A satanic memory

1979 Toured around Odisha, mostly because father was in service. Taken care by grand parents from mothers side.

1980 Learned about women, well its just a joke.

1981 Hear Cricket, Gavaskar, World cup….

1982 Enjoyed life…and the love

1983 Learn family….relations

1984 Learned about history of India (that we were under British etc, not a big scholar on history, history is replete with raw and white lies, hey what that resembles to)

1985 Learned Arithmetic from grand Pa…scored 18 out of 20 in the first test ever, I took…then learned Odiya alphabet etc…

1986 The second year I was taking over the 5^th year students on my knowledge about literature etc, my grand Pa was a renowned teacher in the region and I learned a great deal just by hearing what people were discussing…

1987 Moved to the city, for three years I come out to be the best student or the 2^nd best, only 1 time out of 9 exams in 3 years I was in the 3^rd place. Learned debate, essay writing, story writing, book reading, all out of shear inspiration, my inquisitiveness, people took note of this and gave me hearty support always…won a deal of prizes but they were only necessary, not the end. I came across so many story books..….

1990 I joined a school in a planned but small city in a rural and woods setting where I experienced a new life away from home and family. Here they taught us a great deal but I developed a lot of iconoclasm…it was a biased setting as I always felt back then, from those days I never recovered…But it was hell of times…fun and frolic and experience of a reasonable cross section of the Indian social milieu…This continued for another 3 years…when I discovered my own versatile sides…

1993, 94 I moved to Bihar…on a scheme the school system had established…these 2 years were great experience away from family and the real days of high school…study with discipline, if you do that in a tight environ you are bound to develop indiscipline and I did…no body knew…I was pretty good at school although never faired as the best, that I was in pre high school…

1995 I returned to Odisha and went back to the old school…here I studied for 2 years again before leaving the school…these were the base of my scientific career as I did really well with science and especially physics and mathematics…I had always heard pretty scary stories about Physics, I surprised many with my easy grasp on the subject… and with mathematics I shocked the mathematics teacher…There were only a very few guys about that time who were really good at that and I did learn a bit or a trick, back then. Calculus and computer were already mastered. Actually computer was learned when I was in standard 8^th, 1991, 92. Cobol, basic, Floppy disk, flow charts, games. I think ours was one of the few schools that had a computer lab for high schoolers. It was a school funded by the Government at New Delhi, given to its rich connection with the colonial past. One time the computers were out of order and an engineer arrived from New Delhi at the middle of the night. This place where our school was located was notorious for Bears. Anyone coming that late was always warned of such danger. This guy threw his luggage at the bear and ran to save his life. I have 2 more funny stories about bears.

1998 This year I did exceptionally well with the studies and cleared my entrance to Utkal University. For the next 2 years I was busy with fun and frolic and studies. But it was easier on me. My luck was with me often and I learned great deal when I spent 2 months in Bangalore on my 2^nd visit. The first one I had made 3 years earlier when I was in the college cadets training. I thought it would give me a break to travel but actually I thought if needed I may make a career in defense. So in Bangalore we were 100s of cadets from around the country. Unfortunately I fell ill and one of the trainers kicked my ass, literally instead of giving me medication. So I thought defense is for people who are uncivilized and unkind. So I gave up although later I took the test only one more time and qualified, the so-called CDS, I didn’t go to physical test since I thought I better focus on my masters degree in Physics. In the first trip to Bangalore, we visted this place called Ramgarh where Sholay was shoot and we were taken for trekking. We were in a bunch where there were ladies and some one from behind said “I love you” and I responded without looking back, “you too”. So I became popular. Also looking back I see, back then, my English was quite sharp. One of the reasons why I am a great physicist. But I make a sloppy speaker as well if I am unprepared, so anyone would think I am a jerk.  But somehow that has never happened. In this trip I have a funny story to recount. There were a group of guys who were from Kashmir. All these chaps were in the cadets. We played cricket in the garden adjacent to the place where we were living. The Karnataka people had a great name in the Indian cricket team. So we went along mimicking the popular folks, Dravid and Kumble. I observed that these Karnataka chaps are really motivated with cricket. I came from Odisha and we had a different culture, which I don’t want to make an analysis here. But these Kashmir folks were not at all interested about cricket. No wonder they are after freedom struggle 60 years after all the other Indians. So these chaps would go to a nearby village and steal coconuts. Now the villagers discovered this and gave these Coconut Mujahideen group a chase for stealing their coconuts. These guys successfully managed to elope. But the villagers were smarter and they were locals. So they went to the railway station in a group. Since the Kashmir guys were much white and easy to recognize from their attributes which are exact opposite of these riled Kannadigas  the thieves got a good treatment. In Bangalore in my 2^nd visit I met a couple famed scientists and many more that motivated me to take up research. Prof Bala Iyer found out that I am a rather smart guy and would make a great PhD student so he tried to instigate me to take up theoretical Physics and suggested me I read some books on general theory of relativity. He was a scientist at the Institute CV Raman established in the 1940s from his Nobel Prize money. This institute is one of the best livable places I have been in India. Beautiful campus, library and living facility. You also meet beautiful ladies.  Physics is often devoid of many ladies, but that’s at the lower level and then the principle of efficiency filters out some and you are left with those who are beautiful and brainy both at the same time. SO if you think Manmohan is lying its only because I focus my lenses where it matters.  The ladies I met in the institute must remember who was the guy who once they all met way back in 2000. Its long time, but I don’t forget names. Anyway…

2001 I left for United States to continue my studies and become an experimental high-energy physicist. I became one and a pretty good one at that. One of the things that I was always quite sincere about was study. I was really good at sports but I was equally cautious at my lab work and I always listened carefully in the class. So I did a lot of experiments and I was always meticulous. This continued for 7 years so it was not surprising when I started my experimental research in the KEK Lab.  The research problem wasn’t quite well defined but eventually that’s where your ingenuinity is tested and rewarded. In 2001 and early 2002, while I was learning the American lingo, their accent and education I did pretty well in the courses. I was the 2^nd best as early as the first month. Can I ever forget my brushing up with prosperity and inspiration? The great kind and helpful words of peers and the supporters. I will never but I may not have enough opportunities to speak about their inspirational ways and their support. Starting from the first month the Americans often thought I am great with the accent as well as communication. If you are a physicist you often know that your original accent often does not get used, as your own trade requires mindless hours of painful exercise of the mind and the body. And when you come up well out of this they know what they are seeing. So the inherent sloppiness of the accent and individual tone get conserved for the better days when they love you for your sullied persona and tolerate your silliness because they know they haven’t lost you.

This was also one of those times I used to have a decade earlier, meeting people from all over India. So after a several years of block this started again. Only this time I was meeting people from 100 more countries. I made so many friendships and so many nicer things to learn about what people are and how they behave. It always adds up. I always have funny stories to recount so I may come up with many more each time I sit down to write something about myself. One thing it never ends.

2002 I left for Japan. I had a funny travel experience I recounted in one of my recent story. How I lost my passport. There I mentioned how I have a story about Jeremy Garret. So Jeremy is this friend I had at Tech who was in the same class as did, James Nunn, Mavis, Cohen, couple Mikes, Dev, Eugene Kitamura, David George (the main character in that story) and Tom (or Tim) and Sujith. I am missing the name of the other guy who nourished a beard.  He worked in Luna innovations.  It was a lovely class. OK, so Jeremy. Jeremy is this other typical American I liked a great deal. He would like David George come up with many phony remarks. So when he hears I am going to Japan, we ran into each other in front of Newman library and stopped for a while to chat, he tells me that Japanese are these Lilliputians. But I met him again sometimes a year or two later and recounted that the Japanese are not only not short there are many of them that are quite taller and there are women that are taller than Jeremy. So he was a bit surprised what American TV had fed him. It all came to even out. Jeremy then explained me how an average American may even be unemployed or may not earn more than 1100$ a month. I was earning more than 1400$ so I thought its time to make rusty remarks about Amwicans but I had otherr easons to shut up. I remember one time I had visited James Nunns house after his marriage or something and that’s all I remembered about him. I don’t remember if James Nunn was the guy who had come up with the Tissue paper joke about Indian spicy dishes. May be that was him. And Cohen was this guy who had come up with the books from Amazon.com but had to leave after he failed the course or something. Didn’t he. There are many other stories. If this is the rate at which I come up with identifying people you would know why sometimes I feel like a pain in the ass to some people. But we all enjoy it. Don’t we.

2003, 2004 I was busy learning a great deal of research stuff and I also learned many fun things, practical Japanese, people soft skills, coding, humor, experiment, wine, liquor, Tokyo (I learned a great deal of Tokyo in these 2 years)

2007 So I was already having a great deal of honor in the scientific community and I don’t want to tell you I didn’t enjoy it. But I had also formed a great deal of ambition about how I can carry the great deal of exploration I had carved out to further the measurements I was performing. In 2007, I spent a longer break in India due to bad health I incurred from continuous strain on my physique. When I got back I had an eventful year mostly taking unexpected turns. It was quickly getting out of hand and I thought there was something silly going on. It was indeed silly. But by 2008 there were many such events that took place or at least I did not meet my expectations. When one finds him in such situations just keeping quiet often does not work. The way we human beings deal with each other’s fragile sides I think we can make great politicians and rabble-rousers but only a few can make a great scientists. I think directness or not so in my approach, a great thing to learn in such a situation is to be forthright. It may not be a very popular approach but how many us really face astoundingly unusual experience. May be all of we do. But how many people care to tell us. May be none. I just don’t know why I must not NOT share. In that ignorance I tell a lot so I generate a situation where a lot be told. I do not know any other way how to get the opportunity I deserve that are politically held off.