Oktoberfest!

For the first time in life I regretted not knowing how to dance at all. Pretty girls in prettier costumes were almost inviting us to join them, and thousands of people dancing, and we somehow resisted the temptation. It was great fun nevertheless.

I always thought Oktoberfest is only about beer drinking. I was so wrong. Drinking beer is much more of a serious business, specially when served in the units of one liter. And then it triggers the largest organized mayhem in the world, a surreal experience which is impossible to describe in words. You have huge tent like structures, each holding thousands, perhaps more. Once you get in there, and start drinking, time stops. There is music, and people dancing everywhere, between the benches, on the benches and on the tables. The difference between friends and strangers become blurry, and it feels like a dream. That is of course helped in no small measure by the presence of girls in attractive dirndls (which is probably the single best invention since the wheel, same can not be said for the male lederhosen though), plenty of them, wherever you look. They are not shy, rarely choosy, simply out to have a good time. Alcohol is a great leveler. And surprisingly, in spite of so many of people completely drunk and totally tipsy, the whole ambiance is unbelievably clean, or so it felt.

Then there are things you can do apart from dancing the evening away. There are scary rides, with you being thrown around violently in random directions and suspended upside down. I am not sure what made me try one of those, the alcohol or the curiosity, but simply thinking about the experience making my stomach churn now.

The scale of the whole thing is mind boggling. Someone told me that the population of Munich is usually a million, but it becomes at least five or six times that over the duration of the festival. There were Australians, British and people from literally all corners of the world, young and young at heart, all coming down here to have perhaps the time of their lives. It is commercial of course, things costing more than usual, and very touristy too, but none of them overshadows the celebration part.

Take a bow Disneyland. This is the happiest place on earth. By far.

Some moments captured here.

Lively Lisbon

I thought Lisbon would be like most other European cities. pretty but predictable. Pretty it was, but not in the usual made-for-tourists way. It had shades of San Francisco (hilly and and a bridge strikingly similar to that what-is-the-big-hype-about-Golden-Gate-bridge), Rome (charming old structures) and possibly Calcutta (dripping with everyday life). Between the attractions, there were run down buildings, narrow alleys going and up and down dramatically, clothes hanging outside, smells of fishes being cooked, locals hanging out at street corners. Somehow all the imperfections actually makes it all the more charming.



I set out with no clear plan in mind. The overwhelming landmark is the castle (Castelo de São Jorge) at the top of a steep little hill, but rather than climbing all the way up there, I boarded the cute tram #28. It meanders through the densely populated mini hills and the valleys that make up the city, navigating the dramatic slopes precariously, barely wiggling through the narrowest of alleys, passing by the river Tagues, often presenting striking views.




In addition, there was music. Fado is the traditional Portuguese music, soulful songs of love and heartbreak, probably originated in the bygone era of lonely sailors. There were musicians performing live on the tram (link to a recording), as a part of summer festival, with locals spontaneously joining in, vastly outnumbering the tourists.



Hopping out of the tram I walked randomly across the almost maze like Bairro Alto, zigzagging through the cobblestone roads and inclines. And when my feet started complaining from all the climbing, there were these lovely elevators, one going up along a metallic cage (Elevador da Santa Justa), another more like an antique streetcar (Elevador da Glória).



The suburb of Belem was next. The much advertised monastery (Mosteiro dos Jerónimos) was indeed grand, and contained the tomb of Vasco da Gama, who would always have a special place in Indian history.





Standing across the road was the monument to all those brave explorers and discoveries, and a big world map showing the glorious days of the Portuguese domination, from coasts of America to Asia.



The adjacent tower of Belem has a forlorn aura about it, overlooking the river with boats passing by, headed to the sea.



It is interesting how British and Portuguese (and the Spanish, of course), so different in every other respect, ended up conquering so many distant shores. I may be totally wrong, but my feeling is, while the British were more of resource hunters and their reminiscence is one of pride, Portuguese legacy is more of the adventurous spirit, and exploration.



The Berardo Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art was rather small, but worth a quick visit. I also dropped by the Museu da Electricidade to have a look at the world press photo exhibition going on there.



I had no idea what awaited me when I headed to Sintra next morning, an UNESCO heritage town half an hour away from the city, The bus climbed up the hill up from the station and stopped at the ruins of Moorish castle (Castelo dos Mouros).



I always wanted to a visit a real, once functional European castle, and this was it!



This is probably one of he most underrated attractions I have visited for a long while. While I must admit that not too much has survived the time, the remnants are definitely worth the short hike. I walked along the ramparts, climbed up to the towers, overlooking the vast expanse and the stunning Pena Palace at a distance.



The Pena Palace itself was royally gorgeous and more colorful than Disney, and offering nice views of the rather dull National Palace and the lovely Monserrate Palace down there.



Lisbon was lively no doubt and, but Sintra captured by imagination, a living testament to the tales of yore.



Finally to this tiny coastal town calld Foz de Arhelo, for the actual physics workshop. This is Atlantic from the "other" side. And it feels so much more virgin than from overtly commercialized Florida. My hotel room is on a cliff, overlooking the mouth of a lagoon meeting the ocean, and I can hear waves roaring all night. Pure, unspoiled sand and water, a fantastic landscape.



Any trip is not complete without sampling local food and drink. I was asked by a friendly waiter if I want the "beef" of pork or cow -I ended up going with the pork, crisply fried succulent pieces. However, this is a seafood lovers paradise, fresh fish, octopus, squids abound, all fresh and rather affordable. All these years I thought of Sardines as somethings which originate in those tiny cans, and it was a revelation to devour big shiny and tasty Sardines. How would I go back to those cans again? Pastel de Belém is the famous local creamy and ultra sweet pastry, and yummy. Sangria is plentiful and cheap. This is a country where Port wine came from, and while I am no wine connoisseur, the ones I sampled were aromatic and full.

The disconcerting eeriness of being thirty

There are things in life you expect to happen. And then there are things you should expect, but never really do. Like turning thirty. Birthdays are generally meant to be happy occasions. One day to celebrate and remind people of your existence. Not for me though. Not anymore, certainly. Growing old is such a scary idea, and thirty seems like somewhat of psychological barrier beyond that I can not just ignore age as just a number. In all these years, I could think of myself as the naive young one, all the carefree mistakes, casual omissions, the general attitude of being irresponsible had that grand excuse. At thirty, I am not sure if one can still claim that(but I am going to try nevertheless). Human lifetime is incredibly short and insignificant when one looks at the grand scheme of things, the and by that benchmark, thirty possibly means I have used up a significant fraction of that. I am mortally terrified of being old, and there are so many things I have not done or experienced. However, rather than start getting upset about those now, let me try to get some transient satisfaction by listing some of things I am proud to have done. This is of course, an incredibly random, and entirely biased list, with no logical order and I am sure I am forgetting more equally memorable events, after all, as some study said, memory starts to decline from around this age.

I have lived in three different countries in three different continents.

I visited so many places. Although I am tempted to, I would not name them all here. But very briefly, major city/cities in 7 different European countries (Switzerland, Italy, France, Germany, England, Belgium, Czech Republic, with Portugal coming up), and major attractions in 34 mainland American states (plus Washington DC). I have driven along along the pacific coast highway in California, seven mile bridge over the seas connecting Miami to Keys in Florida, and from Florida to Chicago crossing the country. I have taken the incredibly scenic golden pass express across Switzerland, saw the pope in Vatican, got my portrait sketched at Montmartre, stood across the prime meridian in Greenwich, saw Mont Blanc right in front me standing at an altitude of 3842m, stayed inside the fort in Jaisalmeer, gambled and won (albeit a small amount) in Las Vegas, just to name a few of the incredible travel experiences.

I have a Ph.D in Physics. Some random estimates suggest that only about 1% of world's population holds a Ph.D. So that indeed puts me into an elite fraction of the population. (And while on that, I consider myself privileged to have Rick Field as my thesis advisor. I could not have had a better supervisor.)

I have been associated with the world's current (Tevatron in Fermilab) and future (LHC in CERN) highest energy particle collider experiments. To non physicists, it may not appear that big a deal, but the LHC turn on is truly an once in a generation opportunity.

I participated and gave talk which was reasonably appreciated in one of the premiere conferences in our field, Moriond at La Thuile.

I was awarded as the best graduate student while in Florida for distinction in teaching and research.

I have experienced the perhaps most incredible and significant political event of modern US history, the election of Barack Obama as the president, up, close and personal. I have also voted in India, so that makes me a participant in two of the world's largest democracies.

I have accumulated enough frequent flier mile to move in to "silver elite" status in delta skymiles, and also had a free India roundtrip ticket.

I have heard Joan Baez sing live. Twice.

I participated in the inaugural "University Challenge India" quiz show on BBC, hosted by the amazing Siddhartha Basu.

I have tried rock climbing and skiing. It is another matter that I faired miserably in either.

By last count, I have collected close to two hundred refrigerator magnets from all the places I visited.

I have seen the space shuttle discovery blasting into space, once at daytime, once at night.

I have eaten alligator, horse, frog, rabbit, ostrich meat (with kangaroo coming up, hopefully soon) among the more unusual ones.

While at Florida, I have lived through two basketball and two football national championship runs. The basketball team was perhaps the best college basketball team, ever. Again to all not acquainted with American college sports, this is unprecedented. (and I was once on the same flight with Al Horford.)

I have won an award for my photography, and one of photos was featured on CNN ireport. While by itself, neither is that big a deal, it is not everyday I get appreciated for being creative.

And, despite being a bitter loner most of the times, I had been amazingly lucky to know and come close to some wonderful people. And wonder of all wonders, someone agreed to marry me too. I have to compliment Saswati for her incredibly courageous decision!

Physics and more in Moriond

Physics conferences tend to follow a certain pattern, lots of talks throughout the day, some social interactions in the evening and may be a weekend excursion to a tourist attraction nearby. But what happens if the whole conference is an excursion by itself? That is what Moriond conferences are - tucked away in this a French/Italian Alps ski resort named La Thuile, the afternoons are left free for skiing and enjoying the breathtaking scenic beauty, and we are spoiled with awesome and exotic lunch and dinner.






And by the way did I mention that this is a gathering of some of the best workers in the field, and as they jokingly say, you can even talk physics while skiing!

Skiing I did try, that too for two days. But to put it in a very respectable way, I am not in the best physical shape, the only part of the body I exercise regularly are my fingers, and that shows. On first day, I learned it is deceptively difficult, certainly not as smooth as seen on TV. It is hard to move with skis on when not on a slope, and its even harder to stop when you are on one. There are techniques though, but then again, we did not learn walking or cycling in a day either. Next day was super exciting, if I may say so. Accidentally I took the wrong ski-lift, so rather than landing on the top of a gentle practice slope, I ended up on the top of the mountain, with only steep "expert" slopes to go down. The ski lifts are apparently used for one way traffic, they do not allow you to get down - so I had to be rescued and brought down to the nearest cable car station by a snowmobile - those things do move fast going downhill! Quite an experience indeed. This place is a skiers paradise.



However, the view going up the mountain on that open ski-lift, which is effectively a hanging bench, and where you can not get on without your skis on, was out of the world, and possibly worth all the trouble. Too bad I could not take any pictures.



Other highlight of my stay so far was having horse-steak for dinner. It was different, a bit dry, reasonably delicious and I never knew people ate horse before. This was also my first talk in front of a hundred plus audience consisting mostly of experts, and I think it went rather well, from the the questions and the general reaction.

Munich Moments

As they say, high energy physicists are travelers. I realized that very well after joining Dresden - in the first five or so weeks, I have been spending three of those away from my new home. The first one was at CERN, mostly for meeting collaborators and taking care of paperwork needed to officially join ATLAS. Since I have been in Geneva before, I did not really try to explore the city much.

Next trip was Munich. Physics-wise, I have no idea why I was there, since it was the German Physical Society meeting, where most speakers felt it is their sacred duty to give the talks in German. But that was a convenient excuse for me to skip the sessions entirely and be a "tourist" again! Munich is like other German cities I have seen - with an semi-old part of the city with majestic buildings, skyline dominated by churches and lots of modern developments.





However, I have known Munich from my childhood days for 1972 Olympic games, partly for the then unprecedented gold medal haul by Mark Spitz, and mostly for the terrorist attacks and subsequent death of the Israeli athletes, which perhaps changed the character of sports forever. Unfortunately, when I landed up in the Olympic park, the whole area was closed due to some renovation going on.



I still however passed by the very simple memorial plaque and that was the end of my brush with history. Or so I thought. Next night, I was invited by a Max-Planck Institute physicist at his place, and it turned out they live in the erstwhile Olympic village, and more significantly at Connollystrasse 31, which was the exact same building where the gruesome events took place. Max Planck Institute apparently bought that building and made it a housing for physicists. It was an eerie feeling visiting that building at dark, and this would remain my overwhelming memory of this Munich trip.



I did the other usual touristy things too. I stood there in the heavy falling snow to watch the Glockenspiel, where little figures come out of the church tower and perform their little mechanical "dance" routine.



I climbed up to the top of "Alte Peter" church and savored the nice view of the city.



I spent half a day exploring the Deutsches Museum, apparently world's largest science and technology museum. I had the succulent Weißwurst sausage, and crunchy but delicious pork knuckle, all washed down with plenty of Bavarian beer.

Funny or Sad?

While catching up with Indian news at NDTV, I came across this:




It apparently links to some website called Voice of Bengal, which wants to sell digital cameras and wants Bangladeshi immigrants to leave.

Very interesting.

Ten Random Facts about Dresden

1. Its just not lip service, people are really environmentally conscious. Trash needs to be separated out in glass, paper, plastic, biodegradable waste etc, you rarely see plastic use and throw cutlery and use of paper towels is almost non existent. Grocery stores do not give plastic carry bags - you have to pay extra to get them. And you even get cash back by returning bottles.

2. May be because this was East Germany before, but everything is utterly methodical. For example I was given this form, where it literally says, go and meet this Professor, say hi to him and get the form signed by him. But that also means...

3. Everything involves too much paperwork. And in a fixed progression - you cant cant get a mobile phone unless you have a bank account, which you cant get unless you registered your address with the authorities, which of course can not be done until you have your apartment lease contract in hand, and for that you need to find an apartment!

4. That brings me to the business of finding an apartments. Yes, there are plenty of them, and yes they are reasonably cheap. But one crucial problem - they generally do not come with anything. And by anything, I mean that. Nothing in the kitchen , just some water pipes and wires sticking out. One has to buy and install the "kitchen". meaning the burner, fridge and all that is needed. Most apartment buildings are tall, dull structures, with hundreds of units inside, another Esat German legacy. I was even shown a refurbished apartment complex built from an old army barrcak, with long corridors and depressing ambiance.

5. However, one good thing is public transit, specially coming from a place here it was very limited, to put it mildly. Buses run on time, in fact you can almost set your watches by them. They have dedicated lanes and turning signals.

6. The food is not so fantastic though. Its mostly some form of sausage or potato, or often both. Like a sausage immersed in a thick potato soup. Which is not so bad the first time, but gets boring after a while. But then again, so does Wendy's double cheeseburger!

7. This is a tremendously non-multicultural society unlike I was used to. People of color are rare to find, and people actually stare at you if you are brown (or black, I would assume), not always in a bad way, but still!

8. There is quite a number of Neo-Nazi sympathizers here. Or so I hear.

9. Dresden is apparently called the balcony of Europe. I'll soon find out why. It is also the sister city of Columbus, OH. I do not want to find more about it. *Sigh*

10. Its completely different to be a tourist in a place where virtually no one is expected to understand your language, and to actually live there. Just saying.

My first view of snowy Dresden from my 17th floor hostel room:

Update...

Blogging took a backseat, while other matters had to be taken care of. I finished my Ph.D, and dedicated it "All those who kept asking when I would be done". Really I did. Before that I needed to find a postdoctoral position, and after a frantic, often frustrating few months, I got an offer from Dresden to join their ATLAS group, which I gladly accepted. Then came perhaps the hardest part - convincing myself that I actually want to get married. I am not actually sure that I succeded, but like a true physicist, I figured a real experiment is the best way to figure out. So that happened too, although in a very non traditional way, in the presence of a few close friends. Then I had a month to make a trip back home, after two years. Finally came back to Gainesville to bid goodbye to my second home, and it was not easy. Calcutta is my original home no doubt, but Gainesville is where everything was mine. It was my apartment, my department and my office space, I bought my car - the sense of familiarity, attachment and belonging to that little big campus town had been too great. It was hard to let it all go, but as they say - life is all about moving on.

Reflections

Time indeed flies fast. I still vividly remember the 2003 fall evening I landed up in this little big campus town. Fresh into an alien land, adjusting to a new culture, so far away from my friends and family, with my awkward accent, it sure was a challenge.

Physics was not the only thing I learnt over the next five or so years. Staying up late in first few semesters, working on those lengthy homework assignments, taught me that that a lot of physics would be drudge work, training for the future. Research has been much more fun, although I realized it is almost impossible to make that ground breaking fundamental contribution, which we all dreamt about when we first decided to do physics, ignoring the temptation and allure of engineering and potentially big money . It has turned out that most of us are rather like cogs in a big wheel, making small (and hopefully somewhat significant) contributions to the big cluttered landscape. But I have also concluded that, this is what I want to do,
and by some fantastic coincidence, the next few years would be incredibly exciting time in our field.

Gainesville has definitely grown on me in all these years. People have been amazingly nice and kind. Once I left my passport in the department, the day before going on a month long India trip. Darlene Latimer and Chris Scanlon came all the way from their home on a Friday night to retrieve it, so that I did not have to miss the trip.

I have lived through what probably has been the golden era of Gator sports. I have first time voted and actively participated in a landmark presidential election. I have traveled all across the country (so far been to 35 states) and beyond, both for academic and pleasure trips. Now, driving up on I-75, when I see that little green sign saying Gainesville is near, it feels like I am about to be home.

And, after this wonderful journey, I would be moving across the Atlantic to Germany for my postdoctoral work. To a new country, without knowing the language, away from all the wonderful friends I made here. Déjà vu?

Published in UF Physics monthly newsletter, Proton, with a five year old mugshot of mine!

Voted for change, and the country did the same.

One of John McCain's last campaign rallies was in Roswell, NM. May be he was hoping for some alien intervention. Sadly that never came - and we all know what happened next.

People have run out of adjectives to describe how historic and overwhelming the night was, and so I would not even try. It was my first time voting in a general election here in United States, and the process was mostly painless and filling in the bubbles made me feel a bit nostalgic. Networks called Pennsylvania early, with Virgina, Indiana and North Carolina very close, we never got a chance to get worried. It was effectively over (time to change the Orkut/Facebook/Gtalk status messages!) and Florida has lost the bragging rights of being the decider. We met a bunch of screaming supporters in downtown and watched him speak at a noisy and cramped bar.

It never felt close on election night. The primaries were more entertaining. And I have to figure out how can I live without all the polls, rumors, debates, speeches and analysis keeping me occupied.

Voting for Change, in Gainesville

So finally the first Tuesday after the first Moday in November is upon us. By this time, tomorrow, we should have a clear sense of where the night is heading for. As an avid supporter "for change", I hope that means whether its a narrow victory or a landslide for Barack.

I have been following politics for while, back from my days in India. The issues and the candidates interest me, for sure. I do have decently strong opinions about those. But what fascinates me more is what happens at the background - the tactics and strategies, the opinion and the exit poll, and in generally the things shape the outcomes, unbeknown to the general public.

This election offered plenty of those. I went to a Joe Biden rally on our campus yesterday. It was my first time willingly in a political rally, ever. And i also got to "meet" the now famous "Obama-bot", a moving robot with glowing blue eyes carrying Obama banners, made by UF students. While all that was so much fun, I noticed far more interesting things. I saw a disproportionate number of people wearing "turn Texas blue" shirts. It has been happening in all across the country - volunteers from Illinois swamping Indiana and Ohio, from all the southern states congregating in Florida and from Arizona going to Nevada and New Mexico. While I dont know if they can pull off wins in all these key states, it just shows the remarkable ground game Obama folks have put together. I read reports that in Ohio, they have calculated the number of votes they need block by block, precinct by precinct, and there are people in charge of making sure of that. Well, it is surely a bad year for republicans, but that does not take away the credit of building perhaps the most exhaustive ground organization in history by Obama folks. And just in case things do not go right, there are five thousand lawyers standing by in Florida, which has been jokingly called the largest law farm in country right now.

May the best candidate win, as long as it is Barack. That would be the easiest choice for me on the ballot.

And that is me with the "Obama-bot" on Sunday at the Biden rally.

Congratulations Ganguly.

Good Ol Times Are Back in Bengal

My profound apologies to my nonexistent international readers. I could not resist commenting on this Singur-Tata-Mamata drama.

When I was growing up, this same bunch of people, who has been in power for an eternity in Bengal, opposed computers in particular and industrialization in general. They called it the US conspiracy to rob the youth of their jobs. We listened. After all, anything going wrong in Bengal was the fault of the imperialist Americans, when the central government could not be blamed. Again we listened. It felt slightly cliched when they supported the central government but still blamed them for all the ills. But then again, we were so used to it by then, we still listened. And of course the big bad Americans were sitting right there, staring at us, sniffing at every opportunity to harm the hard working Bengalis.

So how did they keep all these enemies away? By sheer people power, of course. Any thing you do not like, assemble a mob, pelt stones at random directions, set something totally unconnected on fire and block traffic for hours. It obviously worked, since the idea gained ground. Soon, we were swamped with gifted holidays (read strikes) and a chance to play cricket on the main thoroughfares of the cities. One has to notice how cricketing fortunes of Bengal improved from then on. The police never tried to stop any protesters (unless they were from opposition parties, who by definition were anti-people and pro-American) - and anybody even thinking about defying them, willingly or by some compulsion, met with violent consequences. All was well. How I miss those peaceful times.

Now this poor lady. She is only trying to learn from history. Only way to connect to the people of our state is evidently to cause chaos and disruption, and oppose industries grabbing land. And now, no wonder, she is being blamed as a part of a bigger conspiracy by Americans.

I do not know much about the exact details of the land acquisition process and fairness of the compensation. I do not know if it was good agricultural land.

But sitting in the land where Americans are still a majority, I do know this. Americans care a damn about whats happening in there. And I have a sneaky feeling they never did.

A Tale of Walls

From the dusty grounds surrounded by the crumbling walls at the erstwhile Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin, to a city still trying to come in terms to the fact that the wall is not there - my one day visit to Berlin was indeed exploring what those walls meant to the psyche of an entire generation of people.

Someone at Hamburg told me, by heart Germans are Communists. I am not sure if I agree with him, but Berlin is the closest I have been to a former Soviet territory. Today, all the symbols of a booming capitalist system are jostling for space with countless memorials and leftover nostalgia from the pre-unification days - and somehow I felt that robs Berlin from having a distinct character as a city. The wall is very much alive in the collective consciousness, from thousands of pieces (or so claimed) of it sold in every other souvenir shop, to "follow the wall" tours designed for history-thirsty tourists. It would probably take a while for the wall that is not there to become truly history, and before that Berlin would still be defined by that. The most popular landmark is the Brandenburg Gate, followed by a free climb upto the dome of the former Reichstag, from where again, you can see the Brandenburg Gate in all its glory and trace the path of the wall - going through the strangely constructed but eerily calm holocaust memorial at the heart of the city, all the way to Checkpoint Charlie, with people comically dressed up as commies putting commemorative stamps on your passport (for a few Euros, of course).

There is also this huge green patch at the middle of the city, somewhat of a New York city central park. I did not get enough time to explore all the churches and museums, some impressive looking, some not so. But where I did get a chance to go to was this concentration camp an hour away from the city. It was not as big or notorious as Auschwitz, but to see the barren grounds surrounded by high walls interspersed with watchtowers, houses with no windows, divided in how-can-those-be-called-rooms and the weirdly emotionless execution pit, the horrors of those days do seem up, close and personal.

The photos are, as always in my picasaweb album. I also had a chance to explore Hamburg, which is a nice harbor city, and Lubeck, which has a unique skyline with old churches and the castle-like entrance, and famous for Marzipans!

Germany - 2008

When you are in Germany...

You get this, in plain text when you type www.google.com:

We can't provide service under the Gmail name in Germany; we're called Google Mail here instead.

If you're traveling in Germany, you can access your mail at http://mail.google.com.

Oh, and we'd like to link the URL above, but we're not allowed to do that either. Bummer.

For general information about Google, please visit www.google.com or www.google.de.

And here is a screenshot. Notice the difference?

My take on Sarah Palin...

In her own words:



And in the words of her supporters:

No fear of flying

Like the song says, I have been pretty much everywhere. I should rather say, I have flown to everywhere. Starting from the bumpy ride from Atlanta to Gainesville in the propeller driven apology of a plane to huge Boeing or airbuses for coast to coast or transatlantic sojourns, it has been a long ride, in the true sense of the term.

And like all folks who pretend to be geeks, I love to find out how things work. No, not how that giant metallic structure stay afloat midair, that is trivial. Rather I love to know what goes in behind the scenes. Some of my experiences in all these years, not always exactly pleasant though, helped untangle some mysteries. I would take this chance to bask in the glory of my acquired wisdom now!

"Taking over the plane" : Not as alarming as it may sound. The first time I encountered the phrase when having missed an earlier flight, I was trying to get a standby seat on the next flight five hours later, and the agent at the gate told me she can give me a seat only when she takes over the plane, which would happen an hour or so before the take off. Then I learnt before that, the check in counter controls the plane. I was trying to book a flight within a day, and I could not get a seat assignment, either online or by phone. They simply said, the airport has taken over the plane. So that is that.

All those "special" seats: United has premium economy seating, with a little bit of extra leg space, and they try to sell it to you before the flight. The best way to get them? In a full flight, just do not choose any seats. They would be forced to hand them out eventually- I managed to fly on those quite a few times without paying an extra cent. Same with Northwest, they charge for those spacious seats at exit rows, and often times try to force people to buy them so that they can seat together. Again, traveling solo has its own advantages and checking in late often means they have no choice to give an exit row seat to you. Feels less like a herd of cattle packed in.

And finally, "Channel 9": The only reason I love United. For those uninitiated, channel 9 broadcasts the communication of the pilots with the control. Again, there are different controls taking over the plane at different times - starts from ground control who directs it till take off, then to successive "centers" as it flies by and finally to the ground control where it lands. And it is so much fun listening to the exchanges. All the code names and jargon's, how I love them. It also gives you a sense of power, listening to the instruction to turn right by some degrees and then actually feeling it turn or the warning of "weather" up ahead and then seeing the seat belt sign come back to life. They have intersections in the sky, and routes precisely documented by altitude and angles. And on ground, its pretty much like the traffic on roads, "follow the heavy American jet" or "stay close to the pack". Fascinating stuff.

Travel Companions

Well, I wont mind some. While time and money are the usual suspects, too many trips have not happened due to the lack of people. And, as I have learnt in the had way, its better to travel alone than to end up with a bunch of people not ready to spend at all, or too worried about the comforts of life.

But that is not what this is about. I remember back in India, when traveling back and forth between my home in Siliguri and my university in Calcutta, we used to scan the reservation charts pasted beside the train doors, and would be excited to find any teenage female names around. It is altogether another story that we would rarely end up talking with them. I am not the most talkative of persons unless I know the people around, and that extends to public transits too.

However, on occasions here, I have ended up having conversations with some bizarre people in plane. I ended up beside a drunk musician from New Orleans when going to Chicago for the first time in the winter of 2004, and it was entertaining, for lack of a better word. Initially what started as his not so polite rant about the airline not allowing to carry his guitar or something, turned into an interesting, albeit slightly incoherent conversation. He talked a lot about New Orleans, and this was well before Katrina. He talked about Jazz music, and asserted that only Chicago and New Orleans has good Jazz - which is probably true. The thing I remember him most for is, however for none of the conversations we had. It was my first time landing in a big city after dark, and the view of Chicago from up there is simply awesome. They always go anticlockwise over the lake and the downtown, and from the left side of the plane, where we fortunately were and he allowed me to look out, you can see the most perfect grid, tiny squares after tiny squares. Then comes the lake and as the plane turns around towards the ultra compact downtown - you can almost identify each individual building. Night landing in Chicago is always spectacular - of course, you have to be sitting at the left side, as the guy told me. Rightly so.

This summer, I was coming back from Phoenix, AZ and the route was already absurd - flying up to Minneapolis, MN and then coming down to Orlando. That is the price you pay when you get a cheap ticket nowadays. We were delayed in Minneapolis, and to avoid weather, they flew all the way southwest toward the the direction of Omaha, NE before continuing southeast. So it added an hour or so more to what was already a needlessly long flight, and I so did not mind too much when the guy next to me started talking. As it turned out, he has spent some time in Bangalore, and written poems about India. It is always fascinating to hear about India from a different perspective, so it was all great till then. However once I said I am a physicist, he started talking about all the conspiracy theories - UFO sightings to his belief that the Pyramids were built by aliens. He suggested me books and websites - it did get boring after a while, but he simply would not stop. I never knew people so passionately believed in those.

The poems were nice though.

How do you feel when you do something for the last time?

(Disclaimer: This post is by no means influenced by recent observations that most of the posts here are either travelogues or my political rants. They would be back)

A couple of years back, I visited Siliguri, a pretty little town known more as a getway to Darjeeling. This would have been no story, except for the fact that I grew up there and this was perhaps my last trip there for a while. My family moved away from Siliguri since then and there would be no reason for me to go there now, especially when the India trips are usually so hectic.

Growing up in suburbs was fun. We lived away from the town, inside the university campus, in a way isolated from the world. Kids were kids then, and the pleasures of life were simple. After coming back from school - we would circle around the campus in our cycles, talking about immensely forgettable stuff. We played Badminton and Table Tennis with an intensity as if the winner gets to play in the Olympics. There were occasional pranks of course, and flare ups, as all kids do. Growing up introduces its own complexities and we were no exceptions. The random cycling excursions were not so random anymore, and new words like "planned coincidences" started creeping into the vocabulary. It was all nice and clean though, even when the hidden emotional turmoils were not so. The evening outings took new meaning and became more personal than group activities. And they also became an outlet for me to vent my frustration arising from different unrelated reasons. The open roads and presence of very few automobiles meant I can cycle as fast as I wanted, "speed limit" was an unknown phrase then. It was a great way to unwind - too bad I cant try it here.

Eventually, we all moved away from out little world. But we all carried some of it with us, wherever we went. I still prefer living in suburbs compared to a big city, and when very upset, drive to this place just out of Gainesville, which somehow feels far from all civilization, turn of the engine and just wait in the absolute darkness till I feel better. When I went back to Siliguri, I brushed of the accumulated dust of years from my once shiny black cycle and realized it is no good to ride anymore. My sister's cycle still worked, so I took it, rode around all those places which have so many memories associated with them. It was like traveling back in time. I went past my old place, traced and retraced my old routes, stared longingly at empty balconies, received a royal reception at my old primary school, ate a "Singara" at "Savitri Sweets" and finally when it was all done, the enormity of the moment descended on me. This is something I would do never again. I would never ride a cycle through North Bengal University campus. Never again in my life. Not just because I wont probably ever get a chance, but also because it wont mean anything anymore.

The moment has long been gone.

Which began as a very promising summer, turned out to be a majorly disappointing one. May be I would go into all that sometime, or may be not. However, I am back.

Question of the day: Why the nuclear deal is bad for only Muslims, according to a big array of politicians? If it is bad, then it should be bad for everyone, I would think. Why no one has the guts to use that s word, which would be used every time the word Hindu is used in a sentence?