My Guru

Wow ! Today is my Guru, Dr.Ranjani Parthsarathi mam’s  birthday. Sent her a message as usual and I was about to tweet. Then I thought of doing something better than that making this Saturday more productive. Mam, this post is completely dedicated to you.

Though I have written many times about her and Anna University experiences, I just wanted to write completely about her some day and I am happy that I chose her birthday! Jan 5^th , the day stored in my neuron, when sometime in 2009 we cut a cake for her. I remember most of the celebrated birthdays of Tamil Computing Lab (TACOLA).  Jan 5^th has been always special to me!

RP mam,( that’s how she is well known in the CEG campus)  is one of those three fantastic gurus, I had in Anna University. The other two are Professor,  Dr.T.V.Geetha mam  and Dr. Madhan Karky .  these three gurus were my project head in which I was working as a Junior  Research Fellow. RP mam had an additional bond with me which is none other than Phd Supervisor. So she had a special place in my arteries. I am sorry Geetha mam  and  Madhan Karky sir. I do like you both and I have learnt a lot from you. I was at cloud nine when Geetha mam invited me for her son’s birthday recently  and even in that busy reception, she asked about my work progress.  Mam,  I do remember that you set one of those sparks of my PhD research problem  by mapping the UNL relations and RST relations. And about Madhan sir, I have learnt a lot from him. He is a blend of both guru and a friend.  I am happy that he believed, remembered and called me to get associated with his Karky Research Foundation. Its been a good experience for me. But I am sorry again, RP mam has a special place than you both and I don’t want to lie for this😊

I still remember the moment RP mam gave a nod to guide me.  The very first question she asked me was, “R u serious about Phd?”. I said yes though I did not know if I was really serious. The same question even I ask a candidate when they approach me @ SRM. A valid question right?

Then after registering Phd, I was not really serious.  I was not able to balance TACOLA work and research. Then came my marriage which added its own chaotic dimensions. At one point, I decided to quit coz I had to leave to UK with Selva . She asked to take a break than to quit.  The most influential decision of my life was taken by her at that moment. Thank you mam. There are more thank you waiting for you in this post.

Its only in UK, I discovered that Nanool Sutras have something to do with and I mailed mam. She was Ok with it and she added the Sanskrit Sutras and we were able bring out the similarities that are interwoven with them. And Again Mam asked to link “Sangatis”  with sutras.  Similar to Sangatis, we have RST a theory to link texts at discourse level. Then we had this UNL that links words. Me and mam linked all these concepts, UNL- RST-Sangatis-Sutra  ,connecting words with UNL -sentences with RST -documents with sangatis and then shortening it using Sutras,  which became my Phd Titled, “SemTReX- A Framework to build Semantic Structures ” (SemTReX- A short form for Semantic Text representation!)

Mam chose everything best for me. Right from Doctoral committee members she wanted the best. Dr. Umamaherswari Mam (Internal member) and Dr.Ravindran from IIT Madras were my DC members. Though, I was a mediocre student she wanted to bring  best out from me. This policy I still follow. Though a student is an average student, we should give him / her the best. Thank You mam. As you know I had a lot of throughputs from DC members. Though Ravidran sir has scolded me in each DC at the end, he was happy when I got that last signature from him. That day is unforgettable, we had to finish the thesis by some date due to Convocation. Mam had a severe stomach pain and  I had to go to IIT to get his signature. Mam waited till 7 PM right from morning to get things done. Thank You mam.

And yes IIT campus is an unforgettable for me and for mam too I think.  At some point we had a closer due date for my paper submission to Computational Intelligence journal. Mam was only available at IIT on that day as she had a workshop and that was the last possible date for us. She corrected my paper from 6 PM to 9 PM sitting in the  IIT corridor and I had to bring Nila on that day as Selva was not available. Though my parents assisted me, NIla was crying and playing around mam. Despite all odds she corrected that paper which is the only SCI indexed paper, I have now . Getting a SCI indexed paper published is no easy joke. This paper took 5 revisions, 2.5 years to get published and recently gave the pride of ranking me in the top 5 faculties in terms of Impact factors at SRM. Thank you mam.

Regarding paper publishing also, mam  chose only best for me. I initially had a confused mind and wanted to somehow finished PhD. Mam will not allow to publish in low quality journals. High quality ones not only demand quality and  also a huge time. But mam never compromised on quality. This one quality I am sticking on still with my Phd Students . Though we may fret and fume initially, we will feel satisfied for long later. Thank you mam for teaching this.

And yeah finally thesis. You won’t believe. Thesis is collection of all my published papers. Mam used to correct at least 6 to 7 times before sending to the publisher. Despite this, she corrected my thesis too 7 times. I mean it went 7 rounds of corrections. She will carefully watch each sentence and their link with the rest. I remember, twice I went to her home for this during her vacation.  At this point, I need to thank her mom too for that nice teas and snacks. Thank you mam for making things possible even during vacation.

Even for evaluating thesis she chose best for me. We had to choose a foreign examiner and an Indian Examiner. My thesis  was evaluated by  Professor, Dr.Barbara Di Eugenio at  University of Illinois, Chicago (https://www.cs.uic.edu/DiEugenio), who is a pioneer in discourse analysis. She had applauded the thesis like anything. The best comment was, “I was enjoying  while reading your thesis”. This was mainly because of those 7 rounds of corrections done by mam.  Indian examiner was  Professor, Dr. Amba Kulkarni, department of  Sanskrit Studies, University of Hyderabad (http://sanskrit.uohyd.ac.in/faculty/amba/).   She came to my final Viva and she was also happy that I was able to link both ancient and the modern theories from three different languages, namely, Tamil, Sanskrit and English.  Thank You so much for choosing everything best for me.

A perfect guru is the one who brings the best out of a worst student. And mam you did it from me. It all makes a difference of meeting correct people in life . I am lucky to have met  you. I really don’t know what would have happened if I had not met you, if you had not given that second chance to me.  The best pride I will have till the end of my life to get that tag, “RP Mam Student”. That tag is so powerful.  So many people ask me, neenga RP mam student ah? this question will speak a lot. I will try my level best to keep up your standards and try becoming another version at least by some good percentages.

Thank you so much mam and many more happy returns of the day once again.!

And yes thanks for the reading till the end.

Subalalitha