The year began with the cancellation of celebrations for the new year owing to the “Tsunami” in the south of India. My younger brother, Suddhasattwa, who is currently working as a scientist at Kalpakkam, had the luck and courage to escape from the furies of the ocean.
Meanwhile I continued to be busy with my course work and had to work hard enough to earn my grades at IIT. I participated in cultural and extra curricular activities as well.
Suddhasattwa came over to IIT Kanpur this year to take a course in Computational Methods. I had a nice time teasing him as I did in our school days. He spent a lot of time in my hostel room, describing to me about his colleagues at Kalpakkam. On the other hand, I gave him a hard time to understand as to why he was using computations being a student of chemistry!
I took time off from my studies to visit Calcutta with my mother, in order to obtain a certificate that I was indeed born. We ran quite a bit from here and there to visit all the relatives there. We stayed with my aunt and she was happy to have us at her place for a few days. Following the usual bengali customs, she fed me with a lot of sweets, and I kept on explaining I have stopped eating them!
Back in IIT Kanpur, in spite of my well endowed appearance, I participated in the physical training of summer camp students and was able to reduce a few kilos. The summer camp students had a tough time daily with Maj. Vinay Behl, Prashant and myself, during the morning exercises. In spite of all this, they showered us with gifts, before leaving for their own places.
During the later half of the year, I managed to clear my comprehensive examination and am waiting to give my state-of-the-art presentation pretty soon. My guide Dr. Bharat Lohani has been constantly encouraging and motivating me for my research. With the help of Prof. Ashu Jain, I was able to contribute a paper to a national level conference in Hydraulics and Water Resources Engineering at Tumkur, a city 85 kms from Bangalore. Colleagues from my department namely Suresh Kartha, Anirban Dhar and Seema Narain were also present during the conference with their own contributions. I got to meet the stalwarts of Civil Engineering during my stay at Tumkur. It was an awe to meet those people, who wrote the books we read. On the way back, I had the first opportunity to visit a national park and go on a safari. It was enjoyable to see and click the photos of tigers and lions so close.
I have been keeping in touch with a lot of friends through Google talk and Yahoo! chat, and they keep on entertaining me inspite of my evil tendencies to spell out poor jokes at every instant.
Wishing you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year.
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