A taste of Chettinadu masala - Part I

It is this phase of life when you attend wedding after wedding – friends, classmates, colleagues. Weddings are eternal in more ways than one – two people tie a knot for eternity, they are eternal in another sense too – one never stops attending weddings, they come in all shades and in various circles – relatives, neighbours, so on and so forth. But there is something very special and incomparable about attending a childhood or college friend’s wedding. We see a pal join hands with a friend for life to walk the long journey. It is in some ways, a parting of ways, and in some ways, welcoming a new friend. It can be scary, yet at the same time joyful, for all concerned.

It is to one such special occasion that I will dedicate a couple of posts here – to freeze the memories in words, to look back on and cherish. There will be more than the wedding itinerary here – meeting old friends, experiencing a new place and its heritage, getting to know a friend’s family, making new friends. In all, a lovely experience that ought not to be eroded by the sea of forgetfulness.

On the sultry evening of the 22^nd of October, myself and Nithya threw our paraphernalia into a bag, negotiated the Chennai traffic in an auto and rushed into the Guindy station to meet up with Indu @ Maami enroute to Egmore to board a train to the heartland of TamilNadu – Karaikudi.  Thendral, 20033753 and our dear friend was to wed Mr. Durai Pandi on the 24^th Oct, 2010. Orders concerning our travel to the marriage venue had come from Ms. Thendral well in advance, not that we would miss it anyway :)  I had hatched the seemingly brilliant plan of traveling from Chennai, which meant I was on traveling SBC-MAS the previous night. The travel and a day in blistering heat of Chennai had already sapped my energy and I was ready to drop asleep at a moment’s notice. But the excitement-fuelled adrenalin helped sustain me from blanking out on Nithi as yet.

As the train pulled out of Egmore at 9.45 PM, we attacked our dinner of idlis and chappathis with ardour and the salt intake energized me, and we were all set for a good old pongal session(pongal is MIT lingo for chatting :) ). The dinner was again a reminder of our numerous lunches and dinners at MITLH (short for MIT Ladies hostel). We then lived a simple life – open the parcel, dig in. What is the need for separate plates? And did anyone say spoons??!? ;) We did not think twice about going back to our simple lifestyle. We probably did attract a few stares, as Nithi belatedly wondered the next day, but then, we did not notice them.

We alighted at Karaikudi junction the next morning. The weather was pleasant, lulling us into a misinterpretation of the heat that was to cook us later in the day. As we awaited the pickup vehicle Thendral’s brother-in-law had arranged for us, we noticed a boisterous gang boarding vehicles in front of the station. Just as we were wondering if they were there for the wedding as well, we spotted the groom in their midst. He was busy ensuring his friends were all accommodated in their vehicles getting a few bumps from them in the process, and he paid no attention the three poor girls standing a few yards away clutching their bags. Grave mistake Mr. Durai Pandi, the bride was going to hear about this! And we vowed to get back at him for that ;)

Hotel Golden Singar opened its door to us. The room was neat and comfortable and the beds beckoned us. But our stomachs growled in protest and we reluctantly acquiesced. Fresh and fully awake now, we made our way to the restaurant downstairs and feasted on Podi dosai, Masal dosai and pongal. The food was awesome, it was no means like any hotel food. Crisp and homely, the dosais disappeared in no time at all, shortly followed by the melt-in-the-mouth, non-greasy pongal.

Bathed and fed, now we called the bride and she excitedly made plans for us to join her at her home. We asked for the address, but she wouldn’t hear of it, insisting that she send an auto to pick us up. The ride in Mr. Ambuli’s auto gave us our first feel of Karaikudi, wide roads and not one double-storeyed building in sight, it gave us the feeling of being in the semi-urban, no, rural, no, semi-rural, well, it can be best put as Indian countryside.

Thendral’s home had all the signs of a bride’s house. Frenzied preparations were in progress – sweets being packed, maapillai alaippu tambulams being readied, relatives busy at various other tasks. And of course, the center of attraction, the star of the day….. our darling, Muthu Pandi! ;) No, not Thendral, she comes next to her nephew, don’t you agree, Thendral?

Thendral was all smiles and vetkam at being teased, with her athachi or anni being our first partner in that. We really missed capturing on film, the blushing Thendral when we gave her a photo frame with Durai and her pics in it. We settled in at no time at all, and in a few mins, the seemingly shy Muthu kutty was dosth with us and things were only fun from there. We met Thendral’s brothers – Baskar anna, Bose anna and Illayaraja anna, and her sister Kavita akka and her kids – cute, doe-eyed Mahadarshini and her new-born brother. 

Muthu Kutty

We had a totally gala time decking up Thendral, not to forget the sumptuous lunch, and the bride was ready to go to the mandapam. By then, the house was in total chaos, Maha and her brother gave akka a tough time and we somehow managed to get some lunch into Muthu kutty. At about 4.30 pm, we started from the house, Thendral and her family went to the mandapam, and we three went to the hotel to freshen-up. The travel and the excitement of the morning finally caught up with us and we crashed on the inviting bed for a short nap.

Refreshed from our nap, we scrambled to get ready – we had orders from Anni to reach the marriage hall soon, and at 6.30 pm we made our way to the mandapam, a couple of hundred metres from our hotel. The maapillai alaippu, marked by the deafening fireworks, courtesy of Durai’s friends, was in progress as we walked in. The bride was getting ready and we sat around and chatted, followed by our personal photo session with the bride. Thendral looked gorgeous in her maaman-seeru purple-pink saree and the hairdressing was simply beautiful. We met the Durai and we chatted for a few minutes. That was when we had our chance at revenge on the groom, he was at our mercy for a sneak peek at the bride and he did not get one ;)

Private photo session with the bride

Muthu kutty was restless, all the running around had tired him nicely and anni was worried he was running a temperature. We all took our turns at carrying him around and pacifying him. He wanted to meet Durai maama, and we took him to meet the groom, small consolation for the groom, nephew in place of the aunt. ;)

Anni escorted Thendral for the ceremony downstairs and we spent our time clicking pictures and observing the rituals. The Chettinadu rituals were foreign to all of us and interesting to watch. Thendral was quiet and serious as she performed the rituals expected of her.

Finally, it was time for dinner. In fact, it had been dinnertime for quite sometime then, one after another Thendral’s annas had repeatedly urged us to have our dinner but we were having too much fun to think about food. But now, we were terribly hungry and we meekily surrendered to Bose anna’s orders to go down to the dinner hall. Dinner was simple and simply delicious – idli, dosai, and idiappam made the main course, with chicken and mutton kolumbu to go with it. Just as we finished one item, our ilais were replenished speedily with piping hot dosais or idlis. Care was taken to ensure vegetarians were served vegetarian side dishes. We rounded it off with palpaniyaram and carrot halwa followed by milk laced with pannankarupatti.

We met Thendral’s friends from work – Divya, Janani, Velmurugan and Naryananan, we chatted for a few minutes. We all said our byes to Miss Thendral Muthusamy (point to be noted ;) ) and walked down to the hotel together escorted by Baskar anna, for they wouldn’t trust Vel and Narayanan with escorting us safely ;) Come what may, what is a get together with old friends without pongal? We were dead tired, yet we couldn’t resist a short chat session in our room before we finally drifted off to sleep.

A first at the M. Chinnaswamy stadium ;)

Every sports fan’s first piece on a favourite sport or even a casual spectator’s recounting of a sports experience typically starts with tracing his or her history with the game. Should I follow the unwritten rule or break it? Maybe, I will include my “history” somewhere as I go along, and keep up with the tradition to a small extent atleast.

Though I should have begun my sport chronicles with the F1 seasons of the days of yore of Schumi or with the FIFA World Cup 2010, I never really got around to that. So this time I was determined not to miss out on yet another of my “firsts” – a live cricket match from the stands! It was something indeed. It wasn’t a breakneck-paced Twenty-Twenty or even the conventional ODI, it was a Test match! I know how even a hardcore cricket fan would react to this – “Um.. Test.. Interesting”.  And I know it hardly sounds interesting, but it was nevertheless a cool experience.

It was the first day of the second test of the series in Australia’s tour of India 2010 – Oct 9, 2010. It was the “Border-Gavaskar Trophy series” – I knew this only when I looked at the actual gate-pass. It was a match that would go on to become legendary, but we are yet to enter the stadium, so we have quite some ground to cover before we get to that ;) The Indian side having returned fresh from a win at Mohali, skepticism prevailed as to their performance in the second test at Bangalore. Well, what do you expect? Our boys have been known to put up their feet after a win… and end up with a thrashing in the next match.

So it was with the least expectations of excitement that we started to the match. We were an assorted gang – myself and my roommate, a senior and a junior and a friend from work. It all started with spotting the ticket sales on bookmyshow.com. The first day fell on a Saturday, and we thought, why not? We leisurely made our way to the stadium on the appointed day. The match had attracted quite a crowd, largely thanks to the brilliant idea of selling the tickets on bookmyshow, I believe. Here, I shouldn’t forget to mention the innovative methods of securing the stadium. “Cameras, Audio-video equipment not allowed”, the website had stated sternly. So it was with a little worry that we carried our brand-new handycam  to the stadium. The security guards let us carry it in, but they had a handycam of their own and clicked a picture of each spectator, cam in hand, at the gate :)

So, there we were, tickets collected, queues cleared and armed with our handycam, walking into the C-Stand. We felt a small tinge of disappointment that India had lost the toss and was fielding. Alright, we will atleast get to spot all our guys, we consoled ourselves.

As we entered the stands, we noticed two things immediately - the choicest seats were taken and the ground was smaller than we had expected. The second observation meant something good for us; we weren’t going to be staring at ant-sized figures in white all day without any clue as to where the ball was or what was happening. So coming back to the seats, we learnt our first lessons on live sports viewing:

1. The best seats vary from one sport to another. In a cricket stadium, the best seats are the ones nearer to the boundary, you can follow the footwork and the ball better. You get a good view however further back you are (we were pretty much at the back, but still got a good view), but the front ones are the best. It probably works the other way round in football, I suspect. 
2. It is better that you aren’t assigned seat numbers – there are these huge pillar supports that can block the view squarely and there comes your luck
3. The lighting matters, so do the weather and the direction of your stand.

Ok, the good thing about these lessons is that we did not learn them the hard way - we got pretty good seats(unassigned, you pick them), in the west stand(the sun doesn’t hit you full on that way) and the weather was cool too.  So yes, the gyaan was for my enjoyment and your torture ;) Ok, I will move on now. Hey, stay with me, no more lessons, I swear!

Just as we settled in to our seats, the first thing we did was… yes, look for Sachin! And oh, he was at the boundary near the East stand :( That was when I realized what Sachin really meant to every cricket fan and every Indian. The crowd cheered every move of the little master. If he bent to pickup the ball or adjusted his cap or stretched his hands, every move was greeted with cheers. Yet, for all that, he was modesty personified. Once in a while, when the crowd pleaded constantly for acknowledgement, he would turn and give a shy wave. That is Sachin for you!

We spent sometime identifying where each player from the Indian side was positioned. The spectator crowd was mostly the IT workforce of Bengaluru, with a smattering of student population and a some bunches of families. The action on the pitch wasn’t hot and just as we were starting to feel the thirst for action, the first Aussie wicket fell to Harbhajan Singh. The crowd cheered in good spirits and the team celebrated at the pitch.

Just as I was getting a feel of the handycam – zooming at the right speed, moving the cam in a steady fluid motion of the arm, I got my reward, I caught the next wicket on film! Or HDD or whatever, but does that matter? Me, at my first cricket match, at the first instance of handling a handycam recorded a wicket!

As we finished our lunch of sandwiches and bananas, we got our next reward, Sachin was stationed at our side of the field. We trained the cam on him, patiently waiting to click our very own Sachin-pic. After about a minute of two of endearments and cajoling from the crowd, the man of five-foot-five, who rules the hearts of many an Indian, turned and gave us a wave.

The next two wickets fell at roughly forty-minute intervals (or as one of our friends remarked, after every food-break :)) and we dutifully cheered. I caught one more wicket on camera and was congratulating myself on the good fortune when Ponting walked in, and with that our frustration. He wouldn’t budge, nor would North. We were getting restless and my roommate declared over and over again, that she would be satisfied with the day if only Ponting’s wicket was taken. Another declared that the match was too drab, and he would prefer that the Aussie hit a few good shots atleast, to spice things up. The clock was edging towards 4 pm and we were making our plans to leave, when Raina(Raina!?!) dismissed Ponting for a lbw. So we left Australia at the crease nearing the end of first day of play at 236/5 and walked out, happy with our money's worth - Sachin and 5 Aussie wickets, in that order. What more can one ask for?

Now, for posterity, I will make a mention here of how the rest of the days played out – Aussies were packed off only at 478, Sachin and Murali Vijay put up a century each – Sachin’s 49^th century and his 6^th double ton, India’s first Innings score stood at 495, Aussies put up a 2^nd innings score of 223 setting a formidable target of 207 for India, and on the final day of play, debutant Cheteshwar Pujara and Sachin batted away, or rather blasted a way, to India’s victory.

P.S: My history of cricket-watching isn’t all that interesting, it started with watching the 1996 World Cup and has been continuing on-and-off :)

What can a scholarship do?

Scholarships come in many kinds and hues. I am not an expert in this topic, but to me, they fall into two major catgories – enabling scholarhips, merit scholarships. Enabling scholarships are awarded to students based on a number of factors, which might otherwise place a hurdle on their education. They also serve as a means of encouragement to continue education. The regular BC scholarships, first-graduate scholarships and many other scholarships targeted at economically backward students and girl students fall into this category.

Merit scholarships, on the other hand, are meant to appreciate and reward students of academic brilliance and merit. They often come as a reward for academic achievements.

These two types of scholarships do not fall into mutually exclusive silos nor are they are an umbrella to describe all scholarships. There are scholarships that are awarded to the most scholarly of an economic strata, etc. But, in general, they can be classified into one of the two types based on the determining factor of eligibility.

Then, of course, we have the government scholarships, corporate scholarships, endowment scholarships, etc. My lines of thought here was triggered by and centered on a set of merit scholarships awarded by a corporate house(or corporate-based foundation, I beg to be allowed the luxury of not having to worry about the nitty-gritty here). 

“Aditya Birla Scholarhips” said a full—page ad in The Hindu, alongside a picture of smartly dressed girls and boys, with poised looks and winning smiles directed at the camera. The scholars were all students from IITs, IIMs and BITS. Some hunting on the net turned up details of the scholarships which were awarded each year to students of these premier institutions of engineering and management studies. The website also hosted details of scholars from previous years. Each biodata read like the next – topper, brilliant at Maths, etc. Don’t get me wrong, each scholar’s CV was awesome indeed. But, well, they were nearly the same. Of course, how different will the CVs of IITians be, or IIMers, for that matter.

Engineering education in a premier government institute isn’t too costly. Yet, having graduated out of a premier engineering institute myself, I do appreciate that a scholarship eases the load on the student’s family. On the other hand, if you are in IIM, I imagine it comes as a boon, given the exorbitant fee structure.

I do appreciate the Birla group encouraging the top talent in the country in their endeavours of higher education(though B.Tech hardly qualifies as “higher” education). Yet, I can’t help but feel, that there are other avenues that merit these scholarships. No, I am not miffed that my alma-mater MIT was not considered in the “premier” list or that the scholars weren’t chosen from a wider net.

I wish the focus was, instead, on graduates of Arts and Sciences disciplines. We are at a dearth for social scientists, economists and other such students of “lesser subjects”. While our prowess in software industry is indeed good for our GDP, it is our grasp of economics and sociology that will put us in the path of inclusive growth. While engineering will help us build the dams, it will be our knowledge of ecology, hydrology, oceanography that will help us manage and sustain our natural resources. While engineering will help us build our reactors, it will be hard-core physics that will enable us to design our nuclear power programme in the first place. While our engineers can build our refineries and mines, it will be our geologists who can tell us where to build them and where to dig. 

Coming to management, while our management graduates can instruct us on the business model, marketing and supply-chain management, it will take an economist to distill the economic sense in any business model. While our management graduates and engineer create huge conglomerates, there will be a need for astute lawyers to ensure the laws of the land are held sacrosanct. Finally, given all our flashy, successful, cosmopolitan population, it will take an administrator to ensure our roads are laid, bridges built, traffic managed and water supply regulated.

Yet, it is these disciplines of Pure and Applied Sciences and Social Sciences, which are considered “lesser”, and are routinely ignored. It is this “greater-lesser” disparity that the Aditya Birla Scholarships demonstrate.

If indeed there are scholarships from the same foundation for the Science disciplines, my apologies for assuming otherwise will be speedily rendered. Let us say, for instance, that there are indeed scholarships for the students of other disciplines, then, shouldn’t they be the ones highlighted so as to motivate students to walk along the “road-less-taken”?

My plea here is two-fold, encouragement for students pursuing the Arts and Sciences, motivation for more students to take up study and pursue careers in these disciplines. Little knowledge exists in the society on the significance of these disciplines and even less is the awareness of the career paths and opportunities in that arena.

It is an entirely different argument that parents literally thrust the “lucrative” engineering and medicine education on their children. The question of who should decide the career of the student is a raging debate of all-time. My argument here is that, given the limited knowledge of career choices, students themselves lack the guidance and vision to chose an academic path that is more in line with their interests, even where their parents let them choose (and lots of parents do that, I can assure you).

This is a large problem that has to be tackled on many fronts. Awareness of Arts, Sciences, Engineering, medicine, etc should be created in the student in the school years. The syllabi, extra-curricular activities should facilitate that. Parent-education should be available, so that they can in turn educate their children. Excellent government institutions of research and learning should be built and developed.

OK, so it is a mega-problem, what does the Aditya Birla Scholarships have to do with this then? The encouragement can come from many quarters. And backed by a corporate name of repute, the scholarships(if created), will enjoy a position of prestige and will be a wonderful source of motivation for the students. The full-page ad, then, might ignite a few sparks. It would warm the hearts of parents and reassure them that, there are indeed accolades and well-being in store for their kids should they chose the less-trodden path. It might, then, create a Dr. Manmohan Singh or Dr Ahluwalia or a T. N. Seshan or a Nani Palkhiwala.

A historic silver lining

In these disturbing times of CWG worries, Ayodhya title-suit tensions, Kashmir troubles, floods and Naxal issues, there appear in the newspapers, once in a while, some heart-warming stories. One has to really burrow deep into the newspapers(and the right newspapers at that) to get to them, but they do exist, however small in proportion. One such stack of news stories that has been building up for sometime now is the news on heritage structures preservation.

We have been infamous for non-conservation of our structures. And what we did rarely in the name of conservation were shoddy jobs that distorted the monuments. What we did in the name of promoting tourism was even worse. Our Archeological Survey of India(ASI) has often been like most other government institutions – lethargic, if not anything worse.

So, it came as a surprise to learn about some really ambitious and well-done projects in archeology and heritage structures in the recent past.

First in the list is the Muzuris project. Muziris is an ancient port on the Malabar Coast that has been mentioned in ancient Tamil scriptures and Roman texts. It was a busy trading port in first century B.C.E. Though numerous speculations abounded, the exact location of Muziris had remained elusive so far. The fact that backwaters and river courses altered over the last two millennia did not help either.

For a long time, speculations on the location of the Muziris port centered around Kodunganallur on the banks of the Periyar River in the coast of Central Kerala. But puzzling lack of archealogical evidence meant Muziris remained mysterious. Careful study by a doctoral scholar in the 1990s threw up evidence of a small village Pattinam possibly being the spot where the flourishing port of Indo-Roman trade once lay. Archealogical evidence presented itself almost immediately and excitement mounted in all quarters. An expert team came together and systematic excavations began in the 2007. Excavations happen every year seasonally(due to the monsoon I guess) and loads of ancient treasures like beads, pottery, coins, etc have been unearthed. Iron age artifacts have also been found providing evidence that Muziris indeed had a long long history before it suddenly vanished one day.

Following the Muziris excavations, the Kerala government has launched the Rs 140-crore Muziris Heritage Project(MHP) which is funded fifty percent by the Central government. MHP covers not only excavations and conservation of the Muziris and its satellite ports, the project aims to pay a tribute and conserve heritage of the maritime history along the Malabar coast with central focus on Muziris.

One of the projects under the MHP is the Chennamangalam Paliyam Palace and Nalukettu mansion conservation project. The palace was built by the Dutch for the Paliyam chief for his help in dislodging the Portuguese. Distinctive Dutch architecture and historic significance of the palace make it an important landmark of the pre-British European colonial conquests on the Arabian coast. After the renovation works, the Palaces will be handed over to the trust that has been maintaining it traditionally to open to public and continue maintenance. This is a good example of practical and sensible public-private partnerships in heritage preservation.

Then coming as an example of social conscience towards preservation of history is the Uttaramerur Kailasanathar Temple renovation. An entirely a private effort led by the REACH foundation, an NGO, villagers and students of IIT Madras, there are several aspects to be praised here. The renovation was by no means a haphazard job and care was taken to preserve the originality of the structure. Scientific techniques of restoration and methods to test the structural strength (courtesy of IIT Madras) were employed. Inscriptions of Chola and Vijayanagara periods have been discovered in the course of the effort. Work over two years has restored the 1200-year-old temple to its former glory.

The latest news is about the most prestigious of India’s international heritage conservation efforts - the Ta Prohm temple conservation project awarded to the ASI. The 12^th Century Ta Prohm is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Angkor Wat region of Cambodia. Though the uniqueness of the temple lies in the interweaving of mammoth stone structures and tropical trees, unbridled growth of the trees will lead to complete demolition of the structure. ASI’s work has recreated some of the damaged parts of the temple, created supports in wood and steel as well as facilities for tourists to walk through safely and view the temple complex. Initial skepticism on ASI’s technical capabilities has been laid to rest with the good work demonstrated so far.

It is true that these heartening news are far and few. And the scale of the efforts is in no way comparable to what is required to preserve the expanse of the rich heritage structures and sites of India. We still have the yellowing façade of the Taj Mahal, decaying Nizam’s wardrobe or the monsoon-damaged Charminar. But these stories are definitely something to be appreciated, definitely feel-good.

A Monologue (not really...) of a Confunded Writer

As the few of you following my blog would have noticed, I have been posting articles fairly often the past two months. I kept wanting to write almost every single day. And I tried to make time for it. But I have also been having this nagging feeling that something was missing in my writings lately. Was it my style? Or even worse, substance? Nah, I think the substance was OK, not too bad atleast. I guess it is the style.

As I went and reread my last few entries I noticed my sentences steadily became more winded. I always liked my writings to be a mix of simplicity and a conversational style. I never wanted complex sentence construction to be my trademark. My words should paint the picture subtly, not become the glaring colours of the picture itself. Or in other words, I liked the idea to transcend the writing. I noticed that my last two blogs atleast deviated heavily from my aspired style. In fact, this contrast became more clearly apparent to me from my perusal of the “Lost & Found” piece. The “Columns” was the exact style of writing I liked and was comfortable with.

Well, I guess I am being too harsh with myself. It is not as if the last few entries are totally unreadable(They aren’t that bad, right? :P ). It was just that I wasn’t totally satisfied with the writing. You are wondering where this is going, right? Well, I warned you, the title says “confounded writer”, you should have known ;)

So, coming back to the topic, I thought about why my writing wasn’t my best and hit upon the culprit(No, no, not me. OK, maybe in one sense, it could be said it is me. But you know, … OK, I will stop :) ). I realized I did not write the pieces in one stretch. So my thought flow had been broken and hence my writing looked more like a collage than a picture. So you know what I did, sat down and wrote this in one go! :)

Lost & Found - A piece on "Columns"

Note: As I was hunting for something else in my "Writings" folder, I chanced upon this piece titled "Columns" that was quite decent and almost complete. I decided to complete it and post it. But I wasn't able to style my writing and content to sync up with the already present text. So I decided not to mess up the decent piece and post it as it is with just a line or two added to create an illusion of pseudo-completeness. So here it is:

Columns

With regard to columns, I have come a long way from the days I was literally scared of the centre page of the esteemed The Hindu. It was with The Hindu I was introduced to columns, way before I learnt they were called “Columns”. The very look of the columns and opinions page was stern with the cartoon not doing enough to lighten the look and feel of it. I treated it as a drab part of the paper and assumed people rarely read it (which I guess is indeed true with most people).

After a while, I started thinking about why somebody would add a couple of pages to an already bulky newspaper if those pages aren’t read or somehow worthwhile. I was puzzled and tried to read them to figure them out. I was put off more by the content than the language. I did not comprehend the issues being discussed. I reattempted the columns when I went to college. I had no patience for long monologues, and often cynical ones at that, then. I impatiently brushed them off as plain cribbing and whining and again decided they were a waste of print space.

Later, towards the end of my college education as I followed one election campaign closely I got another opportunity to read columns. Having a number of them on the election issues helped me relate to them better and comprehend them easier. I slowly realized they are interpretation of the news and that the columns, political ones, are a vehicle of public opinion. These columns enlighten the public, de-jargonise the statements, budgets, reports, etc. And the columnists being members of the society after all, the varying opinions get voiced and discussed. This was a very significant realization for me.

Columns are probably one of the strongest tools in the media arsenal. Many popular columnists have an almost hero-worshipping following. The columns become a part of people’s life. They discuss the affairs that are close to home. An effective columnist can sensitize the people on issues of public interest and mobilize public opinion.And there are of course columns that are no way related to current affairs, economics or politics - healthy living, pets, gardening, etc. I slowly got to know about these columns as well. The columns on Art, Science, Book Review columns, Sports, etc cater to specific audience. And these put together are probably read by more people than the serious columns.

Columns are not so popular in India as they are in the West. The US print media is all about columns. And here is what I think is the reason. The columns are a way for people to relate to each other. In India, people live in close proximity, they interact with people all through the day –at home, on the way to work, at work, at the children’s school as they pick up at the kids, at the grocer’s, etc. They are in constant contact with the society. They can feel the societal fabric. And they share experiences and exchange thoughts and opinions. An overcrowded bus will spark a discussion on the fuel prices, the Metro rail, traffic woes, latest demands of the transportation workers union, etc. Women exchange recipes and housekeeping tips over lunch. Men discuss Sports while they commute.

In the teeming cities of the US and even the sparse suburbs, where famously people hardly know their neighbours, columns are a way to relate to each other – the reason of columns in every newspaper, local or national.

I digress way too much. This was supposed to be about the significance of columns not an analysis of the popularity of columns. Ok, getting back on track….

Columns can be very educative as the columnists are often from the field they write about and are profoundly knowledgeable on the topic. Yeah, they can be annoyingly opinionated at times but then, that is what they are paid to do :)

With the trend of the Internet Media, the columns have not died down, but they have shot up. Every newsite has numerous columns. But the fact that news stories are hard to distinguish from columns in another thing. Every Blogger is essentially a columnist of the WWW. But with the said explosion of columns, the content has become a little scarce. Nevertheless, the online columns and blogs have the potential to link up and engage educated people in meaningful dialogue that has gone missing from day-to-day life.

Some refreshing learning

Today I got to attend a good (really good) workshop on High Performance Computing for Science and Engineering. It was really refreshing. It was a really cool way to get to know the latest cutting edge research in fields as diverse and intensely intriguing such as material design, biomolecular research, genome sequencing, etc. More than the “Ah” factor of the Teraflops of computing power required, number of years it takes to solve some equation, blah blah, the fascination for me lay in understanding the problems being tackled today in pure and applied sciences and engineering. Of course, the stated objective of the workshop - understanding the computing challenges was met by most presenters, I am just giving my perspective of what made it interesting for me.

While I did not know anything beyond the terms such as “molecular dynamics”, “weather research”, “material design”, “drug therapy”, it helped me gain a decent understanding of the area and the problems being worked on. The talks also gave an idea of some of the convergences that were happening in some of the fields and potential convergences in the offing. It helped that the idea of the workshop was to discuss and understand the challenges the research problems posed in terms of computing. So all the presentations provided a rounded picture of the work, the achievements so far, the “where-we-are” pitch and the challenges faced in terms of computing, often in the form of simulation and modeling.

The workshop turned out to be an eye opener in more ways than one. As I listened to the various lectures, I had many a dejavu moment. I saw a term that invoked in me a “Ah, I know that!” thought. But, embarrassingly, I found that I was unable to place it exactly or explain that term properly. It was seriously disappointing that I was unable to explain something as basic as “van der Waals force”. So, the dejavu moment was followed by a few moments of depression before I got caught up in the lecture and forgot about my disappointing near nil recollection of my science subjects. The blissful state would last for a few minutes before I encountered another dejavu-depression sequence. Now and then, there came by a term for which I was to recollect an explanation satisfactorily, giving me a little consolation.

But for all my little disappointments, the workshop left me with a lot of feel good factors. I had understood the basics of a number of fascinating research domains. I got some reassurance that good research did happen in India. And last but not the least, I left with a resolution to brush up on my science.