Publications

S. Jagadisan was an English professor at Madras Presidency College. When he called me up to locate a book he was trying to find several years ago, I was more than happy to oblige. After all, he was my grandfather. A King's Story was the first of many books he asked me to locate, and on trips to India, Professor Jagadisan would turn either my sister or me into his dutiful assistants, who would type up articles he had written.

During my cousin's wedding a few years ago, I had a chance to talk to my grandfather about being an academic in India. In what ways did his experiences compare to mine? Was there a research component to his work?

While there were attempts to start a few peer-reviewed journals, my grandfather answered, for the most part, the emphasis was on teaching.

The answer failed to include Professor Jagadisan's publications in other types of media. Some of these came in the form of books and many more could be found in the form of articles for The Hindu, India's national newspaper.

On a whim and with the help of Google, I set out this morning to find as many of these articles as I could. The collection I've amassed runs the gamut from literature to religion. The articles about English literature range from Shakespeare to the Berenstain Bears. There is an article about Pudukottai, his home town, and another about James Russell Macphail, most likely his former professor. One muses about religion and another discusses religious tolerance.

An anything but comprehensive list is included below:

• Language and Literature
  
  
  
  • Nonsense verse
    
  • In Shakespeare's words
    
  • Fables in French
    
  • Changing concepts of style
    
  • The Siamese twins of language
    
  • Letting the light in
    
  • Regulating language
    
  • Gurudev
    
  • In bear country
    
  • Called by life
    
  • The literary scene
    
  • The 'Mona Lisa' of literature
    
  • For a dash of racy flavour...
    This article result in a response.
    
  • A Shakespeare veteran
    
  • Critique of Conrad's works
    
  
  
• Religion/Culture
  
  
  
  • Apostle of peace
    
  • The glory of Marghazhi
    
  • Recording wisdom
    
  • Sound of silence
    
  • The Ramana magic
    
  • Ramana's homecoming
    
  • Mystic who shed grace and compassion
    
  • Dialogue not debate
    
  • The religion we need
    
  
  
• Miscellaneous
  
  
  
  • Science & humanities
    
  • Is spelling important?
    
  • Remembering sir, with love
    
  • Path much trodden
    
  • Poverty no bar
    
  • Teacher - first and last
    
  • The architect of Pudukottai
    
  
  

What's Your Problem?

The first time I remember asking about another graduate student's research was during a meeting with Bobak on June 25, 2004. It was Bobak's birthday, and my job was to distract him while others were setting up his surprise party. While I still have a copy of Bobak's LaTeXed writeup from that day, it didn't appear that talking to other students about their research would become a common occurrence.

Things changed once we moved into the Wong Center. In fact, during our first year there, Paolo and I developed a habit of sharing interesting technical problems that were coming out of our research on an almost daily basis. While I like to believe this frequent interaction led us to solutions faster, the real reason I did it was simple. Another person's problems offered me a welcome break from my routine, especially on days when I wasn't gaining any traction on my own problems.

As student interaction became more common, conversations started to shift away from research into areas that ranged from politics to musical preferences. While sharing our problems has declined (at least of the research variety), brain teasers have been on the rise. Many of these have been initiated by Prasad, so I thought I'd share a personal favorite from his collection.

Alice and Bob each roll a six-sided die. Each of them can only see the outcome of the other's roll. Without communicating with one another, Alice and Bob will each win a dollar if both of them correctly guess the outcome of their own rolls. If either Alice or Bob guesses incorrectly, neither wins anything. Is there a way for them to win with a probability of at least 1/6? The answer is yes, which they do by guessing the other person's die roll as their own. Note that if each of them simply guessed at random without looking at the other person's die, they would only win with probability 1/36.

Now suppose 1000 people each roll a six-sided die and observe the outcome of everyone else's roll. Without communicating with one another, they each win a dollar if all of them correctly guess the outcome of their own rolls. If any of them guesses incorrectly, none of them wins anything. Is there a way for them to win with a probability of at least 1/6?