Personal page for Amit Mukerjee

Prehistory

It was on a dark night over Bangkok that Amitabha Mukerjee, also known As Khuto, was born. After attempts at early education wherein he tried to murder other children by throwing them into ditches and by breaking heads with tin cans (including his own), a climax was reached at age ten, when he dashed off a second story window onto concrete pavement below, taking advantage of a moment when his mother had stepped out. His parents failed to recognizie him in the hospital, and it remains quite plausible that there was some dark underplay at this point in his life. Whereas before this incident he was very stable in scoring zero in all mathematics tests, the severe skull damage caused by this is no doubt responsible for the subsequent wide variation in these scores. This is the inspiration for a new method of mathematics education whose unleashing is sure to change the fundamental assumptions of mathematics teaching forever.

At this point he was admitted to a residential school at Narendrapur near Calcutta, where his primary memorable lesson was that playing cricket indoors, even with a rolled-socks ball, is a terrible violation of schoolboy ethics, especially if one manages to hit and break the windowpanes. He broke only his right arm here, while sliding down the banisters from the third floor staircase.

College

College days found Khuto at I.I.T. Kharagpur. Here he survived the occasional exile to Mussorie and harsher climes during the ragging period and became hall lit sec soon thereafter. He was often seen between 3 o'clock and 6 o'clock in marathon bridge sessions, or doing endless laps in the swimming pool. That is 3 o'clock to 6 o'clock in the morning: one got in to the pool by jumping over a side door. One day an uncle landed up on his way to Puri and asked if Amit could go. Of course, and off they went, on bicycles for three days.

The athletics standards at Kgp are highlighted by a story from this period. The swimming coach at Kgp, U. Bose, famous for having been a referee at the Helsinki Olympics, had the temerity to enter him in the West Bengal regional swimming events in Calcutta; here the organizers asked him if he could please leave the lanes after his 28th lap since all others had finished.

He came to the US to see the country, using a higher study scholarhip as a passport like many other students. Unfortunately, he kind of liked the higher study but didn't consider the country to be his own, which is why he now teaches, rafts on canals, and drops eggs off roofs at IIT Kanpur.

Related by Misfortune

Although Atish Mukherjee had no choice in the matter of having me as his brother, it never ceases to amaze how Rita Biswas voluntarily agreed to become my wife.

Amitabha Mukerjee Wed Nov 29 14:06:15 EST 1995