hope

The ruthless pardoner

/ bharatwrites / 10 Comments

I remember it as clear as day, which is a strange thing to say as the memory itself is of nighttime. It was raining heavily that night. Heavy was how it did: the rain in Mumbai. A bolt of lightning shot through the sky presenting the scene around me like a photographic flash not invented yet. The rumbling had become my background score. The sweet sound of raindrops hitting the surfaces of puddles somehow held its own against seemingly heavier opponents.

I loved watching the angles of the rain drops. Drops so large and forceful, they could dent cars if they tried hard enough all night. They came down in bullying rage, but with a decorum of obliqueness, parallel to each other, yet at odds with everything else: a law unto themselves.

The fourth floor apartment window I patronized overlooked the abandoned garden. Untamed shrubbery and grass amidst the trees were in tireless negotiations with the howling wind. I still remember that bench. The one bench that was close enough to a streetlight. I could see it so clearly. I’d be able to sculpt the mosaic from memory, textured like a face with years of wisdom and character. That bench was probably never cleaned, save for the all-forgiving showers. On rainy nights, it looked like it probably had the day it was created.

I still don’t understand why that mental picture means so much to me. I haven’t seen rain like that much in over four years, about the same time since I looked hard at that bench. I could make some half-baked joke about my crippling laziness, and how a bench would represent my ultimate life-goals, or I could make my readers gag by suggesting that this recurring image is some inspiration to stay firm in unfavorable circumstances, while using the adversity to develop and grow. That most certainly isn’t it.

I remember, as a teenager that my feelings of vulnerability rose whenever it rained. I supposed my subconscious had convinced me that worst case, I’d have to live on the streets, where I’d totally survive, as long as it didn’t rain. Somehow, rain represented adversity, a question to the answer of shelter. I always have enormous respect for my parents’ achievements, but none so clear as when it poured in Bombay.

PhD comprehensive exams

/ bharatwrites / 5 Comments

Hi, all

Here I am hiding behind the tag of PhD comprehensive exams to justify my lack of posting on this blog. I thought today (as I was taking a break from studying), that I should share my preparation experience.

To the uninitiated, most PhD programs require the student to pass one or more exams called the comprehensive exams (comprehensives or comps for short). Some universities also call this the qualifiers (quals for short). Either way, once you’re done with these exams, you’re considered a doctoral candidate in most universities. In  my particular university, the comps come in two waves:

  1. Part A/B: This involves theoretical and applicative questions from every course taught to the students in my program. Every course! Whether you took it or not. As long as that course is being taught, you can expect questions from it. There will be some questions out-of-portion as well, mainly testing whether you can apply your knowledge and think on your feet.
  2. Part C/D: This is taken the next semester if you pass A/B. That is a big ‘if’ by the way. In this exam, they give you a research article and ask you to critique it. You must understand the article, question the research motives and methods, attack the rationality of the conclusions drawn from available data, and suggest ways of carrying the research forward. Of course, all this happens if you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, they give you a part of the article, or sometimes just data that look like they were ripped off someone’s excel sheet. Then they ask you questions that require you to explore the ambit of your subject, all in one sitting session. That’s just Part C. In Part D, you are given some bottleneck questions in your subject and expected to solve them. Again, the idea is that they’re testing your approach to a problem, not so much the solution itself.

phdcomics.com

I would love to question the wisdom of testing a student’s qualification for a PhD program three years into his PhD program, but something tells me that’s not how the world works. Written qualifiers/comps tire me a lot, simply because while doing research, we completely lose touch with the idea of physically putting pen to paper. Many colleges have take-home quals which solves this problem, as the answer mostly needs to be typed not written.

In my school, each professor in the department puts in his questions, and the committee chooses ten of them. Of those, we need to do six. Of those, we need to pass five. Sounds easy right?

This reminds me of a biology professor I had in 11th standard who said that in older times, when the topper used to score 60%, all a good student had to do was to study hard and write a good paper. In today’s 99% times, a student needs to probe the psychology of the professor to determine what he wants from the question. Amen to that! From what I’ve heard, one needs to read a question and then decode whose question it is from the language and style. Then, one needs to tailor the answer to the proclivities of that person.

The trouble comes when one professor sets the question and another one grades it. Professors are of various types. Some like succinct answers and penalize you for making them read more than they have to. Others prefer you err on the side of caution lengthwise.

There is a luck factor associated with any exam. This factor seems to play the biggest role in the engineering exams at the University of Mumbai, as a friend of mine found to his dismay. His paper was cleared after re-evaluation, but no one can repay him for the months of depression, disbelief and ignominy. Of course, the people who knew him, used this negative result as a referendum on Mumbai University exam methods than his prowess in electronic engineering. My comps exam has a luck factor too: students who’ve spent months reading and reading for an exam can choke at the final moment like the South African cricket team. No matter how well one prepares, D-Day has it’s own plans.

My next blog post is definitely going to be after the exam (Nov 10th). Hopefully, it is on a positive note.

The precipice

/ bharatwrites / 27 Comments
“Hey man…can you come over in an hour?”
“Ya sure…what’s up?”
“Aa jana phir batata hoon.” (I’ll tell you when you get here.)
“Okay, see you in an hour.”
“Accha sun, quarter leke aana.” (Bring a quarter liter of whiskey)
“Sure…Royal Stag?”
“Abbe kanjoos, abhi to note chaapne laga hai…bring JD at least!” (Cheapo! You’re making good money now. At least bring a Jack Daniels.)
Forty five minutes later…
“Early as usual!”
“Well, quarter ghar mein padi thi (I had some whiskey at home)…and traffic was low…”
“So, you came via Panch Pakhadi?”
“Yeah, but with a few unorthodox detours on the bike, I managed to avoid traffic…now tell me”
“Arre…let me make a small one first…soda for you?”
“Make mine with Coke, by the way, go slow, I brought only one quarter…”
“Arre mera to on the rocks hone wala hai (dude, mine’s gonna be on the rocks)…I took the liberty of ordering some Chicken biryani…”
“Is this discussion gonna be about your job or relationship?”
“Oddly enough, both. You see, I got a promotion…did you watch the match?”
“Congrats! Yeah I saw, in spite of Ponting’s century, Aussies lost…but unka to time aa gaya hai (but their time has come)…what is your new designation?”
“Associate Sales Head for Mumbai division; it means a lot more money and some real responsibilites for a change…by the way I ordered the biryani from that guy Khurshid in Talao pali...”
“That is amazing, so your career is finally taking off…Khurshid is ok…it is Rashid whose biryani is amazing…how does this affect your relationship though?”
“June 2006, third Sunday…I had called you and told you that she has given me a ultimatum…remember?”
“How you remember dates and days with such feminine accuracy I will never understand…but yeah I remember the ultimatum, and come on…you guys have been together for 4 years now and there seems to be no serious problem…other than your usual committophobia!”
“Why thank you, I seem to recall you siding with her even then. Anyway, do you remember how I had warded her off?”
“Yeah something about you not being in the place you need to be career-wise, and waiting for a promotion to some post…oh…so the time of reckoning hath arrived?”
“Exactly yaar, is promotion ne maa-behen ek kar di meri! (This promotion has screwed me over) I don’t know whether to be excited or not.”
“The way I see it, you love this post, what are you thinking about…take the promotion and don’t tell her anything…so you will be safe..”
“Nahi yaar…she is a part of the legal team which we had contracted for these two years…another pair pe kulhaadi (self-sabotage) from yours truly…she will definitely hear about this…I have to take the promotion and I have to commit to her now.”
“Or, of course, you can break it off…are you ready to do that?”
“No dude…everything is fine now…we meet often, and we are both saving money, and I definitely see marriage in the future for us, but not now…I am only 29 damn it!”
“Only 29! Half our graduating class has had their first progeny…forget that, what do your parents think?”
“Same old same old…they tell me to do whatever I want…but in reality they want to see me saddled and bridled right now.”
“Why don’t you look at commitment as empowering instead of imprisoning?”
“Why don’t you look for your testicles in your wife’s purse…commitment is empowering!“
“Chubbe…chal repeat bana.” (Shut up…make me another drink.”
“Sure…the reason I called you is that I want you to take stock of my relationship and tell me what you see…”
“I see a smart, good-looking person wasting time with a good-for-nothing useless dickhead.”
“Oh come on! Help me out man…”
“Sorry yaar, I’d rather crack String theory than explain this shit to you…you claim to love this female, and yet you do not want to commit to her, is there someone else?”
“No…I haven’t looked at another girl all this time…well except Tanya, that sales rep we had hired last week…”
“Or Seema, the HDFC bank girl whose useless personal loan you almost took…”
“Yeah but…”
“Or Rekha, that hot neighbor of yours..”
“She’s married!”
“Like you care…or Romila that cute girl your girlfriend carpools with…”
“Pagal hai kya (Are you nuts?), one wrong stare and she will destroy me…”
“What about Sameera, that tall wanna-be model you give occasional lifts to…”
” Well, we work in the same building…”
“Or Reena…aaah Reena..”
“Can we get back to the topic at hand?”
“How many times have I told you never interrupt me when I’m picturing Reena?”
“Sometimes I wonder how logically stunted I must be that I ask your advice!”
“Okay chill dude…look, the way I see it, you are being an ass…she loves you and by your own admission you love her…why not just take a few days’ break and think over what it is that is preventing you from making the ultimate committment, if there is a genuine answer, you might consider breaking up with her…or swallow your fear and go ahead because that is probably what you want deep down.”
“Just when I completely give up on you, you reach down into that abscess you call a heart and come up with something pretty pragmatic.”
“Well, I’m drunk enough to give a rat’s ass about your problems and sober enough to make sense!”
“Let’s stop here then…I am taking a week off and going to Kerala to meet my grandparents…who knows meeting elders or even the journey itself might lead to some quality introspection…”
“Promotion milte hee chutti le raha hai (taking time off right after getting a promotion)…employee of the month!”

Café speak

/ bharatwrites / 5 Comments

“A grande latte please, no cinnamon…”

“Boy! You’ve not changed a bit I see…”

“Hey, if old habits are allowed to die hard, I think coffee preferences deserve immortality”

“Double cappuccino, just a hint of cinnamon, less foam…”

“Wow…living on the wild side, I’ve never seen you order cinnamon…speaking of old spices I hate, there’s Sam…”

“Sam…surely you mean Sameer, don’t tell me he has Americanized his name too…he is just in his second semester…”

“I know, it is presumptuous of an international PhD student to become red, white & blue before he clears his comprehensives.”

“Ah! What the hell…I heard the NMR machine in his lab is a 600MHz! Is he using it now?”

“Not unless you count the new Taiwanese MS student being spread-eagled on it succumbing to his lecherous advances as research!”

“Well…chemistry manifests itself in weird ways!”

“That stab at humor was passé even for you”

“Hey…you should have ordered a decaf I guess…the last thing you need is more caffeine at your crabbiest best…I take it your animal protocol was turned down again?”

“I will never understand how a person who regularly endorses the slaughter of cows and pigs by sauntering into Burger King can cry like a baby if the protocol has a lower quantity of anesthesia than regarded as appropriate…for god’s sake I am researching pain management, how can I do that without causing the animals some pain…”

“Calm down, they are doing their job…we can’t have people being callous about animal handling in the name of research…so tell me do you get time to spend with your girlfriend at all?”

“Not really, between her trips to the polytechnic department for the gel filtrations and my constant bickering with the animal department and numerous protocol addenda…we manage to squeeze a phone call in every 3-4 days or so…”

“She lives three blocks away…her lab is three buildings away from yours…I think one or both of you might be consciously avoiding the other…”

“I need a refill…what about you?”

“Yeah…tell the waitress to repeat mine too…so I got lucky last night”

“God! I noticed that grin on your face ever since we sat down…I knew if I did not ask you, you would certainly rub in my face all the action you’ve been getting…so who is she?”

“Remember that cute ABCD biomed student of mine…well…she is not my student anymore, so I asked her out and she came in if you know what I mean”

“Your innuendoes never cease, do they?”

“Yeah whatever, while you spend your nights playing pocket-billiards mulling over doses of propofol, I am playing the game…did I mention I am up for an NIH grant?”

“F#$% you…all the fun and yet you get the laurels too…you cell culture waalahs get your own way on everything!”

“Well, not to sound too churlish, but animal research is like having a girl friend- lots of work and negotiation and not much scoring…cell culture is like my life…scoring all the time and no adjustment!”

“Hey…I have a lab meeting in half an hour…need to shave, shower and order pizza…”

“You are proving my point!”

“Same time, same place, next week?”

“Until then!”

“Bye bro…bye Sam (a little louder)”

“Bye…Hey Sam…guess who I banged last night…”

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy The Precipice

You dared, you failed

/ bharatwrites / 7 Comments

Yes, we are not silent, but loud

We are obnoxiously rich and proud

We are shameless flaunting our prosperity

Not in richness and baubles, but integrity

You came through our shores,

We did not stop you then

For there are many who come so

We’d rather not prejudge them

You betrayed our trust, transgressed our boundaries

Hurt, maimed and yes…killed our brothers

We know not what you want, what you desire

We would like to know the cause of your ire

But fear we shall not, as we never knew trepidation

Your shenanigans budge us not an inch

There is nothing we desire more than peace

But we shall not lose sleep worrying

You dared many times to breach our strongholds

You think you have succeeded

But look at our faces, our resolve, and our demeanor

Do you really dare celebrate?

For your greater target lies unachieved

As it always shall be, for our heads will never droop

We believe in rights, privacy and fun

You took none of that away

We are not those who believe

In ruining life in fear of death

You can try and try again

We shall not blink as you can see

But let me also say in return

That we are not as passive as we might appear

The day we know what it is you are

We shall obliterate you with no trace

To leave a clue that you existed

Until that day, live with knowledge that

You’ve done nothing to shake us

I love my city to no end. This is a tribute to Mumbai and her amazing resilience.

To all Mumbaikars, it’s time we declared just how valuable she is to us.