Amazing experience. You are adventurous. Keep up your thoughts and observations. Your second-hand experiences are edifying. Robert W Moore, Emeritus UNLV Professor of Management (# 13) Your reflections always awe me. Thank you. Rohani, PhD, Professor in Malaysia (# 20) Satish, you have a special relationship with your students, which is heartening to see! All the best. George Varughese, Emeritus professor, UK and the Author of Crest of the Peacock (# 35) Thanks for sending your good valuable notes from time to time. My colleagues and I all relish the humor of your mathematics. Man Mohan Sharma, Ramjas College, Delhi University (#36) Thanks Satish beautifully written no one could have said it better. Allan Ackerman, Professor of Computer Science, College of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas (#51) There is no doubt your own life (intellectually and otherwise) has been enriched by your dedication to writing. .Also, I believe when any of us enjoy something so much as you enjoy writing, we can live longer and healthier lives. Amritjit Singh, Langston Hughes Professor of English, Ohio University, Athens (# 70)

The title of a book is like the name of a person, which amongst the Hindus, in particular, is very significant. It is generally given in a naam sanskar (naming ceremony). A family astrologer or temple priest describes the characteristics of a newly born baby based upon the Zodiac signs or horoscope duly prepared. A propitious time and name are chosen accordingly. For me, this process is no less important even when it comes to choosing a title of my book or a Reflection. After having given titles to over a thousand Reflections and eight books, it still takes considerable amount of time and thought for the naming of a new one. The process involves frequent tinkering with both syntax and semantics.

History is universally understood as a story of the past. In both the volumes, history is told in stories only. There are no boring dates, as that is one singular reason for which people hate history in schools and colleges. There are no generic descriptions of the reigns of kings and queens, as no one likes monarchies any more. Each volume contains 70-80 articles, essays, but the author calls them reflections, absolutely independent of each other. They are dated; each one of them has an immediate reason to be written for. They are spun around in order to make connections with 2-3 nodes of life-most importantly making a connection with the present. If an event in the past doesn’t make a connection with the present, then it is not worth digging it out. History is not a recipe book that one would refer to for finding a solution to a present problem. At the same time, those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Author’s roots being deep both in India and the US, the scenarios are drawn accordingly. One of the objectives is to rekindle interest in history in general. Ironically, the US public has been losing interest in history-both contemporary and gone by eras. Whereas, Indian, especially the Hindus, are light years away from history in any shape or form. Both volumes have the same format. Taking into consideration the taste of the readers, reflections are divided into four sections.

Your comparison of catching new ideas with fish is fascinating. Subhash Sood, MD (# 6) Thanks, Satish...illuminating, as always... Len Jessup, UNLV President (# 37) I’m amazed at your candid write-up….. Shankar Venkatgiri, Professor IIM Bangalore (# 51) You are blessed with good friends, who are very protective of you! Rahul Bhatnagar, MD (# 53) Enjoyed so much about this true story!! Many thanks. Yu Xu, UNLV Nursing Professor (# 60) An excellent tribute to an unsung hero of life. Birth & Death are the inevitable stages of life. Thank you Dr. Bhatnagar for sharing your thoughtful writings. Gouranga Saha, Physics Professor (# 68) Incredible Manocha! Interesting piece. Raju Abraham, Professor of English (# 72)

You are an artist in the matter of living. I shall try to tread the same path. Subhash Sood, MD I note that you are a person with social, cultural, scientific values. I have gone through your mails and felt overwhelmed by your vision and the simple way to present your valuable observations. Thanks. Deepak Saxena, Director, medical clinic, Bathinda Very well put. You cannot save lives without touching some. Gopal Dass, retired cardilogist I liked the punch line 'life is all about a cycle of assembling and dis-assembling'. Raju Abraham, English Professor, University of Nizwa, Oman Good friends are like good wine both give euphoria when you need to be high and a "shoulder" when you are down. Rahul Bhatnagar, Director, new drug testing program Thanks--wonderful words of wisdom. Hortense Simmons, traveler, retired English professor

Every author believes that his or her book is meant for everyone. In this respect, however, I am the biggest beneficiary. In the process of writing these reflections for over ten years, and lately compiling and editing them, I have finally understood my faith deeply. Consequently, confidence that I lacked about Hinduism during my adult years has been replaced with pride in graying years! At times, it has taken me to such a height that in a few reflections, I have propounded a thesis that India will be a true secular country only when it will be constitutionally a Hindu state. The practice of secularism in India since 1947 has been reduced to anti-Hinduism and Hindu bashing—paradoxically more so by Hindus than by non-Hindus. It is making India porous for attacks by the terrorists, who are both homegrown and foreign-based. History is repeating itself! The Hindus remain totally divided in half a dozen political parties. A sterling lesson of India's history is that traders, preachers, and persecuted humanity of every foreign faith were permitted, sheltered, and welcomed by the Hindu kings whose kingdoms stretched from the coasts of Malabar in Kerala to Kuchh in Gujarat to Karachi in Sindh—starting more than one thousand years ago. Doesn't it make pristine Hinduism akin to humanism? What an incredible journey of this realization to dawn after nearly six decades!

A collection of philosophical essays on mathematics and teaching college level mathematics.

The title of a book is like the name of a person, which amongst the Hindus, in particular, is very significant. It is generally given in a naam sanskar (naming ceremony). A family astrologer or temple priest describes the characteristics of a newly born baby based upon the Zodiac signs or horoscope duly prepared. A propitious time and name are chosen accordingly. For me, this process is no less important even when it comes to choosing a title of my book or a Reflection. After having given titles to over a thousand Reflections and eight books, it still takes considerable amount of time and thought for the naming of a new one. The process involves frequent tinkering with both syntax and semantics.

​​​​​​ Stationarity and Convergence in Reduce-or-Retreat Minimization presents and analyzes a unifying framework for a wide variety of numerical methods in optimization. The author’s “reduce-or-retreat” framework is a conceptual method-outline that covers any method whose iterations choose between reducing the objective in some way at a trial point, or retreating to a closer set of trial points. The alignment of various derivative-based methods within the same framework encourages the construction of new methods, and inspires new theoretical developments as companions to results from across traditional divides. The text illustrates the former by developing two generalizations of classic derivative-based methods which accommodate non-smooth objectives, and the latter by analyzing these two methods in detail along with a pattern-search method and the famous Nelder-Mead method.In addition to providing a bridge for theory through the “reduce-or-retreat” framework, this monograph extends and broadens the traditional convergence analyses in several ways. Levy develops a generalized notion of approaching stationarity which applies to non-smooth objectives, and explores the roles of the descent and non-degeneracy conditions in establishing this property. The traditional analysis is broadened by considering “situational” convergence of different elements computed at each iteration of a reduce-or-retreat method. The “reduce-or-retreat” framework described in this text covers specialized minimization methods, some general methods for minimization and a direct search method, while providing convergence analysis which complements and expands existing results.​ ​