Dark Matter

I watched this movie called Dark Matter yesterday which was Mar 31st 2009 also Ugadhi festival day in Karnataka. I was able to relate to the subject of the movie. I was also a PhD student who dropped out of the program when I realized just how stifling it was. One has to align one's goals with the goal of the advisor otherwise one will end up being frustrated. Ofcourse Meryl Streep is her quintessential self. The struggle of an individual who enters the US from countries from Asia are very vividly portrayed. I was some scenes with one loud thought "that is me!" in that scene. The life of a broke penniless scholar student with his head full of cosmology theories is so real. I was that person not so long ago. I was one of the best PhD students as I blazed through my breadth exams in Artifical Intelligence Computer Graphics and when it was time for Human Computer Interaction the college told me that they did not funding anymore to support me. My low point was having $5 in my bank account. Sweet are the uses of adversity - says Shakespeare. He is not just a playwright but a prophet. His words are so uncanny and accurate. An advisor who went on a sabbatical for a year also did not help much. I remember the night when I made the choice to quit the program. I felt the floor beneath my feet had given way and I was falling. T protaganist in the movie who's theory of the Dark matter as an explanation for the Big Bang goes against the grain of his advisor's work and hence gains the displeasure of the advisor. Similarly I too had become a black sheep. But sometimes when certains doors close in life some others open. C'est la vie! Dr.Jacob Furst entered my life as he stepped in as my substitute advisor. He saved me by transferring my credits to a Masters degree and graduating me. If he had not stepped in maybe I would have returned to India dejected. God does send his angels in strange forms.