Life's Onward Journey...

This time i want to write about a ritual i follow everyday and a problem i have been facing. I have 'n' numbers of glasses and bowls, big and small. Everyday i drop my riches in them after placing the glasses and bowls in a particular sequence. Of late i have observed a change. The bowl which comes first doesn't seem to get filled. I end up pouring all my earnings in that bowl and still i see it empty. And i m left with nothing to put in the other bowls. I m turning poor everyday... Why is this happenin May be somehow my riches are turning invisible after i pour them in the bo This time i want to write about a ritual i follow everyday and a problem i have been facing. I have 'n' numbers of glasses and bowls, big and small. Everyday i drop my riches in them after placing the glasses and bowls in a particular sequence. Of late i have observed a change. The bowl which comes first doesn't seem to get filled. I end up pouring all my earnings in that bowl and sti...

Saw the first show of Taare Zameen Par yesterday. A beautiful movie. A must watch for all. The movie deals with an issue 'less-explored'-- needs of a child. What does "taking care of a child" mean? Putting your child in the best school available. Spending money on tutions, swimming classes, dance classes, and what not. Getting them the best designer wear available. Chocolates, video games, picnics... TZP tries to define "taking care" which is very different from what is percieved by most adults. A child who is too young to understand why he is not like other normal children of his age goes through a rough time both at home and school. Then there are constant comparisons with a sibling, who incidentally is a topper and is 'fit to compete in today's world'. He just gives up trying and gets lost within himself. Ishaan was lucky enough to get noticed by a teacher who understands his special needs. How many other children would find similar support? ...

Do we have to appreciate this movie just because it comes from Prakash Jha Productions or it is directed by Sudhir Mishra (of 'Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi' fame)? Or because it tries to tell the story of yesteryears filmstars? I m sorry i can't do that. Khoya Khoya Chand is one of the most boring movie i have ever seen. At the end of it, it is just a retro-fashion parade by Soha Ali Khan. She does look stunning. But is that what a movie should be about? The editing is bad which makes the movie discontinuous. Characterisations are poor. The music is ok. Oh yes, how can i forget Ravindra, who plays the reigning super star (with hardly any screen time and zero dialogues). What??? You missed that 'hunk with a stubble'? Its too late now. You wont even find him if you Google (i tried that!). :-) And the most funny moment in the movie was not a part of the movie but occurred on the other side of the screen. When a chaotic scene of horses galloping across tents was being shown...

I just finished reading " By the river piedra i sat down and wept " by Paulo Coelho . I wont comment on the story of this book. What i like most about Paulo Coelho's books is the man-nature interface. A man or a woman is often seen wandering seeking for something important. And on the way they have various experiences. The description of nature's beauty in some of his books make my mind wander to those mountain ranges, to small villages, to brooks, to the meandering stony paths. I would love to walk alone in the midst of nature with birds chirping around me and dry leaves crumbling under my feet... I want to be free of all commitments and just wander. Last year i went on a trek to Harishchandragarh with 3 of my friends. It was the best experience i ever had. That was the only time i was close to nature and away from civilization. The memories are still afresh. These photographs were taken by Satyaki (my bear). In the first photograph you can see the sun shining on me...

Fun to watch nonsense sometimes. And this one is the most nonsensical movie ever made in Indian history (that's a safe comment). The best thing i like about this movie is its honesty . It was never publicised to be the next Oscar-winning movie. It lives upto its expectations. SRK makes us smile, laugh and laugh more & go mad and then irritate a bit. But SRK is allowed to do that. OSO is a remake of Karz with added flavors. Arjun Rampal plays Simi Grewal (young and the old one without the black wig). Deepika Padukone plays the girl-in-love who is wronged by her lover. SRK is the one who avenges her death. So, the one who is wronged and the one who takes revenge is not the same in this remake of the old movie. That's the creative touch of the director of this movie, Farah Khan. And yes one more addition to the old movie. Yeah, i m talking of the ghostly-twist in the end. Really funny was the "totally-lifted" scene from Karz. Durga Khote calls out to her dead and n...

Disappointing. Mr SLB, we get the point that life has treated you very badly. But why subject the audience to your idiosyncracies? You should have declared that this movie is not for the masses. Why did you cheat your audience? The only thing worth mentioning is the music. But what about the intervening sequences when the main protagonists were either jumping around or laughing or crying without any conceivable reason (at least we fools did not get the point). At least there was something believable in the character of Ranbir Raj (i.e. when he was not imitating either his grand father or his father). He seemed to be a not-yet-grown-up school boy who falls in love with a strange (and also a stranger) girl. And since it is known that in love people often behave like a fool, any subsequent action of his which follows his falling in love is justified. But what was this girl Sakina about? I m sorry but you could not get into the heart of the character. We have seen a Nandini screaming ...

"One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs And the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls" Translated from persian poem " Kabul" by Saib-e-Tabrizi A thousand Splendid Suns is a tale of friendship between two women with an age difference of 19 years. A series of unfortumate events lead to Mariam and Laila getting married to Rasheed, an abusive and domineering husband. The man marries Mariam with the sole purpose of getting a child (read male child) and when she is unable to do so she ends up being a caretaker of his house and a punching-bag whenever he feels like taking out his frustrations. Mariam, an illegitimate child, is abandoned by her father after her mother dies. Getting married to Rasheed was not by choice. The backdrop of story is the ongoing war in Afghanistan. The war which left many parents child-less and created new orphans everyday. Laila was one such orphan who was duped into marrying Rasheed (his purpose of marrying remained ...

She loved flowers. She saw them as a bunch of smiles, an inspiration to live, untouched by worldly worries. A flower knows that it is going to wither away in finite time. But we cannot make out from its vibrant colors that it knows that. There lies its greatness. It teaches us to live today to the fullest. She simply loved flowers. Is there a way to preserve the beauty of a flower? She kept on thinking and searching a way to do this impossible task. Then one day, a day which seemed special beginning with the way the first ray of sun struck the earth, she found a magic vase . Flowers kept in this vase will never wither. She began keeping her favourite flowers in this magic vase. It turned out to be true. The vase preserved the beauty of the flowers. It seemed like a dream. No, it was not a dream. She lived those moments. The eversmiling scented flowers blooming in her own room on her bedside, from day to night. They gave her life a new vigour. She and the flowers became one and the s...

Going home after a year. Before that i will be spending some time at JNU with few of my friends and seniors. I m excited about so many things. Traveling (i love all comfortable modes of transport). Meeting old friends after 2 years. Meeting family. Somehow i m getting this feeling that it's not meeting people which i m excited about. I m more eager to be at the place where i stayed 4 years back. Woh tedhe medhe raaste, woh pathreeli pagdandi, woh dhaaba, woh seedhiyan, aur woh mera kamra, chhota magar pyaara sa... Nostalgia. Why m i thinking about those inanimate things? May be i expect that they would not have changed as much as i have changed in all these years. People change. But do places also change (in absence of any physical re-construction)? Will i get the same emotions when i reach there? Less likely, but let me see. I hope this short vacation does any good to me. I hope i come back with a few good memories.

Fever, sweat, pain, a melting nose and to add to my misery...crumpled sheet and a dirty disorganised room. One whole week was spent in this condition. Most of the time i kept myself confined to my room with occasional post-dinner trips to lab. No experiments. Mice dying before i could kill them. Poor trainee calling me at various hours with genuine questions. Absolutely nothing was happening. Just sleep and dream. The period between two episodes of fever was when i sat reading 'The Kite Runner' by Khaled Hosseini. By the time i reached the middle of the book i felt emotionally exhausted. Never before a book has moved me to this extent. I wept till my eyes ached. It's a story of two boys who spent their childhood together in pre-taliban Afghanistan. Of their friendship which had different meaning for both of them. Of the caste divide between them. Of blind love and trust of Hassan and of Amir's envy. Of lack of courage to stand for someone who loves you more than anythin...

The current batch of mice is extraordinarily active. Today when the doctor was injecting parasite into them, they were trying their best to loosen the grip and bite the doctor. I asked doc (our favourite vet in the animal house) to be careful so that he doesnt get bitten and turn into a mouse-man (like spiderman) or into a mouse (even worse). He said that no matter what precautions we take now, in our next life all of us will become mice and the mice which we have killed will become researchers. Actually i dont mind that. If there is something like a 'rebirth' i dont consider myself lucky enough to be reunited with the lovers of my past life/lives. I m ok with the idea of being born as a mouse. But i have only one request. I want to become a mouse who contributes in some way to somebody's experiment. And not one of those who are killed just because there is a suspected infection in the animal house, not achieving anything in their life. That's a waste of life. Pict...

"Dil ko bana de jo patang, saanse teri woh hawaaen hain..." A song from Om Shanti Om. Trailers of Om Shanti Om are showing these days. I think it will be quite similar to Main Hoon Na , as far as the mood is concerned. I dont expect an intelligent movie but i m sure it will be an entertainer. If nothing else at least SRK's 'wannabe-look-cute' looks will be sufficient to make the audience smile. Looks like its a story of a rebirth which reunites two lovers. Good! It has been a long time since i saw Milan or Madhumati. Lets wait for the modern version of one of those movies. Farah Khan has even managed to squeeze in a song sequence which has all [but one :-)] the movie stars. I wonder what is that special occasion. Just hope its not a dream sequence (ever heard of 'creativity'?). Main Hoon Na was apparently Farah Khan's tribute to movies she loves like Sholay, Masoom, Kabhi Kabhi, Golmaal . Wonder whether the latest one is a tribute to all the 'r...

My parents can vouch for the fact that as a child i was a quick learner (learning ability gradually declined though). They didnt have any problem in teaching me the first 3 alphabets. In my brother's case it was quite different. Cat (my brother) was an extremely lazy child (thereafter he improved exponentially). Since i can't compare myself to him today, i will stick to the good old days when i was the "padhaku bachcha" and he was the "shaitaan bachcha". I remember, one of those days when he had just started going to school, my father was sitting with him and trying to make him write "A-B-C" on a slate. First my father drew a big 'A' and asked him to try to copy it. Cat instead of drawing 'A' or anything near to it, just scribbled and said, "This is 'A'". I think this went on for another 10 times (cat was bold enough to try my father's patience). Abbu had already had enough of nonsense. He lifted my brother an...

I have been noticing that these days a wide range of external stimuli ellicit the same response in me. Any small thing reminds me of my childhood. It turns into a chain reaction, with one memory turning the key of another locked-up memory. Our father being an electronic engineer terms like voltage, resistance, capacitor were commonly used at home. My brother and i used to sit and gaze at our dad while he used to work on some electronic equipment. Many a times he used to ask us to get a specific screw-driver or a line-tester and both of us used to run and get it. A soldering iron used to arouse a lot of curiosity and fright in me. Abbu used to keep it in a corner and gave us strict instructions to stay away from it. I observed that a silver coloured wire (solder) melts when brought in contact with it and emanates a burning smell. I used to love that smell. One day after abbu finished his work i went and touched the soldering iron. It was warm. I guessed it must have been a lot more hott...

It was my fourth visit to the International Airport in the last one month. No, i am not on a world tour. This was just to recieve or see off my friends ( Eddy, AB, Kate and Beanz). I always carry a book at such occasions so that i dont get bored. But everytime i realize that it's impossible to get bored here. You can get tired but not bored. There's so much action out there. Firstly, the number of people who come with the purpose of dropping or recieving is at least 3 times the number of people travelling. Secondly, it is they who contribute to the huge ruckus at the gates. The first or the last bit of emotion-display has to happen at the entrance gate itself. And this leads to the "trolley-traffic-jam". I dont know why people (quite sophisticated looking, carrying 'gucci' bags) behave in such uncivilized manner. Indeed money doesn't teach you manners. A couple and a baby just emerge from the exit gate and a gang of 10 grown-ups rush towards them. The poor...

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...