The Threshold of Coolidity

AUTHOR: Dopey (Anu)

Since Amrit decided to make us famous I thought his story must also be told. My little biography said that I’m cool but I’m not an eloquent writer -----

Nomenclature--- Amrit bandhyopadhay

Named “hot shot” by me and “bangali” by vinit, though I think a lot of people call him “bandy” !

No offence to electrical engineers, but I must confess that he is among the very few people in that field who is truck loads of fun ! He works with electrical circuits made of inanimate material but for some reason has a fetish for electrical circuits in biology. If anyone wants to discuss philosophical issues related to dreams ;mind Vs brain controversies and issues dealing with Chomskian tenets that answer important questions of whether a particular language is hard wired within us, then I strongly recommend that you meet up with him.

Here are some suggestions in order to have a truly stimulating conversation• a pack of smokes ( or “ciggies” in his lingo)• alcohol ( preferably some good whiskey) • the ambience can be improved by having floyd play in the background or by lighting a doobie ( very good activator for the neural circuits)• if the weather permits then just find the biology-psychology building on university of Maryland campus , grab some coffee and just lounge there --!!!So this has been a rather neuroscience biased view of him, but seriously if ever you desire a stimulating conversation on anything, or just want a smile on your face , he is the perfect person.

Now I must move on to his next fetish ---music! When I first met him he owned a guitar which he played occasionally > then gradually the collection of guitars grew and eventually he progressed to a near cousin of the guitar—the sitar. He and stringed instruments definitely have a relationship, I’m sure a lot of you have listened to some of the stuff he has written and if u haven’t you must. Here is how I would characterize it—its ominous to some extent yet intensely captivating and addictive. It sort of envelopes you! Those of you who listen to listen classic rock will find in his music the blend between floyd and pearl jam--------!! College park would have been a little monotonous without him in it.

I must say a little bit about his “rather fancy” accent. When u first talk to him you will recognize the distinct American accent , but then the way some words are enunciated will totally confuse you. For example we would all pronounce the letters “room” as in the word <room> , but suddenly you hear the letters “room” in <room”>or <mushroom> pronounced like the letters “rum” in the word <ruminate> !! So the result of the mix of the faint British accent with the American accent is rather hilarious when you hear him speak in hindi. That is when he attempts to utter words like <ladki> and <ghoda> and <dauda>, you will burst into peels of laughter.

He loves to portray himself as mean and “I don’t care what the world thinks” person, but he is a very nice person “who cares a lot about a lot of people”!

Apart from talking about neuroscience and music his work sounds very cool and interesting too. It involves building tracking devices----again involving circuits but invisible ones

------------------To all the great times we,ve had anu