India Wrapup Part 1: Bangalore City Walk

Evening, Sacramento May 3^rd, 2010

Dear Reader-

The conference is over, I’m home, living and working the Sacramento – Davis circuit. I feel I owe you more about India – some sort of take away message, something to sum it up so you can carry a small piece with you. After talking about my trip with friends, and printing all my pictures, I’ve realized how quickly India is fading from my senses. How fast I can slip back into happy routine. Let’s first try and remember some things for you and for me... then we’ll discuss reintegration into California life.

My last day in the city- Bangalore City.

Rebecca agreed to give me her tour of the city, goals were set: Walk Cubon park, see the red government building, shop the city market and visit the bull temple. By this time I was feeling experienced, the idea of walking the city without a guild was invigorating rather than intimidating (see first India entry for contrast). I took the shuttle to the IISC campus and met with Rebecca for a coffee starter. Sitting with my coffee, being the only foreigners among the crowd of Indian students I caught a taste of fame. I (we) felt a bit famous... and yes... it remained unsaid, but we carried that though the day. Try and pick out some examples of my inflated ego in the next paragraphs dear reader.

Autorickshaw to the government builds. Courthouse is red. Strong wine-brick red. No I know nothing of its history, why the city is proud of the color. Have a look at the picture for yourself. The government building has a nice quote on the front – “Government work is God's work”. There was a small crowd of local visitors, fruit sellers and camera men mulling around. The only solictation we recieved was from an auto driver who wanted to offer a tour of the bull temple for 40 Ru’s. He followed us for some time, and we thought to take him up on it, but when we sat in the back of the auto he announced that we’d have to stop for gas and to have a look at his friends shop... Bee rolled her eyes and whispered “scam”. We politely excused ourselves. After a sugarcane drink (probably not wise for my foreign stomach) and a fruit basket (30 Ru’s of Tasty!) we walked through Cubon park.

This is the city park. Bangalore is called “The Garden City”, I’ve seen a lot of trash here, not a lot of garden, but Cubon park was a step in the garden direction. Like my dorm and the JNC campus it had a feel of nature overgrowth. Something like the paths-less-traveled in central park, NYC. Exotic birds. Packs of happy dogs. A colonial gazebo – yes it really reeked of British good taste. It was here I started taking the photos through my sunglasses – so you can see as I see dear reader. Please realize that it’s not just a walk in the local park to me, but a statement about history and values in the Garden City. The park’s a nice place, but looks like it’s more popular with the birds and dogs.

We auto’d to the city market! Reader, I had no idea what the city market would be like: maybe a street of little shops with people buying vegetables and crafts. Try now and imagine yourself. Good. The auto deposited us at the convergence of 3 streets and a rotary, on my right was a big dusty lot of a bus depot. People, motos, autos, fruit, cows & crafts converged and crossed. Getting out of the auto was a bit like plunging into that pool of coldish water – you know you’ll be fine and start to enjoy it, but the first few seconds are a shock. Bee and I made our way to some sort of island in the middle of the convergence. It’s very hot, humid and I’m wearing my cool traveler shades & red shoes. Bee asks some young girls where the city market is, they point in the direction of a large building peaking out of a dense crowd of people and shops across the road convergence. At first the building vaguely reminds me of the Fleet Center in Boston before the big dig: a large building surrounded emerging from the underworld streets. As we get closer, the market theickens with flowers, dried chillis, sweets, cows, cookware. Closer still and then I realize that the building is the market, not the vendors outside. Then the explosives go off and smoke and drums fill in the crowd at the buildings entrance. We learn that a commissioner or consult is visiting the market. People are rushing in to touch him and talk to him, it’s more of a mob than a political rally. Later we learn that this politician is pushing to take the street vendors off the street outside the market – the desired result would be to get more people into the market. I can see how this could be a problem... there’s lots of people and excitement at the foot of the market, not like the inside...

We head inside after picture taking, it’s much calmer inside. Everyone seems to be focused outside or on the politician. Alleys of small shops surround interior atriums. You can look over the banisters up and down and see that there are three levels of shops. The lighting is dim, flickering, it smells of dust and flowers on this floor. Natural light is filtered through baskets, bedframes, cooking tools, fabrics and sewing machines. It bounces off mirrors and small groups of children. They play around us, then ask (almost force with cuteness) for us to take their pictures. What a pleasant experience after the storm outside. Business is slow today so shop owners take the time ask us the usual questions- what country are you from? Is this your first time to India? Bee and I make a funny pair – the Brit lady and American chap – she tall & fair, I tall & bearded, both curious, neither fat & loud. Eyes follow us as we explore the building; after bartering for a bracelet with a red turbaned man we head upstairs. . The third floor is dedicated to tools and mechanical parts. There seem to be many stores selling the same thing – drills, drill bits, wrenches, tools and more tools. I ended up buying a 14/15mm wrench and a nice pair of wire cutters for a total of ~$7. We got into a conversation with the shop owner who sold me the wire cutters. We were offered tea, my suspicions that he was a Muslim were confirmed. He explained the philosophy of the 3^rd floor shop owner – how can we (all tool shops) sell almost the same thing? God will send us costumers if it is his will. It’s his genuine faith that God will provide him with enough sales. What a large step away from capitalist philosophy! Reader – glace the picture of us together... see my forced smile and his earnestness.

Bee and I departed the city market for a walk to the bull (Nandi) temple. We thought to walk because walking the way to live the city. The walk was fruitful, Bee bought apples, men pee’d in outdoor toilets, we talked with youth making signs (picture please) and got caught in the rain. Smooth stone steps with large brass railing led us up to the temple and the rain lessened as we ascended. A small square with small vendor, platform shrine to snake god, and shoe keeper greeted us. Shoe deposit. The bull temple is deserted for the moment. One priest greats us, we’re blessed. This large Nandi (bull) is one that Shiva rode. It’s form is sitting, with a white eye and flowers around its neck. We can take a walk around it, past a small Ganesh, and back to the front. Rain soaked, blessed, we take a rest on the nearby stone platforms as a small family enters. There’s also a temple devoted to Ganesh – elephant god of wisdom and intellect, patron of arts and sciences just down the hill. With Ganesh I make an earnest attempt at prayer, something about getting though grad school, staying focused, keeping my mind open... Actually it’s a little difficult. I’m not in the habit of prayer, and I feel out of place in this temple, but the atmosphere here is sincere and so are my intentions.

That’s the end of Bangalore city for me dear reader. I made it back and slept some hours before picking up a cab to the airport. This entry has lasted longer then I intended. I owe you another two: first about the science and second about returning to life back in California. Please be patient dear reader, they’re both inside me I’ll have to let them out sometime soon.

Afternoon Village Walk, Morning Talks

Afternoon April 24, 2010

Today the summer school on ‘emergent properties and novel behavior at the nanoscale’ came to a close. We begin the 2-day conference portion on Monday, and I leave India on the following Friday. Let me begin this entry with some notes about my journey last night into the village which surrounds the institute. I’ll follow with notes from the conference.

Ozge (my Turkish student friend) and I left around 6 PM on foot. I wanted to find an ATM and buy some wears, however my real goal (and hers too I think) was to see life in the suburbs of India. Pictures will tell most of the story here, so please take a look below. For the most part people stared a bit at us, but then went about their business. Unlike the historical sites, we weren’t approached by any hawkers (sometimes called toots), and after getting used to my surroundings I felt fairly safe. Trash... there’s so much trash around; you forget about it after a couple of minutes but it’s very alarming to my western senses. Along with trash, the density of people and vehicles moving around you is a bit dizzying, but you get used to the dance. That is to say, you learn how to move with the traffic and people. It’s not a choice really, or you’d get run over.

We stopped at some little shops along our way up the street. At our first stop I was attracted to some large colored mounds of powder and at first I thought they were selling spices like Turmeric. The shopper keepers didn’t speak much English, but an old woman nearby did and she explained that the shop sold things for prayer. The spice mounds were indeed turmeric, but not for consumption, but for the bindi marks. She also told me that turmeric is used for many medicinal purposes in India as well. It’s quickly taking the place as cumin, my current favorite spice.

Further up the hill we stopped at a whole sale banana shop (see photo). Father and son together with bananas. They were very friendly, and gave both myself and Ozge a free sample. I also found a cookware shop where I picked up some small kitchen utensils and a toy shop where I looked for games (only the basics, no Catan or Agricolia...) but settled for batteries (4 AA for ~$2.20). We went a bit further and then took an auto-rickshaw back down the hill to the institute (~$0.20).

Great experience of life in the suburbs.

Some conference notes-

Tamar Seideman from Northwestern begin the day with a talk about spectroscopy and theory at in nanoscale molecular devices. Specifically she was interested in electron and rotational transitions, and their effect on charge transfer. One technique which I found interesting used a two pulse laser and a molecule with two benzene rings. The first laser pulse is used to stop the free rotation of the rings and align them. The second is to measure the electronic transitions. I later asked her if this idea could be applied to the diffraction in the solid state for atoms with large thermal parameters. The answer was yes, if the alignment field could “beat” the atomic displacement forces.

The second talk was by the advisor of Manoj (who’s been a great student host), S.M. Shivaprasad. He spoke in great depth about GaN growth on sapphire with molecular beam epitaxy. The theme of lattice mismatch came up again (it was discussed in Jermey Levy’s talk). He explained different surface growth mechanisms and showed some really nice images of nanostructures. Three main factor determine the growth structure: (1) substrate temperature: will the atoms stay on the lattice? (2) Deposition rate: frequency of atoms “meeting” each other on the lattice and (3) presence of dangling bonds: ~surface energy differences between Al2O3 and Si for example. It was a fast, but informative talk. What’s the most impressive about his research is that they can monitor the growth In Situ with SEM and XPS. Yeah cool right?

Historical Sites & Friday Morning Talks

Post lunch- April 23^th, 2010

Notes on Yesterday’s Field Trip

There’s lots of cover in this installment of my blog, many things have happened since I last wrote. Most vivid (and probably most interesting for the general reader) is our day trip to some historical sites. There could be lots to say here but I’ll let the pictures do the talking and just leave you with some brief notes.

We departed from the campus around 7:00 AM in an air conditioned coach, after picking up some more students, we drove out of the city center. My seat companion on this trip is a charming British woman named Rebecca , she’s the tall white girl in some of the pictures. It was refreshing to have someone to talk about politics, music, environmental issues... the list goes on... and it does, what a long journey!

We visited three historical sites, of which none I can name off the top of my head. All date around the 17^th century and are temples. It was rare for us to see foreign tourists at any of these sites, they’re mostly visited by the locals. Also to note is that whenever one emerges from our attention-grabbing tour bus (I am quite conspicuous in India) a group of hawkers surrounds and tries to sell their wares – maps, crafts, old coins, flutes , even wire puzzles. They are pushy but friendly and I didn’t feel threatened by them. In fact, it was quite enjoyable to talk with them about their things. But this got me into a little bit of trouble, they thought my interest meant they were going to make a sale. In one case and man was trying to sell me old coins, he kept following me around, even after I had left him at the gates to spend an hour looking at a temple (hawkers are not allowed inside the historical sites). There he was just as I exited, so I gave in and bought an old British coin off him.

Overall the day was a big adventure full of lots of pictures, conversations with locals and hot feet (you can’t wear shoes in the temples). It was amazing, but the 4 hour ride home was long and exhausting. I bought two figurines, a nandi (bull) and an elephant (for mom, shhhhh...) as well as a mortar and pestle. We returned around 11:30 and after a cold shower I quickly fell asleep.

Notes on This Mornings Talks

It’s been a stimulating morning. Anna Pairelli from Parma University in Italy. Spoke about spectroscopy and calculations for organic chromphores. A great speaker, I followed most of her talk. She focused on linking the experimental measurements (mostly UV absorbance and fluorescence) and the theory. One portion which stood out for me was her work with a molecule which contained a ferrocene sandwich linked to a chromophore. She modeled the polarized state by showing how the surrounding molecules in the crystal reduced the activation energy for the electron transfer.

Deepa Khushaani gave a nice talk about synthetic routes to TiO_2­ nanowires for use in dye sensitized organic solar cells. The basic process is the hydration of Ti Glycolate wires. She presented a series of PXRD patterns at different temperatures showing the formation of TiO₂ – To optimize this system you want to have as maximize conductivity and surface area (dye is attached to surface) – so singly crystal wires would be ideal.

Concluding – Jeremy Levy gave a great talk about making transistors with SrTiO₃ with AFM. The science was great, but even better was that he used some great animations and even passed around an “etch-a-sketch” toy at one point. The system he was working with is the interface of LaAlO₃ and SrTiO₃ – alone these phases are insulators, but when there is a thin layer of LaAlO₃ (3 unit cells I think) the interface between the phases becomes conductive. One last thing to note: He made analogy to the universe as a giant computational engine. (Past) <-->(future) : past and future can be thought of as “memory” states and the processor which changes them is the laws of physics. Mmm.... meta physical...

On to dinner. Expect another post about my exciting evening excursion into the village.

Talks & Thoughts, First Day

Evening – Just before dinner April 19^th, 2010

Day 1 is coming to a close, just dinner left to conquer. Despite technical difficulties: flights delayed from the ashen sky and power fluctuations, we had a pretty interesting day of talks. The conference opened with some comments from the directors, mostly generic, but CNR Rao said something which stuck with me (a little paraphrasing), “People read too many papers, then think everything’s been done. Then they don’t do anything new. Don’t read too much!” I took this as encouragement to just try the experiments and not to worry if someone else might be out there about too scoop you. Later I spoke with Alex a large rugged man and professor in Finland, sort of a Jim Morrison type, and a theorist. He agreed with CNR on the matter, we further confirmed that its quite rare these days that a subject is so “hot” that you may get scooped on a paper. Most people’s work is different enough that it would be more valuable to have two papers published (maybe the impact of one suffers a bit) rather than choosing not to pursue a project.

The day continued with five talks, all with some theoretical component. K.N. Ganesh spoke about using DNA as a templating agent for nanoparticles. The self assembly of DNA in nature is well renowned, however emergent super-molecular structures can be formed with the addition of hydrophilic/hydrophobic ligands such as CTAB. Not too surprising (probably well know already). But, he goes further by showing that the addition of AgNO₃ can be used to incorporate silver into the structure, the particles can then be deposited on a surface by evaporating the organic solvent. But where and how do the Ag⁺ ions form nanoparticles? Daniel Cox had to speak via tele-conference, he had some sort of injury which prevented him from traveling. Funny right? No not about getting injured, but because I he was probably back in Davis and I was in India.... Well he gave a nice talk about amyloid matter, protein structures which are disordered so you can’t get crystal structures. He say’s they’re kinda like protein yarn balls. These amyloids are present in some forms of spider silk, but we’re mostly concerned with them because of their presence in the development of life threatening diseases such as Alzheimer’s. He has developed some theoretical models to describe the formation of these structures Well, it was a bit a reach for me as a solid state chemist, but it was a good talk. The last few talks dove deeper into theory... hard to follow even for Alex. Notably, Balasubramerian gave some amazing gestures (see picture) and a pretty nice talk about ionic liquids. S.D. Das tried to follow suit with intense gestures and a sort of run-way model style of lecture, but his talk was so deeply entrenched in mathematical models, his motions just became a distraction and a joke. Big ups to Waghmare for trying to make the theory accessible to the masses.

Apart from the talks, I spent some time with an Italian student, Lucca, discussing how these Indians don’t drink and they don’t even leave the campus. Furthermore, they say they work Monday to Sunday and even after dinner, but he pointed out that they are very casual about it all and rather inefficient. Lucca has never heard of “Bang” the Italian spaghetti western card game that I have and love. He did tell me that Parmajean cheese is named after the city where he lives, Parma. Word!

There needs to be a post about conference do’s and don’ts according to JHR... soon dear reader, soon.

Some short notes on the pictures- We keep having meals in this pavilion, I’m not really feeling it. These are the cooks... The campus is full of nature! And cleaning people. There are butterflies everywhere. These kids were really excited to let me take their picture and their English was great!

Good, thanks for reading. Enjoy the pics!

Pictures - Breakfast Cooks, Waterfall near the conference hall, Funky Statue near the hall, Cleaning the steps, Flowers, Balasubramerian gesture, trapped butterfly, future cricket pros

Evening Tea, Conference Morning

Well dear reader, yesterday I left you in the morning –with a full day ahead of me –let me fill you in on its details.
I had been feeling quite apart from the life here, there are many friendly students living in this building, but like grad students anywhere in the world, they are not eminently sociable. I spent some time walking about, trying to catch a photo of one of the many exotic butterflies I’ve seen. Here is a picture of the walkway where I was sitting under a palm. To make some connections I took it upon myself to go have lunch in the dinning area to try to become a bit more sociably approachable. My plan backfired though. As I was getting in line for food a nice Nigerian student informed me that there is a special lunch in a nearby pavilion for the conference students. And off I went. There I met Manjo and Arun, grad student and post doc. We ate together, talked about science, India, California and compared cricket to baseball. Manjo gave me a tour of the labs in the institute. He works in MBE, so he impressed me with his ultra high vacuum (UHV) instruments. A notable point was that they clean the surface of silicon substrates by flashing at 1200 C under UHV. Then they can watch the deposition of gallium nitride on to the surface and observe its nanostructures. Very nice, pretty difficult work I think.
Later that afternoon, just before dinner, I went out with Arun and another student to have some tea just outside the campus. Here they are sitting and eating out samosas and tea (really chai). Both very good. We were pretty close to campus but it was exciting to have stepped outside for a moment. In the final picture below you can see the table where we sat. Across the street is the campus and the spot where I took the photo looking though the gate in my last blog post.
I played some afternoon badmitten, which was terribly fun. Not such a terrible performance on my part, I think experience with squash helped me there, but the students were pretty good. More games to come I’m sure.
Off to breakfast. First day of the school. Better get going.

Entry to Bangalore & JNCASR

17 April 17, 2010

.Student Guest Hostel @ JNCASR – Bangalore, India

.I arrived by car last night at 4 AM and since then I’ve slept about 3 hours. It’s 9 AM now and already over 80 F outside. From what I can tell the JNCASR campus is outside of the main city center of Bangalore. It’s surrounded by a brink and clay wall and has casual guards at its gates. The first and most striking feature of this place is its integration with nature. The dorm building are open to the outside, there’s skylights, palm-like trees and spreads of red clay like dirt though out the complex. Many tresses and stairs lead to different (and the same) parts of the building. I found clay badmitten(?) courts, and a pingpong table but I’ve also found discarded industrial cables, bicycles and masonry supplies. It’s clear that this place is developing still.

.Breakfast was delicious. Really tasty, just want I was hoping for. Thick black Turkish style coffee (with milk and sugar) went well with crepe-like dough hugging some curry potato onion dish. Two dipping sauces, one strong with coriander the other a clear tomato based broth accompanied. I read “The Hindu” newspaper – there were minor terrorist explosions yesterday in Bangalore connected with a big cricket match (Bangalore vs. Mumbai), no deaths, some minor injuries and the match went on. Still, I’m a little afraid to leave the JNCASR campus. This morning I met another PHd student (there seem to be many living here), he even suggested I don’t go out by myself. We’ll see how restless I get today...:)

Tomorrow the conference starts. I’m sure I’ll get some more information about this place then. Hopefully I can go out to the city to get some nice photos... photos for you dear reader!

.Cheers!

.JR

Pictures: (Top to Bottom) – My room, Campus Courts, Breakfast, Entrance sign (from behind gate), Industrial Cable.