Tenth

A week goes by post mid-sems. And this time around, along with the usual activities of chilling out, I also had an added responsibility of dropping a course. I had enrolled for the Applied Stochastic Processes course this semester expecting an exciting course in applied mathematics. Obviously I had discounted the notoriety associated with the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, fully prepared for a rigorous and challenging curriculum. But the manner in which course proceeded right from the initial weeks disappointed me. Severely. Though I persisted with the course for some more weeks with a faint hope of eventual frequency matching of board-work with my personal objectives from the course. But the moment I had quiz 1 question paper in my hand, I had absolutely made up my mind on dropping this course (Well, it also provided with an additional benefit of extended sleep on Mondays and Fridays but their contribution was inconsequential.)

With all due respect, the instructor-in-charge, Prof S.S.Dhar had completely skipped over the 'Applied' part mentioned in the course title. Being a field having super-normal applications in finance, medicine, telecommunications and weather studies, it would be naturally expected to study how stochastic theories would be used to develop models in these domains. But half semester had gone by and hardly 15 minutes were allocated to rainfall problem. Proofs and theorems accounted for almost 70% of assignments and 100% of evaluations. Now, I am not trying to demean the importance of theories and proofs in any manner. They are very much required for scientific and technical progress and I personally enjoy studying and understanding them. But that does not imply I am competent to derive them given the time constraints of examination system (I had realized very early in my undergraduate life that my aptitude dwelled in applying knowledge to real-life/life-like scenarios and not in deriving theorems.) Additionally, if the only purpose of the course was to teach stochastic theory, why use the word 'Applied' in the course title!

I believe professors at this place fail to understand that not all students who voluntarily take up a course intend to do research in the particular subject (Or they do understand and choose to not give a fuck about it. In that case, this paragraph is immaterial.) There is just a tiny class population interested in research and hardly a couple of students wanting to actually research in the particular specialized field. All of us secured admission to this institute on basis of our ability to solve problems and a vast majority would love to continue doing that. Not everyone has caliber towards research, though almost everyone wouldn't mind to apply the results of any research to solve problems (irrespective of problem leading to value-addition or not.) Plus, from what I have gathered from my peers in the Mathematics and Scientific Computing department, it is general norm to rote the theorems and proofs from class notes and assignments to easily secure a good grade. I feel this approach kills intellectual curiosity and turns us students into CPI-sucking rats. I think the department should do a reality check and start offering genuine applied mathematics courses(the only one I know of is Mathematical Modelling), at least for the undergraduates.

On a side-note, I gave 50m and 100m Butterfly timings on a single day last week. Now, I would need to set some more targets to achieve before the farewell. 

PS: I have observed some strong under-currents with inclination towards research in the campus these days. But the real litmus test would be if it still exists after job offers. I sincerely hope it does though.

Ninth

Mid-sem week. Nothing exciting happened. Except for the thing with Rahul. And I am not going to put that on a public forum. Also, I don't feel like writing. Maybe next week.

Eighth

Yes I am late again. And this time I have a stamp of legitimacy for an excuse. Its the midsem week after all. In spite of a two day break between exams, I had planned a one week break from writing this time around in the name of exams. But a combination of factors (more specifically the multi-dimensional existential crises along with generic levels of frustration with the Indian system I usually face during exam time) got me writing.

So, we all know the valley has recently faced a calamity of disproportion. And how half of India is going gaga about how our army is spearheading the relief efforts and the other half crediting NaMo for a no-nonsense disaster management (even the foot-in-the-mouth Diggy is praising PM.) But the thing that disturbs me is why have our planners failed to consider such an eventuality. The relief  efforts and everything is all fine but why we, as a nation have failed to put an efficient system in place (if technologically and economically feasible) as a prevention. It absolutely surprises me that our planners are collectively  making decisions in a similar vein to that of an uninformed and illiterate subject at the bottom of economic pyramid (the analogy I wanted to use was along the lines of refraining to buy cheap mosquito nets only to end up spending much more on its treatment but I am just out of wits right now to fit it somewhere in there.) Anyways, the point I am trying to make is that its not rocket science to not consider such an event happening in a valley completely surrounded by >15000 feet mountains. And I looked back in time to find a plan had been put in place for flood management more than 100 years back by our then colonial masters after the 'great flood' of 1903. But they, being the colonial rulers din't do much and our subsequent governments, for being corrupt whores, again din't do much. And the result, by the most conservative measures, $1 billion is off the Indian economy (and I am just being an insensitive ass here, not accounting for human capital loss and other losses of livelihood.) 

Definitely I am not suggesting we could have avoided all the losses. But we could have minimized them. Like in case of Orissa hurricane (the one outlier among Indian natural calamities. And maybe because it primarily involved building a satellite and because ISRO was given responsibility to deliver it.) A superhurricane (as they called it) that lashed the state in 1999 killed over 10,000 people. With improved remote sensing capabilities, a similar intensity hurricane that hit the state recently claimed less than 1% of the former figure. In just one decade. Now that's something to be proud of. 

Okay now, too many words scribbled. Exam week it is. Untill next week. Adios.

PS: Poor planning seems to be a nationwide phenomenon. I have been living in Mumbai for past 22 years and I can almost imagine a 10 year old version of myself wondering about the water and rain woes of the city. I can write another 1000 words on what could be done to solve these issues. 

PPS: I don't want to get started on planning inefficiencies of Kanpur. The city is an epitome of chaos. And here's the article that triggered me to write this post.

Seventh

Yes I am late. And so has been so many other activities for the week. To give a perspective, newspapers from Saturday are lying unopened on my desk. Its been almost 5 days that I read any word from Steven Pinker's Language Instinct. Way too many things to do. And I just feel like going back to sleep. Maybe, its a wrong time to write(because I don't feel like writing) but I don't think I would find another open slot pretty soon. But it had been quite a pleasant week. And I had thought of various issues to write on in this week's post. Rather I would just make a note of the topics in this week's post and follow them up in subsequent weeks. So, here it is - 

1. Capital One intern hiring experience (from the other side of table)

2. Want for passion in life

3. Decision to drop Applied Stochastic Process course

4. Community hygiene issues on campus

5. Revisiting Bucket List

PS: Two more personal best timings last week. Shaved off a second \m/

PPS: Mary Kom is perhaps the most pathetic biopic ever. Complete waste.

Sixth

The week started on a new low. And I am perfectly happy about it. For it happened at the Institute Swimming Pool. And the event was 100 meters freestyle. I managed to clock my personal best after a string of rather erratic timings. I have been steadily regaining my stroke rhythm, losing the unwanted belly from Bangalore days and have stopped giving fucks about the early morning classes that gravely distorted my sleep cycle. I feel this is just the start and I believe I can easily shave two more seconds by the end of the season. And doing so in my final year makes it a little special, for most people find satisfaction in the saturation of performance by the time they reach their pre-final year.

And there’s another reason to cheer this week. I have managed to overhaul my inefficient reading speed issues, again a by-product of Bangalore days. And I believe the zero fucks I gave for 8 am classes was again, a main contributor of this development. Coincidentally, regaining my reading prowess timed perfectly with the virility of the Book Bucket Challenge. Going through my feed glancing through all those titles I should add to my reading list leaves me with an overwhelming feeling. There are so many books to read and going at my current rate of 40 books a year, I have time for just over 2000 more books. That’s really disturbing. On a completely random note, it would be really great if universities start offering a semester wherein one is just expected to read books they wish to read. My mind is already preparing a list of books, library sections to cover and I find it hard to come back from utopia.

Book Bucket Challenge reminded me of how differently people read books. There are some who read for the beauty of language, magic of words and literary excellence while there are some folks (like me) who just focus on concrete meaning of words, flow of ideas and knowledge trapped in paragraphs. Of course, there are others who seem to cherish both aspects of reading. I realize I am missing out on a significant portion of reading experience. But I am anyways weird. I also fail to appreciate scent of flowers, cuteness of kids and puppies (in fact they repel me) and  the grandeur of awkward social customs like marriages among many other things. I understand these are the trade-offs I need to make to lead a bit-more-rational and slightly-less-illogical life than an average demographic sample point. No regrets for my choices and the things I am missing out.

That’s it for the week. Quizzes looming this week. And so are the comments, “Abbe tujhe kya hi farak padta hai!” *sigh*