I figured if you are on this part of my website, you might want to know something about me. I am doing a Ph.D. in economics from UW-Madison. This is my last year here (hopefully). Don't get me wrong, I really like Madison. It is a delightful city to live in. Well, except for those winter months. I am applying for jobs this year and I will consider myself lucky if I am able to get a job in a city half as decent as Madison. I like to think that I like what I am doing. Though, there is serious identification problem due to lack of counterfactuals.

I guess I should write where I come from before anything else.

I am from Rajasthan, which is an Indian state in the western part of India. I grew up in a very small town called Khetri Nagar. Khetri Nagar is a town built for folks who work in the Khetri Copper Complex. As for the name: Khetri, because the factory site is close to a very old city called Khetri, "copper" because that is what they produce, and "complex" because not only is copper mined there, but it is also smelted and refined and all this amounts to a complex project, doesn't it? Now that we have taken care of the nomenclature, let's move on. Oh, yes the town actually goes by the nickname "Kopar".

There were four high schools in the town for people from inside and outside the town. One high school is funded by the state government, two were (I use "were" because these two schools do not exist anymore) funded by the central government and one is a convent school. My high school, Kendriya Vidhyalay No. 1, which does not exist anymore, was kind of in the middle in terms of school hierarchy, sharing the spotlight with ... surprise surprise ... Kendriya idhyalay No. 2. Unfortunately, I don't have a single photograph to show. Also, my parents moved out of Kopar six years ago after my father retired, so I don't get to go there when I go to India. I visited Kopar this time with a flashy digital camera to take some pictures. As luck would have it, the batteries ran out. So, I completed my high school education from Kopar and moved to Jaipur to study Physics and Mathematics at the Maharaja College. Since I have been asked so many times before, yes there is a Maharani College and it is right across from the Maharaja College. I was in the ultra badass Maharaja College hostel called Gokhale hostel (or dormitory, if you like). Maharaja College is right next to the tourist attraction Ram Niwas Bagh. Ram Niwas Bagh is a garden, zoo, museum and theatre all in one.

After many-many interesting days with little or no work I moved to Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi for a masters degree in economics. Again, after many-many days of charged up political speeches, boring lectures, noisy airplanes, dhaba food and some work, I moved to the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI). ISI was, first and foremost, a great place to enjoy gossip. And after many evenings of soccer, nights of gossip (aada) and badminton, and a lot of work, I moved to Madison. And here I am on my way out (again, hopefully). I will try to update what my friend Ritwik would term as a egotistic piece of writing at some point in the future.

Note to myself: Include some pictures.