Boxing Day treat

This Boxing Day happened to bring delightful gifts for us – from our older selves! During my move across two continents and three countries in the last three years, my most steadfast companions it turns out had been boxed away – out of sight and clearly out of mind. I’m talking of books!

After obtaining some semblance of stability and a few bookshelves, we decided to unpack the “book boxes” of which there were half-a-dozen heavy ones. Opening them gave us a glimpse into what time travel may feel like. Its almost as though three years ago I boxed up these presents for my future self. Nothing compares to the feeling of meeting up with old friends, except perhaps the joy of opening up boxes – that childlike excitement!

Surprisingly, we were reminded that books are not just sheaves of paper bounded within two covers. They come with a whole universe of associated memories and experiences. Hidden in many of them were small notes from friends, receipts, bookmarks,

Beautiful Failure

Failures are important in Science. While most of the time they are just plain frustrating, every once in a while they can offer great insight. Well, today, I had a failure and while no particularly profound insight was forthcoming, a nice sight was certainly on offer.

I’ve been fabricating some nanofluidic devices in the clean room over the last few weeks, and after long arduous process involving many intermediate steps I discovered that one device didn’t turn out quite right. (For the interested: The resist hadn’t spun evenly on some portions, and hence after depositing metal (Pt), the lift-off wasn’t as good; some metal had managed to stick to the underlying oxide surface).

Anyway, despite the obvious disappointment, I was happy to take an image of what I think is a fabulous piece of abstract art.

The dark portions are silicon dioxide substrate, the teal regions are platinum metal, and the little squares in the bottom right at markers for e-beam lithography.

Saturday Poem: तोड़ती पत्‍थर by Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’

Back to blogging after a prolonged hiatus. A combination of summer break, travels, conferences and the ensuing “catching-up” kept me away.

Today a well-known poem by a well-known poet. I grew up listening to anecdotes about Nirala and his antics in Allahabad from my father who studied there. A recurrent aspect was his excessive random altruism, especially remarkable given that he himself was supposedly penniless and bore a famously mercurial temperament. How many of these fables are true, I don’t know. But the dearth of serious biographical research and writing in India is a grouse for another time.

“तोड़ती पत्‍थर” and Nirala were almost always mentioned in the same breath. Its not hard to see why. Its perhaps his most well know poem in the popular imagination – accessible compared to his other work, deals with a scene that is familiar to most Indians, and evokes tremendous empathy while avoiding pity – not an easy thing to do. For me personally, the lines, “देखा मुझे उस दृष्टि से/जो मार खा रोई नहीं,” are among the best poetic lines ever penned. These lines sting in the deepest wells of our empathy, and the sting lingers just long enough till the wells overflow.