Game on

It is the opening day of the Final of ICC's World Test Championship. We could be doing better than what currently is happening. But then, they've left out Ravichandran Ashwin, Chennai's own lad from the match.

Thinking of better times, like playing a friendly match in a B-School Alumni tournament from a few years ago. This is the IIT-Chemplast Ground inside the IIT Madras. Maybe it is nothing like the Oval; but this is also exciting cricket!

Pitch perfect

Today would have been the last day of the 3rd Ashes test, but as you all know, that was wrapped up a couple of days ago. That's just an excuse for putting up this picture of a cricket pitch. Chennai has several, and this one is inside the IIT Madras, sponsored by Chemplast Sanmar. Chemplast has a long association with cricket, and owns two of the cricket teams playing in the TNCA League - Jolly Rovers and Alwarpet CC - and this ground is where the players practice their stuff.

It is not just those League players, but internationals as well. When the 2011 Cricket World Cup was held in the sub-continent, the IIT-Chemplast Sanmar Ground was the practice ground for the Indian team. The pitch is top-notch and true; it is an absolute pleasure to play on, no matter if you are batsman or a bowler.

It was a wonderful feeling to play at this ground, and to bat on this pitch, a couple of months ago. Unfortunately, the match didn't go too well for my team and I ended up spending a lot more time inside the pavilion; one that was inaugurated in 1998 by the legendary Australian cricketer, Neil Harvey. All said and done, it was wonderful to have been on the same turf as the legend, thinking about others who've also run across this rectangle!

Central, but access?

This is the Central Library of a rather exclusive institution. It started its life along with the institution, in 1959. At that time, it was housed in the Civil Engineering Block. This arrangement is more an indication of how important civil engineering was, than any downplaying of the library's status.

That phase lasted about six years, and since 1965, the Central Library has had its own place in the academic campus. In the new millenium, the facilities received a major upgrade. Apart from all the books, periodicals and journals, users of this library can also access sections of the Library of Congress' online collection. 

Maybe I was too pessimistic about outsiders being allowed to use this library; it is a challenge to get inside the campus of the IIT Madras and I assumed entry into the library would be even more difficult. However, the Librarian here, Dr. Harish Chandra, seems to be inviting everyone to visit and benefit from the printed resources there. Must go look it up sometime soon!

26, 94

You may not be able to make out what the numbers mean, but that's nothing to be worried about. Even as great a mathematician as G.H. Hardy, who specialized in number theory, was not a numbers man. In that way, he was unlike Srinivasa Ramanujan, for whom numbers were his "personal friends". There is a story about Hardy visiting a very ill Ramanujan at Putney; getting into the room, Hardy mentioned that he had travelled in taxicab number 1729, which seemed to him a "rather dull number". Ramanujan, however, was instantly animated. "No, no, not at all", he said. "It is the smallest number that can be expressed as the sum of two cubes in two different ways". 

Since then, such numbers have been known as 'Taxicab Numbers'; you can head out here to see some of them, as well as a picture of.... well, something like taxicab number 1729. The story however is just one more example of how the man was completely un-fathomable, even for those who knew what he was talking about. What could he have achieved if he had lived longer than he actually did? 

Ramanujan passed into immortality this day in 1920. And yet, there are many who still don't know about him, or what he did. We go past all these mentions about the greatest mathematician of modern India with reverence, because it is too taxing to try and figure out what was it that he did. This day is marked with special events by the Ramanujan museum in Chennai. I haven't been there yet, but for today, this bust of Ramanujan at the IIT Madras should remind us of his memory!

  

Replica stone

My first introduction to Prof. Humayun Kabir was by having to study his poem "Trains" sometime in the 8th or 9th standard. With a name like Kabir, it seemed natural that he was a poet; and it was only as a poet that I had thought of him until a couple of days ago. Even as I saw his name on this replica, my first thought was, "That's nice. They got a professor of literature to inaugurate an institute of technology". Somehow that seemed very much in place with a higher order of things, where technology merges with poetry and we begin to see fluid mechanics in stones and poetry in the swing of a robotic arm.

But no. My imagination had got ahead of my ignorance. It turns out that Prof. Kabir was much more than the writer of "Trains". In fact, he is more famous as a union minister than as a poet / writer. And it was as a union minister that he had come to Madras on July 31, 1959, to inaugurate the third of the Indian Institutes of Technology. The good folks in charge of running the institute have taken the original inaugural plaque for safekeeping. Visitors to the institute can take a look at this replica, which is positioned just outside the Central Lecture Theatre. 

The lettering is faded and it is a challenge figuring out Prof. Kabir's portfolio at the time of the inauguration: Union Minister for Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs. As I struggled to read it, I was thankful that Prof. Kabir was not one of those prolific poets, whose works are thrust on to unsuspecting schoolkids. "Trains" certainly made for more tedious reading than the words on this plaque! 

Tower lamp

The basic water tower is just a device to make sure water is distributed across a limited area using the hydrostatic pressure of water from up above. There are just a few water towers which have won prizes for design - Kuwait Towers comes to mind - or have become tourist attractions like the House in the Clouds.

Chennai's water towers have been blandly functional, with few exceptions. The water tower at Besant Nagar has some flourishes around its basic cylindrical design, but the one inside the IIT Madras campus is a little more adventurous. One look at it and you are reminded of the lamp which is the centrepiece of the institute's logo!

Told you!

Not a sign that you'd expect to see in the midst of the city, isn't it? You've got to remember that Chennai is probably the only city in the world that has a national park right in its midst, completely within the city. The campus of the IIT Madras is next to the Guindy National Park and has a large-ish lake within it.

Who knows what other creatures lurk in the lake!

Indo-German effort

In the fervour of the post-independence era, each of the 5 (at that time) IITs was set up with help from a different soverign nation. It so happened that Madras got the benefit of West Germany's bounty. As a result, here's a road sign that acknowledges the linkage.

Stretching it a bit, I'm willing to bet that Chennai is the only city in India that has so many streets named after foreign cities / localities: Delhi might have its share of personalities, but Chennai, I'm sure is ahead by a long shot - everyone knows Ho Chi Minh of the Delhi Marg, but who remembers the Orme in Orme's Road of Madras?

Bonn, of course, is different. Within the gates of the IIT Madras, going down Bonn Avenue has a charm that can't be replicated anywhere else!

Deep waters?

If you think this lake is somewhere on the outskirts of the city, think again. It is right in the middle of Chennai's green lung, in Guindy. Chances are not too many people would have seen it, because it is in the middle of the IIT Madras campus; a campus that is not very easy to get into and not just because of the security. Some of the IITians might claim that IIT is a city in itself, but that's only to be expected - all of them live in a world of their own, anyway.

There is an urban legend that this lake is a few hundred feet deep and is inhabited by crocodiles. I don't think anyone has ever attempted to test the validity of either of these legends!

Menagerie City - 5

The spotted deer inside the IIT Madras campus are reasonably comfortable with humans. Not that they can be considered 'tame', but they are not really wild, either. A large part of the IIT Madras campus is scrub jungle, an extension of the Guindy National Park. The deer certainly do not understand the boundaries between the GNP and the IIT and were used to moving across all the space they could. Recently, there was some talk of IIT authorities building a wall to ensure their campus area is clearly demarcated; I'm not sure if they went ahead with it. I hope that even if they have done so, there are enough pathways for the deer to move around freely.

Within the campus, the deer walk around unhindered; they do find their way into the living areas, too. At times it might be a problem for the residents. They may look gentle enough, but the more familiar they become with humans, the less nervous they get. Sometimes, they may go so far as to frightening children. With an average weight of about 80 kg, you really don't want to pick an argument with that kind of antler-tipped mass. This one, however, was not too keen on mixing it up with us in any way and moved away quickly.

There are so many of them around the IIT Madras campus, that when the Institute renamed its annual cultural festival, they chose the name 'Saarang' - another name for this spotted deer!

Hard work shall lead to enlightenment

To many high school students in India, the IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) are a sure path to enlightenment. I am not sure what the mottos of the other 6 IITs are, but that of IIT Madras does the task of both advising aspirants and exhorting its students. The Sanskrit phrase Siddhirbhavathi karmaja, taken from the Bhagavad Gita is a motto shared by both the IIT Madras and the MNNIT, Allahabad and translates as the title to this post.

Getting into the MNNIT is a breeze compared to the competition for seats at the IIT. The 'Caution' sign at the entrance to IIT Madras (at left, near the institute's logo) seems to warn off any pretenders. Still, I try to go in every chance I get; there is surely no other campus in Chennai that has a 'Deer Crossing' sign posted right at the entrance. And there are only very few others that have the lush greenery that covers most of the campus of IIT Madras. I do envy its students and alumni!