Go back in time

I have this fantasy- I guarantee that it is an absurd one indeed. So I want to go back in time and live the Victorian life (may be pre-victorian, oh only about 300 years or so. Well if I can go back in time, I sure can live for 300 yrs). Well not just Victorian but the period between 17th and early 20th centuries right until after the second world war. Come on have you not read Austen, Dostoyevsky (both technically pre-victorian!), Dickens, Bronte sisters, Lewis Caroll, Virginia Woolf, Hemingway and many more great writers (by no means have I read all these authors). What strikes me most when I read these authors- gaiety and expanse of that era, the sheer etiquette and quiet strength adorned by the women (not to mention the beautiful gowns and the oh-so-horrendous corsets underneath), constantly pensive social reformers and great thinkers, poverty and wars of that era. This is the idea I have of the centuries that predates ours. It will be so much fun to be dancing around in ballrooms, so much fun when the sole purpose of a woman or a man's life is to find a suitable spouse (I am not sad at all that, that is not true anymore folks!), not so much fun when wars were waged and the upper class seemed completely ignorant of it, not so much fun when people were deposed of their lands and had to settle in places that did not belong to them.
Anyway it is not like it is going to happen....my only solace- there are millions of books of which I could become the characters.
Ciao..off to la-la land!

Nine years later

It had happened unexpectedly. Of course one does not expect such things to happen, do they? The night of June 10th 2000, after a hearty dinner at my mum's cousin's place- we left for home by different modes, since there were so many of us. My sister and I on her TVS, with me driving it- pretty mundane isn't it? Except it was not and am sure since I am writing this and not my sister you all can guess what might have happened. She had just turned 18 that April and we were just getting closer putting behind our sibling rivalries, yeah it had indeed taken me 20 odd years to accept that she is a part of my being, that she is me only a few a few years younger. I loved and hated her fiercely as a teen, took a long time to resolve my emotions (well what do you expect, I was a child and apparently not a smart one at that). I normally don't talk about it- but we (the family) talk about her as though she still exists and we all converse with her in the depths of darkness. Me for instance, I strongly believe that she is my guardian angel.
In retrospect, I do wish I had some sense back then to go through some sort of trauma therapy as a family. It is quite interesting psychologically that it is not just me with an intense survivor's guilt (which unarguably affects my everyday life) but my parents and my grandma all have their own reasons for why they could not see it coming....and why her and not them!
Nine years now and my biggest fear- I might not remember her as I grow old, I might not remember her laugh after a good joke, the twinkle in her eyes after a successful prank or her tears after a not-so-well-done exam.
We love you and we miss you sweetheart!

Check this headlines

This is what comes up under the "India" tab in TOI
"oh my god, I am coming down with WTF-where-is-my-daily-movie syndrome" (LOL)

It has been ages since I even bothered to check TOI but somehow today I am feeling sappy (I remember TOI from BITS!). Anyway nothing much has changed with the paper- if this is the headline news...

Imminent

This article is on the latest Outlook India about how water crisis in drier parts of the Indian subcontinent has led to violence. I am quoting the excerpt below directly from this article.

"What is the Centre planning to do about the crisis? T. Ramaswami, secretary, science and technology, says the August deadline is unrealistic. "This problem can't be solved in months," he says. "For the past three weeks, the science and technology ministry, with 15 partner ministries, has been holding meetings. One solution can't be applied countrywide. It has to be a national effort and everyone has to contribute."

No offence Mr. Ramaswami but for as long as I can remember this issue has not gotten past the meeting stage (just like most other issues, so I am not sure why this would be any more important than the other important issues that the government refuses to deal with or deals with by way of organizing periodic meetings!). Shame on us sir!

At least we had one great visionary among us who (yes Mahakavi Bharatiyar) talked about water distribution systems when the country was still struggling to be free from British reins.

வங்கத்தில் ஓடி வரும் நீரின் மிகையால், வையத்து நாடுகளில் பயிர் செய்யுவோம்

We can keep arguing about technicalities of better ways of ensuring single person receives that he or she needs but at some point the thing called action needs to be taken too (hell I don't even think there are arguments at such so-called meetings). It is a pity that while states like Andhra and Orissa drown in excess water every year, the regions of Rajasthan and Tamilnadu drown in their own dried, caked lands due to lack of just that- Water!

Do the dance!

Watch this video, first alex and now snowball.
What do you see- well a parrot gone crazy, yes...but also the fact that the bird moves its body to the different beats it hears- it is called rhythmic entrainment, which us humans took pride of as a unique gift bestowed only upon us. Clearly how much more egotistical can we get. Apparently we are not so unique anymore...
Anyway scientifically it is a very interesting aspect because apparently there are no videos of dogs or other mammalian pets doing the moves!

Here is what the author of the dispatch section had to say

" it also raises fascinating questions about the species that aren't on the list. The most obvious gaps are domesticated animals like dogs or horses: despite their pervasive exposure to music, not a single convincing demonstration of mammalian pet dancing was found. This negative evidence supports the everyday observation that dogs can't dance, and the outstanding question is why not. What is lacking?

Another group conspicuous by its absence are nonhuman primates. The absence of any true ‘dancing chimpanzees’ is surprising, not just because chimpanzees are our closest relatives but because they naturally engage in ‘drumming’ in the wild [7]. Chimpanzees often drum with their hands or feet on rainforest trees in the wild, generating far-carrying, quasi-rhythmic signals. Similarly, gorillas beat their bodies, and occasionally objects, with a rough ‘beat’. Thus, our nearest living cousins exhibit a behaviour suggesting that some form of propensity to drum was present in our common ancestor, making the lack of evidence for ape entrainment surprising. But given that most humans do not interact with chimpanzees regularly, and that most chimpanzee owners (in entertainment or science) do not post videos online, this negative evidence does not yet provide compelling evidence of absence. An open mind concerning apes remains warranted."

Biology of Music: Another One Bites the Dust, Volume 19, Issue 10, 26 May 2009, Pages R403-R404

They also go on to acknowledge the fact that one cannot rule out the possibility that pet-dancing may simply have not been uploaded to YouTube! Nevertheless it is an interesting evolutionary question. So next time you see your pet dancing away to rock and roll music, film it and put it on YouTube, someone might actually use it for something useful!

Below are the references of the two papers

A.D. Patel, J.R. Iversen, M.R. Bregman and I. Schulz, Experimental evidence for synchronization to a musical beat in a nonhuman animal, Curr. Biol. 19 (2009), pp. 827–830.

A. Schachner, T.F. Brady, I.M. Pepperberg and M.D. Hauser, Entrainment to music requires vocal mimicry: Evidence from non-human animals, Curr. Biol. 19 (2009), pp. 831–836.

Looking to rent..

I had to obviously write about it when I saw it, "Rent a room in someone else's life?" That statement is big, innit. The character Sai in "The Inheritance of Loss" ruses about this when she sees she has missed out on some grand childhood. To me it is big because I feel it sometimes, when I see people who are smarter, more creative, much more nicer and have a distinct identities (Note: need not be anyone famous, I use my discretion to define these values!!). But think about it- how cool would it be to rent, even for just a little while, a room in someone else's life!!

What am I

What am I? I think about this more often these days, you know. What do people mean when they say "I am an Indian or I am American or whatever". I mean are they identifying who they are with where they are from? I am not belittling the fact that where you are shapes you up as a person but that cannot be the whole story, can it? May be it does but for me that is not all. I don't think I can associate a country and its traditions with who I am, it is mostly a mixture of the ideals, principles, and traditions that I have garnered from various parts of the world. Of course some by being in those parts of the world and some, you may not believe it to be true, some from books I have read over the years. What is interesting is that I have taken this thought a step that has led to me being more and more saddened by the existence of boundaries between countries. I don't understand why we need them. I know I know, governance issues, cultural issues, and whatever other issues one can think of....but I can still wonder about it, can't I? Is it that hard of people from a gamut of cultures and geographical locations to be together....won't it be fun? We can learn so much...think about it!!!

A beautiful read

Rebecca- a beautiful read indeed. But I must admit I read half of the book yesterday while I doted on the first half for about a month, not because I was in love with it or anything, might I add! Somehow there seems to have been a "I-can't-believe-so-much-detail" threshold that I never crossed in the first half or may be because I was too dumb to understand the beauty of Daphne Du Maurier's writing. Contrary to the first few hundred pages, the second half of the book was amazing. In fact, yesterday, there were parts of the book where I was almost in tears. It is a romance-mystery novel of sorts. Although the book is just ridden with too many words (duh..!!) there were a lot of catchy, interesting and rhetorical phrases. Like this one below

"I suppose sooner or later in the life of everyone comes a moment of trial. We all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end."

My verdict: go ahead it is a masterfully crafted suspense novel but you have to bear through the first 100 pages!!

Guys seriously why could'nt you?

Guys, come on! Why could'nt I get a job like this? Anyway this led me to think- what are some of the best jobs around, like living on an island and making friends? Let me know if you can think of any- may be I can switch my profession!

Insect love

Normally I would not say I love insects, but one look at his gallery- I am in love with these scary monsters!

Earth day was yesterday folks

If you Earth day is something that was instituted very recently, you are wrong. April 22nd was declared the Earth day in 1970 in the US. It is mostly celebrated as Earth week these days. The International Earth Day is different and is celebrated on March 21st, the equinox day. Whichever day or week it is, I am really proud that Harvard is really big on reduce, reuse, recycle policy and I am proud of myself because I don't throw anything that can be recycled or reused (no, I am serious, not even the tiniest scrap of paper gets thrown in the trash). In fact Harvard does much better than a lot of other universities. So do Boston and Cambridge- these cities are far more advanced in terms of their sustenance policies than most other.
Quick diversion here: I am proud of my parents too because they are big on the three Rs so much so that my dad made a usable mug out of a milk bottle!
For some of us, it might not mean anything at all. But think about it- how hard is it really to recycle folks? Plastic recycling can be harder because there are codes but paper, come on!!! We all can do that much at least for our part.
The other thing I believe everyone can do is to plant SOMETHING, ANYTHING really! I live in an apartment and would love to have a big (or small really, अरे कुछ भी चलेगा भैया) garden। But I have decided it is too hard for me to not have green living things as my pets so decided to grow my own apartment garden. Since space is a limitation I am not planting a lot, obviously. But the big question now- will the seeds I sowed, germinate?!
People do so many creative things though- be it Dervaes's homestead in Pasadena, CA or the brainchild of Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer, Terracycle Inc.
To me Earth day or Earth week is just a reminder about how beautiful this place we live in is and it also reminds me that I do not have to hike or trek along the thousands of trails spread across various parks to enjoy the bounty that is nature.

FOR ME EVERYDAY IS EARTH DAY FOLKS AND I AM PROUD OF THAT!!


PS I must say in this tech age, I have not encountered a slower site than Terracycle Inc. I hope they read this post and get a better page that loads faster!
Wow yesterday was all gloomy post, today all earthy...seriously this must be mid-life crisis...

Meltdown

While the world is facing a financial meltdown, I think I am facing an existential meltdown. Well maybe meltdown is a strong word- may be I could call it existential crisis. You know the usual- "நான் ஏன் பிறந்தேன்" (I think that is the correct spelling in Tamil- it means why was I born, used to be our favorite phrase in BITS) type issues. So I am a great believer of a few things, among those are these two "every person is here for a reason- you just have to find out for yourself what yours is" and "everything that happens, happens for a reason".
But I find myself in this whirlpool of incessant thoughts about "what I should be doing?"
I thought science is what I should be doing but something has changed (well me getting really excited about good science and great research minds has not been tarnished yet!) and I don't feel like I belong! But I feel like I don't belong anywhere. I am at a stage in my career now where I have to decide on something and ACT on it. I am failing at the first step, decision-making. Here I am wavering about it all, thought this ended like ten years ago! Its asking the question "what should I become when I grow up?" all over again and that feels strange.
I think I will play along, ponder over such questions and hope that once it is actually time to make the big decisions, everything will miraculously fall into place.

PS Aha..picture is worth a thousand words, so now will you believe me?!! May be this might be what others call "mid-life crisis"?!

Yeaah..go ahead replace us

Beware we will all be soon replaced by machines or may be perhaps we can sit back and relax while we let robots like Adam do our experiments for us (smell a long vacation here). Adam has been developed by Amanda Clare's group in the UK. He can come up with hypothesis and test them too. How cool is that people?! But he still needs somebody to add more lab consumables and of course clean the waste he generates. May be I should get an Adam- since he can perform all those things that I am doing right now.

The Automation of ScienceRoss D. King, Jem Rowland, Stephen G. Oliver, Michael Young, Wayne Aubrey, Emma Byrne, Maria Liakata, Magdalena Markham, Pinar Pir, Larisa N. Soldatova, Andrew Sparkes, Kenneth E. Whelan, and Amanda Clare (3 April 2009)
Science 324 (5923), 85. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1165620]

Close proximity

What do you do when you are in close proximity to people like her? She is only 4 years older than I am and she already features in the top 100 living geniuses (see the article here). She is one of the three women who graduated summa cum laude from Harvard Medical School. You can read her profile in
Science 25 April 2008: Vol. 320. no. 5875, pp. 442 - 443, DOI: 10.1126/science.320.5875.442
Her foray into stardom came about when she found a novel way to identify targets for positive selection during the course of evolution. It is a pretty neat technique, although the math part goes over my head.

PS I am mediocre but at least I am not surrounded by it! Here I am, can't even get a PCR to work...

Schadenfreude, hope not

Schadenfreude is a German word that describes the pleasure that one derives from others misfortunes. It is very closely related to envy. In this nice paper, the authors show that despite the two emotions being correlated they activate different regions of the brain. While envy activates neural connections related to pain, sch.. activates the reward center of the brain. But can anything be ever so simple.....of course not. The authors show the interplay between social pains and pleasures.

Taken from

NEUROSCIENCE: Pains and Pleasures of Social Life

Matthew D. Lieberman and Naomi I. Eisenberger (13 February 2009)

Science 323 (5916), 890. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1170008]

Analyses of brain activity reveal a link between social and physical pains and pleasures.

"If maintaining one's social value is a need like other physical needs, then the greater the pain caused by negative social comparisons, the greater the pleasure in response to seeing the comparison target socially devalued (schadenfreude). The authors found that greater envy and dACC activity in response to a negative social comparison was associated with greater schadenfreude and ventral striatum activity when learning of that comparison target's subsequent downfall."

Basically what it means is if you envy someone, you get greater pleasure when misfortune strikes them. In fact Leiberman and Eisenberger think of this as something akin to physical needs such as food when you are hungry! What is even more interesting is the fact that the brain is treating things as important as lack of food and water similar to social pains such as envy. Now why would that be?

If you have access you should read the article (don't worry if you don't understand much of it) and for people who are not used to neuroscience jargon, you should read the perspectives that is referenced above.

When Your Gain Is My Pain and Your Pain Is My Gain: Neural Correlates of Envy and Schadenfreude

Hidehiko Takahashi, Motoichiro Kato, Masato Matsuura, Dean Mobbs, Tetsuya Suhara, and Yoshiro Okubo (13 February 2009) Science 323 (5916), 937. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1165604]

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/323/5916/937

Time well spent with friends

This weekend, my time was well spent with friends. We were all very cheery, cheery to the point of being hysterical, I am guessing it is because of the baby boom. Yeah...I am so excited, and I ought to be, a friend of mine is pregnant. I surely exposed everyone to my dual neigh-cum-laughter, really I used to laugh hysterically and usually it used to sound more like a horse's neigh. Life changes so fast, one minute you think "well that is it for now, no BIG changes" and then boom there is the jolt again! If I feel that way, I can sure understand how the soon-to-be parents might feel. What was interesting was each of us had our own vices to teach to the newborn, including the "mum n dad"- Ashok wants to give it shots of tequilla, another friend wants to pick it up and spank it. So we will have to wait and watch how the kid grows up despite our presence!!
For now we are all super-charged when it comes to this couple...and of course the would-be mom gets the say in most matters.

Que pasa amigos?

Last weekend we were in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It reminded me of home junta. Warm weather, fruiting mango trees, coconut trees, hibiscus and other beautiful flowering plants of the tropics, people strewn about in roadside stalls doing absolutely nothing, traffic, the houses...everything reminded me of home. It was an interesting blend of India and US.

So the trip began with a bit of a drama- we landed 15 minutes or 60 miles away from San Juan at St. Thomas. We were not aware of the fact that our flight was just going to stand in the airport for 2 hrs and we were not going to be allowed to get out of the aircraft. Oh well, we did get to SJ eventually! Thankfully that was the only drama!
We spent a day traveling to El Yunque (took a really small hike to some random waterfalls) rain forest and then to Fajardo (Seven seas beach). It was a very quite place but weather played a spoiled-sport, as I was settling to take a nap under a tree, it began to rain....
Well that was that, after randomly driving around we got to Condado, where we stayed. The evening was spent walking around the area. Next day we did have a good plan. But like all good plans ours was busted too...we spent nearly an hour waiting for our burgers (Worst service at Chicago burgers in Old San Juan) that were not even worth the wait!!! I liked old San juan- had a very spanish feel to it. The image on the right is the fort at old SJ, again built by the spaniards, essentially a fort to protect the city.The streets were narrow and the buildings were beautiful. My only crib: I could not go around the city more and do some shopping.
We spent the rest of the day at the beach (Isla Verde), I found a spot under the shade and took a wonderful nap. There was just enough breeze and just enough sun!!
That evening there was some sort of a festival going on- which we did enjoy along with some decent chinese take-out. Called it a night around 11PM.....had an early flight to catch the next morning

A lab of almost 100

Wow, I have only heard about Bob Langer cursorily. He has about 80 people in a lab that spans about 1300 sq. m. at MIT.He is almost 60 years old and has a CV that is about 75 pages long. He has received several awards including the 2008 Millennium Prize. Nature has this to say about him. Boy, at almost 60 years of age, that man is quite something. I was truly awed, not as much as I was when I read "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman" (this was when I fell in love with Richard P. Feynman). What was interesting and amusing to me in that profile by Nature- at the end of the day "on his way home, he stops for an ice cream — coffee chip frozen yoghurt with hot fudge sauce". Goes to show how important stopping to enjoy a cup of icecream is- no matter how successful you are!

On redaction

Onion had this to say about redaction of documents by the CIA. Pretty cool, I thought!

The BIG read

In April 2003, BBC launched a search for England's best loved book, you the most popular read if you will. English loved the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's mega-book was the best-loved book.
I have not read Lord of the Rings or any other book pre- and post- LoR by Tolkien (I loved the movies though!). Anyway I was intrigued by this list and decided to see how much of those books have I read- (I must say I got this idea from here although the BBC actual book list seems to be modified a bit). I took a look at the original list and guess what I have read only 34 of those 100 books. Ow, when am I ever going to finish reading especially when my reading list already has a back log of about 30 books. That list is the one that seems to be expanding at an alarming rate!
See below for the list, and do let me know how many you have read and what you liked best.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen-X
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling-X
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee-X
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell-X
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger-X
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens-X
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott-X
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy-X
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell-X
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling-X
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling-X
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling-X
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck-X
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll-X
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez-X
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens-X
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson-X
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen-X
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald-X
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas-X
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell-X
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens-X
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck-X
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy-X
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth-X
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky-X
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden-X
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding-X
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding-X
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy-X
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo-X
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho-X
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer-X
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez-X
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

Bacteria are the best indeed

Two weeks ago, there was a talk by Bonnie Bassler (Priceton University). Her talk was absolutely great- she was extremely energetic, enthusiastic and seemed very passionate about her work. She also seemed to absolutely love bacteria. When I listen to a talk I want to hear the speaker's passion for his or her work show in their talks. I cannot stand talks that are drab no matter how good the person might be. Just does not give a good impression you see.
She spoke about quorum sensing in bacteria and I was blown away by how the concept of multicellularity may not be new at all.
But I do have questions about it- while the bacteria produce auto-inducer(s) specific to their own species (say a regional language) and a common auto-inducer (universal language) made across a wide variety of bacteria, the evolutionary aspect of why bacteria need such a mechanism is unclear to me, especially if they are invovled in only one downstream signaling process.

We were not this bad, what happened

Obesity cases have been steadily rising in the Indian subcontinent. The consumption of processed foods and fatty goodies are on the rise and, therefore, unarguably so is obesity. We were doing alright all these years, what happened? You walk into a mall in any Indian city, you would be drawn to the same sugary, fatty junk that we have now deemed "not healthy" here in the western world. Things like donuts, potatoes drenched in oil and many more unhealthy products are flooding the Indian households. It would not be fair if I just blamed it on the foods, we are becoming a LAZY bunch people! Not only do we not go out and actively exercise, even the little we did around the house has been replaced. What with so much domestic help and all...

The good thing here in the US is that a lot of the people are very conscious and awareness about obesity as a real health issue is ever-increasing.

I am not sure how best to warn people of the dangers of such a rapidly changing lifestyle. But people please if you read this post, educate your friends and family so they can educate their friends and family and hopefully we can make people realize that by slightly modifying our eating and exercising habits we can actually lead healthier lives.

PS You can read this article and this one to learn at least a little more about obesity in India. Not that a lot of research is going on right now.

You are not alone...

I find this amusing and annoying at the same time, I understand when you work you want to left alone but science is all about mingling- sharing ideas, sharing crazy hypotheses, sharing work space and more. I think science would have remained rudimentary if the iPOD was discovered 200 years ago. I am not sure I can embrace the idea of come to the lab, turn your iPOD on and do whatever it is that you might be doing- surfing the net, working on an experiment or reading papers. My old lab was different that way and I liked it- we did not flaunt the "oh-look-wires-coming-out-of-me and so glued to my ears I cannot take it off" thingies. We talked incessantly, our thoughts constantly collided with one another giving rise to better experiments, we would badger the newbies in the lab calling it the "we would love to get to know you" phase.
This iPOD fetish might have something to do with being in a big lab, your bench spaces themselves are so far apart that there is very limited extent of interaction.
Anyway, I think as scientists we should limit the use of such devices- use it albiet sparingly, at least when at work. I am just a fly on the wall but I hope I am making sense here. I think this is not just true about science, you walk on the road all you can see are people either talking to themselves (back in the old days we used to think such people had the crazies!), or talking to a cell phone or concentrating on the music that is playing right into their heads.
So long people...man is a social being afterall, is he not?

Start your day GRUMPY...

This morning something odd happened- well it might not be that unusual but it seemed a bit unnerving to me anyway. We came to the car parked on a busy road (especially crazy at 9:00 in the morning). He got in to drive while I waited for him to pull out of the icy mess and give me some space to get in. Incidentally he did not see the bicyclist. She thought he was going to stop for her but he did not see her. She was yelling out "stop for the bicyclist" but of course he did not hear her. He pulled out really slowly, while she also kept at it- and all that happened was she stumbled a bit. Okay mistake probably was his- I don't know, she saw him driving and not stopping and so she decided not to stop either... anyway she got really worked up and started screaming like crazy. Things like "Jacka**, can't you stop for a bicyclist" and much more. So nothing odd about it, right?
Well, while she yelling I was watching her in awe. I could not understand how someone could actually be so grumpy early in the morning. I mean come on, how do you yell like that with such loathing in the morning. After a presumably good night's rest, Yyou wake up, have coffee and breakfast, wash, get dressed and leave for whatever it is that you are going to do for the rest of the day. Amidst all these things what happens that makes you crabby like that? Then what happens to the rest of your day? May be she is going through something genuine...
I sure felt sorry for the next person that came in her way.
I cannot fathom such emotions, can you?

Its snow holiday again...

...not for me anyway
Now I understand how poor Maryland's snow cleaning system is- it was supposed to snow only 1 to 2 inches. Guess what, UMD closed at around noon. And here in Boston, it snows about 8 to 12 inches every time and people act as though its JUST another thing. Usually the pavements and roads get cleared up rather quickly and that is all that matters, innit? Everything is seemingly normal, well me being the exception. Nothing is ever normal for me during winter. So far its been not so bad, while it was snowing outside, I stayed on inside! But there is going to be a snowstorm tomorrow. We will see how that goes, eh!!

I could go on and on...

Hmm...I have never felt so strongly about anything political. But today as I incessantly pour over the news about Mr. Obama's inauguration ceremony, I feel like I should have been there, where all the action is. I feel terrible having left DC before this great event. I must tell you though, I am not sure if Mr. Obama will be a successful president but there is something about him that tells me that he will do good. I love his speeches, I love his simplicity and I hope his actions are as sincere as his words. I also for some strange reason believe that he is a good man (let me tell you I have a blanket hatred against world's politicians- to me they are necessary evil!).
The only thing that has been on my mind these past few days is the fact that I am not in DC to witness this good, honest man take oath to the highest office in the United States. Also, I would not get to see "the beast" too! I want to be a part of this grandeur, seems like 2 million people are expected, too bad I am not one of them. What more, I want to kick myself for having left DC, I could have stayed on until the inauguration ceremony. Work calls right!
Well, if you let me, I would go on and on about how badly I want to be there. Does not matter now, I will be there in spirit, I guess!

PS: After all this rant about Mr. Obama, I guess it is only fitting that I read his book!

American exceptionalism

Yesterday on Diane Rehm Show (npr.org), the guest was Godfrey Hudson- the author of the book called The Myth of American Exceptionalism. I have not read the book and after that interview with Diane, I want to. This book seems to be provocative and is bound to offend a lot of people. In fact there was a caller who said that the author was the most condescending guest ever on the show. Well it did not seem that way to me, but then I am NOT an American. What struck me most was when a caller asked the author if saying "God Bless America" was a sign of such exceptionalism. Interestingly, the first time I heard that phrase in this country I thought of it as the weirdest thing- why would you want God to bless only a select few, why not God Bless the World or something like that. Anyway, Prof Hudson did not seem to have an answer to that question but he too had thought it was a bit strange. He is an English guy and it is impressionable that he would write such a book (well he has been studying this country for more than 3 or 4 decades I cannot remember). He argues that America is not exceptional after all and the idea of being exceptional, sort of you know, a keeper or a custodian or even the protector of the world in a sense, could prove dangerous.
I think Prof. Hudson kind of speaks out what has been going on in my mind but I guess I would definitely read it to get his perspective.

PS: I love Diane Rehm show and the thing I hate most about Boston is I can only to listen to recorded versions of her show on the radio. So I take advantage of npr.org and listen to 88.5 online.

My first few days at my NEW JOB

Finally I am working again- started this Monday.
Pa walked with me (he would rather say he was walking me to my bldg on Oxford St, just like when I was a little girl except then my mum used to do it!)- the icy pavements made it very treacherous and my dad cautioned me by falling down himself. It was only a 3hr work-day, getting done with all the paperwork (was not much at all).
The next day I met with the boss for about 15-20 minutes, and since then I have been reading and reading and read.....
Cannot believe that the FIRST week of the new year is coming to an end. Hopefully I can come up with a good project and that too within a reasonable amount of time coz I need to get back to the bench, y'all.

take care
hope you all had a good week

My trip to San Diego

Last year that is Nov 2008 after I submitted my thesis and successfully endured the 9 hour ride to Boston from College Park (It felt like I was the one who drove). Anyway the next day I left for a trip to SD (I stayed in SD for a week) and Boulder (this was only for two days, thanks to the single runway-high traffic-useless SD airport combined with a foggy morning).
The first 2 days I was by myself, took the trolley tour around San Diego. And thanks to my host there, I ended up on a shopping spree (he left me alone for the two days and what better thing to do than SHOP!!)
One thing I realized in San Diego- I love Mexico- the people, the culture, the crafts. The one place I loved in there is SD is the Old Town San Diego, a place that is considered to be the birthplace of California. While, they still have a few original structures made of Adobe bricks, a lot of the buildings are reconstructed. Despite this you do get an 1800's feel when you visit the Old town State historic Park. Other than SD was just alright.
For Thanksgiving we drove down to Mammoth lakes park. I don't ski and Renga could not snowboard or ski (you see the day I landed he broke his finger playing cricket, coincidental eh?) and Ashwin decided to give us company- therefore we put on a pair of snow-shoes to hike but it was totally unnecessary because it had not snowed that much. The next day we took a long detour via Death Valley and this is another place I instantly fell in love with. How very DEAD, you might think but then just as any desert landscape there are a few survivors. The photograph one the right was taken from the lowest point in the Northern Hemisphere, this place is about 86 meters below sea level and therefore has salty flakes all over.
I am not sure if people might agree if I call Death Valley beautiful but believe me it was to me and interestingly it reminded me of Denali Natl Park, except one was lush and green while the other was brown and dry. So it was fun thanksgiving and I must thank the guys for such a lovely trip.

I then flew to Denver, CO to meet a newly married couple. Spent a couple of day with them in Boulder and then headed back for a short stay in Boston, a stay that lasted for two days. I was off to India in two days.

Another year

Well the truth is now the New Year means nothing to me- one more year have passed by, nothing around me has changed much (although a lot of things have happened in general around the world- mostly the kind that bring sadness). I am still the same crazy person, well a year older and waiting to go bald any day now!!! The beginning of a new year only reminds me of the fact that I have not accomplished anything in the past year- same old same old mediocre life! The only thing that I always have trouble with is writing the dates correctly especially in my lab notebooks, apparently I like to be stuck in the past!
As a little girl, I used to want to celebrate the arrival of a New Year with all my friends and family - you have fun and all that, you know; but that never happened. In fact for most of my life- it was just the four of us and grandma sometimes; then it came down to the three of us and grandma. These years have dragged along with them, the very little fun-side I once used to possess (I believe I had a fun-side!!). Now, I don't understand why one should celebrate- apart from traditions, I realize that people celebrate the hope that the next year will be better than the one that passed. It could also be because people want to forget all their woes last few days of the year and be happy. I do respect all these sentiments and traditions but I just don't understand what the big deal is!
So those of you who already are in the next year and those of you who soon will be- whats the point, its just another day, innit?!
That was not pathetic was it- well this however does not mean that I would not WISH YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR, I do wish all of you the very best in life (but I do that almost everyday)
LOKA SAMASTHA SUKHINO BHAVANTU (Sorry blogger does not yet have the Hindi translation thingee for Mac!)

Now I really am in Boston

A 10-day trip to San Diego, CA and Boulder, CO; a week-long trip to Madras, India; and an eventful 4 day trip to College Park, MD, I am back in Boston. I have so much to write about and hopefully will get to all of them before I forget what I wanted to pen.

Am DONE!

People accomplish various things in life
Oct 8th , Chalfie, Shimomura and Tsien won the Nobel Chemistry
Oct 10th, Paul Krugman won the Nobel Economics
Nov 4th, Obama became the President of the United States
Nov 11th, Abbhi defended her PhD (normally I do not talk in third person!)

So those are some pretty big ones I can think of!!

What should I be doing

This question has been creeping for a while now- should I stay put in Science? I don't think I am capable of staying put for a simple reason that I am very absent-minded. Though not always, but the times that I am not myself, I make mistakes in my experiments. It might be normal, no one is perfect but in Science the feeling I get it you have no room for that. Being yourself, the worst self is just not an option. The other thing is, for a person like me who takes experimental failures as personal ones (oh trust me nothing can be more stressful than using your work to gauge you as a person- it almost always becomes existential!) , science may not be the best option.
Since this is one of those "why-am-I-doing-what-I-am-doing" moments, I took this test that tells what careers suit one's personality- and the things it came up with are pretty much what I would love to be

• Artist- YES
  
• Historian- who does not love history
  
• Banker- yeah right!
  
• Novelist- have been thinking about it for a while now
  
• University Professor- I don't think students will like me
  
• Photographer- can call myself an amateur
  
• Vet- thanks, but no thanks
  
• Paralegal
  
• Graphic Designer
  
• Online Content Developer
  
• Webmaster
  
• Producer
  
• Managing Director- hmm, this might just be perfect
  
• Nutritionist- I need to use it on myself
  
• Advertising
  
• Nursing

This test did not get me out of my bad mood completely but it sure did boost my morale, after all I have a shot at being a novelist!!


PS: OK back to preparing for defense, hope it goes alright!

So long Greenbelt

I love this quite little city- one of the first cooperative housing ventures in the US. The people are as beautiful as this quaint place. A stroll on a gorgeous summer evening would always entail cheerful hellos and heys from the passers-by. The Roosevelt center, my favourite haunt, has great food with places like New Deal cafe and Generous Joe's deli. Oh I definitely will not forget the smells of freshly baked pastries at Chef Lou's (that is if you can catch a slice before he closes for the day and I don't think he is open everyday!). The center has a lot of activities in the summer.
And recently we have even started having our own farmer's market, that is all that was missing...
So why would anybody not like a place with great food, a good movie theater (don't expect an AMC, but I sure love the Old P&G), a farmers market and a "yummo-baked goods-anytime"and all of this you could just walk to....come on now!!!
I/We are out of Greenbelt (I am a temp acco at a friend's in College Park) as of yesterday and I am already feeling miserable. I love Greenbelt!!

Kudos to all those who still value such cooperatives and take the efforts needed to maintain it.

PS I cannot believe I spent nearly 10 minutes writing this post instead of preparing for my defense. One week to go junta

Weird

How come when we desperately want something to work it NEVER works. Is that an anomaly only in my life, I wonder!

I don't understand this

Okay, so everyone wants a bipartisan bailout deal worked out. "They" keep saying we got to do what is best for the country, put the country first yada yada yada (isn't this McCain's punch line?!)
So how come Nancy Pelosi's statement about how Republicans have failed in their economic policies is the biggest reason for the failure of the trillion dollar bailout deal? Both sides should have put country first and worked out something out, right?! It just seems so appalling to me that the politicians can be so hypocritical, on one hand all we hear is "this is the biggest crisis, akin to the great depression" so on and so forth and on one the other, both parties have been using this crisis as the biggest marketing strategy, pointing finger at one another...quite annoying actually and I am not even the one voting!!!


PS Aim for bipartisanship, try not to be an elitist...

say, can I do this again later sometime

Boy, that is one question I won't ask myself, may be I will consider it if someone offers to write my thesis for me! Its so hectic, I can hardly think about anything else. I guess part of the problem could be that most of next month will be spent doing experiments for my last chapter and writing my thesis. And of course it does not help when your boss says "you are going to stress yourself and you are going to stress me out; you brought it on yourself" yada yada yada......so its like a Law and order CI episode- Will Goren and Eames catch the killer? Will I finish on time so that I can defend on the date I have set for in October? I tell you similar emotions- people who catch killers should be made to write a thesis (not necessarily theirs, that would be more fun I suppose)

So the latest development, I postponed my defense by a month (so hopefully November folks) and now I am hoping that I will be actually done by then. Not that much has changed because of that, you know work expands to fill time, so am back to nervously muttering "oh god let my experiments work and please please let me finish at least in November!"

Frankly work is the only thing right now in my life and not that I mind it but sure don't mind easing up a bit!

So about Denali

Denali Natl Park- really beautiful, mountains do have character don't they?!
Drive was just filled with amazing views. We stayed at Savage river campground- mosquito free zone. Can you believe we actually socialized with a bunch of people who were also camping- 2 of them go to school in Fairbanks I think and there were 2 more of their friends from California- the point of telling this, we were so loud apparently that we got shushed...how can someone go to sleep when it was nice and bright outside? So the first day was mostly spent on a bus from the visitor center to Wonder lake (private vehicles can go only up to a certain point in the park) but we got to see so much of the wildlife- grizzlies, a fox, caribou, moose and its calf (oh the calf was really cute), sheep, sheep, more of sheep!! I must tell you the ground (tree?) squirrels are ugly. We hiked a little bit at the end of the bus drive (had to stretch a bit)- took the McKinley bar river trail, our first and only encounter with huge mosquitoes! And by the way, have you ever seen a person walking, well more like a stroll, fall face down in a slush- too bad you should have seen me- all covered in mud..
It does not matter- we got to see the double peaks!!! It happens only 3 or 4 times in a month and we were there, magnificent double peaks.
The next day was more on a less trodden trail- it was fun, just drove up to Talkeetna and started walking in one direction. It was fun to cross those little creeks, the water felt really good. After that little bit of well hiking around, we decided that was that and got back to the car where the ranger told us interesting stories about fightin' off bears and how he saw a bear chasing a moose, he was pretty vocal, I am not exactly sure if I felt like believing everything he said but it sure sounded adventurous. It was kind of disheartening that the trip was getting to its end.
Untainted beauty is what it was and I sure want it to stay that way. I would love to see how the place looks like in winter (only I am not sure if I can brave it!) But it would be fun to go back again and again and again folks!!!
ciao

Alaska- the last frontier

So we are back from Alaska. That was a long time ago and this post is way past due!
I flew into Anchorage on the 26th of June, well it took a while since I had flown all the way down to Dallas and then up to Anchorage. On the way to Anchorage, we saw Mt.Rainier- oh what a pretty sight, magnificent! Reached there at around 7:30PM. Sun never sets in the Alaskan empire during summer- interesting trivia, the moon was around only for about a maximum of 1h. Anyway-
June 27th- (not many great snaps from this trip because it was raining, and the camera was fogging up pretty bad!)
~2h ride to Seward for the cruise to see some cool glaciers. But the weather had to play spoilt-sport. I guess I should not complain since the cruise did not run the day before due to really high ocean. And also because I got to see an Orca pass by at about 10feet!!! Oh most amazing, it was this close- I could have jumped on it and rode!! We could not go down to the glaciers, there were people on the boat who did not have the stomach for it, no literally they were quite sick.. and the waves were pretty high. Oh ours was a small boat- she was called misty, went upto 25knots (or layman-22miles/hr) pretty fast I would say. We saw a lot of wildlife- humpback whales were quite sight, lone bald-eagles high up on a tree, penguin-like puffins adorning the island (the name of which I have forgotten) and the same island there were a harbor seals, man these are some lazy creatures! The glacier that we did see was one of the Aialik- Holgate glacier, quite massive, very blue! There were some interesting world war II stuff too. It was really cold though, I mean after the first 5-6 h of the journey, I was pretty much inside the cabin the whole time.
The next day was at Anchorage- went to the state's largest flea market. It was beautiful weather and seemed like everyone was outside. That evening we left for Denali national park.

But I will blog about it in my next post folks! Be patient and trust me Alaska is worth spending money on!

So the end is in sight folks

The end is in sight- I now have a job, well if you can call getting a postdoctoral position as having a job. Anyway what is important is I finally get to move on but hold on- who is going write my thesis? I cannot think of anything else that I dread so much- oh-the-no one-reads-this part of my PhD. But it has to be done, and I will have to get it done somehow.
My labmates have been nice enough to give me the wildest suggestions but unfortunately using any of those would be deemed as plagiarism (LOL). The only hope for me- I have a job and I need to start sometime in October (hey hey, I did not come up with this, my boss said so!)

A journey

Trains have been a part of my childhood and most of my teen years. Over those years I have developed a strange bond with Indian Railways. Other countries might have better trains but none can offer "the journey" that our trains provide. There is something about traveling by trains. I remember the time in BITS just before holidays- I used to be so eager and excited to being my journey back home, I initially thought it was due to homesickness but I got the same feeling of excitement when I left home (well, I was sad to leave my family and go far north to study...!!). Those oh-about-2days of train journey were a bliss. Sit by the window muttering a song to yourself, once in a while humor your fellow passengers with a story or a joke (inquiries about where they are coming from-great starters!)- somehow when I am on a train, sorrow/sad is not an emotion- usually its laughter, solitude and happiness!! I pretty much get down wherever the train stops- very important, get a taste of the local food. Oh..those matka chais in Kharagpur, jamuns (the fruit, if you have never had these you have missed something great), vadas in vijayawada, not-one-of-my-favorite-srikhand, guavas (when they are in season)....Not just food but somehow getting down at a stop, I felt like I belonged there and that to me was way cool!
I used to stand the door taking in all the air and smell of the earth as much as possible- as if I were going to die tomorrow or something. Interestingly, there were ticket checking guys-some of them just warned me, there were others that yelled but there were few others that always had a gruesome story to tell about young boys and girls getting killed by standing alongside those giant iron doors. When I am on a train there is always sense of urgency- finish a good number of books, taste all the food you can, oh sleep, I forgot that, sleep as much as you can!!! T might be dirty, my co-passengers might be annoying, hey but all that.. cannot keep me from enjoying my train journey. Live a little, let go of your comfort for a just a few hours and you will be the happiest passenger in the world!!

PS my dream- to travel the Indian subcontient by trains, stop at every little station and explore the villages nearby- and take a shot at writing about it!

Fear...

Here is another one borne out of my thought-experiments!

She sat on the couch- TV was on, music was playing on her laptop, phone was ringing. She sat still on the couch, unmindful of all the noises that surrounded her. (gosh! how I wish I could do that...get away from all the noises) She was scared- scared of what, that she could not tell. Fear of the unknown possibly, her mind wandered, it was as if taking a stroll in Central Park. Why do people fear the unknown? Why do we as humans have to know everything? This was her chance, chance to be happy and not worry about the unknown. After all she had everything that she could ever want, well may be not ever want but it was more than enough for the time being. Then why could she not get the unknown out of her mind? She knew giving up things she loved doing most or the people she loved was not helping either. It was debilitating. What is her way out, when her thoughts are chockablock with the unknown?
Well, her mind seemed to have fagged off after the stroll. She jolted and was greatly stricken by the noise around her. She decided to take a stroll herself and find the comfort she needed under the starry skies.

One world, one language

As a lover of languages, such articles always make me fret a bit. Not that I don't understand the importance of learning English, after all it is soon to become the ONLY language (even with a billion + population each of China and India). But my only wish is to not see such a thing happen in my lifetime! I take pride in the fact that Indians are very multilingual- we somehow do not even realize this fact, most of us can speak at least 3 different languages including English. Isn't that quite a feat?
So why do I think trying to do our bit in saving the languages from totally dying out is important? Quite simple really- I consider English to be a language of stinginess- alphabets have been stripped down to bare minimum. English lacks the bounty of some of the other languages. Well, I can only imagine that it would not be too long before we start using Newspeak as the "world official langauge". We can see it heading there, can we not? What with A and Es being replaced by whatever?!!
So folks go on learn as much languages as possible and don't forget your own native tongue!!

Thats it 4 2nite, BCNU soon

PS Orwell, IMAO was one of the best!!!!

Finally...

Hold on...I am not graduating....well at least not yet. Finally my/ our paper has been accepted.
It is a suspense as to where it got through but I can assure you- its big ladies and gentleman (please people don't spoil the surprise and crse others can take guesses)!!!
But you know what, there is hardly any excitement left in me, may be because I am tired and it just took too long, too many people and too much of work (most of which first ended up in supplementary section during the first review process and then removed altogether from the paper after the 2nd review!). It was very funny, here I was thinking I could relax a little, but the reverie was spoilt when my boss comes to me the next day and goes "so- any-data-for-me".
Anyway am back to work, well it never stopped actually.

PS Next time I give this title, I probably means that I have either graduated or just left the country

Its already February!!

I have been trying to crawl of this hole I am in right now to at least say hello to the blogosphere- but seems like I am not doing a good job of it.
So for now just take it from me- if you are going to a PhD, think first- do I want to die young or go crazy? if your answer to either of the questions is YES then by all means go for it....My friend you are now in the MATRIX!!!!


PS did you notice how the title had nothing to do with the content?

Thanksgiving at Smoky mountains

What better than spending the long weekend in a nice cabin house with a beautiful view of the mountains willing to reveal their fiery colors and a lake that is dried up. Hope it does not sound too bad coz it was certainly not bad- the house was amazing. although it probably would have been worthwhile to stay at such a place when you can actually enjoy the outdoors. Thanksgiving weekend was too cold for me. The mountains were beautiful- I felt sad seeing the remnants of summer (dried up plants which would have borne some wonderful wild flowers). As always with a big group there is always the issue of where to go and what to do, but there were a few of us who actually followed the herd. So fortunately I not contribute to the 1000h planning sessions!!!
So day 1- a hike and then whatever was the plan, crse did not work that way, nature would have it otherwise.. Anyway, we did do the mistake of taking "the most" congested route through any Natl Park..a 11 mile scenic loop has never been so frustrating, at the end of it was a decent trail (Abrams falls, I think was the name). May be I would visit the great mountains in springtime to enjoy some wild flowers and some good hikes (was not keen on hikes- it was cold...and it had snowed about 16inches up at higher elevations). For all that chagrin we were rewarded with the appearance of hoofed-deer (for want of a better name), some wild turkeys and the star of the show- a black bear!!! yes yes..he stood unperturbed while we stared at him from a safe distance (we were in the car)
Day 2 The Indian settlement was nice and probably nicer if you were willing to lighten your wallet. It was funny coz there were people in the gang who came to Cherokee for some action and did not realize that it was just a settlement where tourists come, spend money and generate revenue for the natives (in fact main form of revenue comes from casinos a.k.a legal gambling). We did manage to get to the highest point of the mountains-clingman's dome Drive almost all the way and then a 0.5 mile hike (quite steep and very cold!) Pity we spent most time in the car because the cabin house where we stayed (Dandridge) was quite far from civilization. We did have our share of fun at the cabin with some "oh-I-would-never-watch-this-again" movies to party games.
The one thing I would have loved is a leisurely walk in Gatlinburg, a quaint little town/city, all decked up for the holidays.

So if you are planning to go to the mountains- Avoid the scenic loop if you can, and look around you never know who might pay you a visit!!!

Can I publish my own book, please?!!!

If Scott Adams can write and publish a book, so can you or rather so can I*. In any given day, there will be at least one author being interviewed on NPR. These people range from politicians and their wives to some random dude writing his memoirs. You listen to them and you go "what, who are these people" and more importantly, "who on earth will read their books" and "who on earth would want to publish them?". Dick Cheney's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, Barrack O'bama, and loads of others, I cannot remember all of them of course- I mean they are already all over the media, what more can there be to say. Although I am curious as to what the contents of these books might be I am sure I won't buy or borrow any...basically I won't read them!! I think it is a waste of time knowing what these liked-by-paparazzi have to say about their lives. Books are supposed to impart knowledge and what can I possibly gain from reading O'bama's life history or even worse- Jessica Simpson's book on dream weddings (now really....if she can write a book .....we all should, well probably she hired someone to write it for her...still!!!!)
Well...think about it, to me this trend of writing/ publishing a book as soon as you are remotely famous seems very American. If you consider writing a book, consider media publicity; could be any of these following- imprisonment, might help if you are a friend of Lindsay Lohan; a political career, you could get to give a piece of your mind to Bush Jr. or anything else innovative you can think of!
So I got to stop now...have a book to write people!!!

* If you aren't already a dilbert fan- go to dilbertblog.

Dealing with "them"

Well dealing with parents is harder than I thought! Here is what I think- they are leading a what is seemingly static life and since we have undergone so many changes, it hard for both of us to come to a state of agreement! Somehow I am very different from them or so I think. When and how this dichotomy happened- but it seems to have, I am quite diffferent than they are. The problem though lies in the fact that they are oblivious to this- they do not see that I am different- for good or for bad , that is a different issue altogether now, isnt it? They think I am this 2 year old who requires constant attention and care. Anything that I do or say does not seem to do much, in fact it ends up in an argument. So I let them give me all the care and attention!!
Something that my mum asked me made me really think about this- she asked me something like "so you dont need me?" And I was taken aback, did not know how to answer- ofcourse I dont need her, why would I need her? I was not sure what to answer- if I said yes that would be a lie, if I said no she would feel bad!!!
So anyway, I am sure one day I will figure out how to tell them that I am an adult now and was for a long time and that they should slowly disengage from all that they do for me and start doing stuff for themselves...they have done more than what needs to be done and I am thankful for that. It is my turn now to make sure they do things that they might have put off because they were caring for me all these years!!!

Bihar se laloo!!!

Agreed- he is the man, he is the man who made profit out of the biggest government endeavours- the Indian railways (mind you not a lot of these goverment, I mean anywhere in the world, run organizations make profit..) I am mindful and appreciative of that facr but I still cannot tolerate it when he shows up on a TV show (yeah I watch SaReGaMaPa challenge on Zee).What I cannot tolerate much more than Laloo is the fact that we Indians can never give up being subservient. He is minister and a bad one at that...then why bother with things such as"Sir, I am fan of yours...aap yeh kaise karte ho, woh tho kamal kiya apne...apki blessings chahiye sir bas wohi kafi hai!!!!!!" Not just the contestants of the show, the judges and the spectators also had something or the other to admire about him. What can you admire in such a man- a very average person (I am being generous now!) who just happened to be a man of power. And most of all he was an hour late to the show during which we had to endure some pretty bad music.

PS Anyway this actually brings to what my next post will probably be- what is respect, when and who should it be given to? (Interestingly this was the topic of a lecture given today by Dayand Saraswati!)

Extremely loud and incredibly close- a book I am trying to read

So among all books I have read, I would say this book "Extremely loud and incredibly close" is the weirdest। A strange way of depicting the emotions and sentiments of a young boy who lost his father in the 9/11 attack. Oskar Schell is on an inspiring mission to all the five burroughs of Newyork (at least that is what the it says on the cover!) I cannot imagine how much time it took for this author to write a book such as this- what sort of thoughts and emotions did he have to go through before writing every page of this book.
Anyway I could not read it beyond about 100 pages (reading a book was never such a torment), so returned it to the library actually even before the due date (come on y'all that hardly happens!
The reason for me being persistent with "Extremely loud" was this other book- I went through an I-cannot-read-this phase...it was A.S.Byatt's "The Game". For about a year I would start the book , read it until a particular page (it was always around the same page quite surprisingly) and drop it...after about 3-4 trials...not only did I manage to finish it but infact I loved the book. Well, that did not happen with "Extremely loud".
So, if you have already read through this weird book...then I guess I would have to put you in the category of strange people with stranger tastes!
Ciao
Happy reading!

Have you read it?

Warning may contain spoilers!!!!

Well its Harry Potter time once again... I got the book on Saturday and finally managed to finish it yesterday (even though all of Sunday I could not lay hands on the book, busy cooking). The book was dragging in parts but there were times when I thought JK Rowling had really used her imagination. I did not like the big war like event outside Hogwarts but I did love the fact that Snape was indeed a "good man". So all is well that ends well, I guess (dont want to give too much away). What was the epilogue about- seemed like she generally had to add it to sort of give it an ending or something....can you imagine Harry's childern (hopefully there won't be books about them!)- was quite funny actually. If you read just the epilogue you would wonder as to why on earth did this book get so much popularity-certainly not the writing. The epilogue was very mediocre. On the whole it was alright. I must say the best reads were Goblet of Fire and Half Blood Prince. I am slightly sad that this is it for the Potter boy. SO go ahead give him a big farewell!!!

Mirror mirror on the wall....

For the first time in years, she stood in front of a dusty mirror hanging from the largest wall in her room- a beautiful victorian style mirror that has been horrendously underused. She had never, in years, paused for more than a few seconds in front of this long piece of glass..just to check if she looked personable enough. Today as she looked at herself, she realized how much time has whizzed by. She was fraught with a feeling of having aged all of a sudden..she was only 32, how could she look so old. Shiny grey hair and thin lines on her face gave her a shiver. How could this have happened- she had started using every anti-aging formula she could find in the market- she was very preemeptive. She was angry that her reflection was showing someone that was not her, someone that she was not comfortable with. She was in tears, but she did not understand as to why she felt so weak. She did not understand if it was just her countenance and looks that bothered her so much or was it something much more than that. After spending considerable time introspecting, she knew one thing- life was too short and there were just too many things that she wanted to do. She knew she had to take affirmative steps- not just to be happy but to make others happy. She had a smirk on her face. When she looked at herself in the mirror there was that same old sparkle in her eyes, yes something which everyone used to adore about her when she a child!! Boy, how could a mirror...

Am I an addict?

So its either a channel where chefs churn out yummy stuff in their fancy kitchens or a channel with formally clad men and women using hi-tech gadgets to solve crimes (past, present and infact future crimes can be solved-believe me!!!. Give me one of these- me and the couch will become one. I have begun to wonder-may be I am an addict- it is not however reached a point where (yet!) I get mentally agitated if I don't get my daily doses of one or both of the above mentioned "idiot box series". I do howevere once in a while imagine myself being in a forensic lab and solving some cool cases. I must say these shows somehow bring in a sense of grandeur-reality seems to be lost in it. I have resisted the monster for a long time until I came here- I guess weekdays especially after work, past time TV watching has turned into this rote.
Well as long as it does not become an addiction of sorts.....

Anyway folks...may more crimes be solved!!!!

PS boy there is a website for every darndest thing...I will not say kill the TV but the least we can do is make room for more activities.

I am still in grad school

Life was going on..until one day we decided to publish some of my/ our work. Then it began- the blots had to look prettier, images had to look sexier (guys guys.....unfortunately these are sexy images of cells and worms!!) and numbers needed to be tighter (who knows when you might come across one of those statisticians who might say "of course there is a 90% increase in the experimental sample compared to the control, but is the difference significant" and you, on the other hand give them the what- are- you -talking -about look). So this is what I have been doing- not all of it (I am just one of the authors!!) and I must admit it is harder than I thought. Especially when you have to make your figures, constantly imagining as to how they might look when they are compressed by these journals to say 40-50% of their original sizes!!! Thats quite a feat is'nt it? If you were ever wondering where I was or secretly hoping "Dear God-let it be true, let that blog be inactive forever and ever".....I am back (kinda!!).
PhD is hard man.....and to all of those of you who managed to get by without ever having to say "I can quit right now!"- may be you should go through a reality-check...

PS: I am not a great fan of statisticians, they can be quite twisty and hard to follow most of the times. Read this or this

Its her Birthday!!

"Its her Birthday today!!" my mother declared aloud. As I look up at her face I could see speckles of tears trying to fall out of her eyes and she was holding them back so much so that she would not blink. I wanted to put my arms around her and tell her that it was alright to cry. All I could do was whisper out a few mumbled words amongst which some might have been "yes, it is or yes it would be". Neetu, my only sister would have been a brilliant, beautiful 24 year old woman. On this day-on her birthday, I cannot help but think about all the times that we had together (well most of them were spent fighting..). Somehow what I thought was impossible did indeed happen- I actually learnt to live without her and as far as my parents are concerned- live for her and live like I have become one with her. I have emerged as a strong person while the strongest person I knew, my mom, has become decrepit! Even now ma talks of Neetu as though she still exists. After all Neetu was the darling of the family. Although I don't talk of her much, I still remember the last day- she was calm and composed, she had that dainty smile on her face, sort of saying goodbye to all of us.
Well if I were a little younger, I would have spent a few more years wishing for a miracle to bring back our "bulki darling", but I know better now (or at least not to hope for anything unimaginable). So I go straight to my mom, put my arms around her and all we could do was shed a few tears.

Earth day-this Sunday

Hi folks,

Its Earth day, this Sunday April 22nd. I knew it was sometime now so I was wondering what little steps I can take to celebrate being a part this wonderland called EARTH. I try to reduce, reuse and recycle when I can. It is quite a challenging thing to do specially because I live with roommates. When it comes to conserving energy of any sort- my roommates are what I would call "Prodigal"- may be a strong word but that is what they are. Caring about the environment is the last thing on their minds (and they might even actually give a reason "what can we do we are grad students?!!"). Why do some of us, at least try our best, to preserve what is left our Earth while there are others who don't even care!! (yeah that's what it is- grad students or not, where there is will there is a way) What is even more upsetting, is the fact that most of these people think big and dream big but unfortunately only about themselves- in fact I am tempted to call them all "selfish to an extent". But my personal opinion aside...how hard is it to turn those lights off when not in use, save water by closing the tap when washing dishes or brushing your teeth or well the reason that triggered this post- turn your heaters off when it is 68F outside!!!! This is not a post to let my anger out after seeing the heater the light on (well...may be not entirely), it is more so because I want folks visiting this blog to understand that caring for our planet Earth is as important as cleaning yourself up- after all it is first home!!! So get up and do something, anything (and don't lie to yourself that you conserve enough!!) It is time we started caring, all of us- grad students or not!!

Virginia tech massacre

I did not even get to read the news this whole day until I saw an email from Ashok- the subject line read "Vtech killings". I have been following the news closely through the evening and I cannot get the grip yet- why would someone do such a horrible thing? What is the difference between such people and terrorists like Osama Bin Laden? I feel helpless as I can only sympathize with all the students in Vtech and probably join millions of others who are praying for all those who have lost their lives and all those in the hospital to make it back !!! You have to really lose your heart and soul to commit such a heinous crime- no reason will justify this killing. I just hope at some point there would be an end to all this senseless murders and probably more stricter gun laws!!! Yet another incident that will stay in our minds forever.