Stroke Sixty Something e Version

Stroke Sixty Something
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. Published by R. Sri Kumar on behalf of Class of IITM 1970 rsrikumarips@yahoo.co.in rsrikumarips@indiancst.in
Year of Publication: July 2010 1st Print 500 copies
Printed at SRI SUDHINDRA OFFSET PROCESS Malleswaram, Bangalore 560 003, India www.printsudhindra.com
Universe
IITM
1970
This book, like life, is a full circle! You can open at Any page and Read forward or Backward and still Be in the loop.
Contents
Part Zero: Cyber Hostel Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1, 2, 3 Infinity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Part I: Editors Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
Part II: Campus Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Campus Memories Tushar Dutt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 The first Branded IITian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Adult Movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Oh! what a year! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Driving Times. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 IIT Was More Than Engineering Narasimhan P. Kannan . . . . 23 Jazz in Ganga Hostel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 A lesson For Life from Elliots Beach, Adyar . . . . . . . . . 25 The Nerds from Delhi Madrasi School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 I wish I Had Learned These at IITM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Irreverent Recollections CK Sharma. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 The gift of the Cooum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Fresh Lime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Ramakrishna Lunch Home after-effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 The Black Beauty: P 2050 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Koncham Koncham Tamil Teriyum Anjani Agarwal. . . . . . 37 Military Indiscipline and German Expression Venkatesh Mannar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Simple Beginnings S. Ramakrishnan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Part III: Afterlife
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
A Navy Officer Recollects Tushar Dutt Commander (IN Retd), 91 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Convoy Commander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 To Russia and Back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Back to the Future. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 A Chance Meeting That Shaped My Career V. Chandrasekaran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Fysical Fitness in an Indian Gym M. Sreenivasan. . . . . . . . 63 My Gulf War Ordeal Narinder Kapoor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Letter from Canada Venkatesh Mannar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 A Medical Odyssey Chiku Machayya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 The Importance of Being a Mentor N. Raghavan . . . . . . . . 79 Notes from a Small Island Ram Nair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 99% Fat-free Asian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Aati kya Khandala? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Political corruption, New Zealand style . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Camping in New York 3 months after 9/11 . . . . . . . . . 87 In Praise of Idlis P. Ramnath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Of the Joy of Learning a Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Rediscovery of India Narasimhan P. Kannan . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Reflections from Virginia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Springtime in Virginia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Why Engineers and Scientists Are More Spiritual Than Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Dymanic Optimists and Thermodynamic Pessimists . . . . 121
Never Go Back to IITM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 The Humble Algorithm as a Valuable Financial Asset . . . 124 Trapped in Tehran M.G. Machayya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Part IV: Social Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Project-Alamathi of ENVIKAL N.T. Nathan . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Observations After a Visit Narasimhan P. Kannan . . . . . . 145 ENVIKAL Pedal Power Ben Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Part V: Honours and Awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Distinguished Alumnus Award - Citations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 1996 - T.T. Jagannathan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 1997 - Dr. Jalaiah Unnam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 2000 - M.S Srinivasan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 2002 - Dr. Meera Chandrasekhar (nee Chandrapal):. . . . 158 2005 - Dr. A. Parasuraman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 2009 - D. Chandrasekhar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 2010 - R. Sri Kumar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Award Acceptance speeches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 D. Chandrasekhar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 R. Sri Kumar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 Part VI: Reunions Planned and Unplanned . . . . . . . . . 171 Chicken Ala Fairfax Tushar Dutt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Coincidentally Yours K.R. Marballi. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Goa Reunion 2008 --- D. Jawahar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Goa Curry Tushar Dutt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Indian ReunionsSome of Them --- P. Ramnath . . . . . . . . 187 Goa 2008 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Chennai 2008. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 Hyderabad 2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Las Vegas Reunion 2001 Narasimhan P. Kannan . . . . . . . . 193 Murali in Arizona Ben Thomas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 North American Reunions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Oregon RUa non-IITians view Roopa Vasudevan . . . . . . 203 Part VII: Lest We Forget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 Obituary Our Dear Departed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Part VIII: Index of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Part Zero Cyber Hostel Story
1, 2, 3 Infinity
One, two, threeinfinity was a favorite read in IIT hostels. For a long time I thought that Isaac Asimov had written the book. But thanks to the Internet and its powerful search engines, I know that it was George Gamow who wrote the great book. To reach Gamows book, go to h t t p : / / w w w. a r c h i v e . o r g / s t r e a m / onetwothreeinfin000923mbp#page/n5/ mode/2up Eminently readable, it talks of myriad topics from atoms to nebulae, from 1, 2, 3 to infinity. Difficult concepts are told in a language that can be understood even by lay persons. The book talks of interesting facts and theories on science, but also tells you what makes an engineer. Engineers do many crazy things. Yes, they also write books! This book is not by one author; not written from one place, nor on one topic. It is a journey in time, space and other dimensions - a journey to relive five years of hostel lives and bonhomie, and to reflect seriously on cabbages and kings. Two hundred and fifty four Idiots from various corners of the globe had collected together in the space between the Ganga
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Stroke Sixty Something and Jamuna hostels of IIT Madras in early July 1965. They passed out of the portals of IITM in 1970 and went myriad ways to many parts of the world. They did what their hearts told them to - from switching over to medicine from technology, to building tunnels and bridges to rockets and missiles, to teaching, to preaching, to policing, to managing. Some of them became bankers, others bureaucrats. Some joined their family business to show their skills in entrepreneurship. Some became industrialists, some dreamers, or defense personnel - in India or in a distant foreign country. One became a yoga exponent and one even a singer. They tried to excel in what they chose. Like most other collegians, this Class of 1970 has had several re-unions during the last decade. Last year, at the reunion in Hyderabad called HydRU2009, the classmates held a roll call from no 1.001/65 to 1.254/65 to stroke sixty something. The previous year, they celebrated a collective sixty year birthday bash called Sashtiapthapoorthy at Chennai, with traditional homam. The family members who have been taking part in these reunions in increasing numbers sometimes wonder what makes this batch tick and tock like the grandfathers clock. Simply this it has a strong web presence in which the cyber hostel is a re-incarnation of those five years spent in Ganga, Jamuna and other hostels of the IIT campus in the sixties! They had bonded so well that they leveraged the advent of the Internet in the nineties to create a cyber hostel. They stayed together in the cyber hostel for the next ten years and continue to do so even now. This cyber hostel banter is a redefinition of such inane things as shoes, ships and sealing wax. It brings together the past, present and future. Ever since the advent of the Internet, connectivity and convergence, the world has indeed shrunk. Here is a unique presentation of the compound, mixture and the elements that make up classmates of yore. Humanities, science, and humour, all find a place here. Juxtaposed with reality of life and death; the home truth about the old boys network of a fifty year old institution is presented as it happened over four decades in their own words. I must share with you here the e-mail that triggered my thoughts towards 1, 2, 3 infinity:
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Message no. 55885 Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:51:16 +0000 From: docvxr@...
Re: Marbles and urns Consider an urn with 90 white marbles and 10 black marbles. Now draw one out randomly. What is the likelihood that it is ....? Marbles and urns figure prominently in introduction to probability. I used to play marbles in the midday sun. I used to be out all day long. Mother used to fret over my succumbing to a sunstroke one day. The neighborhood kids used to beat me at the marbles games. Or, theyd beat me physically and steal my marbles. Par for the course for an average boyhood. What is the loss of a few marbles? Have you lost your marbles? When someone asks you that they are questioning your judgment, your gumption. They are inquiring into the workings of your brains. Never had too many of those kinds of marbles to worry about losing those. Marbles and urn meet in boy brains. Adults look around, waiting for them to spit out the answers. What is the likelihood that it is the answer they want to hear? Black! Black is the answer. Something tells me Black is the answer. Black is the blasted underdog, the minority, the disenfranchised, the outlier, the neglected, ... in that big blasted urn. They are the ones who get picked out for ill treatment and harassment. They are the ones who get picked on. Blacks, immigrants, people who are poor, people on welfare ... Wont black be the marble that will get pulled out of that big urn for random acts of injustice? Urns. Poets have waxed eloquent on Grecian Urns and such. I relate to poets. Lonely underachievers all, who slink off by themselves to write ode to this and ode to that.
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Stroke Sixty Something The pretentious ones harangue about meter and rhyme. The creative ones keep messing with ballads, sonnets, clerihews, limericks, and what else have you. Urns - dismal things. If cremation is the norm in your culture or religion, it is pretty much a certainty that an urn is where you ultimately end up. If someone reaches in and clutches a handful of my ashes, what is the likelihood that they will be lamenting a life well lived? Marbles and urns - the stuff with which the brilliance of Blaise Pascal and the Reverend Thomas Bayes are handed out to generations. The Reverend Bayes! What a priest! And these days the reverends are busy molesting children. Modern times have given us reverends who are or were political animals - like the Reverend Robertson, the Reverend Falwell, the Reverend Farrakhan, and the Reverend Jackson. Sowers of discord, dividers all. The only likelihood they ever ponder? What is the likelihood a Republican leads the country - or, a democrat? What is the likelihood that I will be remembered a week from the day I fill an urn? What is the likelihood someone will read this all the way through? Vasu Now in July 2010, the time has come for the Ruby-RU of the Class of 70. As they get dumber and dumberer, the two hundred and fifty four are competing to out-do the three, though some are continuing this effort in their heavenly abode. But why print this book in hard copy? Why not an e-book?? Simply because, in this era of the Internet, one written book in hand is worth two, three or Infinity in the cyber bush!! Bangalore, India July 2010
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R.SRI KUMAR
Part I
Editors Foreword
Friendship, like anything valuable, has to be nurtured carefully and maintained in good condition; otherwise it atrophies and dies. We left IIT Madras 40 years ago, after having spent between 3 and 5 years together, and went our different ways. Inevitably, the bonds that we had formed on campus weakened. Then ten years ago a development occurred which transformed the fading fabric of our friendship. This was the establishment, in the year 2000, of a Yahoo Group website for our class of 70. With over 150 members and hundreds of messages posted every month, the lively social networking site has revived and reinvigorated old ties, and created new ones. It has also given us the opportunity to let our hair down, regress to our student days and reproduce the camaraderie, exuberance and hope of those hostel years. For these reasons we affectionately refer to the website as our cyberhostel. The cyberhostel has been much more than a wellspring of nostalgic reminiscence and reunions. It has encouraged debate, argument, discussion, sharing of information, humour, and verse. It has also been a forum for the planning and
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Stroke Sixty Something implementation of several social service initiatives. These have resulted in the despatch of aid to a range of deserving causes from terminally ill cancer patients in Chennai to the homeless of earthquake-ravaged Haiti. It also led to the creation of the intriguingly named ENVIKAL the flagship community-welfare project of this class. The cyberhostel is the progenitor of this book, Stroke Sixty Something. This year marks the 40th anniversary of our graduation as engineers from IIT, and the book is being released in Chennai as part of our Ruby Reunion celebrations. Stroke Sixty Something is a collection of articles that include reminiscences of campus life; vignettes of later life experiences; lessons learnt along the way; and musings on various subjects. It doesnt have to be read sequentially; each piece is interesting in its own right. The book is loosely divided into sections, with self-explanatory headings such as Campus Times, Afterlife and Reunions. A set of three articles focuses on ENVIKAL. Another set looks at the winners of the Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT. It is pertinent to mention here that our Class of 70 holds the record for the highest number of DAA honoureesseven. We are proud of the winners, while being mindful of the fact that there are many others among us who have distinguished themselves in numerous ways, without earning this particular recognition from our Alma Mater. The title of the book requires a word of explanation. On entering IIT, each one of us was branded with a roll number. Those in the 5 year course had numbers like 1.001/65 where 65 was the year of entry, 001 was the individuals number, and 1 for some un-engineer like reason denoted the 5 year course. Those in the 3 year course had numbers in the more logical style 3.001/67. So we have all been Stroke Sixty Something, since the mid-60s. Now, more than forty years later, we are also chronologically in our sixties, a further reason for the title. As for the stroke there is a morbid interpretation in addition to the obvious one, but well leave it unelaborated. The passage of years has taken its toll and we have lost 14 of our classmates. The first of these was drowned at Elliots Beach in 1969 while we were still students at the Institute,
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Stroke Sixty Something and his tragic death had a marked effect on the rest of us. The latest death happened in May this year. At the news of every new loss, friends have posted memories and tributes on the website. Eerily but inexorably, some of those who posted these messages of condolence have themselves been claimed by death since then. We remember the departed in the section titled Lest We Forget. A book project like this one is necessarily a collaborative effort. Articles for publication were sent in by classmates based in India, the US, Canada and other countries. They are listed in the Index of Contributors. Navy officer Tushar Dutt has been the prime mover and Chief Whip. Police officer R. Sri Kumar (Topcop) has taken responsibility for its printing and publication. Many others such as K. Kalyanaraman, Daljit (Dave) Singh, N.T. Nathan and D. Jawahar have been involved in fund-raising, publicity and other crucial background work. I would like to record my thanks to everyone who played a part in making this book possible. Stroke Sixty Something is intended to be enjoyed by the general reader; not only those who have a connection with or interest in IIT. If you dont understand some of the in references or jokes, dont worry; I didnt understand some of them myself. Wellington, New Zealand July 2010 Ram Nair
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Part II Campus Times
Campus Memories
Tushar Dutt
The first Branded IITian

IIT Brand is much valued and hyped today. IITs have mushroomed all over the country and now there are plans of setting up IITs overseas too. There is no doubt that IIT graduates have done extremely well in India and overseas, thanks to their rigorous education and their own acumen. But in my opinion, the development of the IIT brand is largely due to those alumni who went to the US. Virtually all of them have been successful, and some have reached dizzying heights. In 2003, a CBS 60 Minutes programme in the US compared IIT to MIT, Princeton and Harvard put togetherMPH or the speed boost as I call it. It spoke of IIT as being the most important university that youve never heard of. Later the same year in Cupertino, California, Bill Gates, inaugurated the 50th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the Indian Institute of Technology. Describing IIT as a world class institute, incredible
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Stroke Sixty Something institution, and a unique institution, Gates said that the impact of IIT has been worldwide. Branding has a more personal meaning for me. Our second year began in mid-1966 with a bang-- Smithy workshop in the heat of July. I was warmly welcomed in the shop by my colleague, Yash, who with great enthusiasm stepped on the bellows sending the coal embers flying sky high. It was Deepavali time! One of the embers made a perfect landing inside my overalls, slid down my chest, and headed straight to the nether regions. There was pandemonium in the shop. Then damage controla couple of buckets of water meant for fire fighting, were emptied over me to douse my private fire. Luckily I got away intact. But I hereby stake my claim to being the first Branded IITian.
Adult Movie
My first adult movie back in 1966, our second year, almost never happened. Hitting the city over the weekend after the onslaught of weekly periodical tests, was the order of the day. A movie, followed by dinner at Woodlands, Buharis or Runs restaurants depending on the state of our pockets, was routine. At the end of the term around November, we homed in on Minerva, where Nevada Smith was being screened. It was based on a novel by Harold Robbins, the popular author famous for The Carpetbaggers, (referred to locally as Carpetbuggers),. Tickets were acquired after much struggle and strife. The conscientious gatekeeper, singled me out at the last moment Saar this adult movie, you cannot enter! I am adult, we all in same class, all adults!, was my plea. He wouldnt budge, Please see manager saar. We were in a fix, at least I was--getting thrown out from my first adult movie and nowhere to go! Saar, we are all in second year IIT, all same age, he only looks younger but most mature, one of the guys chipped in. The manager asked me my true age. Eighteen almost, tending to was my response, fresh from the Math periodical.
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Stroke Sixty Something I had failed to lie. Sorry cant allow you in, police will give trouble!. Saar well cover his eyes during adult scenes, came the next desperate help line. The manager was flummoxed; however looking at our plight, grunted Promise?! All of us echoed Yes saar in unison, thanking him in one breath. Whew, I had made it! We watched the movie eyes wide open. At the exit we approached the gatekeeper, What adult movie, this?! He was also nonplussed What to do, censor board pa. We also bored pa, and off we headed to the new Chinese joint at Luz --no Confucius, with clear soup pa. Adult movie turned out to be a damp squib. Returning to the institute, we were duly compensated at the open air theater showing the hit comedy --The Great Race.
Oh! what a year!

Like the middle finger, the third year, circa 67 stands out prominently midway in the five year B.Tech course, with periodical tests, terminal and final examinations. Subjects from virtually all branches of engineering, besides ones own, were included. It was considered the ultimate in the making of the well rounded IITian. The semester system reprieve would start only the next year. At the start of the term we were not really aware what we were in for, after the relatively easy first two years. We were also not too senior at this stage as to not indulge in welcoming the freshers into the institute. Things went smoothly over the first few weeks as we got into the third year groove occasionally interacting with the freshers, all in good humour. They seemed a generally spirited lot. Then came the bombshell one evening a summons to the Directors office for ragging!
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Stroke Sixty Something We were quite dazed as we never got any of the freshers upset, anytime. On reaching the office, we found a number of our mates in attendance along with a few wardens. The Director, Dr Sengupto, a taciturn Bengali gentleman began by saying that he was disappointed with the disgusting behavior meted out to our junior brethren. We had disgraced the land of stalwarts like Ram Mohun Roy, Tagore et al. We were flummoxed at this accusation. One of the wardens then seriously queried Did you ask any of the freshers to find out the length of his Kak in light years?! This automatically drew a grin from most of us. Apparently, the boy unable to find the answer had asked his dad, who in turn dialed the Director to enquire whether such questions were within the scope of the syllabus! The boys dad happened to be a big shot in the ministry .That was it, no explanations, the grinning lot were excused the first set of periodical tests and issued with love letters, copies of which were mailed home. Missing a set of periodical tests was a big deal as we were left no option but to clear the remaining tests, without fail. Mercifully the pace was so hectic we had no time to lament the matter. Besides weekend outings to the city and movies at the open air theater (OAT), the other stress buster was watching Tamil movies sitting on the ground at Velacheri village on the outskirts of the campus. Movies at the OAT could only begin with a starter clip from the Tamil movie Naam Moovar showing three jokers dancing away crazily. Such was the demand of the clip. Velacheri theater became a regular feature in due course, even for nonTamilians. Quite often we took the liberty of a movie night prior to the easier periodical tests, like History which happened to be the only humanities subject ensconced within the hard core technical myriad. History was indeed a relaxant besides providing a vent to our writing talents. The movie would be followed by one or two keen readers giving us a crash course for the next mornings periodical, whilst the rest tried hard to keep awake. On one occasion, it was decided that between Aristotle and Plato, the former would be asked about in the exam. So we ignored Plato entirely. However as luck would have it, the next day the exam was all about Plato. Desperately disregarding the question we wrote Aristotle full throttle. Our history teacher, somewhat bemused announced in the following class I find that
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Stroke Sixty Something quite a few of you have written about Aristotle even without being asked. The questions seem to have been misread. I have decided to be considerate and give all of them a B! To us it was a B for bravery. The same year with Beatle mania, Rolling Stones and numerous beat groups raging, we decide to form our ownMasterbeats, hastily changed to Masterbeaters on the advice of our warden. As it happened the latter title made a bigger draw. The band was a hit using an improvised base guitar made from a tea chest initially, before we got a regular one. Despite the many activities, some of us decided to hit the stage toomore the merrier. On one occasion, during a play being staged at the OAT, I clean forgot my dialogue and asked my partner on stage, Murali, for help. His immediate response was How can I remember yours when I have forgotten mine?! For a while things seemed okay to the audience, who took it as part of the dialogue, but not for long. Luckily we managed to get away without tomatoes or eggs, thanks to the adept Master of Ceremonies. Looking back, I wonder how we weathered the third year. The various activities, the Tamil movies, all seemed to have helped. Oh! what a Year! Cheers Velacheri!!
Driving Times
Driving was an entirely different ball game in my teen years, in the 60s. There were hardly any training or coaching schools, if at all they were limited to the big cities. One learnt driving mostly by sitting alongside the driver and observing. It was more of an adventure thereafter. Now there is a plethora of such schools from A to Zee, for dancing, baking, cooking, singing, tailoring, finishing, name it. I remember promptly applying for a license on reaching my eighteenth year. It was vacation time. I had been riding a scooter
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Stroke Sixty Something or a motorbike whenever I got the chance and at times, my dads car unofficially. Going through my application, the seasoned duty officer at the transport office asked me as to how I came to the office. By car, sir, I replied. He glared without license?! Thats what I have come here for sir, was my response. He asked me to wait a couple of hours. I assumed there was going to be a driving test, but there was none. I was handed over the license, both for two wheeler and light motor vehicle (car) within a few hours .I promptly celebrated my achievement that evening over a glass of beer. The transport officer seemed to have cleared my license possibly based on my driving skills negotiating the city traffic and making it to his office, without a hitch. I had got used to two-wheelers, having driven a variety of them in the college campus. Driving a four-wheeler was a different ball game, especially in the learning stages, with backseat drivers all over and around you. During one of those early times while on vacation, one of my dads colleagues invited us over for cocktails one evening .I was asked to take the wheel and we headed towards his residence close by. It was one of those cantonment bungalows and the entrance gate was ajar. I slowed down, but come the moment, my foot pressed the clutch instead of the brake .The ABC (Accelerator Brake Clutch) of driving had gone for a six! We gate crashed with a bang into an invited venue. Luckily there was hardly any damage to the car or to the gate, but my driving days in this car, had surely come to an unceremonious end. Our host, a jolly Sardar Colonel came to the rescue Yeh sab ho jatha hai bete, koi baath nahin (these things happen son, no problem), handing me a glass of beer. Over the years prior getting my own car, I drove all kinds of vehicles, jeeps, trucks, forklifts, whatever, to keep up my hand in. Driving was indeed a pleasure as opposed to now. I recall an incident mid 70s in Bombay, which I cannot forget in a hurry. I was visiting my friend Mukul at Santa Cruz. We decided to go over to Bandra, about three km away in his car for a drink. It was an Ambassador with manual gearI still remember the number,
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Stroke Sixty Something MRD 6589. Going home, we reversed out from the parking lot and then tried to move forward. We just couldnt, as the gear had jammed in reverse! Rather than look for a mechanic at that time of the day, we decided to go all the way back in reverse. Our backward journey was cautious, and we took turns at the wheel. Pedestrians, onlookers and cops gave us puzzled looks, possibly thinking that we were backing only a short way. 3 km is a long way when you are going in reverse. The steady stream of oncoming traffic from behind blessed us all along. After an hour or so the entry gate to the colony was sightedhurray, we had made our come back! I felt I had finally passed the driving test which I was never asked to take.
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IIT Was More Than Engineering

Narasimhan P. Kannan
Jazz in Ganga Hostel

The first time I heard Jazz was in Pooki Jayagopals room, in 1965, as I tried to comfort him during one of his Asthma attacks. He used to have his radio tuned to Voice of America and they had a late night Jazz hour. Soon after that I heard Ebenezer Sargunars Beat-X play Dave Brubecks Take Five. Occasionally Ebby would show off his new reel-to-reel tape recorder by playing aloud Stan Getzs version of Take Five and Paul Desmonds Rondo A La Turka, a variation of Mozarts Rondo A La Turca, a famous movement from a piano sonata. I was hooked. On most nights I strained my ears trying to catch VOA on my crude home made transistor radio. Ebby was in my wing in the third year. He and my immediate neighbor Ranjan Kelly (a year senior to us in Civil) taught me to play the guitar, while another neighbor, Lobo taught me how to smoke cigarettes. I was so hooked on both that I almost flunked my second year.
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Stroke Sixty Something Then in our third year I think we had an in-campus Jazz concert performed behind HSB by a visiting band from Indiana University. It was amazing. When I first landed in Chicago in late 1970 I could not wait to go to Jazz clubs of which there were many in North Sheridan Avenue, right next to the L (Elevated Train). I went to a club where I even met George Chakaris, who acted in the West Side Story as Bernardo and who had fallen on hard times. He used to dance at this club for some of the racy numbers and solicit donations. Since those early days I have come to appreciate Jazz immensely. There is much in common between a Kutcheri (Indian Classical Chamber Music) and a Jazz combo. It is extemporaneous and inventive music exploring the far reaches of dormant scales. No rules, just open ended creativity using a lot of seventh chords. I must confess I have had nothing but thirty years of great fun listening to Jazz and going to concerts by Duke Ellignton, Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Jay McShann, Miles Davis, Charlie Byrd, and all the lesser known artists from New Orleans French Quarter and the Bourbon Street. Now I listen to Wynton Marsaliss phenomenal trumpet and his new compositions at the Juilliard School in New York; and not to mention young new talents that visit Washington DC every week at the Blues Alley, a night club that offers live Jazz and Cajun Creole food. I have IIT Madras to thank for creating a multicultural environment, though unintentionally, through a merit-based system of admission. It allowed me to meet people of different backgrounds like Jayagopal from Penang and Ebby from an entirely different world inside of Madras. Voice of America spread Jazz far and wide as a sugar coating to their anti-soviet propaganda in the 1960s and I have to thank them as well. So it was not just engineering we were studying, but a lot more that has enriched us all.
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A lesson For Life from Elliots Beach, Adyar

I remember vividly how a stranger body-surfing next to me taught me how to negotiate the big waves that come at you. It was at Elliots beach on a warm February day in 1967 and his lesson was simple--do not fight the wave, just duck and dive under it. It took me a while to master the technique, but then I found it easy to tackle even the really big waves. I no longer got creamed and rolled out and beaten up by the waves. Recently a friend was bemoaning the depressed Silicon Valley economy and wondering when it might revive. He listed the problems: Companies are going bankrupt, the technology sector is going south, the financial markets are bearish and the market for exports of professional service from India has become cutthroat. My own response has been to use the simple lesson that a stranger taught me decades ago. I have decided that the best way to deal with the recession is to duck and go under the waves. There is nothing to be gained by fighting it. Just forget about it and settle for the simple fun of everyday life. Just as you cant do anything about the weather, there is nothing you can do about the economy. Just as surely as it sank, it will come back up. It always does. No one really knows when. At our age we are likely to see one more major boom followed by a global recession before we call it quits and retire. So I see no point in worrying too much about it. Just have fun with family, friends, food, and the wonders of life. Let us get our batteries charged up for the next boom.
The Nerds from Delhi Madrasi School

We all know that some Universities are simply world class centers of excellence - Cambridge, Harvard, Stanford, Sorbonne, Heidelberg, and Tokyo to name a few. The IITs certainly have earned their place among this elite group. Just getting in and graduating from these institutions confers lifelong advantages
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Stroke Sixty Something on students. They are automatically assumed to be bright, hard working, and successful, which is mostly proven to be true. Unfortunately you do not hear much about world class high schools. In the US one of leaders is the Bronx High School of Science which produced three Nobel Laureates - Steven Weinberg, Sheldon Glashow, and Leon Lederman. All of them for their pioneering work in strong nuclear forces and quarks. Countless other luminaries attended Bronx High over the years and have gone on to success in arts and sciences. Bronx High is a humble public school with great teachers and dedicated parents who work hard to educate their children. I looked at our own batch and checked around and have concluded that there is a preponderance of high achieving students who came out of the Delhi Madrasi School (I dont remember the exact name of the school). I suspect more students at IIT came out of the Delhi School in India than any other high school. They are for the most part well educated with wide interests in music and arts and were also good at math and cricket to boot. Of course we have guys like Vasu, Keshu, Rajendran and others who must constitute the 25 to 30 students out of 250 in our batch. That is higher than 10 percent of our class, a very disproportionate representation from a single high school. I am sure there were a few large groups from Lovedale, Ramakrishna Mission and other schools but none can match the sheer number from Delhi Madrasi School. I can only guess at the reasons for this but I am sure it is the same as in the case of Bronx High. Motivated kids from great families where parents took a lot of interest in their kids education. I think in addition to celebrating the IITs we should celebrate the Delhi School for its contribution. Their products enriched IITs by unleashing a whole host of very cosmopolitan, multilingual, erudite, and worldly Indians. Just like flowing tributary bringing fertile silt they brought great deal of class to IITs.
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Stroke Sixty Something Now if only they would deign to explain what was so unique in their education.
I wish I Had Learned These at IITM

One of the benefits of a thirtieth reunion is that you get together with your classmates with a combination of experience and hindsight which enables you to develop some well considered opinions about our early education at IIT. Here is what I believe I might have usefully learned at IIT. Many of these suggestions may be superfluous as IIT has possibly implemented a more modern curriculum. In any case, let me march on with my gratuitous advice. 1) I wish I had learned about the history of engineering and of star engineers from the first tool making Neanderthal to the modern humans. It took me much independent reading after IIT to realize that before modern engineering became a profession people lived in fear, ignorance, darkness, and led quite brutish and xenophobic lives. Simply put, engineers, through systematic application of theoretical sciences to meet practical needs, liberated humans from drudgery of ignorance and hard labor. They created incredible ability to become mobile and communicate across large distances; harnessed the energy locked up in natural elements to support growth of cities and enhance the quality of life. In short, my first class at IIT was on Limits and Continuity in Calculus, with no perspective on the professional life I was about to embark on. There should have been a course on the Historic Importance of Engineers as liberators of human beings. I would have been truly charged up by such a mission to study just about anything. My youthful idealism would have found a voice through this most sacred of all professions. It would have been inspiring to have known about of some of the greatest engineers who ever lived and about the surviving masterpieces of antiquity.
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Stroke Sixty Something For example, I had no idea at IIT that Hindu epics talked mostly about chariots and not much about ships for ocean voyage. Is it possible this was because our central Asian ancestors did travel only by land and had not figured out how to design a ship? How did they build some of the exquisite structures in India, the Roman highways and aqueducts, the Pyramids, the first telescope, and on and on? If taught properly it would have set fire to a young and curious mind ready to tackle the world. An ideal text book for this course today would be The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, by Samuel Florman. 2) I wish I had learned about ethics and morality in the practice of engineering early on. As a first year student you are about to acquire knowledge that endows you with power to either benefit or destroy mankind. It is interesting to note that two of the terrorists responsible for the destruction of World Trade Center in New York were engineers and Osama Bin Ladin himself had studied engineering. It is high time engineers take an oath similar to the Hippocratic Oath of medical professionals. Something like, Above all, do not cause harm or its equivalent. In my five years at IIT I was implicitly told that engineers take a morally neutral position in the matters of inventions and innovations. I should have learned that Engineers are to be responsible members of a civil society and must at all times put their professional integrity and ethics above pecuniary motives. Every student should be aware of the numerous and well documented examples from history of notorious and evil engineers. Professional oaths offer no guarantee against evil but it provides an explicit standard for an engineer with a good conscience to not participate in projects of mass destruction. Ethical issues confronting engineers would have been a good and useful course. Every engineer must know and intimately understand the first principle of Ecology, that is, You cant do just one thing. Whether one builds a nuclear power plant or a highway, he or she is responsible for understanding the extraneous consequences and risks. Technology is not always benevolent and we are finding out much about ecological
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3)
Stroke Sixty Something impacts of hydroelectric dams or nuclear wastes or the greenhouse effects. Every student should be taught to think holistically about every project they are about to embark on professionally. The first year engineer needs to understand the importance of Global Ecosystems for human survival and be acutely aware of our impact on it. In design, scale and appropriateness becomes paramount. IIT engineers should be able to apply their knowledge to solve problems right in their own backyards, such as a design of Rain Water Collection Systems for IIT. The possibilities for projects in local communities are endless. 4) I also wished that I had learned about the controversies relating to simple laws of mechanics by Newton or the limits of Euclidean geometry in representing physical laws. I learned later, to my horror, that Newtons laws though quite handy, only approximately represent the reality of even the planetary motions. In effect, every student should early on know what are the limits and puzzles of laws that engineers use in their profession. A good course on what we know about physical laws and the known controversies would have been useful. Finally, I believe that in this age of rapid technological change an average engineer could easily become obsolete within five to six years without continuing education. It is then important that every IIT graduate should anticipate the pace of change and acquire skills of self-study and lifelong learning that will come in handy in their future. One of the facts of professional life is that after a few years every engineer becomes a manager of projects or even of companies. One-third of all CEOs of Fortune-500 companies in the US is made up engineering graduates. Thus it is imperative that engineers learn within the five year span of education the fundamentals of entrepreneurship, project management, finance, economics, and the basics of creating and managing teams. It is really onerous and expensive for an IIT graduate to go on to get a Management Degree by going to Graduate School for an additional two years. Much of what one learns in management and finance courses should be relatively easy for any IIT student.
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5)
Stroke Sixty Something These make up my wish list. If these are being taught today I enthusiastically endorse the curriculum and if they are not then I remain disappointed.
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Irreverent Recollections
CK Sharma
The gift of the Cooum

Nearly all of us from outside Madras included our undies in the weekly wash given to the friendly hostel dhobi. These got washed in the hospitable waters of the Cooum or the Buckingham Canal (hats off to the person who named it thus!) and came back with the gift of Dhobis itch. The itch was frightful it was impossible to avoid scratching or rubbing the groin and it was awful that the initial feeling of relief was so short-lived. How could this dreadful problem be contained? Remedies abounded. Ordinary soap did not work, try Sandal Soap, it has magical healing properties! Or if this fails, try Nixoderm. This came in harmless looking flat green tins. The white goo therein was applied lightly and after a few minutes it commenced to sting and then to burn. If this didnt work, try Dettol it stung and burnt even more. And if none of this worked, go to the Doc. If youre lucky, he wont push and probe, wont get into too detailed an examination and will prescribe
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Stroke Sixty Something Grisovin FP take these pills for a month and then youre cured. Learn your lesson wash your undies yourself!
Fresh Lime
Instead of tea or coffee, lime juice was dished out on some days. It tasted good and was refreshing in the hot Madras evenings. There were plenty of big patrams in which the drink was made; and ice was brought in to cool things down. But it was always a puzzle how the immense quantity of sugar required to make fresh lime for 192 hostel inmates (plus the staff) was dissolved in the water. Gus (trust him) had the solution: See that little mess boy? On lime juice days hes given a bath under supervision, after lunch. Then that fat cook ladles the sugar into the big container, pours the water in and invites the boy to jump in and splash around till all the sugar is dissolved. Then comes the juice of the lemons and the ice and, hey presto, our evening drink is ready. The cook admonishes the boy not to pee while hes jumping around but, guys, theres no guarantee!
Ramakrishna Lunch Home after-effects

Pat, Cannon and I went to this place in Parrys, one Sunday evening, and gorged ourselves on a meal which cost less than a rupee and which, though not really different from the mess food, seemed to taste better. Replete, we staggered out and made our way to the bus stand to get back when Pat confessed that he needed help by way of a loo, and quickly! Its not easy to find a loo in Parrys and after some frantic scanning of the scene it became clear that other measures were needed. Cannon took charge; there was a family he knew well in nearby Georgetown. We could go there by cab and relief for Pat could be arranged in ten minutes, or thereabouts. The taxi was the usual Madras cab falling apart at the seams and needing petrol. When we pulled into the petrol bunk, Pat was in dire straits and he screamed at all who would listen to
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Stroke Sixty Something hurry up. The driver was elderly (probably younger than we are now!) and deliberate in his movements, but he also figured there was an emergency on hand and took off at high speed. We reached Georgetown and the house quickly, rang the bell and waited for the door to open. Cannons friends were surprised because no sooner had we entered and been introduced, than Pat charged into the toilet. Cannon and I made small talk with the host till Pat emerged with a beatific smile on his face; and then we stood up to leave. On the way back Cannon expounded this theory which has always made sense to me. The need to go to the loo builds up exponentially and reaches its peak a few seconds before one is actually ready to let fly. So if the time needed has been accurately estimated, then matters are under control, but if there are hitches and delays the shit can hit the fan!
The Black Beauty: P 2050

That was the license number on the Skoda, indicating clearly a Pondicherry registration. One day an alert cop spotted this, flagged us down and told us that we needed to get a Madras registration. Thats when all the problems started. A license cant be given unless the vehicle concerned looks respectable and is roadworthy the doors and windows should work, acceleration should be reasonable, brakes should be good and so on. For these conditions to be met the car needed a complete makeover a paint job, piston rings changed, the window-holders re-strung--the list was endless and the money needed was way beyond our limited means. Fortunately, a friend offered help the Coca Cola factory in Guindy had resources which could be used and his driver could help coordinate matters for us. Reassured, we met the mechanic who would do the work and trooped off with him to buy the piston rings and related supplies. A date was set and one fateful evening, in front of Godavari, the cars engine was opened up and the piston rings removed. This was exciting stuff and there was an appreciative audience listening to the commentary Gus and Batty had going this is the piston, careful with the
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Stroke Sixty Something gasket, dont slip on the engine oil, wheres the damn tray in which this stuff is to go Just as matters were going swimmingly, the awful truth emerged. The rings we had bought were thicker than the ones that were fitted onto the pistons. There was no way of forcing them into the grooves, the market was closed, the engine was lying open, the mechanic was getting restless and panic levels were on the rise. Recriminations were about to start when Batty came out with the solution. No problem, chaps well grind the rings down and reduce their thickness to required levels. Were only talking of a millimeter or so, should be a breeze. Heartened by this, we sat down to grind the rings down. Where? Oh, on the cemented area in front of the Godavari entrance. A ring was gripped between the fingers, held flat on the cemented surface and rubbed to and fro to thin it down. The ring grew hot and had to be periodically cooled, fingernails got chipped, but we launched into this exercise with enthusiasm after all, how long could it take? Each piston had three rings (I think), four pistons meant twelve rings had to be ground down. After half an hours effort, we straightened up to examine our progress with three rings. Piston rings are made of hard stuff. We had barely been able to make a dent in the surface polish and there was no perceptible reduction in thickness at all. This was a big jolt but there was no option. For the next seven hours we ground away industriously (Toner and Appu from the Fitting Shop would have been most approving!) cheeered on by a group which diminished to a few die-hards as the day drifted into night, and the night wore on. Around 5 am the rings were ready. Then began the process of fitting them onto the pistons and putting the whole jigsaw puzzle back under the hood. At 8 in the morning, fourteen hours after we started, a tired cheer was raised as the engine was cranked, caught hold and started to run. We ran it for the next couple of hours with the radiator water being flushed continuously to contain the heat generated. Surely, no other car in the world has had its rings changed in this unorthodox fashion?!
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Stroke Sixty Something The car went to the Coca-Cola factory the next day and got painted by hand, with a brush (because spraying was too expensive). In his enthusiasm the painter coated a couple of the windows as well. Three days later, the new, improved P2050 was due for its name change. We were fortunate to get a cooperative Brake Inspector who gratefully accepted a complimentary crate of Coke from our friends driver and who turned a blind eye to all that went wrong during the inspection the window glasses refused to stay up, the carburetor flooded and the car had to be push-started twice. I dont remember the new license number but the process we needed to go through to get it is indelibly etched into my memory.
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Koncham Koncham Tamil Teriyum

Anjani Agarwal
When I got selected to IIT there was chaos in our family. All were eager that I go, but my father declared that he couldnt afford the fees. My father worked for Tata Oil Mills in Kanpur, and it so happened that his boss, a Mr VK Bali, was visiting from Mumbai. When he heard the news of my admission he told my father immediately that he should let me go, and that he would arrange with the Tata Trust to support me with a scholarship. If it were not for this Good Samaritan Mr Bali, my life would have taken an entirely different course. On the train to Chennai I met my first IIT friend--Hemant Shankar Patwardan, who to my surprise was also in HC. Then we met another future classmate, who was from Meerut. From Madras Central station, we took a taxi to the campus. At the IIT gate the driver demanded an extra rupee (a big sum to us in those days) for taking us all the way inside to Jamuna Hostel. Our new friend from Meerut did not take this lying down. He threatened to take out his Rampuri knife, if the driver insisted on anything more than the agreed fare of
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Stroke Sixty Something Rs.8. This story spread sensationally and we had people asking to meet the North Indian fresher who had flashed a knife at a taxi driver. We were ragged by Lakra, Bhasin, Harsh Kumar and Khatri, all from the 3-year batch and 2 or 3 years older than us. They made us sit on the top of the cupboard and ragged us hard, but later on they became good friends who supported us with drawing instruments and T squares. (Lakra went on to become General Manager of DTC) Being from up north I had had absolutely no exposure to the food of the south. I found the mess food most unappealing, and for weeks together I used to declare myself sick in order to get the sick diet of 4 slices of bread with a small piece of butter and watery milk. We were constantly worried about food in the early days. The meals that I liked best in Jamuna Hostel were Sunday breakfast-- dosa with lovely potato masala; and Saturday lunch-- puris with peas bhaji. The Saturday fare was especially delicious to those of us from the north. I remember a classmate, a B.N Gupta from Delhi, once complaining that he was not well and was able to eat only 20 puris that day. All of us enjoyed visits to Moore Market where some of us bought a big dabba of Ponds talcum powder for 1 rupee. One of our friends, Hari Om Raman Agarwal (older than us, and so known as Mama) was really fond of buying nearly all his requirements from Moore Market. He once bought a cheap slide rule made of wood for some 40 bucks. He showed his prized possession to all but during the rainy season the wood expanded and the slide rule refused to slide. Poor Mama then had to buy a Staedtler. Mama now lives in Agra after retiring as an Executive Engineer from UP PWD. I have extremely fond memories of the mess servants in our first year in Jamuna Hostel. They went out of their way to teach us Tamil words and phrases: pachha tanni, sud tanni, tumbler, sadam, morekudam etc. Even today I remember them and whatever Tamil words I have picked up are due to their insistence and help.
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Stroke Sixty Something Some of us developed the practice of cycling to the temple every Tuesday. Sometimes HP Tripathi--marathon runner and Radio Pakistanwould join us, running the entire distance to the temple. One day someone asked me where I was going. Pointing to Tripathi I replied that I was taking him for a run but had forgotten his chain. Tripathi refused to talk to me for 2 days thereafter Being in the 3-year batch, we had to do our summer workshop and were not permitted to go home during one of the vacations. At the press shop one day, I converted my U section into a flat with uneven surface. Appavoo came at me with vengeance, and made me redo the filing till my palm was covered with blisters. One day Herr Ebert, the workshop in-charge was passing by and one of us fresh from German class decided to impress him. He said guten morgen but the Indian accent was so strong that it took quite some effort to convince Mr Ebert that we had meant only good morning and nothing else. In the last two years I was in Saraswati Hostel. The food here was a shade better than Jamuna. Many years later, we used to meet Sudhir Kumar Jain regularly in Mumbai. I once asked him once why he used to be called daloi in IIT. He explained that during his stay in Godavari, he became mess secretary, and had attempted to replace sambhar with dal. Hence daloi. Three years passed soon, and it was time for the IIT office to verify our B. Sc. Degree certificates. My certificate was in Hindi. The clerk told me happily, koncham koncham Hindi teriyum . It was clear that he could not decipher my certificate, but probably unwilling to admit defeat, readily okayed it. On successful completion of the B.Tech I went to Mumbai where my dad was now posted, still with Tatas. Being the son of a Tata employee was a strong advantage, and although the employment scene was not positive, I got a job within 2 months as Engineer Trainee in Tata Power, posted in Trombay. Later, I moved to another better paid job in Voltas and then went on to start my own ventures. Over the years I set up several private limited companies, three making energy meters and one manufacturing control panel
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Stroke Sixty Something accessories. I was recognized as a successful entrepreneur by the Government of Maharashtra in 1995.
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Military Indiscipline and German Expression

Venkatesh Mannar
Our mandatory NCC training during the first 3 years of IIT brings back many bizarre memories. I am trying to analyze what the goals were and what we learned from it. It was no wonder that soon after we left IIT, NCC was made optional and one of several choices like social work for the extracurricular activity component. If the objective of the exercise was to make us more disciplined, it was a miserable failure. Even today I am sure many of us take pride in procrastinating until the last minute and scrambling to reach the finish line and then commenting glibly to our spouses or children this is typical IIT style! We learned with difficulty to wear the uniform complete with the belt with brass parts well polished and the shoes that weighed a ton and to march aimlessly in (and often out of) formation. We had to visualize the enemy as we planned platoon formations and Major C.M. Jaffrey yelled .. enemy 15 degrees North..no. I change my brain.. 40 degrees west.!
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Stroke Sixty Something We attended annual camps with drills all day and while we were driven in buses to visit airbases or military installations we sang raunchy camp songs like Shell be coming down the mountain when she comes. led by able voices like Ben and Murali. In order to give some purpose and meaningful result for our efforts and to accelerate the completion of the swimming pool some bright army major (not Jaffrey!) ordered that we form a human bucket elevator to help pour the concrete to complete the walls of the pool. We toiled for long years and unfortunately the pool wasnt filled with water and ready for use until well after we had graduated. Campastimes ran a brilliant cartoon on a planned Swimming Meet. Athletes stood ready at one end of the pool; then at the blast of the gun they jumped into the dry pool and sprinted across the floor of the pool to the finish line. However our NCC training apparently impressed Nobel laureates. When Prof CV Raman visited IIT to deliver the Convocation address three of us brave lads from the Campastimes editorial group told Director Sengupto that we would like to interview the dignitary. He agreed reluctantly and when we were ushered into Dr Ramans presence at the IIT Guest House Sengupto motioned us to remain standing. Raman turned to us standing nervously to attention and asked Sengupto with his characteristic sarcasm Why are these boys standing? Is this what they are taught to do in the NCC? We were also very proud of the German we had mastered in the 2nd year. Sometimes during NCC parades when we were ordered daine se ek do gin the counting would suddenly shift to, Eins, Zwei to the bewilderment of the Corporal in charge. German also had a large influence on our day to day exchanges. I am sure even to this day many of us break into German that is incomprehensible to our kin Wo ist das kamera apparat? (or some object we are searching for) or:bitte offnen zie die tur A few years ago when I was struggling to learn French (a struggle that continues till this day) I sometimes desperately used to slip into German to fill in words in the sentence that my teacher asked me to enunciate .
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Stroke Sixty Something We really tested the patience of our German teacher Herr Sharma who used to spend most of his time in class with his back to us writing on the blackboard. One day ahead of his arrival we filled the board with millions of Heil Hitler! He came in, took a look at the board, and without a word cleaned out all the signs with the exception of one in the centre. He then continued nonchalantly to fill the rest of the board with Deutsch. I havent yet figured out why he did that. We were obviously proud of the German that we were learning and used to test each other in the hostels. When one such impromptu German vocabulary competition was in progress one wise guy said, arre yaar I know the German word for post box We looked at him with awe and he proudly proclaimed Scheer. When we asked him how he was so confident of the answer he explained that one of the German professors had painted it on his mail box. It turned out that the prof in question was Wolfgang Scheer.
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Simple Beginnings
S. Ramakrishnan
In the messages posted on our website, I notice a tendency to categorize classmates on the basis of their seriousness towards studies and life in general. In my IIT days and probably even now, I have been the serious and very task-oriented type. Perhaps all of this was due to my family background. I come from a middle class Tamil Brahmin family where pressure on children to perform well academically was very high and failure on that front meant no hope in life. Pursuits other than studies-like games, singing, drama, movies, music etc. were considered a waste of time and a luxury one could not afford. Though from an OK income family, I was brought up with a frugal approach to living standards. This context is important to understand my IIT life though there are many others from a similar background who will have led a much more colourful life at IITM. In the last 40 to 45 years there are many things I have forgotten. I am not always able to match names to faces and even when I see the photo ID as at 1965 I am blank. But I still recall my first day at IITM. A week before we were to have
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Stroke Sixty Something been in the hostel, my elder sister got married and the entire household was busy with the arrangements. I think we started classes on a Monday and we were expected to be in the hostel before then. Our family was away in Tirupati, post marriage, and I returned to Chennai a day earlier to get to the campus on time. I returned by bus to T Nagar where I lived. I packed a bag with some clothes, toothbrush, soap, a small pillow and a bedspread. Then a cousin of mine drove me on his Vespa scooter to the campus with me at the back clinging onto the pillow and the bag hanging around my neck. In those days, you would sense a drop in temperature as you drove into Raj Bhavan corner from Saidapet and a further drop as you entered the Campus. I do not remember any of the other students I met that day except Vasanth Kumar who I was acquainted with at Loyola College, during our pre-university year. I think my room at Ganga Hostel was 321, facing a playground. Though there was no fan in the room the breeze was lovely. I am from a large family, and the last of five children. Now, having a quiet room exclusively to myself, and being tired after the Tirupathi trip, I fell asleep immediately. I studied in the vernacular at Ramakrishna School till Class 10 and joined IIT after a year of pre-university. My first friends were mainly from my school and my college. There were very few from my school at IIT--DC, LN Narayanan and Ramani to name some. The gang from Loyola College was much larger Appat and Parasu were my classmates from there. Being from a vernacular school, I was more at home with others who spoke in Tamil. Due to this, while I had many friends, I did not have any from the North Indian gang. To that extent, I lost out in terms of diversified exposure to different people. However, I had friends like Harcharan Singh and Vijaya Sagar--maybe because they were from Hyderabad or because we had some other friends in common. True to my background, I spent almost all my time on IIT on studies. I had very little activity outside. I was not a great one at sports. I did not realize that playing games was important in itself and it is not necessary to be good at it. On weekends, I used to go home and return late on Sunday either in time for
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Stroke Sixty Something dinner or later. I never stayed back at the campus for watching movies. Weekends I was at home relaxing, enjoying home food and preparing for the tests to follow apart from meeting school friends. This being the case, my experience and memory of extracurricular aspects of campus life are limited. On working days, after returning from classes, I used to go for a walk around the hostel with similar minded guys, read magazines/newspapers at the hostel common room or watch others playing carrom. It was a pleasure to watch guys like M S Ramakrishnan (wonder where he is nowadays) playing the game. My memories of the last three years at IIT have faded. In the final year one luxury I permitted myself was to go for the 2-in-1 movies at Velachery. But that was only after my admission to IIM and a US university were confirmed. Another incident comes to my mind which reveals how simple I was in those days. I was judged the Best Student in Year 2, and was awarded the prize by former RBI Governor HVR Iyengar at a convocation ceremony. I received the award wearing my normal class clothes and chappals. I still have the picture. I dont recall my parents attending the award function. I compare this with my own attitude as a parent. For a similar award for my daughter or son, I have made it a point to be present even if the function was held in a different city. Nowadays, I attend my grand-daughters school functions even if she is just a part of a group singing or dancing. Not that my parents cared for us less, either they were busy tackling the problems of day-to-day living or were just content and happy knowing I was getting an award. I guess those were the days of simple living, working hard and leaving the outcome to God. I sometimes wonder how I would live my IIT days again if I were given the chance to go back in time. Perhaps I would study with the same interest and dedication, enjoying especially the science and maths subjects. But I would spend time in the evenings on games like carroms, table tennis and basketball. Also, I would make a wider range of friends. I would stay back on campus on most weekends to do all of this, and to listen to
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Stroke Sixty Something music and watch the occasional movie. This is not to say that I have any regrets. I do not. My entire thinking process and the way in which I look at life have been shaped by my days at IIT. Though it has been 40 years since I left the campus, those days continue to have their influence on me. I also have my share of friends from IIT even now. Before I conclude, I was thinking if I am given a chance to relive my IIT days again, will it be different ? May be, I would study as well as I did, enjoy some of the mathematics/science subjects. I would have spent the evenings using the different facilities available at IIT like carrom, TT, basketball etc. made more diversified friends and spent time on some forms of entertainment like music, movies and stayed over weekends at the hostel to accomplish the above. That does not mean I have any regrets. I have my share of friends from IIT even now. My entire thinking process and the way in which I look at life have been shaped by my days at IIT. Though it has been 40 years since I left the Campus, those days continue to have their influence on me. As a concluding paragraph, I want to dedicate this to the memory of my dear friend Mr S Umapathy who is no more with us. Though I did not know him well at IIIT, M days, I got to know him well during the final year at IIT, years at IIM, A and thereafter. Like me, he was also a very serious type. While I was focused on my efforts and dedication to apply myself, he was equally focused on efforts and results. I remember a joke we played on him in the final year. That was the time when everyone was busy with US university admissions and some at IIM admissions too. While I was trying both, Umapathy was focussing only on IIM. Periodically, he used to check with us if we have any communication though his father who was in Income-tax service used to be based in Ahmedabad. Me, along with few others (R Sampath included I think) used the entrance exam ticket and on similar style typed a letter to myself as if I have got admission. We also agreed who were the other 3 or 4 who would also claim to have got admission though this one letter was to be shown as a proof. That worried Umapathy to no end. He had no intimation and his dad from Ahmedabad told him no communication was sent. That was a practical joke we
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Stroke Sixty Something played on him. This tension for him did not last long since in four days official results had come out. He had made it and so did 3 or 4 guys we decided to claim they got letter in advance. Umapathy was a very serious person and applied himself to tasks with diligence. We were together at IIM, A. We were also in Tatas (he was in TELCO and I in TAS, which even today I am in) before he went for a doctoral programme to Harvard School. His wifes name is also Mala, now lives in Boston. His daughter Shalini is married. His son is also in US. Since my wife Mala was with Income-tax service, we are still in touch with his father in Bombay and his younger brother S Ganesh is a well-known Supreme Court lawyer. Umapathy was a man who planned his matters so well in advance studies, jobs, travel, games etc. and it is rather unfortunate that God had plans to take him away early superceeding all plans Umapathy may have had at that time, when he died of heart attack while scuba-diving in the Bahamas. I am fortunate to have known such a nice serious person. Left to him, I am sure he would be planning his things meticulously in Vaikunth (heaven).
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Part III Afterlife
A Navy Officer Recollects

Tushar Dutt,
Commander (IN Retd), 91
Convoy Commander
The transfer orders came through as we were finishing the Advanced Naval Weapons course at the Institute of Armament Technology, Pune, in mid-75. Two of us young lieutenants, both bachelors, had been selected for INS Tunir, the missile base at Karanja, off Bombay. We were under the impression that we would be staying, officer-like, in the swanking Western Naval Command Officers Mess located at Colaba by the sea, and take the dockyard ferry back and forth to Karanja daily. But our Commanding Officer, the late Captain Subramaniam, had other ideas. To try and make our case we enrolled for evening classes in management at the Bajaj Institute. I went a step further by going in for German classes at the Max Mueller Bhavan. For a while our plan worked--we lived ashore in Bombay with the rest of the officers and our Captain, and took the boat daily to Karanja. Then came the bombshell from the executive officer (XO), Captain is asking how come you officers have not shifted to Karanja
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Stroke Sixty Something yet?! I explained that we were attending evening classes at Bajaj, hence it was convenient for us to stay in the command mess. We were going to ask for formal permission today. Soon after reaching the base, we were called to the Captains office where we found our XO also in attendance; something not too pleasant seemed to be brewing. Captain was crisp You are welcome to do any course, but you will do it from Karanja. Please shift forthwith to the mess here, XO please give them some mess duties! Even the X O was taken aback, as there was no proper mess in place yet. Our Bombay dreams went crashing out of the window. We were marooned! That evening cocktails followed by dinner in one of the Colaba restaurants marked my Bombay farewell, and the start of my Karanja exile. We shifted to Karanja over the weekend. There were a few bachelor officers occupying a bungalow by the sea which functioned as a makeshift mess. It was called the Hodiwala bungalow and looked ghostly at night. Some said that the Madhubala mystery movie Mahal was shot in the bungalow. There was no place for us in there. Soon enough XO cleared our doubts, You will all be staying at the PIM quarters, which has been chosen to function as the new Karanja officers mess. Lieutenant Dutt please settle down and take over the duties of mess secretary, by the end of the month. I was well and truly anchored. PIM happened to be the Yugoslav company which had constructed the Karanja jetty. They had built quarters for their staff on site, and now on departure, handed them over to the Navy. The name PIM required regular clarification as it became a source of embarrassment amongst outsiders who got curious about our alternative profession! Everything seemed a problem in the beginning, in Columbus landthere were no trained bearers or dhobis and the rations, vegetables etc would be brought over from Bombay by the Chief steward, Subey Singh. To try and simplify, I called up Subey Singh at lunch,told him to get the menu approved every week, ensure the officers have no complaints and tap the local market instead of Colaba. With
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Stroke Sixty Something missile preparation, firings, training, evening classes, liaison duties etc, I had enough on my plate already. He responded no problem sir, par aapne plate mein kuch liya nahin! (but you have taken nothing in your plate). That was it, the mess began to make profit, Subey Singh was on song. Leave was always a problemWhat the whole year is remaining and you want leave now?, or, the whole years almost over and now you want leave?!! To cap it all we had to take care of the Bombay life and at times failed to catch the last boat at night. This meant taking the boat next morning along with Captain and other officers who lived in Bombay. On one such occasion, Captain remarked he was glad with my performance, firings, mess etc However on reaching the base I got a summons from his office to explain in writing as to why I missed the boat previous night?! His secretary quipped Would you like to explain it in German, Tushar?! Keine prublem Kamerad! (No problem Comrade), we are on the same wavelength. Believe he requires more duties Chief, not loaded enough, Captain remarked to the XO and Chief engineer. I returned to the hangar and waited for the good news. Soon enough, returning from Bombay one evening, the wardroom greeted me, Tushar congratulations, you have been promoted, drinks all round. Convoy Commander sahab, you are scheduled to take the baraath, (marriage procession) day after for the missile firing! So that was the good news. Early morning, the missiles housed in huts along with other service vehicles in convoy, used to be taken by road right around the city to the dockyard, to be loaded on to the boats/ships for firing exercises. The drive was nearly 100km as opposed to 8km across the sea, resorted to subsequently. Sometimes as many as twenty vehicles would form the convoy. The Convoy commander would normally carry a pistol as a precautionary measure in the event of any untoward incident. On receiving the orders next day, I went across to the Gunnery officer to draw the pistol from the armoury. There were no pistols as they had all been taken away by officers on various duties. The only option left
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Stroke Sixty Something for me was to take a sword, which the gunnery officer agreed to issue provided higher command approved. What are you going to do in case you are confronted? the Chief Engineer seriously queried. Brandish the sword and yell Hut jaao, meray missile hut ke raaste se! (Move out the way of my missile hut), was my response. The Chief Engineer fell off the chair. Play the game and remain sane was the time tested mantra. Looking back, INS Tunir was probably my most satisfying and enjoyable naval posting ashore. It prepared me well for my next appointmentRussia.
To Russia and Back

When are you off to Russia, Tushar? I was asked over and over again. Im in no rush yaar, was my instant rhyming retort. After a delay of almost two years and numerous farewells including a final one at the Bombay airport, we flew to Moscow, thoroughly exhausted. The inordinate delay in our departure was due slippage in the shipbuilding program. Both the rouble and the cold war had begun to thaw, possibly making way for the inevitable perestroika. However, all this was not going to affect us directly. We arrived in Moscow in mid January 1979 at the peak of winter. Anxious mothers had clothed the children in multiple layers turning them into robots, whilst some adults resembled the stuffed files of the ministry. Next morning we were flown to Sukhumi, and finally driven to our destination, Poti--a Black sea port in the state of Georgia, once the stronghold of Stalin. Here we were to train for a powerful warship, first of its class-the Rajput, being built in the Soviet Union. Rajput was to set the trend for the future ships of the navy. It proved to be a lucky ship, turning out a number of admirals. Accommodation being scarce, single officers and the sailors were housed within the naval base, in the paykayze-- basically an accommodation ship without engines, but towable. Officers with families were housed all over the town-- in hotels, guesthouses, dorms, etc. Captain and the heads of departments also stayed in the base, possibly to keep an eye on us bachelors. In the
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Stroke Sixty Something existing somewhat difficult conditions, all the married officers and families took turns to feed us home cooked meals and make our stay comfortable. We had talented cooks amongst the bachelors too, who took care to see we did not sleep hungry, as dinner used to be served rather early, at 6 pm. As our stay was reduced to just under a year, the training and instructions, all in Russian, began in real earnest the very next day after the customary briefing and introductions. We used to have classes Monday thru Friday from morning till sundown, with a two hour lunch break cum siesta in between. Training had indeed begun without warning. We would be extremely busy through the week getting to know the various equipments and systems. Only on the weekends would we visit the town. During winter Poti had little to offer besides the kiosks selling Piva (beer) in mugs, which invariably smelt of garlic. The local folk, the Gruzins (Georgians) seemed to have a distinct Turkish stamp in their looks, behaviour and speech, possibly because Turkey lay just over the border to the south-west. They were openly anti Russian, but loved Indians, our movies and our songs. Their favourite song was mera jootha hai japani, from the 50s classic, Shree 420. The summer months, July until October, were comparatively lively. Poti was flooded with tourists from the cold north. The restaurants and the plaash(beach) would be full. Besides occasionally calling on the married officers, our main haunt during weekends was the Moray VagzalSea Terminal, a restaurant scenically located on the jetty. Here we spent many an evening in song and dance sipping wine or champagne eating, fried kalbaza (oversized salami slices), luliya kababs (tough, unmarinated roasted lamb/sheep meat) along with radish and cucumber salyonka (pickled in vinegar) what a fare! An occasional surprise, literally pulled out of the pocket, was mildly tanned raw fish, considered to be the ultimate delicacy. At times we had no choice but to join the locals in the customary celebration toasting, which was basically a shot of vodka chased with wine or even champagne--potential Molotov cocktail, if one was not careful. Despite all this, we mostly got back to the base in time and kept peace with the duty officer. Sometimes
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Stroke Sixty Something we even heralded our entry into the base with Russian and Georgian songs, to put him at ease. I recall an incident one evening when on our way back we were accosted by a number of black robed Georgian families who insisted that we join them for a feast .We soon discovered it was a funeral congregation. We were asked to sing our hearts out, as only then the dear departeds soul would rest in peace. We were getting late, but looking at their countenance, we had little choice. They kept toasting and topping up our glasses, whilst our songs grew louder by the minute. Finally, singing ourselves hoarse, we took leave. They thanked us profusely saying you have indeed feathered his grave, he is smiling in heaven! This excuse proved too tough for the duty officer to handle. Winter once again descended on Poti. We managed to finish all instructions, training and sea sorties by mid december as planned, ready to return to India. The journey to Moscow was by rail, manned by uniformed, belligerent looking lady conductors, reminiscent of the James Bond movie. We stayed a couple of days in Moscow, enjoying the attach staff and the snow clad citys warm hospitality, at minus 7 degrees Celsius. New Years eve, we flew back to Bombay, somewhat downcast. However the Captain on board the flight, an ex Air force officer spread good cheer uncorking some champagne . We landed in Bombay on New year morning, late for the celebrations, but glad to be back. Akhir phir bhi dil hai Hindusthani! (Indian at heart after all)
Back to the Future

Turning the clock back and that too forty years, is not easy, but if destiny wishes, so be it. As I approached my sixtieth birthday, I began toying with the idea of teaching as a future alternative. But I was deterred by sheer inertia and resistance to change. However, one February evening sitting with a colleague over a drink, I decided to take the plunge. I was going to teach Electrical Engineering from the very next daydirect current machines, transformers, measurements, instruments et al--subjects I had learnt, sorry studied, forty years back! It was a daunting task.
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Stroke Sixty Something Overnight I was back in familiar territory with sixty mischievous students, but with a difference-- I was on the other side of the table. Discipline was one of the first issues to be dealt with. I had not considered this earlier, but found it posed no problem with my navy background and the constant fore yelling, on the golf course. All the topics appeared unfriendly and foggy. Did we really study this stuff?! What seemed relatively simple all those years ago appeared simply complicated now. I wondered how we sailed through those years. Topics like commutation, armature reaction, interpoles, etc were double dutch. The machinery was stuck. But slowly the wheels began to turn and the fundas (fundamentals) started falling into place. The grey cells had got going. Life has indeed come full circle, its Back to the Future.
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A Chance Meeting That Shaped My Career

V. Chandrasekaran
After graduating from IIT in 1970, I joined a company which was in the business of selling and servicing analytical and medical instruments manufactured abroad. I was told at the time of interview that I would have to repair complex electronic instruments and I was happy to accept the job because it offered opportunities to learn and to visit foreign countries. A few months later I found that I did not in fact have any complex instruments to repair. I was frustrated and about to quit. That was the time I was asked to repair an electrical oven at the Indian Institute of Science. It was with Prof. Vithayathil of the Bio-Chemistry department. The oven just had a few heating elements and a bi-metal thermostat and there was no complex electronics to be tackled. After completing the repair I expressed my job frustrations to Prof. Vithayathil who had become close to me by then. His response at that time changed my outlook and helped to shape my career. He said that in every job there are things to learn and
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Stroke Sixty Something that you must always endeavour to create a difference. No job should be considered menial, and in life what you set is what you get. This was engraved deep in my mind. Prof. Vithayathil challenged me to design an oven which could guarantee a temperature variation of not more than +/- 0.1 deg. C throughout the entire inside chamber. Such an oven was not available in India at that time and import permission was not easy to obtain. I started working on designing the oven along with a friend who owned a sheet metal shop in Chennai. We finally designed it and supplied the first one to ICRISAT, Hyderabad. We had not asked them how they intended to use it. They used it to dry hay at about 37degree centigrade. Our design was not appropriate for this application. The thermostat failed, the hay caught fire and the oven and some lab instruments were damaged! Despite this disastrous start, we received a repeat order. But this time we could not manufacture the oven quickly because we had failed to document our earlier process. After my meeting with Prof. Vithayathil I served my company for 14 years and all through my career there I never failed to repair any instrument. The ability to see things differently has helped me to succeed. I will always remember Prof. Vithayathil for enabling me to look beyond my immediate situation, to change my outlook, and to develop a positive attitude towards my work and career.
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Fysical Fitness in an Indian Gym

M. Sreenivasan
Retirement is an F-Word; in fact a list of f words. One of them is Fysical (sic) Fitness. I have been a regular fitness nut since retirement and so during an extended India trip I joined a neighbourhood fitness centre on a short-term membership. It is about a ten minute walk from my home to the gym. The final portion is along a busy stretch of road, with the footpaths either in a state of permanent disrepair or occupied by an assortment of folks a tire puncture repairwalla with a compressor running on bootleg power, a homeless old woman making a modest dwelling under a tree, the chai stand dispensing tea to the masses, motorcycles and scooters parked haphazardly in front of a row of ATMs and so on. Dodging all this and the chaotic traffic takes a fair amount of alacrity and alertness. The regular watchman at the gym entrance is an older fellow with a military demeanor, a bushy moustache and a crumpled cap. He always rises from his seat to wish me good morning. After the first couple of days, he started a ritual of sticking out his hand for
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Stroke Sixty Something me to shake. I have not seen him do this with any one else. One day when I was nursing a cold, I told him I did not want to pass on the virus to him. He calmly replied that everyone has a cold these days and kept his hand extended for the customary handshake. This ritual repeats itself when I leave the gym as well. Once I saw some of the other watchmen taking a leak in the park across the street and returning to their posts wiping their hands on their pants. I felt some reluctance after this, but continued to shake the proffered hand. In fact, I miss his simple gesture on the days he is off. A banner at the entrance to the gym proclaims, `Celebrating 75 years of Fitness. I had no clue fitness centres had existed in India for that long. The facilities and exercise quipment are excellent, perhaps a notch above even the one I go to back in Oregon. It is quite pricey though (about Rs 8,000 for a 3-month membership), considerably more than my gym membership in the US. As you can imagine, it is not for the average bloke on the street here, but caters to the higher income bracket. The second thing that struck me was the high decibel music blaring from the loudspeakers - an incessant medley of Bollywood hits, Bhangra pop, Rap & Hip Hop. The Rap lyrics are graphic uncensored versions that would not be heard on the air in the US. Juxtaposed with a Bollywood version of `Hare Rama, Hare Krishna bhajan, it is quite comical. The folks either cant make out the words or understand phrases like `shake your ass with me. I often ask the attendants to turn down the volume, hinting to the front office folks that hearing fitness is as important as cardiovascular fitness. On my first day, the front office staff passed me on to one of the trainers for measurements. Khan set about measuring just about everything except the most personal parts. When told you are in your late 50s, the trainers act like you have one foot already in the grave. With the deferential `Saar, they admonish you not to be on any cardio machine for more than five minutes, and lift only the lightest weights. When I told Khan that I cycle 100km at a stretch without any difficulty, it shut him up. Evidently he spread this revelation through the staff and they now look at me with a new respect. The trainers
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Stroke Sixty Something are mostly in their mid-20s and physiotherapy graduates. They tend to be petty potentates of their turf. And, in the guise of showing postures and exercises to attractive women prone on the exercise mat, they get into pretty intimate holds. The regular members who work out bear testimony to the growing affluence of the middle and upper classes, with the battle of the bulge showing amply. Multiple spare tires and pot bellies are common. I have only seen a couple of people older than me, most range in age from their 20s to 40s. I have not seen any women in shorts. I see a few men starting to wear them these days, trying to imitate this old codger. Several come in street clothes, or brand name athletic wear that look more like track suits. Most are not very communicative, and the women dont even make eye contact. I have become friendly with one autistic kid in his 20s, who comes regularly and was the first one to strike up a conversation with me. He asked my name and what I ate for breakfast. Since then Srikumar and I have a daily banter for a few minutes and he seems to have made a connection with `Srinivas uncle. Of all the state-of-the-art equipment, my favourite is the elliptical trainer, which seems to simulate walking, climbing, biking and skiing in one machine. The sign says not to use the cardio equipment for more than 15 minutes, but most of the folks do less than that and only at the lowest level of intensity. The locker room has clean showers with running hot and cold water, a massage room, and even a steam room with eucalyptus vapors wafting through. Unlike in US locker rooms, no one strips to his birthday suit, but is modestly draped in a towel at all times. All in all, I have enjoyed my Indian gym experience and will miss it when it is over. I will miss the hand-shaking watchman, the autistic kid, the buxom women and the hardass trainers. And, the street scene on the way to the gym and back.
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My Gulf War Ordeal

Narinder Kapoor
We moved to Bahrain in 1977. We had no intention of making it our permanent home, and we possibly couldnt have even if we wanted to, but we have been living in Bahrain ever since. Bahrain is a small archipelago of islands in the Middle East. In the 70s it was said that every prominent Indian knew every other prominent Indian in the country. To me it sounded very snobbish, but soon I too became a prominent Indian. I was teaching at the only Institution of higher education in Bahrain and also served as an honorary board member of one of the Indian schools in Bahrain. This was an honorary community service position. Shortly afterwards I took over as the Chairman of the schools Education Committee and subsequently brought in major improvements in the administration and the quality of education. We also created an excellent infrastructure for the school. The student strength increased from 700 in 1980 to 4000 in 1984, and the results in CBSE exams were outstanding. By
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Stroke Sixty Something then the school was considered one of the top Indian schools in Bahrain. Most dignitaries visiting from India were very proudly shown around the Indian School. They included Mr. Zail Singh, then President of India. My two younger children were born in Bahrain in the 80s; and this added to my fondness for the country. The pleasant and peaceful phase of our life ended in 1979/80 with the start of the Iran-Iraq war. This continued for nearly a decade and culminated in the historical Gulf war in 1990. The US navy had made Bahrain one of its bases in the middle-east. George Bush declared war on Iraq in early 1990. We were all alerted to the possibility of scud missiles attacks and told to prepare ourselves for the possibility of chemical war. We were instructed to keep all our windows covered and to cover them with tape to avoid glass shattering and flying around. We were told to reserve one room in every home as a strong room and completely seal it from inside to avoid any chemical penetration. We also had to keep wet towels inside the strong room besides keeping it stocked with dry food stuff and water. Considering all these issues we decided to fly to India for the period the country was going through this ordeal. We loaded our valuables and essentials in the car and went to the airport to catch the first flight available. We intended to leave the car at the airport. However, at the airport we were told that all flights had been cancelled due to the possibility of scud attack on civilian aircrafts. However it was likely that a few flights may be allowed to Muscat, Oman, from where Air India was operating evacuation flights to India. As we knew the people in power we hoped we may be allowed to go to Delhi on one of these flights. We waited with increasing anxiety and decreasing patience. Finally it was announced at the airport that all flights had been cancelled and that Bahrain airport was closed. Being surrounded by sea, there was no other way of escaping from Bahrain.
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Stroke Sixty Something We trudged back to our home and braced ourselves for any eventuality. Being Indians and also quite religious, besides seeing no alternatives, it was not very difficult to settle down and face the grim situation. As the head of the family I had to pretend that I was calm and composed and there was nothing to worry about. The following weeks were horrible. The radios and TVs were on 24/7. Every time there was a scud attack or the warning sirens sounded, our hearts leapt to our mouth. There were many scuds fired; but most were intercepted by Patriots and only two penetrated the shield and landed nearby. Even today I get a tingling around my ears when I think of the ordeal my family and I went through at that time.
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Letter from Canada

Venkatesh Mannar
After 5 years in IIT each of us started from the same baseline and yet diverged along widely varying paths. As a new Graduate there was just one word for me: Plastics! What I ended up doing was making common salt (a.k.a sodium chloride for you techies). And then a totally different second chapter: nutrition in international development. I had moved from a no-profit to a non-profit industry and in the process relocated from India to Canada. Canada has been a wonderful country for Vijaya and our boys. Our boys (now men!) have grown up in two cultures and all of us are better off for it. Canada is often described as a salad bowl each ethnic group is encouraged to maintain its identity and visibility. A decade ago I was under the impression that you needed to be either Canadian or Indian. Now I know you dont have to make that choice. We appreciate the many good things in Canada while we continue to cherish our Indian roots. We feel blessed to have the opportunity to appreciate the best of both worlds! Since I visit India several times a year on work I have the opportunity to be
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Stroke Sixty Something involved in the problems and challenges of our fast changing country and this is very meaningful to me. My work takes me to parts of the world that are off the beaten track: I have been breathless in La Paz, face to face with a gorilla in Rwanda, outlawed in Congo, dazzled in Shanghai and puzzled in Pyongyang. And yet I have barely skimmed the surface of our beautiful planet one of these days I am determined to make it to Timbuktu and Tibet! But at the end of the day we are most at home in Ottawa or in Chennai thankful that we can enjoy the Jazz festival in Ottawa or the Music Season in Chennai. In the 40 years since leaving IIT I have forgotten many skills we learnt I can no longer file a steel cube to the perfection that Appavoo demanded nor can I cram for 3 periodicals a week. But my education has not stopped: I have started piano lessons and am just back from my first recital. It was overwhelming to see nimble 10-year old fingers fly over the piano keys while I struggled through Tchaikovskys Sleeping Beauty Waltz. But this I know from my 60 years of life experience: my neurons may be diminishing and synapses in my brain are slower to form, but the process of learning is as exhilarating as it was in the IIT days and as vital to my well being. Over the past decade the IITM Class of 1970 has grown closer drawing out of the woodwork several of our classmates. We have set unbeaten records in terms of the meetings we organize regularly in India and in N. America (sometimes more than I can cope with HYDRU last December, NARU in Montreal in early July and CHERU in late July!) and its great to be able to pick up the threads with friends after 40 years with the same ease and familiarity. And here is what I feel is truly unique about our IITMAA70 group there is no talk about individual accomplishments and the focus is on the bond that has grown out of that special time we spent together a long time ago and continue to savour to this day!
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A Medical Odyssey
Chiku Machayya
I suffered a freak accident two years ago that resulted in serious physical injury to my right eye and consequent loss of vision. Since then I have undergone five surgeries of which two were effectively double surgeries. In the process Ive learned some valuable lessons, good and bad, that I would like to share. The eye is an extremely delicate organ, and any physical injury causes it to undergo trauma. This means that even if the physical injury is confined to one part of the eye, other parts of the eye can suffer a reaction as if they too had been directly injured. In my case the initial rupture was followed by retinal detachment and later by corneal degeneration. The whole episode caused underlying worry, and it was an uphill struggle not to lose ones sense of self-confidence. First, I had to deal with the issue of vision in just one eye. Then there was a dimensional issue, because I found it difficult to gauge depth and distance at close range. There was also an angle of vision issue, whereby I would get blindsided on the right. However, I was
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Stroke Sixty Something determined that I would do whatever it would take to get at least partial vision restored. Eye care is an enormous medical field with a number of specialities. Specialists know their individual areas well, but are generalists in the other areas, and so are not necessarily in a position to take an integrated view of the eye as a whole. Being a generally impatient sort of person, my first (personal) task was to develop patience, particularly in terms of expectation. It was important to do things thoroughly, so I interviewed as many surgeons as was feasible. It did cost money and also anxiety, because each one would do the same tests over again. In the process, I also got somewhat different assessments, which led to anxiety. But at the end of the day, it was my body-part and ailment, and since I was focused on getting a satisfactory result, it was important that I should intuitively feel that the surgeon chosen was the right one for me. Since I had had an accident at the workplace, I was rushed to St. Vincents Hospital in Greenwich Village, where Dr. John J. Khadem did emergency surgery on me. He did a good job, which was to carefully suture a ruptured eyeball. Although I did not have to choose him for subsequent surgeries, I got to know him quite well over time. Among the characteristics that I liked about him was the fact that I could talk to him in detail. He was very cautious, and preferred a step-by-step approach, which involved doing one procedure at a time. His logic was that he was always in uncharted territory, and if something went wrong, it was easier to backtrack without causing complications. This was in contrast to my own initial preference to do all that was needed in one go, so that I got over with it once and for all with less hassle, and less cost. However, over time I came to appreciate his cautious approach of doing only what was absolutely necessary at any point of time. Dr. Khadem did the next two surgeries as well, the second intended to reattach the retina which had subsequently suffered detachment. I carried out due diligence checks by getting second and third opinions. In all cases, these doctors said that he had done a great job on the reattachment.
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Stroke Sixty Something The whole process led me to learn to temper my expectations, because I discovered a disconnect between the way doctors and surgeons speak, and what those words mean to the lay person. For example, surgeons usually focus on the technical aspects of their practice, and see the job as well done if the operation went technically as per plan. The end result in terms of bodily functioning and well-being of the patient is a secondary consideration! So even though I couldnt see with any degree of clarity, I had to engage in a conversation where the surgeon claimed great accomplishment. So far the focus had been on the retina. Now I found that I had a problem with the cornea as well. Interestingly, the first person to detect this was not a US surgeon, but Dr. Sri Ganesh at Nethradhama Eye Centre in Bangalore, whom I consulted with on my annual holiday in the winter of 2008. The normal cell count should be around 2500 per cubic mm whereas in my case it had dropped to about 800. This was on the edge of becoming irreversible. The doctor did not see meaningful restoration of vision without addressing the cornea, and recommended that I have a transplant before the end of 2009. I took this information back to Dr. Khadem in New York, but he did not act on it for some time. I dont really blame him as he is a retina specialist and believed that vision could be restored by fixing the retina and removing scar tissue. He persisted in his belief that removing scar tissue from the retina would solve my problem and so I had my fourth surgery in June 09. The outcome was a shockthe marginal sight that I had earlier now worsened. At this point Dr. Khadem threw in the towel and conceded that the cornea was indeed the main issue. The lesson I learnt from this unhappy episode was that specialization has created such a narrowly compartmentalized approach to medicine that only the truly gifted are able to see the interconnectivity of the various parts of even the same organ. At this point I was referred to a Dr. Mark Terry in Portland, Oregon. In 2001, Dr. Terry had developed EK or Endothelial Keratoplasty--a surgical technique for the replacement of the corneal endothelium. A word in explanation: the cornea is not uniform, but is actually a complicated structure that consists of many layers, each of which has a different function. The
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Stroke Sixty Something tears that form in the eye both voluntarily and involuntarily play an important role in the maintenance of the cornea. The endothelial cells are in the layers facing the inside of the eye. These cells act as pumps and suck in the tears from the outer surface to the inner. This pumping process keeps the cornea at the right degree of moistness to maintain required suppleness and transparency. I was very impressed with Dr Terry after that first meeting. After examining me, he stated that my case was unusual and carried high risks, but that the EK technique was doable. If the first attempt on the transplant did not succeed (he would know within a day), then he would try again a second time. If that also did not succeed, it meant that EK was not for me and he would fall back on the traditional transplant. However, if I decided to do a traditional transplant in the first place, and that failed, there was no way that his technique could be applied later on. I liked the way Dr. Terry laid out the reward and risks, and his plan to deal with the risks--it was the way I would approach a problem in finance. I also liked the way he was willing to go out on a limb and try out a risky procedure. The other surgeons I had consulted with were concerned about reputational risks from failure and chose to play safe. Dr. Terry was also a part of a teaching faculty and committed to furthering research in the field. He had far more experience than the others did, having performed nearly 600 of these procedures. I was also impressed by his out-of-box approach, and so decided to press ahead with him, even though it meant going all the way to Portland, Oregon I was operated on in early Feb-10. Given the complexity of the situation, the surgery was later declared to be an unqualified success, both by Dr. Terry, his associates, as well as Dr. Khadem. These statements once again raised my expectations, leading me to think that maybe now I was close to recovering my vision. While my vision is definitely better compared to before the operation, my eye is still not at a point where I can consider the vision to be usable. The initial ebullient statements of the docs have given way to more cautionary assertions. They
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Stroke Sixty Something are clear in their minds that I have a good eye, but it is out of their control to know what the degree of sight recovery will be. From a philosophical point of view, it has helped me temper my expectations in general and to be grateful that I still have one good functioning eye. There is always light at the end of the tunnel, if one chooses to look in the right direction.
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The Importance of Being a Mentor

N. Raghavan
IIT MAA has launched a very important initiative on mentoring and so it is a good time to look at the concept of mentorship-tongue firmly in cheek! There have been various types of mentors down the ages. The goddess Athena was probably the first. She took the form of an old guy called Mentor to guide Telemachus, the son of Odysseus at a time of mental turmoil. But in our land, arguably the most famous mentor is Krishna whose mentee Arjuna benefited immensely from the association. Krishna give away his sister in marriage to his mentee, but not all mentors expect such side benefits! The most infamous mentor was Shakuni, under whose tutelage Duryodhana bit the dust figuratively and literally. Aphrodite was another famous mentor whose guidance did not help the protg. Aphrodite promised Paris the love of Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world. The mentoring resulted in the launch of a thousand ships, but ended disastrously for Paris himself. Beware of such mentors.
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Stroke Sixty Something Chandragupta Maurya benefited greatly from the mentoring of Chanakya. The relationship gave Chanakya the opportunity to write Artha Shastra, the book which made his name immortal. Dr Samuel Johnson and James Boswell were another famous mentoring pair. But this time it was the mentee who wrote a famous book, Boswells Life of Johnson. Without this book the world wouldnt have known about Johnsons Tourette Syndrome. Indira Gandhi was mentored by Kamaraj when she was pitchforked into politics and was totally clueless; but she quickly learnt the ropes and discarded him. The mentee outmaneuvered the mentor--reverse mentoring?! In India the mentor is often known as a Guru. In the political world and the underworld the same mentor goes by the respectable and venerable name of Godfather. Some would swear that Marlon Brando aka Don Corleone is the original mentor! In corporate circles having the right mentor, or Godfather, can propel you up in a dizzy spiral; while with the wrong one you may end up in the dog house, tending to odd papers. Mentoring is a mental exercise in which the mentor gives moral/ mental support to the mentee to discover himself and find solutions. After retirement Mr Narayana Moorthy is the Chief Mentor at Infosys. How one wishes that all the politicians would also follow suit! Speaking seriously I think that the mentoring scheme in IIT will be a great boon for the students. Many young people are reluctant to ask their parents or their teachers for advice regarding their future. However, they will be willing to accept guidance from a mentor. This is especially important because most of the students are in their adolescence and good advice can prevent them from going astray or taking a wrong path. From academic success to rapid progression in ones corporate or political career, the mentor often has a role to play. Of course are many precocious students who do not require any mentoring. They pride themselves on being self-made and climb the rungs without any support. However many a successful personality is usually guided by a strong mentor. Choosing the right mentor is just as important as carefully considering the advice before
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Stroke Sixty Something implementing it. Mentor-protg bonding could, on occasion, extend beyond the advice sought and turn into a life-long relationship. Of course, protgs must be forewarned and resist being misguided into failure by blindly following well-intended advice. While one expects the benefit to be skewed towards the protg, mentorship can equally benefit the mentor. Jai Ho to mentoring and a great salute to the Mentors!
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Notes from a Small Island

Ram Nair
99% Fat-free Asian

When I moved to New Zealand some eight years ago, my first priority was to find a job. I had just spent two years in the US, a surreal interlude devoted mainly to reading and a little travel, while my wife went to university. So it was imperative that I resume earning some money. Confident that employers would line up to hire me I shot out one job application after another. Graciously worded letters of rejection came back thick and fast so rapidly that I suspected they were computer generated, without the benefit of human intervention. My ego was badly bruised by the time I received the first interview call-in response to my 56th application. The interviewer was a closecropped individual of indeterminate sex who appeared younger than my son. The proceedings were a disaster, probably because I spoke down to the interviewer, and I did not get the job. But that is not the point of this story. While trawling through the Appointments pages in those new-immigrant days I
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Stroke Sixty Something chanced upon many job positions that I never knew existed. One of the first to catch my eye was Assistant Banana Ripener. New Zealand has no banana cultivation and the bananas sold here are all imports from Ecuador. So what does the Asst. Ripener have to do? Perhaps he aids the store-ripening of the fruit. Another position was Deer Velvet Grader, which sounded like the salutation of a letter written in pre-email days or alternatively, something quite obscene. I was to discover that New Zealand has a small and successful deer industry. Further investigation revealed that Velvet is the growing antler of the male deer. Before antlers harden and calcify, they are soft tissue covered in a fine hair, hence the name, velvet. Apart from venison, velvet too has an export market. It is valued in the practice of Oriental medicine for its health-giving properties. Grading the velvet requires special training and experience, much like grading leather or tea. Then there was the Nail Hand. Despite my IIT background I thought this was some type of manicurist. But no, the job has to do with joinery and is carried out in a factory, not a salon. In a land of 40 million sheep advertisements for a General Shepherd are routine. An important condition of appointment is, own dogs required. The reference is not to pets, but to working dogs that are specially bred and trained to muster sheep. There is a unique and symbiotic relationship between a shepherd and his dogs, and the strength of this bond determines the effectiveness of the shepherd. An ad for a 99% fat-free Asian brought to mind a branded health food. But the ad appeared in the euphemistically titled Adult Entertainment columns, and requires a two-part explanation. Prostitution is legal in liberal New Zealand (as are same-sex alliances and lesbian priests). Sex workers are classified as workmen (the male to include the female) under labour law. Brothels have to be licensed and are subject to strict rules. They are free to advertise and do so regularly. Their ads are liberally sprinkled with $$$ signs, partly because the profession pays well, and also because there is constantly a skills shortage in this specialty. Now for the Asian part of the ad. In this country the term is used exclusively for persons of Chinese extraction, and
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Stroke Sixty Something includes Taiwanese, Singaporeans, Malaysians and Hong Kong Chinese. Indians are Indians, and not Asians. No doubt the brothel concerned had done some customer research and discovered a niche market of men who liked their carnal pleasures low-fat, so to speak. This ad was aimed at them. Note: I found a job at the end of the third month, but it was None of the Above.
Aati kya Khandala?

On an exploratory visit to New Zealand, I was intrigued to see a road sign reading Khandallah. When I moved permanently to this country, the initial jobless months gave me plenty of time to investigate. Khandallah is a leafy, upmarket suburb of Wellington, flanked by the localities Cashmere in the east and Rangoon Heights in the north. This area was first populated by retired officers of the British Armymen who had served long years in India and no doubt retained strong ties to the country. After spending their working life in the Jewel in the Crown, they had moved to New Zealand in their sunset years. One way of indulging their nostalgia was to christen the roads and streets of their new enclave with Indian names. All the great cities of undivided India reappear in Khandallahs street namesDelhi Crescent, Bombay Street, Karachi Crescent, Calcutta Street and Madras Street. A number of the lesser cities and towns have also been given a nod. Some are hill stationsSimla, Doon and Muri. Some are the old cantonment and garrison townsPoona, Ambala, Kanpur and Quetta. Others have associations that are not immediately obvious, such as Amritsar, Lucknow, Sanchi, Jalna, Chilka, Kohima and Bandipur. A few famous regiments of British India have been immortalized Rajputana, Punjab, Bengal and Gurkha. Tribute has also been paid to prominent princely states of old India with Travancore Road, Baroda Street, Mysore Street and Kashmir Avenue. Not all the Indian names are of places. In a surprise twist, epic characters too have been honoured. Sita Way lies not far from
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Stroke Sixty Something Rama Crescent, and Bharat Terrace is within walking distance of Krishna Way. Then, in what appears to be an acknowledgement of Indian business enterprise, Khandallah has a Birla Terrace and a Lohia Street. There is no mention of Tata though, or Goenka or Dalmia. The fondness for the Indian subcontinent seems to have endured long after the old army men passed on to their heavenly battalions. They could not have been responsible for the naming of Khandallahs Indira Place, Shastri Terrace or Kerala Way (the state was created only in 1956). Nor can the dear departed soldiers be given credit for Gavaskar Street or Imran Terrace. But the straight-backed Colonels and Generals would no doubt smile with recognition were they to see Kapil Grove indexed in the local road atlas as follows: 2/L off Satara Crescent from Amapur Road Aata Kya Khandala?
Political corruption, New Zealand style

New Zealand is a small group of seismically unstable islands lying forlorn in the middle of the vast South Pacific Ocean. In area it is the size of todays Uttar Pradesh (after Uttaranchal was hived off), and its population is halfway between that of Kanpur and Pune. These are hardly the features of a powerful nation. But this tiny country has numerous social attributes that are admired and emulated by much larger and wealthier nations. One of them is the virtual absence of corruption in politics. In its 2009 report on Corruption Perception, Transparency International ranked New Zealand as the least corrupt country in the world. Within the country the news generated no jubilation or wild celebration. In fact it was received with the indifference of a visit of a trade delegation from Papua New Guinea, simply because no one here expects politicians and civil servants to be corrupt. People sit up and take notice only when the occasional case of corruption is brought to light. When this happens, public opinion, the press and the judiciary all come down heavily on the offender.
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Stroke Sixty Something Here is an example. In 2009, Taito Philip Field, a Labour MP, was convicted of corruption and attempting to pervert the course of justice. He is the first MP in the 150-year history of the New Zealand parliament to be convicted of corruption. Mr. Fields crime was that he used 8 Thai tradesmen to work on his houses in New Zealand and Samoa, in return for his help in regularizing their visas. It was not as if he had taken money from the workers or got their labour free of charge; the court determined that he paid them less than fair wages. For this crime Mr. Field was jailed for 6 years. Compare this India, where political corruption has reached brazenly gargantuan proportions. Take two recent examples in 2009-2010. Madhu Koda of Jharkhand is said to have looted Rs. 4,000 crores from his state. Telecom minister A. Raja is alleged to have caused a loss of Rs. 60,000 crores to the central government by corrupt handling of the 2G spectrum allocation. Indian political corruption and how it undermines the countrys democracy are talked about internationally. It is well known that the rich and powerful are able to hire expensive and unscrupulous lawyers to avoid being convicted, or to manipulate the creaking legal system to avoid serious punishment. Such a scenario is non-existent and inconceivable in countries like New Zealand. No wonder that in the Corruption Index, New Zealand ranks 1st and India ranks a miserable 84th below the likes of Colombia and Burkina Faso.
Camping in New York 3 months after 9/11

I went to New York; my bag went to a destination unknown. With more time than money at my disposal, I had travelled by Greyhound. The journey from Montpelier is long, but varied. The bus bullets through parts of Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and upstate New York, before worming its way slowly into the Big Apple. On arrival my bag wasnt to be found; worse, no one seemed to care. When I got to Chikus 5th Avenue office, I had just the clothes I was wearing and a pocket that had not yet been picked. This was not really the best time for Chiku to have houseguests. After being displaced on September 11, he had to stay with
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Stroke Sixty Something friends for about 3 months. He was then allowed to move into a small apartment temporarily, pending eventual return to his own place. The apartment was innocent of all furniture and appliances except a fridge and a cooking range. We slept on the floor, in sleeping bagsBoy Scout style. In spite of his current constraints Chiku was the most considerate host. He even gave me the sole key to the apartment so that I could come and go as I liked. Then two days later, he was told without warning that he was required to move back to his original apartment immediately. The two of us were in different parts of the city at that time, and so we had rush to a meeting point for the transfer of the key. When I was waiting for Chiku outside Macys, a big black policewoman walked up, looked at my feet and said, Hey, I got dem same sneakers! In my best imitation of a world-weary Noo Yawker I grunted, Huh- huh. Then she said, You get dem from my house or what? Before I could come up with a smart reply she smiled, nodded and moved on. Chikus 28th floor apartment is in a building about 150 yards from the World Trade Center. It gives an up-close-and-personal view of Ground Zeroa sight most people would pay money to see. The pit of disaster was a rapidly diminishing mess of tangled metal, shattered concrete and broken pipes. The round-the-clock movement of men, earth-moving equipment and dump trucks belied the grief that arose from that site. The night before I left the city, Chiku and I had a leisurely meal at a Manhattan diner. Then in startling counterpoint we went to the WTC and walked around its periphery. We stopped at one of the impromptu shrines that mourners had set upfull of pictures of the deceased, written tributes, candles, flowers and even toys. We saw a young man standing there. He had on a firemans hat, and he was sobbing quietly in the dark.
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In Praise of Idlis
P. Ramnath
Here I am, back in hot, muggy, sultry Chennai, I thought, as I climbed down the three flights of the apartment block on Sunday morning in search of the watchman. The water was playing truant from the hissing taps in the flat and it would not be long before the rest of the household and the neighbours got up and set off the orchestrated Watchman, motor on karo. I set off on a walk around the municipal park. After a couple of rounds of pushing the old frame, I enjoyed the satisfaction of duty well done. I picked up a copy of the Sunday edition of The Hindu-- the traditional Madrasis refuge, and turned homewards in anticipation of a tumbler of well brewed South Indian coffee. As I turned a corner I saw a huge signboard Murugan Idli Shop-pure vegetarian. The wife deserves a break on a Sunday morning, I thought nobly, and walked into the shop to buy a fresh idli takeaway. The aroma of sambhaar and the sight of snow white idlis and golden brown dosas awakened the senses as I took in the
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Stroke Sixty Something surroundings. A typical mofussil joint, thankfully airconditioned as its concession to modernity I thought, as I was escorted with minimum fuss to a solitary free place at a two-seater table. My fellow passengers, so to speak, ranged from the young upwardly mobile, in track pants and sneakers carrying the latest in cell phones, to the mamis--jasmine in hair, families in tow, complete with mamas in veshtis. A plantain leaf materialised on the table, a plastic cup of water serving to hold down the end as it were. A no nonsense guy, pencil behind ear, appeared and took my order, as I sprinkled the water on the leaf and let it run down the side. I could go into paeans about the lowly idli, hot, white, fluffy with just the right consistency. You get idlis everywhere in India now--the Udipis of Karnataka and Mumbai (Idli Malini apart), the Madras Cafes of the North, the Woodlands and Dasaprakashs, and if you dont know better, in 5 Star hotels. But I remember most the mofussil eating joints in the south of Tamil Nadu, in Madurai, Salem & Coimbatore, which are ready to welcome the weary traveller at any time of day or night. In these places busy markets by day turn into a caravan park of open air mobile kitchens by night-- a boon to the floating public. And to make everybody happy these vendors often offer egg dosas and chicken dosas too! Perhaps this explains the pure veg part of the signboard of the place that I was in. You can have idlis at any time of the dayfor breakfast, as tiffin during the day, an easy dinner at night. You can enjoy idlis on holiday, on a pilgrimage or business tour or on a train journey. Idlis can be paired with podi and oil, with chutney, with sambhar and with curd. Idlis--steam cooked, healthy, no fat. Idli in its variants-the Kanchipuram idli, the ravai idli et al adding to its diversified delights. Idli of just the right formulation, made just so--as much a tradition as fine wine taken at room temperature in the West. How can I forget the early lessons in the preparation, helping my mother grind the paste on the heavy duty grindstone and hammering out the podi with the pestle. The modern idli mixes and motorized grinders are no match for native skill! And how can I forget the popularity of idli sambhar in the Delhi of my
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Stroke Sixty Something boyhood where the locals thought nothing of ordering one cup sambharr to wash it down. And MTR preferring to close its doors rather than serve the economy version. The mandatory South Indian filter coffee arrived with the bill. Having savoured the coffee, I left clutching the parcel of idlis, the Hindu now forgotten. Morning walks can be gastronomic experiences, too! And of Kumbakonam Degree coffee and its cousins, perhaps another time. And in case you dont see the beauty in the idli, remember Beauty lies in the eye of the beerholder and drink up! And to sign off, I remember encountering Mukundan as I walked out of the Saraswathy Hostel mess one idli breakfast morning. Et tu, Brute? he enquired. To which I replied, No, six.
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Of the Joy of Learning a Language

P. Ramnath
As I hark back to the IIT of old and picture the sea of earnest bright young chaps wading into it, I remember the days the old bean seemed to go totally under--mired in the entropy and enthalpy which held many in thrall. The mind wandered, as a young mans will, to the escapist joy of the Humanities: to English with Dias, ever so polite, but not above a sinful limerick on occasion; to Krishna Rao waxing eloquent on the works of Tagore; or to the romance of History impelling one to search for wider knowledge in the pages of Glimpses of World History. Then there were the delights of German with the persevering Herr Sarma, grinding away in the hope that his wards would master the complexities of German gender (Artikel, bitte?), never forgetting to put the verb am Ende in a nebensatz. After persevering for five years through the semesters and projects I escaped to the relatively human(e) courses of IIM Ahmedabad where, thankfully, there were no right solutions. Two years later I landed in Chennai all geared up to earn my daily bread.
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Stroke Sixty Something Sales targets and inventory control were alright by day but there had to be more to life to keep the old fires burning. My solution was to study more German. I remembered the German vocabulary of the American war comics of my boyhood--where every Kraut went Donner und Blitzen, freely cursed the Schweinehund Englaenders and eventually appeared out of his bunker, hands held high, crying Kamerad. I was sure learning the language would be a breeze! Hier ist eine Landkarte, intoned the teacher in the very first class, das ist eine Landkarte von Europa, and proceeded with the lesson in Geography. Not an unwelcome diversion, I thought, as long as he didnt meander into the DIN specifications. Bitte wiederholen Sie! crashed into my subconscious as I dutifully repeated, Deutchland liegt in Europa. There was no escaping the genders now; why, oh why, did these guys insist on a feminine Sun and a masculine Moon? But horror of horrors, they had every winsome Maedchen and freckled Fra:ulein in the neuter! And then of course, there were the umlauts, a challenge to the adventurous. Innocently perched atop the vowels, the umlaut seemed harmless enough on the a unless followed by u, agonizing to mouth with the o and veritably hilarious when the unsuspecting dared try pronounce it with the u. Only the very courageous could have braved all these, and then only to do battle with words hineindergeschachtelt like a collapsing pair of binoculars and adjektiv deklinationen calculated to cause serious hair loss to many. Many plucky warriors were defeated when they patiently carried the verb forward to the very end of a complex nebensentence of compound words, only to forget to stick it in at the end! Once I was drafted into playing the role of an overbearing furniture maker in an in-house production staged for the public. I was selected perhaps more for my drooping moustache and severe countenance than for any artistic or linguistic merit, but I felt my moment had come. The play had a scene where I reviled a young apprentice on the abysmal quality of his dovetail joint, thundering,Wie die Froschbeine, wie die Froschbeine. Meanwhile I was required to ferociously to pull off the leg of
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Stroke Sixty Something the offending chair. I pulled and pulled but the leg refused to budge, and high drama was transformed into farce. All this earned me a short sabbatical in the Vaterland, ostensibly to imbibe some of the culture of (the then divided) Germany. The day I arrived in the small University town, I went to a supermarket. An old lady approached me with all the determination of a tigress protecting her cubs, convinced no doubt that this swarthy foreigner was a petty shoplifter, She melted like the snow in spring when I disarmed her with a well tutored Guten Tag, darf ich..? with the exaggerated politeness of a beginner. And how can I forget the friendly (& attractive) girls in the Reiseburos who interspersed their replies to my travel queries with an Oo, Sie sprechen aber ein faaaabelhaftes Deutsch! Travelling in the picturesque countryside of Bavaria on a trip recommended by one of the huebsche Maedchen above, I remember a ditty I heard or read in the village of Oberammergau: Ob er aber ueber Oberammergau Oder ob er aber ueber Unterammergau Oder ob er aber ueberhaupt nicht kommt Ist nicht gewiss I cant vouch for the accuracy as memory is a funny thing, but heres your chance to practice your u umlaut and the soft and hard b as in ob and aber respectively! Dont even think of why the double ss (written beta) is softer than the single. I guess, when youve seen and heard as much as you can of Beethoven and Bach,Wagner and Handel, Hesse and Heine,Goethe and Max Mueller, not to speak of the cathedrals and castles of bygone days, there are also the lighter things to savour--and if I were to now talk of Bier and Bratwurst, then lightness is a very relative thing. Culture is integral to a language, and you cannot learn any German without getting to know their football heroes. Philosophy and football make strange bedfellows and it may seem odd here to remember philosophers like Kant and Nietzsche. Yet it was
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Stroke Sixty Something the German football team who on losing a World Cup final after a penalty shootout drew solace thus: Im Leben,im Leben Geht mancher Schuss daneben! (In life, in life, goes many a shot astray!). Prost to that. And to wind up, there is much to be said for the written word and the world of books. Who amongst us wouldnt love retiring to a cosy corner with an unputdownable book? Prost to that too and Auf Wiederhoren (pardon the missing umlaut, but adding an e after o just wont do).
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Rediscovery of India
Narasimhan P. Kannan Chapter 1
After an exhilarating three week sojourn through southern rural and urban India and meeting lots of people from many walks of life I came back home in the USA immeasurably richer for the experience. The most important reason for my trip was to take my ailing father to his old familiar towns and temples on a journey to bid adieu to the India he had known and loved. I traveled through the deep Indian south after 35 years and I could not recognize much other than to feel the energy and vibrancy of life radiating new found confidence and hope of a better future. India, just as it has in centuries past, is standing tall once again among the civilized nations of the world. I wish to relate here my impressions, feelings, emotions, and observations about India. My travels took me from Allepey to Trivandrum, Kanya Kumari to Tirunelveli, Madurai, Trichy, Tanjore, Karaikal, Kumbakonam, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai and a number of little villages in between.
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Stroke Sixty Something I clearly saw two Indias - one cosmopolitan, affluent, educated, young, global, irreverent, liberal, modern and secular and the other poorer, religious, old, xenophobic, superstitious, traditional and conservative. The cosmopolitan India is vibrant and sucking the torpor out of the traditional India and infusing it with life. Amazingly this process has permeated even in rural areas. India of the past is getting buried and the youth of India are ushering in a new golden era. India is too complex a nation to explain or describe but her very visible progress seems to come from borrowing the best of the West - science, technology, rational thought, liberalism, tolerance, and contagious optimism- and creating an exciting new blend. Young Indians are jettisoning the historically paralyzing philosophy of fatalism and Karma and willfully acting to shape the future. There is a sense of limitless possibilities within reach. In the Darwinian struggle among world civilizations India has won hands down. Soon there will be more Indians on this planet than any other ethnic group. For some this is a cause for concern but considering the fact that most of these newly minted Indians are under the age of 25 it bodes well. This high energy cohort will overrun the dysfunctional political and social institutions and drive India to great heights in the coming decade and fundamentally alter the foundations of this great nation. I feel optimistic about living to see an India that becomes a shining beacon for other developing nations to emulate and envy.
Chapter 2
No one seems to have an accurate count of temples in South India or the particulars of when they were built. The estimates range from 3000 temples to infinity and the local legends date them anywhere from 3000 BC to 18th century AD. But one thing is certain. If you take the temples out of south India then you will be taking the soul of a region just as you would in France or Italy if you take out the cathedrals. The South Indian temples are shrouded in mythology and embody the art, sculpture, music, dance, food and very colorful rituals of ancient times. Many of the temples have managed to preserve exquisite stone and bronze sculptures and murals that are every bit as good as
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Stroke Sixty Something those found in Notre Dame, Rouen Cathedral, Gloucestershire, Florence or the Vatican. But somehow all this aesthetic beauty seems to be lost on the pious devotees who quickly rush from the front entrance directly to the inner sanctum and get a glimpse of the gilded idols representing Vishnu and his two wives in the murky lights of a puja deepam. There is something mechanical about the ritual of puja as the priest repeats it over and over again for the never ending groups of visitors. Before conducting the puja the priest will ask you for your Gothram and birth star, which respectively refer to the founding father of your lineage and the reigning star at the time of your birth. He will then chant a customized sloka in Sanskrit while tossing flower petals at the feet of the idol and then light a wick lamp and make complete circles outlining the idols. Occasionally he will take time to recount the myth of the origin of the incarnation and talk about its uniqueness. He then will follow it up with distributing the prasadam which generally consists of the flowers used in the puja and some holy water and a handful of raisins with crystalline sugar. The holy water is swallowed with absolute faith and the raisins are eaten promptly. It all ends suddenly and most devotees go around the perimeter of the inner sanctum in a clockwise direction and then off to the next temple and pass by totally oblivious to the treasures of sculpture and art all around them. For most Hindus this ritual seems to be the end of the spiritual quest. There is something satisfying about these rituals. Some people explicitly ask God for favors such as cure for a terminal disease, fame, fortunes, or children. Some make deals with God with offerings of Gold and Silver in exchange for granting their wishes. Some of these temples, especially the one in Sri Rangam near Trichy, had signs in big bold letters warning the reader, Only Hindus Are Allowed. When I tried to find out how did they tell apart non-Hindus one elder priest told me confidently that he can tell by their behavior. I was worried that I might be asked to prove that I was a Hindu. Perhaps they might ask me to undo my dhothi and when they discover that I was circumcised they would suspect I was a Muslim and ask me to leave. I wondered if they would call the police if I refused.
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Stroke Sixty Something In one temple my female relatives were simply told not to enter the inner sanctum as it was for males only. I went in and turned around and gloated with pride at the good fortune of being born a male. I also noticed that there were no female priests and I was told by one priest that they were polluted due to menstruation and thus not fit for priesthood. Just as I was mulling it over I noticed that there were many resident bats that were flying overhead. I wondered if the bats contaminated the holy water which was stored in a open vessel without a lid. What if they had urinated or worse right into the holy water? My fears were put to rest as I saw many a devotees slurping the water from that very container as the priest ladled them out in their open palms. They were not worried about viruses or contamination from bats. They were the truly faithful. If you believe in Lord Vishnu nothing bad will happen to you even if you drink contaminated water. I had nothing but envy for those with absolute faith. What is fascinating is that for an extra hundred rupees you can get special access to the inner sanctum sanctorum while jumping the long lines of waiting devotees without causing a riot. Simply put, Gods dharshan was for sale. I often worried that God will take note of such inequities and specially target those who buy privileges for the most severe punishments. If you were born an Iyengar in South India and if you wish to go to heaven then one of many things that is required of you is to visit 106 of the 108 temples which house Lord Vishnu, the last two being inaccessible. Each of these houses a unique incarnation of Vishnu and his two wives Sridevi and Bhoomi Devi. The most famous of these is Tirupati. The general idea is to visit as many of these as possible and go through the ritual of puja and on to the next. In my trip with my dad I visited 25 of these in rural and urban areas and thus I am almost a quarter of the way through my obligation. It crossed my mind that I have earned some capital with God that I can spend on sinning for a while. I chanced to strike up conversations with some of the priests and they were a sad lot. On the average they take home a
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Stroke Sixty Something paltry Rs. 3000 a month and make ends meet. They depended largely on the tips at the temple for their very survival. In my ancestral town of Needamangalam in Tanjore District I spent a lot of time inquiring about the next generation of priests. One of the temple elders bemoaned the lack of funds and invited me to his home for some coffee. As I walked in I saw his teenage son who was employed as a part time priest in training sitting at a personal computer working on his Unix code in preparation for an upcoming test at a tutorial college in nearby Tanjore. He has set his sights on Chennai for a career in software. He was the last of the priests and his father was seriously considering mothballing the temple as he could not persuade anyone to follow in his footsteps. As I passed by the many beautiful sculptures at the temple that were in various states of disrepair, I felt sad for the future of all these cultural treasures and for the disappearance of a way of life for the priests, and yet, strangely optimistic about the future of the sons of priests as they leave superstition and religion behind for careers in logical manipulation of quantum switching devices with precise linguistic controls.
Chapter 3
When Britain was at its zenith in building empires during 18th century they had refined their art in very nuanced steps of trade, alliances, conquest, rule, assimilation and finally noblesse oblige. India, just as other parts of British Empire was eventually viewed as a quaint, mysterious, and generally passive nation running on superstitions. The Indians were juvenelized by the pater familias of the prosperous shires from England who were, as Viceroys, the Masters of the Universe. Once juvenelized, Indians became cute and needed the protections of a higher authority. Indians reinforced these haughty attitudes by their obsequious manners and actions. Anything western was deemed superior reflexively. What was really sad was that Indians who went to the west for further education inherited these attitudes when they returned and walked around strutting their stuff as if they were sahibs, only brown-skinned instead of white. To them their native
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Stroke Sixty Something brothers were just the same as they were to the colonial masters. Even IITs were referred to by their western sponsorships--German for Madras, Soviet for Bombay, and US for Kanpur. It is as if the western nations were necessary to lend credibility. At IIT all the Indian Professors were far better teachers than the resident Germans who seemed like they were having an extended vacation in a resort near a world class beach. With Independence one would think these attitudes would have faded away. But it lingers on even now among urban well-to-do professionals. The phoren-returned Indians are condescending in their attitudes toward their fellow countrymen. Invariably everyone points to corruption (as if it was unique to India) and virulent politics and the phlegmatic common man for the ills. In short, they are afflicted with the colonialist disease. This is true especially of those who view rural India and Indian governmental agencies as totally dysfunctional and inept. They come up with ostensibly very original solutions to Indias problems. Renewable energy. Eureka. I have a cure for all of them. I suggest that each one of these neo-colonialist-wannabes take a trip by a car or bus from Kanya Kumari to Tirunelveli or Tuticorin or Tiruchendur. Here they will be rudely exposed to the handiwork of Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, which buys electricity from the fifth largest wind-power farms in the world. They will notice that windmills are all ubiquitous and numerous along the highways. They will notice that TNEB has been working at it since 1991 and has managed to capture over 80% of the estimated wind potential in Kanyakumari and Tirunelveli districts. A full 1.5 Gigawatt of windpower capacity or 15 percent of total TNEB operating capacity is from wind alone. It even supplies over 10% of the Kilowatt hours of entire Tamil Nadu. After Germany, US, Denmark and Spain, Tamil Nadu stands as the fifth largest as it accounts for most of the wind energy harnessed in India. TNEB accomplished this through a unique blend of private public partnerships just as any western superpower.
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Stroke Sixty Something Tamil Nadu, which has about the same number of people as France is a progressive state with a lot of renewable resources such as 2 gigawatt or 20% of the states total capacity from hydropower; 24,000 biogas plants that use recycled organic and human wastes; and a nascent solar thermal and photovoltaic programs for rural and some urban electrification. Thus 35-40% of Tamil Nadus electric generation capacity is from renewable resource. I cant imagine that any other country or state is in a position to make such a claim. TNEB has also won numerous awards from the center for lowest incidence of outage and the response times for repairs. It is a government run entity and politically managed and yet has proven a visionary organization. I also noticed that rain water harvesting is a run of the mill idea in this state and is used extensively using very simple collection and storage systems. I called on their regional office in Tirunelveli briefly to convey my congrats to a job well done, which quickly led to discussion of their future plans and the multi-crore projects to make Tamil Nadu a world class state in the use of renewable energy. I was humbled by the cheerful, proud, hardworking bureaucrats who want nothing but the very best for their state and their people. I did not hear any cynical comments like from some NRIs about corruption or bad politics except about the decline in quality of Tirunelveli halwa, which I thought was just terrific, especially as it simply slides from the banana leaf right into your mouth.
Chapter 4
In my travels in the south I heard many complaints about three looming problems that threaten Indias progress--corruption and politics, lack of public infrastructure, and highly visible and potentially explosive inequities in distribution of income and wealth. After some reflection I am not as concerned about them. Here is my case, which is based on anecdotal evidence. I believe it nevertheless portends a promising future.
First, here is my view on corruption. My views are colored by the fact that I have never personally bribed anyone in India nor do
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Stroke Sixty Something I know anyone who has admitted to having done so. Corruption results from non-market compensation, inefficiencies in the economy and lack of transparency. It creates an environment where access and influence are for sale. This is true in Washington, Bonn, or New Delhi. Corruption is a universal human phenomenon. Some years ago when I needed to meet a fairly high official in US Government, I had to first find a PR firm whose principals were former administration officials. They charged $25,000 as consulting fees to set up a meeting even within the White House. When they call an official their calls get returned as the current officials curry favor with the PR firm for future jobs when they leave the government. Is this corruption? Most people will say, yes. At a minimum it is a conflict of interest. But it goes on every day. It is all wrapped into what is called lobbying. Businesses pony up the fees and think of it as a cost of doing business if the returns are worth the cost. The same thing happens if you want future access to top elected officials. You simply contribute to their political campaign. When a policeman lets you off the hook for speeding for a $100 fee then it is called a bribe but when you contribute to a campaign for future access it is called free exercise of your rights. Now if the policeman in question is paid market prices for his services then he will not be tempted easily. Likewise the elected representatives should be paid market-based prices for their services so as to minimize corruption. The public expects the elected reps, bureaucrats and cops to live on substandard wages relative to their responsibilities. This is the crux of the problem. So complaining about it is like complaining about violators of the Ten Commandments. There is simply no way to expect people not to act in self-interest or expect to act nobly for the greater good. So corruption will remain a fact of life. The consolation is that it is possible to make fantastic progress despite rampant corruption as demonstrated by most western nations. India can do so as well. Internet has made information access universal and organizations progressively transparent. As this transparency increases corruption will decrees but will never be eliminated totally as long as we fix wages arbitrarily by bureaucratic fiat.
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Stroke Sixty Something Second, the infrastructure issue. When a nation moves from a largely agrarian economy to an industrial or post-industrial economy it faces uneven development of various sectors of the economy. It is further complicated when the transition is also from a socialist form of economy to a capitalist one. In less than 15 years India has tried to do both, and the strains show mostly in the form of rampant growth in some urban centers which has overwhelmed the public infrastructure. The highways have improved in many areas but the city streets and avenues are clogged with traffic and suffocating with smog. These problems are inevitable given the speed of changes as no western nation has tried such accelerated development in such a short time frame. The clogged city roads and the smog are becoming such a huge issue in many cities that the next generation transportation plans are likely to address them through the price of petrol and diesel. This is the kind of problem that affluent nations are grappling with for the past thirty years. I am willing to bet that in the next ten years these problems will be resolved by a combination of rise in market prices for urban housing, retail space, and petrol. The center cities will be ditched by those who seek cleaner air in the emerging suburbs. I noticed this trend in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai. Some of the newer developments are better planned for sustaining whole communities with integrated schools, workplaces, and recreational facilities. Also workplaces will be more dispersed geographically rather than concentrated, thanks to the internet. My only hope is that the community planners also install sufficient modern toilet facilities and underground sewers so the streets are not flooded in urine and human feces that are a major menace to public health. India is a nation of hidden private wealth and visible public squalor. Most people shut themselves inside of their homes partly to avoid the heat, trash, and dust but also to avoid the overwhelming stench of urine and sewers that hangs in the air in all cities. If India does not address this problem it may never rise to its potential as it is a huge let down for anyone who lands at a swanky airport and then rides through the squalid roadways to their swanky hotels or office
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Stroke Sixty Something towers. I believe this also will be solved as the leaders wake up to the economic costs of not doing so. Finally, there is the issue of distribution of income. In India, just as it has in USA and other western nations, income distribution occurs through multiplier effects of actions of the wealthy and their desire for acquiring more material goods. The young and newly rich in India spend money like Americans largely financed by installment debt. This rampant consumerism is the first phase of the trickle down effect which creates income opportunities in the construction of homes, factories and offices and in the manufacture, sale and support of automobiles, televisions, cell phones, computers, washing machines, and air conditioners. In addition tourism and travel has taken off in India with numerous airlines offering low fares and supporting many jobs. Resorts are popping up everywhere which, in turn, creates jobs. It is noteworthy that when you ride through the rural highways of southern India you see an emerging mechanized agriculture sector with displacement of use of animal power with tractors and trucks. There are satellite dishes popping out of unlikely places like a thatched hut. Some people are worried about the growing consumer debt but it is necessary to have a strong domestic market for goods and services in India for it to not depend entirely on exports like some of the far eastern economies. In short, India has awakened from a long slumber of two millennia and is on a march towards a rendezvous with its destiny as one of the great nations of the 21st century.
Chapter 5
India is the only place on earth where you will find pure vegetarian restaurants in every street corner in most towns. India is the only place where you will see animals - dogs, cats, monkeys, cows, and water buffalos - intermingling in the streets without major fuss and with seeming reverence for each other. India is the only place where you can smell the sweet earth in monsoon and run through cloudbursts in joy without a care or concern about pretentious fastidiousness of civilized life.
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Stroke Sixty Something But most of all India is the only place on earth where you will see a reigning religion that teaches you that what is erotic is divine and sacred. All other religions teach you to suppress everything that is erotic and sensual by portraying them as either unvirtuous or sinful. But not Hinduism. Sensuality of human form is celebrated in its dances, music, rhythms, dress, food, art, literature, mythology, life, and sculpture. If you wish to discover your inner erotic self and want to tear away the superficiality of civilization I urge you to visit two temples that are both secular and breath taking in South India. You must go to Tanjore in early February and after a sumptuous meal take a walk at dusk inside the vast courtyard of the Big Shiva Temple where you will see Hindu, Muslim, and Christian couples meandering in the grounds aimlessly with a natural high induced by fantastically lit sculptures of buxom women in dance poses scattered around several temples the main one of which houses Lord Shiva, the destroyer and the husband of Erotic Goddess Parvati, and where the air is saturated with the intoxicating fragrance of the fat jasmine (gundumalli) from Madurai worn by women who like butterflies flutter about in their colorful saris. You are suddenly overcome by uncontrollable urge to make love in the temple grounds as the giant stud bull (Nandi) winks at you in divine approval. The lust in your heart is not condemned as sinful but simply a gift from the Lord. These primal urges multiply tenfold if you also visit the Sarangapani Temple in Kumbakonam and pay close attention to the sculpted poses that crowds the steeple (gopuram). Hinduism is the only religion that is capable of creating the Lingam, the unisexual symbol of ecstatic union of Shiva and Shakthi - the male and the female form. As other religions teach you to suppress your sinful erotic feelings Hinduism accentuates it and demands that you pay attention to sexuality in its most divine and glorious form. The Goddess Shakti endorses overt and wanton expression of female sexuality in her dances competing with Nataraja, an incarnation of Shiva. Such free expression has been suppressed in India for a very long time by the austere Muslim and European invaders but it can be contained no longer.
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Stroke Sixty Something I sense a revival and it foretells a return of India to its ancient erotic roots where female sensuality and sexual expression will not be viewed with suspicion and fear. This is nothing but a healthy turnabout of culture where equality will be practiced rather than merely preached. India, my friends, is a warm, moist, and a very earthy and sensual place to be where sex is not part of the original sin or the works of shaithan but a sacred virtue of divine proportions.
Chapter 6
Buckminster Fuller was a polymath. He was not just an architect and engineer who promoted the innovative Geodesic Dome for human habitation but also was a mathematician, poet, and a visionary. He predicted in 1959 that world poverty will be eliminated by the year 2000. We are not quite there as India stands defiantly repudiating his vision. What most people may not know is that Bucky Fuller was also an amateur linguist and he traced the Latin root of the closely linked terms womb, tomb, home, and dome to the word Dom. We all are familiar with Dom Perignon or the House of Perignon. Dom also leads to domicile and domestic and so on. What is interesting is the words Womb, Tomb, Dome, and Home all refer to an enclosed space that separates you from your environment. It is a cocoon that provides safety and security and comfortable isolation. In India most people in urban setting have come to view their home as a cozy womb that helps them avoid the stress of stepping out into the urban nightmare of pollution, trash, urine, and open sewers. In effect the urban middle class has managed to entomb themselves in their air-conditioned homes and venture out only as absolutely necessary - for work, shopping, and occasionally for visiting temples or friends and relatives. In effect they have come to deal with the massive environmental degradation of cities by imprisoning themselves in their homes and places of work. At first I thought it is all just a lack of planning of urban centers where population has grown immensely in the past three decades. Then I felt that no matter what the plans are
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Stroke Sixty Something there are not enough resources to execute well laid plans. Then I thought perhaps that the promise of a bright future has made urban centers a magnet for rural people and thus overwhelmed the infrastructure. I also felt that this is really a dynamic optimization problem of allocating scarce resources. I even thought this had something to do with education. I felt a good environmental education on civic virtues and hygiene was exactly what was needed. But after much soul searching I have sadly come to the conclusion that Indias environmental problem is a result of Hinduism and its spiritual and philosophical emphasis on solipsistic pursuit of personal nirvana. To a Hindu there is the self, the family, the duties to the family, and then spiritual pursuit of merging with the universe. Hindus display a very high level of tolerance for entropy, chaos, and can endure much misery in the name of Karma. Public spiritedness may be antithetical to the core religious dogma as there is no reward in the hereafter for such petty distractions as civic virtues. One notices an incredible and callous tolerance for poverty, urban blight, and child destitution. One becomes predisposed not to intervene in the Karma of others. Curiously one does not see this apathy among Sikh and Christian communities in India. Very rarely one hears of Dharma in reference to a community, a nation, or the ecosystem. Regardless of whether what Vedas say about these civic virtues the contemporary India is made up of a majority of individuals whose ecological boundaries stop around their family, clan, or caste. Each for himself is the reigning theme. There seems no perceived return from investing ones energy in the community or the local environment. Migration of well to do Indians to an alien land like the US where community values are paramount seems not to have had much impact on them You can see evidence of this in Jackson Heights in Queens, New York City or in the suburban Edison, New Jersey. Much of the deplorable public squalor of India has been successfully imported here by the immigrants from the Indian subcontinent.
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Stroke Sixty Something Now the only hope I see for solving this problem is that the thousands of Gurus and Hindu Priests integrate civic virtues and personal hygiene into the Code of Dharma as a necessary element for reaching Moksha. Thus it is a religious problem and not merely an engineering one. US ranks as the eighth cleanest country after the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Of the countries with over 50 million in population US ranks as number one. You can see why. Just walk around a typical suburb and you will not see very many people tossing trash from their moving cars or urinating in full view of traffic. There are highly organized neighborhood meetings which enforce aesthetic and civic codes of hygiene. It is deeply ingrained in the culture. India will hopefully get there but I expect it to be a one hundred year effort.
Chapter 7
I believe India will become one of the most prosperous countries in the world in the next three decades with its per capita GDP growing from about $500 to $15,000. Anyone investing in India, especially land close to water will likely see appreciation of their capital by a factor of 1000 by 2015. Here are my reasons. First some background. In 1976 the famous American economist Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize in Economics. His work on Lifecycle Consumption was cited as one of his important contributions in addition to his Monetary and Price Theories. Of this the Life Cycle Consumption is the most fascinating. Friedmans research showed that people consume more and save less of their earnings in early and very late stages of their lives. But they save a lot during their middle years. This has implications for an economy as consumption drives an economy forward as it creates a boom time for factories, construction firms, banks, and transportation services. An economy which has a relatively higher concentration of older people will decline gradually as older people consume less than the young ones. If an economy has too many young people and no job opportunities it will lead to political upheaval and strife. But if a nation has
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Stroke Sixty Something figured out its comparative advantage relative to other nations like India has with its low cost, high skill labor force then all the youthful energy will be channeled into economic growth and general prosperity. This is one of the big drivers of American economy since World War II. Indias population has a huge concentration of younger people who all aspire to a middle class life and are motivated highly to get there by offering their skilled labor at relatively low costs to enterprises all over the world. Just as the young cohorts are growing the opportunities for gainfully employing them are also growing, thanks to the demand from the affluent western nations. This trend is likely to continue as long as there is a vast supply of skilled labor in India. All these youngsters will want homes, cars, televisions, and assorted services. They will pay taxes and finance most of the infrastructure improvements. This is the engine that will largely accelerate Indias affluence on a per capita basis relative to most of the developed western nations and Japan which are aging rapidly. What is US doing about all this? US is already trying to fight the trend of aging population by allowing young, bright, and motivated immigrants from South America and Asia. I have no idea what the xenophobic Germans are going to do as they are aging rapidly. A majority of young German women want to stay single and avoid the burden of caring for a family as indicated by a recent survey. So the newborn Germans are in decline. They are facing rapid amalgamation and loss of their ethnic identity entirely as the Eastern Europeans slowly migrate to fill their land. The prospects look grim for Western Europe. On the other hand India is rising. So before it is too late take your money out of the west and bet on Indias enterprises and land. You cant go wrong.
Chapter 8
There is something in common about Thyagaraja, Ludwig Beethoven, Wolfgang Mozart, Muthusway Dikshitar, Shyama Shastry, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Michael Faraday, Leonard Euler, James Watt, Thomas Payne and David Hume.
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Stroke Sixty Something They all were giants who dominated the 18th century and all of them have been so positively disruptive of status quo that we benefit immensely from their master works even today. It must have been one of those periods specially chosen by God to liberate and improve the lot of men toiling under the dark forces of ignorance, superstition, and unholy alliances between religion and tyranny. The first six men of the list above transformed and revolutionized classical music in the east and the west. John and Thomas with help from Ben produced the first Constitution in history which made human rights to liberty as inviolable as well as expunged religion from government. Franklin and Faraday helped set up the foundations of electromagnetic theory. Euler laid the mathematical foundations of differential equations and calculus of variations. James Watts steam engine liberated humans forever from brute labor. Thomas Payne codified an alternative to formal religions with his treatise on Deism. David Hume set forth the fundamental ideas of the scientific method, especially empirical research and tentative validation of scientific hypotheses. Phew. I have left out a thousand other lesser known figures from this age of reason. There is a widely accepted theory of dynamics of Darwinian evolution propounded by the late Harvard biologist, Stephen Jay Gould. It is called the Punctuated Equilibrium theory. Gould posited with some supporting evidence from field data in Paleontology that most species remain static for long periods but evolve very rapidly during abrupt environmental stresses and natural disasters like tsunamis, earthquakes, shifting rain belts and tectonic plate movements. Thus evolution is characterized by long periods of equilibrium punctuated by rapid change in the mix of species. The extinction of dinosaurs is a good example. My own pet theory of human history is modeled after Goulds punctuated equilibrium. Human history has been stationary for long periods of time punctuated by rapid and irreversible changes that happens during a single century. Our own 20th century is a prime example. The changes usually are so profound and compelling that humans could not go back to the old ways of life. Industrial revolution is a good example.
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Stroke Sixty Something Now let me come to the real point of this story, which is about the major punctuation and subsequent evolution of Carnatic music caused by the 18th century musical genius Thyagaraja. I visited Tiruvaiyaru, the birthplace of Thyagaraja, expecting to see the same reverence accorded Mozart and Beethoven in Vienna, Austria. But what I witnessed was a sorry little building and a samadhi for Thyagaraja, arguably one of the greatest music composers in human history. The samadhi was over run by weeds with goats running around, and the main building, which is situated right on the shores of Cauvery river, was closed to visitors. I managed to get a priest to open it and show me around and it is a real shame that India does not celebrate its geniuses like they do in Europe. The priest who looked impoverished got angry at me as I had touched his shoulder to get his attention, which made him contaminated and thus he had to go take another bath to purify himself before his prayers. I calmed him down with my rarely used Iyengar credentials. After a lot of prodding he confessed that there is very little funding for creating a Taj Mahal on the site in honor of Thyagaraja. I sat down right there and made a list of businesses the pujari can start to get the needed funding. He could sell CDs of Thyagarajas Kirtis by various artists, books on the life of Thyagaraja, and even arrange to have youngsters come to the sacred site for their Arangetram, the maiden performance after long study of Carnatic music. I felt that the Brahmins who run the place need to get together with business savvy Reddys and Chettiars and figure out a self-sustaining tourist operation which could fund a major structure in honor of one of the greatest musicians of all time. He changed the world of Carnatic music forever and enriched it immeasurably. The least we can do is to honor him appropriately.
Chapter 9
In the annals of word associations India has been permanently linked with cow worship and caste system. If you go any place on earth you will quickly discover how humans seem to have a penchant for creating hierarchies and excusive clubs. Most of the time you will see hierarchies based on wealth. The wealthy form their own exclusive clubs and even among
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Stroke Sixty Something the wealthy there are those who consider themselves as Old Money to set themselves apart from the Nouveau Riche. You can see it in every exclusive Country Club in America or in most gated communities in suburbs or in Manhattan co-ops. There is always some kind of pecking order and interlopers are not allowed in. The massive upward mobility of enterprising individuals frequently destabilizes and disrupts this hierarchy and new ones get formed. But the caste system, unlike others, is a unique type of hierarchy. Your status is determined at your birth and is immutable. It has nothing to do with wealth and no one can disrupt it by buying his way into a high caste. It has held the Indian mind a prisoner of irrationality as it still persists after eons and even among highly educated people despite well-documented evidence for increased likelihood of inherited diseases from limiting the pool for mating on the basis of caste, country club memberships, or any other narrow criterion. It has wreaked havoc among many closed communities all over the world - Eskimos, Parsis, Orthodox Jews, Brahmins, Ainu, and Pygmies. No animal breeder will succeed if he does not seek variety in genetic background for breeding. But closed societies of humans ignore this simple scientific fact and knowingly court ultimate extinction. What gives? It is a mystery that cultural baggage always seems to override rationality and science. Let me be specific about what I learned during my recent trip to the Southern India, especially from the microcosm of lives inside the Tamil Iyengar clan. I found one of my aunts who lives in Bangalore and who always practiced the ultra-orthodox Iyengar life along with her husband was distraught and grief stricken by the fact that her 28 year old son, an IT Professional, has been cohabitating with a girl as a trial marriage. She is his colleague at his place of work. Her husband had lost his will to carry on and has been slowly fading in his health from the heart ache and shame inflicted on his family by his errant son. I did my best to console them and to get them to understand their sons point of view. It was a futile effort. So I let them talk and as they spoke I slowly began to understand the real issue. My aunt had made peace with her sons desire
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Stroke Sixty Something to test drive his relationship before long term commitment but what she and her husband could not fathom was that the girl was from the wrong caste. She was not a Tamil Brahmin. She was, in fact, a Gujarati Baniya girl. As time went on I decided to challenge them on their narrow minded dismissal of a girl chosen by their son, whose judgment they did not trust. It was hopeless and I left despondent, especially knowing that both my Uncle and Aunt were highly educated. My discussions with my Aunt and Uncle turned into a Socratic debate about caste and prejudice. I asked them what they thought of the founder of Vaishnava sect, Sri Ramanuja from the 11th century, who had renounced his wife and left her for not respecting a lower caste guest in his home in Kanjeevaram. And what about the fact that the top two leaders of the Iyengar sect and the founders of Visishtadvaida school of Vaishnavas Ramanuja and Vedanta Desikar - were inspired by poetry from the 8th century by a non-Brahmin prodigy from Tirunelveli district called Maran who composed over 50% of all of the verses of the sacred Prabandam. Maran was anointed as Nammalvar, one of the twelve Alwars who made major contributions to Vaishnava literature. There was deafening silence as the hours ticked by and I left their home a wiser man and more firmly convinced that thanks to globalization there are going to be positive benefits as India sheds its caste system and genetic interbreeding, which may after all save Iyengars from total extinction.
Chapter 10
When I came to US in 1970 many areas of the nation pretty much resembled the scenes from Sydney Poitiers classic movie In the Heat of the Night, where the fat white sheriff was credibly portrayed by Rod Steiger. Not much has changed since in the US. For instance, if you take away a dozen little islands in the US which are populated by those who are derisively called Yuppies - Young Urban Professionals - what you will be left with is a largely mediocre nation that is made up of people engaged in uncompetitive factories and agriculture with lives dominated by religion and xenophobia. These islands are the Boston Rt.
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Stroke Sixty Something 127 corridor; Northern New Jersey; Manhattan, NY; the Main line of Philadelphia, The suburbs of Washington DC; The Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, Atlanta-Norcross corridor; Austin, Texas; The Dallas-Denton stretch of North Texas; The NorthWestern Suburbs of Chicago, The Denver-Boulder suburbs; the Silicon Valley of California; and the Seattle-Redmond area. The Yuppies congregate around areas dominated by world class universities or government research facilities. They are cosmopolitan, educated, global in outlook, not too religious and foster a culture of tolerance and understanding. They have transformed America into one of the most prosperous and powerful nations on earth by harnessing the power of science, technology and free markets. In fact, Yuppies congregate around the great Universities in Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Scandinavia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. They all have much in common. Yuppies all over the world are more and more connected with each other and together they define the future where sovereign national borders and intrusive governments are rejected in favor of a united world of shared values. I feel India has been in the dark ages until the Yuppies took over the sleepy cities of Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Bombay, New Delhi, and Chandigarh and transformed them into an integral part of the emerging global culture of technocrats. I believe the future of India will be largely defined by this emerging elite of Yuppies who will transform India into an economic superpower in the coming decades just as effectively as their counterparts transformed US and Europe. Yuppies are viewed as crass and materialistic in the US, but if you care to take a closer look they are optimistic, innovative, competitive and active agents in creating a universal culture that transcends caste, creed, color, and nationality. They are creating a world where innovations from far corners are incorporated into daily lives with eh speed of the ubiquitous internet. They are the early adopters of new ideas and technologies. They are the life force of positive change around the world and they are now dragging India into an enlightened and prosperous future.
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Reflections from Virginia

Narasimhan P. Kannan
Springtime in Virginia
Virginia, also known as Old Dominion is called the Lovers State. Its one of the most beautiful places on this earth, especially in the springtime. Springtime in Virginia starts with the arrival of Crocuses in mid-March. Crocuses are cheerful plants that come in bright yellow, purple, and a few other shades of pink. But they also are gaudy early life that spring from this most fecund soil. Crocuses are routinely followed by migrating robins, which have squawking fights with year long resident birds like the cardinals (the State Bird) whose males have crimson red bodies and a black mask and of course the ever present mockingbirds with their early claims to prime nesting sites. In late March you suddenly notice the burst of perennials like the daffodils (you join Wordsworth in his immortal celebration of these yellow and cheerful flowers smiling at you as if to say, what are you worried about, isnt life great, just smile and enjoy it).
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Stroke Sixty Something At about the same time the world famous cherry blossoms (particularly the Japanese flowering cherry trees) burst into the scene like some unruly mob and commandeer all of our attention and you can almost notice the blush of jealousy from the fruitbearing cherry trees that often get overlooked. Incidentally, the Japanese people donated the cherry trees as a gesture of goodwill to Americans. Oh, there are the usual annuals like pansies looking like angry old men reprimanding you for your bad behavior. All these early flower shows last but a fleeting moment, just two to three weeks, only to be followed by one of natures most exquisite visual feasts, the brightly colored tulip and the flowering dogwoods in their pink and white shades. Dogwood (the Virginia State Tree) is a very elegant flora that grows wild in Virginia forests. Now the rain showers dot the weather-scape and there is an early morning cacophony of all the migratory birds that come to Virginia every year without fail--the tiny chickadees, mourning doves, sparrows, and assorted finches. If you have a bird seeder just outside your window, you can see all these beautiful creations through your window pane. Finally, it is wake up time for the grass seeds (your long lost relative of the rice plant). Everyone gets busy trying to get their gardens and lawns in good shape before May 1. May is the most beautiful month in Virginia. You have fading daffodils and the mesmerizing irises, particularly the yellow sweet scented varieties with beards. The iris is a flower trying to look like a fancy orchid, but does not quite make it. This is followed by bright azaleas everywhere. It is too much to bear at this point. Our garden also has a few bright red poppies that take you back to Kashmir. You may think it is all downhill from May on, but wait there is even more. Between June 1 and July 15, the landscape is totally transformed by big huge roses of all kinds, from the hybrids of over 200 colors and shades to the fragrant wild roses (my favorite); the can make curry out of); tiger lilies, primroses,
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Stroke Sixty Something water lilies, white and purple clematis, red gladiolus, sweet lavender, and a variety of ground hugging phloxes. We are also lucky to have lotuses and red and yellow water lilies in our backyard ponds where we have been trying to create a Japanese Koi factory, but sort of in vain, as a huge heron eats all the bright but stupid carps. By mid June all the birds generally have settled their scores and have fledglings in their nests. Every backyard has its share of blue jays, cardinals, cat birds, mockingbirds, crows, brown squirrels and ground dwelling chipmunks, gypsy moth caterpillars, garden slugs, yellow finches, and if you are very lucky you get to have purple martins which migrate all the way from Bolivia in the southern hemisphere. Blue birds, which are more common in North Carolina are occasionally seen here in big clover fields. We start seeing farmers markets pop up here and there and the locals start feasting on fresh strawberries, melons, peaches from Georgia, fresh roman tomatoes, wonderful Italian herbs like basil (tulasi), rosemary, dill, sage, and thyme. I cherish moments like these and feel grateful to be alive and in good health. I hope all of you can come to this part of the world and partake of Virginias spring cornucopia.
Why Engineers and Scientists are more Spiritual than Others

Humans are driven to know, to understand, to codify, to predict, and to control the mysterious world around them for their own benefit. Without this motive force there will be no science, math, or engineering. But in this sterile process of painstaking research and synthesis humans are driven to the edge of knowledge and practical possibilities. Thus those who pursue science and engineering over their lifetimes climb the summit of ever-growing mountains of knowledge only to stare right in the face of their own ignorance and limitations. This is a precondition to humility and awe of the universe and the result of an enlightening lifelong journey of seeking only to be left to stare further at the abyss of the
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Stroke Sixty Something unknown and unknowable. This is the state of ultimate selfrevelation which is in contrast with faith in divine revelation. The first principle of science is that everything we can observe has a cause. But limitations of science and engineering become apparent when one traces the causal chain of any observable event only to reach the Cause of all causes, which may be, as they say, is none other than God or some Deus Ex Machina? No scientist or engineer can reach the summit and not have his or her spirits stirred up. It is the mystical feeling born of knowing how much more there is to know. I remember the double slit experiments at IIT to study optical interference that demonstrated the wave nature of light. It was then for me a silly little experiment to just get the lab notebook filled up with the data for the right fringe patterns. When I rethink the significance of it today and realize that light as well as electrons are either particles or waves depending on the situation as explained by Quantum Theory then I feel humbled. It still remains an unresolved issue and beyond my comprehension. It is an area of human ignorance that we must simply live with and acknowledge the limits of science. Those who have chosen not to devote their lives to climbing this mountain of knowledge must seek short cuts of joining a formal religion that is comforting and demands blind faith. For them the labors of a scientist or an engineer are unnecessary to reach the summit. Their holy books, scriptures, gurus and priests will tell them all about it. That is enough. It does not matter that the gurus and priests themselves have spent their lifetimes learning about divine revelation from scriptures as told to them by their gurus and priests thus propagating generations of myths and hearsay. Unfortunately, 95% of humans on earth depend on these for vicarious, third-hand experience of spiritual feelings. This is not born of self-revelation through reaching the frontiers of science and technology. I have no choice but to salute scientists and engineers for their spirituality born of their intellectual journeys and their relative closeness to God compared to all the others who must
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Stroke Sixty Something rely on hand me down tales by charlatans and assorted fellow travelers.
Dymanic Optimists and Thermodynamic Pessimists

Each passing year marks the passage of time. What an exhilarating time I have had all these years and wish it would go on forever. It is just 16 weeks to daffodils, crocuses, robins, mockingbirds and warm days. I cant wait of the snow to start in January so I can dust off the old skis and hit the slopes, as I use gravity for fun and frolic in my dynamic zig zag motions. The alpine vistas with tall evergreens poking their heads through deep white fluffy snow. You ski, play, and earn your hot cider at the end of the day. The sense of well being overwhelms me and I pinch myself for having a streak of good luck and good life for 56 years straight. But as I sit by the fireside late at night thinking about time, the almighty Father time, I cant help but wonder about the link between Time and Entropy. Then I think of poor Ludwig Boltzman, the Thermodynamic genius, who killed himself in 1906. It is said anyone who studied Time and Entropy usually ended up in insane asylum or worse. Just look at the laymans version of Thermodynamic Laws: 1) 2) law 1: You cant win law 2; You cant even breakeven and the third law optimistically states, if you try, you will kill yourself.
So I wonder what Boltzman was thinking in the year 1905, the Annus Mirabilis for Einstein when he published five papers in Annalen Der Physik on Special Relativity where he stared in the face of Father Time and won; on Photoelectric effect where he formally explained the electron behavior when struck by photon of discrete quantum energy which won him the Nobel Prize in 1921; Brownian Motion; and statistical thermodynamics. The embers in my fireplace die out and I think of my plans to get to Aruba in February for riding the waves on the latest gear from Mistral.
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Never Go Back to IITM

It is said that You can never go back home again. It is a warning against visiting your childhood home and expecting things to be just as you remembered them as a kid. I suppose the same could be said of going back to visit your alma mater. I wish I had not visited IIT Madras during my last trip. It was a big let down. I wish I had just relied on my sunny recollections. NT Nathan had graciously arranged for a car and a driver to take us on a tour of the campus in Adyar. The first thing I noticed was how the old cheerful entrance gate, where we had spent countless hours waiting for the IIT bus, has been overshadowed by an ugly fly-over towering just above it. It was like a premeditated act of malice. If you approach from the south on the main Adyar road, you now have to go all the way to the location of Hotel Runs in downtown Adyar and make a U-turn and travel back to get access to the IIT gate. This lack of access to the entrance from the south is an added insult to injury. The campus security at the gate has been really beefed up and our car had to stop for permission to get in. The main road leading to Gajendra Circle was well maintained and there were access roads along the way to the cricket grounds; a nice touch except that I do not remember any cricket maidaan. The library facility to the left as you approach Gajendra Circle has been substantially expanded. As our car made the left turn at the Circle and cruised toward the OAT and HSB I noticed a lot of young girls in salwar-kameez buzzing around with their knapsacks full of books, but we did not see a single soul with a T-Square or slide rule. The presence of women added color and civility to the atmosphere. Workers were busy dismantling stages near OAT where there had been a major concert the evening before, which we had unfortunately missed. There was a big billboard inviting you to listen to a popular singer by the name of KK. For a second I thought one of the wild oats I had sown during a drunken soire in Velacheri had sprouted and found his place in the sun after all these years, but I quickly expunged that thought as I could not recall sowing any wild oats except inside of the dorm rooms.
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Stroke Sixty Something Then came the shocker as you approached Cauvery hostel and turned the sharp left toward Taramani House where we were dropped off for the night. Tushar had already checked in and we all went on a walking tour of Ganga Hostel, which has been totally renovated. We were treated to a nice lunch by both the students and faculty who were involved in Alumni affairs. Upon entering Ganga all my long-suppressed bad memories of IIT Madras came to the surface. First, the rectangular Bauhaus architecture of the whole campus, thanks partly to the German sponsors, felt more like a concentration camp at Dachau-efficient, crude, unaesthetic, and very functional--than a campus for the best and the brightest. Instead of barbed wire fences the whole dormitory area was overrun by thorny bushes that looked plain ugly and very neglected. The interior of the dorms looked dark, gloomy, and uninviting. The whole ambience was one of aging structures with no pride of residency, and unworthy of a world class university. There are a lot of lesser known colleges in India with far better architecture and visually exquisite campus environments. IIT designers ought to go visit them before they build any new structures, blindly copying crude foreign designs. As we walked across the campus to see newer buildings and departments, I felt that IIT has borrowed ideas from the crude nondescript engineering departments in the US or UK. I fail to see why top kids from all over India should be condemned to spend four years in a visually unappetizing place. IIT is fortunate to have the setting of wilderness with wild deer and cobras. Why not borrow good ideas from ancient Indian architecture of temples and garrisons across the south and incorporate the classic shapes and structures into this Temple of Learning. After all crores of Rupees are being spent on every IIT by Indian tax payers. Tushar and I walked around wistfully but without pleasure inside of Godavari Hostel. As we went to the rear side and glanced at the neglected old skating rink, I thought I could see our late Umapathi there gliding backwards at high speed on his roller skates. I felt a bit choked up as I had spent endless afternoons
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Stroke Sixty Something learning skating from the master. Godavari was dingy and dark. It was totally a let down. As we left the Campus the next morning I saw a lot of students in bicycles in khaki uniforms on their way to the workshops and I closed my eyes and resolved never again to visit the campus. I simply resigned myself to go back to my imaginary world of IIT Madras of late 1960s that probably never was.
The Humble Algorithm as a Valuable Financial Asset

There is a new and emerging trend that works counter to the glorious tradition of freely sharing valuable algorithms in the academic world. Just imagine if Einstein refused to publish his papers but rather started a company and patented and copyrighted his famous formulation and then offered a service that tells you what happens to the missing mass in a fission reaction. He was a trained patent agent after all. Every one of us will be paying for the use of E=Mc2 every time it was used. Einstein would have been a trillionaire in addition to being a genius. Instead he tried pathetically to promote his patent for a refrigeration system and it went nowhere. One can think of many other creators of such algorithms with sound theoretical basis that would have become unimaginably rich: Isaac Newton for his laws of motion and gravitation; Carnot, Otto and Diesel for their thermodynamic cycles for extracting useful work from fuels through engines; Schrdinger for his wave mechanics in deriving the complete quantum picture of an hydrogen atom; Watson and Crick for their double helix structure of DNA; Danzig for his Linear Programming; Nyquist for his frequency domain analytics; Shannon for his communications theory; Keynes for his analysis on liquidity trap and the use of fiscal policy to get the economy out of a rut; Black and Scholes for their formula for valuing Options of Stocks; and on and on. The founders of Google, both Ph.D students, have demonstrated resoundingly the asset value of their secret alogorithm for searching the Internet. Both rose from middle class to multi124
Stroke Sixty Something billionaires in less than six years. This is going to make all the young and ambitious academics to say the hell with publish or perish and hoard information on valuable algorithms. I think this is really good for the best and the brightest but bad for the world as we will see the disappearance of tradition of free sharing of discoveries and ideas by academic researchers. The opportunity cost has been ratcheted up by billions. You will be foolish to disclose an algorithm before securing and harvesting its financial benefits for a long time. The progress of science could be impeded. But countering all of this will be that research universities will jointly own all algorithms in the future as they do now with physical inventions. Imagine if Stanford University had 50% ownership of Googles algorithm then they would have doubled their entire endowment of $15 billion or so. The Google search engine made a breakthrough in coming up with a clever way to rank websites and keywords based on their popularity. There were fifteen successful search engines before Google. Inktomi, Alta Vista, Web Crawler, Yahoo, Excite, and so on. But all of them failed to solve some of the difficult problems of searching. Internet offers unwieldy and virtually infinite quantities of information and that is disorganized. Searching for something is a needle-in-a-haystack problem. The search has to be quick, precise, useful, and dynamic. This is a tall order. Searching is still a young science and we are likely to see several algorithm-based enterprises that improve upon even Googles performance. What is exciting when you strip away the clutter is that you will be better off owning valuable intellectual properties rather than real estate in the future. This is a world of Nirvana for Indian culture where abstract and otherworldly ideas find a ready audience more easily than any concrete and boring here-andnow. Just Think and get rich. Work is for the chumps!!!!!
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Trapped in Tehran
(a wartime adventure) M.G. Machayya
I landed in Teheran mid-morning on 20th September 1980 at the start of a business visit that was scheduled to take me later to Iraq and several Arab Gulf countries. Tehrans Meherabad airport was impressive at first sight. A large picture of the Ayatollah Khomeini greeted the weary traveler as he entered the main building, after being checked out first by two jack-booted soldiers carrying machine guns. While the immigration and health formalities took relatively little time, it was a totally different story at customs. There were just two officers who spent over twenty minutes on each passenger, particularly Iranians. At one stage, they went off for a coffee break, leaving us in the queue for an hour. It was six hours before I could leave the airport, effectively writing off the first day as far as work was concerned. I spent the whole of the next day with a client, trying to sell a wide range of medical items. By the early evening, we heard with shock that the airport had been bombed by Iraqi aircraft in the afternoon
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Stroke Sixty Something and as a result, commercial flights were unable to take off. My client broke off the discussions, stating that now we had all the time in the world for talks, since I was stuck in Tehran! This I did not accept, since it was rumoured that the runway had suffered only superficial damage and was expected to be repaired in a few days time. The next day it was announced that the airport had been closed indefinitely and later we heard that retaliatory Iranian air strikes had taken place over Iraqi territory. Proceeding to Baghdad was now out of the question, particularly since all airlines had indefinitely suspended their operations, and I applied to the foreign ministry for a two week extension of my visa, as I didnt believe that the war was likely to last beyond a week or so. In actual fact, the war continued for 10 years! The first week was rather suspenseful, since after the initial Iranian air strikes at Baghdad and Basra, Iraqi retaliation on Tehran was expected any moment. During the day everything was normal, with everybody proceeding about their business as usual. Offices closed earlier than normal however, since people wanted to get home before commencement of the blackout. In fact, in the early stages, quite a few pedestrians were knocked down by cars in visibility limited to a few yards. I considered myself fortunate if I could cover two clients in a day, since getting around was difficult and people were more interested in the war. The business community in Tehran was by and large antirevolutionary, since business had gone down considerably after the overthrow of the Shah, and there was general skepticism in Tehran about the ability of the Iranian forces to resist the Iraqi thrust. The Iraqi air raids on Tehran commenced on the 25th of September and lasted for about six days. There was no immediate danger to myself, staying in the Park Hotel in the heart of the city, since their targets were the airport and air force base, the Tehran oil refinery, and it was rumoured, the Imams residence, all of which were on the city outskirts. Typically, the MiGs and the Tupolevs came in successive waves, starting at 6.30pm when dusk was settling into night and the attacks lasted for about a half hour. An air warning siren would start blaring and a few minutes later the anti-aircraft weaponry would go into action. The whole sky was lit up as in a fireworks display, with
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Stroke Sixty Something thin red lines streaking across the sky followed by explosions. In addition, military men posted all over the city and on the tops of buildings would fire into the air with their sub-machine guns. This was of greater concern to me since I believed there was more danger from spent bullets falling down than from Iraqi bombs. It was too dark to see anything and it was difficult to make out if any fighter jet had been shot down as all one could hear was the sound of exploding bombs. The night of the 28th Sept. was particularly bad when waves of Iraqi jets struck at the city outskirts for nearly two hours continuously, but I dont think much damage was caused, since Tehran was heavily defended. The city took the raids very well, with practically no signs of visible panic. Because of the war situation and the evening blackout, I had little opportunity to move around and see things. However, I made it a point of walking about as much as I could, and soon fancied myself a fair authority on Tehrans topography. An outstanding feature of Tehran at that time were the revolutionary guards. These young men are distinguished by their olive green military jackets and boots, with sub machine guns slung under their shoulders and by their bearded or unshaven appearance. They constituted in effect a parallel authority to the regular police force and administration, and were to be found in groups in places of public importance such as post offices, banks, hotels, filling stations and of course the American Embassy. I got along quite well with the ones at my hotel by greeting them with the odd Salom-alekom and treating them to a Pepsi-Cola now and then, since they more or less ran the hotel. After the revolution, most of the hotels were nationalized and their owners executed; as a result, hotel service was at rock bottom and the hotels in Tehran were largely empty since very few people visited the place. The other guests were either foreign reporters or merchants displaced from the war areas. My stay in Tehran might have been very tedious, but for my business clients and the friends I made amongst them. They were very friendly and hospitable, at the same time very shrewd businessmen, and I enjoyed dealing with them. I remember an importer who had the habit of drinking vodka during our
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Stroke Sixty Something discussions. He was Armenian and a Christian by religion, and had no inhibitions about alcohol unlike the Iranian Moslems. Alcohol was totally prohibited under Islamic law, and he could have gotten the axe if discovered; nevertheless he consumed vast quantities of home-distilled vodka, till he could barely stand. In one instance he suddenly changed something that had been agreed to earlier. When I protested his reply was Yesterday I was drunk. Today I am sober and I find these prices unworkable. And back we went to the negotiating table. Another imported fancied himself a connoisseur of the fair sex and had set himself up in an office entirely manned (or rather womanned) by exquisite Iranian ladies. I dont think that business was high on his list of priorities, since every time a problem or clarification cropped up he would ask his assistants their opinion. The good ladies knew about as much about business as I do about the Dutch navy, and decisions seemed to be taken on the basis of answers like looks good or the colour is nice or why not. It was rumoured that although he had a wife and family, he preferred residing in a bachelor apartment which was essentially a shrine dedicated to Venus. Considering that his daughter and his wife worked with him (in apparent harmony), I could only envy his handling of affairs. With the two week deadline approaching and no end to the war in sight, I seriously set about the task of leaving Iran by land. I had a rare set of options before me the first was to travel to Istanbul by bus, from there catch a flight to Rome or Cairo and then another flight to India; the second to reach the Caspian Sea by road, sail across to the Russian port of Baku, thence on to Moscow and finally back to Delhi; and the third to travel by road through Pakistan. I ruled out the first option because I wasnt certain if I would have sufficient foreign exchange, and the second because I hadnt come prepared for the Russian type of weather. That left the Pakistan route and I opted for it because, if nothing else, at least I was headed in the direction of India. Very little was known about this route because hardly anybody had occasion to use it in normal times however, some of the Indians and Pakistanis who were leaving Iran chose this
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Stroke Sixty Something route because of its proximity to their eventual destinations. It involved reaching the eastern border post of Mir Javeh and then going on to Quetta from where I could catch a PIA flight to Karachi. The Pakistan embassy in Tehran was very obliging and through my clients who had contacts there, I managed to get my transit visa in record time. The same friends helped me to get a bus ticket to Zahedan, a major town in the east of Iran and after I had exchanged US dollars in Tehrans flourishing black market to meet expenses, I was all set to depart. Speaking of the black market, that is how I survived for five weeks in Tehran, exchanging my scarce US dollars at five times the official rate. I started the trip with about 3500 dollars, and was able to return about 2500 dollars back to the company after I got home. I left Tehran on the 22nd October, 1980, a full month after I had arrived, with a certain degree of nostalgia and a considerable amount of apprehension. The distance to Zahedan was approximately nine hundred miles and we took twenty nine hours to cover it. However, the bus was a very comfortable Mercedes Benz coach and the journey was smooth with good roads all the way. We reached the holy city of Khom (where the Imam hails from) in the evening and stopped for a change of drivers. The city had some very nice mosques but the stop wasnt long enough to do any sight-seeing. The desert night was extremely cold and I found the need for a thick jacket as well as a blanket. In the early morning we stopped at the Iranian equivalent of an inn for tea and washed up at a stream that ran close by. We reached the city of Kerman by eight oclock where we found we were very low on diesel, and it took two hours before we could locate a filling station that could supply us with some. The route up to Kerman was heavily crowded with military vehicles headed in the opposite direction with supplies, probably from the port of Bandar Abbas. After Kerman, the road was relatively clear and we reached Zahedan without incident in the late afternoon. I had to stay overnight at a hotel in Zahedan before proceeding to the border in the morning. Fortunately, I met up with two doctors from India, Dr. Bhat and Dr. Rajan who had spent five years in the north-eastern city of Meshad in Iran and were now returning by the same route as myself. We were wondering how
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Stroke Sixty Something to proceed when Dr. Bhat came up with a brilliant ideawe would go to the local hospital where, to use his own words there is bound to be an Indian doctor. We did so, and the first person we nearly tripped over as soon as we entered the gate was an Indian doctor. He was very helpful and gave us directions to reach the border. In the evening, he took us to the local market to help us purchase Pakistani rupees. Early on Friday morning we proceeded to the local bazaar and there negotiated for the hire of a jeep to take us to the border. The asphalted road stops at Zahedan and thereafter there is only a jeepable track running about 70 km to the border. The weather was pleasant but the journey was very dusty and there were several police and military check posts on the way where we were asked to stop. The good doctors had quite a bit of luggage and equipment and it would have required a herculean effort to open this up for examination and repack it, but in Iran fortunately doctors command a good deal of respect (a matter of current necessity, I suppose) and with no more than a cursory glance at our passports and belongings, we were asked to continue on our way. We reached the border after about three hours. The check post on the Iranian side is called Mir Javeh while on the Pakistani side it is called Taftan. They are small shanty constructions separated by a distance of about 2 km, and the whole set-up lies in a valley, between two rows of hills. It took us about three hours to clear Iranian customs, transport our belongings and ourselves to the other side, as well as clear Pakistani customs and fortunately there were three of us between whom we could divide the various tasks. Hindustani was spoken freely here and it was good to be able to use a language with which we had some degree of familiarity. We hired a Nissan pick-up vehicle for the 700km journey to Quetta. For the first 150 km there was no road, and to call it a mud track was to give it a distinction that it did not deserve. At times we found ourselves driving through dried river beds, at other times through scorching open desert, following the tracks of vehicles that had gone before. Had our vehicle broken down in that god-forsaken place we would have been in serious
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Stroke Sixty Something trouble. However, our luck held and we reached the small town of Lakhondi where the asphalted road begins, after 150 km and five hours of the most uncomfortable driving imaginable. We drove through the night and in the early hours of the morning, stopping in the desert only to catch a few hours of sleep. At Nushki, about 150km short of Quetta, our driver declared that he could go no further as petrol was no longer available. He said though that he would arrange for us to travel on a diesel bus owned by a friend. We suspected a rip-off, but the middle of the Baluchistan desert was no place to get into an argument, so we agreed to follow his advice. He naturally insisted on his dues in full, but in all fairness to him and his diesel bus friend, we reached Quetta in one piece. All the way from Tehran we had been traversing barren, flat desert, which looks plain but on closer examination is seen to consist of small pebbles. We had crossed the Great Salt desert, the Lut desert and now the Baluchi desert in succession without seeing a trace of greenery, except at Zahedan. Now as we approached Quetta, the terrain became hillier and the bleak, desolate landscape began to give way to scrubland. The bus we were travelling in was chock-a-bloc with Baluchi tribesmen who eyed us with great suspicion. We were stopped quite frequently at police check posts intended to detect smuggling activities. The policemen seemed to be mainly from Punjab and Sindh and there was clearly no love lost between them and the locals who were certainly smuggling all kinds of articles. At the first stop, we, being obvious strangers, were asked to produce our passports, and this caused a great deal of excitement among the Baluchi passengers, who thereafter referred to us as the passportwallahs. At all subsequent stops, whenever the policemen climbed to the top of the bus to check the luggage, the stock answer was Yeh passportwallah ka samaan hai. Our inclination to protest indignantly was instantly quelled by a withering glance from those fierce Baluchi tribesmen, and willynilly, we became accessories to the wholesale smuggling of rice, sugar, narcotics and electronic goods, concealed in almost every conceivable place about their persons and in the bus.
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Stroke Sixty Something We finally reached Quetta and civilization, and straightaway set about the task of assuring our onward journey. PIA were extremely helpful and issued tickets to Karachi in a tight situation for the following evening, thereby allowing us a much needed respite. We were ravenously hungry as we had hardly eaten anything since leaving Tehran, on the sound premise that the desert was the last place we would want to develop stomach disorders; nor had we much to drink as proper drinking water was scarce along the way. Quetta, being a hill station afforded a very relaxed atmosphere where we could unwind and the people too were very pleasant. In fact, right throughout our stay in Pakistan our being Indians did not cause any eyebrows to be raised; on the contrary, curiosity was the main reaction. For example, at the border check post of Taftan, I fell into conversation with a sergeant who had served in the united Indian Army prior to partition; he had been stationed at Whitefield in Bangalore and even remembered that the train journey from Madras to Bangalore took nine hours in this days; he was rather nostalgic and wanted to know how things were in India. Elsewhere, people sent messages of good wishes to friends and relatives in India. We reached Karachi late the following evening. As a result, we were not able to see anything of Karachi at all, since we were catching an early morning flight to Bombay. However, whatever little we had seen of urban Pakistan resembled India very closely to the extent of lifestyles, tastes and language. Indian songs are very popular for instance our pick-up driver had a cassette player installed in his driving cabin and we were treated to twenty hours of non-stop Hindi film music at full blast which diverted our minds from our uncomfortable posture. Quite a few products seemed to be imported, for example, automobiles, motor cycles and even a few household appliances, but by and large there was nothing much to write home about I might have been commenting on contemporary India. I reached Bombay in the morning of Monday, the 27th of October, five days and nights after having left Tehran, relieved enough to kneel down and lifted up the earth to my forehead. It was also time for the three of us to go our separate ways we had been through thick and thin and it surprising how well one can
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Stroke Sixty Something get to know people in such a short span of time. The good doctors and I parted company after promising to meet again in the near future. In retrospect, it had been a most interesting if not thoroughly enjoyable experience, though I wouldnt want to repeat it. Epilogue: It was a great relief to my family for me to be back in India since it was difficult to communicate except for the two or three telexes I managed to send from Tehran. My wife at the time was expecting our son, and I am glad to say that I was able to be present at his delivery six days after my return. On the other
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Part IV Social Service
Project-Alamathi of ENVIKAL
N.T. Nathan The Dream Initiative of IITM Alumni, Class of 1970
ENVIKAL is a social service initiative of the 1970 graduating batch of IIT Madras. Its unusual acronym stands for Engineering Novel Volunteer Initiatives & Knowledge Alliance Launch. The pearl reunion of the batch, held in the year 2000 generated huge enthusiasm among the batchmates and led to the formation of an Yahoo e-group later that year. The e-group, which provided a convenient forum for interaction, soon evolved into a cyber hostel, fanned by the nostalgic outpourings of the memories of those halcyon days spent in Ganga, Jamuna and other riverine hostels. Very soon hundreds of messages were posted every month by the members spread across the globe, on topics ranging from the mundane to the philosophical, from the temporal to the spiritual, and from light banter to serious discussions. When someone proposed it was time we collectively did our bit to benefit society at large, lots of ideas poured in.
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Stroke Sixty Something In 2001 an e-group poll amongst the batch mates endorsed three top choices for social service projects --self-sufficiency initiatives, education & literacy, and public health services. Of these the group chose the first projectself-sufficiency initiatives and soon ENVIKAL was born. Here is the story of how the motivated batch mates chose their first project. In February the same year, I happened to participate for the first time in the annual day celebrations of the Divine Mother Society (DMS) at their ashram situated at Alamathi, on the outskirts of Chennai, on the Thiruvallur High Road. The DMS Trust had been offering medical services to the village populace in and around Alamathi since 1992 through its medical centre in the Ashram. A year earlier the Trust had established a computer lab in a small room in the Ashram with two donated PCs and MS-Office software. It had attempted to expand its services and offer computer education to the rural kids but were unable to do so as there were no volunteers to deliver the service. My interactions with the DMS Secretary resulted in starting of computer classes at the Ashram in June 2001 for the students of class 10 of Govt. High School at Alamathi. Realizing that it was equally important for the students to perform well in their public examination, special week-end coaching in curriculum subjects like Mathematics, English grammar and Science was also started, initially with honorary volunteers. The classes were conducted in semi-permanent structures built at the ashram. Now this was a project that matched the vision and objectives of ENVIKAL and hence received the enthusiastic approval of IITM70 group when it was proposed that this be adopted as our first project. ProjectAlamathi of ENVIKAL thus got off to a modest start. Being a village bordering Chennai metropolis, Alamathi as a met-rural area inherently had certain advantages in terms of availability of infrastructure like power and telecom but still lacked accessibility to affordable quality support in education and health care domains. The DMS, a socio-religious organization, had a mission to offer the local populace services in these areas as well and built up an Ashram with reasonable facilities to deliver these services. Hence it was logical to conclude that
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Stroke Sixty Something ENVIKAL could synergistically align with DMS to achieve its own mission. For sustainable and effective delivery, we needed enhanced infrastructure, professional staff, and funds for both. Constant feedback and interaction through our Yahoo group brought in donations from a few committed batch mates. A new PC was procured and Ford India donated two used PCs without much ado when we made our request. The center was named ENVIKAL-DMS computer center. Professional teachers were inducted for the classes and were paid an honorarium for their services. In the academic year 2001-02, over 100 students benefited from the focused attention they received week after week from the tuition masters. At the end of the year, Mr. Selvaraj, the Head Master of the school, proudly acknowledged that his school secured 85 percent success rate in the public examination, in contrast to the 35% achieved in the previous year, thanks to the DMS-IITM70 initiative. Now as we enter the 10th year of Alamathi project, the primary activities - the computer classes and tuitions for SSLC have continued uninterrupted year after year. Over the years, the classes have been extended to students from a couple of other schools and also to class 12 students of Science and Commerce streams. Over 1000 students averaging about 120 every year have been coached to this day. Most of the students who have been regular in attending classes come out successful in the public examinations giving a consistent pass percentage of over 80% year after year for our center. Our continual interaction with students hailing from financially challenged rural society and the faculty from the met-rural area revealed several interesting facts: the academically well-performing lot amongst them needed some motivation to aspire for higher learning the creatively talented amongst them (who were in good number!) needed further unique guidance to realize their full potential the use of technology would significantly improve quality of delivery supplementing the services rendered by teachers
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Stroke Sixty Something education does not stop with secondary school and the deserving students would need support to continue their education So we decided to go beyond the routine tuitions. We started organizing tours to IITM, our Alma Mater in the hope that such visits would light a spark in the young minds. In the month of Sep, 2003 first batch of Alamathi students numbering about 60 visited the campus. And how they enjoyed it can be seen from the report of the visit circulated to our e-group (Annexure-A). Since then we have organized at least one tour every year covering more than 600 students, the last one being on 13th January this year (2010). The itinerary (a sample in Annexure-A) usually includes visit to labs and facilities of a few departments and IITMAA sponsored lunch. Credit for success of such visits also goes to Office of Alumni affairs, Executive committee of IITMAA and professors and staff of various departments and labs. The rural kids get a chance of their life time to observe first hand interesting demos on Science & Technology and to experience the inspiring ambience of an institution of higher education. Further we arranged computer training in graphics and visualization tools in the ashram, which saw enthusiastic participation by the artistically inclined students. One of the reasons for its success was the conscious choice of the trainer, who hailed from a similar background as the students and could vibe with them. This not only sustained student interest but brought out the best in them. For instance, graphics skills of the students were utilized in the design of the ENVIKAL website. So effective was the training that some of the students after completing school landed jobs in BPO companies and entrepreneurial ventures on the strength of skills acquired from the training. We started offering scholarships to a few top performers in the SSLC examination from the year 2004. A few of them who wanted to pursue diploma courses in technology were reimbursed their tuition fee. Some of them who wanted to proceed with higher secondary education were given book allowance. We have disbursed to the tune of 2 lakhs in the past 6 years and over 40 students have benefited so far. Nagarajan one of the beneficiaries did well in is diploma course and was selected by
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Stroke Sixty Something ESSAR in campus interview a couple of years ago. Some of te girls who were also selected for scholarship are doing well in tier Diploma course. We could not scale up in terms of rewarding all good performers as much as we would have liked, due to paucity of funds. When Minvalai, a company promoted by ex-IITians, provided wireless Internet connectivity through kiosks to over 200 villages of Thiruvallur district using Cordect technology, we also participated and got the benefit of e-learning for the class 10 students by establishing a kiosk at the ENVIKAL-DMS center. This technology had been developed by TeNet, the IITM technology group, and promoted by nLogue. But the experiment was abandoned after 2 years. However internet connectivity is available at the center through dial-up facility. Since 2003 DMS had been organizing fund raising musical nites branded as Gaata Rahe Mera Dil in various Indian cities and the brand has become quite popular now in Chennai and Bangalore. These shows were also supported by ENVIKAL. The money raised has been utilized in creating a permanent structure within the Ashram, which is now used for conducting classes too. Also, since Feb 2008, every Saturday after the classes, nutritious noon meal is offered which serves the twin purpose of spiritual offering as well as additional incentive to students to be regular to the week-end classes! ENVIKAL recently donated 900 USD to DMS for the specific purpose of purchase of a Digital Projector that will be used for organizing special screening of educational and useful entertainment presentations or shows to the students and their parents. Frequently students present cultural programs during special gatherings in the ashram. Once, they performed dance and music show in OAT during the ADIEU-2007 program that was appreciated by the Director and many other IITians. Going forward, we would like to scale up to a level where deserving students are benefited in a sustainable way. In other words, we should be able to handhold, monitor and review performances continually to ensure that the students achieve
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Stroke Sixty Something their educational goals. The funding model has also been changed from this year. In order to maintain the continuity and keep it going for a long time to come, ENVIKAL funds are now parked with IITM alumni charitable fund. We now need to set up a process for growth and utilization of this fund, which is a legacy of IITM70 batch mates.
ANNEXURE-A: Report of Alamathi students visit to IITM campus on 27-Sep-2003

Today was a memorable day, not only for the school kids, but also for the Envikal Project and for the professors who spent some time with them - this is how Prof Sundararajan, our Alumni president put it. It was made memorable by the special efforts of Sundar and Raj for the lunch, the photographer, visits to key places and for the speech - we owe them special thanks. A surprise gift was a motivating speech (a la Abdul Kalam) in Tamil by Mr LS Ganesh, Prof of Management, which I am sure, would have fired the imagination of the kids. Though the kids could not visit the pool etc. due to paucity of time, interacting with them, I could see that they were quite thrilled by the ambience and the treatment they got. I am sure, all of us, especially Pat who originally suggested such a trip and Rambo who broached the idea of offering lunch, are equally thrilled.
Three cheers to Envikal

I would also express my sincere thanks to DMS staff, particularly Suresh, the Trust Secretary and Rajasekar, the manager, for the great support. The safety of the students was foremost in my mind, and they had done their best to make this trip a success. I will soon be updating Envikal website with the photographs. N.T. Nathan
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Observations After a Visit

Narasimhan P. Kannan ENVIKALs Alamathi Project
Thanks to NT Nathan, Dave, Tushar, and I were able to spend several hours learning about the DMS, the Alamathi School, and the village. It was enlightening to say the least. First let me disclose my fears before my visit. I had a nagging worry that DMS is an NGO with a religious agenda that used social services as a cover. I also was not sure if the ENVIKAL efforts made any difference. Well, here are my observations, post visit. DMSs motto is Manava Seva Madhava Seva which translates roughly as Service to Mankind through positive actions with no expectations of any personal returns is equivalent to Service to God or what we call Dharma. The NGO is called Divine Mother Society (DMS) as Mothers are the models of inspiration as they serve their families unconditionally with very little expectations of any personal return other than the joy of service. DMS was inspired by Sri. Kamakshi Baba, a visionary who
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Stroke Sixty Something espoused and advocated the philosophy of service to fellow men. It has deep roots in religion, especially Hinduism. In fact, the day we arrived at Alamathi the loudspeaker was blaring Vishnu Sahasranamam in Sanskrit, which made me even more anxious. And my fears were more or less confirmed when we opened the festivities with a long prayer in front of a shrine where there was a statue of Kamakshi Baba. The assembly was asked to recite three times each of a number of slokas that was mostly in Sanskrit and a token prayer from Islam which was relatively short. The Islamic verse was inserted ostensibly in an ecumenical sprit to mollify those who might otherwise take umbrage at the blatantly Hindu tone of the affair. I had further inquired if they have any Hindu religion and philosophy taught in special classes and the answer was in the affirmative; when I asked if the significant number of Muslim students at the school attended these, the answer again was yes. I did not pursue my line of interrogation further having decided that DMS was a Hindu mission not unlike Ramakrishna Mission and not a secular social service organization, which I had hoped it would be. So I searched for any offsetting virtues. On balance what I found was a religious NGO that is doing a lot of good. The only change I would ask for is that the DMS make it a point to teach the children about all the major religions and faiths. It would add a dimension of enlightenment to both staff and students. DMS has attracted highly placed professionals like S. Suresh who is a volunteer trustee of the DMS Trust and a passionate leader. He has assembled a solid management team and volunteers who run the place efficiently. NTs involvement at DMS gives me great comfort. The students drawn from the nearby Alamathi school appeared happy and healthy and quite articulate. They received medical care, food, and attention from a caring and supportive staff. The tenth graders had access to computer education, thanks to ENVIKAL. We got a demo of an impressive Telemedicine diagnostic system and a video chat among several other villages in Tiruvallur district where the nLogue systems have been installed and operated, thanks to Ashok Jhunjhunwalas vision and SuperGod Raj Varadarajans efforts.
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Stroke Sixty Something We were treated to dances by students and a tasty catered meal at the center. We also were taken through a PowerPoint presentation which educated us on the DMS missions across India and the goals. All of this was quite embarrassing as we were not expecting to be treated like some MPs. Tushar however was relishing this level of personalized attention especially as he distributed awards to students for various accomplishments. We also visited the local high school at Alamathi which was about a mile from the DMS Ashram and shared the podium with the Principal who introduced us to an assembly of the high school girls and boys. NT Nathan followed up with an inspiring speech in Tamil and then put me on the spot by asking me to say a few words. I stood up and in my half-assed Tamil asked the students if they were interested in going to a college like IIT, which they had all visited earlier. Many hands went up, mostly of girls. I promised the students that ENVIKAL will fund anyone who wants to continue their education further by picking up their expenses. Then I had a chance to chat with some of the teachers and quickly realized that many of the girls will be pulled out of the high school and will not be allowed out of the home until marriage, all because they have reached puberty. I was disheartened to hear about this and realized that unless we have a solution for this problem our investment in educating the girls will be for naught. Back at the DMS I asked one of the ladies by the name of Nirmala, a modest but very intelligent and articulate member of the local Panchayat on how to persuade the parents to allow the continuation of education of their girls. She was optimistic that she could do that one family at a time. I felt the only way to save the girls was to let them rent computers from the DMS center and work from home and earn a living via internet and thus become an asset instead of a liability for the family. Once a girl earns some money by working her family will have incentive to keep her at home rather than push her off into marrying someone. This could potentially postpone the marriage itself and hopefully limit the number of offspring. Also, an educated mother is most likely to invest in the education of her children and thus our work will provide benefits to the
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Stroke Sixty Something next generation and beyond. A good old multiplier effect that can potentially amplify the value of our investments long after we all are gone. With that happy thought we returned back to Chennai traveling via a recently completed segment of the Golden Quadrilateral which was impressive until I saw an old guy crossing the highway right in front of the speeding traffic and he seemed outraged at the fast moving cars and trucks. He stood his ground smack in the middle of the highway and chose to cross only after all the vehicles came to a complete stop--modern and old India coexisting uneasily, just like at Alamathi.
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ENVIKAL Pedal Power

Ben Thomas
In June 2009, Hydroo was accepted as one of the riders in the Colorado Rocky Mountain Bike Tour. This is an alpine tour at altitudes ranging from 5,000 feet to over 10,000 feet. It is not for the unfit or the faint of heart. Hydroo used the opportunity to raise money for the ENVIKAL projects, channelled through the IITM Alumni Charitable Trust. In early May, we had only about 30 pledges when Ben posted an article on our website about the forthcoming trip. That was followed by a concerted and extremely successful effort by DC and Daljit to obtain more pledges. Bens post, which reinvigorated the fundraising effort, is reproduced below. Under that is an email from the protagonist, Hydroo, outlining the financial result of his Pedal for Envikal odysseya result that exceeded all expectations. Le Tour de Colorado May 10, 2009
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Stroke Sixty Something Most of you are aware that Hydroo has been selected (by lottery) for the annual Colorado Ride the Rockies bicycle tour, covering more than 380 miles in 6 days in mid-June. This is about the same distance as starting in NY City, bicycling through Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire and going another 80 miles into Maine. Or bicycling from Chennai to Bangalore and back And if the distance isnt daunting enough, this is not hilly, but real mountain biking, with several mountain passes above 8,000ft including one at 12,000ft ! OUCH !!! Think hes gonna pedal or push the bike up that mountain? Remember, Hydroo has been training..... In early 2008, Hydroo decided to take up bicycling as an active retirement hobby. Within a few months he was touring locally with other riders, sometimes even on two and three day trips. And in a few months, he was down to his weight as an IIT student. Today, he is as fit and athletic as when he was one of the regulars that played (tennis-ball) cricket or rounders in front of Saraswati Hostel (on one half of that six-lane concrete oval track that Prof Sengupto built for the IIT rollerblade club consisting of one active member, our own Umapathi). But Hydroo, in his quiet way, did more than just take up biking. He volunteered his services as an apprentice (with no pay at all) at a local bicycle repair shop. Sure, he wanted to learn about the parts and mechanics of a ten-speed mountain bike, but you know what I think? I think he could have learned all that in about the same time as mugging for one periodical, so why is he still working there as a volunteer? He claims it is for a selfish reason to learn more, but I think it is just one more selfless act by an altruistic, generous and giving person. Since its inception, Hydroo has been more than the Treasurer for ENVIKAL. He has been an active organizer for any activity or fundraiser, he has put together presentations on ENVIKAL for our reunions, he has quietly championed the cause at every opportunity, and I have seen him repeat the same info verbally or by email hundreds of times in response to the latest inquiry, and every time as enthusiastically as the first time.
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Stroke Sixty Something In his worldwide travels (business or personal) over the past many years, Hydroo has never failed to take the extra time, sometimes a day or two, to visit yet another classmate close to his destination or en-route. I dont know if anyone else has stayed in touch with as many classmates in and outside of India. You want some info about any of our batchmates? Need an address? Email id? Want a picture? Need some more info about ENVIKAL? Dont remember what that Srinivass initials were...... you know, the Mech guy that started in B batch? Your best bet to answer any of those questions is, of course, Hydroo. When he announced that he was a lucky winner of a draw for this bicycle tour and after he mentioned perhaps that he would Pedal for Envikal, many classmates joined in pledging donations. But our total pledges, while meeting Hydroos stated goal, are far too modest, in my opinion. For everything that Hydroo has put into ENVIKAL, for all the efforts that he has put into our 1970 batch, for the tireless work that he puts in for our benefit at every reunion, even the mini ones, we HAVE to do more. Our goal should be to have at least 50 people make a donation, however small that donation might be. True to the style that suits Hydroo just fine, there is no trophy for finishing the bike tour, and there are no winners. But we our IITM1970 batch--can do better. We can not only make a more worthy contribution to ENVIKAL, but we can do it in Hydroos name. So, let us make THIS fundraising a championship effort, and make our modest, unassuming Hydroo the winner and champion that he has quietly been all these years. His trophy will be symbolized by the total number of classmates who have made any kind of a pledge, and lets make sure that trophy is large enough to match the kindness and heart that he has always displayed. So please join the others and make a pledge to ENVIKAL. Ben August 27, 2009 Guys,
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Stroke Sixty Something I am pleased to inform you that US and Canadian $ pledge collections for my Pedal for Envikal initiative raised $3,750 from 31 batchmates. I will be sending a check to DC later this week. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the following 7 guys who each contributed $200 or more and accounted for about 50% of the total $ pledges. DocVasu - Metl Shanmuk - Chem RamAero - Aero Harchi - Metl Amol - Metl Chandran - Civil Chiku - Aero
DC has been doing a great job of keeping up with collection and reporting of the Rupee pledges. When all the collections are in, he should have another nearly Rs 2 lakhs to add to the coffers. These guys deserve special mention by each having donated Rs 10,000 or more directly to DC: Daljit - Aero DocVasu - Metl KK - Mech TopCop - Elec Vasan - Mech
Thanks again, guys. It was heartwarming to see over 75 batchmates rise to the occasion and get behind this fundraiser for our batch fund in the IITM Alumni Charitable Trust. When I was huffing and puffing on the bike at high altitudes in the Colorado Rockies, this broad support and encouragement proved instrumental in keeping me going. Thanks a bunch also to Ben, DC and Daljit who kept the momentum going and increasing the batch participation to unprecedented levels for any cause since our 1970 graduation nearly four decades ago. Cheers, Hydroo
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Part V Honours and Awards
Distinguished Alumnus Award Citations

IIT Madras instituted Distinguished Alumnus Awards in 1996. These awards are presented annually in up to five categories: Academic Excellence; Technology Innovation Excellence; Managerial Excellence; Entrepreneurial Excellence; Excellence in Other Walks of Life. Since inception 79 alumni have been selected for the award. It is a matter of pride to all of us that 7 of these honourees are from our batch. One of them is Dr. Meera Chandrasekhar, whose degree was M.Sc. Physics. Only one other batch, the class of 1977 has equalled our record in the number of Distinguished Alumni. The award-ceremony citations of the seven classmates are reproduced below. Ed.
1996 - T.T. Jagannathan

Shri Jagannathan has played a pivotal role in bringing simple and useful technologies within the reach of Indian families. He graduated from this Institute in 1970 with a Bachelors degree with distinction in Mechanical Engineering. He was awarded the Governors Prize and
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Stroke Sixty Something the Banco Foundation Prize for the best academic record in Mechanical Engineering. His keen interest in techno-managerial and manufacturing systems led him to study operations research and business management in which he obtained the degree of Master of Science at Cornell University in 1972. After his academic success abroad, he chose to return to India in 1973 and Tamilnadu Printers & Traders Pvt. Ltd., as the General Manager and in less than a year turned the company around into a profitable venture. It is now one of the leading producers of Maps & Travel guides. Gifted with the right combination of knowledge and leadership, Mr. Jagannathan, only 26 then, was appointed as the Managing Director of TTK Group of companies in 1974. Under him, the TTK group of companies has become one of the leading manufacturers of pressure cooker and contraceptives. Shri Jagannathan represents a generation of Indian business leaders who are making India globally competitive.
1997 - Dr. Jalaiah Unnam

Dr Jalaiah Unnams contributions to metal-matrix composites, and X-ray diffraction have won him several awards from NASA Langley Research and Development Park in Hampton, Virginia, USA, and other organizations. Dr Unnam graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras with a Bachelors degree in Metallurgy (1970), and earned the Masters and the Ph.D. degrees in Materials Engineering and Science from Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia. Dr Unnam is the President and CEO of Analytical Services & Materials, Inc (AS&M), located in the Langley Research and Development Park in Hampton, Virginia. This Company is a big asset to Langley Research Centre and employs 165 Scientists and Engineers. This company has given critical help to the Langley Research Centre in R&D areas like the redesign and analysis of the wind Tunnel fan blades, the Shuttle solid rocket booster, the National Aerospace Plane Program engine and airframe concept reviews and the laminar flow control Supercritical Airfoil Experiments.
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Stroke Sixty Something In 1989 NASA gave him an award in recognition of his outstanding performance, entrepreneurial spirit, and unique commitment in providing support to the National Aeronautical and Space Administration.
2000 - M.S Srinivasan

Sri Srinivasan blends that rare combination of technical expertise with administrative ability. Sri M.S. Srinivasan graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras with a B.Tech. in Civil Engineering in 1970. He subsequently received his Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University, U.S. in 1987. He underwent training at the National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie from June 1971 to May 1973 and has also been a member of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) for the last thirty years. In a distinguished public administrative career spanning 27 years, Sri Srinivasan has travelled from his posting as a Sub-collector of Tuticorin Division of Tirunelveli District in Tamil Nadu. During this period he has served as the General Manager of the Pallavan Transport Corporation, as Managing Director of Kattabomman Transport Corporation, as Project Co-ordinator of the Tamil Nadu Integrated Nutrition Project, as Collector of the Dharmapuri and Ramanathapuram districts, as the Project Director for the Tamil Nadu Health Project, as the Marketing Director in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas for the Government of India, as the Managing Director, Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers Limited, as the Managing Director of the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board, as the Chairman and Managing Director of the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation Limited and as the Secretary of the Government of Tamil Nadu Industries Department. Since June 2000 he has been with the Government of India in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion. During this wide-ranging career, Sri Srinivasan has influenced the course of uncountable numbers of lives with his steadfast dedication and tireless energy. Among these numerous contributions, Sri Srinivasan led a health care program that focused pregnant and lactating mothers, and children in the age group of 6 to 36 months in 9000 villages, covering over 40% of
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Stroke Sixty Something the population of Tamil Nadu. While Industries Secretary of the Government of Tamil Nadu he played a significant role in the emergence of Tamil Nadu as a software city through his initiative during the development of the TIDEL Park at Chennai. IIT-Madras is happy to bestow the Distinguished Alumnus Award on Shri. M.S. Srinivasan.
2002 - Dr. Meera Chandrasekhar (nee Chandrapal)

Prof. Meera Chandrasekhar (nee Chandrapal) obtained the M.Sc. degree in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 1970. She subsequently obtained another Masters and the Ph.D. degree from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. She spent about two years as a Research Associate at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart, Germany before joining the University of Missouri at Columbia as a faculty member of the Physics Department. Awards and prizes have come at regular intervals to Prof. Chandrasekhar, for excellence in both teaching and research. In 1992, she was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society. Prof. Chandrasekhars most significant contributions have been in the area of optical properties of semi-conductors and superconductors. In 1983, Prof. Chandrasekhar established a research laboratory at the University of Missouri for optical studies at high pressures (upto two hundred thousand atmospheres) and low temperatures (down to liquid helium at 4.2 K). At the time there were only five other laboratories in the US with similar capabilities, among them the facilities at IBM, Xerox, Harvard and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Two decades later, her techniques are still considered to be among the best. The focus of Prof. Chandrasekhars work has been in the pressure behaviour of multiple quantum well structures (superlattices). These structures are increasingly important due to their unique properties and device application, including solid state lasers. Using the tools of high pressure coupled with a variety of optical techniques such as absorption, photoluminescence, Raman scattering and photo-modulated reflectivity, Prof. Chandrasekhars
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Stroke Sixty Something group has elucidated the optical and electronic properties of semiconductor heterostructures. Her recent interests include the exciting new area of organic semiconductors. Interested in outreach and mentoring, Prof. Chandrasekhar has developed programs in the physical sciences for schools and teacher training. The program was particularly targeted at female students because of the well known phenomenon of their dropping physical science courses from their curriculum in the later years of high school. Prof. Chandrasekhars achievements in teaching, research and service to the community make her a unique member of the academic fraternity. The Indian Institute of Technology Madras is proud to confer the Distinguished Alumnus Award to Prof. Meera Chandrasekhar.
2005 - Dr. A. Parasuraman

Dr. A. Parasuraman is a Professor and Holder of the James W. McLamore Chair in Marketing at the University of Miami. He obtained his B.Tech degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Madras in 1970, MBA degree from IIM Ahmedabad in 1972 and Doctor of Business Administration degree from Indiana University in 1975. Dr. Parasuraman teaches and does research in the areas of service marketing, service quality measurement and improvement, and the role of technology in marketing to and serving customers. In 1988 he was selected as one of the Ten Most Influential Figures in Quality by the editorial board of The Quality Review. He received many distinguished teaching and research awards, including the Best Professor Award given by the Executive MBA Classes in 1996, 1998 and 2000, and the Provosts Award for Scholarly Research in 1998. He also received the American Marketing Associations Career Contributions to the Services Discipline Award in 1998 and the Academy of Marketing Sciences Outstanding Marketing Educator Award in 2001. Dr. Parasuraman has written numerous articles in leading journals such as the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Retailing, and Sloan Management Review. He has
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Stroke Sixty Something served as editor of Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (1997-2000) and is the editor for Journal of Service Research (2005-2008). He also serves on the editorial review boards of ten journals. He is the author of four books. He is an active consultant and has conducted dozens of executive seminars on service quality, customer satisfaction and the role of technology in service delivery in many countries. In recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field of Management, IIT Madras and its alumni are proud to confer on him this award.
2009 - D. Chandrasekhar
Mr. D. Chandrasekhar (DC to friends and well-wishers) obtained his B. Tech. (Metallurgy) from IIT Madras in 1970, and spent 18 months in training in the aluminium aerospace industry in Germany. He is known as an entrepreneur with the Midas touch. He began as a first-generation entrepreneur with zero capital in the smallscale sector way back in 1974 and made a success of many companies in different areas of engineering: machine-building, aluminium foundry, electro-less nickel coating, light chemicals. He holds an enviable record in industrial harmony 34 years as entrepreneur and zero hours lost! His products have found useful applications far and wide. UNICEF uses his salt-testing kits for checking iodine content in iodized salt in more than 120 countries he is the single global supplier. He exported and commissioned over 150 salt iodization plants in 12 countries. His low-cost application for gold-plating on metallic and non-metallic surfaces led to more glittering gopura kalasams, in great temples such as Kapaleeswarar temple. It also has many domestic and retail sector applications. Mr. Chandrasekhar has been associated with coffee--he was part of the team Qwikys that set up Indias first coffee cafe chain. He has twice won the Regional Export Award of the Government of Indias Engineering Export Promotion Council.
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Stroke Sixty Something Mr. Chandrasekhar has played Good Samaritan in the social sector, particularly in the areas of education and health services. To illustrate: he was in the managing committee of the Ramakrishna Ashrama for over 25 years. Founder member of the Madras Dyslexia Association, he has been its President for the past six years. He is founder-trustee of the Rotary Central TTK-VHS Blood Bank; founder-member of the VHS Institute of Cardio Vascular Sciences; secretary (1995) of the IIT Madras Alumni Association; secretary of the IIT Madras Alumni Charitable Trust and IIT Madras Research Foundation; Chairman - Finance Committee of the PanIIT 2008 Alumni Global Conference. In recognition of his entrepreneurial excellence and outstanding contributions to society, IIT Madras and its alumni are proud to confer on him this award.
2010 - R. Sri Kumar

Mr. R. Sri Kumar after his schooling in New Delhi received his B.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering (Power) from IIT Madras in 1970. He later received a Masters degree in Business Laws in 2003 from National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Mr. Sri Kumar retired as the Head of the Police force in Karnataka in the rank of DG & IGP in January, 2009. Post retirement, he is assisting the Confederation of Indian Industries in the Southern Region as Head of its Task Force on Internal Security. He is also the Chairperson of the Karnataka Chapter of Cyber Society of India. A public charitable trust called Indian Centre for Social Transformation, set up by him, offers e-governance initiatives through use of appropriate and affordable technologies. 20, 000 publicly financed projects in Bangalore City being executed by the Municipal Corporation are under real--time stakeholder scrutiny through a portal established by ICST. This visibility and transparency has helped completion of many projects with minimum cost or time overrun using the principles of professional project management. He is also a member of the Government of Indias committee on Bank Frauds and Capacity Building of IPS Officers in the country.
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Stroke Sixty Something A motivated and committed Police Officer, Mr. Sri Kumar worked by the rule book in the system for thirty six years, amidst attempts at making the police pliant. A technocrat who joined the Indian Police Service in 1973 by choice and had the singular opportunity of serving for about a decade each in the States of Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka, and in the Central Bureau of investigation, he is known as a person with a penchant for continuous learning and continual improvement. An ace investigator who dealt with terrorism, organized crimes, economic crimes as well as several politically-sensitive cases, Mr. Sri Kumar has proved time and again to be a perceptive inquirer who goes to the root of the matter and has been responsible for many perpetrators of crime being punished in courts of law. Some of Mr. Sri Kumars significant accomplishments include: setting up the countrys first Cyber Crime police station in Bangalore, obtaining ISO quality, environmental and Green Building certification for the Karnataka State Police Housing Corporation, playing a vital role in the successful investigation of several important cases such as Rajiv Gandhi assassination, Harshad Mehta Bank scam, Telgi Stamp Paper scam, St Kitts case, etc. In recognition of his outstanding leadership qualities and contributions to excellence in public service, IIT Madras and its alumni are proud to confer this award on him.
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Award Acceptance speeches

The recipients of the Distinguished Alumnus Award are called upon to make a speech at the formal ceremony. Here we reproduce the speeches of D. Chandrasekhar and R. Sri Kumar, awardees in 2009 and 2010 respectively. The earlier recipients either could not locate transcripts of their speeches, or had spoken extempore and could not remember the exact content. Ed.
D. Chandrasekhar
Respected gentlemen dignitaries, ladies and
Good evening. I thank everyone who made this award possible. I am very happy to accept the award I am reminded of that Hollywood actress who was awarded an Oscar. She said, This does not mean I am somebody. It means that some people think I am on my way to becoming somebody. I hope I prove those people right. It is an honour to receive a distinguished alumnus award from the IIT Madras. In fact I consider this award even more valuable than the IIT B Tech degree. Because the
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Stroke Sixty Something degree was only for what I learned at IIT; this award is for how I put the learning to use during the past 39 years. I joined the IIT by accident. I didnt get my admit card for the Joint entrance exam, while many of my friends did. It did not worry me because I actually wanted to become a chartered accountant. But my parents wanted me to join the IIT, and my mother went to the Registrar of IIT. She was told that a 65-paise stamp was missing from my self-addressed envelope, so IIT didnt send me the hall ticket for the JEE. Apparently, even in 1964-65, the IIT administration was quite strict. But my mother paid the Registrar 65 paise and made sure that I got my admit card. Though I was a reluctant IITian then, I became a proud IITian very soon, and have remained so all these years. And you have made me even more proud. This award is partly for entrepreneurship. I must point out that I became an entrepreneur by default. After my IIT degree I went to Germany for training. On return to India, I failed to get a job immediately but needed to earn a living. So I became selfemployed and was known as an entrepreneur. It is said that experience is a good school but the fees are high. Its certainly true of my experience as an entrepreneur. But I was fortunate to get some institutional support. I am glad to see the Chairman of BHEL here today. It was BHEL in Trichy and Ranipet that supported and strengthened me in my early days as entrepreneur. In fact, BHEL has helped develop a number of first-generation entrepreneurs. The BHEL chairman can certainly by proud of his companys record in this respect. I have enjoyed my relationship with my alma mater both the Ramakrishna Mission School in T Nagar, and IIT Madras. This relationship has been an anchor, it has given me a sense of balance and stability, it has given me many friends, and it has given me satisfaction and much joy. One of the class teachers at the Ramakrishna Mission School was a staunch devotee of Swami Vivekananda. He instilled in me certain
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Stroke Sixty Something values. It was then the centenary year of Vivekananda, and what Vivekananda said about community service greatly impressed me. I like to regard it as a guiding influence. A teacher affects eternity one never knows where his influence stops. The other part of this award is for performance in other walks of life. May I humbly compliment and congratulate IIT for recognizing the importance of other walks of life, by measuring success through other yardsticks. In this connection, let me tell you about Howard Gardners theory of multiple intelligence. Im familiar with this because of my work with dyslexic children. Gardner says there are as many as eight categories of intelligence: verbal-linguistic intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, intra-personal intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, visualspatial intelligence, musical intelligence, bodily intelligence, and naturalistic intelligence But our educational system recognizes only the first two of these eight types of intelligence verbal-linguistic and logicalmathematical. This is a lopsided perception of intelligence. I would urge the IIT to recognize also the other six categories of intelligence. If the IIT does so, other institutions will follow suit because of the brand image that IIT commands. Excellence in all categories will thereby get a fillip. Our society, our country and the world would be better off. My life partner Shanti should get much of the credit for the recognition accorded to me. I dont say this just to flatter my better half. My work as professional and social entrepreneur has been enriched in fact it has been rendered possible by her participation and support. Nelson Mandela once remarked that education is the most potent weapon to transform the world. IIT has proved this statement right every year for the past 50 years. I thank IIT today for honouring me, but Im even more grateful to IIT for enabling me to play a very small role in this process of transformation. Nothing can be more satisfying or fulfilling.
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R. Sri Kumar
The Director, the Chief Guest, the distinguished Alumni, Ladies and Gentlemen, This award means a lot, lot to me. 45 years back when I entered the portals of this great Institute, holding the hands of my grandfather, I never realized that 45 years later, I will be entering the portals of this Institute again, this time holding the hands of my wife. I came to this Institute from Delhi and a whole train load of persons - 26 out of 109 who passed out of Madrasi School Delhi, landed here. It was just a shift over from Delhi to this place. And I remember what happened in Madrasi School. You know, I was in the Sanskrit class. Biology class had to have their practicals, the Geography group had to have their practicals, and the Drawing group also had to have their three hour practicals. But what can we do with three continuous hours of learning Sanskrit. So obviously the Sanskrit master sometimes used to go out in the middle and come late etc. So one day when he came to our class, he found that we were all doing some mischief--lot of mischief at that time. So he made us stand up on the bench. The school board exam was very close. So he was counting how many of us would bring him distinctions. You know getting distinction i.e. 75% in the school board exam was considered a creditable thing those days. Especially for him and so he was counting how many would get a distinction in Sanskrit and bring him credit. All those he thought would get a distinction, he made them sit down. When he looked at me, he said NO, you will not make it. And so, I had to continue to stand on the bench. I want to tell him, I did get my distinction and made him proud. Now, when the Institute recognizes you and says that yes, you have done it, I feel very proud of this award. You know, a lot of effort has gone in to it. Coming from Delhi over here, Sending 50% of the pay packet here, my parents, my two sisters and two brothers, I know they all had to make all kinds of sacrifices. My good uncles here, one of them was also here an Assistant Engineer in the maintenance department in IIT and when all of us were complaining too much, he left the department and went away from here. So they all contributed.
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Stroke Sixty Something They played hosts every Diwali and every festival. So you could have your fun while here. And since we had a train load of our own school mates coming here, I told you 26 came to IIT Madras from Madrasi school, so when we landed here, I had lot of friends and well wishers. The class of 70 is a unique class, a class by itself. I must tell you, Five years here was full of bonhomie. So good that the bonhomie has continued over the years. Now we plan to celebrate our Ruby reunion in July this year in IIT Madras. Some of them are present here. And I can tell you sir, the Class of 70 always did it. The class of 70 had, more distinguished alumni than any other class to this day. And that is not enough. There are many more who have not yet been recognized and are waiting to be recognized because they are a class by themselves. I was just talking to Prof Pasupathy just now. About Dr Venkatesh Mannar. The whole of the nation Canada, recognizes him. He is yet to be recognized as a distinguished Alumni here. So I know the class of 70 is very good many distinguished ones. We always had this class mentality. When one enters this great institution, there are people from JK, Assam and all over India. We also had many persons from many parts of the country. It is very difficult to get into IIT, very difficult to do well and excel here, because everyone is definitely better than you. So like the Sanskrit master, you will never be asked to sit down. So you will never get the Siemens Medal. Yes sir, we also had the Siemens medal in our time, and I did not get the Siemens medal. But the person who got the Governors medal, never got the distinguished award. So I am going to show my Thumbs to him. The Institute has done a lot of good to me in addition to giving this award. You know, the protective elders in the institute, the teachers, the friends the seniors, they always protected me from ragging and things like that. I was a puny 4 ft 10 in when I joined the IIT. Called pigeon chested and Poor in Physique. That is what the doctor said. Not fit to do a tough course like the engineering. I grew in stature and self confidence here. I added ten inches to my height while here. The ten inches round the waist, came much later. I grew in stature and self
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Stroke Sixty Something confidence here. There were colleagues in the class of 70 who were always very ncouraging. The class of 70 as I said is a class apart. Yes sir, you have to believe it. The class of seventy is a class apart. I will tell you why. Last year sixty of us got together here and celebrated the sashtiaptapoorthy for the whole class. Has any other batch done it and will any other batch do it? For the last ten years we have been having fun in our cyber hostel. Thanks to the internet. So the class made me feel very good. I did my electrical engineering here. Sorry Sir, I do not remember what engineering I learnt here. That is why I went over to the Police. One thing has been troubling all these years--as to why I joined the IPS. Wherever I went, this question has been asked again and again. In those days nobody joined the Police. Of course in my batch in the IPS we did have another IITian from IIT Kanpur. But always people where quizzing us as to why we wasted our engineering degree and joined the Police. No answers could satisfy them. So now that this award has been given by the Institute itself, I can proudly go out and say, say that I have done the right thing. The Institute itself says that I have done the right thing. The Institute has prepared me to face the challenges in life. Police, all of you know, is a challenging profession. Police is always ranked poor in performance, just like the Professor said a little while back. But Sir, in Police, we believe in delegation and the powers enjoyed by the SI and the police chief are one and the same. And that is why it is very difficult to transfer and post a SI. Both SI and the police chief get kicked around like a foot ball. I should know, I got four transfers in one month and ten transfers in Ten months. So Police work is tough work. Tough work here paid later in Life. Like Appavoo used to say filing, filing, filing. When he gave us a channel cross section, and asked us to file it away, some of us thought if we removed the rust from the edges, the filing work was done. But no, Appavoo said, we must file away the two sides of the channel completely and make it a flat one. Keep on filing till you got your hands chaffed. I still have those marks in the palm of my hand! So as I said, it is very difficult to get into IIT, Very difficult to survive here. Even in a place like CLT where we are seated
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Stroke Sixty Something now. Very difficult to get a place when you want to come in for a good programme or performance. And very very difficult to come to this side of the podium in CLT. You always found yourself on the audience side, never on this podium. For the first time, opportunity has been given to me by the Institute to come to this side of the podium. Even my degree, I did not receive on the podium, I received it from my mother after the postman had brought it home. So when you are asked to come here to CLT to receive this award, you feel good. Let me tell you about what we did in CLT. Sir somebody just now, read a report that the hostel room allotments are done using a computer algorithm nowadays. In our time, we did study computers Fortran 2 and Fortran 4 programming without even seeing a computer. The IBM 370s etc came much after our time. For room allotment those days, we were called to the CLT and asked to pick two chits from two boxes. One for the Hostel and one for the room. We did not like this arrangement. We wanted to stick together. Imagine 26 persons in Electrical group trying for the Siemens medal and all are strewn across ten hostels. Only two or three persons in each Hostel. One cannot keep a watch on what the other person is upto. So we protested. But there was no one to listen to us. So we did what we had had to do being a Class apart, we switched of the power as we had been taught. We came here and ransacked the ballot papers and that was the end of the hostel room allotment by lottery that year! So we had lot of troubles, hostel allotment, periodicals by surprise etc. Till Prof Sengupto was replaced by Prof Ramachandran, all periodical exams were by surprise. Prof Ramachandran took pity and gave us a calendar of periodicals for the whole year and semester system came into being. As I said, it was a tough life here. But we were well prepared in the Institute for the tougher times ahead in life. So thank you IIT for this award. I accept it gladly. I can go out now and say I did it. The Institute itself says that I did right. Thank you.
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Part VI Reunions Planned and Unplanned
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Chicken Ala Fairfax

Tushar Dutt
My first visit to the US was in July 2003 to Chicago where my eldest brother is a resident. I had narrowly missed out a reunion of our classmates at Toronto, which I decided to make good in some way. After a week in the windy city, where I visited the art galleries, museum and restaurants, but was unable to trace any of my mates, I went on New York. Pat received me and took me across in his plush Mercedes to another colleague, Chiku in Manhattan. Chiku had survived 9/11 and had to shift residence. I stayed at his new apartment, from where we could view the tragic void left behind by WTC now eclipsed from the landscape. It was a shocker. After a few days of Chikus hospitality and doing the rounds of Manhattan, I took the Amtrak to Boston to meet my daughter, Nilanjana, who came down from Dartmouth to spend the day with me.. En route back on the picturesque run to New York, I came across a bunch of keen management internees from Deutsche bank. I was inspired into a spirited discussion of my direct marketing days with their illustrious rival, Citibank in Delhi, almost a decade
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Stroke Sixty Something back. None of the banks including Deutsche who had stepped into India, were half as aggressive as Citi. The guys thanked me for sharing my experience as I got off to visit friend Kamy at Connecticut, for dinner and overnight stay. The day after was followed by a luncheon in my honor along with a few more colleagues at Diwans, one of the Bangladeshi run restaurants in Manhattan serving typical north Indian cuisine -butter chicken et al. My friends made sure I dont miss home. The following week I visited Pats place off New York, an hour or so by train from the central station. He took me to a couple of golf courses in the vicinity for a few tough but enjoyable rounds. Yet another colleague, Yash, who survived 9/11 at the Pentagon, invited us over the weekend to his residence in Fairfax County, off Washington, four hours by road. It was great to see Yashs dog and his deer at play totally at ease in the house compound. The kitchen garden was obviously a write off. Yashs wife Tina, a doctor in the US army was away on duty. Yash announced that a couple of surprise guests would be coming to dinner. We were left wondering both about the guests and dinner, as Tina was away. The surprise guests were Amol and Dilip, both classmates whom I met after almost 30 years! Yash then announced another surprise for the evening. We thought a floor show had been organized. Guys, Tushar is going to cook chicken for dinner! Settle down with your drinks. I admit, I do cook some times at home in India, where we have all the pastes, masalas etc. Here there was only the chicken, just thawing, unmarinated! Anyway I got the cookery drill going, immersed the chicken in yogurt, with salt, turmeric and chilly powder. Sliced onion and ginger was next sauted. I looked around for tomatonone! Rummaging through the drawers yielded the treasure numerous sauces and wines, both red and white! Now I was at peace. The slow frying of the chicken along with spices had begun, the aroma wafting through made the guys smack their lipsSmells great, Tushar you are some cook! Wait till you guys eat it, I responded.
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Stroke Sixty Something Soon various sauces were added, stirred, followed by liberal doses of red wine. After an hour of brewing on slow heat, I announced Chicken is ready Saar! We sat down for a sumptuous dinner recollecting the fond memories back at the institute. Guys were feeling drowsy time they finished the meal feeling sleepy, must have drunk too much wine, and eaten too, I thought. Incidentally Tushar what do you call your recipe, Yash asked. Chicken Ala Fairfax, I replied.
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Coincidentally Yours
K.R. Marballi
Tracking and visiting friends has been my passion. Talking about friends in general is nothing novel, but meeting them unexpectedly is a fascinating experience. I would like to relate some instances where I have bumped into some of our IIT batchmates unexpectedly. In 74, Shobha and I were in Delhi. At my uncles house I noticed an IIM(A) newsletter with photos of 74 graduates. In it I found V. Jayaramans photo (if I had continued, I would have found Balasubramanians too). I asked my cousin if she knew Jayaraman, and she told me that he was in Delhi. I contacted him and we met the same evening. Much later, when we were in BARC quarters, I met him again as his brother was in HWB (along with S. Ramanujam). After many more years, I managed to contact Jayaramans brother in Chennai and realized that our hero is with GMR in Bangalore. I now hope to meet him at the Ruby RU in Chennai. Late one evening in 1975 I was walking down S.V. Road at Andheri, when few feet ahead I saw a guy who looked like
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Stroke Sixty Something Saranath, accompanied by a tall lady. Our last contact was three years earlier and that was through a letter he wrote to me from Duke University, so I really needed to make sure before I spoke to him. I got closer and had a look at his watch. I recognized it immediately as it was the same one which he had acquired in our third year. It was unusual in that it was an International Time watch with an extra hour hand, and it had taken half an hour for the two of us figure out how to use it. In 1979 I went to my colleagues office room in BARC and found a familiar face marketing microprocessor kits. He too stared at me before we introduced ourselves he was R. Sriram. Around the same year, from my BARC bus I saw a white Mercedes, and then looked at the driver Jawahar. The last time I had met him was in Siemens, Chennai. Later during a trip to Pune I met his parents and got his telephone number. Much later, when we moved to ANagar, the Jawahars were close by and we would spend time on his PC for our database. Sometime in 1982, we were in Goregaon and I had to take a train to Andheri to catch the BARC bus. One evening, I bumped into Surveyor (Subramanian). He told me that he was in CPWD, and was likely to be transferred to the North-East. After that there was no communication. Eleven years later, I was in a meeting where the Deans of PG studies of several IITs were present. When I mentioned to Dr. Santakumar, the IIT (M) Dean, that I was from the 70 batch; he said he was from 69 Aero batch and told me that Surveyor was a consultant to IIT(M), and also that SP Viswanathan was a visiting professor there. I met both of them at Chennai in 04. One evening in Dec 1984 I was standing at a marketplace waiting for Shobha to finish her shopping, when I thought I saw Sowmitri Swamy in a passing taxi. I had written to him earlier that I would be shifting from Goregaon to ANagar, but now I saw him zooming past me, and I had no idea where he was headed to. I then remembered that a senior colleague of mine--fair and Kannada/ Tamil speaking-- resided in ANagar and had a hunch that Swamy would be with that colleague. I somehow managed to get his whereabouts and rushed to his flat. I realized that if Swamy was not in fact there, I would have to relate my long
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Stroke Sixty Something story to my colleague and be embarrassed. To my great relief Swamy was indeed at the flat. He had not received my letter and was planning to see me later in Goregaon. I am sure some of you also must have met with such accidents.
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Goa Reunion 2008...

D. Jawahar
The Goa reunion from 5th to 9th January 2008 had many highlights. The total number of participants was 74, the 3-year course graduates had a strong presence, classmates arrived not only from all over India but also from 4 other countries and the duration was probably the longest of any till then.
Saturday, 5th Jan 2008 Start off day at Mumbai

The Goa reunion actually started in Mumbai! It was launched with a short program of music in Mumbai on Saturday, the 5th. Anil Bajpai and his troupe presented some of the memorable and lilting songs of Mohammad Rafi which we fondly associate with our IIT days in the 60s. These included pukartaa chalaa hun main, khoyaa khoyaa chand, chaudvin kaa chand ho and yeh chaand sa roshan chehra. Anils wife Sharmila, also a singer, joined him in some duets. (Sharmila is the daughter of our classmate NT Nathan).
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Stroke Sixty Something Vertigo Restaurant in Khar (W) was booked exclusively for us for the evening. Vertigo, by the way, is owned by Tejas, son of our Mukul Damania. After dinner, those of us who were going to Goa crowd proceeded directly to Dadar railway station to take the Konkan Kanya Express.
Sunday, 6th Jan 2008 Assembling day at Goa

The next morning, 6th Jan, saw the early arrivals assembled at the Old Anchor resort on the Cavelossim beach at Mobur in Goa. While they enjoyed the sun, the sand and the food, classmates from various parts of India and overseas continued to arrive during the course of the day. In the evening we kicked off the proceedings with a cocktails and dinner get-together on the sprawling lawns of the resort. There was much who-is-who with many of us guessing names of old classmates whom we were meeting after a long lapse of time.
Monday, 7th Jan 2008 Main day

Next morning we boarded two buses for a sightseeing trip to Goa. The first halt was at the famed Mangeshi Temple in Old Goa where all first time visitors invariably go to seek the Lords blessings. The next destination was the historic Basilica of Bom Jesus. This church is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it is here that the mortal remains of St. Francis, who died in 1552, remain preserved to this day. Distances in Goa are large, so it was already lunch time and the participants were both tired and hungry. A short ride on the bus got us to Panjim or Panaji, the capital of Goa where we attacked the Ritz Classic, a popular restaurant known for its typical Goan fish curry-rice and other dishes. After a hearty meal, all settled into the buses for the ride back to the resort to take a quick nap before getting ready for the long evening program that was in store for us.
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Stroke Sixty Something The evening program began on a sombre note when we observed a minutes silence in memory of our classmates who are no more: Ram Sharma, Umapathy, Chakravarty, Veeraraghava Raja, Kimbo Subramaniam, Pratap Sirur, Ballumama and Bala Nambiar from the 5-year course and Ram Mohan Marwah, Ravi Prakash Srivastava and Jamuna, wife of Jayshankar of the 3-year course. Then participants introduced themselves and profiled their lives after leaving IIT. Next came a short and sweet dance performance by Shobha, wife of K.R. Marballi. This was followed by a talk on Alfa Foundation by P. Ramnath, assisted by Dr. TKR Rao from ICFAI. Then came a grand presentation by D. Chandrasekhar with the theme Down Melody Lane which took us back nostalgically to our days at the hostels in IIT and the evenings at OAT.
Tuesday, 8th Jan 2008 Free time day

This day was left free for the participants to do what took their fancy. After a joint breakfast every one of us received a copy of the DVD which contained the song clips used in the Down Melody Lane presentation. A large number of us opted for a boat ride on the river Saal, during which we saw a number of dolphins frolicking in the water. Others stayed back at the resort and made the most of the lovely swimming pool there, while others treated themselves to an invigorating massage at the resorts parlour. Naturally there were those who went shopping at the adjoining town market and there were those who preferred just to spend more time in the shade with old friends. In the evening many of us enjoyed a sunset cruise on the river. The day came to an end with a cocktail session at the shack on the beach an event that many of us will cherish for a long time. We had conversation, good food, a long session of anthakshari and spontaneous singing.
Wednesday, 9th Jan 2008 Good bye day

Like all good things this reunion came to an end. After breakfast each participant received a memento to remember and treasure GoaRU-2008. We prepared for departure and soon it was time
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Stroke Sixty Something for us to say goodbye, auf wiedersehen, phir kabhi milenge and parkalam.
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Goa Curry
Tushar Dutt
It was a welcome four day getaway from Delhis freezing 2 degrees C to celebrate a class reunion at sun kissed Goa, early Jan 08 . Seventy plus attendance including spouses and children from both the five and three year courses stormed the Old Anchor resort, scenically located between the Sal river and the Arabian sea. A few Mumbai guys, Mukul, Anjani and Jades had carried out a recce military style, before zeroing in onto the locale and making it a wonderful event, all the wayhats off to them! It was a unique experience, quite a few us meeting after almost forty years. Without the reunion, many would have gone unrecognized! We got along famously the moment we touched base in the evening with cocktails, band and song. Besides meeting some of our colleagues based overseas, a pleasant surprise was the presence of our Applied mechanics lecturer, Mr HS Bathla along with his wife. All four days were action packed with bus rides around Goa, to the famed Francis Xavier church, Mangeshi temple, fenin sun
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Stroke Sixty Something soaked beaches, finally followed by a boat ride along the river to the sea face in the company of friendly dolphins . The excellent Goa cuisine and locale was complemented with an impromptu Anthakshri session on the beach, an evening which will be long remembered. Whilst the dolphins may have played shy, at least there were no sea donkeys around! The icing on the cake was the 3-tier train ride back from Goa to Mumbai, with plenty of kofee, papsee, batata vadaa, and rice plates. Good man Brar provided the magic potion in kofee cups to help some of us climb to the upper berth . We gratefully thanked the Lord God save the Brar! It was like the good ole times--third floor, Godavari hostel, four decades back! Times may have changed, but Life never will.
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Indian Reunions Some of Them...

P. Ramnath
Goa 2008
The Goa RU has been chronicled in detail elsewhere in this publication. So Ill confine myself to my own impressions of the event. This was the first time we, the /65s, met up with those batchmates who did the 3 year course and graduated in the same year as we did1970. We were the better for it! Enthu participant Anjani (wife Anjana) had roped in his pals from across the country and overseas. Faculty participation was at hand too, in the form of Prof Bhatla. The Intro session that evening meandered away. But it was rescued by the home production Down Memory Lane orchestrated by DC. It took us back to the OAT complete with a shot of it under water. Special attractions: mug shots of guys when they entered those hallowed portals. How did they ever let that lot in!! I remember the poor DJ at the open-air welcome dinner. He sang his heart out, but was at sea when the requests came
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Stroke Sixty Something fast and furiousthe hapless guy probably wasnt even born when the requested songs were popular. Also, he had probably never imagined that close-to-60 fogeys could be so determined to rock. The bus ride to old Goa--boy, is Goa warm in January--ended up with a special fish lunch menu. Veggies such as DC unearthed a Saravana Bhavan eat-alike to keep body and soul together, but it was a determined search they had to make. Notable acquisitions on this trip were the sombreros which Top Cop sported even at the HydRU 2 years later. For me the highlight was the sunset boat ride on the choppy waters which found able seaman Tushar at home; but the rest, enveloped in huge life vests, wondering if they would make it safely back to shore. And the kababecue (if one might term it thus) on the last evening had everyone in their element. Antakshri livened The proceedings were enlivened by an Antakshri, where the ladies egged on by warbler Ramana had a great time. Through it all was the unflappable Jawahar, very much at home in the Resort he had appropriated. He sent us on our way with a present each to hang up, doled out by Prabha. The albums followed--all well captured in the website he spun on a later day. It was in Goa that the idea took root that we should celebrate our 60th year together traditional shtyle. Where better than in Chennai, where the vaadyars rule. And so it was that Chennai Shastiabdapoorthi RU took shape.
Chennai 2008
This unique RU in Chennai brought together the flock turning or just turned sixty, and had a real family flavour. Not just the ladies but many of our NexGen participated in this special occasion. I remember a clear sunny Monday morning in December, the air suffused with the warm glow of friendship. The ladies, clad in Kanjeevarams, brought their special brand of unstinting support.
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Stroke Sixty Something The guys for a change were in crisp dhoties and jibbas, ready for the elaborate ceremonies under Raghavans efficient baton. And there followed by a delectable elai sappadu.. The evening merriment at the Green Meadows resort was marked by the contribution of the younger generation and that of the oh so forthcoming wives exulting in the karaoke accompaniment. The mood was set by our genial, portly Saar our spiritual leader these dayswho walked in just in time KanBan style armed with THE briefcase. With Surveyor Sundaram leading the warblers, this veritably was a musical RU. A leisurely morning at DCs beach house was energised by an imaginative Event guy who shook all and sundry out of their inhibitions with games and intellectual exercises to boot. Kudos to Mrs. SP Viswanathan--the brave lady knocked out our vaunted IIT number crunchers and raised the ranking of her Alma mater. George Verghese bestrode his keyboard like a colossus, smiled imperially at the assembled populace, and unfussily produced melody upon melody as his subjects requested--Tamil, Hindi, English, Spanish or French. `Never on a Sunday George was Never at a Loss; with Nathan leading at his elbow with old Tamil and Hindi ditties. DBThan manfully kept up the beat and the rest shouting everybody else down, good old Georgie did the trick that lazy unplanned afternoon. BVichu had spent sleepless nights worrying about his errant flock, shepherding them from point to point and then all the way to the Golden Temple at Vellore. He ensured all were accounted for not only to base camp but, he tells me, till they went home and emailed him! And I remember the magnificent trio: DC, no words will suffice for him and his hugely supportive family who were everywhere we went; NT the diligent, hardworking communicator; and chief pujari Raghavan and Hema, too.
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Hyderabad 2009
HydRU 2009, remarkable for the true hospitality in the great traditions of the Nawabi era, was the first RU with its own developed website. This was due to the diligent efforts of Spiderman Jawahar, whose earlier efforts at recording for posterity the sights and sounds of the RUs held hitherto culminated in the web he gradually spun with such tender loving care. Ensconced in the leafy environs of Alankrita Resorts the participants enjoyed the lavish arrangements made by our Hyderabadi buddies. Taking care to educate us in the history and culture of the plateau while never forgetting to keep the spirits flowing, our hosts Ramesh, Pat, Ramana, Vijsa, Ram Reddy, Garu, Subba Rao, and backstage JD, laid it on for us. Golconda Fort, Salar Jung Museum juxtaposed with Ramojis film city and other palaces of yore with the musical evenings floating on the Husain Sagar and accompanying Chowki dinners made for a heady brew concocted to satiate the senses. Never mind that the local protesters had other ideas leading to midnight and early morning getaways to beat the Bandh on the final day--but anticipated hurdles did not dampen spirits. As the organizing committee conferred on practical solutions in the new circumstances the irrepressible young Tharunya Balan led the many present in exercising their hidden talents. Lounging on cushions one evening in true Nawabi style at the Chowki dinner, we wah-wahed the performers who entertained the fascinated audience with melodies of our youth. Goblets of wine came and went; a hookah or two would have been de riguer. Waited upon hand and literally foot, we were thoroughly spoilt in the best traditions of Nizam hospitality of which we were to hear much more. I could have danced all night was the refrain and younger limbs might well have. Our own talents danced and rendered ghazals and duets, cut short when Tushar threatened to carry on with Yeh Kya hua.....Much, much later, pleading Abhi na jao chod kar.. was to no avail as Cinderellas deadline inevitably arrived. A word on one of the many visits with a personal touch. Chowmohallah Palace is home territory to Vijsa. The scion of a
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Stroke Sixty Something Jagirdar in the Nizams times, he took us on a tour with the sure feel of one who carried the whiff of days gone by. Never mind though that the numerous photographs served reminder that it would take a dedicated perseverant to unravel the Nizams family tree. With four wives on the official portraits and many other claimants you are welcome to try. I would much rather the Australian Burgundy and French wines on display; the simplein-life style Nizams did not stint on hospitality, chandeliers and Belgian crystal notwithstanding. Mrs. Shrinivas has helped hundreds of IIT aspirants get into its hallowed precincts. How are they thereafter? Everyone wanted to know. Corridor style dhap sessions a la IIT diagnosed the evils of many a system and proffered solutions to all, the impromptu seminar participants repairing to dinner with a sense of satisfaction of a job well done. From distant lands came Shanmuk--from the higher reaches of Macchu Picchu; Venky-- distinguished awardee in Canada for his community work there; Hydroo--our marathon cyclist and selfdescribed retiree who is busier than the rest of us, working for good causes; Sundar--from cold Montreal, who along with Lalitha regaled us with their rendition of Carnatic numbers; Raghu Rao--another new RU participant; and Chokka with Rukmani representing Down Under. The first and last roll numbers of our class were 1.001/65 and 1.257/65. They are Agasteeswaran and Raghavan respectively. Both of them came to this reunion, perhaps symbolizing the Alpha and Omega of our batch. No small coincidence too that they both contain the letters R A G & Aa raga which we could well invent. Reflecting the harmony of our group it was appropriate that we met in the middle of the traditional music season where the creative juices are in full flow. May we continue to make music together.
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Las Vegas Reunion 2001

Narasimhan P. Kannan [reconnecting after thirty one years]
There are two viewpoints on reunions. One is that of a horse race and another that of a journey into the unknown. The horse race viewpoint sees our graduation date as the starting gate of a well handicapped race and the reunion as an event to compare how well each of us did in this race..in terms of money, achievements, possessions, marital bliss and the like. Fortunately this viewpoint, I discovered, was held by only a small minority. The second viewpoint, more in line with my own, is that we all were set loose with a technical degree to pursue our dreams and venture into that unknown world of intrigue, adventure, trials, and lucky breaks. When we gathered in Vegas, it was to share the story of 22 unique journeys and to reignite the bonds that had been dormant for 30 odd years. Our life in IIT with five years of shared joys and miseries ended in mid-1970 when one by one taxis came and took all of us away
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Stroke Sixty Something from Ganga, Jamuna, and other hostels. We scattered across the globe in a matter of months. It was bittersweet. I was sad not to have said goodbyes to people who I cared about. I made up for it in Las Vegas. Like the roads that diverged in a wood, in Robert Frosts The Road Not Taken, all of us faced many alternative paths and each one chose the one that made sense for him at that time. Some of these choices led to irreversible momentum in life and here we were after 30 years, older and perhaps wiser, to share the heartwarming stories of our different lives. For such a profound experience, Vegas, to my mind was an unfortunate choice of location. The cacophony of slot machines, black jack tables, and the press of lesser form of humans challenging my egalitarian sentiments, was not the best setting for such an event. Well somehow it came off. When we met our old classmates, some of whom we recognized, and some of whom we didnt, we hugged like we were relatives. We were all squealing like teenagers and cursing each other with wild abandon. (I do not understand why men use so many curse words when they get emotional). It was a spontaneous outburst of emotion as we hugged each other and tried to catch up breathlessly. Flashes from cameras interrupted the uniquely human male bonding exercise. It was an incredible rush and I was at a loss for words. It was even more emotional than when you get together with your own family. Again, I was at a loss to explain. The first night we repaired to an Indian restaurant called Gandhis. We all took our seats and ordered Indian beer and snacks. Soon I proposed a toast and thanked Dave, Pat and Raju for organizing the wonderful event. Soon each of us stood up and recounted our life after 1970. The real reunion began in earnest. We had to watch our words as we were joined by the wives of Amol, Jallaya, and Sodhi. There was an underlying theme in all the open confessions. It was the biological imperative. People were most touching when they spoke about their family, their children, their wives and
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Stroke Sixty Something their companions. We survive and we reproduce, and we raise our young, pass on our knowledge and move on and finally make room on this earth. It was spiritually uplifting. Better than any sermon. Even the technoids from IITs were human after all, with basic needs for family and friends. There was a definite feeling that this was perhaps the last time we were likely to meet and that we may die before we get a chance to meet again. It was mortality writ large. On the evening of the second day we all got together to have our photo taken. Most of the casinos and hotels in Vegas pander to the impulsive non-intellectual types with tattoos--rednecks who hate Damn Foreigners who have take their jobs away. (As if IIT guys are after low wage jobs in McDonalds). To cater to them the casinos have an elaborate set up including a wedding chapel and a photographer. We hired one of these guys. After that we had a sit down dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant. The conversation veered between the most profound to the most absurd. I recalled lazy Saturday nights in Ganga during my first year. After returning to the hostel from late night movies at OAT, I would walk past several rooms with lights on and studious guys doing every chapter-end exercise in Calculus by Puskinov. I would feel guilty for not being a good student and try to get to my room quickly and do some home work. The guilt pangs lasted all of five seconds. Earlier I had I got on my soap box and with an idealistic burst of energy after three bottles of King Fisher suggested that we all in the cyberhostel, should give back something to India. I reminded everyone that the IITs were subsidized on the backs of millions of poor people in India and we all got a fantastic education for virtually a few pennies. There was the usual acknowledgement of good intent and quickly the conversation veered to other pressing matters like what dessert to order--kulfi or kheer. One of us had a terrific suggestion. We should send whatever we can to someone in Madras who would act as a trustee and hold and distribute the funds to needy IIT students in Ganga and Jamuna or use it for some other worthy causes that we all
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Stroke Sixty Something could vote on periodically. The contributions could be as small as $25 every three months or some other amount. All good things must come to an end and so did our Vegas reunion. Just as our lives together at IIT in the summer of 1970 ended abruptly, so did the Vegas reunion as one by one each of us returne to our families, our busy lives, and our work. It dawned on me that all these twenty odd guys went to a great deal of trouble in order to get together to recapture something bygone that none could describe adequately. Old cliques quickly reformed and once again I did not exploit the opportunity to get to know fascinating people who were right there, silent and yet wanting to burst out with words that never came out. As the rugged and arid landscape passed on our take off roll, all I could think was perhaps there will be a next time, maybe as soon as next year.
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Murali in Arizona
Ben Thomas
Murali Dan was on a whirlwind tour of several states in western USA with Raju, accompanied by Muralis fair lady and a friend. Starting in Colorado, they planned to swing through New Mexico, Arizona, Las Vegas and Utah in about 10 days. On the day they arrived at the Grand Canyon, I drove four hours from Phoenix to catch up with Murali. It is the first time I have seen him since our IIT days, and I can tell you that it is a day that I will remember forever. I met the group after sunset at the Maswik Lodge, and as soon as we settled in, we walked to the Bright Angel Lodge to get a bite to eat. Walking past the cocktail lounge to the restaurant, we heard a singer inside, so when we walked into the restaurant, we asked for a table where we could watch and listen to the music from the bar. Nope, the bar is separate, came the reply. Ok then, do they serve dinner in the bar also? Nope, only appetizers in the bar. With that, Muralis hunger was gone. Im kinda full anyway, he said, thoda appetizers
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Stroke Sixty Something are enough for me, yaar. Five minutes later, before we even found a place to sit in the lounge, he was on stage, singing. And the song? The Boxer from Simon and Garfunkel: Murali had got on stage to a few catcalls, and some encouraging applause, but after he sang the first line, the chatter in the lounge stopped abruptly. Before the second line was over, you could see the look of amazement on peoples faces. Within 15 seconds, Murali had totally wowed everyone with his singing. By the time the chorus came around, the crowd was eager to join in. So less than two hours after seeing him for the first time in 40 years, there he was, his voice as silky smooth as ever, carrying me back to the days of our Simon and Garfunkel sessions at the OAT. The song was executed so well between Murali, and the guitarist, you would have thought they were a regular duo. And if you were listening from outside the lounge, you would have no doubt that Simon and Garfunkel were at the Grand Canyon that day. Murali sang one more song before the evening was over. It was the last one of the day. As soon as he started with Proud Mary at least half of the 40-50 people in the lounge, from 22 yrs old to 72, from college kids to grandmas, from Arizona to Australia, were up on their feet, dancing and rockin and rollin around their tables (there was no dance floor) clapping and hootin and hollerin in rhythm with the song. For the duration of that song, Murali made rowdies out of the young and old alike. I bet that they will not forget this Friday night finale at the Bright Angel Lodge lounge. Two songs - just two songs - and he was a star! Of course, we in IIT always knew it, and 40 years later I realized how spoiled we were, how much we underappreciated the talents of Murali and Kash. After the last song, as people were leaving one by one, a middleaged lady came up to Murali. She said she was from Australia and that she loved everything about Bollywood, and had never ever met anyone from there before Murali. She wanted to know if he was single and available (ooooh so heartbreaking for her, eh?) and, she went on, could she have a picture taken with just her and Murali for her collection?
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North American Reunions

[Those memorable moments] Ben Thomas
RUs (Reunions) are filled with pleasant memories of meeting old friends and acquaintances, and catching up on one anothers lives and accomplishments over the years. There are, of course, new places and scenic attractions to enjoy, but most RUs also have some event or happening that is special, that plays back in your mind time and time again. This is about some of those special moments at our North American Reunions NARUs. There is none from the 2001 NARU in Vegas, the first one, because I wasnt there. But here are my best moments from each of the others. 1. NY, NY, June 2007 Having been to NY several times before, I had seen the sights of NYC and skipped some of the fascinating tours that Chiku had arranged for us. But the first night, sitting around in the hotel lobby, facing a 7am departure for a boat tour, most of the guys stayed up until 3 am or so, just chatting, discussing, reminiscing, laughing. The discussion
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Stroke Sixty Something was nothing extraordinary, but it was just one of those occasions where even though some guys made an attempt after midnight to go to bed, they just couldnt break away from that cozy-comfy-camaraderie feeling of being among longtime friends. 2. ReU Grande, Arizona, June 2008. This is the only moving RU we had, where we spent 3 days on a chartered bus, traveling over 800 miles, with our first destination being the majestic Grand Canyon. On the second day, after going through a Navajo-Indian guided tour of Antelope Canyon, we arrived at the hotel at Wahweap Marina for dinner. The detailed program only said dinner, but to everyones surprise, we boarded a large boat for a sunset dinner cruise on Lake Powell. And then, as a bonus, we also had a fabulous meal. Who would have imagined that you could have a leisurely dinner watching a splendid sunset while cruising on a lake in the midst of the land of cowboys and injuns? Portland, Oregon August 2005 This RU was focused on events and activities along the spectacularly scenic Columbia River Gorge featuring the 600 ft Multnomah Falls plus a memorable train ride to Mt Hood with an elegant meal aboard the train. But the best moment? On the way back to Portland one day, at a scenic pullout overlooking Cock Rock Park, (ok, ok, the name is now changed to the pc Rooster Rock State Park.) DB was the last to arrive, blasting a bhangra tune on his convertible rental car. Right there in the parking area, an impromptu bhangra dance broke out lasting for several minutes, while cars buzzed by on Interstate 84 and other travelers in the parking area stared at us dumbfounded. What a sight--about 20 people doing the bhangra in a public parking lot in Oregon! Even a couple of the spouses and kids joined in. I still shake my head about this insane moment. Vail, Colorado. August 2004 Anywhere you go and anything you do in the mountains of Colorado is simply beautiful. Enough said. How can you beat that?
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Stroke Sixty Something Well... how about a cooking contest at the RU? Yes, the guys cooked a meal at the condos we had rented for the weekend, having to go grocery shopping earlier in the day, and spending several hours cutting, chopping and cooking with TLC. Im not joking, the guys took this contest seriously. Chandrans Biriyani (both veg and meat) and Ramanis Rasamalai were tops, and many of the other guys added their cooking talents to the scrumptious meal. What a variety too! Chicken curry, bhindhi sabji, puliyodhara, thayir sadham, rasam, sambar, upma, and a bunch of other stuff. The ensuing karaoke session was a terrific blast, the earlier rafting trip had been a thrilling adventure, the Vail scenery was picturesque and perfect, but none of those - nothing we did that weekend - could top the joy and delight of the cooking contest and the extraordinary meal that followed. 5. Toronto (Niagara-at-the-Lake) July 2003. This RU raised the bar for all the following NARUs with its organization, style and excellent activities. Beginning with a picnic at a park along the Niagara Parkway, we were treated to one exciting event after another. But the best was totally unexpected. On the final night, after a formal dinner banquet, an entertainment program featuring several of the kids of our classmates was arranged. In between each of these kids performances, as a fill-in, we sang a limerick about each guy at the RU, some of them hastily thrown together just hours before, and the song was accompanied by that persons 1965 IIT picture on a screen. Few people could guess the person in the picture until each limerick-song (without any names mentioned) was complete. This mystery-comedypicture-singalong combination surprisingly turned out one hilarious hit after another. Talk to anyone who attended that RU, even today they will be grinning from ear to ear as they babble on and on while they reminisce about this tamasha. 6. Washington DC, June 2002. This was my first RU. It was also the first RU at which a CD of songs from the 60s was produced and sold with the proceeds going to Envikal.
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Stroke Sixty Something The highlight was a private boat cruise on the Potomac on the last evening. In the lower deck of the boat, a grand Indian meal was laid out for us to enjoy during the cruise. Meanwhile on the upper deck, we were the subject of curious stares from every passing boat and the onlookers onshore, because all the guys wore lungis and Tshirts, chatting and socializing while listening to the RU CD. Whether planned or not, on our return as we neared the dock, the last song on the CD started to play. Whether planned or not, it was the 60s hit, Those Were The Days, My Friend. The guys settled into one big circle, arms around the next guys shoulders, swaying in unison and belting along with the CD. The ladies and kids stood away from this circle, rendered speechless. When the boat docked, the music hadnt ended, so there we were about 20 of us, grey-haired, balding, lungi-clad fifty-something kataans - still swaying and dancing and singing for another minute or so, while a small curious crowd slowly gathered on the dock. For those few minutes, singing along with that song, being juvenile and crazy and connected once again with those guys we hadnt seen in 30 plus years, it was truly a warm and wonderful feeling and an emotional high. Perhaps because it was my first RU, for me that moment on the boat in DC is still the most magical moment from all the RUs I have attended.
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Oregon RUa non-IITians view

Roopa Vasudevan
When my father first approached my mother and I about joining him at his IIT reunion in Oregon, we were both a little skeptical. The idea of joining a bunch of his classmates for a weekend at the Columbia River Gorge was not exactly appealing. Having spent the past three years in New York, I was less than looking forward to the idea of hiking and walking and becoming one with nature. My mother, for her part, assumed that the RU would be three days of alumni talking about how wonderful they were just because they graduated from IIT. But since it meant a lot to my dad that we go, we resolved to stick together and have fun ourselves, regardless of what upcoming tortures we would be subjected to. Little did we know just how wrong our preconceptions were. We arrived in Portland and promptly got lost on our way to the Rama Inn (we marveled at the appropriateness of twenty-eight Indians staying at a hotel named after a Hindu god). Later we set
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Stroke Sixty Something out to the Skamania Lodge to join the rest of the group for dinner. We reached the restaurant and were directed to the group, and within minutes, my mother and I were greeted by more handshakes and welcomes than we had anticipated. Obviously, these people were a lot friendlier than we had thought and not the stuck-up, elitist IITians that we had imagined. In typical desi fashion, we were immediately directed towards the food. (Thus began the blessing and the curse of three consecutive nights of buffets.) After we had plowed through the dessert table and stocked up on everything from crme brulee to chocolate covered strawberries, everyone decided to get a little fresh air. The lodge restaurant had a big lawn behind it, so we wandered outside as the sun was setting. At this moment, the cameras started clicking and didnt stop until the weekend was over. We were organized into every different combination possible and photographed. When we had been sufficiently blinded by flash bulbs, some of us set out on a walk on the trail around the lawn, while others stayed behind to catch up and reminisce. As the sun had set we decided to leave. My family got back to the hotel, and after my parents returned from socializing in one of the other rooms (and after my mother had been sufficiently scared with stories of RUs past, notably the lungi boat cruise in DC), we went to bed, as we had a long day out in the mountains ahead of us. My mom and I were pleasantly surprised at how laid back the atmosphere was and we were beginning to think that this trip might not be so bad after all. But we still didnt realize just how much fun it was going to be. The alarm went off at six-thirty in the morning on Day Two. My parents jumped out of bed and eagerly started getting ready. I prolonged my stay in bed by another forty-five minutes, unsure how ready I was for a day out in the mountains. But after my mother gave me a good talking-to, about how I shouldnt spend this trip being antisocial, I pulled myself out from under
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Stroke Sixty Something the covers and managed to put myself together enough to go downstairs to the continental breakfast, where the rest of the group had already congregated. Once breakfast was done, we migrated outside and started dividing ourselves up into cars. Hydroo, the unanimously proclaimed director of the RU, had a single stipulation: no one was allowed to ride with family members on this portion of the trip. I was put in a van with Vasant, his son Ashwin, Ramanis daughter Jahnavi, Ratan and Ben, and we set off to see some of the famous waterfalls of Oregon. Our starting point was the Womens Forum, which although it invokes visions of government meetings and the like, presented a stunning view of the Columbia River Gorge. While we were admiring the breathtaking scenery, we realized that my fathers car hadnt arrived yet. True to form, he had gotten completely lost on the way and Hydroos group stayed behind to make sure he caught up with everyone else before we drove on to Vista House. This also provided a gorgeous view, and the house itself seemed to have an interesting museum store on the lower level. We headed next to Multnomah Falls, which merited a longer stay than the others, and then to Horsetail Falls. Both of the waterfalls were beautiful Multnomah more obvious in its grandeur while Horsetail Falls was sort of hidden away behind trees and rocks. A day of sightseeing in the wilderness gives one a tremendous appetite, so we drove to Marine Park, where Hydroo had set up a catered lunch for us. The lunch was very enjoyable and relaxing, despite the fact that we had to deal with unbelievable winds (which threatened to blow all of our food into the river) and a firemens picnic--whose games ended up spraying us periodically with a hose. After lunch, we boarded a river cruise, which took us around the river and the various geographic landmarks of the area. While many of the IITians stayed on the upper deck in the sun, apparently listening to my father give an unsolicited lecture on how to use a camera correctly, my mother and I decided that the heat was too much to handle, and went downstairs, where we spent the rest of the trip having snacks, adult beverages and fantastic conversation with a few other members of the group. The boat ride was a little too long, and by the end of it everyone was making fun of my constant Are we docked yet?
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Stroke Sixty Something Dinner was held at an Indian restaurant in a nearby town. The last part of the evening was full of speeches congratulating DBThan and Ragini on their recent engagement, welcoming MNC, Vasant, and my father into the RU fold, and, finally, forcing the next generation (a.k.a. myself, Ashwin and Daljits son Eric) to speak. As we returned to the hotel that night, I realized that I had had an amazing time on the second day, and couldnt wait to see what the third had in store. On Day Three we got to sleep in for a couple of hours, which in itself completely made my day! We were then treated to a champagne brunch aboard the Mount Hood Railroad. On the ride up, I was in Harcharans car with his wife Prem, my mom, and Chiku. We started out from the hotel, but on our way to the train station we made an unscheduled detour to Rooster Rock State Park, which was famous among the IIT classmates because of its alternative name. On our way back to the station my mom entertained us with stories of her childhood crushes, sped towards the station. We boarded the train, and discovered to our delight that an entire compartment had been reserved just for us. The whole ride was entirely too much fun. My mother flirted with James, the conductor (causing Harcharan to advise my father to be wary of anyone with the name Anand, as he could be my moms old flame from age 8). Ratan pretty much stole the waiters job and started pouring champagne for everyone; my dad ran around like a crazy person taking pictures; and the entire back row of people was doubled over in laughter the whole time. At one point, Ratan, his wife Nirmala, my mom and I decided to walk through the train to see the other compartments, and we were amazed to see that everyone else on board wasnt nearly half as loud and boisterous as we were --- they were actually sane. The train stopped in a little grassy area, and we were given fifteen minutes to stretch our legs and walk around. The class of 1970, for the millionth time, wanted a group photo taken but this time, with everyone, including wives and children. We put all thirty of our cameras on the ground and roped in a wonderfully nice woman and her husband into taking our picture
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Stroke Sixty Something overand overand over. On the ride back, Ben and DBThan led the group in a spontaneous sangeet and we all joined in, singing our favorite Hindi, Tamil and English songs. (Well, most of us did the excitement, or the champagne, had worn me out and I fell asleep about halfway into the journey. I was sad to miss the singing, but a girls got to get her beauty rest.) Once we disembarked the train, we went to Cathedral Ridge Vineyard for wine tasting. After the mandatory photo session and the tasting, all of the cars headed out except two. DBThan was preparing to leave and was playing bhangra music with the top of his convertible down; on a whim, Harcharan and Viji, Hydroos wife, began dancing to the music. We spent a good ten minutes dancing to the bhangra in the parking lot, attracting the attention of quite a few patrons of the vineyard, and decided to reenact the scene at our next stop. We headed back to the hotel to freshen up for dinner at McMenamins, a renovated poor house thats now a restaurant and hotel. At the dinner, my mom and I realized that we had had the time of our lives on this trip far from the painful experience that wed expected it to be. These people had been so friendly and so welcoming that by the end, I felt it was too formal to address them all as Uncle in fact, when I asked Hydroo about it, he invited me to call everyone not even by their first names, but their nicknames. I never imagined that in just two days, Id get to know the people my father went to school with so well. I can only hope that, thirty-five years down the line, Ill have this strong a bond with the people I go to school with right now. The RU wasnt just a great experience for the batchmates it was indeed a fabulous trip for the wives and children involved. You can bet that my mom and I will be at next years reunion. We wouldnt miss it for the world.
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Part VII Lest We Forget
Obituary Our Dear Departed
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punarapi jananam punarapi maranam punarapi jananii jathare shayanam iha samsaare bahudustaare kripayaa apaare paahi muraare --Shree Bhaja Govindam; Adi Sankaracharya
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Those in heavenly abode

1969 1972 1978 1988 1999 2001 2002 2004 2005 2005 2006 2007 2008 2008 2008 2010 K.V. Rama Sarma P.V. Chakravarthy Vira Raghavan Raja Subramaniam Kumar Umapathy Srinivasan Ravi Prakash Srivastava Brij Mohan Marwaha Chandrashekar K.D. Pratap Sirur Sadananda C. Balaraman Bala Nambiar M.R. Sathyamurthy P. Sankaran V. Parthasarathy Rocque Fernandes Electrical Civil Mechanical Electrical Mechanical Electrical Electrical Electrical Mechanical Electrical Chemical Electrical Electrical Electrical Electrical Aeronautical Chennai USA Chennai Chennai Bahamas Mumbai Jammu Mumbai Mumbai Canada Hyderabad Trivandrum Chennai Canada Mumbai USA
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in memoriam
Bala Nambiar colorful magicman
There are certain memories of our IIT years that are simply indelible--the NCC Camp, the workshop, the hostels, and the assorted characters which made up the student body, faculty, and staff. This is a tribute to an unforgettable character who remains so to this day despite fading memories of our youth. As he approached you in his salad days at Ganga you became wary of the toothy smile and his huge noggin placed incongruously over a tall, slightly bent stick-like body. He had a beguiling charm and oversized hands that could conceal a complete deck of cards. He would grip you warmly; but his big, brown, deep-set eyes would betray his intent of mischief. You belatedly realized that you had been set up. Suddenly his minions would peal into laughter and you would sheepishly walk away aware of some vague defeat. When you checked your pockets you would find that the five rupee note you had stashed away for cigarettes had disappeared. How he did this is shrouded in mystery. The myths are many but I know for sure he was so good at cards and sleight of hand that he paid his mess bills entirely from gambling proceeds. He had an animosity towards Hindi and he would explain the reasons if you sat with him over a few beers. But he had all the hindiwallahs from Bombay and Delhi in tow in the halls and the mess at Ganga. I used to wonder why they were so attracted to him. Only late in the fifth year did it dawn on me in Tapti hostel that most of them were trying to recover their gambling losses from him. They followed him in the hope of uncovering his secrets but were never quite successful in their attempts to deconstruct his methods He used to boast that he was a graduate of IBM at the tender age of 18. He omitted to tell you that it is the acronym for International Brotherhood of Magicians. You will have guessed
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Stroke Sixty Something that this giddy clown is our own Balan Nambiar. Bala has applied his considerable talents to Golf too and probably had the lowest handicap of all our batchmates. He captained the posh Golf Club in Thiruvananthapuram. He ran a successful software startup with multi-crore turnover automating hospital information systems. I could not imagine him pitching his product to Hospital Administrators. He really belongs in Las Vegas. Bala and our fellow batchmate, the impeccably dressed and youthful Prabhakar Konath, organized an unforgettable RU at the Kerala backwaters. It set a high standard for future RUs. The resort of Punnamada was exquisite with world-class facilities and food. The entertainment for two nights made up of Kathakali and pop music by professional groups was a treat. Afterwards Bala gave me a ride from Allepey to Thiruvananthapuram and took me around the impressive Technopark there. Although he claimed he drove very slowly during that trip for my sake, I was terrified of sitting in the front passenger seat watching the traffic coming at me at full throttle and somehow, miraculously sparing my life. Bala was a gracious host and ran around as if he was entertaining guests at his daughters wedding. We all took advantage of it by demanding a few magic tricks for old times sake. For some reason he chose the ladies as his quarry in picking a card from his rigged deck. I felt fortunate to have reconnected with him after 35 years. Every time I shook his massive hand I checked my pocketsthe five rupee notes were still there. Perhaps he had turned over a new leaf or maybe he was looking for only thousand rupee notes now. He might have needed them as he frequently talked about his Chinna Veedu. Bala passed away in 2008. May his soul rest in peace. --Narasimhan P. Kannan
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C. Balaraman Ballu mama

Message #38996 on Sun Jan 29, 2006 4:40 pm RSK (rsrikumarips@...) wrote My dear Ballu, Last night just as I was closing down the computer in the office, I managed to get a sneak preview of the daily digest from the e-group that gets forwarded to my hotmail account. To my horror and disbelief I saw an obituary reference to you. I could not believe the news. I did not want to believe it to be true. I shut down the computer and went home hoping that the horrible news would get deleted from memory forever. Such messages are so unwelcome as spam in ones mailbox! It seems only the other day that we stood in the same row next to each other and posed for the group photo in the Ganga hostel. Choosing to stand next to each other was not an accident. We were from Madrasi School- though you were one year senior in school and were in Reading Road while I passed out from Madrasi School Lodhi Road. The fact that both of us were from Madrasi School Delhi was not the only bond that made us stand next to each other. We were from the same C section. We played many Bridge, Ball Badminton, TT and other games together and you were decidedly better in TT. We shared many common dreams. We moved to Saraswati hostel together for the second year and played gully cricket and tried roller skating together. I can never forget the evening we returned from Pallavaram NCC camp. We planned to leave the next morning by the same taxi for the Central station- you to Bombay and me to Delhi. For dinner we went to Hotel Runs in Adyar and ordered a full thali meal. Vegetarian we specified loud and clear. The thalis came and we proceeded to devour the food hungry as we were after a tough fortnight in Pallavaram Camp. The sambar had what looked like onion and potato pieces floating as vegetables. While I attacked the potato, you popped the onion into your mouth. My, it felt so stony. Ouch! The waiter was called and asked to explain. Very innocently he pointed out that it was not onion but a meat piece with a bone. Boy did we throw a tantrum! The owner had to apologise profusely and appease us with fresh
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Stroke Sixty Something plates of food--strictly vegetarian this time. Next morning when we were loading the taxi, you appeared bleary and unsteady. I asked whether you had slept well in the night. You explained the vomiting bouts and the many visits you had to the bathroom thanks to the dinner at Hotel Runs the previous night. I am sorry that I joked about your extreme sensitivity that morning instead of being concerned about the food poisoning and its after effects especially in the train journey that was ahead of us. Later I shifted to Godavari and you to Tapti. Our chosen field of engineering was Elec HC and Chemical respectively. Still, we had many common classes in Met and Thermo etc. We sought each other out in these common classes, to sit next to each other and share the many common interest stories during the dull moments in class. The bonding continued after we left IIT and you joined Dorr Olivier in Bombay. I visited you in Bombay during my job hunting phase and had a special meal at your home prepared by your mother so affectionately. Your brother Narayanaswamy who was Senior to us in IIT by two years had then joined the Maharashtra State Electricity Board. Your late father also sat in the same panthi as we shared the homely sit down meal. Our affinity did not diminish or disappear over the years though we did not meet or write to each other for the next two decades or so and till the cyber hostel brought us together again. I was the only hosteller who attended your sons wedding at Bangalore some months back but I attended the marriage with my full nucleus family strength. I discovered that your sambandhi KR Shyamsundar (IITM Chem 1969) and I had professionally interacted many a time when he was in Indian Oil and I in the Karnataka State Transport Corporation. In the marriage hall I also found a couple of contractors from Ramkis who had worked with me in Karnataka State Police Housing Corporation. They were your fans from your Batliboi days. In such glowing terms they spoke of your interactions with them! You were to join them later in Hyderabad. Our last interaction was our plane ride together from Mumbai to Bangalore. You were going to Hyderabad and I to Bangalore
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Stroke Sixty Something but the two flights got clubbed together and was operated as one flight. We found seats next to each other once again and had many stories to tell each other. I knew you were going to Hyderabad and were contemplating to permanently shift later to Hyderabad. I did not know that your shift to Hyderabad and out of this world was to follow so soon. My friend Ballu, my hostel mate. You have gone on a journey alone this time. But I am sure when I too reach that destination, I will find a seat next to you and then we will resume from where we left off last. Bye for now. Your hostel mate RSK R. Sri Kumar
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Kumar Subramaniam Kimbo

Kimbo was a comical enigma from day one--even the seniors were at a loss to handle him. We were in the same wing and floor in Ganga Hostel. Mr. Dwyer, our mess manager, an Anglo Indian gentleman who spoke immaculate English (and was a sports commentator on the radio) also shared the same wing. Dwyer unfortunately had some illness which caused him to smell. On Sundays when Special biriyani meal/dinner used to be served, he would ask sincerely Hows the food boys!? We would hold our noses and mutter-Excellent, sir with a nasal twang. The other guy Kimbo used to rag was Dwyers assistant Madhavan, the mess steward. Rumour goes that one day a repentant Kimbo apologised to Madhavan and promised never to annoy him again. Madhavan replied, No problem saar, from today no piss in rasam. Kimbo was entertainment guaranteed whether it be in class, OAT, at a city theatre or restaurant, NCC time or even on the train-even a computer would find it tough to fathom what was going on in his mind and what his next action or reaction would be. I remember the Telly Savalas craze which gripped us in our second year. Once fifteen of us with shaved and shiny heads set off for New Elphinstone theatre in the city. In the ticket queue Kimbo had the audacity to tickle the head of one of the normal-haired guys in front. Sure enough all hell broke loose. We got away without a hiding possibly because the movie was about to start and we were scalped anyway. Kimbo was quick and did well for the amount of effort he put into academics. He was a good boxer, and even after damaging his rib in a motorbike accident, he boxed for Ganga Hostel. He was one of the first guys to pick up his Phd, but after his return to India in the late 70s, he went into depression and the decline started. I believe he worked as an Assistant Prof at Guindy Engineering College. I used to catch up with him whenever my ship touched Madras. The last time was mid87 when I was in the thick of Sri Lanka ops. I took him to my ship and we had dinner at one of the hotelsAdyar Park I believe.
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Stroke Sixty Something Things seemed normal--he was the good ole Kimbo. After that meeting I did keep in touch thru my Madras based colleague officers, when suddenly CK gave me the news that Kimbo was gone in an unfortunate accident--it was mid88. We lost a tremendous guy. Tushar Dutt
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M. R. Satyamurthy badminton ace

26. No: On Jan 23, 2008 6:21 PM, D CHANDRASEKHAR 1.046/65 M R SATHYAMURTHY passed away Jan 9, 2008 Friends I regret to inform you of the demise of our batch mate M R Sathyamurthy. I just now came to know of it from B Vichu. Actually he has passed away on 9th January and it is a shame on all of us in Chennai that we did not even know about it. It is understood from his next of family that he suffered from stomach cancer for quite some time before the end came. He was particularly connected with a few ball badminton enthusiasts. Please join me to pray that his soul may rest in peace. DC 27. Message No: on Leo wrote Re: 1.046/65 M R SATHYAMURTHY passed away Jan 9, 2008 RIP, mate! I am shocked to hear that Sathyamurthy is no more. I can kick myself in the ass for not contacting him during my last visit to Chennai. We indeed played ball badminton together - also for the IITM team and I still remember the last match we played together in Narmada (singles), where I lost to him. May his soul rest in peace! Leo This is a copy of the mail he wrote to me in June 2006. Dear Leo, Thanks for your letter. I did my Electrical Engg (heavy), afterwards I finished my MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur. After 4 years in industry, I joined University of Madras as a Faculty in 1978. I finished my PhD
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Stroke Sixty Something in 1990, at present The Director of School of Business and Management, University of Madras. During 1984-86, I was deputed by University to work as a Lecturer in the School of Business, University of Zambia. I am teaching Corporate Finance, Security Analysis and Portfolio Management and Operations Management for MBA students. I have produced 5 Phds so far, 10 more under guidance. My wife is a teacher. We have a son and daughter. Son has done his MSIT from Carnegie Mellon, US and employed in Oracle, Bangalore. My daughter is doing 3rd year Biotechnology in SRM Deemed University. I was a member of Yahoo Group sometime back, choked by information overload and gave up. I can help you in your ENVIKAL Project as Alamati is only 8 Kms from my residence in Ambattur. Thank you. Sincerely, Sathyamurthy TEL: res 26583550 Mob: 9884280561
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P. Sankaran Shabby
28. Message no: on.vmannar2001 <marthi01@...> wrote: RE: Shabby Sankaran R.I.P. Today I have lost one of my oldest friends - Sankaran and I met nearly 44 years back - at Vivekananda College as PUC students. During IIT and post IIT we spent many hours in each others homes in Chennai - playing bridge and discussing betting techniques for the Guindy race course with his Dad. It was never clear whether anyone made money. Sankaran had a razor sharp mind - he was an absolute maths whiz and used to impress us with his speed of computation. He was terrific at scrabble and solving puzzles. On the flip side he had a proclivity for really terrible PJs and always had several up his sleeve. His IIT nickname was Shabby Sankaran - I still dont know the exact genesis of that title - was it his attire, his room, his hair who knows! We stayed in close touch through all these years - I visited Geeta and Sankaran in East Africa and enjoyed their hospitality. In their inimitable style they had surrounded themselves with a huge network of friends. We followed them to Canada and they helped us get settled in Toronto. We have seen each others children grow up and get settled in life. Sankaran should have been around for many more years. Venky 29. Message No: on 8-Mar-08, at 10:10 PM, R.SRI KUMAR wrote: Re: Shabby Sankaran R.I.P. Please forgive me for not meeting you when you passed through Bangalore some months back. Yes we did speak that night you said you were boarding the aircraft to take you on to Canada and for the never never land. I took the excuse that I had just left the office after a trying day and was so far away to will myself to return back to meet you. If only you had called me before I left the office, I would have come to Gokuls house
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Stroke Sixty Something where you were staying to meet you before I went home. So our last meeting was only over the phone. Last week when I went to the residence of Gokul, (Joint Director in the IB in Bangalore who is related to you), his wife told me that you were sinking and I said a silent prayer for you. My prayers that one more opportunity be given to meet up was not to be. Hearing about the critical condition, the second prayer was that end should be peaceful without too much suffering. I hope that now you are resting in Peace. We started our journey together in IIT Ganga hostel- same wing and just two rooms apart. When we entered your room, there used to be a stuffy smell. Hence the name shabby got stuck. Who thought of it I do not remember at this length of time. But the name stuck for all time. But you were brilliant in studies and your notes were used for midnight cramming. Thank you. You parted for LC while I went for HC but the electrical bond survived and during the silver reunion, you took me to your house during the short meeting. You had not changed after travelling the continents. That bondage continued in the last conversation we had on the phone! Funny that from that wing in Ganga, Chakku went first, then Balan Nambiar, Sathya and now you. I must recollect the names of all the others in the wing of 16 and see if I can say hello to the rest before long. Bye friend, I will light an agarbathi for you today. RSK
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Rama Sarma Kolluri too young to die

I remember it all vividly. Rough surf. It suddenly appeared. Eight foot waves and foolish and immortal teenagers that we were then. A German guy in a boat rescuing some of us exhausted swimmers. Police complaints as we all discovered Rama was missing. Someone said that he did not know how to swim. All of us felt helpless. Remember being awake all night long feeling guilty about leaving poor Ram Sarma alone in the Bay of Bengal. The night was cloudy and as I lay awake until day break and waiting for news of a miracle. Going back early to the beach only to later find his poor body floating in with the tide. The anguish in his fathers face. Indescribable. As I lay awake many nights listening to old music from the sixties, I try to imagine how I would feel if I had raised a child to nineteen with love and care and the child is tragically taken away. Unimaginable pain. I remember his brother was in the fifth year or so. I believe this happened when most of us were in Ganga 1968 or 69? I believe Rama was on the third floor, the same wing as Sanyal, a few rooms away. I still remember the bitter fight between Kamy and Nirula as Ravi cracked a poor joke about sharks while the rest of us were feeling empty and sick. I could not eat anything and it was a terrible day indeed. May his soul rest in peace for he was cheated out of life so early. Narasimhan. P. Kannan
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Rocque Fernandez a family man

As one of his closer friends at IIT Madras, I thought I would put together my memories of the various good times we shared. I first got to know Rocque after we had we had come back from the summer holidays in 1966. I had been assigned to Saraswati hostel in the second year (the only year I was not in Ganga), and so was he. It helped that he was in the Aero batch, so we got to see a lot of each other. Along with Ram Mohan Mahadevan, we were part of the group that came from Bangalore and Mysore, and travelled back and forth. We used to plan short weekend holidays to go home together. Rocque came from fairly humble origins. He was the youngest in a family of 6 children, and his father was a bandmaster. Even in those days he exuded a lot of self-confidence - he was very much a take-charge kind of guy. He was also quite entrepreneurial in his way of thinking. The job market seemed quite bleak in India in the 60s and one of his ideas was to set up a painting/signboard firm. In his spare time, he also wrote a lot of short stories. He was a close buddy of mine at the IIT and we did a lot of things together, like cycling into town to eat dinner and see a movie. Hotel Runs in Adyar was a favourite when we got fed up with hostel food. He was a good chess player and we partnered in the inter-hostel chess tournaments. Table tennis was another sport that took us often to the common room at odd hours of the evening. I was never particularly good at studies at the IIT and need help to solve problems. He was much better than I and also quite generous with his time. If he couldnt solve it, we would go to DBthans room and bug him. We partnered in many projects, including the final year when we were part of the group that designed a VTOL aircraft. The nice thing about being part of the Aero batch was that there were only 18 guys, so we all got to know and help each other quite well. When we parted ways after the final exams in May 1970, he already had a scholarship in hand to go to the University of
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Stroke Sixty Something Cincinnati, while I went on to IIMA. The next time I saw Rocque was sometime in the summer of 1973/4 when he came by on a short visit to India. His brother Valentine (Val) worked at Crompton Greaves at Kanjur Marg very close to GKW at Bhandup where I worked, and we got together on a couple of occasions. A year or two later, Val was able to join Rocque in the US. I saw Rocque again in 1975/76 in Bangalore. I had gone home for my usual summer vacation and he had written to me saying that he was looking to get married. It boiled down to 2 girls his family had arranged to see - he liked Zarin and made the commitment. I had gone with him to meet her family in Indiranagar - her mother still lives there in the same house. In August 1982 I left my job with Madura Coats in Bangalore and went to New York to study for a Ph.D at NYU. One of the first persons I called was Rocque, who was in Pittsburg at the time. He had completed his Ph.D about 6 years earlier and had taken up an engineering job. We spoke on the phone on and off and finally in 1984 I was able to visit him in Pittsburg. It was a short weekend visit, but he was quite gracious and took me sightseeing into town. I remember he introduced me to Red Lobster, where I had a very good meal with Rocque, Zarin and his daughter Trina who was only 3 at the time. He also told me of the sad demise of his brother Val, who he was very close to, and who eventually died of heart failure. Val stayed with Rocque as soon as he came to the US and almost immediately stated developing heart problems. Rocque was one of the most family-minded guys I knew and practically nursed Val in the 2 years before he died. A few years later, he lost another older brother in India, Xavier to heart problems. I dont think he has family left in India and hadnt been back in over 2 decades. In 1986, Rocque moved with his family to Valley Forge, PA to take up a new job. I think Zarin had also finished her FMG exam and had earlier found a position there. They were expecting their son Ruel at that time.. I made another weekend visit a year or two later. We did not meet for several years after that, although we spoke on and off on the phone.
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Stroke Sixty Something In the mid-90s Rocque got quite interested in investing. It wasnt simply finding good stocks - he was starting to take macro bets like shorting the Nikkei. Now that I come to think of it, he was doing hedge fund investing around the time that the term came into vogue. Even though I worked at ML at the time, I was trying to get him to give me some tips and he was very coy about the whole thing. Later, by 1999 or so, he apparently got so good at it that he gave up working and just started managing the family money. In 1998 Rocque suddenly called up to say that he was visiting NYC on some work and wanted me to take the day off. (It must have been important, because he hated the big city and I could never convince him to visit me). Basically, he was in limbo, having left his job about a year earlier. He had joined a firm that staged investing events. The business model was to line up some well-known speakers and then advertise to get participants who would pay a fee to hear these investing gurus speak. He planned an event in NYC and had come to find a suitable place for the event. We spent the whole day going to clubs and hotels, checking out conference rooms and getting rates. He claimed he even got Mario Gabelli to sign up as a speaker. Eventually, he could not get the 2 sides of the business model into sync, and nothing came out of it. When our egroup started in late 2000, I tried very hard to get him to join on several occasions but he refused point blank. It was just not his style, and he was very devoted to his family, choosing to spend all his spare time with his kids and wife. Also, he was not particularly interested in computers and email and did his investing on the phone and getting quotes. He took his family very seriously and he told me that nothing gave him more pleasure than playing with his grandson. He did remember many of the classmates, particularly warmly Jack Sokhey and DBthan, but somehow he was not the sort of guy to keep in touch with friends unless circumstances brought him their way. When I met Rocque again it was at his daughter Trinas wedding in 2005. I stayed at the hotel where the reception was being held and it was an exuberant affair. I met many relatives, mainly on Zarins side, and it was a pleasure to see his children all
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Stroke Sixty Something grown up. We could not really interact at the reception, but the next morning he made it a point to have breakfast with me, before I drove back to NYC. It was the last time I met him. We reminisced about our earlier years with the usual promise that we must meet more often in future. What I like about Rocque is that fundamentally the guy never changed from the IIT days. I was one of the few people from the old days he was comfortable with, but as the years went by he grew more private and chose to spend time mainly with family and some close friends in his neighbourhood. He was very reserved, but extremely warm and generous with people he liked. The IIT fraternity never meant much to him - his life was much too full and he did not see any need to make it any fuller. I regret that after 2005 I spoke to him only a couple of times on the phone. The family remembers me well and I hope to catch up with them in the near future and get them to speak more about Rocque so that I can vicariously spend time with my old buddy. M.G. Machayya
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S. Umapathy master planner

I am fortunate to have known a person such as S. Umapathy. At IITM I got to know him well only in the final year, but our friendship strengthened in the following two years at IIM Ahmedabad and subsequently at Tatas. Like me Umapathy was a very serious type of person and applied himself to tasks with great diligence. In addition he was also fiercely focused on the outcome of his efforts. In our final year his single-minded goal was to gain admission into IIM Ahmedabad. I remember the practical joke that some of us played on him, by showing him a faked admission letter from IIMA, causing him to think that he had been rejected. We enjoyed watching his disbelief, dismay and utter panic. After graduating from IIMA Umapathy joined TELCO. Since I was in TAS, we continued to have contact for long after our student days were over. Umapathys father was in the Income Tax service, and so was my wife Mala. This added another strand to our relationship. Umapathy left TELCO after some years for a doctoral programme at Harvard Business School. Umapathy died of a heart attack in 1999 while scuba-diving in the Bahamas. Umapathys wife Mala (my wifes namesake) lives in Boston. Their son too is in the US. Their daughter Shalini is married. His younger brother S. Ganesh is a prominent Supreme Court lawyer. Umapathy was a man who planned meticulously and well in advancewhether it was studies, career, travel or games. It is unfortunate that God decided to take him away to Vaikunth so early, overriding all the plans Umapathy will have had at that time. But then as the proverb goes, If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans. S. Ramakrishnan
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V. Parthasarathy Pacha, the idealist

Pacha is no more. But not really. He lives on, just like everyone else with whom we spent our prime teen years in Ganga and Jamuna. He was my wing mate at Ganga Hostel in 1965, our first year. I still remember him with his slicked hair combed straight back and held together with the shiny Brylcreem. Always decked out in white dhothi and a clean shirt. He smiled a lot and had a habit of whirling his key chain in his right finger as if he was revving his propeller for takeoff. But it took another forty years before I really got to know him through Skype and emails. It helped that my wife and I volunteered to look after his daughter Harini as one of our own while she completed her graduate studies in Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. When I finally got to know him in the real sense in the past three years, I felt he was angry and touchy about a few things. His anger was directed at injustices in India and the corruption. He had well thought out positions that were hard to crack despite my numerous efforts, especially his anger at the destruction of a factory he owned that was caught in the crossfire of Hindu Muslim riots in Mumbai. He supported RSS and Bal Thackeray of Shiv Sena. He was opposed to preferential treatment in favor of Other Backward Classes. He thought it was unjust. He was anti-Muslim to which I took a lot of objection, but to no avail. I came to understand the sources of his anger. Much of it was directed at his failing health his diabetes, hypertension, smoking, stroke, and all the related complications. He died of renal failure, after three days in coma. He died peacefully, I heard. The real Pacha was a gentle soul. The more I got to know him the more I felt that he was an idealist, with visions of a Utopian society. He was precise about what his normative views were--high ideals of meritocracy as a basis for society. May the best rise was his prescription. He was very proud of IIT and IIM as the finest living and perhaps the only examples of pure meritocratic institutions. He felt the same standards should apply in government, politics, and business. But he was a broken man
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Stroke Sixty Something about what he saw was the pervasive and ubiquitous injustices in everyday India. He railed against corruption. He got angry quite easily by even a mere mention of politics. Finally, he is at peace, his anger spent, and ready to take on causes larger than himself in the heavens. I can assure you that with renewed vigor he has already started railing against elitism out there in the happy hunting ground, exhorting us all to join him. If I can sum up one singular message of his life--Look around guys, get mad at all the inequities, and do something, anything to improve the situation before you move on. Narasimhan P. Kannan
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Part VIII Index of Contributors
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Their Moving Fingers Wrote

Agrawal, Anjani
Born in Allahabad in a conservative family, Anjani did much of his schooling in Hindi medium. After completing his B Sc he joined the 3-year B. Tech course at IIT Madras. He worked in various companies before striking out on his own with a manufacturing venture in 1990. He now works for one of the companies he previously owned. Anjani has two sons, both software engineers. anjani.agrawal@ gmail.com
Chandrasekhar, D.
After completing B Tech in Metallurgy, Deecee went to Germany for training. He became an engineering entrepreneur by default, and over time evolved into a social entrepreneur by design. A tireless worker for social causes, Deecees services to the community are widely recognized. Available on deecee.d@gmail.com
Chandrasekaran, V.
On graduation in 1970, took a job in a small company with the intention of making a difference. Was guided at that time by Prof. Vithayathil, Prof.K.K.Mehan and R.J Ascroft who I consider my mentors. Set
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Stroke Sixty Something new standards for the service business in Modi-Xerox & WIPRO, without knowing anything about software and contributed to the growth of WIPRO in the early stages. Have built a home for mentally challenged adults in Coimbatore, and am building a school for the poor in Mysore. vc.chandra@gmail.com
Dutt, Tushar
After graduating in Electrical Engineering, Tushar served in the Indian Navy until 1991. He then switched to Direct Marketing for about six years followed by Engineering Consultancy in Highways and Water projects until 2007. He is now into part-time teaching of Engineering and Management subjects, which he studied in the IIT and Navy, but as he says, did not learn. Tushars pastimes include golf, guitar, singing, writing and gardening. Can be reached at tushar.dutt49@gmail.com
Jawahar, D.
Graduated in Electrical Power, and then changed 4 jobs in the first year before finding his niche with Siemens in India. A thorough techno-commercial guy with experience in varied areas of electrical engineering in industry and utilities, Jawahar has travelled widely. He retired after 38 years with Siemens and settled in Pune, where he enjoys computer games, developing applications and websites. Other interests are driving, photography and social work. Reachable at JD@jawahars.com
Kannan, N.P.
Prisoner Number: 1.146/65 After being railroaded into IITM by aggressive parents, KK resigned himself to his fate of being incarcerated in a Germandesigned prison camp. He escaped to the US in 1970 for nonstop adventures in the affairs of the heart, the loins, business, scholarship, music, art, and partying. Says he is still trying to find his voice. nkannan48@gmail.com
Machayya, M.G
After graduating in Aeronautical Engg. earned an MBA from IIMA in 1972. Worked in India for the next 10 years, first with GKW and thereafter with Madura Coats. Then moved to the US to
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Stroke Sixty Something work towards a PhD in International Finance at NYU. Joined Merrill Lynch in 1988 in their hedge fund group. Left ML two years later to co-found an HF asset-allocation firm with private equity support. After this firm was acquired in 2005 joined Zurich Financial Services as head of HF quantitative strategy and risk management. Interested in yoga and spiritual practice. mgmachayya@hotmail.com
Mannar, Venkatesh
B. Tech Chemical Engineering and MS from Northwestern University USA. I worked in India till 1990 running a salt company near Chennai. Now in Ottawa, Canada. Since 1994 President of Micronutrient Initiative (MI) an international non-profit organization working to improve nutrition status of impoverished children and mothers around the world. Hobbies include tennis, skiing (I live in Canada!), gardening, music, reading and photography. Contact at venkatesh. mannar@gmail.com
Marballi, K.R.
Joined BARC Training School immediately after graduating in Electrical Engineering (LC). Worked in the Electronics Division, BARC till 95. Then was in the HRD Division and retired on 29 Feb, 08. Presently into crosswords, TV Sports channels, meeting friends and spending 2 hours a day checking our group mail. krmarballi@yahoo.com
Nair, Ram
One of those who fled all-too-readily from IITM to IIMA, Ram has lived and worked in 6 countries. After a failed flirtation with early retirement in the US, he moved to distant Aotearoa, Land of the Long White Cloud. There both he and wife Usha, a chef, work full-time and enjoy being indulgent grandparents. sramnair@gmail.com
Narinder Kapoor
After seven years in India, including in Indian Standards Institution (ISI), shifted to Bahrain and taught in Bahrain University before going on to set up Educational Institutions. Served as Chairman, Education Commission and was on the Panel of Experts with UNIDO, ADB etc. IIT blood runs in his family with two of his three
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Stroke Sixty Something children having been IITians. His second daughter did B.Tech and M. Tech and is also married to another IITian.
Nathan, N.T.
Chemical engineer turned Information technologist, dabbler in Indian music - particularly film music, derives immense satisfaction out of participating in ENVIKAL project, email: ntnathan@yahoo.com
Raghavan, N.
BTech in Civil Engineering in 1970 from IITM and MTech Structures from IITB. Been a techie all along--STUP Consultants, Larsen & Toubro-ECC Division, L&T-Ramboll Consulting Engineers . Now INAE Visiting Professor to IITM & also attempting to explore the Inside! Love reading, writing, and music. I can be reached at nraghavan01@gmail.com
Ramakrishnan, S.
Mechanical engineer who went to IIM Ahmedabad. Joined Tatas in 1972 and am still there, now as CFO of Tata Power. My wife Mala has just retired as chief commissioner of income tax. Have a son and a daughter both married, and two granddaughters. I spend lot of time in prayers and reading religious devotional books
Ramnath, P.
From Chemical Engineering through the Kahnian ruins at Ahmedabad, carried a token reminder of this Alma Mater in a career helping drive businesses in paints, plastics and specialty chemicals in various parts of India. Now the head of a B School in Chennai. In between imposing occasional ramblings on a captive e-group, indulging in golf or tennis, learning German (which led me to my life partner) and now Ole, Ole from salsa country, always but always fortunate to enjoy to the full the intellectual and artistic pursuits and landmarks of wife Sreemathi and children. pramnath67@yahoo.com
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Sharma, C.K.
Picked up an MBA after graduating from IIT and worked for three years in industry and academia. Joined hands with classmates to set up MBA, a market research and consulting firm which was later acquired by Gallup (which is the company I work for presently). My wife, Uppi and I live in Bangalore. We have two sons. Enjoy playing golf, travelling and reading; and, of course, enjoy keeping in touch with irreverent friends. Sharma_ck@ yahoo.com
Sreenivasan, M.
Hydroo is happily unemployed since late 2006, after 30+ years in the pharmaceutical fine chemicals industry. When not composing a topical bawdy limerick He dabbles as a part-time bicycle mechanic Toils in the home garden, digs into any good book Rides his bike for miles, gives puzzles a decent look Volunteers, cooks, even pulls legs for a shtick.
Sri Kumar, R.
Graduated in Electrical Engineering Power and joined the Indian Police Service in 1973, after a brief stint in Central Public Works Department. Served in different capacities in Uttar Pradesh Police (9 years), Central Bureau of Investigation (11 years) and Karnataka Police before retiring as the Head of the State Police in Karnataka. Since retirement in 2009 into teaching, consulting, and running a public charitable Trust called Indian Centre for Social Transformation. Nicknamed Topcop he is reachable for help at rsrikumarips@indiancst.in . Whether the help is rendered or not, only time will tell.
Thomas, Ben
Moved to the US soon after graduating in Civil Engineering, and has been in Michigan or Arizona since then. Ben currently lives in Arizona. He has been working in Electrical Construction Management for 36 years. Email: bent4949@gmail.com
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Vasudevan, Roopa
New York based Roopa is a producer at Gigantic! Productions, a full service production company specializing in documentary and news programmes for television. She has worked on several episodes of MTVs award-winning documentary series True Life. Roopa is the daughter of Vasu Ramanujam.
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