12 Days of Christmas for the Brown Folk

My friend Arvind sent me this video from You Tube. I find it amazing and very hilarious.

12 Days of Christmas for the Brown Folk


Apparently it is band and they have CD's and all. Here is their home page.

Damien Martyn: A Salute

Damien Martyn belongs to a vanishing breed of batsmen who grace the cricket field. His retirement leaves the mantle of that breed entirely to VVS Laxman, the last of those artistry batsmen who are a sheer delight to watch. However much I admire Sachin Tendulkar, I can't put him in the same category of these two batsmen. Other players that belong to this category during the period i have watched cricket (post 1980) are Mohd. Azharuddin, Mark Waugh. Earlier era gave us among others, GR Viswanath.

To be so talented, as Damien was, and sit out for 6 years during the prime of your physical fitness due to a so called rash shot (that is claimed to have to have led to the defeat) and make an amazing comeback, is really a legend in the making. To top it all, just when you have an opportunity to make amends to the bad form in front of the home crowd, with the Aussie team well placed in the series, Damien decided that he should call it a day.

I am more than impressed with his actions. More than anything else, in these days of media hyped recalls of retired greats, the manner with which CA and others responded to it is simply amazing.

Goodbye and Goodluck, Damien. Have a great life.

What happens in between?

Yesterday, when Amrapali and myself were walking out of St. Charles Hospital here in Port Jefferson, Long Island, we saw a very old lady walking towards the hospital. She saw us and said

" You two look so happy
And I am glad to see that"

Though we weren't sure how to respond to that, we mumbled a thank you.

After a few steps, we met another lady, who probably is the old lady's daughter, told us

"When you are above 90, you can talk to just about anybody. Isn't it?"

The event really made me think. We keep talking when we are kids and if it is easy to talk to just about anybody when you are very old, what happens in between?

Quintessential Rajnikanth

I found this speech by Rajni in You Tube. You can see how restless he looks. Whenever he speaks he always tries to capture the microphone, there is lot of restlessness. Make sure you notice his face when he repeats Amitabh Bachchan's name. Later when he says "Indha Rajnikanth endha moolainga?". There is a sense of conviction that I feel whenever I hear him speak.

Ph.D Thesis Report

There is this brief report in today's The Hindu buried under TamilNadu/Coimbatore section that caught my eye. This report says that Bharathiar University is going to make the status of the evaluation of the Ph.D thesis available online.

As somebody who has seen from close quarters how people keep waiting for report, I am glad that somebody felt the need to atleast find a way to monitor and know the status. I also abhor the practice of sending the thesis to a 'Foreign' referee and getting an approval from him/her. I don't see why we need to do that, unless ofcourse, that person has been a collaborator.

In India you will have to submit the thesis(the final bound version), wait for the thesis report and then have your defence. When I defended my thesis recently, here in US, I gave a final (there is never a final one, is there?) draft in a manila folder to each of my committee two weeks before the defence and a submitted a copy to the graduate school a week after the defence. End of story. All my committee members weren't my collaborators, but they were on the committee to evaluate my thesis proposal.

I think the time frame between submission and defence, in Indian institutes, should be reduced to as minimum as possible and a person should be able to leave the Institute/University for good.

Except for a few concerned ones, most advisors don't even care how long it takes.

Anyway, that is my opinion.