When are you finishing?

Nowadays everyone seems to be interested about this question

When are you finishing?

and I have decided to answer

I am not finishing......., Most likely I shall be finishing my PhD soon!

I have been encountering this question from Faculty and students alike, not to mention from my frens(from outside TIFR) and family... Another question I need to answer is

Which year are you in?

Well, this is a question for which I need to explain a bit! I even feel like answering I m now in 2006!
Now whoever asks me this question, I will forward him to this site to see for the answer which is:

I joined in 2000 but had to give my BSc exam in April 2001 that I was away for around 5 months in 2001 starting January! So I had to start my coursework again in 2001 and that still puzzles me which year(batch) I am in TIFR! I shall be happy if you tell me which year I am in so that I can give a single word(or digit) answer next time!

I hope this clears their doubts, and mine too!

Interesting Article!

I saw this article The economics of prostitution by Michael Noer in Forbes Magazine! Definitely interesting! Even though I agree with many of the comments, something which I can't agree is Men buy, women sell! However its an article worth reading!

Sense without Sensibility!

I was following the recent reports that Sachar Committee was looking at the census of muslims in Indian Armed Forces! See this article

Muslims in the Army: A dangerous census

This is really a grave and unwarranted developement! I don't know why politicians do all sorts of junk things just for vote bank politics? After India's nuclear vote against Iraq, Left and other parties are trying to cash it on to get votes for upcoming assembly elections! I know and most of us will agree that no muslim in their good senses will ever succumb to such evil designs of so called secular parties! But after all, politics is about numbers and arithmetic! Thank God(if God exists), its not Number Theory!

Understanding Woman, A Myth or A Reality?

Yesterday, I went to the last program of the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival and saw 4 short films by woman directors! Konkana Sen Sharma’s "Naam Karan", Jenny Pinto's "Rose Mahal", Indrayanee Mukherjee's "Blank verse" and Nishtha Jain's "Call It Slut". Rahul Bose(who acted in Mr and Mrs Iyer) was standing just behind me! After watching these movies, I started thinking about the topic, "How much you can understand woman?" From my experiences, what I have heard and seen and what I have read, I started compiling few things about woman!

1) Woman likes to be pampered!
2) She wants to get attention!
3) She wants guys to run after her even if she is not interested in that guy!(One gal told me exactly this)!
4) When she wants something to be done, she tries every trick to get it done!
5) She is quite emotional but can have the heart of a stone!
6) "Tears" is both a "weakness" and also "weapon" of a woman!
7) A woman can influence a man and make him work hard and successful! The other side can also happen! She can make him completely down and out!

and the list goes on! So in a way, understanding woman, looks like a myth after all! So it was not surprising to see this article in DNA Newspaper today morning!

Men seek help. Is women’s panel listening?

I would like to hear what feminists and others want to say about this?

Appearances can be deceptive?, true!

In the book "My Numbers, My Friends" by Paulo Ribenboim, he mentioned that Primes are one of the most beautiful things in nature discovered by man. Well, I believed him and thought must be true, untill I observed it to be true! I was working on some problem with prime numbers and the set of primes which I was working was quite unmanagable, chaotic and they were giving me sleepless nights(literally)! Then day before, I got enlightened and discovered(observed) that they really behaved quite differently, but they are really beaufiful, with a very nice pattern, has interesting properties which I didn't anticipate! For the first time in my life, I could understand "what is real beauty?"

This led me to believe in the phrase "Appearances can be deceptive" even though I have no example in my real life. After all, a person may be really nice and quite beautiful eternally, but may look quite differently from outside!