Life's Onward Journey...

Hmmm. I was told this by a friend whom i met today after a gap of 4 years. It's a sincere compliment. One of the best one i have recieved so far. :-) I know this friend of mine since my MSc days (will call her Anne for a specific reason). I was a part of a group of 3 (a very closed group). There were 2-3 others in our batch of 21 students whom i was friendly with. Anne is one of them. She can be described as a girl full of fun and effervescence. There was something very childlike about her (there still is). And i was the "serious" kind of person. Our excitement levels and matters that excited us never matched. One thing which was common between us was a high degree of professionalism. So, we got along well in some ways and in other areas we never crossed each other's path. Today when we spent some 6 hrs together after 4 years i felt that she is the same person. But she said "You are less boring now." Then she apologized. I really didnt mind her telling this...

Have been thinking about this for quite some time now. Last 4 years have passed so quickly and more than that if i look back to the gone days, i can't distinguish one day from the other. Life has become so monotonous. There is hardly any difference between a monday and saturday or months march and may. The days which are slightly "different" from most of these days are the ones spent in vacation, outings, movies, with a friend or group of friends. Apart from them there are a few other "different" days which don't remind me of any fun. These are the days marked for work related deadlines and work presentations e.g. annual work seminar, causerie, journal clubs, lab meetings, report making, poster presentations, thesis committee meetings....etc. In all there are around 15 x 2 = 30 such days. (15 days which actually are the marked days and 15 days just before these days when the major part of preparation is actually done) Rest any day of the year is same. Yes, ...

" Mera itihaas bahot lamba hai aur bhugol gol " (My past spans eternity and each time my fate brings me back to the same point.) Harilal Gandhi in Gandhi My Father. This movie is an attempt to bring to light a different aspect of the personality of the man we call "father of our nation". The man who failed as a father. Harilal Gandhi didnt choose to be born as the eldest son of Barristor Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. But this served as only the first step towards the series of unfortunate events in his life. Harilal got a free gift of his father's ideologies and principles. A different kind of a person that he was, he could not accept these principles completely nor could he shrug them off. He never got the luxury of choosing his own path. He just became a follower who later strayed from that very path. The movie is worth watching for the turmoil and helplessness of the character of Harilal. Akshaye Khanna has done a great job. Lets see if a national award follow...

"Chak De India" is so far my closest encounter with hockey. Never saw the game, so never got to appreciate it. But at the end every game is the same. A team effort to win. Superposition of different waves so that they are in the same phase. I really liked the movie because it succeeded to depict the spirit of the game. A team can be made only if individuality is suppressed to a certain degree. And only such a team can dream of winning. The characterisation of the players was done well. I can easily remember the name and background of 10 out of the 16 players. What can i say about Coach Kabir Khan? Even if the role was played by K K Menon (i kept thinking about him in the movie), the movie would have been equally good. However, Shahrukh Khan's inclusion did act as the initial crowd puller. The movie is running house-full. SRK has done full justice to the role. People are comparing this role to that of the NASA engineer of Swades. Lets not go that far. Mohan Bhargava will a...

Last year was "disaster special" for our lab. One fine morning the -80 degree centigrade freezer was found to be at 0 degrees. The stuff normally kept under frozen condition had thawed. Another fine evening we noticed that there was no liquid nitrogen in the liquid nitrogen storage cylinder. So, another set of cell lines, bacterial stocks, yeast stocks, DNA stocks of the lab were destroyed. The best was yet to come. A part of the hard disk of the most used computer of our lab was found erased. That left my lab mates data-less as well as devoid of experimental material (not completely!) I had an interesting conversation with my brother regarding the lost data. He tried to explain in simple words. He said that the data deleted from the hard-disk was still there though it was not accessible through the normal route. There are special softwares using which deleted data can be retrieved. I asked my brother if the data has been deleted how can it be retrieved. And i found that su...

I was crossing the corridor of Dept of Astronomy and Astrophysics, when i heard "P zero is not the....". I stood there for a fraction of second thinking whether what i heard was right. So, somebody else at TIFR has something to do with P zero. And more than that, me and my labmates have been unaware of this fact. The main focus of our lab lies in the studies related to the P0 protein of the malarial parasite. Is there a secret group at TIFR trying to move ahead of us? On second thought, it didnt seem plausible enough. 'Astrophysicists and P0 protein of Plasmodium' , a rather odd combination. Thank God! We are safe. I came back to lab and googled for P0 and found really funny (to us) and diverse definitions that i would like to share. 1) Pzero is a low-carbon power management company based in UK. Pzero stands for 'power with zero emission'. The company delivers low-carbon power solutions to industries and communities. (Good Work!) 2) P zero is a Italian tyre co...

Struggle - From a poem by Ellen P. Allerton Great strength is brought with pain, From out the strife, From out the storms that sweep The human soul- Those hidden tempests Of the inner life- Comes forth the lofty calm Of self-control. Peace after war. Although The heart may be trampled And plowed like a torn battle field, Rich are the fruits that follow victory, And the battle grounds The fullest harvests yield. Is there going to be one such day when we wont be worried about tomorrow? It may not be. But the least one can ask for, is a ray of hope. 'A' has been applying for PhD in research institutes in India and abroad for several years without any success. Life is at a standstill. The other major decisions of life can wait till he gets a permanent job and starts earning. 'B' is now in 5th year of her PhD. She has been repeating the same experiements for the past 1 and a half years. Only work she can document today is the million reasons why her experiments were terminat...

Why am i so lazy? Most of the time i just feel like sitting quietly in a secluded corner of the lab or the institute or my room doing 'nothing'. I cant even count the number of jobs (both professional and personal) which have been pending for a while now. One such job has been pending since past one year (i m ashamed of myself). Last year i went to Goa for attending a workshop. I carried a friend's digital camera and took million photographs. Since past one year people have been constantly begging me to send their photographs to them. And here i m doing 'nothing'. And i call myself responsible. If i start making a list of such jobs (forget experiments) it will fill at least 10 A4 size sheets (typed on single side, font size 12, 1 1/2 spacing). I wont do that. I will just finish all pending jobs, one by one before the end of July and save people from reading boring stuff. I m aware that now the number of people visiting my blog has increased. Thanks to a few friends ...

Saw this movie on the first sunday which followed the release date. Began writing this post the same day as i wanted to vent out my frustration before going to sleep. The mission could not be accomplished because of one reason or the other. After that day i just got too lazy to write about it. But since i had already written a few lines, i decided to finish it before proceeding to the next post. JBJ is the worst movie i have seen in recent times. It made TaRaRumPum look better (i hope there's nothing wrong with me). At least the latter had a 'moral'. This one lacked everything. We should wait and watch what is next in line from YashRaj Films. May be the next production makes me change my view on JBJ. I want to watch 'Laga Chunari Mein Daag' for Rani Mukherjee and Konkona Sen. But this time i wont forget to say a silent prayer after the national anthem and before the movie begins, around the same time when the " Y " of the YashRaj Films flashes on screen ...

Day 0 : They decided to separate. Though life would never be the same, the decision was taken. But they maintained contact. Can "lovers" stay as "friends"? They found the answer after a few days. For a few days : They tried to remain as "friends". But its not easy to switch relations. You can always move ahead in a relationship, but if you turn back, you cannot take ten steps back and "convert" lovers into friends. In love, you follow the all or none law. Being "just friends" is too difficult (i wont say it is impossible). Some Day to Day 102 : He wanted her back in his life not only as a "friend" but as a "lover and friend". How did he manage to change his mind? Has he realized something which she has missed? Can such decisions be taken in a haste? She was not prepared for it. Will this relation stay forever? Will things come back to normal? She kept on wondering... Day 103 : She took a major decision. They will bre...

Watched Ta Ra Rum Pum today. Its an average movie which recites the story of a family which does not lose faith in adversity and stays together. Rajveer (never been to college) a numero uno car racer marries Radhika (joins the league by dropping out of college) an amateur pianist. They and their two kids live a luxurious life (the luxuries are bought either on loans or on installment payment). The story takes a turn when the racer hero meets with an accident on the racing track. He takes 1 year to recuperate and get back to the racing track. When he finally makes a comeback, at one of the crucial moments of his first race he gets reminded of the deadly accident he had in the past and his foot loses contact from the accelerator. He loses 1o races in a row and his racing contract is cancelled. The family loses everything (actually they didnt own anything in the first place). A series of events show the parents making sacrifices for the kids and the kids doing the same for their parents...

"Lamhon ki guzarish hai ye, paas aa jayen, hum tum..." This song is one of my most favourite songs. It is very meaningful. I have a personal interpretation of this song and would like to share it. I don't know whether the director (Kunal Kohli) intended to pass "this" message to the viewers. The song comes towards the end of the movie, when the female protagonist Rhea feels that Karan, whom she has known for years is "the one" she will like to spend the life with. The song truly depicts the female perspective on relationships. Rhea and Karan are walking in rain when they come across 3 different couples. While Karan is a little 'high' after having a drink, Rhea is more congnizant than normal. It seems as if everything she is seeing has a message for her. When she looks at the old couple, the man playing the piano and the woman enjoying it, she imagines Karan and herself in their place. The question she seems to be answering in her mind is wh...

When i was a kid (that was years back) i never had major problems in making friends and interacting with people. There are kids who have to be coaxed by their parents to talk to people, which includes relatives, family friends and even other kids. My parents never faced this difficulty. Its a different story that they had to hear the complaints of my teachers who used to call me a "chatterbox". I loved talking, even it was in the middle of a class :) A lot of people around me used to (and still do) confide in me. I was the perfect listener. And i enjoyed doing that. Its not that i am a "guru" and can give perfect advices to anybody and everybody. I believed that just listening to somebody's problems half-solves it. But i was unaware that this creates a kind of emotional dependence. I could have still dealt with this emotional dependence which others have on me, if i was leading a "perfect" and "peaceful" life. But, like most people on this e...

Anil Kumble announced his retirement from one-day cricket earlier today. And with him goes my last bit of interest in cricket. I owe my interest in this game to my brother. He used to be a "cricket-maniac". I remember whenever he missed matches (because of school or coaching classes), he used to make me write the details (a personal scoreboard) in the notebook he used to maintain. If i m right, he has also written commentaries on his favourite matches in the same notebook. During one of the matches he made me sit through, i saw Anil Kumble bowl. He was the highest wicket-taker in that particular match. I enquired my brother about him and came to know that unlike our other cricketers he is a qualified mechanical engineer. That impressed me (also his bespectacled look). I don't understand the intricacies of the game cricket. It is like a reality show for me. Its fun to watch how cricketers behave during different complicated situations which arise during the course of the g...

It has been a long time since i wrote something on my blog. Of late i have become the only visitor to my blog to check whether by chance a friend of mine clicked on the URL on my "Orkut" profile and left a comment on one of the posts written a year ago. Not that i had a hundred visitoirs earlier. But i m sure that whoever used to check my blog earlier, would have forgotten about it by now. I m back. And hopefully will keep on posting regularly. A lot has happened in the past 7 months. I have at least 3 unfinished drafts to be posted. Dont know whether i will do that or not. The past is the past. I wanted to write something about "friendship", about "my first trek", about several movies i saw ("paheli" being one of them) and about life, in general. The thoughts are half-written and the other half is resting in my mind. All these thoughts have created a clutter in my head. I somehow want to get rid of it. Will do that eventually, since i cant stay...

I had been thinking to write about this love-story for the past one week but somehow could not manage to fit it into my current schedule. Today I happened to watch “ Little Manhattan ” at the request of a friend and the memories of those days became afresh. I was in 4th grade then. I won’t call myself an all-rounder, but I was quite good at studies as well as in extra-curricular activities. I remember participating in 3 different song and dance programs in the Annual Function of our school. Due to shortage of time in between those programs, I even had to change my dress at backstage with two boys of my class holding a sheet so that it doesn’t become a free show for the public. Those were the days when I didn’t feel any different from the ‘boys’. Actually, most of my close friends have always been boys. As far as class rankings were concerned, the position holders remained more or less the same. Pats being 1st, Kash always came second. There was competition for the 3rd position betwee...

I had been asked by my guide to design a set of primers to amplify a portion of TLR7. The primers should contain a suitable restriction site apart from meeting all the basic requirements. The job hardly seems tough to me now, but in my second year of M.Sc. when I first got a taste of research, it made me think a little. One of those days, I was climbing down the stairs of SLS (School of Life Sciences), completely frustrated as internet server was down. I could hear two of my seniors, Faisal and Sanjay, coming behind me but I decided not to turn back as I didn’t feel like talking to anybody. And more because I wanted to avoid talking to Faisal Sir, (I used to call him ‘Sir’ since he was 4-5 years senior to me) who was famous for his cheerful nature, and used to tease me for several things. But my attempts to escape turned out to be futile as he called out my name. I ignored at first, but then decided to stop. Both he and Sanjay joined me and Faisal sir asked why was I running away. I to...