences (like kinematics of deformation, including a discussion of vorticity right while introducing or discussing strains) has been taught well, then, the subsequent “mathematics” courses can also be sufficiently physical as to include a discussion of the differential nonlinearities. In which case, the strain involved in the teaching of fluid mechanics would get reduced, and so, only a two-course sequence would be enough to cover the overlapping topics from turbomachinery, hydromachinery and whatnot. Further, FM itself could also be made more interesting using CFD software for visualization (i.e. even if the students don’t take a separate course on CFD proper), and by making use of some small, simple codes illustrating and highlighting various features/aspects of nonlinearity.

So, you can see the deeper sense in which I mean to say that computers and computational physics should be made use of, in engineering education…

—–

It’s high time that COEP took advantage of the resonating kind of institutions nearby, and certainly, the availability of well-trained people in the field of computational sciences (or at least the ready availability of such people who could, with some extra effort, be turned into well-trained people spanning computer science to science to engineering) and use both these to enhance the quality of its engineering programs.

Throwing money on buying computers accomplishes nothing. Not if things of the above kind aren’t taken up for implementation.

And, introducing biology courses in engineering programs can be, if you ask me, a very poor idea, indeed. I mean, it’s OK as an elective. But not at the FE level. And not as a means for enhancing the core engineering program itself, in general. (Think: What good would it do to introduce a course on the kinematics of machinery in a dentist’s undergraduate program, simply because he happens to use a rather complicated contraption for a drill? Or, what good would it do to introduce the mechanics of materials in an undergraduate surgeon’s program—on the grounds that he is going to cut tissues and so must know the mechanics involved in the cutting action? Doesn’t it look like an outright laughable idea right on the face of it? If yes, why does the reverse feel so appealing? Are our engineering students so dumb that they can’t look up a bones model and figure out the precise way in which the hip joint does or doesn’t develop contact? Is that the case? Or is it the case that our educators carry a remnant or a vestige of a sense of intellectual inferiority which a lot of Indian engineers feel whenever they run into doctors? (You see, in India, medical admissions would be a shade more competitive in the statistical sense—there would be fewer seats. But if you ask me, the medical admissions would also be a shade less competitive because cracking biology would of course involve more of parrot-like cramming than the sort of on-the-fly application of a few fundamental principles which physics and mathematics involves. So, doctors could be expected, by and large, to be dumber but harder-crammers…. But then, again, people (engineers) aren’t always so sure about even valid observations so long as they aren’t widely accepted in society… It’s no accident that with the IT industry and American money, engineers started earning more, and so, (dumb and beautiful) girls’ parents started running after engineers more than the doctors, and so, engineers started having confidence. But that’s a recent story, and applicable only to IT and CS folks—the same ones who can’t tell the units of stress or one honest application of the concept of gradient.)

If your objective is to enhance the engineering education, you have to increase the emphasis on basic physics, basic engineering sciences, and computational science and engineering—not on biology…

Do the first, and you will see the efforts bearing world-class fruits in a matter of time as short as a decade or less…

(Actually, there are many reasons why I don’t give a damn to the adjective “world-class.” A sidey incremental development translating into nothing of major or lasting value (or of any practical use) can also be world-class… After all, world-class is necessarily a comparative description, not absolute: it tells you about the relation of one man against others—not of the relation of a man with reality. That’s the difference.)

More on all these topics, I mean, expanding on use of computational physics in engineering, the third paradigm and its relevance, and all later on…

For the time being, I guess I have already used this keyboard a lot in one go… Time to take a break (for a few days or so)…

—–

I also consider it my moral obligation to keep reminding you that I am currently jobless, and that all my posts and former emails (and job applications) in this context are relevant…

…Do consider it a shamelessness on the part of all the powers that be (here and in the USA) that I am jobless when many relatively worthless folks (including those graduating BTechs from Kanwal Rekhi and Vinod Khosla and Suhas Patil’s IITs, and the BCS or BE in ITs) have been rich or super-rich.

A dean like Anand Bhalerao also is one of them. (For those who don’t know: He was willing to offer me a job as a full professor of mechanical engineering, but only on the condition that I would not talk about my (what he felt and said were “superior”) achievements to my students or my younger colleagues from the faculty so as not to disturb the “atmosphere” that he had painstakingly set up at his university… I refused, saying that I could not hang my achievements at the gates of his university so as to be able to enter as a suitably meek man once inside that campus. Achievements—real achievements—aren’t hats, I had pointed out.) A Vishwajit Kadam interviewing me and welcoming me in his institution verbally but not actually issuing the appointment letter (so that the issue of paying me salary simply does not arise later on) also falls in exactly the same category… And so do my friends who asked me to get meek at least once because I anyway had no other job in hand—-this, at a time that Anand Bhalerao himself had not noticed this weakness of my situation… With friends like these, who needs enemies? (And, in case you read this, Vishwajit: In retrospect, it is me who is sorry. I am indeed sorry that I could as low as saying, just for getting a job for myself, that I was looking forward to “encouragement” of my work from you… For that one moment, I had lost my bearing only because I wanted to conform as well as I could—I was asked, by my “friends,” to behave as “neatly” as possible. I couldn’t have managed it, and so, I ended up saying what I did—that I appreciated that “encouragement” from you, an encouragement worth 40,000 Rs per month… Sorry, indeed, I am. I should have kept my (actually) better sense compared to my “friends” (as well as my pride) and should have told you on the face that you were doing a good thing in hiring me.)

Anyway, to return to the theme of this point, this neat-looking young nothing called Vishwajit Kadam also is one of them (the aforementioned BTech IITians through to Sakal editors) if he can promise me a job but not release the appointment letter.

And, while on this line, let me also note that it was repugnant to read, just two weeks later, that some Pune educationist’s son had been caught throwing lakhs of rupees in cash at a dance-bar girl near Mumbai over the course of a single night. (I also want to note here that I doubt that it could have been Vishwajit in that dance bar there… I mean, there are many big educationists in Pune, and they have sons whose ideas of life aren’t exactly in line with education in any sense of that word… But then, how do you know that it just couldn’t have been this guy or that guy if you also know that you had been promised an appointment letter but it never landed in your hands? How do you know that such characters can be worthy of your trust?)

Anyway, far more important than the issue of dance bars, here, are the issues of education and of my unemployment… After all, anyone could easily vouch for the fact that Ms. Vidya Yerwadekar simply won’t ever go out to New Mumbai and throw lakhs of her own money on those dance-bar girls, over the course of a single night. Anybody could vouch that Vidya herself, certainly, won’t do that. Yet, how does knowing this fact about Vidya help one if the application one made to her institution, namely, Symbiosis (which spends crores in advertising itself—often also buying editorial influence in ToI), cannot bother to even acknowledge by email the job application?

And, I want to go further: Why can’t Vidya invite me for an interview for her new engineering college, I ask pointedly… After all, I also blog at Harvard-based iMechanica; have a master’s from an IIT (and at 40+ age after competitive examinations, was offered admissions to both IIT and IISc); I do research at COEP; and, Vidya herself is not all that distant in space or age to me—she probably was just a batch or two junior to me but in BJ when I was an undergrad in COEP…

I could go on, but anyway, Swami (of Swaminomics of ToI fame), it is to you that I want to remind: Hindi: “hamaam me sab nange”—whether they are (dear to your heart) Bania “businessmen”, or those “professional” “educationists” from Pune, or those Delhi bureaucrats taking pleasure in running educational institutions, or those educationists vying to become bureaucrats, or, of course, the Americans. “hamaam me sab hai nange.”

—–

An aside: The last few columns in Sunday ToI by M.J.Akbar have been excellent. Better than Swami’s or anyone else’s (in that newspaper)… I don’t know if Akbar has actually fallen out with the Gandhi-Nehru parivar or what… (I don’t follow up too closely on journos but vaguely remember having read in my younger days in 1980s—say in magazines like Outlook, Frontline, India Today or the like—that charges were being leveled against Akbar in those times that he would defend Rajiv Gandhi regardless of season or reason… (I guess the journo in question was Akbar only, but I am not certain.) Has there been a real change in Akbar or what? … I think that even if he has remained as acute as before, packing as many dramatic punches and twists in his writing as before, still, today, I have this vague sense that Akbar might actually have mellowed a little bit now… I mean, his writing has acquired a bit of gravitas of a certain kind that is not very easy for a journo to pick up once he has begun writing… A welcome change it is… All in all, these days, it is his columns which make for the best read (I mean within ToI)… (I can only hope that the quantum measurement effect doesn’t affect his writing style in the immediate future. (Incidentally, it is this fact which heightens my irritation at my being jobless—obviously, the powers that be do read me, take notice of what I write, and yet, continue to make sure that I go jobless. BXXXXXXs…))

[Updated and expanded on 6th and 7th April, 2009. Yes, I have expanded my entry and added even more asides in it... Do you have any problem with that, journos? IB folks? Americans? Others?]

[BTW, WordPress' AutoSave is a great feature... In Pune the electricity goes off without warning and some 1000+ of my words were accessible thanks only to this AutoSave feature!]

[Correction on April 10, 2009: The dean's name is Anand Bhalerao, not Rajesh Bhalerao as posted earlier]

Today’s News on the IITs and My Joblessness

It was interesting to read in today’s Indian Express that IITs are thinking of introducing courses on topics other than engineering and technology. Such topics (mostly at the initial stages) include, e.g., arts and performing arts at IITK, law at IITKGP, medicine at IITM, etc.

Since I am an IIT critic (esp. of those BTech IITians), let me you in on the other side of the story. All this news, really speaking, is yet another effort in brand-building for the IITs. (One of the editors of Indian Express is a BTech from IITKGP.)

You see, all these BTech IITians settled in the USA or making huge money in the USA have always gone hyper in describing the IITs. Facts seamlessly merged with fantasy in their descriptions. One remembers Silicon Valley tycoons such as Kanwal going to as much extent as saying that IITs were like MIT and Harvard put together. I am not sure if it was Kanwal (Rekhi) himself or whether it was Desh (Gururaj Deshpande, N. Murthy’s in-law), or Suhas (Patil, of, ahem, MIT) who said it. But someone of their ilk did.

Now, needless to add, that kind of hyper is, very obviously, utterly self-defeating. But if you keep that particular statement aside, there are many other statements, hyper, which did have an impact towards brand-building.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not taking something away from IITs. I am well aware of SPICMACAY and whatnots. I am also well aware that some IITians (less than 5%) often are into the things cultural.

But what I am saying is that there is this hyperbole about IITs. And that it is supported equally well by the Indian government—its bureaucracy—primarily because it lets them feel good about their (say, Nehtruvian) model of the mixed economy. As a result, IITians know—through direct experience of being pampered—that the government will support them. This has been going on. The support from bureacracy has only helped build the IIT “brand”.

All was going well… But then, reality interfered somewhere down the line.

Today, with India’s opening up of its economy, globalization the world over in general, and the Internet revolution, even a mediocre American can easily connect to, say, IIT Bombay’s Web site, get a sense of what is happening at its campus, and then, visit the Web sites of MIT and Harvard (individually), and get a sense of what is going on there, and then, compare the two for himself. You see, communication revolution works both ways.

Naturally, if what one supposes isn’t too wrong, falling flat on the face might not have been all too rare an occurrance for the BTech IITian in the USA—I mean after finishing claiming, for the n-th time, that IITs are better than MIT and Harvard put together. (How they don’t get plain tired!)

So, finally, someone must have woken up that something must be done towards supporting that hyperbolic “brand” building by some fact—even if that something is going to be purely a token something anyway.

Hence, the move.

And, if you have been alert about news about the IITs in the recent past or so, a few things are very easily noticeable about today’s news item in the Indian Express.

IIT Kanpur, really speaking, is inviting only Veena Sahasrabuddhe. And, her husband had been a professor of computer science at IIT Kanpur in the past anyway. But starting from this factual base, look at the terms they use: they are going to “bring Shantiniketan” [its atmosphere] to the IIT. … Don’t let the distance between the terms of describing the IITs and the actual facts surprise you too much… Such is their usual way. (I should know! I have myself attended a master’s at an IIT!!)

IIT Kharagpur is now emphasizing their education in law rather than medicine. This is not accidental. Only last week or so this IIT did some major PR exercise about their artificial heart group (medicine + engineering). However, it also happened to be same week in which a BTech IIT student lost his life prima facie because the hallowed IIT doing “cutting edge research in biomedical engineering” also lacked the most basic emergency services and the timely presence of a doctor to administer it. The young students therefore got so angry that they forced the director of the IIT to resign. … One tries not to be cynical, but still, going by one’s own experience over decades, one must ask: Would the director have to resign if the student to die was an MTech student? Or worse: An MSc student who did not go to that IIT as an “integrated” MSc student but only after doing his BSc at one of the universities in India? Will the BTech students at IITs be honest and do some soul introspection with reference to that question?

Anyway, inconvenient as this episode was, the IIT “brand” building brigade has now come forward and with just a sleight of hand, awarded the IIT Madras the leadership role in introducing medicine on campus in their newspaper coverage… Diversion of attention, this is called…

It’s not that I am envious or jealous of what all benefits are going to those IITs. No. (And I am very clear about this.) What I actually feel is a very mild (and transient) form of irritation, primarily. About that “brand” building exercise. That shameless PR thing about it. And what I find more seriously unacceptable is that, unfortunately, the sin does not all belong only to the alumni in the USA and the bureaucrats… As far as I know, even the BTech students themselves are responsible for it…

How else do you explain that, when I apply for the CAE jobs, I get asked the question: “Do you have any experience in the CAE field?” The question means: Forget the maturity of the engineering judgment that you might have developed. Forget the number of years that you have worked on the shop-floors as an application engineer fixing any number of engineering problems from diverse fields, and the number of years you have spent in the engineering research environment. Forget it all. The question is: Do you have practical experience? No? Then you can’t be considered.

If you think that line of thought to be fair enough (or the way of the world), then, consider this.

In the year 2002, as I began thoughts of pursuing my current PhD, I approached IIT Bombay. Professor Maiti (I suppose it was him in the HoD’s cabin) brushed me aside in the personal meeting. Later on, Professor Amarnath chaired the committee (supposedly so because he was HoD of Mech. dept.) saying that I could not admitted to their IIT. Note, I already had had my practical experience with me at that point of time. In 2002.

Since then, the 2002 batch BTech students of “Professors” Maiti and Amarnath and Shevare (see my earlier post on Zeus Numerix) have graduated. These BTech students have started getting independent contracts for work in FEM and CFD analysis. For many years now. So much so that today, they all can claim that they have seven years of experience. And doesn’t seven years look like a long enough a time! But remember, it is precisely the seven years in which I have been forced to go jobless. The IIT BTechs got their breaks even if they had no practical experience—not even the general experience building that crucial engineering judgment. They got it just because they were BTechs from IIT Bombay.

And, today, they (all of BTechs and most of MTechs) have become so arrogant that except for one Mr. Dharani Madala, not a single soul even responds by email if I write to them, responding to their job advertisements. For example, the BTech IITians at Alcyon (see here and here). or the BATU BTech + MTech IItians in the CFD field in Pune such as Sandip Jadhav et al (see here.) Some of them, I suppose, come from “backward” communities and “backward” regions like Marathwada and Aurangabad just as some of the Alcyon ones mentioned above…

And, of course, don’t make exception out of these people just because I happened to have named them individually. Most all BTechs of all IITs are like that. The exception count, for the IIT BTechs, would something like 1 % or so… I have run across hundreds of BTech IITians, but can count exceptions on the fingers of my hands. Indeed, let me. Right away… Here is the list them in the chronological order that I happened to have come across them in my life: Subhramsu Bhattacharyya, Pravin Dhole, James David, Parag Bhargava, Asok Chattopadhyaya, Prashant Navare, Sameer Jalnapurkar, Hemant Pathak. And, very probably, I have missed none else…. The point to note is that a list like this is this short.

So, what I am talking about Alcyon is not specific to them—it’s generally applicable to all BTech IITians… The only reason I mention Alcyon by name in particular is because: (i) They just happen to be the last company of BTech IITians to whom I happened to have sent my emails and job application. (ii) They had not even entered IITs (or started attending their pre-IIT coaching) by the time I had already had my practical work experience in the hard engineering field, not to mention my BE education at COEP and my first three firsts in the world anyway (which is something none of them can claim till date despite attending IIT Bombay and all). (iii) I am not old enough to be retired. This much is, of course, might be evident to you.

But in case you wonder why mention even such simple and straightforward facts as that I am not old to retire, the reason is, have seen BTech IITians raise even more petty and immature issues from their side, and respond in even worse ways when their position of being pampered and/or of authority gets disturbed. I mean it.

For example, I have seen Jaggi Ayyangar react the way he did (and do let me know if you want a detailed description of that). I have heard Shirish Deodhar, a VP of a big and reputed company and the son of the former Scientific Advisor to Rajeev Gandhi, lie to me through his teeth despite my having worked devotedly for his company in the past and despite the fact that he knew my worsening financial condition, could have helped, but didn’t. (His subordinate, a manager, had confirmed to me that they had several positions in MS technologies platform. Their Times of India ad. had asked for MS Technologies anyway. And, despite my interview, nothing had moved, so I had called Shirish. Shirish then gave me the reason that he can’t offer me job because: “We have all Linux projects currently.” and “You are doing great, Ajit, you are working on your PhD and all…” That is the level of petty lieing through the teeth that I mean about BTech IITians from IIT Bombay. They do so with the full knowledge that none would ever disturb their lies.) And, I have also seen Mr. Ashok Joshi, a claimed founder of C-DAC, accuse me of unjust things and then proceed and justify the worse among the worse software engineers he had, at my expense. And, I have seen Professor Shevare take the decision that he did. And, there are others, too…. This list, believe me, happens to be too long for me to even indicate adequately.

But anyway, coming back to the BTech class of 2002 of IIT Bombay and me… What can explain the gross injustice in this case—the fact that I don’t get anywhere in CAE despite my research results, the evidence I give of having implemented (at least a toy) FEM software, and my earlier eight years of work and research experience of the kind and quality it has been, whereas these fresh BTech IITians from IIT Bombay, despite having none of such things under their belt, still do, as a matter of fact, get their jobs and contracts in the CAE and FEM fields, not just in software development. (The matter is not justifiable even in the software field, but the stupid and/or immoral Americans have advertised it for too long that “computers” and software is all kids’ bastion).

So, coming back to my joblessness and the handsome growths of BTech IITians, esp. those from IIT Bombay… What can explain the gross injustice of this case if not the shameless feeding of that smirky sense of superiority of these BTech IITians by the all powerful Americans—IIT alumni and others? (And, if I am wrong in my analysis, why not drop me a well thought out line—the emphasis being on “well thought out”?)

I mean why is it that a fresh BTech gets to have at least a toy assignment even when he has no experience, whereas I don’t get my break? (And note, these assignments pay them, unlike Professors Shevare and Banerjee’s Zeus Numerix who didn’t bother paying me anything even after making promises that they would.) I mean to ask, what drives people to trust their engineering designs—and possibly human lives—in the immature hands so long as these hands are officially stamped with BTechs from the Nehruvian era IITs but not otherwise. You see, as far as the experience using software packages for a live project was concerned, the field was level—in the year 2002. As far development of engineering judgment was concerned, I, *evidently*, had (and perhaps still do) have an edge. By way of basic merit and talent and intelligence, I don’t care to say anything—after all, I still haven’t given up on my COEP-imbibed value of letting my work talk. And, COEP is not supposed to be a bad school either…. Clearly, I should be the winner. Clearly, Alcyon and other similar folks should be coming to me for a job. It is they who should have been trying to impress me with their talent. Clearly, this isn’t happening. Not only that, not even reverse is happening—Alcyon and other similar folks aren’t even bothering to respond to me. (By my work habits, and my morals, I would have. And I still do).

The above-mentioned difference is an injustice. And, IITians—professors and students and alumni, and in each of the preceding categories, those named as well as many folds more unnamed ones—are responsible for the mess that my life has been turned into. They all are responsible as much as are the morals-less and super-powerful Americans. (Even the COEP folks who could have helped but didn’t or don’t are. But they come at the third or the n-th position. Speaking objectively.)

[PS: One more point. Don't dismiss this piece of writing as IIT bashing. This is serious, and facts- and reason-based. And the final point. In my opinion, many of the non-IITians like the BEs from those numerous engineering colleges, as well as those unreasonably highly paid BCS graduates and all, are, as a general rule (allowing again for exceptions), worse than these BTech IITians. In terms of both talents as well as morals. After all, I have seen rich Americans (and others) shameless manipulate things in order to support incompetents regardless of whether they are IITians or not---and, the Indians delivering on all such things as requested of them regardless of the morals involved and regardless of whether they had attended an IIT or not.]

[BTW, this piece is not an attempt to divert your attention from what I have recently written about University of Pune in the recent past. You are in fact encouraged to read those posts too.]

[Written and published on March 29, 2009 IST.]

Immigration, Esp. to the USA

I. First of all, read the two excerpts mentioned below; both come from Americans:

(i) Today’s HBL highlights immigration (to the USA), but unlike Binswanger’s earlier article, today’s excerpt has a subtle shift of emphasis. Since today’s HBL excerpt is likely to go away in a day or two, I copy and paste it here… If it’s immoral and/or illegal, let me know and I will remove it (though I know that copyright laws do permit copying for “fair use” and that “fair use” includes quoting for criticism.)

“Way back when this crisis began, Caroline Jones noted in a post (Sept. 30) that opening up America to more immigration would solve the housing crisis. I then promoted that idea in some of my own posts. Yaron Brook picked it up and mentioned the idea in his inaugural speech at the Ayn Rand Center, calling it: “Buy a house, get a green card.” Last Tuesday, March 17th, the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed defending this same idea. The authors of that op-ed didn’t use Dr. Brook’s memorable phrase, so I don’t know if they got it from him, directly or indirectly, but his phrase did appear as a headline in an online piece by John Mauldin: “Buy A Home, Get a Green Card: A Real Stimulus Package.” — Harry Binswanger”

(ii) Now, let us see a couple of lines taken from Michael J. Herd’s essay on immigration, published at CapMag.com on March 4, 2009:

“…Unfortunately, since the country is now part welfare state moochers and part productive people, you cannot guarantee that all those wanting to get into the country are self-responsible. Some are coming for the opportunity to stand on their own, and some are coming for the freebies…”

Access the full article here: “Immigration: Why the Debate Is Tragically Flawed”.

Concerning these two excerpts, I have the following comments to make:

(i) The reason Americans loved Carolyn Jones, Harry Binswanger, Yaron Brook et al’s idea is because by way of its emphasis it gives the impression that only rich immigrants would be allowed to enter, thereby helps consolidate the idea that only rich immigrants ought to be allowed to be entered into the USA. There is this subtle equation, as it were, which is being sought to be established between richness and morality, but in a subversive sort of a way. Today’s rich Americans indeed are, oftentimes, that immoral. This is America removed one physical century from: “Give me your poor…” But, in moral terms, the distance obviously is far bigger. I wonder whether Harry and Yaron realize this… (And, is this Carolyn the same as the one who teaches architecture at MIT?)

(ii) As to Michael J. Herd. You know that I am going to be worse with him. (Anyone who knows me could have guessed this much).

One very obvious implication (struck to me within the same few minutes that I read Michael’s article) was this: Since the country indeed is part moochers, it also loses its moral right to encourage the more productive people from other countries of the world, thereby stripping the other country of their supply of the productive men who sustained them, thereby driving them to the only course their evil dictators/powers-that-be are capable of—one of destruction. Michael’s article is a case against Americafollowing such a course of action primarily because it has lost the moral right to do so…

(I did promise you I would be worse towards Michael, didin’t I?)

Naturally, to return to one of my past themes, IIT Bombay BTechs in USA (e.g. Kanwal Rekhi and further down, e.g. Jaggi Ayyangar, etc.) also cannot have much moral right to show superiority to the rest of us (say BEs from COEP) working from/in India, right?

Now, come to think of it, 10-15 years is a relatively short period in the course of a country, and it was only in mid-1990’s that Kanwal Rekhi was visiting India, lecturing on, of all else, “Capitalism” (LOL!), and letting BTechs from IIT Bombay  (whether in India or in USA) “feel good”, distributing money to them, and so on…

Was all that money good, too, Michael? My conscience is just as sensitive in raising these questions as the timely insertion of  that article of the title “Nationalization Is Theft” at CapMag.com (and I do agree with the essential philosophical points of the latter, too) as soon as I mentioned something about NCP in my blog.

… And, if Michael (or anyone else) does say that all that money was good, my immediate next question is: Why does Kanwal Rekhi et al have tie-ups with the religious right such as (some of the) Kirloskars in Pune? Don’t take my word on it… Just check out that Peshwa Hindu Brahmin and Hindu etc. sort of a thing which has been going on on their Web site for the past 7 years (from 2001 to 2008, at least).

And, also consider: Why do I come to streets even with innovative PhD work like what I have done? Any answers, Americans caring for/against immigration?

Also, do you have any answers, Mr. Suhas Patil of Cirrus Logic? In those mid 1990s, also Mr. Patil had been quoted so extensively in Indian media that if one were to sincerely read all of those accounts in his praise, one would have actually turned dead simply out of the boredom of having to read and re-read the same inane writings concerning Mr. Patil’s remarks that doing a PhD is similar to entrepreneurship, and how it helped him become a better businessman, etc. All those quotes coming in a paper after another one, complete with a photograph of Mr. Patil shown wearing expensive trousers as used in the black dress, but without any jacket, and while wearing white sports shoes to go with those trousers. MIT’s Patil. Remarkably like the jet black hair and the unblemished white beard (or vice versa) of Sam Pitroda… I have not yet forgotten those photographs…

Obviously, none of Mr. Patil’s money has come my way any time during the past 7 years of my unemployment, and still, all his money is his own, and all of it is good, right, Americans?

There have been pieces of Ayn Rand’s own writings that tell about the infantile level of intellectual discourse in USA (in her times). One is reminded of that (I mean her writing).

And, sure enough, these are not among the things that have gone right, are they?

May many Americans (including those I have quoted) ought to feel a bit ashamed—at my circumstance. … It is high time that they did—if they had any sense of morality still left with them. … BXXXXXXs, playing games with everything of a foreigner’s life…

2. “All Politics Is Local”

Suresh (Kalmadi), you want to talk with an upper nose that only Congress supported immigration? Even now? And even if you know that I (sometimes) read your remarks?

See, if you want to get sympathy or votes from the likes of Sangita Tiwari, I couldn’t care less. (The last time I checked, they were calling North India their mother, and Pune, their aunty. No issues with that.

Except that, both times, they were evading, together with you, what and who has actually made Maharashtra so much the greater.

… So greater that today Marathi books outsale Hindi books (or any other Indian language books) despite Hindi occupying geographically 4-5 times greater area and having perhaps 3-4 times population, and always having weilded an all pervasive influence on Delhi’s politics—and therefore, of India.

… So greater that talented Karnataka doctors could immigrate here and settle down here comfortably too… Or is it that you want to debate that, too?—I mean, what and who made Maharashtra so much the greater, or the fact that Congress politicians like you routinely evade it? …

But anyway, in politics, Suresh, you (and Congress in general) could try to get votes from them… It all is a matter of your daily bread and butter. (Hindi: “tumhare roji roTi kaa sawaal hai woh.”) But why give it the subtle spins that only the Congress that is slavish to the High High High Command supports immigration? That is my question.

OK. Let me make something clear. I voted for Suresh Kalmadi the last time. If he gets a ticket, I will vote for him again. In fact, I will straightway vote any Congress candidate from Pune. Even a stone whitewashed and put up with a Gandhi cap will get my vote. (On second thoughts, even the Gandhi cap isn’t necessary—it doesn’t look all too good at the Filmfare ceremonies, right, Vilasrao?)

The reason I vote Congress in Pune is: it keeps BJP and communists away from the power at the center.

(Another—and actually a minor—part of the reason is, NCP has no candidate in Pune as per their seat-sharing agreement. I say minor, because picking out a good candidate is so easy provided there are no overarching issues complicating the matter… For instance: What would one do if AB Vajpayee of the yesteryears (of his vigorous younger years) were to contest from Pune? And, suppose, the opponent was, say, Suresh Kalmadi of todays, one who has done nothing in the last many years of his career apart from supporting the Congress High High High Command in each one of the latter’s games to undermine Sharad Pawar and keep him out of PMship, adopting any which way… Tough call, such a contest would have been—because the question so easily eggs one to go out of the context…. I will answere what my call would have been, later on…

For the time being, let me just say that that is not going to be the nature of choice in Pune this time round anyway, and,  yes, I would certainly vote Kalmadi if his High High High Command bestows on him a ticket regardless of whether he has earned one or not.

But simply because people like me go out and vote for Suresh, there is no reason if he begins to read something more into it and begins to act over-smartly. If he does, it would be time to cut him down to size. …

Suresh, never let the impression gain the grounds that only the Congress that is slavish to the High High High Command supports immigration. The simple fact is, this isn’t true. Just think of how accomodative common Indians are, and you will get your answer… (And none set me up write this. Go ahead and enquire discreetly, using your own channels. They all will confirm exactly the same as I am telling you here. The fact is, I simply don’t care enough for politics that I get interested in it often enough that anyone can find any use for me in practical politics enough that they can think of setting me up—including, esp., NCP.)