Dear friends, Hope you are all well and enjoying your Valentine’s evening.  This was a rather warm 
week. A bit of spring in the middle of winter.  As I was walking to work on Monday much of the ice had 
vanished from the lake and the lake was rather calm and liquid. It seemed many of the birds also had 
left but then I spotted a little bit of ice at the far end of the lake and a whole flock of birds was 
congregating there. Nevertheless it looks like there are fewer birds in the lake this year.  Audobon 
society’s latest survey indicates that due to global warming many birds are wintering further and 
further north each year. 
Walking across campus sometimes I see ring-billed gulls and Canada geese walking around. I wonder 
where these birds get the intelligence to know where to go and when to leave. They seem to be 
pretty content with their lives, and somehow survive and thrive in spite of all the changes we have 
caused in their (and our) world. Let us hope we learn from them.

Yours,
Sankar
Random Thoughts (73)
February 14, 2009
1. (Thu, 2/5) This evening I was on the metro train going to American university. It was rush hour and 
the coach was packed with people. Someone must have released some foul gas and I had to hold my 
nose. Suddenly all I could think of was this mass of biological machines full of all sorts of gases and 
fluids emanating into the surrounding air and it made me rather uncomfortable about being with other 
human beings. But later that night I was going home on the bus and there was this scruffy black man 
with a big grin on his face and I felt like I could hug him in spite of his obvious lack of hygiene. But of 
course I would have to make sure he doesn’t smell bad.
2. (fri, sat 2/6 & 2/7) Mindfulness in education conference, Philadelphia.  I took the train to 
Philadelphia. It turned out to be cheaper than two days of rental car. Also got me to the conference 
hall faster than a car or bus would have.  Just to show how efficient it was, here is the sequence 
leading to my arrival at the lecture hall: Friday evening I left my class at 4.15pm. Took the 79 and the 
circulator bus, getting to Union station by 4.45pm. Used the restroom, scanned the print-out from 
Amtrak.com at the self-service kiosk to get tickets, bought dinner at the “Rice bowl” downstairs, and 
was on my seat by 5pm. The train left promptly at 5.05pm, finished grading the test for calculus by 
6pm, had dinner and wrote diary. Train arrived at Philadelphia 30th street station by 6.55pm. Walked to 
U.Penn school of communications and arrived by 7.15 at Zellerbach theater for the 7.30pm talk by Jon 
Kabat-Zinn. Not only did I save time, avoid the stress of driving in traffic and the burning of petroleum, 
I also had a nice comfortable seat to sit and relax and got some work done. Hooked on the train now! 
It was a long week and I was a little tired and looked forward to some quiet and solitude, just as I had 
enjoyed on the train to Harper’s ferry. But this time there was a lot of conversation going on. (Should 
have gotten into the quiet car). One lady was talking non-stop on her cell-phone and a couple of guys 
settled down with their Corona extras and spent the whole time shooting the breeze. The views 
alternated between warehouses, industrial lots, city streets with a few wooded buffer zones in 
between, and several bridges over rivers and bays. At Baltimore a lady got in and sat next to me. She 
was quite apologetic, saying that there weren’t any more vacant rows of seats. I was less than gracious 
and didn’t really talk to her. I felt a little annoyed that she interrupted the solitude and also wondered 
to myself if she chose me because I looked the least likely to complain, since there were many other 
people she could have sat next to. Later I felt ashamed of my conduct.  Not only was she apologetic, I 
ought to feel good that she chose me. Moreover, one ought to be grateful for any company at any 
time, not just when it is convenient. So I asked her about her work, whether she was able to get 
internet on her laptop. She said she saved all her emails on her hard-drive and worked on them 
offline. Now there, I even learned something new!
Mr. Kabat-Zinn’s talk was very enlightening. While I didn’t really learn any new concepts, that was not 
the purpose of his talk, really. What I learned or was reminded of was the need to be mindful every 
moment. Lately I have been making excuses, saying there was too much going on, too much stress, 
fatigue, low blood sugar and whatnot. But the beauty of mindfulness is that it is possible to be calm 
even in the midst of all that. Moreover, if one is mindful one avoids much stress and physical and 
mental ailments. In Sanskrit there is a word called “satsang.” It means “good company” literally. You 
are supposed to learn something just by being in the presence of a Guru or a wise one. So it was that 
Mr. Kabat-Zinn showed me a spark of the divine. The talk ended with a rather brazen show of love and 
affection by WHYY radio personality Dan Gottleib towards Mr. Kabat-Zinn. I was touched by it as well 
as the way in which Mr. Kabat-Zinn responded. I was also encouraged by the uninhibited and 
energetic, free-flowing way in which he conducted himself. Too often people confuse mindfulness or 
spirituality with a certain deathly silence or calm. True spirituality brings a lot of joy and energy. 
Friday night I stayed at the Bank street youth hostel. My friends Alan and Lindy who were there for 
the talk were kind enough to drop me. I spent a bit of time in the lounge area finishing my diary 
writing. People were watching “Borat-Borat” DVD on the TV. I couldn’t help laughing at it, though it 
was a guilty pleasure given how gratuitously offensive it was. I don’t agree with deliberately offending 
people no matter how disagreeable they might be. Went to bed around 11.30 but could barely sleep. I 
was in a dorm room with 12 other beds, all guys. One of them was an old man, probably in his 
seventies. (Incidentally he was the culprit behind “Borat-Borat”). There was a motion detector light 
just behind me. Everytime someone entered or exited the room or even made a motion reaching 
beyond the frame of the bed the light would go on and off. The old guy kept running to the bathroom 
throughout the night. Couple of guys came in at 3 am. (They probably sleep until noon). I woke up at 6. 
Must have slept barely 5 hours, that too very fitfully. Due to the fatigue the blood sugar must have 
dropped because the brain felt like it would go haywire any moment. But by now I had gotten used to 
these episodes and learned to ignore them and not get anxious. Perhaps I am getting too old for youth 
hostels. The fun factor is being overwhelmed by the inconvenience factor. But then again, considering 
that the old man was staying there, maybe I am not :-) 
Around 6.30 I started walking to U.Penn. It was great to walk in the dawn. I enjoyed the mix of old and 
new in Philadelphia – the streets as well as the buildings, though sometimes things were a bit 
incongruous. There were banks of snow on the sides of the streets. But unlike DC they seem to get a 
lot more snow here, know how to take care of it and even better the thing doesn’t melt and refreeze, 
so there is no ice. The sidewalks were cleaned of snow and easy to walk on. Arrived at the conference 
hall by 7.25 and helped with registration. The morning talks were very informative, as were the 
sessions on using mindfulness in teaching university students. I had a good 15 minute nap in an empty 
auditorium during lunch time that helped to clear the brain a bit. The conference itself was very 
calming, and that also helped me in recovering. I also came out with a lot of new ideas. In fact I started 
right away. On Monday I told my students I am going to have a study session (outside of class) each 
week starting with a 15 minute meditation. For the first 10 or 12 years at Howard I had kept my life at 
Howard very separate from my life outside. But a few years ago, inspired by Tara Brach of IMCW and 
Richard Brady (who organized the conference) of WMC I started thinking about how I can use my 
interests in meditation and hiking at Howard. Now that I have started trying out both, I feel even more 
interested in my work, because I think this way I will be able to make a real difference in the lives of 
the students. There is a real need for modern day college students to connect with nature as well as 
with their inner selves, given all the distractions in their lives. Moreover, learning math requires much 
focus and discipline. Meditation is one thing that can help enormously in bringing those two qualities. 
In the evening I walked through the beautiful campus to the train station. I looked in vain for some ivy 
but found none :-) I realized that the times that I was most mindful during the past 24 hours were the 
moments when the brain was most feeble and I had to fight to stay alert. Basically I had to focus on 
being alert and hence I was focused. It also showed me that there is something in the human being 
that is beyond the superficial mind, beyond the physiological and thought processes, that is able to 
keep everything in balance when the superficial brain is too weak to do so. When the brain was 
energetic it started running around in all directions and I started spending more time looking at the 
women in the room than listening to the lectures.
3. These days I have very little patience with egoistic or pretentious people (luckily the conference had 
few of those and even the ones who were, apparently had left their ego and pretense at the door). 
Perhaps because such people bring out my own ego and pretense. Nevertheless, one needs to learn 
to deal with all kinds of people with compassion, in a real and not forced way. Because once you peel 
away the thin layers of ego and pretense, you see the beauty and specialness. 
4. I learned many things about life, particularly health and nutrition, from the old lady Roberta in 
Pasadena in whose house I rented a room for a year. One thing I wish I had learnt was that I had a 
problem with blood glucose levels. She kept telling me that I was hypoglycemic but I simply ignored it. I 
thought it was one of her less plausible new age beliefs, which included radiothesia, psychics and past 
lives (though I was taught about reincarnation as part of my Hindu upbringing, I still don’t have a good 
understanding of it nor a belief in it). I have always had a bit of a problem with my energy levels and 
concentration, but never thought of examining it as a medical problem. But during this winter what 
was a minor irritant in the background burst open into the foreground in the form of occasional bouts 
of lightheadedness and what appeared to be breathing problems but now I believe is simply anxiety 
brought about by hypoglycemia induced by a combination of fatigue and inadequate food. I am more 
and more convinced (thanks also to some timely advice from my friend Catherine) that my body has a 
problem with maintaining blood glucose levels. Proper sleep, eating at regular intervals, and following 
a low carb diet seems to be taking care of the problem. My energy levels are much higher and I am 
able to concentrate much better. But it does make me wish I had taken Roberta seriously and 
researched hypoglycemia 19 years ago.
5. Understatement of the week: “Executing this (the new bank bailout plan) is like riding a unicycle on 
a dental floss tightrope over a sea of razor blades," warns Lawrence R. Creatura, a portfolio manager 
for Federated Investors. "It's difficult to do well."