Erdős number

For those of you who don't know what an Erdős number is, here is the gist of it:

The Erdős number, honoring the late Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős, is a way of describing the "collaborative distance" between a person and Erdős, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers.

It was created by friends as a humorous tribute to the enormous output of Erdős, one of the most prolific modern writers of mathematical papers, and has become well-known in scientific circles as a tongue-in-cheek measurement of mathematical prominence.

Paul Erdős was an influential and itinerant mathematician, who spent a large portion of his later life living out of a suitcase and writing papers with those of his colleagues willing to give him room and board. He published more papers during his life than any other mathematician in history (at least 1400).

Wikipedia link

So a little narcissistic investigation this weekend revealed that I have an Erdős number of 4! Me -> Dimitry Gorinevsky -> Stephen Boyd -> Persi Diaconis -> Paul Erdős.

Funnily enough, there is also the concept of the Erdős-Bacon number, which is the sum of your Erdős number and your Bacon number, since Kevin Bacon is like the Paul Erdős of actors. Some famous people with a very low Erdős-Bacon number of 6: Danica McKellar (Winnie from The Wonder Years), Natalie Portman and Richard Feynman. (read more here)

Now, if only I can act in a movie with Kevin Bacon, I will have an Erdős-Bacon number of 5!

Ratatouille...

Towards the end of the movie Ratatouille, when the harsh snobbish French food critic warily takes a bite of the already sneered at "peasant dish" Ratatouille, he is transported back to warm and cozy kitchen of his mother where he remembers being a small boy dressed in shorts and suspenders, eating a plate of Ratatouille and knowing true bliss. So moved is the critic by this, that he starts sobbing and has to eat the proverbial humble pie.

Yesterday, I ate humble Dosa.

I am firm believer that good food is not about how fancy and classy a restaurant is, or how chic the decor is, or how cool and friendly the staff is, or (in the case of Indian food in the US) how popular the restaurant is with Americans.

Having been bombarded with praises and gushing reviews about the classy and upmarket south Indian restaurant called "Dosa" from a myriad of varied sources such as the Michelin guide (how dare the French try to tell me what good south Indian food tastes like) and the yuppy San Francisco chronicle's Top 10 Restaurants (if a white American actually liked this place, then they are probably serving americanized south Indian food with spices toned down, mango lassi drinks, and the omnipresent chicken tikka masala and passing it off as authentic south Indian food), I was naturally overly skeptical about the quality and authenticity of the food. But then, my tam-brahm roommate (who has exceedingly high standards for south Indian food), also raved about this place, and I was curious and so a few friends and me decided to pay a visit yesterday.

The place was packed and there was a long wait. From peeking into the restaurant we could see that the most of the clientèle and all the staff was American (hah!). It was a very modern and upscale place with several customers sitting at the bar drinking wine (double hah!). It was, therefore, with an extremely skeptical and criticizing frame of mind that I finally sat down at our table after an hour of wait (in addition to the 45 min drive to the city). I was ready to tear the place apart, criticize the food and ridicule the audacity of the place to try to claim that they served authentic south Indian food. I was on a mission.

We looked at the menu and chose our orders based less on what we felt like eating but rather based on what dishes we thought were more difficult to prepare to perfection and therefore more likely to be flawed. I happened to notice that they had mysore masala dosa on the menu, so when the waitress had taken everyone else's order and she turned to me, I did the unthinkable, I ordered off the menu. In a insincerely sugary calm voice filled with incredulity and mock, I asked for a plain mysore dosa. We were like wolves hungrily waiting for the waitress to falter and stop in her tracks like a deer in headlights. But wonders of wonders, without batting an eyelid she responded, "Would you like your dosa without the masala altogether or on the side so that your friends might want to enjoy it?"

It was ironic that it was me who was caught off-guard, and had to hastily come up with something to respond.

This post is getting too long so I'll just summarize the food because by now you probably know how it was. It was sublime. The sambar (no spices were spared to cater to a western palate), the chutney, the idly (I was so sure it was going to be either soggy or dry, but it was creamy and slightly pungent), the dosa, the chicken curry (my mallu friend had to reluctantly admit that they had got it spot on), we couldn't find a flaw. We tried, we sniffed, we swirled, we peered, but we couldn't.

When we had stuffed our bellies and the waitress came to ask us how the food was, we almost had tears in our eyes when we said that we were from south India and we thought the food was excellent. My friend jokingly asked her whether they had old Indian women in the kitchen. Her response was "Just some young men from Tamil Nadu". At this point the critic in me could not let it go without some comment, so I said "The only minor criticism I can offer is that I think the green beans and the cauliflower were unnecessary in the chicken." to which she responded "I understand and I agree, but we get so many requests from people asking for more vegetables in dishes so we sometimes modify the dishes to suit their requests, but I will definitely take your comment to our chefs."

The thing that finally bowled me over and made me admit to myself that this place had truly captured the flavor and essence of south India (in spite of the american staff and decor) was the photograph on the wall of the restroom that I visited just before leaving. It showed the inside of a shop where several women, young and old (the old being recognizable from the back by their plump midriffs), were gathered around a couple of lanky dark men unfurling a bright and vibrant display of kanjeevaram sarees.

am I missing out?

To start off, let me make it clear that I am not religious. Whenever I have done anything remotely resembling praying, meditating doing a puja or other such other activities, it was almost always because some greater authority like grandparents or teachers ordered me to and I never felt any spiritual feeling of any sort. Having said that, spirituality need not be religious, but I have never felt any non-religious spirituality either. The closest experience I can come up with driving through lush green and slightly misty mountains in some remote far off country or enjoying an exceptionally wonderful meal with family or really close friends, basically times when I have felt so blissfully happy that I feel my heart is going to explode happiness. Does that count as spirituality?

The theory is that religion developed to help humans out of times of great difficulty. When things are going really really wrong, you do not want to accept that everything is just bad luck. You want to believe that there is some greater purpose behind everything, you want to have faith in a greater power who controls everything, so that you can believe that things will get better.

Maybe in some of these weak moments I have been tempted to start "praying", or desperately look for someone to plead to to make things better. But those weak moments pass, those bad times pass and I am me again.

Then there are those who seem happy believing in a greater being. It brings comfort to them, gives them some sort of purpose of existence even though their day to day life might not be any different from mine. Are they happier than me? If so, am I missing out on something? Should I be doing something more than just doing whatever that makes me happy (which includes making sure the people I care about are happy too)?

can it get any better than this?

We spent the last few days of our trip to Europe in Belgium, where we stayed with my friend's parents and spent Christmas with them. It was a wonderful experience to be a part of a traditional family Christmas celebration.
Belgium was a very nice country and we visited Brugge, which was really pretty, but honestly, my whole visit in Belgium was about one thing, the food!
Belgian food is basically French cuisine with some particular dishes that are the specialty. I was truly in a sensory overload with the food. Fries with various dipping sauces (no ketchup), desserts, fois gras and other pates, waffles with fresh fruits and chocolate sauce on top, cheese, bread...I can go on and on and on. I always knew that Belgium has the best dark chocolate and the waffles are pretty famous as well, but I was not prepared for their spectacular fries! It suffices to say that I left the country smiling and contented.

One the whole it was an excellent trip and a great time was had by all. The only downside was that because it was December, it was pretty cold so no "sitting at a cafe in the sun sipping coffee" could be achieved. Also, the short days were annoying since it got dark by 4:30.

these germans are crazy...

Well, not really. I was in Europe for two weeks last month with my friends, and I must say I was thoroughly impressed with Germany.
The people were extremely friendly and were more than happy to make an attempt at communication in English. The country is clean and pretty (especially the old city centers with cobble-stone street and squares) and the countryside is green and breathtaking (it was lush green even in December).
What really impressed us was the legendary German efficiency! Everything was well planned, organized and efficient. The trains worked like clockwork (you could actually set your watch by the trains most of the time) and overall it was hard not to develop respect for them. And to top it all, some sections on the auto-bahn (freeway) have no speed limit!
Since we were there during Christmas reason, the was a festive atmosphere everywhere and all cities had a Christmas market in the old town center. And the central theme of these Christmas markets seemed to be food and drink! It was one glorious gastronomic experience after another with Gluwien (similar to hot apple cider), freshly smoked sausages on some spectacular bread, fried potato patties (forget what they were called), sauteed mushrooms in a cream sauce, chocolate covered fruit sticks, fish fried in beer batter...you get the idea.
And the beer! Most places had their own local beers which were great but our most memorable experiences were in Munich with its Bavarian beer halls which serve beer in 1 Litre mugs!

We also spent a couple of days in Salzburg in Austria which was an incredibly pretty town and we even managed to watch a Mozart concert performed in one of the palaces.
Oh, and the hostel that we stayed at in Salzburg showed 'Sound of Music' every night at 8:30!

is this the same song?

So last weekend I watched what I am now beginning to think is the worst bollywood movie ever!

Now those of you who think that most bollywood movies are bad may stop reading here. But for those of you, who like me, realize that while bollywood movies are full of plot holes, cheezy dialogues and way too much melodrama, they still provide good entertainment, read on.

The movie is the new remake 'Umrao Jaan', which I now realize is like an Indian version of 'Memoirs of a geisha'. And in spite of having a cast if Ashwairya Rai, Abhishek Bachan and Shabana Azmi, calling it an atrocity is being nice.

How can I begin to describe the horrendousness that is this movie? Let's see, my friend and I wanted to walk out of the theater 15 minutes into the movie (Neither of us have ever done that before and we have watched some pretty crappy movies in our lives). The dialogues and beyond cheezy and corny, they are insipid and stupid. The music is not exactly painful, but all the 687 or so songs in the movie seem like the same song which is actually worse. The acting is ok, but nothing to remember.

So to sum it all, I will say to you what someone who tried to warn me before I saw movie said.

"It'll make you want to kill yourself!"

Save yourself. Watch Omkara again instead.

light and sound

Last weekend was diwali. Spent some time with my family so it was ok I guess, but when I was driving back home I felt this overwhelming sense of homesickness. I was on a bridge and it was dark and I kept asking myself, where are the flashes of light and colour in the sky, where is the continuous pitter patter of firecrackers bursting (with the occasional loud bang of the green atom bomb), where is the crowd of neighbours dressed in colorful and festive new clothes, where are hyperactive kids, the watchful parents, the smiling elders, the shining face of that special someone...

Maybe I am getting too old. Maybe I have been away too long.

people, minds and places...

So my guide in IIT during my B.Tech at the aerospace dept was AKN aka Ananthkrishnan, who was an exact opposite of an IIT prof. He was young, he was energetic, he was an ex IITB student (almost got a IIT wide gold medal from what I hear), he was funny, he was intelligent as hell, he did pathbreaking research, he published papers that people took notice of, he was respected by Aero profs in the top US universities...in short, he stood for everything a geeky IITian is looking for in a role model, and in addition, he commanded respect for not doing what we weaker IITians did, leave for the US as soon as our Btech degree it our hands.
We never understood it, he was so much like us, yet he stayed in India and took a job as a prof. It seems stupid, "there is no respect for talent and hardwork in India, too much bureaucracy here", we think. But he did it, he fought against the aging bureaucrats, defied their hoops which they wanted him to jump through, freely spoke his mind about what he thought about the system and fought with determination to make a change.
And then, a couple of days ago, I find out that he is resigning his post at IIT. I don't want to pretend to know what caused it, but I do feel sad. It is sad that in the India emerging now, where poeple who have left its shores for the economies of US and elsewhere, are actually considering coming back because they feel that hardwork and talent is being recognized and rewarded now, seems a little more fake to me.
Anyway, this might be affecting me personally more than it should only because he was guide and I like many other really admired him, but it is sad when, in the eternal struggle between old and new, old marks another win.

Nice blog about this at: http://cakeofsoap.livejournal.com/563.html