Deja Vu?

My first peek at US presidential elections was through "Wonder Years". Like so many other things, it portrayed the everyday America life through the eyes of teenagers. A lot was happening in 70's America, and the keen interest I developed for that exciting period of this countries history may began from those daily half an hour time spent with ever adorable Kevin and Winnie.

Coming back to politics, this episode portrays how a super enthused and motivated Winnie joins the campaign stuff of George McGovern's 1972 presidential bid. He was in many ways like Barack Obama of today - hugely motivating, big appeal among the younger crowd and definitely the anti-establishment democrat. He was anti war and wanted troops to be withdrew from Vietnam. He lost a few primaries, including Florida (which then counted!), but picked up enough delegates to win the nomination at the convention. Sounds eerily similar?

I hope not. In November, against Nixon, at that time he suffered the second worst defeat in history. He won only Massachusetts and D.C, losing even in his home state South Dakota. While I strongly believe that in this day and age, the same fate would not befall on Obama, I am slightly worried about his cult like status now. A win would be a win, and great for the country, whichever way it is achieved, as long as it is fair. But I do not trust the republicans would play a fair game, and my respect for the Senator from Arizona is getting less by the day.

That night, after McGovern lost, Winnie and Kevin realized that life is bigger than an election and all the behind the scene activities we don't know about. On a November night, nine months from now, when all the votes would be counted - no matter who wins, we would learn that all over again.

Until then, Go Obama.

Quick Thoughts!

Not a perfect night - would have liked closer races in NY/NJ/CA and not a blowout loss in MA. But winning 13 out of 21 states, with NM so close, does help the campaign in the long run.

Baez for Barack!

Joan Baez came out in support for Barack Obama this weekend. Here is her letter to the editor in San Francisco Chronicle.

Leader on a new journey

Editor - I have attempted throughout my life to give a voice to the voiceless, hope to the hopeless, encouragement to the discouraged, and options to the cynical and complacent. From Northern Ireland to Sarajevo to Latin America, I have sung and marched, engaged in civil disobedience, visited war zones, and broken bread with those who had little bread to break.

Through all those years, I chose not to engage in party politics. Though I was asked many times to endorse candidates at every level, I was never comfortable doing so. At this time, however, changing that posture feels like the responsible thing to do. If anyone can navigate the contaminated waters of Washington, lift up the poor, and appeal to the rich to share their wealth, it is Sen. Barack Obama. If anyone can bring light to the darkened corners of this nation and restore our positive influence in world affairs, it is Barack Obama. If anyone can begin the process of healing and bring unity to a country that has been divided for too long, it is Barack Obama. It is time to begin a new journey.

JOAN BAEZ

Menlo Park

I love my favourite singer even more.

My endorsement for Barack Obama

I resisted the temptation of writing this post for a while. I was cynical, like most Americans, if Barack Obama can even stand a chance of being the president. The conventional wisdom said no way. His Iowa win was followed by losses in New Hampshire and Nevada. She had huge leads in opinion polls in most states - 25 percentage points, 30 percentage points or more. She was virtually assured to win the biggest states.

I am following politics for a long time - the dramatic rise of BJP in Indian political scene, the night of 6th December 1992 - which changed the politics in India forever, the remarkable speeches by Vajpayee and much more. Never ever I have seen such an inspirational leader like Obama, nor I have seen such an amazing outflow of support in such a short time for one person.

State after state, the leads for Hillary are shrinking. The states where Obama had no chance would all come into play this Tuesday and after. Opinions polls do not mean that much just by themselves - but when viewed along with the spontaneous endorsements by established democratic leaders and popular unions and big newspapers across the country - it is impossible to ignore the momentum Obama would still not win all the states - but he would be more competitive in New York than Hillary would be in Illinois and leave with a huge chunk of delegates from California. That says a lot. It is not everyday that registered republicans come out in the support of a liberal democrat.

Watching his speeches almost brings tears to the eyes. I always liked motivational leaders, mavericks, who think out of the box and have the courage to follow that up. We saw Martin Luther King only in youtube and read about John F Kennedy in history books. Somehow, in some way, Obama is a leader in the same spirit. History will judge how much he would succeed. But this is very clear - this is an incredible moment in history - whether Barack gets the nomination or not - he had a made millions a believer in politics again - which happens so rarely.

And incredibly, this is personal too. I know I would never be a politician, would never run for a public office. However, from the day I read in the history books that only someone born in United States can be a president, I always felt proud that one day I can run for that position. Of course I knew I would never. But when I see a non-white guy, with a funny name, whose father immigrated from Kenya, and having no political background, running from president, something tells me inside that achieving something and dreaming about it in this country may not be so improbable after all.

How the politics has changed...

I was reading a piece contrasting Barack Obama's presidential bid to that of Jesse Jackson's in 80's, and this line kind of stuck out. However, since Florida's Democratic primary counts for nought, I started concentrating a bit on the local races, the ones for Gainesville city commission and all that. This would be my first time voting in Unites States, after expressing my opinion in different Indian polls a few times. Obviously the Democratic no show dilutes it significantly, but looking at those local races and trying to decide, I realized how the decision making process for me has changed from Indian elections.

Back in India, there were mostly no decisions to be made. Either we opposed a political party vehemently, or supported it wholeheartedly, and that rarely had very little to do with that party's stance on issues. That carried over from campus polls to the parliamentary polls, with everything in between. Most of the times, we did not even need to know who the candidates were, we just looked at his party affiliation and voted. I plead guilty of the same offence, that's how I voted for candidates mostly, without knowing who they are or what are their qualifications. Only once, in college poll, I realized I cant stand the guys who were opposing the party I oppose, so left the ballot blank. But other than that one aberration., it was never a decision. And I know its true for most people back there.

To my surprise, I realized, here I am looking at each candidates stand on issues that affect me. Let me give a real example - for a city commission seat, for which I am going to vote this Tuesday, there are three candidates. One is an ex-business owner, tauting her long involvement and experience with the city and her goals are to be selective about giving tax break to developers, improving the the bus system, decrease neighborhood tensions between long-term homeowners and student renters. The second one is a professor of economics and government in a local college, and his main aim is to invite emerging businesses, such as biotechnology and clean energy research firms in the city, and is counting on the support of the student population. The last candidate is also a successful local entrepreneur, and have pretty much the same goals, attracting high paying jobs to the city, promoting social programs for the needy, like vocational training and affordable housing, and being careful in giving tax breaks to companies.

Funny thing is I do not even know who who comes from which party- although I am sure it wont be too difficult to find out. Rather I chose to focus on the agenda. All of them have sensible platforms - but I was tempted to go with the third guy, probably because of his social programs for the needy bit, since homelessness is becoming a growing problem here, and as we all know, that breeds crime. But I saw he proclaims that his vision is to would turn the city into the next "Orlando, Jacksonville or Tampa", which are the nearby big cities. That immediately turned me off. Why? I like Gainesville to be this little big campus town, not a frantic big city where campus is just a part of it. So that reduced my options, and I decided I would go for the professor, partly because I am biased towards those in academia, and partly because I don't trust entrepreneurs. That is probably not the most objective selection, but at least I decided based on who they are and what they want. That's a big change by itself.

(With input from Alligator, the campus newspaper.)

Thanks!

Before writing my next post, let me take this opportunity to thank everyone who took time to read my last post.

Thanks to those friends and strangers who thought my "dissenting" viewpoint made sense and supported that wholeheartedly. I am glad that I spoke for all of us, who think that blind or passionate activism does not bring about solution to every problem. The odds of me getting shot in Gainesville, FL is no way correlated to some other Indian getting shot in Durham, NC.

Thanks to those who did not quite agree with my calling the petition futile, but were ready to have a sensible dialogue. We should always agree to disagree without casting aspersions on the other person, which is unfortunately too prevalent.

And finally thanks to the abusive gentleman who is threatening me with dire consequences for my "insensitivity", without showing his face. You are too insecure to come out in the open, or lack the courage to put your across point or the lack of it publicly. Is that all you can do? I pity you. I really do. Get a life!

It does not make sense...

Incredibly sad? Yes
Immensely disturbing? Definitely.
Something "we" need to do? No.

That would be my summary reaction to the murder of this Indian graduate student at Duke and the subsequent rants and ramblings. Reactions have varied from unfair generalization (Indians are being targeted), to a more paranoid version of that (There is an organized effort to kill Indians) and to absolute paranoia (I don't feel safe anymore in my apartment). While the killing of two other Indian graduate students in Baton Rouge, Louisiana roughly a month back contributed to this paranoia, a little sanity check would convince us otherwise.

Crime happens. A Senegalese graduate student of University of Chicago was shot dead in November. Now should we conclude that someone is after international graduate students? A University of Georgia graduate student is missing for two weeks and is suspected to be dead. Now is it a conspiracy against graduate students at large? I see them as unrelated local crimes. They were just at a wrong place at a wrong time. A burglary gone wrong. A gun abuse by a drunk or a drug addict. All of us living here know that all parts of any city are not created equal - there are elements who you would not want as your neighbor, to put it mildly. However, international graduate students often end up living dangerously close to those areas, sometimes because its close to school or most of the times its just plain cheaper. Sometimes the security is reassuring, like my friend in Baltimore has automatic security alarm installed, sometimes its not, as apparently this guy from Duke was a victim before, from the stories we hear.

The reactions have been predictable. The shock and grief are inevitable, and I know some folks who knew this guy personally. While sadness is genuine, we have to understand there is not much we can do. Of course we should be alert while walking back alone late at night, but who is not? It means nothing to the deceased to fill up his Orkut scrapbook with our messages and it certainly a total wastage of time and energy to draft futile online petitions. It is a local law enforcement issue, unless proved otherwise, and not a threat to any community in general. A foreign government has no say gun control issues of this country, however insane they may seem to be from outside. All Indian government can do, and I am sure would be doing with or without a petition is to push for a fast investigation. Another pet peeve is, it has not given enough media coverage here. True enough, on Saturday, it was not in the headlines, but it happened late on Friday and Saturday was a big day in politics, with a couple of states having presidential caucuses and primaries, so no wonder it was not headline news. Since then, I have seen reasonable coverage of it and no signs of a cover up, as alleged by some.

The killing does not make sense. So does not the reactions of most Indians around me.

Tebowed!

On my way to the department this morning, walking past the Shands building, reading about Tim Tebow's Heisman chances in the Alligator, I looked up and saw the man himself. Right infront of me, sitting in a bench, talking on his cellphone. He looked like, oh well, just like Tim Tebow!

They have a whole website on Tim Tebow facts. Here is what I would add. Other quarterbacks fake the hand off and throw the play action pass. Tim Tebow is so good that he fakes the run to himself and throws!

Baltimore Get together!

First it was planned to be on Thanksgiving. Then we realized that is too costly a time to fly. So we had our undergraduate friends, accompanied by their significant others (me being the sole exception, still holding on to my freedom!) getting together at Baltimore the weekend before.

Time flies so fast. I still remember the days at my Calcutta home with these folks, getting drunk and talking nonsense. And waking up next morning with a bad hangover. Those never felt like any special occasions. Now, to spend a weekend together, some of us have to fly halfway across the country, worried about missing work, shaky finances and flight delays. And unlike those days, speaking Bengali is a luxury for a few, as their better halves are from different parts of the globe. So the simple pleasure of talking in Bengali probably is a big enough attraction for them. And then there are those favourite stories about how one guy was thrown out of a pub at Miami or another got almost molested by an eunuch at an Indian train, which would be repeated and repeated at every gathering and never be old. Those old jokes. Calling each other names. Remembering the old crushes. Thinking what could have been. And looking ahead to mostly uncertain futures.

Back in JU days, during our trip to Lava, a scenic, mostly unexplored hill station near Siliguri, I remember a couple of these guys playing cards sitting inside, too lazy to venture out. So I would think for us, waking up to hit the road early in chilly mornings, after understandably not much sleep, was an achievement. We drove through Shenandoah National Park, explored Luray caverns and landed up in Washington DC. And on a personal note, I took an afternoon off, drove down to Silverspring Maryland, met a good old friend, and got my picture taken in front of the Hospital where I was born.

This is all of us in different moods. (Opens in the same window)

And these are my random clicks-

My newest adventure!

As they say, its never too late to learn anything new, Which is of course a damn lie. When I thought it would be good idea to learn swimming being in Florida, I was told I would have to put my whole head underwater for a significant amount of time. That may sound trivial, but for someone who almost got drowned in a five foot pool in a water theme park, it is a deal breaker. Then I know of someone who tried to learn cycling at a ripe old age, and started riding into one disaster to another - and lucky to be surviving without breaking anything. (Other than the cycle perhaps!)

So it came as a surprise to me when I enrolled for this rock climbing course. May be I remember missing out on a similar opportunity at my undergrad days or may be I wanted to find a easy way to lose weight. Whichever it was, it did not take long me to find out that climbing is not for me. That was in-spite of the instructor being impossibly encouraging and friendly, most of the classmates trying to make me feel I am just a little away from succeeding, and the presence of this really attractive girl in the class. And she was a powerful climber too - should I say a joy to watch? But there was also this never married lady of my mother's age, passionately putting much more effort than I was and this unrelated gentleman of a similar age who was once a gymnast. Others were, if nothing else much more athletic than me, and even with all the emphasis on technique and stuff, at the end of the day raw strength matters. And that is not one of my forte, since primary use of my fingers are for tapping computer keys, not balancing my entire body from the edges.

It was fun though. We started of with climbing walls with lots of footholds everywhere and being held by a rope - which I know now is technically called rappelling. As days progressed, the walls tended to have less footholds, and the alignment of them made life more and more difficult. Then we tried what they call bouldering, where one moves almost horizontally across the walls, balancing on uncomfortably spaced out grips and edges. Then there were roof climbing, resembling Spiderman like traits, which needless to say, I did not even try.

I am better off running at treadmill. If I do anything at all, that is.

Simply bad english?

"Hw z lyf?" wrote my not so little cousin in my Orkut scrapbook. It took me a while to realize what exactly is she asking. I see someone wishing everybody "vry hpy pjo". Someone else says she will "tlk 2 me tmrw". What the hell is going on?

I can see everyone is very busy and working their backside off. However, I do not see how they cant be so busy to spare a few moments to write down the vowels. Oh wait, all these comes from sms language, which I am told the main form of communication nowadays. I was trying to explain to someone over there in Calcutta that the primary use of a cell phone is talking. She vehemently protested, pointing to the menu of her handset, and sure enough, messaging was above talk there. I have to give it to them, as punching those tiny keys at breakneck speed to compose a message sure requires a special skill set, and that possibly needs getting rid of those vowels. However, I would tend to think big enough computer keyboards should make the language slightly more respectable, but alas, its not so. Using acronyms have been part of instant messaging lingo from time immemorial, as we all grew up with LOL and BRB. However, dropping vowels randomly and condensing words arbitrarily is not exactly the same thing and I would argue that makes it look ugly.

When I first started chatting, way back in 2000, I refused to use Bengali in English script. I felt it looked ugly. Over the years, mostly due to peer pressure, I have reluctantly started using it. Sure it makes things more informal - but it also results in funny misinterpretations, like "Ashole" (actually) like Asshole or as my YM prompts me to search for Kobe Bryant when I type "Kobe" (when). I very much doubt if I will start using vowel-less non-english for communicating though!

Best of times, worst of times...

Blogging is a habit. And like all habits - the trick is to keep doing it - even when life is too mundane or too hectic. I tend to stop scribbling in either of these two scenarios - which makes me lose whatever regular readers I have - and then it is doubly difficult to get their attention back.

Borrowing Dickens classic quote, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" around here. A colleague of ours killed himself and a stranger I barely knew died . Let me not go into details of any of these - at least not yet. May be with time the it will be be easier for me to come in terms of those.

And then this couple I know here had their first child. He looks incredibly small, and he mostly sleeps, frowns, cries and sleeps again. It is amazing the range of emotions he expresses with one single action, crying.

Now we lose to unranked Auburn at home. What a stunning upset. That is one loss too many - as for the repeat national championship aspirations. I hope we can salvage the season, which in all probabilty would be my last one here in Florida.

The mandatory "Football" post!

The best thing about fall is undoubtedly football. And for a school like ours, the defending national champions, the expectations are immense. On a day which saw that historic upset loss of Michigan, our offence looked mostly sharp, Tebow showed that he can throw, and pretty accurately too. The young defense needs more work to be ready for the gruelling SEC schedule, but after losing almost all the starters, we always knew that would be the area of concern.

This would probably my last football season as a Gator. Amazing how fast time flies.

And still staying with football, for those who does not appreciate how big its down here. Quoting one of the ESPN (or was it SI) columnist - I loved these lines.

The quality of life in the South is dependent upon good college football. Local economies, race relations and collective psychological health all would suffer without it. Sweet tea would not be as sweet. Fried chicken would not be as crispy. Country songs would be even sadder. If SEC football were mediocre, the South might as well be back in Reconstruction.

Different Physics-views!

I still remember that day. There was this conference organized by our department at Jadavpur University and it featured talks by some big name Physicists, none perhaps more famous than Ashoke Sen. We were in our undergraduate days then - all dreamy eyed budding Physicists, and of course we attended all the talks, no matter how much we got out from them. And then we got hold of the famous man himself, asking him mostly naive and inane questions, which he patiently answered. Then we wanted a group photo taken with him - he was slightly embarrassed, but still obliged. That made our day - and for a long time that remained, and perhaps still remains a prized snap for us.

Kolkata Physics was mostly like that - all sweet, no sweat. At least for us. The only method of solving problems was to stare at them for a while and then writing out the solution - working out pages full of algebra was not "elegant". We honestly believed that every problem should have a simple and intelligent solution - others are not worth bothering about. The best way of doing Physics labs was to do the experiments without touching the apparatus once. And picking and choosing what we think we should read. Quantum Mechanics and Special Theory of Relativity were exciting - Optics and Acoustics were not. Electronics was simply not Physics, and instrumentation was below our dignity to talk about. Any self respecting Physicists should work on Theory - at least we all wanted to. Well, may be all that is a slight exaggeration - but one gets the picture. Physics was supposed to be elegant and big Physicists to be worshiped.

It did not take long after coming to United States to realize that attitude would not really work. While real Physics still may be beautiful and aesthetically pleasing, to reach there one has to do a lot of dirty work. Working and reworking through obnoxiously long and ugly calculations and learning stuff which have very little Physics in them. And somewhere in the process - we lost that respect for the big and famous. Its not that I would not appreciate someone who is a great teacher or gotten some good results - but they would still remain mere mortals, as fallible as the guy next door, when they are not talking about Physics. I would not go to a colloquium just because some big name Physicist is talking, unless I have some amount of interest in what he is talking about. I would not go and talk to him just because he is so and so, unless I actually have something worthwhile to discuss.

I do not want to make a value judgement here. This summer, when I was in CERN, there was this bright kid from my undergraduate school, and he is working for his Ph.D over there in India. And I was almost feeling nostalgic - looking at him getting overwhelmed by the big shots - clicking photos, dying to talk to them, hanging onto every word they said. I could see how we did the same thing years back - and I could also see how we have cultivated this attitude of casual irreverence. The sense of wonder is still there - but it has been mostly replaced by what for the lack of a better word I would call professionalism. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Is that what "America" did to me or was bound to happen anyway? I do not know.

755

Oh well. So? Whatever!

Hazardville!

Travelling southbound on Interstate 91, just crossing into Connecticut from Massachusetts, came across this not so inviting town.

You know you are in Princeton when ...

... the security guard talks about Physics, Philosophy and (Satyajit) Ray, and asserts that he is ready to bet a thousand bucks that Higgs would not be found at LHC.

For the uninitiated, Higgs Boson is the till date elusive, theoretically predicted absolutely essential particle that Physicists are hoping to discover at LHC (large hadron Collider), world's highest energy particle collider being built at CERN at a cost of multi billion dollars.

Claim to fame of APJ?

Amidst this Pratibha Patil bashing, I read this piece of news where her predecessor, APJ Abdul Kalam, asked him to be referred as Professor, not Ex-President and was wholeheartedly applauded. Please not be mistaken, I am equally disgraced by, as other conscientious citizens, to see a complete stranger (Yes, I do follow Indian politics pretty well, and no, I have never heard of her before) getting to occupy the highest constitutional post in our country. However, I am slightly surprised by the attention and reverence "Prof. Kalam" is receiving - so I tried to dig a little bit deeper. As for his academic career, he specialized in Aeronautical Engineering from Madras Institute of Technology - which basically tells me that he was an engineer.

Then, Dr. Kalam made significant contribution as Project Director to develop India's first indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III) which successfully injected the Rohini satellite in the near earth orbit in July 1980 and made India an exclusive member of Space Club. He was responsible for the evolution of ISRO's launch vehicle programme, particularly the PSLV configuration. After working for two decades in ISRO and mastering launch vehicle technologies, Dr. Kalam took up the responsibility of developing Indigenous Guided Missiles at Defence Research and Development Organisation as the Chief Executive of Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP). He was responsible for the development and operationalisation of AGNI and PRITHVI Missiles and for building indigenous capability in critical technologies through networking of multiple institutions. Anyone who knows a bit about big scientific or engineering projects, would tell you that individual achievements are minimum in these endeavours. It cant be "he" who actually "built" anything - he was most probably in the supervising group. Good job, Mr. Kalam - but I don't see what is so special in these.

And I also take issues with why he would be referred as "Dr. Kalam" then. Because, apparently Dr. Kalam is one of the most distinguished scientists of India with the unique honour of receiving honorary doctorates from 30 universities and institutions. Now someone please tell me why getting honorary doctorate from a zillion places would make one a "distinguished scientist". Should not it be other way around? Aerospace engineering is not some exotic subject, nor I can see him doing any ground breaking scientific work, that he deserves an honorary doctorate, and then being famous because of that. His teaching experiences are minimal too, and so he being recruited as professor directly at Anna University is somewhat odd too.

Rest of his achievements before becoming the president? He was the Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister and Secretary, Department of Defence Research & Development from July 1992 to December 1999. During this period he led to the weaponisation of strategic missile systems and the Pokhran-II nuclear tests in collaboration with Department of Atomic Energy, which made India a nuclear weapon State. He also gave thrust to self-reliance in defence systems by progressing multiple development tasks and mission projects such as Light Combat Aircraft.s Chairman of Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) and as an eminent scientist, he led the country with the help of 500 experts to arrive at Technology Vision 2020 giving a road map for transforming India from the present developing status to a developed nation. Dr. Kalam has served as the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, in the rank of Cabinet Minister, from November 1999 to November 2001 and was responsible for evolving policies, strategies and missions for many development applications. Dr. Kalam was also the Chairman, Ex-officio, of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet (SAC-C) and piloted India Millennium Mission 2020.
If ones notices, all of them are administrative positions, mostly political appointment. I simply do not see how and when he becomes an eminent scientist. It seems like he is more an example of a person being at the right time at right place than the icon he is made out to be.

(All of the facts are quoted from the the Abdul Kalam official page.)

Happy Birthday!

Hundred and fifty posts in a couple of years - thats just under one and half posts per week. When I started off blogging exactly two years back, I could not trust me enough that I would keep blogging for a while, leave alone for two years. Although not a lot of people read it regularly, and even less actually leave comments, some do, and my thanks to all the visible and invisible readers. This blog turns two tonight, and I now I have grown quite addicted to the concept of blogging. As for the birthday gift, I already got it one.