Kudos to our former colleague Mark Baskaran, who has made his mark by winning the prestigious fellowship: Board of Governors Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Wayne State University, Detroit! I had proposed to invite him to PRL as Ramanathan Professor last year, which was turned down by the then dean: However, AKS during his deanship did many good things that were quite impossible before his time. For example he had furnished the dean’s office with high quality furniture. He got PRL painted. He also arranged cars for bringing retired scientists from their homes to attend colloquia sparsely populated by the rather smart local crowd, who, being bored with this routine, mostly succeed in finding something better to do, never mind the pre-colloquium free tea & biscuits. I saw yesterday in the auditorium SPP and Rastogi sitting in the front row with closed eyes, which reminded of the olden days, when the pair used to be Ramanathan and Pisharoty. I looked around to share this observation, but I realized that most were new comers, who couldn’t have heard of the latter.
Ghanshyambhai saw that I was giving a blood sample and advised that I should take that everything is quite normal and for Indians the doctors ought to raise the permissible limits! Sounds good to me! He also gave examples of the likes of J P Mishra, etc., who have survived for long with high sugar levels. The reason for my high values could be my stopping exercises after my accident last May, excessive travel, or plain stress. I was preparing my annual report yesterday and noticed that my students/colleagues and I have published 22 papers in all (journals 7 and conferences 15) in 2009-2010! I had given a dozen invited talks at various places in the country. Prof. Lal advised me long ago that I should kill myself doing science, and I seem to be following his advice inadvertently!
ACN called for Hyderabad and told me that GBP was visiting him. I know the latter for more than 3 decades. On two earlier occasions our talks were scheduled in sequence in conferences. In the 1984 slide-era, just after lunch as people tottered back drowsily into the hall, he went to the dais to load his slides, but dropped them all on the floor, causing a delay of 10 further minutes to the belated session. Imagine my shock when he told the projectionist that he could load the slides in any order! On another occasion (2003) he was given 45 minutes. He began his talk by saying that this was a very long duration and he could cover much ground. Indeed he did, by narrating our experiences in the Himalaya during our field work in 1982. He recalled how we walked the whole day to reach the forest GH, and the cook refused to cook for us because we were upper caste guys and he being a dalit, it would be sinful for him to touch our food! Then the resourceful GBP went around scrounging for wood, lighted the hearth and cooked some food for us! He consumed about 55 minutes relating this and other tales of yesteryears, while I, the next speaker, sat nervously awaiting my turn. Then he realized that time had flown, and instructed the projectionist to run through the slides one by one, prepared by a colleague for him!
Prof. Rajamani called me after reading my recent paper in Current Science (I did not send him a copy) and gave me some ideas, after appreciating the work. On the other hand KG (to whom I had e-mailed the pdf) unobtrusively reminded me that he was the one who started the isotope-dendroclimatology at PRL in the early 80s!
The end of vasant rutu: In the PRL main campus Laburnum (tree with yellow flowers hanging like chandeliers, Garmalo in Gujarati) is in full bloom. Pisharoty used to predict monsoon based on the date of its flowering. If you are a septic, let me caution you: His predictive skills were not probably no worse than the models currently used by IMD. As the weather gets hotter, more are the chances of early rains. Gulmohar trees (Mayflower?) have also started blooming. My observation is that its florescence begins on the first of the Tamil New Year (14th April). I do not see ibises yet on the trees, when I walk back from the canteen in the evening, after helping myself with the cholesterol laden vadas. May be they are yet to arrive, I mean the ibises, Kaustubh could enlighten me. Raw mangoes have started coming to the market. Yesterday I brought a big one home, cut and salted it, and ate all the pieces while watching the IPL semifinals between Bangalore and Mumbai. I was pained to see Kumble lose by 45 runs. The mango was sour!
Volcanic eruption could be a blessing to a few, it appears: the SERCON engineer stranded in Kolkata decided to visit us and inspect the old mass spectrometer. Although I had obtained permission YMT for the entry of a foreigner, when the latterarrived, the CISF declined to allow him inside saying that they have not got a copy of the e-mail (they showed me on the computer screen, it wasn’t there!); but I saw that YMT had clearly marked a copy to CISF. It is a mystery indeed that e-mails could get lost while going from the main building to PRL gate! In any case I gave them a printed copy, they asked him to leave his laptop in their custody, which he did. At the next level they found he had pen drives, he had to go back to the gate again. He decided to leave the whole bag there. On the third level of entry he was told to go back to deposit his mobile at the gate. I waited for him while he did this and thus a total of 30 minutes were wasted. I was later told that I had to get permission for each of these items as well. Tughlak Rajyam! This reminded me of the Paramartha Guru story written by a Tamil Christian saint (Veeramamunivar), who also authored the classic Thembavani (I wonder if it is available in the web somewhere). The Guru used to ride his horse with the retinue of disciples. Once his angavastram (roughly, towel?) fell on the ground and the students did not pick it up. So he told them that whatever falls from the horse needs to be picked up, whereupon the obedient disciples promptly picked up horse dung on their next outing. The Guru decided to give them an exhaustive list of what to pick and what not to pick. Once it happened that he fell from the horse. The students consulted the list and picked up all his ornaments and clothes, but then the Guru was left in the ditch as he had forgotten to add his own name to the list!
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