Reply from Dr. Mahbub Majumdar

I've already posted about a letter about Dr. Mahbub Majumdar a few days ago. And many of us were frustated and enraged about the content of the letter. Almost all the bangladesh related groups and newsletters were flooded debating about the topic of the letter. So it came to the attention of Dr. Mahbub Majumdar himself. Here is the reply I received from him about the matter :

Dear Friends,

I was very surprised and deeply embarrassed to find that a partial transcription of a confidential University of Dhaka job interview of mine was published on the internet.

While there are some elements of truth in the emailed story, there are also some egregious inaccuracies. For example, Professor Aminur Rashid, Chairman of the Physics Department supported me at every step and was extremely kind to me.

I ask those of you are outraged by this event to channel your frustration in a productive manner. If Bangladesh is to survive as a nation, then it requires those of you who have gone abroad and become experts in various fields to at some point return to Bangladesh to do whatever you can with regard to teaching, research, business etc.
You may sometimes face humiliating rejection like me, but there are enough good people in this country who will appreciate you, support you and try to help turn your dreams into reality.

For instance, we hope to soon establish an independent Mathematical Sciences Institute which will cater to the very brightest students and researchers in Bangladesh. This is my dream. Many have offered their help, and I hope all of you will also be my partners to make this a reality.

Best wishes,

Mahbub Majumdar
____________________________________________________
National Coach of the Bangladesh Mathematical Olympiad Team


I wish everyone of us would be so dedicated and patriotic. I wish him every success in his life.

Filed Under : Bangladesh, Education.

The zoo

After BUET was given sine die last june, we planned a 3 day dhaka tour for the vacation. The basic plan was to visit memorable places and monuments of dhaka. Day 1 consisted of visiting architecturial monuments of old dhaka like Ahsan monjil, Lalbagher kella, Choto katra , Boro katra. But I missed the first day of our tour as I went to jessore. Day 2 was for Dhaka zoo and botanical garden. So after this eid we thought lets visit these two. We weren't too optimistic about dhaka zoo mainly because we heard and read numerous stories of corruption of zoo officials in newspapers. But in reality we were quite pleased with the zoo environment. It was comperatively clean and some of the animals were really lively. Perhaps it was due to Eid. Or we became too pessimist before visiting the zoo.

Without further ado I present you a few pictures of that day I took...

These deers (Chitrol horin) were curious at us.

We visited him just after his lunch , when he went out for a walk.

This white peacock was very beautiful.

I forgot his name. can any one help?

We tried to scare the peacock so that we could see it's tail (the beautiful plumage). But it didn't give a shit :(

The maya horin was very friendly

The sambar was taking a rest..

Kakatua (Macaw?)

This python had just had it's lunch.. Look at it's mid section..

These pelicans were too far away for my point and shoot camera. I was missing an SLR :( . You'll have to look at the higher resolution image to see the pelicans. Click the image to see them.

Now as you've completed reading it, it's no harm to check this one now from mezba bhai.

Filed Under : Personal, Travel, Dhaka zoo, Bangladesh.

A painful funny story

I received this mail today. I don't know whether it's authenticate or not, but if it's true then it's a very sad incident. I am sharing the mail with you just as I received it but without giving the details of the sender :

Hi everyone,

I heard something today that I can't avoid sharing with all the people I know. The subject of the story is a senior friend of mine: Dr. Mahbub Majumdar. Mahbub bhai did his undergrad from MIT (electrical eng), an MSc from Stanford (civil eng) and PhD from Cambridge (theoretical physics, string-cosmology) . After PhD he had many offers but chose to do a post-doctoral fellowship at Imperial College (London) since he wanted to stay in England (by the way, in England, imperial college is the best place after Cambridge and Cambridge has a rule of not taking their own student as post-doc). I met Mahbub bhai and I can simply say that I never met anybody in my life so modest, honest and compassionate as Mahbub bhai. Just to give an example, Mahbub bhai received US$ 1000 per year forbooks as a part of his presidential scholarship. He used to spend this money buying books for Dhaka university library.

During his post doctoral years Mahbub bhai made frequent visits to Bangladesh and worked as a coach for the Bangladesh math Olympiad team. Only those who are involved with the hectic field of high energy physics knows what sacrifice this means.

Anyway, to our great surprise, Mahbub bhai (who was born and brought up in USA and can't even speak bangla very fluently) decided to join the Dhaka University Physics department as a faculty and failed to get any position. Today I heard what happened during the interview.

The "interview" was taken by Yusuf Haider, Badrul Alam and Aminur Rashid (I decided not to use any Sir after their name and comment on their character). During the interview they first raised question about Mahbub bhai's certificate from Stanford. The certificate showed the name of the university as Leland Stanford Junior University. The interviewers suspected that this is not the Stanford university
they heard of. At some point somebody suggested that they can look it up in the internet (you can do that too and make sure to take a look at seal of the university).

Then they asked him to write down the Maxwell's equations. Mahbub bhai wrote it down with exterior derivatives in one line (most useful and elegant form for theoretical physicists). The interviewers did not understand what he wrote and asked him to write it again. Mahbub bhai now wrote it with tensor notation. The interviewers again found it incomprehensible and asked for it again. At some point Mahbub bhai wrote all four Maxwell equations in a form understandable for first year physics students and everybody was happy.

Then the interviewers expressed their concern whether Mahbub bhai will be able to take care of first-second year labs since he does not have "relevant" experience. At some point, they asked him whether he read the advertisement properly and pointed out that they require the candidate to have a BSc in physics whereas Mahbub bhai has a bachelor in electrical engineering. Therefore, the interviewers decided that Mahbub bhai is not qualified to become a faculty of DU physics.

A senior friend of mine (who told me the story) commented: "I am happy that Mahbub did not get the job. It is good for his career. But I am sad for Bangladesh. "

===================
Filed Under : Bangladesh, Education, Dhaka University, Physics.

Enlightenment

Yesterday when my cousin Sakib knocked me over MSN and sent me a track, I first came to know about 'Enlightment' . Sakib and two of his friends practices music at home and call themselves together as 'Enlightenment' . Well I was surprised to see the similiarity with ' Ondhokar Theke Alor Pothe ' i.e. this blog title, perhaps it's in our gene.

So here's the track Fall in love by enlightment. Sakib downloaded the music from internet and records the song over it in his house i.e. the floor below ours. So he would like to hear your feedbacks about the song. I hope you'll like it. So download the song and post your feedback here after listening to it.

On a completely different topic, Sheikh hasina has shown maturity (certainly enlightened) by giving the president a few days time to prove his neutrality. I thank her for that. But if she had shown the same thing for k. m. hasan then a few lives (at least 20) would be still breathing. Perhaps this political unrest of bangladesh compelled this cockroach (picture below) to commit suicide in my hot bathing water...



Filed Under : Personal, Mp3.

Tensed

I don't know if everyone's aware of what's happening currently in dhaka. Well in a word the situations is TENSED. According to awami league they are fighting for people's demand and rights, according to BNP they are protecting people's constituional rights and guess who's suffering? Yeap the same people. And who's to blame? Ofcourse these two arrogant ladies.

Everyone's afraid and staying at home. Well not me. I had to went out for a couple of occassion. And believe me I've never seen dhaka this way. I've seen dhaka in awami league's oborodh times in 95-96. I've seen dhaka in numerous hortals, but never the streets were so empty. My father who's posted at jessore must need to leave dhaka today, so I've to go out again to take him to the airport the only way to get in to or out from dhaka. I don't know what's coming.

Both parties have taken K M hasan issue as their ego. So there's no looking back now. The country has devided into awami league and bnp and fighting everywhere. Even they've ransacked BSMRMC (former PG hospital) at shahbagh. For a country like us this type of things is really very unfortunate. Why don't they understand? Because everyone wants the power. They are just fighting so that they could gain power for the next five years and do whatever they want like they did during their regime.

Now I think common people like me are ready to embrace marshall law. Although there's rumour that K M hasan refused to become the chief. I hope it's true. The only seemingly solution. President Iaz uddin has called Jalil and manna bhuyan to his office at bongobhobon. Let's see what's happening next...

And pray for me 'cause I'm now going to the airport :)

Good luck to myself.....

Update : It took only 27minutes exactly for me to go to airport and returned back home at mohammudpur. For the first time in my life I'vent seen any bus on the street. Only a few cars, ambulances, CNG autorickshaws were there. And rickshaws outnumberred all others.

Update 2:There's been a problem with blogger which prevented me from posting. :( I hope the issues fixed now.
Filed Under : Politics, Bangladesh.

The mysterious phone call

Yesterday night my internet connection was causing problems, so I was watching desperate housewives' 2nd season (thanks to Sheetal). Suddenly the phone rang. It was around 3am . So I was startled to hear the phone ringing. Anyway I picked up the phone. It was a girl. Lets call her X. And the conversation begun...

Me: Hello Assalamu alaikum
X: Walaikum assalam

Me: Whom do you want?
X: You ofcourse.

Me: Who's this?
X: Guess?

Me: umm (thinking) T? [Sidenote: T was one of my students. I taught her for one and a half years, but when I suspected that she might have a feeling for me, I quitted. It was about 3 years ago. And I'm pretty much sure about this caller that it was T]
X: Who's T?

Me: Don't play games with me.
X: I am not kidding, so T's your girlfriend right?

Me:haha So who are you?
X: I am M. But why T's name came into your mind, were you thinking of her?

Me: I don't know any M
X: I am your friend, we met at BUET.

Me: If you are my friend then why are you calling me by 'apni'?
X: Ok I'll tell you who I am , if you admit that you love T.

Me: Listen if you can't convince me about who you are, i'm going to hang up.
X: If you hang up, then I'll call again.

Me: You can call as many times as you wish, but I won't talk.
X: Please just say that you love T. I won't tell anyone.

Me: I don't love T. Okay sorry I'm going to hang up now.
X: Please don't.

Me: Then tell me who you are.
X: I am M.

Me: Okay good night. (click : I hung up...)

Man I miss caller id :(

Filed Under : Personal, Ramblings, Story.