Friday, January 18, 2013

The worst kept secret ever?

This blog is no longer anonymous.  Well, frankly speaking, it never was, really! The Indian science community is very small and the things that I like to write about (or can write about) also make it very easy for people to search me if they want to!
In fact, I just realized that anyone who figures out that I am at an IISER (super-obvious) and do Mathematics (easy to see because I don't talk about setting up labs etc) can put the search words "IISER Mathematics blog" on google and be directed to my webpage!

So, N1 = IISER Kolkata

New1 = IISER Pune

My STEM field: Mathematics

I never really cared about people discovering my identity, but an anonymous blog stylistically made it easier to write about certain people and incidents without revealing their names.  Hence, the reluctance to go public!

But, I am aware that many people at IISER Pune read this blog (I don't think this was the case at IISER K). [1]

So, it is a little awkward to pretend to be anonymous!

Going public also gives me more freedom to write about Mathematics-based issues and about life in Pune, which I am enjoying very much [2].

IISER Pune, my new academic garden, is a lovely place.  I am very happy to be here and will be writing more about it shortly.  Stay tuned!



[1] A few days ago, Professor VS Rao, the registrar at IISERP, mentioned that he appreciated a certain post I wrote about the guest house at IISERP.  When I asked him how he figured out that I was writing the blog, he thought I was joking! :-)

[2] One of the things, for example, which is very Pune-specific, is that the National Defence Academy is located here.  It is my father's alma mater.  I visited it for the first time a couple of weeks ago and it was an extremely profound experience, about which I would like to write one of these days.

12 comments:

Abi said...

This is wonderful.

Welcome to non-anonymous blogging!

Kaneenika Sinha said...

Thank you :)

Anonymous said...

Without doing any google search, my guess was N1 = IISER, Bhopal (your description of place looked like somewhere in remote) and New1 = IISER Pune,so I was 50% right. If I know Indian academia even a little bit, it will be harder to blog from now on. Good luck!!!

RS

EP/ UK said...

I too figured this out sometime last summer with some sleuthing in IISER and Canadian math department websites :)

EP/ UK said...

Oh, and the posts about winter schools helped. How many of those happen in India?

Sorry, just wanted to share the logic of the path I drifted and deduced my way through in case you/people were wondering.

Suvrat Kher said...

one more science blogger in Pune :) welcome!

Kaneenika Sinha said...

Thank you! There's one more in my office:

Steven Spallone blogs at http://diaryofanamericanindian.blogspot.in/

TKJ said...

Too bad the blog is not anonymous anymore..I too figured out who you were last year, even before joining IISER Pune. The blog had some kind of airy feeling even though things were obvious for regular readers and I will miss that a lot.Well, the good thing is that now I can chat freely with your PhD student during badminton matches without pretending "I don't know about New Professor or any of her adventures". And Maam, I 'officially' welcome you to IISER Pune. Enjoy..and write long blog posts about your adventures in IISER Pune. :)

Steven said...

Yes, I should get on that. Thanks!

Kaneenika Sinha said...

Thanks a lot, TKJ. I look forward to meeting you. Yes, I too wanted to preserve that airy feeling, but pseudonymity had started to restrict the range of topics I could write about.

Don't tell my student about this blog! He should be concentrating on his course work this semester :)

iitmsriram said...

Aw, shucks. I am sure there are readers (like me) who respected your anonymity and refrained from sleuthing. "Hear the message without paying too much attention to the messenger". I suppose one could still do that. Why don't you go back to blogging the old way and put a fixed "spoiler post" for those who feel compelled either to know your identity or want to verify if their sleuthing was good?

Anonymous said...

plz help, what is the jee advanced closing rank for admission in bs-ms programme maths?