He is THE man

This is hilarious.

The guy goes to Dartmouth too.

Huzefa

Happy Thanksgiving

Both my roommates are away- one to his parents' for thanksgiving and the other one in Canada. So I am by myself for the thanksgiving weekend. After I missed the thanksgiving dinner at school on Tuesday I had given up any hope of eating turkey. But bless my landlord's girlfriend. She brought me a thanksgiving dinner and apple-pie too. Now I can let go of my burnt egg bhurji and eat a better meal.

Thanks M.

and happy thanksgiving!

Spice, Smoke and Small Talk

The other day I was at the Jewel of India- the desi restaurant in Hanover with a friend B for lunch.

Though the menu Jewel of India is three pages longs, over time we have established that among those three pages, only a few items are edible. Rest are just there for us look over and retranslate the item description back to Hindi. So limited are our choices at jewel of India is that there really is no choice.We always get the same starter, same main course and mostly the same kind of roti.

However, since Jewel of India primarily caters to the American junta here which likes to "go for an Indian" once every two weeks, the food is flavored accordingly. When decoded, this means that the food, in its normal state is bland. There is absolutely no taste at all. To mitigate this problem, we ask our food to be as "hot" and as spicy as they can make it. Hot is in inverted commas because of the restaurant owner's very punjabi accent which makes one think of a kind of market held once a week.

For the record, B ordered a paneer shahi korma hot and spicy, while I asked for chicken tikka, very hot and very spicy. You cannot imagine what the restaurant waale uncleji told me on hearing this. He was like we cannot make chicken tikka very hot and spicy because it sizzles when it is hot and spicy and we don't want the smoke coming out of your plate to cause any inconvenience to others.

!!! ???

As you can imagine, I was pissed off on hearing this. I was lamenting at this discrimination when uncleji suggested a middle path. He would serve the chicken tikka on a normal plate and not on the iron plate on which it is normally served. That way, it would not sizzle. I happily agreed. Anything for chicken tikka.

Now I am wondering what things other diners can do at a restaurant to cause inconvenience to others. I was at a different restaurant yesterday where there was a big Chinese group- there were about 20 of them. If such a huge group is sitting on a table across yours, your voice is drowned among theirs. It is simply not possible to carry on a conversation without shouting.

Will a restaurant management ask its diners to keep their decibel levels low, so as not to cause inconvenience to other diners? Is hearing loss on the same level as losing your sense of smell?

Confused,
Huzefa

Holy Cow!

Cow is a sacred animal in hinduism and hence is considered holy (no pun intended). But there is a totally different emotion which is conveyed by the phrase Holy Cow! in the English speaking world. I won't go in to explain that because the nerves in my spinal cord are very tired to be surprised by anything these days.

I've been going to driver's education classes since past couple of weeks and trying to learn driving the way it is supposed to be learned. Not like the way I learned to drive a motorcycle where I got the hang of gears and brakes two years, three accidents and four permanent scars later after I got the bike.

So today in class, we were talking about identifying sources of potential conflict (read collision) when one is driving a car. The correct way here would be to see things on the road, process the acquired image in the brain and try to figure out a conflict. But with lazy and unskilled drivers (read me), it happens that even though one sees something on the road, he is not able to process that image and extract from it the sources of a potential collision with another car or a pedestrian. In other words, dimag ki batti gul ho jati hai. The brain cannot make sense of what the eyes are seeing and as a result one is not able to take proper measures to prevent a collision.

!!! I did not realise when I enrolled in the drivers education class that there would be lectures on neuroscience too.

To illustrate his point, the intructor showed us an image and asked us to identify it. I am attaching the picture below. Can you identify what is there in this picture? I've already given you a clue.


O.k. Stare at the image for 5...4...3...2...1...0. Got it? Good! No? Here is the answer.

The more interesting part in the whole episode was when the instructor told as to imagine a real cow on the road while we are driving. A cow? On a road in America? I don't know how it easy or difficult it was for American kids in the class to imagine a cow in the middle of the road. But for me, it reminded me of matrabhumi. No pun intended here as well. Here is some help for my American classmates at drivers ed classes if they actually comes across this blog.


Holy Cow!

On a not so unrelated note, I got this message from a friend which says a lot about multiculturalism and the associated feelings of chauvinistic nationalism:

"Being British is about driving in German cars to Irish pubs for Belgian beer, going home, getting Indian curry or Turkish kebab to sit on Swedish furniture to watch American shows on Japanese TV.
And the most British thing of all? Suspicion of anything foreign"

Huzefa

What is the Female Equivalent of Having Balls?

O.K., so in the last post, I wrote about playing tennis. You need balls to play tennis. I mean tennis balls which reminds me of the fact that tennis balls are one of the most abused sporting equipment in India. Poor things are berehmi se smashed all over the cricket field when they are only meant to be played between the two baselines of a tennis court. Baseball bats and hockey sticks come a close second and third on the most abused sporting equipment list. (A cricket bat is too unwieldy)

But this post is about the other kind of balls which has got nothing to do with sports. On second thoughts, you need these balls in every sport to be a good sport. They tell me that the lack of balls was the reason why Roddick lost to Djokovic in the masters cup recently. Oh my! I am mixing the two kinds of balls. I should stop doing that. It will make my serves inconsistent.

Dartmouth is a very elite undergraduate college. Alas! This is not true anymore for gradute schools because they let me in. The undergraduate students here are all very competitive and intent on proving themselves from the rest. So they are always looking for ways to differentiate themselves from the crowd. (Crowd is only a figure of speech, the population density here is very less compared to Bangladesh)

One of the ways for a guy to put himself out of the crowd (again!) is to wear feminist stickers. Now, I confess that feminist is not a word I know a lot about. I use it nevertheless because the lack of concrete proof of WMDs being present in Iraq did not stop the American government from attacking that nation. In my komal dimaag a feminist is the female equivalent of a male chauvinistic pig. (You now know why I disowned the word earlier). But think of it, what you would call a guy who is wearing a badge which says "US feminist army" on his shirt. I called him weird. For once, I was right. The guy agreed that it was weird, so point proven. He WAS different from the crowd (third time)

I stuck up a conversation with the guy and he said something about feminism being a taboo topic to be talked about on the campus. Nobody would come out and talk about it. So, even though 50% junta on the campus is female, all the women are expected to behave as women. In other words, the IITian concept of a non-male is discouraged. If you've got it, flaunt it is the order of the day. As a result, it is becoming very difficult for real courageous female students on campus to come forth and assert their individuality. I would love to see that. There is nothing more in a woman I like more than assertiveness as long as she is asserting the same points as me.

The feminism badges which this guy was wearing were not the real brass badges (those are very expensive) but rather they were paper cuttings taped on his back and side-arms. As the paper was not laminated, I think it was destroyed by the brief spell of downpour yesterday. If I were the guy promoting feminism on campus, I would make sure my stickers are laminated or better still buy the brass ones. To be honest, I cannot still make sense of why would a guy want to encourage feminism and feministic self-expression on campus. Blame it on my one-and-a-half-pound-two-weeks-refrigated-bheja which won't fry before 400 degrees celsius.

By the way, if you were still wondering about the answer to the title question, it is.... you guessed it... ovaries. Woh kehte hain na... ke...common sense is very uncommon in common people.

-
Huzefa

Coincidenes

I bought a pair of swimming shorts at the beginning of this summer term. The plan was to enroll in a swimming class and learn some hath pair marna. It seems that Indians are probably the only people at Dartmouth who can't swim. How else can you explain that there were only two enrollments in the beginners swimming class? The first was me and the second was- you guessed it- another Indian. So, no wonder that the class was "canceled due to lack of participation". The poor folks at the physical education department did not know that two mote taaze Indians in a beginner’s swimming class is not a lack of participation. Aapke liye to hum do hi kaafi hai.

As I wanted to play some sport in the summer so that I could wear my 32" jeans for at least a few more months before I have to throw them away*, I joined beginner's tennis class. Luckily, the shorts which I had bought were loose enough to be worn in tennis classes without attracting undue attention of the large number of females present in the class. It is a different matter that these shorts did not have side pockets or any pockets. This severely hampered by ability to keep balls with me while serving.
* The reason for throwing is that I have no younger brother and all my cousins play at least two hours a day.

Tennis is not a water sport, so the swimming shorts which I worn in the tennis classes had no chance of getting wet unless my hairy Indian skin was very upset due to the acute deficiency of Indori food in my body. Thankfully, my skin did not get upset and I enjoyed "playing" tennis in my swimming shorts as much as I could. In fact, I will risk stating that my game "improved" to such an extent that by the time the class ended, I was serving an average of only three double faults per game. Lao ab Djokovic ko mere saamne.

All this while, my inability to put my swimming shorts to a proper water test was constantly nagging me. I wanted to see the water droplets on the inside and outside fabric of the shorts simultaneously.

Today was the last tennis class. I was expecting the instructor to shake our hands and pat our backs for being such good "sports" throughout the term. But he just kept pointing out the mistakes in my serves. May be I expect too much or may be the instructor was more interested in the females in the class. I think it is the second one.

Bhagwan ke ghar main der hain, lekin andher to bilkul nahin. Aaj is truism main mera yakeen double ho gaya. As I was coming back from the tennis class today, it started raining very heavily. Just like monsoons. And hence, each and every thread on the inside and outside fabric of my swimming shorts got wet. I have individually checked them.

The good part is that the shorts are still intact. I hope there will be another beginner's swimming class in fall and I also hope for a lot of new Indian students starting school in fall.

-Huzefa

Free

There was this picture in a person's profile on Orkut a few months ago. It said-"There is no free lunch". At the time I believed it and I guess I even understood what he was trying to say. Then, I came to Dartmouth.

The first week here was a flurry of free food. Practically everywhere we went, there was some free food on offer. BBQs, seminars, presentations.. you name it and chances are there that they were having pizzas or burgers or salad or cookies or all of them. I was delighted to find so many things on offer. I savored them as much as I could (within the norms though). I was consuming, in the land of consumerism.

My third week has almost ended. In this post I specifically want to write this week's free food day by day. As the MS-rep to the Thayer Council, on Monday I had lunch with the Dean of Thayer school. On Wednesday I had my dinner at the mentoring get together (for the last time, I wonder), then on Thursday I ate pizza at the Thayer council meeting in the afternoon and pizza again at a Google seminar in the evening. Today, the last working day of the week, I went to a seminar which was provided free lunch.

The engineering career fair was on Wednesday and as a result I got a lot of free t-shirts too during the last week. A total of four. I like the google one most. It says "I'm Feeling Lucky". I am sure I have described these things in sufficient detail.

I've been thinking about all this free stuff and wondering why they do it. I still believe "there is no free lunch". Maybe it helps the students do better, they have a sense of belonging to the college when they wear the college merchandise. Or may be these are all marketing gimmicks and nothing more.

Candour

How many of us have dark sides which we don't want to share with anyone else? Is there something in our lives which we would like rather like to keep as an unknown secret?

The answer to these questions, at least for me is YES. But then don't start thinking I am going to reveal my dark side in this post. Rather, I would write about a friend who has this phobia of meeting old friends among other things. Let us call this guy A.

A is a very frank and straight forward guy. Not in-your-face types, but he still speaks his mind. Doesn't matter if most of the times people don't agree with him.

A had a 'best friend' when he was in junior college. 'Best' means totally langotiya yaar. But then, they lost touch in college, because they were in different colleges. One fine day, when A was waiting for a train on the platform, he spotted this other guy. You can't think of what he did. He left the platform in a jiffy and took two rickshaws to his home. Only because he did not want to even come across his best friend of yesteryears. I know all this from the little time I have spent with him.

On one another occasion he was crossing a road with his friend (another one) ahead of him. A saw a vehicle coming and he just stood there, did not shout out to his friend!!! "He wanted to see what happens" in an accident. Finally, his friend was alerted by someone else.

I am sure there will be many more similar incidents in A's life which I don't know of. But the point is, there are enough such incidents in my life too which are pretty dark. I admire A for his candour and straight-forwardness. May be this post was nothing. After all, I know myself, but then it is good to find someone whom you admire for something which you can't be.

Three cheers for A!!!

Slideshow

So, the classes began today. I am taking two courses this term. One is a applied mathematics course and the other one is science of solid state materials. Two courses in about 12 weeks plus the research assignment. That is about it.

Guess what! we MS guys have our own carrels which means we have been assigned some office space and a desk with computer to ourselves. According to my advisor that is going to be my 'personal space'. This is too good. When I visited the libraries today, I was having a hard time keeping myself from gasping. They are just so well organized and designed keeping even the smallest detail in mind. The search and scan system is state of the art. After all, Dartmouth is not an Ivy Leaguer for nothing.

The HONOR PRINCIPLE

Today was my first day of orientation. During today and tomorrow and this whole week I have to attend lots of sessions and seminars and presentations which provide 'resources' for every single thing about your life at Thayer and Dartmouth. These sessions cover areas like those specific to International students. Then there are sessions about your graduate life and studies here. So its kinda informative but very overwhelming. I mean for somebody like me who is new in US; its difficult to remember American names.Hell, I forget Indian names just as well.

One thing which I always complained of in SGSITS was the difficulty of finding information and locating where exactly do you want to go for help. just for the record, Dartmouth is a completely wireless campus and the wireless signal strength, even in the basement is 'excellent'. On top of it, the college has its own e-mail program, the Blitz mail, like Microsoft outlook. But its lot more advanced and has a feature called blitz bulletins (literally). You could monitor them for all the activities that go on around the campus. I'll give some examples: career services bulletin, hockey bulletin, Dartmouth outing club bulletin, cricket club bulletin, graduate office bulletin, international office bulletin Thayer school bulletin and even a free-food bulletin!

Here at Dartmouth they place a lot of importance on academic honesty and integrity. They do not tolerate plagiarism or cheating in any form. A student if found violating the code of conduct may even be expelled from the institute and he may not even get a second chance. Consider this in terms of what it implies for international students. Once they are expelled, they lose their immigration status and they can be asked to leave US in a single day.

There were two (or three??) sessions dealing exclusively with the academic honor principle and there will be quite a few more this term. Initially I didn't understand why are they over stressing the point, if at all they were. I mean the issue is pretty black and white for me. In these cases I always follow my gut feeling. But there have been times during my graduation where 'academic honesty' was violated.

But I soon found out that there are many gray areas where it is not easy to judge between right and wrong. The failure to identify loose ends in the beginning of your research program can lead to severe consequences for all individuals involved. This includes your professor-in charge, your colleagues and of course you.

I feel fairly strongly about these issues. It is going to be very exciting and responsible to be in a questioning role and keeping an eye open for everything that goes on in your lab. Isn't that what science is all about?

Reaching Dartmouth 2

Completely lost, I came out of the Delta terminal where jasdip singh was waiting for me. The taxi meter was running all the time too. Having lost out on this, I went to the Port Authority which is on 42nd street in Manhattan. It is a big bus terminal from where you can get buses all over the US. My way was through Park Avenue and Times Square.

He dropped me there and I paid a huge taxi fare. From the ticketing counter I found out that the earliest bus to Boston and to white river junction was at 12.30 am and if I wanted to travel I would have to wait for about 5 hrs on the terminal. After considering my options (like I had any) I bought the ticket. I cannot explain the difficulty I was facing all the time lugging my heavy bags. After two more trips to and fro I checked in my baggage with excess baggage fare. Shortly after I went downstairs to gate no. 84 from where the bus was to depart.

That waiting period was very frightening. Sitting with two heavily packed bags with strangers all around, for a few moments, I lost hope. I was sitting in between two African-Americans who were smelling heavily. You have to be in the place to experience the emotions. I eased a little only after talking to an Indian when I found her sitting next to me.

Thereafter it was usual waiting. I was prepared now and the worst was over. I boarded the bus at 12.30 and reached Boston at 5.00 am. I found that the ticket which I had would take me directly to Dartmouth, if I went by the 10.00 am bus that is. So, again I decided to wait for 5 long hours at the Boston bus Terminal. I'll write about that sometime.

After that I boarded the 10.00 am Bus and reached Dartmouth and my apartment at about 2.00 pm. Thank God!

I was 'home' after about 42 hrs of traveling, very little sleep, almost no meals and lots of experience.

Right now, I am at Thayer, my engineering school. I've got lots of things to do during the next week and hopefully everything will work out fine.

Reaching Dartmouth

After a 14 hr non-stop journey from Kuwait to New york I thought the major traveling was over. I just had to travel to Boston by a plane and from there Dartmouth coach would take me to the college. I even hoped to catch the last coach at 9.00 pm from the Boston airport. I had landed at JFK airport at about 3.30 pm local time.

Well, the immigration and customs was a breeze and I was out in about 20 mins! I was expecting to get my bags opened at the airport but nothing significant happened. After coming out I bought a ticket to Boston by Delta airlines for 330 dollars. The flight departs from La-Guardia airport at 7.30 pm and I had about 2.30 hours before the flight. I came out and took a taxi to the Guardia and that was were all the fun began.

My cabby was an Indian and obviously I started chatting with him. Very soon I discovered that I had bought a very expensive ticket for Boston. I was cursing myself for spending so much money on the ticket. The situation was like: I would reach Boston at around 9.00 pm and by then the last bus to Dartmouth would have left already, so I had to spend the night at Boston airport and there were no chances of me reaching college at night.

Jasdip Singh, the cabby told me I could get to Boston and even New Hampshire directly in a Bus from New york for as low as 70 dollars and I was in a soup now. I was consoling myself for spending such a huge amount on the Boston ticket.

Then, an idea struck me. What if I could cancel my ticket if it was possible. I called Delta from Jasdip's phone and they said I would get a complete refund if I canceled my ticket. So I made up my mind to cancel and after reaching La Guradia I asked around the Delta counters where I could have the job done. They directed me to the Delta shuttle counter and when finally I felt that I would get my money back, the ticketing lad started issuing a check and suddenly she says she cannot issue me the check from there. I would have to send my ticket to the Atalanta office to get a refund. Desperate now, I asked whether I could still travel on the flight, she said NO, My ticket was canceled.

contd...