Departmental Picnics, Operator Algebras and why Calrson wins over Calculus at this stage

 Next week will hopefully be the last mid sems of my life, soon after will be the last end sems and in the months following that will be my Comprehensive exams, marking the end of my exam-taking career. This looks so exciting, much life before the class 12 boards, which marked the end of my school career, but exactly like the last time my mind has raced ahead and my motivation to study for these exams is zero. Haven't yet even tried to open the textbooks. I usually spend my time reading for my research or for pleasure these days. Some Wizards of Waverly Place thrown in between, or recommendation (see balckmal) of DD, for good measure.

This is just as the post exam phrase I had previously described. Mind is a poet, and as they say, "जहाँ न पहुँचे रवि, वहाँ पहुँचे कवि. And indeed, the Sun is bound by the laws of time and is scheduled to rise about 200 times to meet the temporal place my mind has occupied as of present, 

I think despite all the warnings from seniors, Algebraic Topology is easier than expected. Currently, we are following Munkres for the Homotopy part, and after middsems another text will be followed for the Homology part. Perhaps it is so because we learnt a lot more than required stuff about fundamental groups in our first topology course. Anyway, one subject being easier is good. As for Operator Theory, while the syllabus for the course looks like this:

Compact operators on Hilbert Spaces. (a) Fredholm Theory (b) Index, C*-algebras - noncommutative states and representations, Gelfand-Neumark representation theorem, Von-Neumann Algebras; Projections, Double Commutant theorem, L∞ functionalCalculus, Toeplitz operators

In reality, due to a combination of department politics and egos of people involved, the course has morphed into some combination of Operator Algebra and von Neumann Algebra and Harmonic Analysis course following the legacy of VS Sundar, being mostly taught from Stratila & Zsido's Lectures on von Neumann Algebras and Javier's Fourier Analysis. This feels like a betrayal. The same politics have led to WCNH attendee list looking like a family picnic of certain academicians. The Douglas clan is evidently not invited. The ugly departmental politics aside, I have been a bad picker of electives anyway. 

On a side note, I had to cancel the prospective Sampablpur trip due to clashing with the exams. Now looking at the Mini workshop: Cantor set & Brownian motion at IISER Berhampur at the end of March. Anyway, ranting over, I do need to look at those vNA notes, but only after a few more hours with Carleson (1962) whose end is now in sight. 

A couple of days at ICAAA & 53rd OMS

 So last week I went to the  International Conference on "Advances in Analysis and its Applications" & 53rd Annual Conference of OMS held at IMA. It was my second time at IMA (I once mentioned that that conference might have been useful after all, but on further checking the litreaure the links never materialised) , but people have already started to think that I did my BSc at IMA due to familiarity with the routes to and fro from NIESR to IMA as well as the inner workings of IMA.

The conference itself was lacklustre, many applied talks that were very, very relaxed about regounress. and the parallel sessions were ill thought out (they were not grouped by either Age or Topic, what criteria they came up with, or they were able to conjure up a true RNG machine after IISC is beyond me). 

In short didn't actually learn much, for most talks were tangential to what I do. I did get to see my academic grandfather and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Awardee Gadadhar Misra. His talk was interesting, on Grothendieck's constant. Last time at IMO de didn't present anything but were just some sort of chief guest or organiser. Neither time did I have the courage to introduce myself, but my seniors here too haven't done that yet. Time will come, surely. Sudarsan Nanda's talk was also intresting and it was also very rich with personal anecdotes with G Das.

G Das is apparently a titan of Odia mathematics and perhaps indirectly responsible for my own PhD. I had the fortune to see him at the last conference at IMA. I didn't really recognise that then, my main takeaway was a joke at the expense of his son's name (Epsilon Das). 'बंदर क्या जाने अदरक का स्वाद'  and all that. Anyway, at OMS, they do seemto respect the elders a lot. 

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Moving to the more practical side, the food was better, and we got a bag a odia magzine and a printed version of JOMS. My first printed Journal! 

I do want to attend National Conference on Geometric Function Theory and Special Functions (NCGFTSF 2026), which is more aligned with my research area, but there seems to be some scheduling issue with my mid sem exams. I only hope it works out. 

Review: ख़ामोश! अदालत जारी है

ख़ामोश! अदालत जारी है [Khamosh! Adalat Jari Hai] by Vijay Tendulkar
My rating: 1 of 5 stars



View all my reviews ख़ामोश! अदालत जारी है [Khamosh! Adalat Jari Hai] by Vijay Tendulkar
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

पहली बार इस नाटक का नाम मैंने गिरीश कर्नाड की Collected Plays: Tughlaq, Hayavadana, Bali: The Sacrifice, Naga-Mandala, Volume 1 में देखा था। दोनो हो नाटककार समकालीन थे, दोनों ने ही भारतीय नाटकों में नए नए प्रयोग लाए थे, और दोनों का तुलनातमक विश्लेषण करना एक तरह का फ़ैशन मालूम पड़ता है। दोनो ने ही अलग भाषाओं में नाटक लिखा था जिसका मैने अनुवाद ही ग्रहण किया।

मेरे मत में समानताएँ यहीं तक सीमित हैं। कर्नाड की रचनाएँ एक परंपरा से जुड़ी प्रतीत होती हैं, जो यक्षगान आदि से उनके काम को जोड़ती है; जबकि, तेंदुलकर का यह नाटक एक जर्मन उपन्यास Traps का ही मराठी रूपांतरण है। ये बात नहीं कि देशकालीकरण मुझे स्वीकार नहीं, Three Men (not) in a Boat: and most of the time without a dog एक अच्छी कोशिश थी Three Men in a Boat के जादू को फिर से दोहराने की, लेकिन ये अच्छे से नहीं किया गया इस बार।

अब शायद इसका कारण गर्भांक और अतिनाटकीयता रहा हो जो इसे अत्यधिक बोझिल के दे रहा है, या पात्रों का वार्तालाप अत्यधिक, किसी अधिक उपयुक्त शब्द के अभाव में कहूँ तो,‘ड्रामैटिक’ लगा हो। वैसे भी, यह माध्यम की एक स्वाभाविक सीमा हैये दिक्कत तो वैसे था माध्यम की ही है, ज्यादा होता नहीं कि नाटक पढ़ के मन में अच्छा लगता है। शायद कर्नाड का Shadi Ka Albam पढ़नी चाहिए आगे जब अनुधिक भारतीय नाटक पढ़ने का मन हो।

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Review: Enthralled By You

Enthralled By You by Angela Pearse
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received an ARC copy for this, like I did for the first book in the series Flossed In Love. My main complaints with the first book were its short length and ending at the high stakes cliffhanger. This book is even shorter, and while it resolves the cliffhanger, it loses all the built up tention from the last book. Big events happen, but they feel anticlimactic. Take transformations into a vampire for example, in the first book, we see only one transformation and another character weighing on another potential transformation formed much of the plot for it. In this part, however, we see 4 back to back transformations and another in the flashback! None of which held the seriousness or gravitas or even time devoted to Floss' transformation. Still, it is a very quick read, but the main gain from the book is resolving the initial cliffhanger and introducing a new set of characters for the final instalment of the trilogy Biting My Knight, which I do plan to read. Hopefully, the last book will raise the standards.

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मत पढ़ो Nooh के बारे में

 

Don’t Play With Nooh अंग्रेज़ी शीर्षक वाली एक करीब करीब हिन्दी में लिखी गई कहानी है। लेखक (जो अज्ञात है कितनू प्रतिलिप्याधिकार एक असाद के पास है, अब जिसे जो सोचना है सोचे) के अनुसार वो ना तो हिंदी में निपुण है ना ही अंग्रेजी में, इसलिए ये ' हिंदुस्तानी' में लिखा जा रहा है। अगर हिन्दी उर्दू के बाद अंग्रेज़ी भी मिला दी जाए तो ज़रूर हिन्दुस्तानी है ये, लेकिन शायद हिंग्लिश कहना ज्यादा उपयुक्त होगा। एक बार विश्वविद्यालयों की आधुनिक पंचमेल खिचड़ी का ज़िक्र किया था, वो ही बोली है इसमें। कहानी AMU की है, छाप तो है लेखन में। छपा हुआ देख कर ही महसूस होता है कि हमारी हिन्दी को कितना अटपटा कर दिया है अंग्रेज़ी ने। Cat तक हमे रोमनलिपि में अंग्रेज़ी में लिखना हो रहा है। लेकिन अच्छा या खराब, आज ये युवाओं की बोली में ही ये किताब है।

Notion Press से प्रकाशित है और स्वप्रकाशन की झलक साफ दिखती है त्रुटियों में । चन्द्रबिन्दु नहीं है कहीं भी, माना कि लोकाचार में पंचमाक्षर, अनुस्वार और अनुनासिक के उच्चारण में भिन्नता का लोप हो गया है (संभवतः आदिशंकराचार्य के भज गोविन्द के प्रभाव से), कहीं पे अर्धचंद्रबिंदु लिखा गया है और कहीं तो कुछ नहीं (अदर्शनं लोपः)। शकार के स्थान में षकार का प्रयोग है। जब पहेली पहेली बार विंडोज़ में देवनागरी लिखता था तो ऐसा ही होता था। आजकल तो आईआईटी कानपुर के WX notation से लिखता हूं। आखिर वैज्ञानिक बुद्धि ही काम आई। एक तरह से ये सारी त्रुटियां हिंदी भाषा के क्षय जिसका वर्णन ऊपर किया उसपे ही एक तरह की अनजाने में नाटकीय विडंबना है। बहुत इधर उधर मुंह मारने के बाद ये चुना है। और मोबाइल में तो गूगल कीबोर्ड सही है देवनागरी के लिए।

खैर महज़ भाषा से ही दिक्कत न थी मेरी, अन्यथा 10 पृष्ठ पढ़ के न छोड़ता किताब। खैर गम नहीं, सिर्फ 30 32 की किताब मिल गई थी ये मुझे। 

गुमनाम लेखक (जो शायद असाद हो सकता है) की ये आपबीती कहानी है। वो वाचक भी है और एक पत्र भी। दोनों में भी काफी irritating सा महसूस होता है। बकौल स्नेप के "Insufferable know-it-all"। 

ये किताब भी अभी तक है नहीं GR में, हालांकि की बाईआल की कविता संग्रह पे जो इधर लिखा था अब उसका एक अंश GR में डाल दिया है। जब तक नहीं आ जाता ये भी उधर, तब तक ये ही सही। 

1/5 सितारे