The Master of Science Conundrum

Graduate school is where you meet people who discuss teaching ethics and morality or theoretical physics over coffee and continue the conversation when you walk down corridors to classes. Does this sound like an idealistic notion Sal Khan will expound on in an interview? I was one of the people who believed this when I started out. The truth is the closer your experience is to the description above, the more likely you are going to have the time of your life while in school. In this article, I hope to tell you about some lessons I have learned during my time here; admission blogs miss out these key components to figuring out grad school.

If you were admitted into grad school, you probably belong to one or more of three categories. Your parents always mentioned your relative with the fancy degree from an Ivy League and led you to believe that it is the key to success and a happier life. You were inspired by the Facebook posts of a college senior (the admit, the late-night project submissions, the Microsoft internship converted into a full-time offer, the perfect GPA, graduation photos, and the Mercedes-Benz three months later, hopefully in that order). Your research work with a professor opened your mind to new possibilities in your field of interest, and you set out to explore one in depth. Whatever your reasons for pursuing an advanced degree, school is likely to give you what you want if you seek it passionately.

Professors are an integral part of school life, so I will begin with an insight into how they work. The ratio of professors who talk to the blackboard, read from PowerPoint slides, think his/her course is most important, and set unreasonable assignments is the same in the United States as any other country. It will be a folly for one to think that attending any one professor’s lectures alone will inspire them to do Nobel Prize winning work. However, professors often give students the option of approaching them during office hours. One of my former advisors confessed to scheduling these hours at an unearthly time, so he could focus on writing grants. Another professor spoke of how he used office hours as a discriminating parameter to determine grades. He felt that once he got to know the student during office hours, he could use his discretion to raise the student’s grades beyond what the numbers suggested. Most often, students think it is a waste of time to go to office hours to ask for help, and this leaves professors swatting flies.

Academic integrity is not a given in graduate school. You read right: people do cheat on assignments and exams. Where I went to school (University of California, Santa Barbara), if anyone was given the option between spending time on the beach and doing homework, I think we have a clear winner. However, being ethical (read: doing work in solitary confinement) has its charms. You are likely to find all the secret hideouts around your school where you can do your homework without being disturbed. For me, it was steps leading into the water from the local pier. You are more likely to have ‘aha’ moments which lead to the completion of grueling problem sets while you have uninterrupted views of the Pacific, than while you are stuck in a library. The other advantage is that you become something of a hero when exams are around the corner. The change in expression on your classmate’s face when they comprehend some concept you explained is priceless. Understanding homework sets can also lead to a stellar performance on interviews; my friend was hired by Google’s speech recognition team merely because he had focussed on and understood the theory behind a bonus problem on an assignment.

No article about graduate school can be complete without the mention of roommates. After the initial euphoria of group selfies and Starbucks check-ins subsides, reality sets in. The most organized and peace-loving roommate is called upon to make a chart enlisting duties (cooking and cleaning). Two weeks into the semester, only one person is following the chart, and everyone else is almost always busy with coursework. The person who cleans and cooks is seen as unfocused and lacking ambition. If that person is you, please don’t think for a minute that you are making a mistake wanting to live in a clean environment. Go ahead and do your bit; you could potentially inspire your co-inhabitants to do the same.

Your roommates could also rattle your nerves by asking you to settle finances the night before your midterm (God bless Splitwise). However, they will also be the people to whom you end up confiding your professor frustrations and secret crushes. Even the most reasonable roommates can flare up at you unexpectedly. Imagine a scenario when you make tea for your roommate, and he/she flares up at you, sans reason. To think that you are responsible for this sudden outburst is unwise. A harsh professor, never-ending problem set, a feud with the boyfriend/girlfriend could all be behind the random snapping. Your roommate chose to take it out on an unsuspecting you because, for them, you are what is sometimes called a minimum impact target. Yelling at you will not affect their higher priority relationships, you just let these incidents pass and doing so will result in a world of good. I like to think of school as a boat filled with insecure people belonging to the same age group. How efficiently each person combats his/her insecurities without affecting others gives a measure of success outside of school.

A key aspect of the school experience is funding or lack thereof. Having and not having money put you in two different economic strata. To have money means not having to think twice about spending on a latte in Starbucks on a mere whim. In most public schools, money can be hard to come by. TAships are mostly reserved for Ph.D. students (whose advisors have run out of funds temporarily). I have heard my friends say things like: “Is baar funding milegi, toh Siddhi Vinayak paidhal chalungi”(translate: if I get funding this semester, I will walk to the Siddhi Vinayak temple as a thank you gesture). It is interesting how funding drives you to strike bargains with God.

Getting an internship is the top priority for most in engineering school. You hear fellow students discuss it outside classrooms, during coffee social, and parties. I once stayed away from a Diwali event because everyone who attended was discussing internship salaries (Yes, it was Diwali!). The ones who land up with an internship often walk around wearing it as a badge of honor. They will analyze salaries, perks and even potential trekking spots around their companies, whenever they are given a chance. I wish these intelligent souls spared a thought for those languishing without, and didn’t gloat about it. Doing research with a professor is often considered a soft option because of the non-existent financial payoff. However, it could motivate you to enroll in a PhD program or pursue a research career. Getting an internship is not purely based on GPA or an extraordinary skill set; that, my friends, would be a meritocracy. Landing an internship is also about knowing your uncle’s friend who works at Facebook or being touched by the Goddess of Fair Fortune on the day of the interview.

Graduate school is the place you can make true friends who will stick with you, no matter what. If you are a stickler for integrity and want to find people with a common value system, you have got to search carefully. I found that I could have meaningful discussions not only about engineering but also about life philosophies with students I met during TA office hours or while hanging out in the computer lab. Note that some of these eccentric geniuses are closed to interaction, and you have to step out of your comfort zone to approach them. When you are stuck with a problem, however, they will miraculously rise to the occasion, and restore your sanity. These friends will express their opinions as is, sort out your thought processes, and be your all-encompassing support system during your time at school, and hopefully always.

Have you heard the adage that you find happiness and make it your own? Nowhere or in no phase of life is this more applicable than in graduate school. If you are reading this at 4 AM on a submission deadline day, you are probably dreaming of a happy time in the industry when you don’t have to work such long hours. When you graduate, you will look back at all the happy moments: the end-of-semester celebrations, the perfect score on an assignment or the award winning presentation, and woven between these moments like some delicate fabric, a profound and pervasive love for a living.

The Online Matrimonial Bogus

I sat in the astrologer's consultation room as he pored over my horoscope. "Parents rarely know about their children's characters these days. Being educated does not mean that the man will be of reasonable disposition." The conversation that followed dispelled all the notions I had about marriage. I assumed that along with a good education comes broadmindedness and a liberal outlook. I also thought that people do not fake a degree or lie about a salary on a matrimonial website. These illusions, however, stand corrected now.

The profile reads that the boy completed a doctoral degree at MIT and is working for a tech giant in SFO. My mother's conversation with his parents lasts only a few minutes: they were looking for a girl who is equally well qualified, holds an H1- B visa, works in the same geographical location, and earns a salary in a specified range. Also, she should be emotionally independent, and not be a "burden" to the son in any way. The question that arises now is how the proposition is viable to any girl if she has to operate her entire life for a man she barely knows and not even be assured of a steady companionship in exchange.

Another instance: a thirty-year-old claims to draw an annual salary of forty-eight lakh Indian rupees. It took some fact-checking to find that his management degree was granted by an institute which has lost accreditation. The degree is no longer of any value.

There is effectively no piece of information on a matrimonial profile that I will now believe is true. That the boy is a teetotaler, or is of a certain height, are all parameters mentioned to make the profile look polished. If one is still looking to find an alliance through an online portal, place complete faith in the blessings of your ancestors and family God. The process is equivalent to going through a complicated maze blindfolded.

There is a joke that floats around in South Indian circles: girls are often pricey in this day and age, and that it is an unfortunate turn of events that they take their pick and choose a groom. Post hoc ergo propter hoc (translated: 'after this, therefore because of this') might not apply universally, but it definitely holds true here. A marriage implies committing a life to one another, and if this is the pool that smart, ambitious women get to choose from, they have every right to be wary and cautious. The joke might say the girls are headstrong. One has to navigate the task with a measured approach, all the while retaining sanity. The correct term to use, therefore, is prudence, not misplaced arrogance.

We live in an age where everyone speaks fervently about promoting feminism and supporting women's rights. Marriage equality is also an important part of the conversation. And I am not talking about shouting from the rooftops that women are equal and then not substantiating the chorus with appropriate follow-up action. I am suggesting emphatically saying that women have the same rights and responsibilities within a marriage, and also actively doing something about it.

This note is not an indictment of all men. I have had the fortune of knowing some incredible men during my time at graduate school: men who have supported and encouraged my endeavors, men who have gently corrected my faults, and men who have walked me home after a frustrating day. It is not outside the realm of reasonable expectations that the man I marry, my future husband, should possess the same sense of civility and decency that these men do. Most women are not asking for an exotic vacation or expensive jewels; expecting integrity, honesty, and a basic sense of security and compassion is a bare minimum, not an unnecessary extravagance.

I have a request, first to the parents of girls, and then to the girls themselves. I outline them below.
It is not a crime for a girl to be twenty-eight years old and unmarried. There might be a whole society outside that is going to raise eyebrows, or talk ill of your daughter when she is merely striving to be the best in her work-place or at college. She hears the knell only when you pressurize her into getting married, just because, according to a calendar that is now even obsolete, she has to 'settle down' by a certain age. Please remember that you will be proud when you are introduced as the father of a conscientious doctor or an award-winning professor. Marriage might give your daughter a sense of completion; it is not, however, the be all and end all of her existence.

If your daughter can stand long operating hours and also treat outpatients as a neurosurgeon, or break through corporate politics to make it to the top of an organization, she is also capable of looking after, and supporting you both morally and financially when you retire.

For all the driven and motivated women reading this: Remember a time in high school when your parents told you that if you studied hard, you would make it big in life some day? Remember how elated they were when you came home with honors for excelling in academics? The trajectory you are in currently did not come to you by chance or luck. It is years of hard work and sheer determination to make it despite odds that you stand here today.

The next time your parents tell you about the risk of not finding a suitable groom if you study in a higher-ranked school or choosing a certain profession, think back to all the time you have invested in your education. A relationship with someone may or may not guarantee you emotional contentment. But an early career award, or a work promotion and pay raise are a direct result of your efforts, a suitable return on investment that you do not want to let go of, at any cost.

Your prime years should not be spent hoping that the next man you meet through an online site will be the husband you have always hoped for. That amounts to living in a fool's paradise. Please do not place your life on hold waiting for a man to support you with your unfulfilled goals. Instead, go where your work takes you, find some hobby you can passionately pursue, think without restriction and iteratively improve your vision for a future, and the right man will break through the countless pages of search results and give you the marriage you so richly deserve.

Veteran Journalist Passes Away

       With Sri Morarji Desai, Former Finance Minister, at the Raj Bhavan, Chennai

TSS, as he was popularly addressed in journalistic circles, passed away at his Bangalore residence on April 6. In a Rotary club meeting facilitating him for serving in the press for five decades, he was lauded for his extraordinary versatility and unflinching commitment to neutral reporting. His colleagues and mentees respected and admired him for upholding high reporting standards across all the articles he wrote.

Born on February 28, 1923, the first of three children of Subramania Iyer, Mr. T.S Srinivasan grew up in Singanallur and Tiruvidaimarudur before completing a Bachelor's degree in History at the St. Joseph's College in Tiruchirappalli. It was then that his uncle, A.S. Bharathan, general manager at the Press Trust of India in Mumbai took him in as an apprentice. He advised him to pursue a career as a journalist, instead of appearing for the IAS examination. In the next seventeen years, Mr. Srinivasan worked tirelessly in the PTI offices in Gujarat.

His contributions there are best summarized in the words of Mr. Indulal Yagnik, Member of the Lok Sabha. In his farewell letter, he said: "I was agreeably surprised to see you quickly mastering the Gujarati Language, rarely learned by any non-Bombay friends in similar circumstances. As a leftist, I was surprised from the very beginning to see your keen desire to appreciate our points of view and your readiness to give correct and cogent publicity to any opinions or demonstrations in connection with the Kisan movement or the Mahagujarat struggle."

His next assignment was with the Indian News Service at Madurai. It came as no surprise that he continued his stellar work because he had the blessings of Sri Morarji Desai, a dear friend and Former Finance Minister of India. He appreciated Mr. Srinivasan for setting up six centers of the News Agency in Gujarat. Mr. Morarji Desai also observed that Mr. Srinivasan had taken "considerable care" in giving out good news reports that helped to build a healthy public opinion.

In the early sixties, Mr. Srinivasan shifted to Madras to join the Indian Express under Mr. Ramnath Goenka. He served here till the late eighties and retired as a chief reporter. He never failed to research deeply on a topic before writing a report. In an Express obituary of the music composer Papanasam Sivan, he wrote about a stammer that disappeared every time he sang about the presiding deity of the Kapaleeswarar temple. This fact was unknown till then, and his senior remarked that the Express had come out with the comprehensive report, thanks to his efforts.

India Cements K.S Narayan, who fondly called him "Srini, " often remarked about how he covered the activities of the Chamber of Commerce thoroughly. Over the years, he developed a close friendship with Mr. A. Sivasailam, after giving publicity to the evolution of J Farm and actively tracking the growth of the Amalgamations group. In later years, Mr. Sivasailam would speak of how he was yet to come across an industrial reporter with the depth and integrity of Mr. Srinivasan.

Mr. Srinivasan had a rare sense of humor. The famous article he wrote comparing a newspaper and a child for the Reuters Telegram was appreciated by many. He had a keen sense of perception; he wrote on a broad range of topics varying from Bank Nationalization and India's salt industry to Ayurveda and musical therapy.

He actively followed the growth of the leather cloth industry and the subsequent establishment of the Central Leather Research Institute, earning him the respect of Mr. Nagappa Chettiar and Yelavarthy Nayudamma. His many reports on the handloom and textile industry helped him forge a deep association with Mr.Sathyanarayanan and in later years, Mr. Nalli Kuppuswamy Chetty.

He is survived by his daughter Vijayalakshmi, son-in-law Chandrasekar,  and grand-daughter Krithika.

 

With Dr. M.G Ramachandran, Former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu at a Press Conference

Excerpts from my commencement speech

I would like to speak during Commencement because I have a story to tell: one of survival and hope. I owe much of my current career plans and future dreams to UCSB. Through innumerable interactions with students and teachers on campus, I have been able to better understand my abilities and redefine what I can contribute to the world. The next few paragraphs are excerpts from my hypothetical speech during commencement.

It is important to step back, withdraw into yourself and seek out what makes you truly happy. Such alone time is when you understand your purpose. If your dream requires you to take an off-the-charts path, people will stare. People stare when you do something extraordinary. Everyone looked at me as though I was crazy when I started writing my book. You lose perspective; this is acceptable as long as you find joy in what you are doing. When you descend into a personal underground to accomplish your goal, no one will be by your side. When you achieve, however, the world will celebrate you for taking the bold step.

We live in a very callous world. I ask that we take time off our busy lives to listen to our friends’ trials. In the College of Engineering, we like to walk about like  Lord of the Living Dead during deadlines. Colleagues thought me mad for spending time empathizing with others’ plight. I always heard my friends say: “Who is this girl and what does she want?”. I had no concrete answer, then, except that it was easier to hear people’s woes than say, write code.

You might ask me why you should listen to your friends. You might not even see these people after you leave school. I have some results. They are probably more profound than all the fantastic research we do at UC. It turns out that kindness follows the first law of thermodynamics. I stand here today because of the unexpected generosity of a few busy graduate students. They are in the audience for me. They were there at a time when I did not believe anything good could happen to me. Thank you very much. When friends listen to you, it will be wise to remember that they are giving you their most precious asset: time. In return, you should not merely be thankful, but treat them like royalty. By extending this kindness in our community, we are  taking definitive steps towards making the world a better place to live in.

I am here to tell you that the comfort zone is an illusion. Often, in life, you will find yourself in a situation where you are the best in the crowd. You realize that you are not being challenged sufficiently and that your peers are not bringing out the intellectual best in you. Here is a thought experiment I like to do in this situation. Think about the time when you had achieved a personal high and compare it the present you. If they are not the same, I call for some serious introspection. Remember that by being in this illusory comfort zone rut, you are doing a disservice not only to yourself, but to your stellar education and all the people who worked hard to help you achieve your best.

Coming out of such a secure zone is not easy. I would be a romantic fool if I told you so. You might have to acquire skills you did not even know existed, sacrifice your comforts, let go of time spent with friends and family, and destroy any inhibition that might stand in the way of success.

When you spiral upwards because of all the hard work, you introspect on your success. Imagine driving a Maserati to Malibu with your spouse and children. You realize that it was the the wonderful education you received at UC, that helped you truly understand your potential. I would like to conclude on this highly liberating note. Let us take a moment to celebrate the collective achievements of the class of 2014. Congratulations to all of you.We did it!

The 'Doctor of Philosophy' rigmarole

“We are delighted to offer you admission with fellowship to the doctoral program in the Department of Engineering Science at Oxford University”, read the admit. Three years of fantasizing about graduate school had been neatly translated into a single sheet of paper. I read it over and over to make sure it was real. My advisor called the next morning to say: “The man you chose to work with is known to have mood swings, and along with the dull weather, we have a dreadful combination. You might want to reconsider going there”. I patiently waited for the next admission offer to come along. In this article, I hope to give you some insight into, and debunk some popular myths about the inner workings of the PhD program; they fail to mention these aspects on College confidential. While most of the references here are explained in an electrical engineering context, they can be extended to include all disciplines. Getting admission into school, while certainly complicated, is not as strenuous as finding your groove and settling down in the program.

The first person you meet when you arrive at school is hopefully your predestined or potential advisor. The first half hour pseudo-interview type meeting should give you a vague idea about how the person works. An interesting question that comes up often is to rate your programming ability on a scale of one through ten. You can then be reasonably sure that you are going to be given broken code/nearly complete code to sort out for your first few months as a graduate student. Trial one is if and when the advisor assigns you to a senior doctoral student in their group. Any student in the program has his/her own agenda (girlfriend/boyfriend, research proposals, thesis, and coursework, given priority in that order). No student has the bandwidth to mentor a new entrant. Also, it is unfair to expect a senior student to give reports to the professor and gauge the research potential of a debutante.

This so-called trial phase is actually detrimental to both advisor and student. It requires prodigious skill to evaluate the research abilities of a person when he/she is also taking three courses and teaching a class. On the part of the student, if he/she is writing code to assist another graduate student, it is difficult to assess lab culture and the scope of work done by other team members. In my opinion, a simple one hour test is all that is required to evaluate a new student. If you are admitted into engineering/sciences, a reasonable background in higher applied mathematics is assumed. Assigning one an open ended research problem in the related field and observing their thought process as he/she works through it is all that is required to judge if he/she is worthy of a place in the lab. This process takes much less time and is a far more efficient way of filtering out students/advisors.

My friend came up with an amusing analogy to explain how to filter out advisors. According to him, it is better to ‘date’ potential candidates, find one whose working style appeals to you, and settle down with them. You may or may not be pleased with a predetermined advisor. Note that once the commitment is made, unlike in an actual relationship, it is very difficult and often impossible to sever ties. If you make the wrong choice, therefore, you will end up being bitter and disappointed for the five year duration.

Often times, even the most reasonable professor cannot guarantee you a paid research position because of a lack of grant money. Most (not all) universities like to ensure that their PhD students don’t lose funding; the department will then give you a teaching assistantship. This translates to a stipend and a tuition remission, in exchange for assisting a professor in teaching an undergraduate class. Your professor will obviously demand that his research takes precedence over teaching. Two economic considerations now come into play. From a macro-level financial perspective, you are able to live comfortably because of the TA stipend and so you have some responsibility towards the teaching commitment. Also, in any university,  if not for the tuition paid by undergraduates, graduate students cannot be financed, so you might want to do your job diligently.

If one studied in the same academic system, he/she begins to empathize deeply with the plight of the undergraduates. The result is some extraordinary effort put into preparing notes for exams and holding review sessions. If this is you and you are part of a group of TAs (who don’t share the same work ethic), you also have to contend with the teaching hierarchy, all for wanting to do your job well. A word of advice is to find a group of students who share a common set of values on teaching ethics and morality. Most people in the outside world will not recognize your dilemma; you will need an understanding audience to validate your efforts.  One thing that rings clearly is if a professor insists that teaching should take a backseat, then his/her place (with all due respect) is in a national research institute, not a university.

The two main hurdles in a PhD student’s life are the screening exam (an oral/written exam that determines whether you are qualified for graduate study) and the proposal or prelims where a student outlines his tentative research goals. The time frame after you cross the first stage is what I think of as a self-finding sabbatical. You are allowed to go out, attend conferences, and contemplate possible research directions. It is essential that the advisor meets up with you regularly to assess your ideas and fine-tune them. When you are in this phase and have little direction, there is a constant temptation to mimic the methods of existing state-of-the-art algorithms and propose to better the results. One thing to remember is that the primary goal of doctoral study is to introduce a new direction/new method in a direction. A substantial proposal should fall into either category to have significant impact.

Several factors might set you back in this crucial step in the program. A possible distraction can come in the form of coursework. It can be safely assumed that any course material can be absorbed by a student in this advanced stage of the doctoral program at his/her own pace. Enrolling in a course means doing assignments and taking exams, all of which take you away from spending time crystallizing your research proposal. Another distraction (this happens mostly in large groups) is if you are called upon to grade/teach your advisor’s class or mentor an intern. Note that both can stand in the way of you formulating a stellar, yet feasible proposal. Often, a misdirected goal statement leads to problems further down the value chain. A foreseeable disaster is when your statement was not profound enough and you have to search for new problems in the remainder of your study. The most common problem when you are defending your thesis is if you cannot fully substantiate the claims you made during your proposal. Your committee will be forced to sign you out of school (maybe because you have been in the program too long). Anyone is likely to feel miserable in such circumstances, because five years of hard work led to insufficient/incomplete results.

The next step in the program is writing the dissertation. It is very crucial that your writing is in keeping with what you outlined in the proposal. If the professor asks you to assist with different projects, not necessarily according to your proposal, but merely as a stopgap to replace another student, you will have difficulty stringing together a coherent dissertation. Sixty percent of publications in engineering and sciences are badly written. These can include verbose paper titles, misleading abstracts, and poorly reported results. Most professors forget to teach students to write; it is in fact as important to present research in a conducive manner, as it is to conduct high-impact research. A common error is to mention prior work not directly related to your idea, as a way to meet page length requirements. More blasphemous ones include grandiose abstracts and inappropriately labelled diagrams/charts. There is long-lasting damage done when you cannot write well; the proposals you write in industry and the papers you co-author as a professor are likely to suffer.

Any graduate student can come up with algorithms, program reasonably well and write decent papers. You come into school with an extraordinary skill set; your advisor is responsible for honing the talent you inherently possess. The most important life-lesson learnt during doctoral study, contrary to what most people think, is imbibing the advisor’s work ethic and learning to formulate and solve an open-ended problem. If you are being comfort-zoned at any time during school, your mentor is not pushing you enough. To raise you to truly reach your maximum potential means to make you endure significant torture. I will never forget the time when my advisor made me go through sixty (yes, you read the number right) draft revisions of a single abstract. Although it was arduous, it helped me appreciate the finer nuances of technical writing. Another former advisor of mine held weekly one-on-one meetings with his thirty students, at the age of sixty four. Such extraordinary work ethic is very likely to inspire the same in you.

Let’s now move on to the social scenario. A good rule of thumb is to make friends outside your research group to whom you can confide frustrations/happiness about best-paper awards. It will also be wise not to attend parties where the only topics people are discussing are their most recent publications or teaching responsibilities. Never take anything on Facebook too seriously. All too often, there is a tendency to compare your life to those outside of school. Their fancy cars, lavish lifestyle, and exotic travels will do nothing to boost your morale. You cannot afford this on a stipend, but the positive side-effect of a low salary is remarkable creative satisfaction. A very common stereotype in engineering and the sciences is that people do not possess great looks. The sole eye candy student is admitted once in four years, and much to the dismay of all the single men and women, is betrothed or in a committed relationship. One suggestion is to look outside your specific area (maybe in the humanities or social sciences?). You are likely to have a more balanced relationship, with a new and enhanced perspective, with someone who doesn’t have the same educational background as you.

The one thing every admissions counselor tells you is that you should have relevant research and teaching experience in a narrow focus, to get admission into graduate school. This is untrue, and leads you up a winding garden path. Once you have focused on one specific research area, you are likely to want to continue/better the work in the same field. This will restrict your choice of advisors greatly. The best approach is to find a broad area of interest and take all the courses that you can in that area during your undergraduate study. Contrary to what counselors say, you can get into most top graduate programs with just a good GPA and little to no research experience. When you come in with no prior, you start afresh and are open to examining all the possibilities presented to you. If you do have some research experience, open your mind, and if possible embrace and acknowledge that there can be varying work environments. I know that this can be very difficult; one grave mistake to avoid is to benchmark your current circumstances against your previous research experience. This could make you very unhappy; it is always ideal to enter school with the mindset of a newcomer.

It has taken me two and a half years filled with sleepless nights, intermittent bouts of severe sickness, and a wide variety of setbacks to put together this narrative. I hope that it will help a few new and continuing doctoral students to make the right choices, along their course of study. There is no place closer to paradise than graduate school if you can find a group of friends with a similar mindset and outlook, and a supportive and enthusiastic advisor. Imagine where you are right now when you are reading this; in my mind, you are at the threshold of an infinite corridor of amazing possibilities, some which might enable you to write a stellar thesis in the next decade!

The Oxford acceptance letter now lies in a jasmine scented box along with other treasured correspondences, as a pleasant memory of what could have been.

The marriage story

All words marked with asterisk are explained in the footnote below.

Indian women hear the word marriage from a very young age. The notions of this institution change with time; the definition, however, changes dramatically when you are called upon to enter it yourself.

I will start with a few anecdotes about the groom selection process in my community, or should I say species? My examples are based on close friends who are going through the arduous process of filtering potential matches. A word about the procedure: your parents sign you up on a community matrimonial website (translate: online parent-approved dating). Eligibility parameters include (but are not restricted to) post graduate degrees from reputed universities, six figure salaries, “homely” attitude, matching horoscope*, and great looks. Not required, but nice to have are: knowledge of classical music, rituals and festivals, and culinary skills. With this, we have just converted what I naively thought was a compatibility-based decision to a parameter-centric ranking algorithm with varying weights attached to different viability factors. Let us add another layer to the process and say that most meetings are on Skype; an elder may determine an auspicious time for this conversation.

My friend was a doctoral student in solid-state Physics at Stanford. Her parents decided to put her through the Skype test a week before she defended her thesis. So great was her mother’s relief that she had found a potential groom who was also a doctoral candidate. While the exact details of the conversation are probably content for a separate article, one of the more contentious points the man touched on was a possible superiority complex on the part of the girl, because of her Stanford affiliation. As she told me this, I began to comprehend the futility of the entire setup. For anyone who has contemplated a PhD in any field, it is one of the most underrated pursuits where one puts his/her love of research over a lucrative industry salary, to work for a whimsical advisor. There is really no question of feeling superior attached to  doctoral studies. Forget contemplating marriage, I am not sure I would even want to “get to know” someone this narrow-minded. Needless to say, their conversation went nowhere, much to the despair of her parents.

Speaking for myself, my parents have always feared that everyone in my community will have a certain negative bias towards me since I received all my higher education abroad. People label you as arrogant, self-obsessed, or Americanized just because of where you studied. I have had many a pointless conversation with my grandmother when she told me not to apply to MIT/Caltech because finding a groom in the same league would be close to impossible. The parents of my community's intelligentsia will reject a girl who cannot move to the same country/state the son is working in. While it is considered acceptable to earn a good salary, it is preferred that the girl’s salary be marginally lesser so as not to create an ego clash. Mentioning a PhD/being enrolled in one almost equals being an outcast because then, the girl will be “more” educated than the MBA/MS, banker/engineer son. This generalization was made because most people in my community find themselves in these professions.

One thing evades my comprehension: why should a marriage come in the way of any woman’s pursuits (academic or professional). Should not university attendance/career prospects be determined purely on merit? What if a marriage with someone is certain to thwart everything a woman has worked for all her life? Let us extend the discussion to include women of all castes in India. Suppose a woman A is considering an advanced degree/starting a company/stem cell research. Telling her that she must not try to do it because of marital prospects is equivalent to killing all her passions. If a potential groom has trouble accepting the ideals that the woman espouses, I wonder how a marriage can last purely on society-related constraints like cast or financial status. At the highest meta level, if I were allowed to extend the superficiality in thought process to  more general day-to-day living scenarios, imagine the decisions I will have to be party to throughout my life by being married to such a person. This contradicts the opinions of educated women that marriage should be an extension of who they are and what they stand for.

The next important aspect in the marriage rigmarole is the actual wedding. Most weddings are extravaganzas sponsored entirely by the bride’s parents, in exchange for the parameter-matched groom. These include fancy, over-the-top receptions in lavish hotels and expensive wedding gifts. A friend’s father was told that he had to find a marriage hall fitting the status of the Apple engineer groom and accommodate the relatives in a five star hotel. The result was the dilution of a lifetime of savings on a two-day phenomenon likely to be remembered only by the egotistical friends/relatives. It is time to step back and analyze what went on here: so much attention was focussed on the wedding that people might have missed the crucial point of the marriage that has to survive the test of time. I don’t see anyone checking in to find out if both bride and groom are actually contented within the institution.

So I am going to make a request: to all the educated, ambitious women, find yourself a man who will appreciate you for your eccentricities and quirks, whatever they may be. If you have a crazy goal, there is a whole cynical world with tremendous negative energies outside to eat at your potential. You want to come back to somebody who inspires you, a man who truly pushes you to bring out your best. Changing to meet someone’s requirements is terrible; if you want to make any life-altering change in your personality, it should be inspired by you. If you can find a man who will listen to you when you come up with ideas to change the world and not laugh at you, but help you implement it, you have found your true emotional and intellectual equal.

This note is not an indictment of any individual. I know that most men might find the views accusatory, however, the above-mentioned system exists. Instead of taking this personally, it would do well to change the way you think and be more accommodating and inclusive. To all the progressive men who believe in finding equals for partners, I have a request to you too. As much as you find happiness being in corporate meetings or surrounded by academic papers, it will be nice if you can step out once in a while and show yourselves to women who appreciate your company. Contrary to popular perception, most women find the possible introvertedness rather appealing. By stepping out, thus, you are doing the women, and most importantly yourself a world of good. Think about the happy time you can discuss Tolstoy/Maupassant over breakfast with your significant other without being judged as pretentious.

Then, we can talk about marriage as being a liberating institution, for all involved.



* horoscope - a forecast of a person's future, typically including a delineation of character and circumstances, based on the relative positions of the stars and planets at the time of that person's birth.

A foliole in the Fall

A foliole fell in the Fall,
In a lush green forest,
And blew unweariedly,
carried on by an occasional breeze.

The foliole hopped onto other leaf clusters;
Accoutred as she was, she easily made pals;
Shared joys, absorbed miseries;
And quickly became the favorite everywhere.

One such encounter was special:
The pal made the foliole souris,
Saw the deep dark pains she hid so valiantly,
Influenced her so profoundly,
that a new light shone on the foliole:
A light so bright, it made her dance.

What a marvellous life change for the
ever smiling foliole:
A new hand to hold on to,
A fresh companionship to cherish,
All who saw her remarked upon the change:
A change so powerful, yet so sublime.

And when all was well,
And she skipped and hopped,
The pal let go with a dramatic sigh.
The pain of separation was so deep and palpable,
That by twilight next, the foliole breathed her last.

The first snow flakes fell

And rendered a haunting ode

To a lovely soul, so pure and immortal.

The pal meandered through life, his hands outstretched,

Hoping eternally that he would feel the foliole's touch:

All soft and soothing, all sweet and benign.

The moment had passed, all opportunity lost,

His blessing was taken away,

As she breathed her last.