Projected

It suddenly came as a realisation to be while walking up a flight of stairs that the word project has different meanings depending on the pronunciation. There's praw-ject, which is something that is undertaken over a period of time with some kind of definite end result, like a school collage on the Western Ghats or a never-ending project like the Bangalore Metro. Then there's pro-ject, which is to show something on a screen, like a projector screen. This project is also a synonym for forecasting, projected growth and the like.

Speaking of forecasting, the met department has projected good monsoon rains this time around after an unbearably hot summer that saw India record its highest temperature ever and likewise, my beloved Bengaluru city, renowned for cool, "salubrious" (I learnt that word from the wikipedia page on Bangalore) climate also recorded its highest ever temperature, touching a mind-boggling 39.2 degrees Celsius.

I know many of you (Punekars) are looking at that number and thinking - 39.2? That's hot? Well, that's simply how mellow the Bangalore summer is. There's many who say, "Oh, mumbo jumbo. It's so hot nowadays." Well, a city and its climate must pay for its awesomeness. The population explosion and all that has lead to an overall rise in temperatures recently, but where hasn't it? Which city, after all the concrete has supposedly ruined the weather, I ask, has better weather than Bangalore in the summer. Yes, Shimla, Darjeeling, Ooty, Kodaikanal, but here's two points. Those are meant to be so, they're hill stations, summer retreats. They're not burgeoning metropolises with immense potential for wealth and living. Those are weather specialists, Bangalore is so many many other things and on the side, as a bonus, excels in the weather department as well. And secondly, have you been to these places in the winter? Bangalore's winter is mellow as well. On average, I proudly maintain, and I will take a personal interest in refuting anyone who disagrees, Bangalore has India's best weather for a city proper.

So now that I'm through with going off on that tangent, let me come back to my main point - project. The reason weather is at the top of my head is because I'm currently "on a project" in Chennai, let us say a city that's not quite as famous as Bangalore for it's weather.

Look, I have nothing against the city now that Chennai Super Kings no longer exists so one doesn't have to speak to the fans of that particular franchise. It seems to be a nice place, buses and trains are cheap and timely, food is brilliant and the place I'm doing my project, my summer internship, the campus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, is unbelievable. It is actually a jungle, a veritable forest, the campus having been carved out of the Guindy National Park area, or so the IIT M website claims. And who, I ask you, lies on the internet?

The vegetation is thick and green and provides an omnipresent shade that almost nearly threatens to give you the impression of good weather for a few seconds at well chosen hours just before sunrise. Then there are the deer, roaming the streets with gay abandon.

My first impression when I heard "there are deer on the IIT Madras campus" was to presume that deep in the lush greenery, among the shrubs and the grass far away from the roads and the traffic, unseen but to the sharpest eyes, one could, if one was lucky, chance upon a deer or two grazing. When I first saw a deer, casually standing next to a gate while a man was busy at work a few yards away, I thought I was one among a blessed few to spot a deer at such close range within the campus. Now, I'd put the deer to dog ratio on campus as high as 7 or 8 while I'd put the human to deer ratio at as low as 15 or 20. And I tip my hat to the revolutionary person who, at the meeting that was probably convened to decide campus matters during the founding of the institute, said to the person from the National Park who was asking what is to be done with the animals, "You take out the leopards and the tigers and these other animals. Let the deer hang around." Just like that. And here they just hang around. It's going to be disappointing to go anywhere else in the country now and not see a deer or two every few yards.

The deer were not the only creatures left behind; monkeys can be found in good numbers on the campus. And I'm not talking of those monkeys who got into the hostel by scoring well in the JEE - I'm talking about the monkeys that got into the hostel because they can climb trees. On my first day, I was just climbing up the stairs of the hostel to find my new room when one a little monkey flashed past me. More strikingly, a nondescript trip to the toilet nearest to my study-desk found me in the same room as at least 8 monkeys who clambered out of the window upon seeing me enter. I cursed as I closed all the taps they'd opened.

Ok, where was I to begin with? Weather! Spoilt as I have been by Bangalore weather throughout my life, I immediately realised that this is to be the longest, hottest summer of my life. Mid-March to the end of April in Pune in a state that was firmly in the grips of a heat-wave, (a much much cooler) May in Bangalore and now June and July in Chennai for this project. Projected to be very hot during my project.

Now about my project. I'm studying something in cosmology, the study of the universe at the very largest scales. It's interesting that my interest in this subject was piqued by an introductory course in the same subject which to date remains the worst course I've taken. It was ill-organised, the syllabus was incoherent and the exams were scarcely believable and in the midst of all the hand-wringing and scrambling a mark here or two, the content of the course left some kind of imprint on me. Now if things progress as I hope they will, I see myself working on this subject for the majority of my life - on the foundation of a terribly conducted course.

I wasn't wholly sure of the subject to begin with. On my second day, I asked my advisor, a professor in the Department of Physics at IIT Madras (obviously) a string of perhaps three to four questions in his office. He spluttered for a mili-second, looked around, smiled resignedly as he decided to take it from the beginning and said, "Sit down, let me tell you a few things about the universe." The line was kind of epochal - anything that follows from that line, however lacking in substance and meaning by itself, will be seen as deep and insightful when it follows that line. Sit down. Let me tell you something about the universe. Here's the thing about the universe - it's a potato.

And as he told me the things about the universe, things a little more subtle than it being a potato, I knew that I wasn't in the wrong place, if not the right place. And so my project goes on.