“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

The other day I was asked by a close friend what I thought my worst trait was. A few task related characteristics came to mind:  incessant procrastination and general overall laziness, to name a few. However, the answer to his question soon struck me, and it had absolutely nothing to do with getting things done. Only a moments worth of hesitation and I curtly responded with, “vindictiveness”.

For one reason or another, I have always felt that “what goes around, comes around”. Not really sure why. Perhaps my upbringing within a Hindu family has instilled in me a sense of ‘karma’, but I don’t think so. You see, it is one thing to believe “what goes around, comes around”, but it is a completely different ball game to think as I do – which tends to fall along the lines of – “what goes around, comes around, and if it doesn’t come around, then I come around”. Go on and laugh if you’d like – as I tend to do the same when on the subject – but that’s simply how I feel.

My mother, from as long as I have known her, has been a firm believer in spiteful revenge. A fairly strong woman – not to mention hard headed, adamant, and orthodox in many of her beliefs – has always felt the need to strike back when necessary. Life has taught her, it seems, to stay strong, and dish out what you take – perhaps a mantra that has gotten her to where she is today. The, for lack of a better phrase, “don’t fuck with me” attitude has put fear in her enemies, and perhaps even given her some strength along the way. Who knows.

As for me, the mere thought of retribution yields thorough satisfaction. A quick google search of the word “vindictiveness” resulted in a link titled “PEP Web – Psychoanalytic Review”, where a Marvin  Daniels in 1969 wrote a paper on “Pathological Vindictiveness and the Vindictive Character”. Here goes the abstract:

“This is a profound and well-written study of a character type previously discussed by Horney. In pathological vindictiveness one is willing to sacrifice everything to attain revenge. The differences between sadism and vindictiveness, and the differences between the identifying child who becomes authoritarian and the lost child who becomes vindictive are discussed. Daniels emphasizes the passion for justice and the feeling of having been cheated. Horney had emphasized injured pride. This is mentioned without including mastery of the threat of loss of continence in the formation of pride. Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and The Scarlet Letter are cited as examples from literature in which there is a vindictive hero. Technical problems, including countertransference in the analysis of the vindictive character, are delineated.”

Crazy.

Science – Interesting, but not interesting enough…?

As mentioned in my first post, much of my writing will be based on discussions between my uncle Ravi and I (from who I have just recieved notice will be a guest columnist on this blog, yes – really, hold onto your seats) - deviating from time to time of course (as is the nature of curious humans, I feel) – but returning nonetheless.

Today’s post will be on a subject that is of mutual passion to the both of us – science. Every summer, aside from the downtown city excursions and indulgence of delicious cuisine, we make an attempt to visit the California Academy of Sciences, in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.

Each visit is undeniably similar - hundreds of people arrive at Golden Gate Park on Saturday and Sunday and line up to spend the day at the Academy of Sciences. This summer, a thought occurred to me while I waited to purchase my ticket: Just how much interest within the sciences is an exhibit like this generating?

I turned to Ravi and asked him his opinion on the matter. Why do hundreds of thousands of people routinely visit exhibits such as museums, science exposiums, shows, etc., only to never even set foot in a college level physics or mathematics class? He too was puzzled. All these people showing up to visit a science museum, but probably only a handful within the crowd had anything to do with the subject outside the weekend getaway.

Walking around the Academy of Sciences puzzled me even more. Families would bring their children only to further perpetuate the fact that, as my father would say, “no one had any concept of anything”. Completely incorrect notions of science spewed from mothers and fathers everywhere, much to my dismay. Nevertheless, exhibits illustrating physics concepts that govern the way our world works were sprawled across the massive first floor of the building and parents continued to drag their children from “Global warming, and How it Affects us” to “Darwin and the Origin of Species”, not to mention everything else in between. At the end of the day however, my personal feeling is that when these children grow older and go off to college – science will probably be the least of their concern, or even their major. Many of them will never take Chemistry 101, or even Integral Calculus. I simply do not understand this. If science, presented in a social fashion, using laymans terms and interpretation cannot generate interest within a community, what can? Surely drawing large crowds to an International Mathematical Olympiad competition can’t possibly be exciting.

Maybe it is the nature of the subject itself – for most who aren’t very curious, or should I say, “couldn’t care less”, science is very dry and boring. People don’t really care about why something works a certain way – as long as it continues to work in that same fashion so that they can go about their business. When a 400,000 lb Boeing 747 takes off and suspends itself in the air for several hours, or even days, people’s immediate thoughts don’t stream as : How have we made this possible? Why does this work this way? Can we improve this design? It’s more along the lines of: I hope this thing doesn’t crash. When are we getting there? Why does this take so long?

Fostering students in areas of science seems to be difficult. Parents who force their children into math and science often fail admirably, while those that engage them in the art of problem solving succeed. As a graduate student, and hopefully soon to be doctoral candidate, I am mesmerized by the art of problem solving. How can we approach this problem? What is known? Where do we need to get from here? The process is often more rewarding than the solution itself. It alarms me that many of my peers, especially undergraduates, even within JHU, don’t seem to understand this. Many possess the aptitude, (memory & retention, ability to reapply knowledge while making connections, etc) but very few show a general enthusiasm or interest. Oh well. Perhaps it’s not for everyone…

And now, to our regularly scheduled programming…

A quick wikipedia search yields:

“Sambar is a vegetable stew or chowder based on a broth made with tamarind and toovar dal, and is very popular in the cooking of southern regions of India especially in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

South Indian food, people and culture are inextricably linked to a ubiquitous dish as in idli and sambhar, sambhar and rice and so on. Each state in the South prepares it with a typical variation, adapted to its taste and environment.”

Can’t really argue with much of that. Sambar is indeed a vegetable stew or chowder based broth made with tamarind and dal and is very popular within the cuisine of southern India. There are several “strains” of sambar, and south Indians tend to link sambar to several other main components of their meal – dosais, idlis, rice, etc.

Before I begin, let me be honest. Frankly, I am no sambar expert. I cannot cook sambar whatsoever. However, my speciality lies in eating sambar. I can distinguish one sambar from the next effortlessly, and understand the consistency, texture, aromatic smells well made sambars should possess.

To me, sambar is best eaten piping hot, in its most classic form – sambar satham. Sambar over some well cooked basmati rice and a little bit of ghee (purified butter, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghee) cannot be beat. Adding a curry and perhaps some banana chips to the plate adds to the taste of course, but is also quick to induce a coma.

Although sambar can be eaten over rice, and that is generally the case – sambar satham remains a staple south Indian dish throughout – south Indians love to throw sambar on all sorts of stuff. A Dosai (a thin rice crepe filled with a potato curry) , for example is often accompanied by a chutney of some sort, and a nice small bowl of sambar. Idlis (soft rice cakes – seeing a pattern here?) are served especially with sambar, making the two foods almost one, hyphenated word – “idli-sambar” or “sambar-idli”.

To me however, there remains only one sambar that mesmerizes me each time I indulge myself in its smell. And that sambar onion sambar. Onion sambar – also known to those familiar with the language as “vengaya sambar” is the king of all sambars – in my books, at least.  There is simply something about the mixture of flavors found within the sambar and onions that causes the tip of my tongue to salivate. The strong, spicy, smell along with a crisp, distinct taste have caused me to return to this classic time and time again. Only on one condition however – that coconuts are ground up and tossed in, and tiny onions are used. See: http://srefoodblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/arachuvitta-vengaya-sambar-onion.html – notice Saffron’s post:

“shammi, ahh arachu vitta chinna vengaya sambar. It was a treat reserved only for special occasions and special guests!! Here in the US, I get red pearl onions that are a reasonable substitute. I have even used frozen pearl onions in cases of culinary emergencies.
You have brought back memories of sunday afternoon siestas after a meal of sambar and roasted potatoes and paal payasam “

Perhaps I should have chosen blogspot instead. I have yet to stumble upon a sambar related wordpress Just kidding, of course. So there you have it I suppose – the method to my madness – why my wordpress is prefixed with words most cannot pronounce. It’s simply my favorite south Indian dish. Memories of cool afternoons spent in Chennai eating my grandmothers sambar enliven my senses. Ahh.

Does it get much better than this?

Onions in a brown, slightly viscous mixture? Yum.

I’m not really quite sure what prompted me to start this blog. Okay, I lied. Between watching Tim crunch out PDE’s by hand on the white board infront of me, checking the weather every ten minutes, and attempting (yet failing miserably) to solve even one Putnam problem a day, I grew listless. But I have so much to say! So many things to discuss! Why must I succumb to this dormant, static lifestyle within my research cubicle? A sense of intellectual liberation soon overwhelmed me; the things I could talk about if I wrote them down! Alas, vengayasambar.wordpress.com was born.

I have always discussed writing a blog with my uncle - Dr. B. Ravikumar, Professor of Computer Science, at Sonoma State University.  Every summer, I hop on a plane and jettison roughly 6 hours to a small, quiet surburban city outside of San Francisco – Petaluma. It is within his home, overseeing the grand Petaluma hills and the city beneath us, that our dialogue (or for my Tamil readers, our ”penathal”) begins.

Much of this blog will revisit many topics that have caused insomnia between me and Ravi. Although I do pride myself in possessing a smidgeon of literary ability, I do not consider myself a writer. If what comes out on these pages appears to be well written, interesting, and thought provoking, then perhaps what they say is true – every dog does indeed have his day. My job more importantly I feel, is to entertain and bring some of the most obscure subjects within our discussions to life. It should come as no surprise that as a graduate student of engineering, and Ravi himself, a Professor of Computer Science – that many of our topics stem from the sciences. However, they soon take a rather unpredictable turn thereafter. It takes a rather curious duo to dive from the Chinese Remainder Theorem to parallel universes, and then onto cousin couples, and finally stop (if only for the night) at the rituals performed at a South Indian Brahmin Wedding. Then rinse, and repeat.

A long first post, I know. Originally, I had intended the first post to discuss sambar, a delicious south indian dish as well as the url of this blog. Feeling the need for an introduction of some sort, I left the title as is and wandered off into this prefatory piece of writing. Sambar, and all its related entities will be covered in the next post. Until then!