A winter well spent: AFS 1, IISER Pune

My endless procrastination about writing this post finally gave way when a best friend updated her own blog after centuries of dormancy (and also the fact that I woke up early on a Sunday morning!).

This blog-post is important because very few people in Kgp are aware of opportunities like AFS or institutes like IISERs (not that my blog is a popular news segment here but I'd like to do what I can).

I spent my December (2011) at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune attending the Annual Foundation School - Part 1 (5th to 31st December) in Mathematics, organised in three phases every year by the National Board of Higher Education in Mathematics (NBHM). This school is meant for Mathematics Phd students in India in their first and second years of research. I wasn't selected for good reason but I insisted I wanted to attend it anyway and would arrange my own accommodation and food. My tenacity and Prof Katre's (organiser) goodness led me to IISER, and in a stroke of good luck, some registered students didn't show up getting me and a batchmate (Anirban Das) their place on the list. And thus I spent one of my best winters there with the biggest knowledge-gain/time ratio. I will summarise it under the following heads:


1. The Institute (IISER, Pune): 

IISER Pune reception

These institutes are a great initiative by the Government of India to increase focus on research and education in the pure sciences in a engineering-dominated India. I would like to see these institutes pwn IITs some day. No, really! It is high time parents stop pushing their kids to clear JEE and become "engineers". We (Indians) have done far too much low-level labor work in all industries. We need students to appreciate the pure sciences and do some state of the art research. 

IISER Pune is under construction but the main building is up and functional. The overall campus plan is quite extravagant and impressive. The rooms allotted to us were very big and comfortable and the food was simply amazing. They served us soup and dessert for lunch and dinner every single day!

The canteen

Pune itself is a city teeming with students and young company recruits, nice cafes and pubs in every nook and cranny, and a beautiful hilly landscape enveloping it. 
I loved the city.

2. AFS, the school and the teachers:

Lecture room

The school is a very good way to introduce a lot of advanced math in a very short span of time, with the intent of providing ample motivation to study the topics in detail later than on detailed exposition. We were provided a lot of supporting texts - books, lectures notes etc. There were three broad fields - Topology, Algebra and Analysis, with 6 hours of lectures and 4 hours of tutorial for each per week for four weeks. We were taught by 12 professors in total. All the professors were respected mathematicians from all over the country and more importantly good teachers. 

The syllabus that was covered is as follows:

Sr no.

Topic

Faculty, home institute

Book recommended

1. Differential Topology 

i	review of differential calculus, inverse and implicit function theorems, linearity of derivative, smooth maps	Prof. H. Bhate, Univ of Pune	Elements of Differential Topology by Anant R. Shastri
ii	Topological manifolds, Gluing Lemma, Classification of 1-d manifolds	Prof. Rama Mishra, IISER Pune	Differential Topology by Gillman and Pollack
iii	Sard and browns theorem, degree module 2 of a smooth homotopy, oriented manifolds and Brouwer degree	Prof. Krishna Kaipa, IIT Bombay	Topology from a Differential Viewpoint by John W. Milnor
iv	Morse functions, Morse Lemma,Connected sum, attaching handles, Handle decompostion theorem.	Prof. S Shastry	An introduction to Morse theory by Matsumoto

2. Algebra

i	Modules over Commutative rings/PIDs, Structure theorem	Prof. Rabeya Basu, IISER Pune	Algebra 1 by Jacobson
ii	Group Action, Sylow and Cauchy theorems, Solvable groups, Jorden Holder theorem, Nilpotent groups	Prof. Sudhir Ghorpade, IIT Bombay	Algebra by M. Artin, Alegbra by Lang
iii	Representation theory- group representations, semi simple and simple rings and modules	Prof. Gurmeet Bakshi, Punjab University	Lecture notes provided
iv	Free gorups, Matrix groups, Rigid motions	Prof. S. Katre	Lecture notes provided

3. Analysis

i	Introduction to the concept of outer measure, completion of a measure, construction of the Lebesgue measure, non-measurable sets	Prof. Sameer Chavan, IIT Kanpur	Real Analysis  by Stein and Sakarchi
ii	Measurable functions, Cantor function, almost uniform convergence, Egoroff and Lusin’s theorems, convergence in measure	Prof. V.M Sholapurkar, S.P College, Pune	Real Analysis by Stein and Sakarchi
iii	Integration, monotone and dominated convergence theorems, comparison with the Riemann integral, signed measures, Reimann-Lebesgue lemma	Prof. Diganta Borah	Lecture notes provided
iv	L^p spaces, l^2 space, Riesz Fisher Theorem, Fourier series, Fejer theorem, Fubini’s theorem, Fourier transform	Prof. Debraj Chakraborty, TiFR Bangalore	Real Analysis by Wheeden and Zygmund

As you can see, so much crammed in a month got just too much at times. I used to bunk lectures whenever I got overwhelmed (I was one of only two undergraduates with very little pre-requisite knowledge). But I tried to soak in as much as I could, knowing that this was an opportunity not to be wasted - to learn from pedagogically blessed teachers. I want to mention some professors in particular who had a huge impact on me:

Prof. Ghorpade: His charming style of teaching made everyone hang on to his every word. In a span of three days he managed to get to know the students personally - something which every student values dearly. He was friendly and very funny making very intense topics seem quite bearable.

Prof. Debraj Chakraborty: An ex-IIT Kharagpur alumnus and an incredibly ingenuous person, he and I bonded over our mutual resentment of the quality of education in Kgp and nostalgia of the campus life. A very enthused teacher whose energy is quite infectious, he made me relinquish my hatred for certain topics by treating them beautifully, opening my eyes to a whole new area - applied mathematics.

Prof. Krishna Kaipa: The most good looking Mathematics teacher I have ever come across (I am not kidding! We had a running joke that his research area should have been Mathematical Modelling :P), whose excellent clarity in communicating complex mathematical ideas immediately superseded his looks. I had been completely bewildered by the differential topology topics covered till then and had given up but was still able to understand, in essence, the portions he taught at the school.

Prof. Sholapurkar: A very experienced professor, he would encourage us to think and not be afraid of making mistakes. He left us with a very inspiring quote by Henry Lebesgue, "The only instruction which a professor can give, in my opinion, is to think in front of his students." and he truly lived up to it.

2. Friends, trips and fun:

My school friend Shreya studies in Pune so I had a very great time hanging out with her and her PG mates. The AFS group itself was very small, resulting in good bonding among the students.

Mahabaleshwar trip

Sundays were the only holiday and we all managed to go on two major outings - Mahabaleshwar and Sinhgad Fort. The former was quite a big disaster since we barely got to spend any time on the ground - we were stranded in the bus for the major part of the day. Still, it had its fun moments. Sinhgad fort trek was surprisingly awesome fun. We followed impossible trails and were burnt out every 10 minutes, only to pant and stop for a nimbu pani. We kept asking those returning how much farther we had to go and they would smile and say, "15 minutes only" and we would take a deep breath and continue (it took us exactly 2.5 hours from the first 15 min answer). The view from the top was breathtaking and totally worth the sweat. I bet I lost some 5 kgs that day! (I would atleast like to believe so.)

Sinhgad Trek

3. Concluding thoughts:

I learnt more than I ever can in such a short span of time - and not just academically, I learnt how little I know and how much there is to know - an exciting thought that one will never really know just enough. I was also appalled by the state of higher mathematical education and research in India. I had a very romantic take on the love of Maths leading one to dedicate ones life to its study and research. I was little short of heart broken to discover that for the majority of the students doing a math Phd in India, it is simply a career, a way to secure a job, an easy way out. 

On being forced to think about the bigger picture, it made sense - we live in a very populated, underdeveloped country where focus is entirely on being able to secure food, clothing and shelter. The popular and more monetarily desirable options - engineering and medicine - are fiercely competed for with a very small fraction of percentage being lucky to land it, leaving the rest with an inferiority complex and plan B - academia.
It is sad at so many levels.

Even the Government is so misguided in its attempt to improve the situation that it started a wrongly motivated scholarships like INSPIRE (click on the link for the eligibility criterion). Bribing the so-called "bright" students to take up sciences, really? Is that what it has come to? Beguiling naive young minds with big money as bait to a life of simplicity and austerity - can anything be more ironical!

I met some very good people (teachers and students) this winter and it is them to whom I dedicate this post but as Paul Lockhart points out in "A Mathematician's Lament", not much has changed since this experience of Bertrand Russel -

“I was made to learn by heart: ‘The square of the sum of two
numbers is equal to the sum of their squares increased by twice
their product.’ I had not the vaguest idea what this meant and
when I could not remember the words, my tutor threw the book at
my head, which did not stimulate my intellect in any way.”

Of cakes and birthdays

It is 2nd November today. One of the most agonisingly waited-for day when I was a kid. I used to cross-off dates for months. Planning party games and just making a big fuss about everything. I used to hand make the invitations - draw, color - the whole deal (mainly because I wasn't a spoiled kid with a lot to spend). And yes, the "return gifts" - oh-boy how important these things were back then. 

The birthday gifts received used to a very small part of the fun. It was more about the planning, the anticipation. The day itself used to be pretty ordinary.

I still look forward to this day. I still feel its the most important day of the year. The celebrations have changed, so has the company, but the essence is still the same.

Feeling pointlessly happy about everything, in the spirit of this day :)

A big thank you to friends and family for their wishes.

 

What NOT to do in Barclay's Capital Interview (IT profile)

Note: Applies to any non IT company offering an IT job for their in-house requirements.

Why I applied for this profile in this company is a topic which deserves a separate post itself. For now let us assume, without loss of generality, that:

a. I like/know coding

b. I need an internship/job

c. I need/want/like money

d. I am capable of sinking quite low for a, b and c

This post is for all those people who, WLOG, would like to apply to this company (or similar ones) in future for the assumed reasons (mainly c and d).

Anyway, so I applied for Barclay's Capital IIT Summer Internship Programme. I got shortlisted for the "Group Activities" which were held in Taj Bengal, Kolkata on 9th October, 2011. There were primarily two activities - Time management/Work prioritization and Case Study. Those who cleared this round have no clue what they did right. Universal advice would be not to dominate/fight/act-like-a-know-it-all. Do speak something, preferably something sensible (although what is 'sensible' to the assessors is again quite debatable).

None the less, the next day (10th) were the personal interviews. There were three panels - two of which (as we later found out) asked purely HR questions and the third mostly technical. Here are some general pointers -

1. There is no uniformity/set-agenda in the process, don't be fooled by their "we-want-people-passionate-about-technology" statements and the "IT-skills" section in the form. The lesser you know, the better. Brownie points if you have an irrelevant background like Geology/Civil/Mechanical.

2. Even if you know any programming languages, it would be better to pretend as if you don't. In any case, before the interview Google up stuff like "common interview HR questions" and mug up the best answers.

3. The perfect handshake - Do not under estimate the importance of the handshake. For all you know, it would be the deciding criterion. I am not an expert in handshakes but I am sure there are some tutorials on the web. Practice it with your friends. Take feedback about the warmth/firmness of your grip.

4. Practice sitting postures and facial expressions of awe/rumination/anticipation/excitement.

5. No matter how many times the hiring team stresses upon honesty, be prepared to lie/fake/hide-natural-reactions.

6. Be wide eyed most of the time and decently nervous. Don't give them even the slightest impression of confidence or ease.

7. Practice some guesstimation.

Now coming down to specifics of my own interview, the nuances of which, if studied and interpreted properly, can be really helpful to any one anxious to succeed in future. Not to mention that they are also quite entertaining.

Date - 10th October, 2011

Venue - Training and Placement Cell, IIT Kharagpur

Time - 10.45 am ( to 11.30 am)

Interviewers - Harsha Yale, Karen.

I am summoned to the room. I enter. I am taken aback by the hands forwarded in my direction, I realise it is for a handshake, I put my hands forward (rather clumsily, in hindsight), mentally trying to remember when was the last time I shook another persons hand [Don'ts #1: Do not let your mind wander off even for a moment. Stay focused!]

I sit down. The interview begins with some chit chat about the previous day's group activities. I reply normally, what I thought about it etc. [Don'ts #2: Chit Chat! :O! Nothing is chit chat in an interview. Don't tell them the same things you told your friends last night.]

Karen opens my CV, Harsha is already ready with my BarCap application form. Karen, without even looking at my CV, asks me a vague question (and I quote) "Have you been part of any team?". I am wondering why doesn't she just look down at the bold headings in the section titled "Extra-Curricular Activities". [Don'ts #3: Do not raise eyebrows/give confused looks]. I reply that I was the Governor of Debating Society and I start explaining what I did in it etc. She kept cutting me with questions like "your contribution", "your duties" etc. [Don'ts #4: They don't care about the truth. Answers like these should be at the tip of your tongue, full of action words like achieved/ implemented/ contributed blah blah.] Anyway, after my explanation, Harsha asked me if I could do an extempore right there. I said ofcourse and he asked me to speak for and against the topic "Steve Jobs made this world a better place". I said whatever came to my mind.

Karen, again not even glancing at my CV kept on the table, asks me (again very vaguely) to tell her about anything challenging that I have done. "Projects you mean?" I ask [#3!]. I go ahead an explain my work at IIIT Hyderabad where I developed a search engine and recommendation system in Python. [#4!]

Harsha pitches in and starts questioning my decision to choose Python for the above project. He inquires about the pros and cons of the language, which I answer. I accept that the language is slow but my reasons were purely academic. He doesn't let it go. There is more discussion on it. Moving on, he asks me about the difference in C++ and Java. I choose to point out that C++ allows low-level system facilities while Java does not. After which I had to explain what these low level facilities were, going into pointers to manipulate memory etc. This was followed by some very simple questions about pointer arithmetic, which on answering lead to more complicated practical implications etc.

It is Karen's turn now and she finally looks down at my CV and of all the things, she chooses to ask me what versions of Windows and Linux I have used. [#3!] This prompts Harsha to ask me some Linux shell commands, two of which I didn't know and I say so.

Another vague one from Karen, "How do you find out what is happening in the world?". [#3!, however difficult it is]. "Umm, you mean like current events and news?", I try to understand the question. [Don'ts #5: Do not not jump at this opportunity into a whirlwind of how fanatically you follow the finance news etc]. I answer, "For specific updates, I use google alerts and for others I follow Yahoo News.", still not sure what this was leading to. [Don'ts #6: Do two level thinking and read the interviewers mind, answer accordingly!]. She asks me what I follow in the news. The Yahoo.com homepage flashes in my mind and I say, "umm, Sports, Hollywood and Bollywood gossip (with a silent '?' to convey does-it-matter?) [Don'ts #7: Do I really need to say it?]. Karen is not amused. Harsha smirks. In my mind, I thought it was a comic relief. [Don'ts #8: They don't like funny people]. Karen (finally) spells it out, "What do you know about the investment banking scene?". I give her a Aha!-So-ask-that! look and explain everything I had read up about the markets, the company's position in it. I explain some of the recent reforms introduced and how they would effect the investment banks etc. Harsha asks me to explain ring-fencing in particular, which I do (and in my head I do a pretty good job too!) [Don'ts #9: Don't evaluate yourself in your head, focus!]

Then comes a tricky one. "Why do you want to work in an IT department of an investment bank and not software companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple etc?". For the first time in the interview, I am forced to think. [Don'ts # I-lost-track-of-the-count: Think? :O Such questions are a golden opportunity to impress them and pledge your loyalty. Basically, lie with a straight face. Kiss their ass. Suck up to them. Whatever it takes.] I answer, rather honestly (and hence stupidly), "Those companies are for people who are crazy about their code." Mortified, Harsha asks, "So you mean to say you are not crazy about your code?". "I know it doesn't put me in the best light here, but yes, I am not. I mean I like coding but at the end of the day, I don't care who uses the code." (I am thinking, "Honesty - check, Forthrightness - check! Nailed it \m/". He is thinking, ":O Direct insult!".)

Karen clears her throat to speak. I turn to Karen, already with a tired oh-now-what look. [Don'ts #x: Don't let them see through you. Be as fake as possible.] As expected, she throws another bouncer at me, "Have you done anything new?". "Umm, I do a lot of new things. Most of which are written in my resume (gritted teeth, if only you would look!) like blah blah." She puts my CV aside implying I have to say something not written there. "Nothing which has any academic relevance", she clarifies. "Oh okay, Guitar? I learnt to play the guitar, actually I am still learning. It is fun." I smile. [Don'ts #x: Guitar? Seriously? They don't care. Should prepare some awe-inspiring speech about how you taught slum kids or how you saved a drowning man etc.]

Somewhere in the course of the interview I had said I like Math. Harsha brings it up. I confirm, "Yes I enjoy Math." Continuing in the same tone, he asks, "What do you know about Singapore?". "Related to Math?", I ask, thoroughly confused. [#3 and #6!]. He eggs me on, "Yes, anything you know about it." [#6. Math + Singapore? He expects you to give him some numbers! You don't understand? Join the club!] Finally he clarifies, "What do you think is the population of Singapore?". I say I don't know. [Don'ts #x: This is called Guesstimation. Don't say you don't know, just say some number confidently.] Anyway, he goes on asking about population of cities like Allahabad, Bangalore etc. When I do give him a number, he asks me, what would be the area of these cities. I give up. "Sorry, I am not able to visualise the cities in terms of square meters." [Don'ts #x: However much you would want to believe that statements like these convey good communication skills, according to them - they don't.]

Finally they ask my preference in terms of location and whether I would like to ask them anything. I ask something random about the project assigned to interns etc.

They get up.

I get up.

I shake their hands and leave.

Smiling, thinking it went quite well. [#9!]

Bong Bong

This is one of funniest things I have read in a while.

A bit of background - I am taking this course Stochastic Processes, which is taught by a Professor, let's call him G. I come back from class one day and find this off-liner from Maldy.

Maldy:  "say, is there a chubby bong chap in stoch proc? possibly a matka, sits in front bench, glasses, slightly dark complexion?
bit o' gossip...

this fellow came to G's office yesterday, had some doubts about TPMs
they were speaking in bong, so i was ignoring them until this little bit of the convo..

Bong dude: bong bong bong bong bong shikha singh?
G: shikha singh? bong bong bong
dude: bong bong class topper bong bong bong
G: bah, ki class topper bong bong bong
(lot more back and forth bonging, a few more "shikha singh"s thrown in)

G: bong bong eta... disturbed girl. hehehehehe
dude: (complimentary giggle)
dude: bong bong saketa?
G: oh saketa? (approving bong bong)
etc etc..."

P.S. The bong dude mentioned above is our TA. 

Growing up with Harry Potter

Uncountable number of people all over the world love Harry Potter. They have their reasons. I have my own. And before I forget what it feels like to connect with this book, I want to jot it all down.

In hindsight, I find it hard to imagine a life without Harry Potter. We grew up together. No one older or younger can ever claim that. It was special.

All this will sound childish. It should. 

Harry Potter was close to me not because of the magic and mystery (that was an added bonus) but because at the bottom of it all, Harry was like anyone of us - simple and naive. I would spend nights wondering what it would be like to be in Hogwarts, to live that life. It was tantalising. It was surreal. It was an escape. I would often imagine Harry apparating into my own room, on some mission in the muggle world, seeking an ally and finding a trustworthy one in me. 

(Laughs) When you are that young, you have time to sit down and cook up just almost anything. 

I would get lost in my own fairy tale. It is one thing I miss terribly from my childhood.

I would particularly relate with Harry because of the burden he had to bear as a child, while his friends lead such perfectly normal lives. I would write letters to him, explaining how things were on my end. These one sided conversations were the probably the best ones I have ever had, even with myself.

As we grew up, the story matured along. Youth hit will all its freshness and vigor. Friendships developed, love tiptoed in, young and shy. As for me, I felt comforted that I was not alone in the weird but exciting changes happening inside me.

When Harry lost Sirius, I cried with him. I realised what it felt like to lose family. I echoed the rage he felt for Dumbeldore. It was not fiction for me. It was a parallel world, almost real, if not more. Later when I lost someone near, I knew how to deal with it. I had learnt it.

Dumbledore's death, as you can expect, brought unimaginable grief. I sobbed uncontrollably for hours. My mother's reaction went from amusement to shock to worry. I got over it, with the added knowledge that we get over just about anything, no matter how horrible.

The last book opened floodgates of bitter sweet emotions. It was our last journey together. Harry and me. That was it. Everything after that last page of that last book would just be a reminiscence, a reliving, a nostalgic memory of what had been. I was in Kota when I read it. I cried at almost everything, happy or sad. 

My friend Niti said I was crazy. I was. (Smiles)

I wonder if some day when I read the chapter on Dobby's death, possibly the thousandth time, my eyes  would remain dry. If some day I would accept the book for what it is - fiction.

There is something overwhelming about that story, something intangibly precious and warm.

I hope it always stays like that, untainted and silly.

P.S. After reading all this, one would be surprised to know I did not own a single copy of the book, until last year, when my friends gifted 3 of the books on my birthday.