Once I got comfortable with the courses and the campus, I expected life at IISc to be calm and wholly academic – and it was that, but also so much more. As I write to you now from a wholly different city, I wonder how so much could have happened in the span of 18 months, and how you can change this much as a person while being the same in many ways that count.
Home away from home.
The most solid relationships I ended up building in IISc were from outside of the classrooms: in the hostel, between being woken up in the morning by Aaryechi just in time before the mess closed for breakfast to ranting in Athira’s room in the middle of the night about the disaster-of-the-week; in the lab, where I spent most of my days in my second year, where discussions ranged from the latest fascinating or overhyped item in AI research to food, travel, political ideologies and beyond; in C mess, where I got to meet the Mallus of IISc and realized how much I missed being surrounded by people with unparalleled enthusiasm for pazhampori drowned in oil and kattan chai.
After the courses had started feeling manageable, it was easier to appreciate the talent and acumen of our professors without feeling burdened by their expectations. Notable among the courses that left a mark were ADRL (Advanced Deep Representation Learning) and CV (traditional Computer Vision). While sitting in Prof. Prathosh’s class for ADRL, I gained a wholly different perspective and insight into the foundations that led to the development of generative AI, right in time when it blew up. Sitting in for CV classes in the old classrooms of the EE department and getting to listen to Prof. Venu Madhav Govindu passionately talk about the ethics (or lack thereof) of AI systems and the responsibility of AI researchers in between his lectures on radiometry or camera calibration were equally intellectually engaging experiences in their own right.
I was lucky enough to be part of probably one of the healthiest labs in IISc. I loved seeing the way our advisor, Prof. Soma Biswas, dissected each research problem, found gaps, and guided us through analyzing the steps we took towards any solution. She was gentle and kind, even while being persistent when necessary. Teja and Manogna, being the senior PhD students in the lab, took all the rest of us under their wing. It was with these people that I first learned how to drive a two-wheeler, as much as I learned how to spot a good research paper from a bad one. On slow days in the lab, between making tea to stay awake and lamenting how long it took to get results from my model, Goirik would be there to spar with ideas – ready to discuss everything from the next techniques to apply to what we see ourselves doing years down the line. Fellow MTech batchmates in the lab, Suraj and Anmol, helped keep each other on our toes in ensuring no academic deadlines went by unnoticed (or taken too seriously!).
Breakfast with labmates, my last morning at IISc. Ignore the unfortunate clinic placement in the background? Left to Right: Goirik, Manogna, Anmol, Teja, Aditi, Nikhil, Suraj. (Sorry I had to use this pic, Teja - accurate representation of you being hassled on the daily, though).
This was also my first time staying in a hostel, having a little room of my own inside campus. Everyone I had grown to adore and everything I’d need in the middle of the night at a walking distance definitely spoiled me. I knew as the months were counting down towards the day we’d have to bid farewell that this might be the last time we spend living inside a walkable community, getting to see familiar faces in every walk from mess to hostel and hostel to lab and everywhere in between, breaking for short smiles or long stories, exchanges of which made me feel like I was a part of something larger. We’d go to Sarvam at night after the 11:59pm assignment deadline and an intense night racing up to the submission, just to see other tired but satisfied faces of batchmates piling in to have their dinner exactly as midnight rolled around. We might have different courses and work schedules throughout the week, but the weekends were for having dinner together on Bel Road, followed by dessert from Corner House (a few bowls of DBC with 2-3 spoons scooping out each bowl) or Belgian Waffle Co.
On the way to classes, with Sanjay and Chaitanya. Somewhere around third sem.
A Sunday night at Corner House. Clockwise from bottom: Sriman, Chaitanya, Athira, Aryechi, Anagha, Manikanta, Sachin and Sanjay. Different departments and states, united by DBC (Death By Chocolate, for the uninitiated. I thought it referred to Dosa Butter Coffee when I heard it first, honest mistake given Bangalore’s love for dosa places?)
Sometimes, I felt like a wholly different person than I knew myself to be. Every other Sunday, I’d go to the Yeshvantpur market nearby and stock up on fruits for the week, feeling a sense of warmth as I walked through the lanes taking in the fruits and flowers on display. For someone who hates trekking, I ended up going for a surprising number of them too over the last few months (wanting to see as much of the terrains of Karnataka before my impending departure? Wanting to experience sunrises, wanting to feel challenged by the physical exertion when all I’d been feeling lately was mental exhaustion? I don’t know what compelled me, to be honest). Sreelakshmi’echi would be the one rallying people and planning it all out, and once we climbed the peak, she’d hand out watermelon slices, that she had cut up the previous night or had distributed the chores to (something about the whole ritual still makes my heart melt, it’s a habit I think I’d love to carry forward with me).
Srilekshmiechi and her kids, climbing down Nijagelbetta.
It wasn’t always smooth sailing. In the past two years, I’ve had my fair share of setbacks, disagreements, and discomfort to walk through.
When at IISc, it was easy to be absorbed by the collective – I felt myself consciously or subconsciously putting certain strong felt convictions into the backburner, so as to be open to new experiences and different viewpoints. I felt as if I was a sum of the people I was surrounded by at the moment, certain qualities rising to the surface to reflect back at them. I don’t know if this was a good or bad thing, all things considered.
My stubbornness in wanting to be as self-reliant as possible, the shame I used to feel in having to depend on others when absolutely necessary, versus the sweetness of being cared for, the contentement in being accepted for who I am (when I simply exist, without serving ‘value’ the way I am usually insistent upon) – I come away from it all realizing that there are a bunch of feelings buried in there that need a lot of further examination.
There are so many people that ended up impacting my life more than I could’ve imagined over the two years I spent on my masters, in more ways than I can count – and I’m painfully aware that there’s no way I can do justice to it all in this email (this was not meant to be a farewell post, after all - I think I just started getting sentimental the more I wrote, without realizing it).
I’ll get to those stories eventually – but for now, a thousand miles away, I sit a little in awe that people can leave so many marks in each other’s lives even in the span of a short period of time, just by being who they are.
Until next time, Liyana
Malleshwaram, when the sun sets.
If you’ve come this far and you’d like to leave some quick thoughts, do feel free to reach out to me directly, via instagram, or anonymously. They mean so much to me, and gives fuel to further writing!
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