Well, why tell something new when somebody has told it better? Richard Feynman in his inimitable "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!" says the following (Feynman was invited to speak to Brazilian teachers and to suggest measures to improve science teaching)- Then I say, “The main purpose of my talk is to demonstrate to you that no science is being taught in Brazil!” I can see them stir, thinking, “What? No science? This is absolutely crazy! We have all these classes.” So I tell them that one of the first things to strike me when I came to Brazil was to see elementary school kids in bookstores, buying physics books. There are so many kids learning physics in Brazil, beginning much earlier than kids do in the United States, that it’s amazing you don’t find many physicists in Brazil— why is that? So many kids working so hard, and nothing comes of it! Then I gave the analogy of a Greek scholar who loves the Greek language, who knows that in his c...
A visit to a foreign country is always special. And when it is your first visit abroad, it automatically becomes memorable! What more, when it is the first time you speak technical stuff in front of expert, completely non-Indian, people- it is even more special to you! And well, when you don’t have to spend out of your pocket for this, isn’t it truly wonderful! A conference trip abroad, in my case, was special more so for the last reason- the unintended generosity of unknown taxpayers enabled me to fly across Eurasia, step into a foreign university and present a part of my work in front of a sizeable, learned audience. Such trips leave you small lessons, in addition to some mandatory networking which is the prime motive of these conferences, which are worth sharing. After all, a lakh and odd rupees spent on a person’s trip should be worth more than his own benefitting, right! So, here we go- a bit of conference experience first, and a short traveller’s expe...