Some months ago, there was a students’ protest in campus. The demands included hostel problems, fees issues and longer PhD duration. As a repurcussion, some (I am not sure whether all) departments were asked by the director to conduct meetings with students to get their feedback. The feedback was to include department specific as well as the institute related concerns, which would be tackled by the appropriate authorities.

CSA research students (MSc+PhD) were asked to attend a meeting with emphasis on “compulsory to attend”. The meeting was held on Apr 04, 2009 in CEDT Conference Hall where students cribbed and gave suggestions for improvement. They were promised that each of the grievances would be answered within six months.

Post-meeting, some student and faculty committees were formed to take care of certain departmental issues, like increasing library timings, etc. However I am not aware what happened next. One observation is that students are very good at cribbing, but when it comes to taking a responsibility for a task, hardly anybody comes forward.

If my calculations are correct, six months ended on Oct 04, 2009 and if CSA mail server is working fine, then I haven’t received any mail regarding an answer.

Here is the complete list of feedback items.

In response to iisc fullforms, one reader, Subhash, sent me the following PhD fullforms. Thanks Subhash.

interview: An event similar to the one before marriage where a boy and his family visits a girl’s house to judge her. The only difference is that in case of PhD interview, the interviewee has to visit the interviewers’ room to get judged.

admission: A program specially designed to get rid of obesity. Losing weight is a prerequisite for doing research and this program ensures it by the following means.

• The hostels and the departments are positioned as far apart in campus as possible.
• Candidates are encouraged to visit various centers (like health, library, SERC, main building, etc.) to ensure conformance with the longest path algorithm.
• When asked for directions to a department, candidates are directed exactly in the opposite direction by the seniors.
• Hostel Office personnel increase the amount of time and the number of times they visit Kabini.
• Entry to the mess is done only after the registration, i.e., after completing the longest tour in campus.

advisor/guide:

• A person who is ready to share the trash you create.
• A person who, by paying for your coffee, holds the right to stop your income for the next 5 years.
• A person who is responsible for your maximum happiness by going on vacation.

co-guide: One side of the game Beench ka bandar (a monkey in the middle).

rtp: Research Training Program. A formal way to waste a semester.

assignment: A program especially designed for promoting open source movement.

course project: A phenomenon that allows an instructor to believe that students have not opted for any other course.

semester: Four months of rigorous imprisonment.

summer holidays: Time of the academic year when advisor goes on leave giving 50 research papers to the student for reading with a goodbye note, “Happy Holidays.”.

internship: A way to make money during PhD.

literature survey: Selection of less unreadable research papers from the more unreadable ones. This phenomenon is empirically found to create the most conducive environment for sleeping.

perspective seminar: A wake up call for advisor and student.

comprehensive examination:

• A legal way for not doing research for over a month.
• A promotion that increases your income by Rs.1000.

conference: A trash can.

journal: A material that adds elasticity to your PhD and extends its duration.

program committee: The poor souls who sort out a better trash from the good one.

research paper: Outcome of the ingeniousness of transforming 2 pages into 10.

call for papers: A phenomenon that triggers most of the research in the world.

abstract submission: A reminder to start writing a research paper.

submission deadline:

• An end to the demands of the advisor.
• An end to the cheating.

title: An interplay of the heaviest keywords cleverly adapted from the literature with the guarantee of being unique.

abstract: Well, abstract.

introduction: A section of the research paper to increase expectations of the reader without meeting them.

background/preliminaries: A methodical way to meet page requirement.

related work: A section where researchers write in detail about the remotely similar ideas and briefly mention or thoughtfully miss the closest ones. The section also offers a platform for taking a shot at your research rival.

conclusion: Table of content in past tense.

future work: It constitutes of two aspects: (i) suggesting ideas not implemented by you that you are sure of not implementing in the future, and (ii) not talking about the ideas you are actually going to implement next.

bibliography: A space provided to improve your own h-index.

paper submission: A false belief carried for next two months of having done work.

rebuttal period: Time when you, the accused, is brought to the court for trial.

paper rejection: Prevailing of reality that triggers your self say, “I could not fool them.”.

paper acceptance: A drug to boost your morale triggering you to think of normal human activities like girl-friend, marriage, kids, job, etc.

citation: A legal way to show the place where you performed the robbery.

colloquium: An institutional method to ask around how to beautify the trash you have created.

thesis: An act of violence against trees.

defense: A formal way for the advisor to say to his student, “I can’t take you anymore.”.

convocation: A function that marks starting of your explanation, “No, I am not a medical doctor.”.

phd: Doctor of Philosophy. A degree that only you and your parents care about. It is also used by girls’ parents to decide whom not to let their daughters get married.

No, there is no spelling mistake in the title. The idea is to have some more fun and let readers be part of the fun. I will start a story and write a few sentences, but will not end it. Any reader who wishes to take it forward will comment the next part of the story — without ending it. And the process continues. When does the story reach an end? Perhaps never. Let’s keep the fun rolling.

The most important rule is: the part you add should have some humour element. So, here it goes.

The reason behind the dream was the broadcast about Love Aaj Kal being screened by IISc Movie Club. I must not lose this opportunity. This is my chance to have some private time with Shami, bhOndOO thought. He dialed Shami’s number. The ring went on, but Shami did not answer the call. bhOndOO waited till his phone displayed Call ended. He got restless. Why didn’t she pick up the phone? Is she angry with me?

And now the ball is in your court.

Update: Thanks to Prof Giridhar Madras for pointing out that this way of creating a story is a called Tandem Writing. I got this idea after reading the book on crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe.

intelligent in succumbing to calamities.
illiterate and insane students on campus.
I invite scientific catastrophe.
indifference is students’ culture.
is institute of scientific crowd.
indians ignoring social conditions.
intelligent, ingenious, sacred, clever.
irrational, illogical, and scientifically challenged.
it is so calm.
ideal institute for science.
institute involves stubborn cartoons.
irregular in sitting in class.
I intend to sleep in class.
idli, idealism, submissions and coffee.
iisc ignites science culture (recursive).

I invite sweet comments.

As announced, the football match between faculty and students was arranged on Gymkhana. bhOndOO was excited to the extreme, not because of the compulsion that girls would also have to play, but because he would be able to settle scores with several faculty who gave him lower grades. I am going to either score goals or make sure that the faculty members fall on the ground, bhOndOO decided.

bhOndOO thought of practising and started running on the Gymkhana ground in the evening. He made wonderful progress. On the first day, he ran for 100 meters before going out of breath. On the second day, he took the second most intelligent decision of his life: he did not go to the ground. (The first most intelligent decision was to be born in the same year as Shami.)

One day before the event, bhOndOO started the game preparations. He tore apart his towel. You read it correctly. On one side of the piece of cloth, he fevicoled tiny metallic pins and wore it around his socks under his trouser, so that nobody could see them but the faculty could taste them!

On the D-day, bhOndOO checked his watch and it was time to go to the ground. But bhOndOO’s mind was not ready. Something is missing. I don’t feel like a complete football player. bhOndOO looked at himself for a while, raised his eyebrows, uttered an involuntary Shit! and ran to BenJi’s room.

“BenJi, do you have studs?”.

“I do.”.

“Can I borrow those for the evening?”.

“On one condition.”.

“What is it?”.

“You would return them tomorrow after washing.”.

bhOndOO realized the pun, got angry with BenJi, but had no alternative.

“Okay.”, he agreed.

bhOndOO wore the studs, left his slippers in BenJi’s room and ran(?) to the campus medical shop. You read it correctly again. He bought a cream and applied it to his head in the shop itself. The cream made his hair stand upright. Now Beckham looks like me, he murmured.

bhOndOO ran to the ground. The match was about to begin. bhOndOO saw two teams on the ground: blue versus red, faculty versus students. First person bhOndOO noticed was Shami. She was looking marvellous in red.  Even in that moment bhOndOO thought of red as the symbol of love. But the next person he noticed talking to his symbol of love was Gullu and bhOndOO altered the symbolism to mean anger. He looked around and noticed his advisor Prof Krishnamurthy in shorts. He thought for a while and made a sensible decision, I will not hit him, otherwise my PhD would be in trouble. Afterall, he is the only person working on it.

bhOndOO saw a large crowd as spectators. Suddenly, he realized that several of them were looking at him, smiling and talking about him. I didn’t know that they all admire me so much as a football player, bhOndOO wondered and smiled to himself. Then suddenly, someone on the ground shouted, “bhOndOO is here.”.

All eyes turned to bhOndOO. bhOndOO saw a ray of hope in everyone’s eyes. Not only students, but even the faculty members seemed to be looking expectantly at bhOndOO. What has happened to everyone? My Times fortune predicted that people would realize my importance this month, but I didn’t know it would happen so early! Anyway, good for them. Finally, they know my worth.

A sudden cheer of “bhOndOO!… bhOndOO!!…” by the crowd made him proud. I hope I am not evening-dreaming. He bowed down, banged his fist on
his socks, sighed an Aah! and realized that it was real.

He saw Gullu and Dr. Deep, the two captains, walking towards him with smiling faces. bhOndOO’s surprise was at the peak. They are coming to escort me! That’s amazing. Let me not show my surprise.

bhOndOO kept looking at the two captains one by one. When they came near, an expectant smile appeared on the three faces. An awkward silence of 3 seconds was broken by Dr Deep.

“bhOndOO, Prof Hari who had agreed to be the goal-keeper is not able to make it. Can you play from the faculty side as the goal-keeper?”.

Faculty lost 5-0.

Prof Giridhar Madras, Prof Jayant Haritsa, Dr. N. Jayaraman and Dr. S. K. Satheesh from IISc received Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award for 2009.

Congratulations Sirs.

Read news in Hindu.

bhOndOO is two today. While number of hits is steadily progressing to touch the sixth digit, the enthusiasm readers are showing is the real success of this blog. In fact, on the first and the second day of the new batch (August 2009), I was asked by two freshers, “Are you the one who write iisc life?” — followed by, not beating, but praise. A few days ago when I was introduced to a MGMT alumnus, he exclaimed, “Oh! bhOndOO!”.

Compared to the first birthday, research life reached its top position. Another significant feat is achieved by iisc bloggers which seems to be the highly visited page. Here are the top 10 posts of this blog along with their number of views.

I wish to thank all of you for this wonderful journey. We have some more time left until bhOndOO becomes Dr bhOndOO — hopefully.

Have Fun.

Don’t conclude. It is not a quarrel. It is Football. It will be held on the Gymkhana Football ground on Sep 25, 2009 at 17:30. The game will be played with substitutions, hence no fixed team.

Come and join the fun — as a player or as a spectator.

bhOndOO will also be playing and you will be able to recognize him from his T-shirt.

Update: bhOndOO plays football.

Question: What should you do when a reviewer comes up with a tighter bound than what you have proved in your paper?

bhOndOO: Add the reviewer as a co-author and resubmit the paper.

Instead of making one post for each question, I thought it would be better if I keep updating a page. Hence here is a new page containing bhOndOO questions.