When age wasn't more than just a number

The other day, a friend of mine (and a fellow Voiceian) sent me a few words penned by her on the occasion of the day she admits to everybody that she has grown an year older.

The words are reproduced below followed by my two cents worth of thoughts

I’m scared. She’s my best friend these days (I’m at home and my other friends are busy working people who stay far away). She’s the most frequent visitor home and I delight in her company. We laugh over Suppandi stories, share chocolates and tell each other tales about crazy people in our respective schools (er...campus, in my case).

Shuba is 10 yrs old. She thinks I’m only a few years elder to her. I’m terrified of what would happen when she learns my true age. Will she be repulsed that I’m so old? I mean, 25 would seem like a very large age to someone who’s 10, right? She’s not yet asked me my age. I live in dread of the day she does. If she does…well…er…will heaven forgive me if I lie?

~ Smrithi Murthy (MRDG, IISc)

You know, the qualities I admire most about children are, the innocence, the readiness to believe, the trust they place in others and the way they actually speak their mind, never indulging in the double talk that some of us adults call “diplomacy”.

Sometimes I wonder whether the world would be a different place if everybody retained the desirable childlike characteristics we had when we were kids.

In case you are still curious, this is how Smrithi tells me it all ended

The inevitable happened. Shuba asked me how old I am. I looked at her, brought all my courage together and said, “25”. She looked at me first in disbelief, then thoughtful. “But you’re still studying?” she asked. “Yes”, said I. “And you’ll finish your studies when you’re 28?” “Yes” (well…I couldn’t tell her that was only my best guess and one can never predict a PhD). “You don’t look that old”, she commented. That was it. We then began talking normally, of other things. I felt like I’d passed some test. Phew!

~ Smrithi

Glad to hear that, at least for children, age is just another number to be forgotten

My V Day Appointment

I knew my social life is going to the dogs when I realised that the only appointment I have on Valentine's Day is with my PhD advisor

मुन्नी और शीला (Munni and Sheela)

अर्ज़ किया है...
इधर देखो तो मुन्नी उधर देखो तो शीला,
इधर देखो तो मुन्नी उधर देखो तो शीला,
हसीना तेरे इश्क़ में हज़ारों नौजवानों के ग्रेड्स का हो गया केला

Translation:
I recite...
Here I see Munni There I see Sheela,
Here I see Munni There I see Sheela,
Oh beautiful woman, infatuation for you has led to the screwing up of grades of thousands of young men

Looking back, Falling forward

By any far-fetched chance of probabilistic imagination, have you wondered why my blog is named Reminiscence? If not then I am sure you have better things to do. Anyways, there are a handful of people who do not and hence I go forth pandering to their curiosities and resulting queries.

When I started the blog, I had intended it to be a sort of a public diary where I could share experiences that triggered an oasis of contemplation in an otherwise not so green field of thought. Under normal circumstances such thoughts would have gone in a condensed form into the folds of my closest confidant, my personal diary. Then one fine day, a narcissist alter ego inside me convinced me to share some of the less embarrassing thoughts with those willing to read these pages.

However, over the years the character and basic feel of the blog has changed. If you clear the cobwebs a bit and look into my older posts and compare them with newer posts, you might find that the former have a more philosophical tone. As time passed, I realised that my (AWESOME) sense of humour seemed to amuse my readers more than my ramblings on the mundane fact that I forgot to brush my teeth one morning and my philosophical interpretations of the disastrous consequences.

Over the years I have stopped trying hard to create that (fake) hue of philosophy on my blog and the blog began to take a comic shade closer in character to the nutty author. See the tags on this blog and their frequency. Yes, the name of the blog is misleading and I have wanted to change it many times. Apparently I can change the name of the blog whenever I fancy but I cannot change its web address. I felt it would be a bit awkward to have a pseudo-intellectual link name like “reminiscentarrows.blogspot.com” and have a blog name that is neither related to Reminiscence nor Arrows. My plans of shifting to a new blog have been put on the backburner courtesy my not so strong technical skills and quite so strong procrastination skills.

I digress a lot today. Coming to the core of the bottom of the point I wanted to make in this post. As the new year dawns and the old year dusks I Reminisce about the one resolution I have managed to uphold over the years. The practise of writing a personal diary. It’s been over a decade since I started this habit.

At the end of every year, I take time off to look at the pages of the past year. I summarise the year in a couple of pages. More often than not I end up flipping the pages of years further back. It’s a wonderful feeling. Looking back at how the thought process (and writing style) has evolved is a soulful experience. The way priorities have changed over the years. The dreams, desires, wishes, whims and fantasies (even the crushes). The pleasure of rubbing off the dust of the years (literally and metaphorically) and flipping through yellow but crisp pages makes it worth expending the miniscule effort of writing every night at the end of the day.

Common sense would tell that there should be a lesson to be learnt by revising the mistakes of the past. But over the years, I have seen myself make a couple of mistakes with some similarities. Despite having written about it in the past years. Yet again, every year I look back and wonder what it will be like going forward. How to describe this apparent incongruence? How about the title of this post?

Degrees vs Cricket

Test Match	PhD
5 days or less	More or less 5 years
Toss	Advisor assigned
Fielding	Course work
Leather hunt (first 2 days)	Literature survey and search for thesis problem (first 2 years)
Opposition declares	Advisor takes pity and chooses thesis problem for you
Openers face shiny new ball and bouncers	Comprehensive exam
Wickets fall	Years go by
Nightwatchman	Hobby to prevent depression
Pitch crumbles	Equipment breaks down
Spinners spin a web	Googly from experimental results
Follow on	Night out
Unfair decision	Paper rejected
Last session. No. 11 batsman trying to save his stumps from reverse swinging yorker at 150kmph	Thesis Defence

T20	MBA
20 overs	2 years
Minimal need for technique	Minimal need for technical stuff
Pyrotechnics - Brute force, Big shots	Pyrotechnics - Marketing Ability
Cheerleaders	Gets a girl that looks like a cheerleader
IPL Auction	Placement Season

Sketch Credits: Jithin K S, ECE, IISc

Salsa Twist

Recently, Salsa classes have started at IISc. We were told that we will be assigned partners if we don't have one. So I went there happily imagining that I will be paired with some pretty girl. Turns out they make pairs based on skill levels. I was hooked up with a 70 year old lady who was advised by her doctor to take up dancing to get rid of stiff joints

Full Spectrum Sweep

It started simply as high frequency microwaves. Then I was advised to look at terahertz frequencies. Now the focus is shifting towards infrared and photonics. Looking at the haphazard way my search for a thesis topic is progressing, I think I will reach gamma rays by the time I give my comprehensive exam


Image credits/sources:
Left half: Rodger Weese Soul-utions
Right half: Si/SiGe Research, Univ of Cambridge
Putting them together: Myself