problem of converting Matlab code to python

[jefsummers]

Strongly recommend reading the material Dean Hystad linked to above.
Will add - best to use a pandas dataframe for your data - like a smart spreadsheet. You mentioned that you have a csv file to convert. See the method read_csv in the Pandas Documentation Here with particular attention to the usecols option to select the columns and skipfooter option to limit to the first 4000 rows. All of this should come down to something like (untested, forgive me in advance)

import pandas as pd

df = pd.read_csv("myfile.csv", delimiter=',', usecols=[1,4,5], skipfooter=28767)
df.head()