"I remember my first day in school!!" My friend was telling me. "It was great fun for me. I enjoyed my first day in school!!" I was thinking back in time as I do many times these days. I remember how I got into the school that was one of the best schools of that time. There was an interview that I had to clear to get into the KG school. I was very frightened when they called me for the interview. What I remember is that I was crying all the time and finally ran away from that place. I hated that place and the teachers interviewing me!! My parents knew the principal of the school and I got a back door entry in the school.
The first day in the school was a disaster in itself. My aai had come with me to the school. When she put me in the classroom and started for home, I got the idea of what was going on. I started crying so loudly that some other kids also started crying because of me. Then one of the teachers, who would become one of my favourite teachers to date, took my charge. Slowly all of us settled down. As days passed we found that it was fun going to the school. I got a chance to mix with children of my age for the first time.
The teachers were great in my school. After school prayer, we would be given different games to play that would test the grasping ability of the kid. After that they will teach some songs and tell some stories. All these things were designed to the perfection. Not a single child in the class was bored. No one felt like going to home after the school was over. A lot of thought must have been passed behind all such teaching techniques that were employed in our school. This was followed by madhali sutti when we will eat our tiffins. After the sutti, we would be asked to sleep for half an hour in the school. I have never heard of this till today!!! Every Wednesday, in the school the teachers would cook food and students would help them in cooking. This was a great experience.
The teachers were very good and they never beat anybody in the school. As far as I remember, there were no punishments!! The student-teacher relationship was not what it is today. Every student was treated as if he/she was the teacher's own son/daughter. Till today these teachers remember me. I really feel proud of this. The pragati pustak (report card) that was written by these teachers was a great thing. The teachers understood the students' psychology and they would write it in the pragati pustak. Very minute details such as I do not like playing swing, were noted in those report cards. I still have those report cards me. Those two years of schooling before the primary school were great.
These are the years in one's life when someone can make a lasting impact. I am indeed fortunate that they were my school teachers who instilled good values in me and made a lasting impact. I believe I got the best possible start to my life by attending Ranade Balak Mandir, my KG school.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
A certain Ambiguity
After hibernation of about six months (like polar bears) I am back.. Recently I read a book called "A Certain Ambiguity" authored by Gaurav Suri and Hartosh Singh Bal. It is a mathematical novel. A fantastic book indeed and a must read for all math and philosophy lovers. It takes us on the tour of infinity and geometry, two most basic and ancient branches of mathematics, the concept of absolute certainty of thought and its foundations in mathematics, and finally non-Euclid's geometry.
All this comes forward through the wonderful story of Ravi and his bauji, an established mathematician of his era. The other characters of Nico, Claire, Adin are perfectly sketched and fit in perfectly in the plot of the story. The passion with which Nico takes the math classes and explaines the concepts of infinity to the class stands out. The journal entries and the communications of ancient mathematicians like Euclid, Pythagoras, Cantor are just amazing. The authors have really got it right.
One must read this book to understand the basic math and basic philosophy. Here I am reminded of another book "One, Two, Three, ..." whose author(s) I have forgotten. This is also a wonderful book which explains the concepts of infinity quite nicely.
All this comes forward through the wonderful story of Ravi and his bauji, an established mathematician of his era. The other characters of Nico, Claire, Adin are perfectly sketched and fit in perfectly in the plot of the story. The passion with which Nico takes the math classes and explaines the concepts of infinity to the class stands out. The journal entries and the communications of ancient mathematicians like Euclid, Pythagoras, Cantor are just amazing. The authors have really got it right.
One must read this book to understand the basic math and basic philosophy. Here I am reminded of another book "One, Two, Three, ..." whose author(s) I have forgotten. This is also a wonderful book which explains the concepts of infinity quite nicely.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Trek to Sinhagad
Srinivasan, my friend from the CC lab, is attending a workshop in Bhaskarachrya Pratishthan, Pune. Last week I had to go to Pune for a family function called kelvan. So while I was in Pune we decided to go to Sinhagad, a great fort near Pune. I used to go to Sinhagad every Sunday when I was staying in Pune. There are many people who go there for trekking once every week to get fresh air and and escape from the hectic city life. There was a group of regulars called as Sinhagad Warakari Sangh also. I don't know if it exists today.
So on the Sunday morning, Srini and I started from my place for Sinhagad on my splender. We started at 6 o'clock in the morning and reached the payatha, the base, at 7 o'clock after one hour's ride. On the way one can see the Khadakwasala dam on Mutha river which satisfies the thirst of the city. At the base of the fort, there is a villege called as Donaje. Since Sinhagad is a tourist place now, many people in the villege have started small businesses like a small shop providing snacks, tea, camera batteries etc. Some people have converted the open space in front of their homes, called aangan into the parking area. Such things are definitely helping them monetarily however I observed that the peace in the village is disappearing. It was not the same village that I saw some five years ago.
We started climbing at around 7 o'clock. I had estimated that it will take an hour for us to reach the top. Since it was a Sunday, along with the regulars, there were many tourists also who were climbing. There are two ways you can climb to the fort. One is called Rajmarg, a fairly easy way to climb and the other is thruogh the water streams that flow in the rainy season, commonly known as the shortcuts. The rajmarg is like a ghat with many turns and steep slopes. Almost at every turn there is a small shop where curd, buttermilk, lemon juice, fresh cucumber, raw mango, kali maina, tamarind are served. The shopkeepers, mostly females, come from different villages as far as 10 kilometers with two cans of water and all the other things that they sell. They start at 5 o'clock in the morning, climb the hill to their shops, set the shop and then greet the people with "Oye poreho ghya tak, dahi, limbupani..." While having a cucumber and lime juice at one of such shops, we were having a little chat with the shop owner. She had travelled almost 8 kilometers from her home to the shop with the water cans and all the other eatables. She told us that, the shop is the only sourse of income for their family. I was gasping when I had reached the shop and ordered a lime juice. When I heard her story, I was ashamed of myself and salutated her in my mind.
When we reached the top, we decided to take a walk to explore the fort. The typical places you see are the horse stable, ammunition store room, devtake the water resource on the fort, samadhee of Tanaji Malusare, Kalyan darawaja, Udaybhanu's thadage. After seeing all these places we ordered meals on the fort. Pithale, Bhakari and Lal Mirachicha thecha and a lot of curd with it as well. We started back our descend at around 11 o'clock and reached the base at 12.
While I was going back to home, I noticed a lot of changes in the villages and could easily see the effects of Pune on them. In one way they were losing their own identities to get assimilated in the city. However the identity was sacrificed for the growth. This was a trek I will not forget!!!
So on the Sunday morning, Srini and I started from my place for Sinhagad on my splender. We started at 6 o'clock in the morning and reached the payatha, the base, at 7 o'clock after one hour's ride. On the way one can see the Khadakwasala dam on Mutha river which satisfies the thirst of the city. At the base of the fort, there is a villege called as Donaje. Since Sinhagad is a tourist place now, many people in the villege have started small businesses like a small shop providing snacks, tea, camera batteries etc. Some people have converted the open space in front of their homes, called aangan into the parking area. Such things are definitely helping them monetarily however I observed that the peace in the village is disappearing. It was not the same village that I saw some five years ago.
We started climbing at around 7 o'clock. I had estimated that it will take an hour for us to reach the top. Since it was a Sunday, along with the regulars, there were many tourists also who were climbing. There are two ways you can climb to the fort. One is called Rajmarg, a fairly easy way to climb and the other is thruogh the water streams that flow in the rainy season, commonly known as the shortcuts. The rajmarg is like a ghat with many turns and steep slopes. Almost at every turn there is a small shop where curd, buttermilk, lemon juice, fresh cucumber, raw mango, kali maina, tamarind are served. The shopkeepers, mostly females, come from different villages as far as 10 kilometers with two cans of water and all the other things that they sell. They start at 5 o'clock in the morning, climb the hill to their shops, set the shop and then greet the people with "Oye poreho ghya tak, dahi, limbupani..." While having a cucumber and lime juice at one of such shops, we were having a little chat with the shop owner. She had travelled almost 8 kilometers from her home to the shop with the water cans and all the other eatables. She told us that, the shop is the only sourse of income for their family. I was gasping when I had reached the shop and ordered a lime juice. When I heard her story, I was ashamed of myself and salutated her in my mind.
When we reached the top, we decided to take a walk to explore the fort. The typical places you see are the horse stable, ammunition store room, devtake the water resource on the fort, samadhee of Tanaji Malusare, Kalyan darawaja, Udaybhanu's thadage. After seeing all these places we ordered meals on the fort. Pithale, Bhakari and Lal Mirachicha thecha and a lot of curd with it as well. We started back our descend at around 11 o'clock and reached the base at 12.
While I was going back to home, I noticed a lot of changes in the villages and could easily see the effects of Pune on them. In one way they were losing their own identities to get assimilated in the city. However the identity was sacrificed for the growth. This was a trek I will not forget!!!
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Airport
Last month, with Shanmuganathan and Ramprakash, I went to the bookshop in HN to see some books. There I came across books by Arthur Hailey. I bought three books Airport, Hotel and Wheel. I finished the book Airport and I was really amazed by the way the author has written the book. The book is based on the events that take place in the span of six hours on a stromy, cold night on the Abraham Lincoln Airport, Illinoi. This 460 page book reveals how airport works, the people involved in the smooth operations of the airport and their tensions, professional as well as personal. The smallest details of the characters in the book make it easy for you to visualize them and after a while you actually are on the airport witnessing all the things that are happening. And eveything happens in those six hours, a runway block, a protest march by the people living nearby, terrorist attack on a plane, divorse of the airport manager, a sucide attempt by an air traffic control officer. The most facinating part in the book in my opinion was the description of the job of an air traffic control officer, the tensions that they face every day in the job. Though well paid, they are responsible for the planes that are flying in their zones. The demands of this job and the mental toll that is taken on any officer and in particular here in this case, Keith an officer who attempts to commite sucide. It is a must read in my opinion. One must go aboard the Golden Ergossy!!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
मराठी लिहिण्याची सोपी पद्धत
ॐकार जोशी यांनी तयार केलेली "गमभन" ही साईट फारच सोपी आहे वापरायला.
त्यामुळे मला मराठी लिहिता येत आहे सुलभतेने. ॐकार जोशींना धन्यवाद!! तुम्हीसुद्धा प्रयत्न करुन बघा. देवनागरी बरोबरच बंगाली, पंजाबी, कानडी, गुजरती, मल्याळम इत्यादी लिप्या उपलब्ध आहेत. आता मी मराठीमधून लिहिण्याचा आनंद मिळवणार. तुम्हीसुद्धा तुमच्या मातॄभाषेमधून लिहिण्याचा आनंद मिळवा!!!
आणि चिन्मयला विशेष धन्यवाद, त्याने मला या साईट विषयी माहिती दिली.
त्यामुळे मला मराठी लिहिता येत आहे सुलभतेने. ॐकार जोशींना धन्यवाद!! तुम्हीसुद्धा प्रयत्न करुन बघा. देवनागरी बरोबरच बंगाली, पंजाबी, कानडी, गुजरती, मल्याळम इत्यादी लिप्या उपलब्ध आहेत. आता मी मराठीमधून लिहिण्याचा आनंद मिळवणार. तुम्हीसुद्धा तुमच्या मातॄभाषेमधून लिहिण्याचा आनंद मिळवा!!!
आणि चिन्मयला विशेष धन्यवाद, त्याने मला या साईट विषयी माहिती दिली.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Forty Two...The Right Answer
After a long time... There was no activity here for long... just too long I thought. Many people (read Shanmuga) have written many (read shvana series, Munich travel) blogs in between. I could not catch up with them. I am not here to compete with these guys here anyway. All time that I was missing here, I was on a tour though. A tour of galaxy!!! Yes you guessed it right. I am talking about the book Hitchhiker's Giude to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. It is a wonderful book I read recently. If one enjoys sarcasm with the tadka of science fiction, this book is a must read. I finished reading the second book also, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. The next one in the series is 'The Life, Universe and Everything'.
This book is a story of a lone earthman who survives with some help from his friend from other planet, I will not use the word alien here, when the earth is demolished for making a galactic bypass!!! Then the two start roaming in the universe seeing wonderful things on their way, with the help of a tour book, The Guide.
I loved this book very much and I will definitely recommend this book for reading. One should have a copy of The Guide. Who knows someone is building an intergalactic bypass...
This book is a story of a lone earthman who survives with some help from his friend from other planet, I will not use the word alien here, when the earth is demolished for making a galactic bypass!!! Then the two start roaming in the universe seeing wonderful things on their way, with the help of a tour book, The Guide.
I loved this book very much and I will definitely recommend this book for reading. One should have a copy of The Guide. Who knows someone is building an intergalactic bypass...
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
From finitude to infinity
After the dinner today I went out for a walk with Priyadarshan. We went to Bhavani Juice Shop for having our favourite ganne ka ras. While coming back we took a tour on the gymkhana ground.
It was a no moon night and we could see many stars which are not visible otherwise because of moonlight. Looking at the stars it occurred to us that what we were seeing in the sky is not present. It is, or rather was, the past!!! Whatever we were seeing had already happened. At this very instant there was something else that was happening there. And we had no clue of what is happening there at this very instant. A weird thought came to mind. If I see someone waving to me from one of the stars, he had waved some time back!!! I do not know what he is doing now. Before this day, I had never thought of this relation of past and future with the speed of light. The beauty is that all those stars are a huge distance away from us. However these distances are still finite!!
We were overwhelmed by the vastness of the universe. At that instant, while looking into the sky I realised that how tiny we are!! When we are taught of counting numbers or natural numbers in the class 9 or 10, they say there are countably many infinite numbers. At that point I doubt anybody appreciates the concept of infinity. I think this was my first encounter with the infinity and I never appreciated it at that time. It is a very important and deep concept in mathematics. The transition from finiteness to infinity is not a smooth one!! More so this is not the only type of infinity that we have. This infinity is called countable infinity, one can count the numbers 1,2,3,.... for ever. Important thing is you can count!!! The other type of infinity is of uncountable in nature. You can not even count. The real numbers are uncountable!! This infinity is bigger than that of infinity of countable numbers. A small digression: Both these types of infinities are responsible for the development of a subject called as floating point arithmetic!!
Now all the fun with the infinity starts. It is an entity that has everything in it. So add anything to infinity, you are still left with infinity. Even if you added infinity to infinity! Mind you this is not true with subtraction!! Another startling fact is that number of all odd numbers is same as that of even numbers and this number is same as the number of all natural numbers!! This is what infinity is!!
Similarly another very important concept in mathematics is that of zero. This concept is even more difficult to understand than infinity I would say. Thinking there are zero mangos rather than there are no mangos is indeed difficult for the fisrt time. I think we take it granted that these two statements are equivalent. We never understand zero. There is a good samskrut shloka to explain what is zero:
Om poorna madah, poorna midaam
poornaat poornam udachyate|
Poornasya Poorna maday
Poornam eva avashishyate||
This means that you add poornam to poornam or subtract poornam from poornam, what you get is poornam. This is a perfect description for zero. In this shloka, poornam is zero and in general it is an identity element of a group, an algebraic structure in mathematics. However this shloka is often misinterpreted for the explanation of infinity!! There is a philosophical meaning to this shloka which I do not understand.
Zero and infinity played a significant role in the development of mathematics and human being in general. Indeed these concepts are more than just mathematical...
A small thought exercise for you before signing off:
1. What is infinity - infinity?
2. What is zero divided by zero?
It was a no moon night and we could see many stars which are not visible otherwise because of moonlight. Looking at the stars it occurred to us that what we were seeing in the sky is not present. It is, or rather was, the past!!! Whatever we were seeing had already happened. At this very instant there was something else that was happening there. And we had no clue of what is happening there at this very instant. A weird thought came to mind. If I see someone waving to me from one of the stars, he had waved some time back!!! I do not know what he is doing now. Before this day, I had never thought of this relation of past and future with the speed of light. The beauty is that all those stars are a huge distance away from us. However these distances are still finite!!
We were overwhelmed by the vastness of the universe. At that instant, while looking into the sky I realised that how tiny we are!! When we are taught of counting numbers or natural numbers in the class 9 or 10, they say there are countably many infinite numbers. At that point I doubt anybody appreciates the concept of infinity. I think this was my first encounter with the infinity and I never appreciated it at that time. It is a very important and deep concept in mathematics. The transition from finiteness to infinity is not a smooth one!! More so this is not the only type of infinity that we have. This infinity is called countable infinity, one can count the numbers 1,2,3,.... for ever. Important thing is you can count!!! The other type of infinity is of uncountable in nature. You can not even count. The real numbers are uncountable!! This infinity is bigger than that of infinity of countable numbers. A small digression: Both these types of infinities are responsible for the development of a subject called as floating point arithmetic!!
Now all the fun with the infinity starts. It is an entity that has everything in it. So add anything to infinity, you are still left with infinity. Even if you added infinity to infinity! Mind you this is not true with subtraction!! Another startling fact is that number of all odd numbers is same as that of even numbers and this number is same as the number of all natural numbers!! This is what infinity is!!
Similarly another very important concept in mathematics is that of zero. This concept is even more difficult to understand than infinity I would say. Thinking there are zero mangos rather than there are no mangos is indeed difficult for the fisrt time. I think we take it granted that these two statements are equivalent. We never understand zero. There is a good samskrut shloka to explain what is zero:
Om poorna madah, poorna midaam
poornaat poornam udachyate|
Poornasya Poorna maday
Poornam eva avashishyate||
This means that you add poornam to poornam or subtract poornam from poornam, what you get is poornam. This is a perfect description for zero. In this shloka, poornam is zero and in general it is an identity element of a group, an algebraic structure in mathematics. However this shloka is often misinterpreted for the explanation of infinity!! There is a philosophical meaning to this shloka which I do not understand.
Zero and infinity played a significant role in the development of mathematics and human being in general. Indeed these concepts are more than just mathematical...
A small thought exercise for you before signing off:
1. What is infinity - infinity?
2. What is zero divided by zero?
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