Cheese...

So, the best thing in my world over the past few days was definitely talking on the phone with folks on Thanksgiving. Friday morning was first spent on the phone with Eric (and Alex, and even Aaron, who says, "Ack!" quite well - not sure it it means Zack or Eric or Alex) in Santa Fe. They had had a good sized crowd over for dinner at the new place out by St. Francis and I-25. Alex asked when I would come over, and I asked him how he was doing on the transvator that he's been telling us for quite a while. World travel would be a lot easier if he would hurry up and build it. Apparently a bicycle chain and one more trip to the junkyard should do it, and then I could just teleport over.

After this, I moved over to my office to try Fall City with the computer. There were some issues with the microphone, but Josiah soon had them sorted out and I spent a while talking to everyone, who told me all about the Ride for Pies 2. If it's going to be a tradition, I'll try not to miss it next time.

It also seems that it is becoming winter in other parts of the world. While I'm not complaining about the continual 80 degrees and sunny, snow is nice.




On Friday evening, TIFR was throwing its annual terrace party, which takes place, oddly enough, on the rooftop terrace of the building next to the one where I live. My evening began there, but before I had known the date of the terrace party, I had made plans to join Laurent and Agnes at a Beaujolais nouveau party hosted by the federation of French expatriates in Bombay. I considered bagging the whole evening on account of the rumblings in my gut, but they seemed calm enough to deal with for the time being, and the French party promised to have cheese, which is the one food item that I miss the most.

At the terrace party people milled about and talked in small groups and a few danced awkwardly. It was somehow obviously a party full of scientists, but I'm not sure how to describe what makes it obvious. So I guess if I was trying to mathematically prove that it was a party of scientists, I'd avoid the word obviously. But I'm not, so I think I'll use it and feel just fine about it.




(idea stolen from Kevin's wife Megan)

We picked up a taxi to Breach Candy, which is the name of a very fancy district of Bombay. The name must be a British leftover. Why they feel the need to rename half the main streets in the town but don't exorcize a name like Breach Candy seems beyond me. I guess Salaman Rushdie is from this part of the city. The Breach Candy Club is one of the most extreme examples of upscale Bombay that I have yet seen. Inside the walls are multiple large swimming pools with fountains, a large lawn coming up against the sea face, and some buildings that are presumably full of nice things. On the lawn was set up a tent where the wine and cheese were served, and a number of tables where they were consumed. We picked up some of the offerings. The wine was not great, but I never have high hopes for Beaujolais and even the cheese was a little bit of a let down. Oh well. Asked if it inspired nostalgia for France, Agnes replied that it might have if the wine were good.

We met a few people, and we made plans to go out after the temperance laws governing this sort of gathering kicked in at 11pm. We ended up at Polly Esther's - as the name suggests, it was exactly the sort of too loud, bad music, bad beer nightclub that one would expect. Freedom, it seems, is being able to go to one of these places in any country of the world. I didn't stay long.



I spent the rest of the weekend being sick. It was bound to happen at some point. I'm guessing that it was the samosa that I had in Chennai when I ducked into the nearest tea stall to avoid the rain one day while I was out walking. The place was not a crowded one, which is generally a bad sign, and the samosa was not even warm, so it had been sitting around for long enough for many a fly to take a stroll on its at one time crispy exterior. Perhaps it was that, perhaps it was something else. There is something going around here, I'm not sure if it is what I have or not, so maybe it is just something in our water supply, or something in the dal that comes out of the East canteen. In any case, I got hit, but not too bad. My gut began telling me that something was amiss on Wednesday or so, and continued to degrade throughout the rest of the week. When I woke up on Saturday, it was clear that I wouldn't be doing much for the weekend. I seem to be doing better now, but I am really feeling like getting out of the city, and had been planning to take off for the weekend and find someplace green without so many millions of people.

Sometimes I feel like mathematical research is a long and arduous process of having an idea and then figuring out who already had that idea.