Examination Season
We had a leisurely Sunday morning today. Daughter's exam. ends tomorrow. The only subject left belongs to mine! Yes, we have a division of labour at home. Half of the subjects are my responsibility. Her Highness was thus relieved since Saturday afternoon when the last exam. in her responsibility was over.
Ignorance is bliss!
As we parents struggle, the daughter is having a great fun. She read or heard somewhere that up to Class VI there is no 'pass' or 'fail' in school. Therefore, why worry about academics now? Knowledge gives power. Power to whom? Which knowledge? And the contradiction - knowledge of no pass / fail impeding persuasion of knowledge itself! Hope that we grown-ups do not succumb to this childish logic where we ourselves have a role of seekers.
Fortune Teller
Yes, I was talking about Sunday morning! At home, people can find out when I have relatively more work pressure. The leisurely newspaper reading while sipping morning tea becomes the first casualty when under pressure. There is no prize for guessing the second casualty. It is shaving of beard. Such has been the case for past few weeks now. Even otherwise I do not have interest in the fortune-teller section of the newspaper. However, Her Highness reads newspaper in entirety that includes sections like advt., lost and found, anniversary, birth and death, lawyer's notice - what not. There are no less news in these if we are looking for a reflection of the society in our news basket from a newspaper. She was going through the astrology section and smilingly pronounced that I have a fortuitous week ahead.
Extra Academic
I don't know what fortune teller told about last week. Rewinding I find the following. On Monday, BSNL restored the broadband connection in a village high school where NSS, IIT Kharagpur works. This is a part of our prestigious project where RKMVU's VIVEKDISHA (Link) is getting implemented. On Tuesday, our alumni who are providing 50 scholarships to village / slum school students confirmed supporting 60 percent of the recurring cost. On Thursday, one colleague here assured support of another 20 percent. On Friday, could not turn down the request of another neighbourhood village high school. Spent an hour and had lunch with them on their picnic that involved 1200 students and teachers. The Wednesdays and Saturdays are special now for the Health and Fitness (NSO) program. Need to put some extra effort as it is a new launch. The NSS activities took some extra effort this week for the preparatory work of intra and inter-village school competitions to be held in this month with final winner declaration on 6th April, 2013, in the NSS Annual Day function.
Academic
On Wednesday, learnt that ours is the project selected from the institute for the First SIG meeting on "VAS and its policies" at New Delhi in the Technology Innovation segment. On Thursday, the reviewer of ISRO asked us to go ahead with the project proposal submitted to them. The same day we heard that fund for a no ordinary project (Link) is released. This project is one where we can see social impact almost immediately and each day counts. Immediately alerted people who will be joining our team when fund comes. Coming Wednesday we have an important technical session on this. On Friday, the senior PhD student told that our paper is accepted for presentation in the most prestigious conference in our domain ICASSP 2013. The same day got another invitation with subject line, "Entrepreneurial Event of National Innovation Foundation at Rashtrapati Bhavan". This was for another technology innovation of our lab. which was a winner at national level. And on Thursday royalty for the books coauthored was received, not princely but not insignificant too, compared to our annual salary! I need to do something to accelerate the next single authored book project which is supposed to have two editions, one in India and the other in another country; the publisher is asking about the progress beyond first chapter : - ( Yes, we are eligible for sabbatical for projects like this but ... well, politely refused a request received on Monday from outside that would have taken some time from summer vacation; on Tuesday requested one administrative head of the institute not to take the proposal further for a large institute level admin. responsibility.
Future Career
As it happens every week, attended many meetings as a part of administrative responsibility at institute and dept. level. Conducted important study and prepared comparative statement on purchase matters. Helped correcting errors. Discussed results with three research students whose work is ripe for communication to journals. Provided research material / slides to institute representative for institute level presentation at another IIT, meeting students outside classroom and guardians.... and the list goes on. However, if my daughter wants to take faculty position like me as her future career, it is not the excitement associated with the job. She thinks that it is always party time for us! We go to institute, take ten classes a week i.e. ten hours and rest of our time goes into gossip with friends in tea shop. In campus socials, she has seen that we colleagues are good friends and having fun among ourselves. And it got extrapolated!
Overwhelmed
I was honoured to have an invitation from a very senior faculty member of the Management Dept. this week. He was not only inquisitive but also heard with rapt attention for hours how we work as a team in NSS (Link) and NSO (Link) program that now cater to 1850 undergraduate students of 1st and 2nd year. He asked me to write a paper to a prestigious journal as the management philosophy employed has lots of novelty. To have an appreciation from a senior management faculty like him was enough for me! He understood my weakness and affectionately told that he would write it for me. I was overwhelmed.
Humbled
The Shcholars' Avenue (Link), the campus newspaper run by the students, conducted an interview some days back. This was published online on Saturday. I am humbled, was speechless for sometime, reading the title they have given for the interview (Link). I don't know if there can be any greater honour, greater humbling experience than an association with "Dedicated to the service of the nation", the red neon light in institute main building that beckons all of us.
Pray that I be worthy of all these.
The Hypothesis
It is very simple. Vivekananda says, "When Adam fell, he fell from Purity. Thus, Purity is our real nature." or "Each person is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest that divinity in every walk of life." Divinity is not anything complex or high philosophy stuff. A person who thinks of his/her own due and does not bother for the due of others is animalistic in character. A person who thinks of his/her own due as well as that of others is human in character. A person who does not worry about his/her own due and think of due of others is divine in character. We believe it or not, our selfish skin is to adapt to the nature and deficiencies. Beneath it rests our unselfish self and how true is this, "You show me an unselfish person and I will show you God." We remain selfish due to our over-dependence or over-emphasis on nature and lack of confidence in our own self, our inability to listen to our own voice.
By nature, our students here are disciplined, hard working, focused, full of concentration, intelligent, talented. Without that they would not have made their entry into IIT Kharagpur. It is already in them. The effort is to make them not forget that and build further, so that they feel stronger, happier and do good to themselves, their family, the society.
It is Sunday!
Too much of serious stuff for a holiday post! Unpardonable! Let's come back to the leisurely tea session of Sunday morning and the fortune-teller column. Once I thought of telling Her Highness the detail of the previous week and if she had an inkling of it from last Sunday's fortune column of newspaper. Then thought why ruin the holiday morning! A 'good-for-nothing' husband role suits the best at home : - )
Endnote
This week got confirmation from two hotels of Haridwar and Rishikesh where one week of summer vacation is planned. This is the 3rd, 2nd and 1st visit to these places for us in decreasing order of age. Train reservation was confirmed earlier. There was another good thing about this week compared to previous week. There was no mopping job at home as our domestic help was available all seven days!!!
We had a leisurely Sunday morning today. Daughter's exam. ends tomorrow. The only subject left belongs to mine! Yes, we have a division of labour at home. Half of the subjects are my responsibility. Her Highness was thus relieved since Saturday afternoon when the last exam. in her responsibility was over.
Ignorance is bliss!
As we parents struggle, the daughter is having a great fun. She read or heard somewhere that up to Class VI there is no 'pass' or 'fail' in school. Therefore, why worry about academics now? Knowledge gives power. Power to whom? Which knowledge? And the contradiction - knowledge of no pass / fail impeding persuasion of knowledge itself! Hope that we grown-ups do not succumb to this childish logic where we ourselves have a role of seekers.
Fortune Teller
Yes, I was talking about Sunday morning! At home, people can find out when I have relatively more work pressure. The leisurely newspaper reading while sipping morning tea becomes the first casualty when under pressure. There is no prize for guessing the second casualty. It is shaving of beard. Such has been the case for past few weeks now. Even otherwise I do not have interest in the fortune-teller section of the newspaper. However, Her Highness reads newspaper in entirety that includes sections like advt., lost and found, anniversary, birth and death, lawyer's notice - what not. There are no less news in these if we are looking for a reflection of the society in our news basket from a newspaper. She was going through the astrology section and smilingly pronounced that I have a fortuitous week ahead.
Extra Academic
I don't know what fortune teller told about last week. Rewinding I find the following. On Monday, BSNL restored the broadband connection in a village high school where NSS, IIT Kharagpur works. This is a part of our prestigious project where RKMVU's VIVEKDISHA (Link) is getting implemented. On Tuesday, our alumni who are providing 50 scholarships to village / slum school students confirmed supporting 60 percent of the recurring cost. On Thursday, one colleague here assured support of another 20 percent. On Friday, could not turn down the request of another neighbourhood village high school. Spent an hour and had lunch with them on their picnic that involved 1200 students and teachers. The Wednesdays and Saturdays are special now for the Health and Fitness (NSO) program. Need to put some extra effort as it is a new launch. The NSS activities took some extra effort this week for the preparatory work of intra and inter-village school competitions to be held in this month with final winner declaration on 6th April, 2013, in the NSS Annual Day function.
Academic
On Wednesday, learnt that ours is the project selected from the institute for the First SIG meeting on "VAS and its policies" at New Delhi in the Technology Innovation segment. On Thursday, the reviewer of ISRO asked us to go ahead with the project proposal submitted to them. The same day we heard that fund for a no ordinary project (Link) is released. This project is one where we can see social impact almost immediately and each day counts. Immediately alerted people who will be joining our team when fund comes. Coming Wednesday we have an important technical session on this. On Friday, the senior PhD student told that our paper is accepted for presentation in the most prestigious conference in our domain ICASSP 2013. The same day got another invitation with subject line, "Entrepreneurial Event of National Innovation Foundation at Rashtrapati Bhavan". This was for another technology innovation of our lab. which was a winner at national level. And on Thursday royalty for the books coauthored was received, not princely but not insignificant too, compared to our annual salary! I need to do something to accelerate the next single authored book project which is supposed to have two editions, one in India and the other in another country; the publisher is asking about the progress beyond first chapter : - ( Yes, we are eligible for sabbatical for projects like this but ... well, politely refused a request received on Monday from outside that would have taken some time from summer vacation; on Tuesday requested one administrative head of the institute not to take the proposal further for a large institute level admin. responsibility.
Future Career
As it happens every week, attended many meetings as a part of administrative responsibility at institute and dept. level. Conducted important study and prepared comparative statement on purchase matters. Helped correcting errors. Discussed results with three research students whose work is ripe for communication to journals. Provided research material / slides to institute representative for institute level presentation at another IIT, meeting students outside classroom and guardians.... and the list goes on. However, if my daughter wants to take faculty position like me as her future career, it is not the excitement associated with the job. She thinks that it is always party time for us! We go to institute, take ten classes a week i.e. ten hours and rest of our time goes into gossip with friends in tea shop. In campus socials, she has seen that we colleagues are good friends and having fun among ourselves. And it got extrapolated!
Overwhelmed
I was honoured to have an invitation from a very senior faculty member of the Management Dept. this week. He was not only inquisitive but also heard with rapt attention for hours how we work as a team in NSS (Link) and NSO (Link) program that now cater to 1850 undergraduate students of 1st and 2nd year. He asked me to write a paper to a prestigious journal as the management philosophy employed has lots of novelty. To have an appreciation from a senior management faculty like him was enough for me! He understood my weakness and affectionately told that he would write it for me. I was overwhelmed.
Humbled
The Shcholars' Avenue (Link), the campus newspaper run by the students, conducted an interview some days back. This was published online on Saturday. I am humbled, was speechless for sometime, reading the title they have given for the interview (Link). I don't know if there can be any greater honour, greater humbling experience than an association with "Dedicated to the service of the nation", the red neon light in institute main building that beckons all of us.
Pray that I be worthy of all these.
The Hypothesis
It is very simple. Vivekananda says, "When Adam fell, he fell from Purity. Thus, Purity is our real nature." or "Each person is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest that divinity in every walk of life." Divinity is not anything complex or high philosophy stuff. A person who thinks of his/her own due and does not bother for the due of others is animalistic in character. A person who thinks of his/her own due as well as that of others is human in character. A person who does not worry about his/her own due and think of due of others is divine in character. We believe it or not, our selfish skin is to adapt to the nature and deficiencies. Beneath it rests our unselfish self and how true is this, "You show me an unselfish person and I will show you God." We remain selfish due to our over-dependence or over-emphasis on nature and lack of confidence in our own self, our inability to listen to our own voice.
By nature, our students here are disciplined, hard working, focused, full of concentration, intelligent, talented. Without that they would not have made their entry into IIT Kharagpur. It is already in them. The effort is to make them not forget that and build further, so that they feel stronger, happier and do good to themselves, their family, the society.
It is Sunday!
Too much of serious stuff for a holiday post! Unpardonable! Let's come back to the leisurely tea session of Sunday morning and the fortune-teller column. Once I thought of telling Her Highness the detail of the previous week and if she had an inkling of it from last Sunday's fortune column of newspaper. Then thought why ruin the holiday morning! A 'good-for-nothing' husband role suits the best at home : - )
Endnote
This week got confirmation from two hotels of Haridwar and Rishikesh where one week of summer vacation is planned. This is the 3rd, 2nd and 1st visit to these places for us in decreasing order of age. Train reservation was confirmed earlier. There was another good thing about this week compared to previous week. There was no mopping job at home as our domestic help was available all seven days!!!
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