A fairy tale!

Long, long ago (and, it was not yesterday), a few venerable researchers came together over a cup of tea (though, I would prefer to think it to be a cup of coffee - but, even a storyteller has to respect the facts, you see) and decided to have a series of clandestine talks at 9:30 in the night; they called it 'Night Club' to make it a bit more appealing, and may be because it tickled them a little. Week after week, they talked about materials science, metallurgy, mathematics, physics, internet, web, and many other interesting things, while young researchers sat there awed in the presence of such great researchers, and learnt a bit of these subjects for themselves; they learnt how to ask a question without making the speaker feel like a moron; most importantly, they laughed all the time during the discussions, but never at each other. As time went by, to be called to 'perform' in the night club was an honour. And generation after generation of young researchers took up the responsibility of keeping the flame of night club on, and matured in the process into venerable researchers themselves. It was such a nice tradition, all the other departments from far and wide tried to emulate the original night clubbers - some succeeded and some didn't. And, finally, like all fairy tales, our tale also has a wonderful ending; they went on talking in the night club happily everafter.

PS:- If you are interested in learning about some of the characters in this tale, here we go: The present conveners are Santonu and his gang (which includes that sleepy head Rejin). And, here is the 325th speaker (who will be giving his talk tonight, 14th September, 2005), the unbeatable Kotts. Here are some of those venerable researchers who conceived and ran night club through the years: Nagendra, Vichu, Phani, NRS, Shankara, Tania, AS Gandhi,... Finally, go here for a partial list of speakers.