Will it Float?

The Tata Nano is a fun car. It's got a great pick up, is nimble for city driving, and chock full of tech features. And while it may not sell for Rs.1,00,000 any longer, it can still fit 4 for a comfy ride and give 30 km/l. All of this thanks to a rear-mounted engine, low centre of gravity and a spacious, light frame…all of which is both good and bad, as I found.

The serene IISc campus is self-contained. One just does not want to leave it for the hustle and bustle (and the occasional wrestle) of the city. The couple of jaunts I have had off-campus with the Nano have been to some spanking new malls nearby. The Orion Mall and the Mantri Mall are a world of their own. A rich blend of up market international brands standing shoulder to shoulder with locally grown shopping chains. Subway and Shanti Sagar are cheek by jowl. Levis and Crocs lie alongside Landmark and Bata. Fancy a massage to relax after some heavy duty shopping? Coin operated massage chairs line the aisle! You might as well be in any large mall in the US, but for the sea of desi faces. If you were in the Bay Area or New Jersey, even that is moot. But then, there are still those oddities and niggles that remind you that we're still growing into the consumer-driven economy (Is that good? For a different post). Like the water fountains whose spouts are 5 feet high (maybe it's a shower?!!). Or the eternally empty towel dispensers. Or the strategically placed buckets to catch water dripping from the roof during a downpour! Jugaad is in full flow. 

And yes, it does rain a lot in Bangalore, as I've found. While the first couple of weeks here welcomed me with sunshine, last week more than made up for it with several showers. One might as well have been in Redmond. In fact, last weekend supposedly recorded a 30 year high rainfall! Not that I knew about it then when I sauntered out. But in all, it's been fun watching the showers through the tree tops from my vantage office at the top floor of SERC (whose roof wasn't immune to the torrent either :-)).

Maybe there is something about water that spurs innovation, reflecting through showers or musing in the bathtub . Archimedes would agree. Even Prof. C.N.R. Rao, during his recent Bharath Ratna felicitation on campus, drew inspiration from Archimedes discovering the science behind buoyancy and rushing out his bathtub shouting 'Eureka'. Which reminds me of my PhD co-advisor, who often used that expression when he regaled our lab group with anecdotes. I guess it is nice to be able to explain something as fundamental as floating that we take for granted. But one thing I never understood was Archimedes' rush to share his discovery in his state of undress (as the story goes). It was not like he had to publish it soon out of fear of being "scooped".

So what does Archimedes share with David Letterman? For those not familiar, Letterman is a late night comic, famous for this toothy grin. And, maybe picking the wrong message from Archimedes' story, he runs an occasional segment called "Will it Float?". It is one of his better bits where he'd try to dunk commonplace stuff into a tank of water to see if they would float or not. He's tried things as odd as a canaloupe (floats!) and 500ft roll of coaxial cable (floats!!). It was never an easy guess, so maybe there is a science lesson there? But one thing I'm sure he's not tried this on is a Tata Nano. And (drums please) ladies and gentlemen, today, we have an answer!

Finding the right entrance into IISc campus is a bit troublesome, what with road construction that makes many gates inaccessible. I had finally figured out a reliable route through Maramma Circle. But then, there are always boundary conditions one finds out about. As I was driving back my Nano from Mantri Mall last Sunday night, in poor visibility caused by the record breaking rains, the comfort of being able to find the gate soon gave way to the boundary condition of navigating the flooded underpass.

So how many engineers does it take to estimate the depth of water in an underpass (caveat: at night, and in a downpour)? The answer, apparently, is Not Enough! My cousin, a partner in crime, and myself "pool" our collective aeronautics engineering and computer science skills together and make a quick decision: Nah, it's not too deep. So I rev up the engine and head down the slope at a measured pace…

Well, the good news is, if you always admired those cool cars that Bond has that you can drive on land and skim through water, Nano gets you close! But in the absence of a hydro-propulsion mechanism , you are (literally), a sitting duck in water. Long story short, we almost make it to the deep end, the wheels loose contact with the road -- the car floats!! -- and the low-slung rear engine splutters out. In hindsight, we should have tried to get out thru the window but, oh well, 2ft of water pours in as we step out the door. A few heaves and hos, and me manage to push the car uphill. Our escapade at least proved a cautionary tale for several cars following us, which soon turned tail and headed off to better pursuits.

After all these amphibious adventures, the Nano had to suffer the ignominy of being paraded through Bangalore streets on its hind wheels by a tow truck, as passers-by gave it a sad look. The little car that almost could…

P.S. I know an unnamed student of mine is rolling with laughter now, after the ribbing he got after a similar incident, though with better results!

Endnote:

• Recordbreaking rains in Bangalore
• Tata Nano. It good, really!
• David Letterman's Will it Float?

 

 

On Golden Hours and Silver Linings

(aka Humanity vs Magnanimity)

One of the stark contrasts in being back in India is the worth (or lack there off) of human life and limb. This is stark when we observe the disdain that ambulances are shown on the road. As I am traveling from Chennai to Bangalore on NH 4, I see our bus coolly overtake an ambulance that has its siren blaring. And a few minutes later, as we hit a toll plaza, the ambulance joins the queue in a neighbouring toll booth, waiting for those ahead to pay and pass. It's a first come first served, survival of the fittest attitude on the streets. But an incident over the weekend gives me hope.

As I was driving to SEED, a non profit at Chennai's outskirts, on Diwali day, I was pleasantly surprised at the fairly empty roads and light traffic. It reminded me of Christmas day at LAX where the bustle turns to a trickle as people spend time with family at home. As I passed SRMC, a large teaching hospital, I see a small crowd milling by the road. I pulled over my car to check out what was happening. It was immediately apparent; a pedestrian has been hit by a motor bike and prone by the road side, while the alleged perpetrator is being accosted by the crowd. I don't see any bleeding but the pedestrian is screaming, partly in pain and partly egging the crowd to not let the motor cyclist escape. The mob surrounds the biker. A few bystanders idly take in the spectacle.

After checking with a few to see if someone has called for an ambulance, with non committal responses, I find the current medical emergency number (it's 108), and call. There is no response. Either my cell provider is acting up or the number is busy or something. Diwali may be a hectic day with burn accidents. I try 100, the number for the police. Again, no luck. Then I turn to the pedestrian and see that his leg in an unusual angle. The bone is broken in half though the skin has not torn. The onlookers are unsure what to do. Some offer water.

Such is plight is not uncommon. There are countless (unsubstantiated) anecdotes (and even some movie plots) where the people who help "accident victims" are harassed by the police as potential suspects themselves (or just asked to appear as witness in court). Sometimes, even hospitals will (allegedly) not treat accident victims due to this hassle. It is this notional inconvenience prevalent in pop culture that causes humanity to often take a back seat. No one wants to get involved. They would rather give the culprit a good thrashing and walk away rather than help the victim and get embroiled.

As some people try to move the pedestrian to the side, he screams in agony. I look for an auto rickshaw to flag to take the victim to the hospital nearby. My instinct is to help, but have someone else do the difficult part. The streets are bereft of vehicles during this festive day. The golden hour, if there is one to save the leg, may be closing. I decide to take him myself.

I unload my family, the crowd loads up the victim to the back seat, and we rush to SRMC. And it is what happens from here on that rekindles my hope, offering a silver lining to this morbid event.

The security at the SRMC gate hears my pre-emptive honks and points me to the Emergency entrance. We speed onwards. The guard at the Emergency gate can sense my urgency. The gate swings open. I don't have to stop. I pull over along side ambulances. A couple of hospital staff come over. One calls for a stretcher. A senior staff asks how he was injured. I tentatively say that he was in an accident and I was helping. (Would they admit him?) They thank me profusely!! Few in the public bother to help, the say, and a simple act of humanity seems like magnanimity.

They want me to park my car and come in. After a brief discussion between the doctors, they don't see any reason for me to have to stick around. They are glad someone helped and that is good enough for them. A nurse takes my contact details, as the person who brought the victim in. From the look of it, he may survive with just a limp (I hope). He is talking to his sister on a borrowed cell phone as I leave.

I have mixed feelings. I feel good that the victim will survive, but sad at the low expectations set by society. But the redeeming factor was the knowledge that helping a random stranger, an accident victim by the roadside, should not require a second thought. There is no bureaucratic hassle. Just the generous thanks of the hospital staff, the police (whom we met on the way out) and of course the victim who, for once, did not end up as yet another statistic.

Endnote:

• Some emergency numbers
• A plan to have a single emergency number
• Paper on road accident statistics in India. ~25% of accidents are fatal! Tamil Nadu leads the pack @ 15% of accidents and 11% of fatalities.
• The law on helping accident victims
• Motor Vehicles Act 1988 (amended 1994):  The driver of the vehicle must take all reasonable steps to secure medical attention for the injured person by conveying him to the nearest medical practitioner or hospital, and it is shall be the duty of every registered medical practitioner or the doctor on the duty in the hospital immediately to attend the injured person and render medical aid or treatment without waiting for any procedural formalities.

"The Institute"

My first week of joining the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) a.k.a The Tata Institute or just The Institute also happens to be the 125th birthday of Sir C. V. Raman, its first Director of Indian origin. Sir Raman is also one of the handful of Nobel laureates from India, winning the prize for Physics in 1930 for discovering the Raman Effect on light scattering. Google has a doodle today recognizing his birthday.

 

 

Interestingly, the only other scientist from India to win the Nobel prize for Physics was Sir Raman's nephew, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, in 1983, with NASA's Chandra Telescope named after him. Maybe physics aptitude runs in their DNA (the working of which to synthesize proteins was partly explained by Har Gobind Khorana and led to his 1986 Nobel prize in Medicine). Along with "Venki" Ramakrishnan who won our most recent Nobel laurel for Chemistry in 2009, Khorana rounds out the science winners. Khorana is however a geospatial outlier from Punjab, in that the other laureates are either from the states of Tamilnadu (the "scientists") or West Bengal (the "humanists"). Hmmm... maybe this explains the intense peer pressure on kids from the south to enroll in science and engineering majors?

 

My personal favorite though is the socio-economic work (and the fascinating book, The Argumentative Indian) by Amartya Sen, the former of which was recognized for Economics by the Nobel committee in 1998. Rabindranath Tagore, a doyen of our freedom movement and the author of our national anthem (as well as Bangladesh's), was of course our first Nobel laureate, and apparently the "first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature" in 1913. Its the 100th anniversary, by the way. Rounding out the list is the benevolent Mother Theresa whose service to humanity won her the Peace prize in 1979. Interestingly, she's the only Nobel laureate to immigrate to India, rather than the other way round :-)

 

Ok, by my recount of these fun facts from Wikipedia, "handful" comes to 7 so far and we have managed to get one prize in each of the five possible categories. But in a country of a billion people, I'm sure there are other hidden gems awaiting. Any takers?

***

P.S. From my recollection, I've met and spoken to just one Nobel laureate, by happenstance. While at MSR in San Francisco and collaborating with researchers at Berkeley Labs, my manager and I made an exploratory visited to a leading astrophysicist at UC Berkeley in 2009 to see if we could expand on our ongoing research on the Pan-STARRS Sky Survey. As we headed out from a genial 30 mins meeting in his office, which was chock full of papers and books, my manager remarked (with her trademark mischievous grin) that she wouldn't be surprised if he won the Nobel prize. Saul Perlmutter did indeed win soon after, in 2011! My only other brush with Nobel glory was also at Lawrence Berkeley National labs when, on my way to the cafeteria for lunch, I ran across a photo shoot of the IPCC members from Berkeley who won the Peace Prize in 2007. Maybe it was this photo?

 

Sowing a SEED, this Diwali

It's been a while since the last post. Diwali, the festival of lights, seems like as good a time as any to restart these musings...after six years. Diwali is a celebration of goodness, and considered as the beginning of a new year for some. It's a new beginning for me in many ways; starting off a new career back in India is just one of them. It's been over a decade since I spent Diwali at home, and memory fades. But this is a chance to make new memories. Life is a continuum, but there are discrete points such as these to reset perspectives and redefine aspirations.

I decided to spend Diwali doing something besides my recollection of bursting fire crackers and feasting on sweets. Something more purposeful. I had heard from my family of an organization, SEED, in the outskirts of Chennai that was helping support children of life convicts. I decided to visit them with some of my relatives.

The residential primary school that I visited in Sriperambudur was agog with excitement when we arrived late afternoon on a cloudy day. We had had light rain showers earlier in the morning. About ninety kids, many girls, were impatiently seated in their open courtyard. The enthusiasm was palpable; the reason - they were waiting to be distributed fire crackers, the highlight of their day. An assortment of fire works were divvied out to about six groups and soon the kids fanned out in the quadrangle.

There were squeals of laughter as sparklers lit up. Flower pots started spurting around in different corners as if someone had triggered colorful dominoes. Kids, many decked in shiny kurtas and skirts, unwrapped just for that day, were intent in ensuring the was no pause in the festivities. While the older kids were lighting up ground chakras and even a few loud "bombs", some of the younger ones were being helped by the attentive staff and their brethren in carefully holding hanging sparklers and lighting smokey "snakes". There were some quick reflexes involved as the children deftly avoided running into other fire works after launching their own and backing off. It was a fun melee.

I spoke with an administrator as the supply started running out. He told me how SEED was started as a non profit organization run on the principles of Mahatma Gandhi. Over the years, they have grown to support over 200 students across three facilities in the same neighborhood. These support the residential and educational needs of children from primary to high school, in addition to vocational training. They give priority to admitting children of life convicts who are often abandoned and ostracized by society. Given the poor track record of justice among the under privileged in India, several of these prisoners were themselves collateral victims of village feuds and false testimonies. SEED also considers children whose parents suffer from terminal illness like cancer or diseases like leprosy that also carry a stigma. Lastly, based on available capacity and need, they also admit orphaned kids.

As we were talking in their office, a couple of kids walk in sheepishly and ask for some more crackers. They did not get to burst any, the claim slyly. The genial administrator hands out a couple of sparklers. Some older kids who are helping with the organization drop some books off and bring us some coffee. The office is brimming with papers and some old but functioning computers. Someone helped them setup a web site earlier but then moved on...and forgot to give them instructions or the password to maintain the site. Email is their only digital tether now. Pictures of Gandhi and religious icons from many faiths compete for space with encyclopedias and books from donors. Two baskets of apples are waiting for the kids as a special treat for the night.

SEED depends on donations for their daily operations. A Rotary club and employee organization of several local banks make annual contributions. One has also setup a modest endowment. Asha St Louis, MO give support regularly while AID India has helped in the past. These guarantee good food for the children for most of the year. But they depend on the generosity of individuals to help support full time staff for teaching and mentoring students. There is no sustaining donations, so every year has its own challenges. A polytechnic college has granted five seats each year to students who excel in their high school. Many of these students go on to earn scholarships to support themselves. One of them topped his graduating class, the proud administrator states. These alumni help spread the word on the good work. There are no active advertisements taken out, and no online presence for SEED. It is yet another worthy social cause crying silently for resources on this day of plenty.

As evening falls on this remote hamlet in India, I realize that the only outsiders joining the children and staff are us and a couple from the US. The husband is here for a few months to work at his India office nearby, and the wife spends the day with the children, teaching them English and music lessons. They are thrilled at being with the kids, partaking in the celebrations actively. As families around the country come close together with their loved ones on this joyous day, it is my fervent hope that a few of them are sparing a thought (or more) for those like these kids who are less privileged.

Endnote: If you'd like to help, you can mail a tax deductible check to "SEED", Venkatrangampillai Chatiram, Sriperambudur 602105 Tamilnadu.