Academics: one big family (apparently)

[rhyll]

Well, yesterday i finally made it out to NIAS (after a two-hour long transport saga), and found it a tremendous relief. For a start, it was actually quiet. It has been an unbelievable amount of time since i've heard so little. And there were trees everywhere, and areas of bush (to get to the NIAS campus from the front of the IISc campus involves walking a couple of kilometres, including down a dirt track through bush, complete with bullock carts). Fresh air! All of that meant that despite being quite late, and a little pissed off at my auto driver, i actually felt fairly calm by the time i arrived for my appointment with Arvind Kumar (for extra excitement, go to the NIAS website and see a photo of him!)

He was tremendously nice and helpful, in part because he knows Samina and also in part because he is a tremendously nice and helpful guy, as far as i can tell. He called around, found out who i might want to talk to, introduced me to a few people, and installed me in the library with instructions for the librarian to take me to lunch.

Lunch is ridiculously pleasant at NIAS, and takes place in a small dining room, with only a couple of tables. I sat opposite a mathematician, and he told me things about maths.

After lunch i talked to Dr. P K Shetty (also on the NIAS website), who works more on the science end of the issue than the social movements side of things, but was still keen to help and gave me some good contacts.

And then when it was time to leave Arvind told me to look into staying at the NIAS guesthouse (which would be excellent if i'm doing much work there), and got someone to take me to the busstop and make sure i got on the right bus.

For additional treats, i actually managed to get off at the right bus-stop and, using my newly developed sense of direction, actually found my way home without having to stop and ask anyone for help (despite the fact that the bus-stop was in a part of the area i haven't been to yet).

And, this morning, i managed to catch the bus in to town by myself.

I am ridiculously proud.

And now i shall go do more researchy stuff, and call people about staying at NIAS.