{"id":67,"date":"2023-08-16T19:31:32","date_gmt":"2023-08-16T19:31:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandip.ece.ufl.edu\/?page_id=67"},"modified":"2026-04-14T07:57:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T12:57:27","slug":"personal","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sandip\/about\/personal\/","title":{"rendered":"Personal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As you can see, I am thoroughly overworked (tongue in cheek) and have little time to indulge in other activities. When I do have time, I like to do the following. Note especially the third item.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Reading:<\/b> I love to read, as long as what I read is well-written. I will cheerfully read anything under the sun, but I am a particularly voracious reader of Novels, Social writings, Philosophy, History, Evolution, and Science Nonfictions (not necessarily in that order). <a href=\"http:\/\/sandip.ece.ufl.edu\/random\/books.html\">Here<\/a> are some books that I highly recommend. Also, for people who like books, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/\">Project Gutenberg<\/a> might be of interest.<\/li>\n<li><b>Music:<\/b> I love to listen to music, both Indian and Western. But I do not believe that mere shouting is music. This discrimination sometimes stops me from listening to certain songs that I do not want to qualify or discuss. Classical music is typically not quite in my palate though once in a blue moon I do get in the mood for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jsbach.org\/\">Bach<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mozartproject.org\/\">Mozart<\/a>, or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.medieval.org\/music\/world\/india.html\">Indian classical<\/a>. I mostly listen to soft rock western music and similar Indian songs, where the words provide more meaning. My favorites in Western music are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.joanbaez.com\/\">Joan Baez<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.leonardcohen.com\/\">Leonard Cohen<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.judycollins.com\/\">Judy Collins<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bobdylan.com\/\">Bob Dylan<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pinkfloyd.com\/\">Pink Floyd<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.norahjones.com\/\">Norah Jones<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.richardthompson-music.com\/\">Richard Thompson<\/a>, and Neil Young. Among Indian music, I like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calcuttaweb.com\/gaan\/rabindra\/index.shtml\">Rabindrasangeet<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calcuttaweb.com\/gaan\/jibanmukhi.shtml\">Jiban-mukhi Bengali songs<\/a> (Mohiner Ghoraguli, Mousumi Bhowmik, Kabir Suman, or Anjan Dutta), and Ghazals (<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ghulam_Ali\">Ghulam Ali<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jagjit_Singh\">Jagjit Singh<\/a>). Among instrumental music, I love the percussion of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tabla.com\/\">tabla<\/a>, and the melody of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fluteworld.com\/\">flute<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><b>Food:<\/b> I love food, as is obvious to anybody who has seen me in person. I make no discrimination on the ethnicity or nationality of food, as long as it tastes good. Very recently I have also picked up an interest in cooking. It sure feels good when a dish you cook is appreciated (by yourself or someone else).<\/li>\n<li><b>Travel:<\/b> I love to travel. I tend to travel to places of scenic interest. Having grown up in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kolkata\">a big city<\/a>, I am not a big fan of going to another big city on excursion (although I do get in that mood on occasions). I also like to go for cross-country road trips along desolate highways, which I find to be a great way of relieving stress. The United States provide a great opportunity for road trips, and I try to take one at least once a year. My US travel destinations typically tend to be the <a href=\"http:\/\/us-national-parks.net\/\">national parks<\/a>. I have also visited some places in Europe, such as the <a href=\"http:\/\/wikitravel.org\/en\/Bavarian_Alps\">Bavarian Alps<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Scottish_Highlands\">Scottish Highlands<\/a>. I plan put up my pictures and travel logs when I get the time, which does not seem to be forthcoming.<\/li>\n<li><b>Art: <\/b>I do not have background in art, but I love <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mcescher.com\/\">Escher<\/a> for the mathematics in his art. And I guess almost everybody has been deeply impacted at some time or the other (if they had given themselves half the chance) by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artcyclopedia.com\/history\/surrealism.html\">surrealism<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salvador-dali.org\/\">Salvador Dali<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>At some point in my past life, I used to love writing (non-technical) essays and poetry. I do not find time for that any more, mostly because I am lazy and that kind of work requires more mental exertion than I am prepared to execute. Well, that should tell you what I like most in my day-to-day life, namely \u201clolling in the sofa\u201d doing nothing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As you can see, I am thoroughly overworked (tongue in cheek) and have little time to indulge in other activities. When I do have time, I like to do the following. Note especially the third item. Reading: I love to read, as long as what I read is well-written. I will cheerfully read anything under [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1365,"featured_media":0,"parent":73,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/page-section-nav.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"featured_post":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-67","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sandip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sandip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sandip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sandip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1365"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sandip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sandip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3231,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sandip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/67\/revisions\/3231"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sandip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/73"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/sandip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}