Sincerest apologies to people who did read my blog. It has been a LONG time since i wrote anything. Well to my credit I did write an article but that was supposed to go to my CV, not to my blog. If people who see my CV ever read my blog, I would be dependent on my wife financially for ever.
So what was the excuse for this lack of muse. You see I was planning a wedding. And all the while I thought how I would write a big fat blog about it. I am still contemplating about the first sentence. I was contemplating about it about half an hour ago. So I thought lets get some inspiration from myself. I opened my own blog and reread all my posts.
A funny thing cropped up. I used to dabble in some poetry before. Some of my earlier posts have a few poems. And thats just a tip of the iceberg. I suddenly remembered how much I used to write poems when i was young - really young. Maybe some people still have copies of the poems I wrote. That was funny , because I always used to write in small slips of paper, and used to give them away. They were small pieces maybe 10- 12 lines at most. And to people who are having high hopes , let me warn you - all my poems were solely concentrated in rhyming; nothing more.
I actually sat down to write a poem - ( wow talk about poetic flair!) and first of all just think of a word. Now the most difficult task , get a word which rhymes with the previous word. Once you have it then write down two lines. Now see if there is any remote connection between the 2 lines. If there is some connection then voila- a poem is born. 5 sets of rhyming words and a whole poem is constructed. They were stupid, silly, idiotic and frankly I do not remember ANY of them !
For a person who used to write for no rhyme or reason, I am left with no rhyme- only reason !
N.B. The wedding has been planned and it is over with. However I still do not promise a big fat post .
As Rene Descartes would have written had there been ink in his pen : " I am thinking " .
Friday, October 29, 2010
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Outpoxed
Recently my command over the English language has transcended great lows such that, the command has been transformed to a mere whimper. I am eagerly waiting for fall when someone from the natives ( read US of A ..........) comes to teach me the language yet again. Till then please bear while i coin new terms and entertain you with flowery language.
Question.: What is the term used when a certain disease fools 3 doctors ?
Answer: Outpoxed.
Why ?
It all started on that fateful saturday. I had gorged on some good chinese food in Ni Hao, a full 7 course, leaving nothing which was open in the buffet. I was a bit feverish but who cares. A full stomach deserves some respect and the best respect you can give is a good nights sleep. Being the very respectful types I went to sleep . Next morning when I woke up, the fever had increased , a slight headache had reared its head and so had some bright red spots on my chest and hands. Uncomfortable as it was I thought it might be some reaction to the chinese cuisine i had the night before. Gulping down an anti-allergic I hoped that the spots would go away and I would be fit and fine again.
However the spots had other plans. Suddenly they displayed their love for mathematics and started multiplying. I cancelled my plans for the day with my friends, when suddenly one of them remarked that it might be chicken pox. Then we all chickened out of the idea. Outside the temperature was -10 C. It was snowing. Which bloody virus could survive in such low temperatures. Must be strong allergy! Gulped down some more of anti-allergic and waited.
By Monday morning the spots were displaying advanced mathematics with a heavy influence of the exponential function. I perceived this to be a good time to test the doctors in Holland. I tried getting an appointment. I did not get one for the day. Apparantly it was not an emergency case. Well to me it was not. So I got an appointment on tuesday. Meanwhile I had to bear the pain !
Jumping over unimportant details I skip to the part where i met my doctor. Dr. Kocks was a young man, not much older than me guess fresh out of medical school. he was all smiling when he asked me my name, my complaints and other chit chat. However when I took off my shirt to introduce him to my new friends the smile vanished. He left his chair came close, peered over a few of the spots and gave his diagnosis, "I think it is chicken pox". I thought "Cool" Atleast now I know what happened to me. Then he looked at my face and looked at the spots. And spoke the magical words " I am not sure, I will have one of my colleagues take a look." And then he went out of the room. "Shit ! " was the only thing I could think of. After a few minutes a middle aged lady enters with Doctor Kocks. She is the other doctor on call. One look at me and she turns to Doctor Kocks and they start discussing in Dutch . My Dutch is broken so the few words i could gather is
" It looks like chicken pox to me"
"See the boils have fluid inside then"
"Definitely not allergy "
"But this is very rare"
"Still seems like chicken pox"
She turns to me and asks if I had ever had chicken pox as a child. I say No. She retorts "Are you sure". I laugh at her face. "Come on I am from India, I know what chicken pox is "
She looks at me , then at doctor Kocks and says "Most likely it is chicken pox" And she leaves the room.
I sigh. Atleast I know whats wrong which me. I sit down again. Suddenly The lady's head reappears from the door. She has a guest with her. The third doctor on call was suddenly free and he too was invited to give his opinion. Some more conversations in dutch. Finally the other two doctors leave leaving me to my fate.
Doctor Kocks sits down and pronounces "We think you have Chicken pox. Normally this happens only to children and it is quite rare for adults to have it. We have not seen many cases like this before. So here is what I will do . I will first take pictures of you. Then I will take a swab and send it to the lab to confirm. And then I will give you some antibiotics for secondary infection."
As he dutifully complied to his words, I thought - Bummer!!! this means I will be in quarantine. He hasnt mentioned anything about hospital admission so I will be at home.
I asked him" After how many days do I join my work " Oh ! he replied "You can go from tomorrow"
F**K!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I thought.
In India doctors advise atleast 2-3 week quarantine. This guy is sending me to infect others from the next day itself!
Anyway I take my prescription give him my thanks and walk out of the hospital.
Oh! Yes. It was indeed pox as was confirmed by the marks on all over my body after I got cured.
And I still think My photos will be displayed to the University medical Students and told " See this is how Chicken pox looks in adults. Side effects are meningitis, brain inflammation and a searing pain in the head as if people are hammering inside your head for all day"
Question.: What is the term used when a certain disease fools 3 doctors ?
Answer: Outpoxed.
Why ?
It all started on that fateful saturday. I had gorged on some good chinese food in Ni Hao, a full 7 course, leaving nothing which was open in the buffet. I was a bit feverish but who cares. A full stomach deserves some respect and the best respect you can give is a good nights sleep. Being the very respectful types I went to sleep . Next morning when I woke up, the fever had increased , a slight headache had reared its head and so had some bright red spots on my chest and hands. Uncomfortable as it was I thought it might be some reaction to the chinese cuisine i had the night before. Gulping down an anti-allergic I hoped that the spots would go away and I would be fit and fine again.
However the spots had other plans. Suddenly they displayed their love for mathematics and started multiplying. I cancelled my plans for the day with my friends, when suddenly one of them remarked that it might be chicken pox. Then we all chickened out of the idea. Outside the temperature was -10 C. It was snowing. Which bloody virus could survive in such low temperatures. Must be strong allergy! Gulped down some more of anti-allergic and waited.
By Monday morning the spots were displaying advanced mathematics with a heavy influence of the exponential function. I perceived this to be a good time to test the doctors in Holland. I tried getting an appointment. I did not get one for the day. Apparantly it was not an emergency case. Well to me it was not. So I got an appointment on tuesday. Meanwhile I had to bear the pain !
Jumping over unimportant details I skip to the part where i met my doctor. Dr. Kocks was a young man, not much older than me guess fresh out of medical school. he was all smiling when he asked me my name, my complaints and other chit chat. However when I took off my shirt to introduce him to my new friends the smile vanished. He left his chair came close, peered over a few of the spots and gave his diagnosis, "I think it is chicken pox". I thought "Cool" Atleast now I know what happened to me. Then he looked at my face and looked at the spots. And spoke the magical words " I am not sure, I will have one of my colleagues take a look." And then he went out of the room. "Shit ! " was the only thing I could think of. After a few minutes a middle aged lady enters with Doctor Kocks. She is the other doctor on call. One look at me and she turns to Doctor Kocks and they start discussing in Dutch . My Dutch is broken so the few words i could gather is
" It looks like chicken pox to me"
"See the boils have fluid inside then"
"Definitely not allergy "
"But this is very rare"
"Still seems like chicken pox"
She turns to me and asks if I had ever had chicken pox as a child. I say No. She retorts "Are you sure". I laugh at her face. "Come on I am from India, I know what chicken pox is "
She looks at me , then at doctor Kocks and says "Most likely it is chicken pox" And she leaves the room.
I sigh. Atleast I know whats wrong which me. I sit down again. Suddenly The lady's head reappears from the door. She has a guest with her. The third doctor on call was suddenly free and he too was invited to give his opinion. Some more conversations in dutch. Finally the other two doctors leave leaving me to my fate.
Doctor Kocks sits down and pronounces "We think you have Chicken pox. Normally this happens only to children and it is quite rare for adults to have it. We have not seen many cases like this before. So here is what I will do . I will first take pictures of you. Then I will take a swab and send it to the lab to confirm. And then I will give you some antibiotics for secondary infection."
As he dutifully complied to his words, I thought - Bummer!!! this means I will be in quarantine. He hasnt mentioned anything about hospital admission so I will be at home.
I asked him" After how many days do I join my work " Oh ! he replied "You can go from tomorrow"
F**K!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I thought.
In India doctors advise atleast 2-3 week quarantine. This guy is sending me to infect others from the next day itself!
Anyway I take my prescription give him my thanks and walk out of the hospital.
Oh! Yes. It was indeed pox as was confirmed by the marks on all over my body after I got cured.
And I still think My photos will be displayed to the University medical Students and told " See this is how Chicken pox looks in adults. Side effects are meningitis, brain inflammation and a searing pain in the head as if people are hammering inside your head for all day"
Friday, December 11, 2009
Shallow to Deep
I am bored. I am bored of inverse beam dynamics. I am bored of Runge Kutta. I am bored of fourier expansions and FFT's . So I remembered that I have a blog. By the time you read this, my boredom will have been supressed by the pile of work which is hanging over my head.
So after a long hiatus, my blog is back. And this time I etch my journey from shallow to deep.
About more than a year ago , I was under the impression that I could sink spectacularly. If Hydrophobia is a legitimate word, I had hydroparanoia. Much of it can be blamed to maternal instincts. But as Russell Crowe said as Dr John Nash, I have been "terrified, mortified, petrified" by the very prospect of jumping into a swimming pool.
So I joined swimming lessons at the age of 25. The instructors were of the opnion that they would make a Thorpe or a Phelps out of me. After 2 weeks they realized if they could convert me from a stone to a log it was an enormous feat. Thorpe could wait for another day ... or another lifetime.
Learning to swim in holland was supposedly fun for some of my friends. Or atleast they thought that I was having fun, in such close proximity with bikini clad females in the water. They do not know the ultimate truth of life. When you are in the pool with your life in your hands, sinking one moment and frantically gasping for breath in the next your vision suddenly becomes so poor that you dont even look at the bikinis any more.
It becomes even more gruesome when the person next to you is swimming like a fish, and when you look at yourself you mutter " Naaah !! still a stone".
The Instructors shout from the edge of the pool .... Arms ! Legs ! Lonnnnngggggg !
After some weeks i saw that they left the lane i was swimming and were giving tips to the others. Apparantly I was so poor .. I was dead last of the class. So I told myself, I am going to do it on my own. They havent seen my determination, as hard as a rock. And then i started sinking again. I mean I never knew that throwing arms and legs in water is so damm difficult. If my legs move my arms dont, If my arms move, my legs dont. If some how i manage to do both, water enters my nose, i panick and drink half of the pool.
Then came swimming on the back ! Now that was supposed to be easy. Because in that position you can float easily. True. But only if you have a nose like an elephant.The first time i was floating , i was thrilled. Then came a wave , or so it seemed to me. Suddenly there was water inside my nose And then I started to sink.
Fortunately all this was in the shallow end . So every time I sank, I had solid ground below me and i could stand up again. After some time I thought I could manage swimming in the shallow end. Let me claify by what i mean by swimming . It is moving forward in water without touching the ground with your feet. Since I managed to do that I thought, lets try the deep side.
So i went diving in the deep end.
Till date I have the unique distinction of being the only person in class who had to be saved by the instructor .
I went back to the shallow end !
N.B. : Currently I have lost the onyl distinction I had. I can no longer sink spectacularly
So after a long hiatus, my blog is back. And this time I etch my journey from shallow to deep.
About more than a year ago , I was under the impression that I could sink spectacularly. If Hydrophobia is a legitimate word, I had hydroparanoia. Much of it can be blamed to maternal instincts. But as Russell Crowe said as Dr John Nash, I have been "terrified, mortified, petrified" by the very prospect of jumping into a swimming pool.
So I joined swimming lessons at the age of 25. The instructors were of the opnion that they would make a Thorpe or a Phelps out of me. After 2 weeks they realized if they could convert me from a stone to a log it was an enormous feat. Thorpe could wait for another day ... or another lifetime.
Learning to swim in holland was supposedly fun for some of my friends. Or atleast they thought that I was having fun, in such close proximity with bikini clad females in the water. They do not know the ultimate truth of life. When you are in the pool with your life in your hands, sinking one moment and frantically gasping for breath in the next your vision suddenly becomes so poor that you dont even look at the bikinis any more.
It becomes even more gruesome when the person next to you is swimming like a fish, and when you look at yourself you mutter " Naaah !! still a stone".
The Instructors shout from the edge of the pool .... Arms ! Legs ! Lonnnnngggggg !
After some weeks i saw that they left the lane i was swimming and were giving tips to the others. Apparantly I was so poor .. I was dead last of the class. So I told myself, I am going to do it on my own. They havent seen my determination, as hard as a rock. And then i started sinking again. I mean I never knew that throwing arms and legs in water is so damm difficult. If my legs move my arms dont, If my arms move, my legs dont. If some how i manage to do both, water enters my nose, i panick and drink half of the pool.
Then came swimming on the back ! Now that was supposed to be easy. Because in that position you can float easily. True. But only if you have a nose like an elephant.The first time i was floating , i was thrilled. Then came a wave , or so it seemed to me. Suddenly there was water inside my nose And then I started to sink.
Fortunately all this was in the shallow end . So every time I sank, I had solid ground below me and i could stand up again. After some time I thought I could manage swimming in the shallow end. Let me claify by what i mean by swimming . It is moving forward in water without touching the ground with your feet. Since I managed to do that I thought, lets try the deep side.
So i went diving in the deep end.
Till date I have the unique distinction of being the only person in class who had to be saved by the instructor .
I went back to the shallow end !
N.B. : Currently I have lost the onyl distinction I had. I can no longer sink spectacularly
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Baigan main mila diya (mixed to the brinjals)
Excerpts from a movie :
Disclaimer: The actual dialouges are in specific style of Hindi. There is no exact translation possible
Salim : " Arrey main to itna kiya. Tu kya kiya re? Jab Angreza aake Ismail bhai ka shirt faadh ke ,khundal khundal re maara" ( Atleast I did this. What did you do when the foreigners tore Ismail bhai's shirt and beat him black and blue)
a bystander : "Appa ! khundal khundal ke maara Ismail bhai ko " (what ! Ismail bhai got beaten up ")
There are two kinds of people. Those who have seen "The Angrez". And those who will see it.
I saw the Angrez after a long time today. Not that i needed to. I remember all of Salim feku's dialouges by heart, all the tones of Jehangir, the "maa ki kirkiri " of Ismail bhai about "Mallika" and "Angrezaa".
For the uninitiated let me get down to unravelling the mysteries of this movie. For those of you whose dont know it yet, have a quick look in youtube and go through it. Assuming that you have climbed back to your chair after falling down so many times, then you might be able to appreciate whats written. If you read the reviews about the angrez online its all very well written. But its not exactly how the odinary viewer sees it. The Angrez is basically divided into two parts. The scenes with Salim, Ismail and Jehangir- and the rest of the movie. Infact some honourable soul in kgp actually filtered out the good stuff from the rest and posted it on the local net as "Maa ki kirkiri". A fan following ensued, and i am a part of it till today.
Reasons why i would recommend The Angrez
1: How far can you go above and beyond the truth - Ask Salim feku and his encounter with Mallika
2: "Wot diya , Wot diya Wot diya" - Now thats how you thrash someone
3: "Woh mereko malum tumko malum , potti ko malum kya" - try any gimmick to impress a girl ; as long as she does not know you are faking it.
4: How can you take 2-3 hours to reach a place where you can normally reach in 20 mins
5: Khundal khundal ke maara - I have no comments on this one.
But sitting in your room in the cold confines of the studio, you realize that the movie is not complete. The people with whom you shared the movie with made this ever so special.
Jai Bhawavi !
Disclaimer: The actual dialouges are in specific style of Hindi. There is no exact translation possible
Salim : " Arrey main to itna kiya. Tu kya kiya re? Jab Angreza aake Ismail bhai ka shirt faadh ke ,khundal khundal re maara" ( Atleast I did this. What did you do when the foreigners tore Ismail bhai's shirt and beat him black and blue)
a bystander : "Appa ! khundal khundal ke maara Ismail bhai ko " (what ! Ismail bhai got beaten up ")
There are two kinds of people. Those who have seen "The Angrez". And those who will see it.
I saw the Angrez after a long time today. Not that i needed to. I remember all of Salim feku's dialouges by heart, all the tones of Jehangir, the "maa ki kirkiri " of Ismail bhai about "Mallika" and "Angrezaa".
For the uninitiated let me get down to unravelling the mysteries of this movie. For those of you whose dont know it yet, have a quick look in youtube and go through it. Assuming that you have climbed back to your chair after falling down so many times, then you might be able to appreciate whats written. If you read the reviews about the angrez online its all very well written. But its not exactly how the odinary viewer sees it. The Angrez is basically divided into two parts. The scenes with Salim, Ismail and Jehangir- and the rest of the movie. Infact some honourable soul in kgp actually filtered out the good stuff from the rest and posted it on the local net as "Maa ki kirkiri". A fan following ensued, and i am a part of it till today.
Reasons why i would recommend The Angrez
1: How far can you go above and beyond the truth - Ask Salim feku and his encounter with Mallika
2: "Wot diya , Wot diya Wot diya" - Now thats how you thrash someone
3: "Woh mereko malum tumko malum , potti ko malum kya" - try any gimmick to impress a girl ; as long as she does not know you are faking it.
4: How can you take 2-3 hours to reach a place where you can normally reach in 20 mins
5: Khundal khundal ke maara - I have no comments on this one.
But sitting in your room in the cold confines of the studio, you realize that the movie is not complete. The people with whom you shared the movie with made this ever so special.
Jai Bhawavi !
Friday, September 25, 2009
Water on the moon
After a long hiatus blogging is back. This might be a short one, due to the lack of time available. Recently what caught my fancy was a news article concerning a press release from NASA saying that there has been water found on the moon. Another big step for mankind ? Perhaps , perhaps not! However this post will not be scientific, as i am yet sketchy about the details of the impact of the discovery.
A huge hue and cry has started to erupt, similar to the production of black holes when CERN started their first beams in LHC. (Till today i have to explain to some of the masses that production of a black hole is not as easy as you think ! My fault , as the only example an accelerator physicist can give about his work is the huge extravaganza at CERN).
However when i first heard the news , the name of Georges Remi came to my mind. Years ago a man named Jules Verne wrote about things flying in air and submarines under water. Came true !
Similarly not so long ago Georges Remi (okk Herge for most of you) landed Tintin on the moon and made him discover water on the moon. Being a hardcore Tintin buff , i almost expected this to be true ! Hence no surprises for me.
Wonder which fiction next would turn to fact! but please not a Dan Brown one!
A huge hue and cry has started to erupt, similar to the production of black holes when CERN started their first beams in LHC. (Till today i have to explain to some of the masses that production of a black hole is not as easy as you think ! My fault , as the only example an accelerator physicist can give about his work is the huge extravaganza at CERN).
However when i first heard the news , the name of Georges Remi came to my mind. Years ago a man named Jules Verne wrote about things flying in air and submarines under water. Came true !
Similarly not so long ago Georges Remi (okk Herge for most of you) landed Tintin on the moon and made him discover water on the moon. Being a hardcore Tintin buff , i almost expected this to be true ! Hence no surprises for me.
Wonder which fiction next would turn to fact! but please not a Dan Brown one!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The opposable thumb
I wonder why i wonder why
I wonder why i wonder
(Richard P. Feynman; Literary assignment in College
"Surely you are joking Mr. Feynman")
Sometimes when i am too lazy to work, i wonder. I wonder at this wonderful thing called the opposable thumb. As I type these words in my keyboard and see my thumb hitting on the spce bar repeatedly, I wonder whether technology would have made any progress had humans not had this opposable thumb. I see young people whip out their cell phones and start talking. i wonder how cell phones would have looked like if we did not have the opposable thumb. Would it have been big, would it have been small or even no existant. At home some one flips on channels using the remote. once again its the opposable thumb. I hop on to my bike and press the brakes. Once again i use my thumb. I injure my thumb and during my meals I am at a loss on how to eat. I could go on about how we use the thumb in our everyday life.The point is this is something we are born with. This we cannot change. This is what makes us humans. Humans do have a superior brain in the entire animal kingdom, but i wonder without the opposable thumb would the superior brain have helped ?
I wonder !
Monday, May 04, 2009
Special request
This blog is not related to a specific incident. For the past few days certain events have been happening which have tied me down. I will try and write down most of it in this post.
1: Dinner: It was FYSICA 2009. For the uninitiated it was the annual Dutch Physical society meeting . As "emerging" physicists even i attended, the event, with a series of lectures on a plethora of topics . I was planning on attending the series of lectures on Big Bang, especially the theory of inflation (it still is pretty much muddled up to me), along with the existance of magnetic monopoles. At the end of the day there was a special Nobel lecture by Gerard 't Hooft. I was sitting at the back row, and catched a glimpse of the Nobel winner. Sitting there while he talked about the CKM matrix, I wondered, whether I would actually be able to recognize him, should i meet him any time later. Post his lecture we had the dinner arrangements. I dropped my bag off in one of the round tables and stood in a queue to get some grub. We were three desi's, Dr. Shidling, Gourida and I. We were joined by an elderly gentleman from NIKHEF Amsterdam who started talking about Physics and the self conscience. Being Indians we are supposed to understand about spirituality. Suddenly I looked to my left and saw Prof 't Hooft drawing the chair next to me. The next 20 minutes I was speechless. Amartya Sen and Mother Teresa's pictures are the closest I have ever come to a Nobel winner. I sat beside him for ninety minutes, and we didn't talk about physics. The weather , soccer, Brasil ( we had a Brazilian lady with us at the table) , India were the range of topics the table conversed. Or rather the other people conversed. I was mostly silent ! We finished dinner and as we trudged off home, he waved us good bye. A human being ! I do not have a picture with him, but no regrets.
2: Fire: Recently I have moved into a new studio. It was my second night in the new studio, and it was quite some work to unpack and clean stuff. Around 7:30 types , I had finished cooking when i smelt something burning. I checked all the electric connections in the studio and the smell was not coming from any one of them. I opened my window and smelt burnt fumes outside too. I thought might be some of the neighbours cooking in a charcoal fire. I closed my window and tried to ignore the smell. Still it lingered. Suddenly a huge sound bellowed in the building. I opened my door , the fire alarm was blaring on all cylinders. My other housemate Isreal was also out of his room. The stair case was filled with smoke. We tried climbing downstairs and found the smoke growing denser. Israel asked me for the fire extinguisher and tried dousing the source from where it was coming from. No help. It struck us that the fire might be downstairs. We took a towel and dashed for the stairs. It was pitch dark, and we inhaled a lot of smoke. I dont know how Israel got to the door , but we did make it out. By this time people had gathered outside, they had no idea that people were living inside. Flames were coming out from the side of the house. The crowd had called up emergency services and it wasnt long before I heard the all too familiar sirens bellowing at a distance. A police car screeched to a stop near me. 2 officers jumped out and cordoned off the area. The crowd was shooed away. When they heard that I was a resident of the building in flames we ( me and Israel) were given special vantage points so that we could see the flames. Two fire engines coming from both sides of the street simultaneous came to a halt , as firemen climbed out and mad a dash for the building. On the ground floor of the house there is a tatoo shop. Seems the fire had started from there. The fire men used everything to break open the door of the shop, an axe, a battering ram, but the lock would not budge . Finally they got an electric saw. The door was torn to shreds, the lock still stood like the rock of Gibraltor. A Crane followed suit and firemen climbed on to it trying to douse the fire from every angle. Meanwhile the interrogation had started. First it was the Police. Standard questions like name, date of birth, place of birth were asked. Next came the firemen who asked about the house, the floor plane the structure the underlying wooden floors. Finally it was the medicos, who took my enitre medical backgroud trying to gauge if I had inhaled enough CO/CO2 or not. Meanwhile the fire was out. The house was still filled with smoke. The fire men rolled up their hoses and dispatched the crane. Out came the smoke meters. The house was deemed unfit for residence for the night. The good news , our room were not gutted. A fireman accompanied us to our rooms, as we grabbed some essential stuff to spend the night at some friend's place. I looked around and saw that apart from the smoke and the thin layer of soot on everything, the room was not damaged at all. Everything was safe.
It then dawned upon me what had happened !
For people wondering why the name of the post has nothing to do with the contents insie, let me clarify, the special request came from Dharmu da. I quote " You should write a blog rather than put up cryptic status messages"
1: Dinner: It was FYSICA 2009. For the uninitiated it was the annual Dutch Physical society meeting . As "emerging" physicists even i attended, the event, with a series of lectures on a plethora of topics . I was planning on attending the series of lectures on Big Bang, especially the theory of inflation (it still is pretty much muddled up to me), along with the existance of magnetic monopoles. At the end of the day there was a special Nobel lecture by Gerard 't Hooft. I was sitting at the back row, and catched a glimpse of the Nobel winner. Sitting there while he talked about the CKM matrix, I wondered, whether I would actually be able to recognize him, should i meet him any time later. Post his lecture we had the dinner arrangements. I dropped my bag off in one of the round tables and stood in a queue to get some grub. We were three desi's, Dr. Shidling, Gourida and I. We were joined by an elderly gentleman from NIKHEF Amsterdam who started talking about Physics and the self conscience. Being Indians we are supposed to understand about spirituality. Suddenly I looked to my left and saw Prof 't Hooft drawing the chair next to me. The next 20 minutes I was speechless. Amartya Sen and Mother Teresa's pictures are the closest I have ever come to a Nobel winner. I sat beside him for ninety minutes, and we didn't talk about physics. The weather , soccer, Brasil ( we had a Brazilian lady with us at the table) , India were the range of topics the table conversed. Or rather the other people conversed. I was mostly silent ! We finished dinner and as we trudged off home, he waved us good bye. A human being ! I do not have a picture with him, but no regrets.
2: Fire: Recently I have moved into a new studio. It was my second night in the new studio, and it was quite some work to unpack and clean stuff. Around 7:30 types , I had finished cooking when i smelt something burning. I checked all the electric connections in the studio and the smell was not coming from any one of them. I opened my window and smelt burnt fumes outside too. I thought might be some of the neighbours cooking in a charcoal fire. I closed my window and tried to ignore the smell. Still it lingered. Suddenly a huge sound bellowed in the building. I opened my door , the fire alarm was blaring on all cylinders. My other housemate Isreal was also out of his room. The stair case was filled with smoke. We tried climbing downstairs and found the smoke growing denser. Israel asked me for the fire extinguisher and tried dousing the source from where it was coming from. No help. It struck us that the fire might be downstairs. We took a towel and dashed for the stairs. It was pitch dark, and we inhaled a lot of smoke. I dont know how Israel got to the door , but we did make it out. By this time people had gathered outside, they had no idea that people were living inside. Flames were coming out from the side of the house. The crowd had called up emergency services and it wasnt long before I heard the all too familiar sirens bellowing at a distance. A police car screeched to a stop near me. 2 officers jumped out and cordoned off the area. The crowd was shooed away. When they heard that I was a resident of the building in flames we ( me and Israel) were given special vantage points so that we could see the flames. Two fire engines coming from both sides of the street simultaneous came to a halt , as firemen climbed out and mad a dash for the building. On the ground floor of the house there is a tatoo shop. Seems the fire had started from there. The fire men used everything to break open the door of the shop, an axe, a battering ram, but the lock would not budge . Finally they got an electric saw. The door was torn to shreds, the lock still stood like the rock of Gibraltor. A Crane followed suit and firemen climbed on to it trying to douse the fire from every angle. Meanwhile the interrogation had started. First it was the Police. Standard questions like name, date of birth, place of birth were asked. Next came the firemen who asked about the house, the floor plane the structure the underlying wooden floors. Finally it was the medicos, who took my enitre medical backgroud trying to gauge if I had inhaled enough CO/CO2 or not. Meanwhile the fire was out. The house was still filled with smoke. The fire men rolled up their hoses and dispatched the crane. Out came the smoke meters. The house was deemed unfit for residence for the night. The good news , our room were not gutted. A fireman accompanied us to our rooms, as we grabbed some essential stuff to spend the night at some friend's place. I looked around and saw that apart from the smoke and the thin layer of soot on everything, the room was not damaged at all. Everything was safe.
It then dawned upon me what had happened !
For people wondering why the name of the post has nothing to do with the contents insie, let me clarify, the special request came from Dharmu da. I quote " You should write a blog rather than put up cryptic status messages"
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