From Album

Occasionally he sang song, if pestered for long, in Dept. farewell functions of outgoing batches. However, last two occasions were different. It did not require much of an effort from us. They were - Bijoya Sammelan in the Dept. after Durga Puja (21st Oct., 2013)  and Dept. Picnic (1st Dec., 2013). He easily granted us audience.

He is Prof. Somnath Sengupta (Link) of Dept. of Electronics & ECE, IIT Kharagpur.

O Holy Night

Cannot stop myself from sharing this article which is front-paper news of Kolkata edition of many newspapers today. This is the struggle of Jhuma Sarakar whose father, a small wage earner mason, was sent to life imprisonment by lower court when Jhuma was in Class VII. The devastated family saw the mother start working as domestic help. There was some support from uncle in initial years. Jhuma did not abandon study. Joined college and started giving private tution. With that she started long court battle to prove his father's innocence. Everyone in the family always saw in the father a pious and kind person and was convinced of innocence.

In the words of Jhuma, "My faith in his innocence prompted me to raise money for the legal battle by giving private tuition. My mother works as a domestic help. She brought me up. I had resolved that I would not marry before my father’s innocence was proved." (The Telegraph Link) and "I was a child then. Though I knew that my father was innocent, I couldn't do anything to help. Finally, when I joined college, I decided that we would have to get justice for him. I started giving private coaching and spent whatever I got in providing legal help for my father. My father was in jail for so many years for no fault of his and this was the least we could do to get him out. My uncle provided a lot of assistance." (ToI Link)

2004 to 2013. A long journey. The day was yesterday, the 24th Decemeber, 2013. The father was released by higher court. The Holy Night descends in Sarkar family with a different meaning all together. The stars salute the grit, the determination of the daughter. We join them and take a bow before the daughter.

And this is the country where daughters are seen as burden! We at IIT Kharagpur are exploring means to reduce female foeticide. Hope we can do our part so that Jhumas can continue to prove their worth and the Agnipariksha from Ramayan ages stop someday.

Jhuma is now studying M.A. Her brother abandoned study in Class VII.

Ishq

I am happy today. Reason? Her Highness is happy. We tend to believe that it is not-so-easy a task :-) One may ask, how much did the gift worth? The fact is different. It was a gift that I gave to myself. And that brought the smile. Yes, I took morning walk this morning after a long, long time.

There was no short-cut either. It was full 4 KM stretch and in my favourite terrain. When was it the last time? Two months back, or more - lost the count of it. Past few months had been very, very hectic. Added
responsibilities. Extra effort to fit into the shoes. Lace tied. I have earned my gift. The morning walk.

Another thing changed in between. The fun of being a part of the crowd and in a shooting spree with camera is being replaced with more formal stuffs. It was a smooth ride in crossing 10,000 marks of shooting pics in last 4 years. Most of them were for NSS (Link) and NSO Health and Fitness (Link).

I attended this year's NSS Annual camp in bits and pieces because of the new responsibilities - had been camp commandant in last five years. And this forced me to change my facebook friends policy. I started accepting friends request from students after two days of the camp. The students were posting their activities, how they were building murram roads, cleaning bushes etc. in their profile. And I could feel the pulse of the camp through them. All NSS camp pictures in this page are taken from facebook upload of students.

I spent longer on the concluding day of the 7-day long camp. The NSS faculty compering the show called me to say a few words. Later I found that another NSS faculty recorded the same and shared that with me. I
find that I thanked all, explained the policy change :-) and felt proud that the worry of what would happen when I move to other responsibility was unfounded. Feel so proud of the NSS, IIT Khaargpur team! Told the NSO Health and Fitness team too last week that they are to get
ready!!

Yesterday, attended an important meeting at Delhi. Watched the movie "Naram Garam", and Kabi Sammelan "Wah! Keya baat Hai" in the flight. As said, things are under control now! Remember that last week on Friday afternoon while waiting at Fortis hospital, Kolkata for our collaborator to finish heart surgery and begin discussion (and a demonstration of laptop version of heart sound analyzer developed by us), I was checking end-semester answer-scripts much to the bewilderment of people in hospital reception.

Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Amol Palekar - you are prepared for a sweet family drama! But Birju the artist gives a test of both art and artist in the following segment (Link) at 3:30 minute onwards. "Aagar umar ke lehaj se kaha to thik hai ... Kalakar apne Mata, Pita aur Guru ko chhorke kisi ke pao mein haat nehi lagata. Samjhe aap. Namaste."

The "Wah! Keya baat Hai" program in Air India flight had interesting lines. A couplet there asked one to be cautious as "Ishq o nadi hai jiska kinara nehi." Received a mail from a young monk of Ramakrishna Mission, Belur Math on Saturday. He says, "Swamiji mentioned work and worship can be performed in three ways: work and worship, work as worship and work is worship. Our way should be the last one."

I don't know which part of this story is Ishq, which is work and which is worship or if the fine line melts somewhere when we think less of our own well-being and more of the society around us.

End-quote from Vivekananda: "The whole gist of this teaching is that you should work like a master and not as a slave; work incessantly, but do not do slave's work...Love and do good to everybody, but do not become a slave. In the first place, attachment degenerates us, individually, and in the second place, makes us extremely selfish. "

Obvious

The clock strikes 8 PM. The person who locks the office appears in your door. Time to leave. Next destination is Dept. to finish the rest of the work. 8:45 PM - phone call from home. Start winding up slowly. Walk past the corridor, stop a while at a colleague's door. A quick rerun of the day. Did you hear correctly - what is more important, being a high achiever or being a good human being? 

Do these two have inherent conflict? Vivekananda said, "Unselfishness is more paying only people do not have the patience to practise it." Can we not have both high achiever and a good human being in one? If we are asked to choose between a high achiever and a good human being, the answer should be obvious. But is that so?

Every choice has a cost. If we choose good human being and not the high achiever, we miss out association with those achievements and additional scores that come with it. If we do not choose good human being, we are on a slippery ground. 

Is it a choice for only today or also for tomorrow or day after? One may ask, tomorrow will come only if we are able to survive today. The fact is, whether we survive or not, tomorrow will come. We have to go one day. But tomorrow will continue to come. That is inevitable.

There was a facebook post this evening! Excerpts below in italic. Immediately three persons come into chat. All from outside IIT Kharagpur community. One is childhood senior, one is childhood junior, and the third is an in-law, cousin brother's side. "Is everything fine?" Can it be otherwise? You post a message which is not that obvious and immediately three persons ping you, comfort you. 

Achievement! What is that? 

And here is a person who thought that the issue deserves a post! Only a blind person or a blinded person cannot see what is obvious!!

Be God's child. You need not fear anything! Fear, according to Vivekananda, is the greatest weakness. He said, "Stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succor you want is within yourselves." He further said, "“Face the brutes.” That is a lesson for all life—face the terrible, face it boldly. Like the monkeys, the hardships of life fall back when we cease to flee before them."

Correction in Advertizement

I have requested the officials to correct the anomaly in dates for the 18th Nov. interview. Initially, we wanted it on 14th Nov. It was found to be a holiday and thus was rescheduled on 18th Nov. The advt. (Link) at IIT Kharagpur temporary job page should read as given at the end of this post.

On the complain why I have not posted for long - I shall take the shorter route .. New and increasing responsibilities at office .... Challenge at home, Mother's total knee replacement (both knees were replaced last month) ... one child at home and a relatively old http://nssiitkgp.blogspot.in/  and a toddler http://healthandfitnessiitkgp.blogspot.in/ .... As soon as I get some space to breathe, will be back here. However, keeping myself updated in facebook!! Those who will not be happy with these few lines after getting used to my long posts :-) here is a copy-paste from my facebook "What's in your mind?" answer of today - To lead is to sacrifice. Highest leadership, highest sacrifice. Sacrifice gives moral strength to the leader, earns respect. That is the real power. Rest is only supplementary. Let us not miss the bird for the bush. How true is Vivekananda saying we memorized in children's wing of Akhil Bharat Vivekananda Yuva Mahamandal "Shirdar to sardar, matha dite paro to neta hobe." Sacrifice cannot be forced unto oneself. It comes from love. See yourself in the mirror. Look at your eyes. Do you love your people with all their strength and weaknesses? If not, leadership is a torture for yourself as well as for the people you lead. Remember Nabanida saying once that if you do 10 yourself, other may do 1. Leading is always leading by example.

Project Title	REDUCTION OF FALSE ACCEPTANCE/REJECTION FOR NON-COOPERATION SPEAKERS IN AUTOMATIC SPEAKER RECOGNITION SYSTEM (FAN)
Reference Number	IIT/SRIC/R/FAN/2013/166 DATED 29th October, 2013
Temporary Position(s)	Walk-in-interview on 14th 18th November, 2013 at 10-00 AM at Deptt. of Electronics & Electrical Communication Engineering for the post of Junior / Senior Project Officer (JPO/SPO)
Number of vacancies	2
Consolidated Compensation	Rs. 16,000/-p.m. to Rs. 20,000/-p.m (depending upon qualification & experience)
Coordinator / PI	Dr. Goutam Saha, Dept of E & ECE
Qualifications & Experience	M. Tech (Preferable) in Electronics / Electrical Engineering OR B.Tech / BE in Electronics / Electrical Engineering preferably with valid GATE/NET score. Candidates should have good academic record (minimum first Class in all exam.) Competence in Digital Signal Processing, Speech Processing, MATLAB with research experience in signal processing & pattern recognition, preferably related to speech processing is desirable.
Relevant Experience	Candidate should send prior intimation with their CV to the email ID gsaha@ece.iitkgp.ernet.in by 17.11.2013 with a subject heading ‘Walk in interview for JPO/SPO’. No query will be entertained regarding relaxation of the minimum eligibility criterion and candidate not meeting the criterion will not be allowed to appear before the interview board.
Last Date	18 17th Nov 2019 2013
Application Fee	Rs. Demand Draft for Rs.50/- (not for female candidates) drawn in favour of IIT Kharagpur payable at Kharagpur.

M.S. / Ph.D. enrolment subject to clearing Dept. examination.

Inspiring Words

I was a part of the audience this weekend where Padma Vibhushan, Dr. M. S. Valiathan (Link) was delivering his keynote speech. The occasion was PULMOCON - 2013, 11th All India Update in Pulmonary Medicine organized by Institute of Pulmocare & Research (IPCR), Kolkata. We have active research collaboration with IPCR. The invitation card quoted Vivekananda, "The old religions said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God. The new religion says that he is an atheist who does not believe in himself. " The conference hall had two large sized Vivekananda pictures in between multimedia projection screens.


Dr. Valiathan took us through the history of medicine and medical research in India. It was really 'mesmerizing' as described by one of the two vice-chancellors present there. He talked about lacuna, the disconnect that exist in medical research space. But he did not sound criticizing as such but telling the audience to feel inspired, contribute and be a part of India's growth story. The speech many times referred to Dr. Sambhu Nath De, the discoverer of Cholera toxin, who had nomination for Nobel prize several times but his work remained 'unsung and unnoticed' in India (link).

Dr. Valiathan was at ease to quote Upanishad and making his point across. He narrated the story of Nachiketa, the importance and meaning of Shraddha for which 'there is no equivalent word in English dictionary.' He stressed on the need of firm determination, single minded devotion and obligation of privileged community like us to all, that includes future generation.

I was sweetly surprized when his speech referred to our work on 'lung acoustics' and he said that such type of work is needed. The development of lung sound analyzer is a collaborative research between our lab. at IIT Kharagpur and IPCR. Felt so, so much proud and inspired! Thank you, Sir. We shall keep trying to the best of our ability.

The function felicitated vice chancellor of one university for his contribution to medical research related to medical image processing. Felt proud because he is our Dept. colleague at IIT Kharagpur and is on deputation now. I was overwhelmed to find several medical workers working in remote villages, promoting health and awareness as foot-soldiers, getting felicitated at the function. This is very inspiring. The organizer, IPCR deserves kudos for this.

Teacher and Student

There was Hindi Diwas (Hindi Day) related programs last week at IIT Kharagpur. Attended one Kabi Sammelan (congregation of poets) briefly. The anchor-organizer told why arranging such a sammelan is difficult. He was told by an experienced person that it is like walking of a clay doll along a path which passes through a river. The creative self of Kabi (poet) can throw up surprises with satire on current time, anti-establishment lines or something which may not be palatable for everyone in the audience.

Stumbling upon a social networking place where young students converse is not easy either for teachers as it may embarrass. It could be one of those 'Confession' pages of facebook or questions posed in Quora. But it is a good opportunity if he enters those pages as students and not as a teacher, as one who wants to be educated. He may get some feedback for himself which may not be available in usual channel. If it is good, his confidence increases. If not, he should humbly introspect. Of course, he should be able to separate signal from noise. He should not get carried away either way as this social networking space is dominated by certain fraction of the student community having strong likes or dislikes and / or specific traits!

Not every teacher may be as lucky :-) to be a part of student conversation, being loved or hated (love me, hate me, but you cannot ignore me :-)) !! In fact, most of them are not. Still if one does not feel uncomfortable with the way young students converse, it is worth going through their experience, the issues that occupy them. And one may be sweetly surprised to see that even if baser stuffs usually purge the space, it is the occasional gems that get most 'like's, the ones that exhibits the higher self of one - the struggle, the sacrifice.

Before I paste two such 'Confessions' verbatim here, for which I would also like to say respect _/\_ like student friends, I remember one lecture of young Ramakrishna Mission monk of a US centre. I first heard it in 2006 during my one semester association with USC. But every time I hear it, it is a humbling experience. The title of the talk is 'Teacher and Student'. I made a youtube version of it with our young students taking the role of teachers in village schools which is available here (Link).

---- verbatim from students' public post ----

[The following is about the range of difficulties a student can face and how he fights them and emerges as winner. We perhaps do not teach this to students. Rather we are taught by them when we read this aspect of their life.]

This one is the best among confessions, i have read till now._/\_ here it goes:

#I see a lot of my juniors confessing about love , sex , make outs, awesum college life. i want to confess something else .

1. I joined heritage in its initial batches. i was very introvert and was a ragged a hell lot . A belt was tied around neck i was made to roam around the college in my first day. When i complained to my dad he thrashed me saying that i was a loser and wasting his hard earned money.( he hoped that i was in IIT) I felt liked being raped that day, not by my college seniors but by my dad.

2. I got a very low grade in my first semester because i was pressurized by my dad to appear for IIT again. I Got a severe thrashing from him again. my mom somehow rescued me.

3. In second semester i mustered up enough courage to propose to my best friend but she rejected me because in her words ""she didnt wanted to be ridiculed by her friends "". she stopped talking to me after that. I was heart broken as she and my mom were the only people i shared everything with.

4.during the 4th semester break , while i was returning home after teaching a student . i got a phone call informing me that my mom had expired. my world came crashing that day. I cried for for days on end and somehow picked myself up as i had no other alternative 

5. My attendance fell very low that semester and i was summoned by the principal . when i told him about my mothers death he replied "I hear this lie everyday .please bring me the death certificate if u have one." Then while i was leaving he told me "no need to bring death certificate , useless guys like u can even fake that .call your dad"

6. my frnds always ridiculed me because i was loser .i dint laugh at their jokes .to mix with them i started drinking .i dint like the taste but liked the high . i often used to act drunk to appear more cool. i learned to call girls "magi "" but never knew its real meaning . that helped me survive college 

7. it was the campussing day , i got rejected that day again .hoped to make it to the next company. but was unsucessfull till the and of campussing . i had tried a lot . attended English speaking classes (my English was horrible) , brought new pair of shirt . when my dad heard this he told me not to call again and this time i didnt feel remorse or regret for him . for the ntire night i contemplated suicide but couldn't as i had promised my mom that i will shine one day .

8 . i started doing private tutiions and preparing for CAT. i gave my everything. I got 99.87 percentile but couldnt make it again to a big IIM because of my low grades. What had i done now to deserve this ? i felt. I finally got admitted into decent college and a helpful bank manger arranged for loan .

9.After passing out i got into volvo eicher as a junior manager . i dint last for 3 months because i couldnt lick my boss s boot properly .My service was terminated because of being inefficient .

10. i started making iPhone apps in my leisure time while i was applying to a few companies . Slowly i took it up as a more serious start up. got hold of 2 more friends like me who were from cs background and were unable to find a job .

11. in 2011 i made a small office. by the end of 2011 i had a small group of 8 engineers working with me. In 2012 we bagged several contracts from companies like mobiquity, exxon mobile and the workforce increased to 80 developers. In march 2013 i will be applying for turnover of over 5 crores .

I dont know how to thank god for his blessings . i thank that senior who ragged me in my first day at college, that girl who dumped me , my professors who ridiculed me, the numerous friend who though i was a loser . it is you who gave me the courage , the fire , the anger to succeed against all odds . seriously no hard feelings guys , u made me what i am. i dont stay with my dad but i send him enough so that he can lead a comfortable life .
My advise to all juniors. shine in life .When a loser like me can why cant u? never let people say u cant do it . many people might have faced similar or more lows in college life but NEVER EVER give up. Let not a broken relationship , failed grade,lost job opportunity or "status" among friends define you . And never lose faith in humanity in goodness. there are few bad people but there are a lot more good people around here . I met a lot of good people,professo­rs in my college .and believe me heritage taught me a lot Lastly MA, hope u could read this. I love u a lot.

[This is about how much sacrifice a young student can make, beyond the manual of a teacher like us.]

If you are one to go by likes, as of now, in 24 hours, this got 21000+ likes!

#884 24th may 2013 was the day which changed my views about life... my room mate at iit had fallen in love in the 3rd year of our college to one of the most chirpy, flamboyant girl of our batch. i had no particular reservations for their relationship other than the fact that they were quite opposites my buddy was shy, intro and she altogether was different and i actually felt that she did not love my friend as much as he did. actually becoz of her nature i thought she took their relationship very lightly. but whatever be my notion both got along well then i got placed in the usa and left while my friend got placed in an mnc in india . we kept in touch for a few months but like it happens usually we got busy in our lives and could not interact much. i took my parents to usa and my links with india got completely cut. now 9 years later i am on an business trip to india i thot of meeting my college friends and contacted many thru fb and likewise. i tried contacting my roomie but met with no responses.when 7, 8 of us met i got this news that my roomie died 5 years ago in the delhi blast at karol bagh. i was shocked and cudnt sink in the fact he was his parents only son and that troubled me more about how those people wud be surviving. so i took his address and went to meet them. when i entered the place(a simple yet utterly beautiful one) i found a group of four 2 old men and 2 old women were having their evening snacks and were smiling, laughing and talking i went on and introduced myself to them they all greeted me with a lot of love and asked me to join in and served me some tea. i took it and was left with no words on how to ask them about how things have been over the years. so i decided to leave and as i was about to rise the gates opened and my friend's gf entered (i thot so these two finally married). she was surprised to see me and welcomed me and asked me to stay over the dinner. after a lot of pestering i agreed and later mustering a lot of courage i asked her so how's life ? to which she smiled and replied good. after a moment silence she continued" we were happy very happy together and were about to get married when it all happened i was devastated but then i looked at these 4 people (his and her parents) and decided that i wud have to move on. i bought a new place brought in all four together and are now living happily." she said when i do sumthing for them i know shubhu smiles and its his happiness that i always want. i asked her how is she managing she said love is not only about his physical presence in my life it is about celebrating togetherness and that we do each day with our parents and i know somewhere he is also around here watching our every move keeping us protected. and then she added wish i had his child. after listening to all this i realised the strenghth of their love and coudnt help envying my friend on how lucky he was to have found this girl who is selflessly busy playing her role in their relation without the society bound order of marriage etc. i cudnt help feeling small at the girl's immense strength and pure love that their relation stands on. i relised how wrong i was in those days. she said she has enough memories to last for a lifetime and said. " log aksar humse humari khushmijaji ka karan pucha karte hai to hum bh palat kat kar kahte hai, huzoor apki aindagi mein yaadein hai par humari to har ek yaad hi jindagi hai" a huge salute to you girl and lots of respect to you. indeed life is beautiful its just the matter of ones view to take the challenges.

Salute to the girl! It is with the hope you get after reading such stories, that the world goes on!