To thine own cell...

Recycle bin therapy

2008-05-21T11:18:00.003+05:30

I cleaned out my office desk today in preparation for the Voyage to the Great Beyond.**

Aside from that, I threw away a lot of stuff. I mean lots.

- Old Cd covers (why did i ever keep them in the first place?),
- Old paper reprints (God when did i ever read this?)
- Xeroxes of my certificates (i was OCD case once and to apply to any place i would carry three xerozes or more of all my certificates all the way back to my tenth),
- Non-working mosquito repellants (mosquitoes in the lab?)
- Hand santisers (wtf?)
- Binoculars (wtff?)
- A photograph of a person reading a girlie magazine (this was used to blackmail him by his friends and then left in my possesion. yes i have/had weird friends)
- a blank greeting card that was never sent.
- a new york momento got by Certain someone which i had forgotten. it shows the World trade Centre towers still standing.

All the bins in my lab and adjacent labs are overflowing with my discarded stuff.

I feel as if I am suddenly free of cares and don't have attachments anymore. Its a wonderful feeling. Perhaps this is how ascetics feel when they renouce the world.

** - the Pacific Ocean not the River Styx.

Hello world!

2008-05-20T13:32:00.002+05:30

Hello there!

Just to let you know faithful reader that I exist and have not abandoned you. Forgotten a little maybe in the great hurry burry of things but not given up on you completely. Not yet.

I still have hope that you will make me famous someday. Heh.

My blogging skills seem to have evaporated in the meantime. But hopefully I will have something substantial here pretty soon.

Meanwhile,
Be good!
Samu.

P.S. pretty soon = 1-2 days

A Shloka

2008-02-20T12:58:00.002+05:30

अश्वं नैव गजं नैव व्याघ्रं नैव च नैव च अजापुत्रं बलिं दद्यात् देवो दुर्बलघातकः

Not a horse, not an elephant, and never a tiger. It is the son of a goat that is sacrificed. Even the Gods are against the weak.

A Shloka I came across on my wanderings. Of course the interpretation of these things is always a subjective issue but I like to look at it as a subtle agnostic snub.

Right now I have no idea which text it is from. Help would be appreciated and acknowledged.

The Unwaba Revelations - A Review

2008-02-12T21:43:00.000+05:30

I rarely review books or movies because I am sure that there are other people who do. But in my wanderings on the great www I did not come across a decent review of the "The Unwaba Revelations" therefore this post is born.

Before I start this I must confess that I have not read the first two novels. But I did not think that it mattered because novels even if they are part of trilogy must be enjoyable on their own without resorting to what happened before. I wonder if this was a factor is my actually enjoying the book only half way through it when I had managed to get ravains, vamans, asurs, humans and other myriad life forms that inhabit the book sorted out in my head.

I started reading it with a lot of expectations, considering reviews on the net and all that though I must confess that Samit Basu’s state-mate’s brushes with science fiction one of which produced the Calcutta Chromosome should have made me wary but nevertheless in the quest for fiction that is based in my reality and not Central Park, contemporary London or post WWII Jewish Boston, hope springs eternal from the human breast.

I was hooked from the first page when not only was Aishwarya(Rai?) was compared to a duck but she was also given a species name. (Viduci olwwasysac – Why does she always ask?) My favorite is the Kaos butterflies used by Kol(get it?) to defend itself against enemies, which can create thunderstorms by flapping their wings. (Get it? Get it?) Some other allusions that I came across. - Regal Eagles(?), Streakers in Central Kol Park. (Quite obvious), Free States (USA!) ,Xi’en (China?) [Oook tells me that the Kaos butterflies bit is borrowed from Terry Pratchett.]

Yes "The Umwaba Revelations" is chock full of these weird references. Some of which I am sure I did not get. Though two friends tried to convince me that forest Ekyavan whose leader pretends to sleep but is actually meditating is a reference to Vaijpayee. But in retrospect it might be referring to Area 51 as later in the novel some fancy alien ships are found there.

An interesting new literary device the single paragraphed conversation between two people was original. Sly references to Mumbai in the form of Bolvudis(Get it?), which I applauded. The hero(Kirin) who prefers sex to saving the world and outwits the gods by mere argument I liked.

At some places his language seems strained and sometimes too much of a college cliché especially the conversations between Maya and Kirin. A little cutting and snipping would have made it perfect. Towards the end the complex battle scenes had my head reeling and wondering when it would all end. There are a lot of names common between the people he acknowledges and some characters in the book. I wonder if they are in-jokes. That would be poor taste.

I went in looking for a book that would represent our cultures our inflences in a sartorial way like Terry Pratchett. (the Gods here so speak like Death from Terry Pratchett - ALL IN CAPS.) I was slightly dissapointed but still it is a great effort overall - perhaps I enjoyed it a little bit more because reading of said book was punctuated by the reviewer meeting with the author at a book lauch where he most graciously returned her pen after signing her book (the high moral standards thus displayed had impartial reviewer swooning.) Now if only he wrote a novel about a great city named Mum with meandering roads by the sea where great rains come once a year and a cold wave paralyses the city’s denizens, then I shall deify him.

A cold wind this way blows

2008-01-27T18:20:00.000+05:30

Now a days I dread the setting of the sun when the darkness takes over.

It is unusually cold in Mumbai right now. I am told the temperature was 10C yesterday. It is fine if you are well equipped to deal with the cold but Mumbaikars are not. I mean cold weather in Mumbai lasts for two days in a year. And my hostel room has been carefully chosen to be shielded from the sun so that it is the coolest in summer. Problem is it is also the coldest room in winter!!

I have resorted to ad hoc techniques which involve not opening my windows of my room at all and sleeping with three sheets, one sweater and a pair of socks. This has been happening for the past two weeks with hopes that it will get better soon. I hope this goes away, or pretty soon I will have to actually *buy* a blanket.

To add to this some bright peeps (read people from the North who were in their element) came up with the idea of going to Marine Drive yesterday. I acquiesced. There we were hanging out on windy windy Marine Drive in the coldest day in the year for an hour almost. It was when ice-cream at Natural’s was suggested that I drew the line. A cold Mumbaikar is a disgruntled Mumbaikar and that is one thing you would not want to mess with.

On the plus side, after a long time, I have come across Hindi music which I have listed to in a loop (you know when you play the song/song track again and again and again and again and again.......) Ladies and gentlemen, I present Jodha Akbar. Listen to the magic of Rahman!

Coat Uncoat

2007-12-02T16:21:00.000+05:30

A quote that deserves more visibility.

"The Universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter and enlightened self-interest."
- G'Kar, Babylon-5

MEI dinners

2007-11-30T14:46:00.000+05:30

Assume two people A and B, both of whom are standard MEI students.

A is in the last stages of having his dinner in the famed East Canteen with live entertainment (in the form of scuttling rats) and candle light ambience (on all days but in certain corners only). B joins A. Now A’s dining ritual is tending towards completion yet B in his ignorance, feigned or otherwise, has still joined A.

How long should A, whose dinner is almost done, wait for B in such a situation?

Keen observation and several MEI dinners later, scientists have deciphered the factors that determine the time that A will wait for B.

The time is directly proportional to

The size of the intersection of their social circles. i.e. the number of mutual friends that they have.
The days that A has not met B.
The number of favors that B can do for A. (e.g. exchange of library duty, giving competent cells, helping with assignments etc.)
The number of favors that B has done for A.
The number of treks that they have been together on.
The number of technical terms that B uses frequently and which A understands. E.g. cytokinesis, Euler buckling, Sandpile model, Euclidean space, etc. (Putting it another way whether or not they are from similar fields)
The number of social causes B espouses.
The number of books, movies, etc that B owns that A is interested in.
The number of mood altering substances they have had together.

On the other hand, the time is inversely proportional to

The time that A had been sitting at the table before B joined.
The number of people at the table other than A and B.
The difference in the years of their joining. (e.g. 2002 – 2007=5)
The number of days B has not taken a shower.
The number of favors that A could theoretically do for B
The distance between their respective home towns. (See Addendum below)

A special case is if A and B are of the opposite sex. In such a case, the time thus obtained after these computations is to be doubled. (The time may be quadrupled if B and A are single). The time is also doubled if A and B share the same mother tongue.

Admittedly the actual relationships of all the factors are complex and involve other emotional factors which cannot be quantitated but this is major step in deciphering the complex social dynamics at MEI and will help in understanding that greatest of enigmas - the MEI student.

(*** - Addendum - Consider a line drawn between the two respective hometowns and an imaginary mid point at the exact center of this line. It can now be said that the effect of “distance between hometowns” factor is more complex as its effect in turn increases exponentially as increase in the distance of said imaginary midpoint from Mumbai, location of MEI. A very subtle jibe there if you can get it!)

[Some creative inputs from S.J., P. S. and S.S. MEI here standing for My Esteemed Institute - a place of some repute I am told.]

Eleven things

2007-11-23T13:55:00.000+05:30

Eleven things I want to do before I die

1) Read "The Lord of the Rings". All three parts.

2) Visit Paris/Vienna.

3) Bungee jump.

4) Become a size 0.

5) Drink absinthe.

6) Own a Joni Mitchell CD. This one to be precise.

7) Write a short story- in Marathi. Just to prove a point.

8) Direct a film – horror preferably set in my institute. Its long corridors with multiple doors and desolate areas are a perfect setting.

9) Listen to the Berlin Philharmonic perform Carmen live.

10) Meet my high school crush.

11) Put up this poster on the wall on my room.

Someday. Someway.

MEI stories Part Deux (From Satyajit)

2007-11-07T01:33:00.000+05:30

Samudrika has taken a break. Some thing about a hangover or thesis writing one of those things. I can never make out the difference. So this week I write 'her little column' as she calls it.

I am Satyajit. A long suffering guy in the biological sciences. Oh you scoff and think that I am the luckiest person in the world to work in a field where the sex ratio is so pleasantly skewed in my favor. Oh you are walking away! But pray, wait a while. Listen to my side of the story too.

I am the average guy. Not too skinny, not too fat. Not too fair not too dark. My teeth are a little irregular but if I keep my mouth shut no one notices. Everyone says that I am a nice person. On that my reputation precedes me and of that I am proud. I play hard, work harder. Yeah, I am the average grad student.

Coming back to sex ratios, there are a lot of Pretty Young Things (PYT’s) in my lab. You think I am lucky. Think of my boss! Yes, my boss has a field day/month/year all right. Imagine having all these nymphets throwing themselves at you with “ I would really like to work with you, sir" for M.Sc/Ph.D./summers/whatever.

And to add oil to the ego massage, they think he is God and will do anything that asks them to do. By anything I mean scientifically - the stupidest experiments, and the silliest things. Stands to reason, that when such PYT’s do come along they all work under his express guidance - reporting to him directly. If a bespectacled acne laden guy comes along he is pushed off to work with me and I have to field his questions, which start from the mundane ("Do you believe in god?") to the profound ("Why is the fly testes bigger than the fly brain?").

I swear my eyes would have popped out of my head when a PYT (Pretty Young Thing) used the word "sexxeeee" to describe data from her experiment that had not worked! And boss smiled and said "Excellent, you are doing a great job.” I was tearing my hair out of my head wondering how to clean up the huge mess she had left behind.

If she makes a mistake, she replies in a sweet simper, “But sir I have just been doing what you told me…..” That melts him completely. He asks her, "Let’s discuss this over a cup of tea. Shall we?” And the discussion is continued in the canteen, until the canteen closes or the sun sets – whichever is later.

On the other hand, my discussions with boss conclude in minutes with “I am sorry but I have to pick up my kid from soccer practice, just do the experiments and then we will sit down again.”

I mean I have no problem with someone else's sensuality. I love a little sensuality especially if it is simmering just below the surface or smoldering in smoky eyes but it is the blatant in your face, chest bursting out of shirt type of sensuality that I have issues with. Especially when the face in question is that of my boss.

He is not used to sensuality. It puts him off balance. As it is, getting intelligible ideas out of him is difficult but after he has had a session with one of these nubile nymphets he goes completely ballistic. His ego reaches for the sky and he actually starts thinking, which is not a good thing. (Under ideal circumstances they have to be carefully conditioned to think that they have thinking and you should actually make them think out "your" ideas. Umm get it?) And when HE starts thinking then I have to do the craziest experiments. One of them involved me going to local abattoir at 5 a.m. to get brains of freshly butchered goats.

All a PYT has to do is go on stage dance a bit during the annual variety show and there she is the most popular person in the institute. I have been here longer than her but with one swish of her sheer dupatta, every one in the institute knows her. While if I want to know how to use ImageJ I have to run to ten people to get answers and here she gets tax advice for free. Who cares if I am the star striker of the volleyball team that wins the hostel tournament every year. Every fracking year damnit.

The icing on the cake comes when they get hitched finally. Not with someone like me. But someone from the First Department. (Which is like First Citizen but only in plural and I don’t belong to it.) Oh yes I am screwed personally. Professionally. Both ways.

I am sure I have managed to convince you that all is not what it seems. Now you must excuse me. I have do a trainee's experiment for her. She had to go out to dinner and she asked me so sweetly I could not refuse.

Unofficial Department Mottoes in MEI

2007-11-06T13:58:00.000+05:30

First Department – What we do is great and what others do is junk.

Second Department – What we do may not be great but what they do is definitely junk.

Third Department – We should get noticed. Somehow.

Fourth Department – We don’t know and we don’t care. We are going to Bangalore anyways.

Fifth Department - We know but we don’t care. Pune is great at this time of the year.

Sixth Department – We know and we care very much but we don’t know what to do about it.

Seventh Department – We earn so much more than the rest that we don’t need to care. So we play badminton.

(S.S. to be credited with the first two. MEI stands for My Esteemed Institute.)

On being cynical

2007-10-18T15:19:00.000+05:30

When I joined the insti, the fifth/sixth years were this hallowed tribe you could make out from the others. They were always worried, always serious, never smiled. They did talk to you occasionally to give you advice like “go home more often” or “time flies like an arrow” or something more practical “if your flies don’t mate, sing to them.” (huh??). Some lost their temper on the silliest of things – like when I overshot my time and then invaded into theirs on the confocal microscope or when a lizard entered the culture room. ("Get it out! Get it out! It will eat my flies. I have to finish in two months!")

Something about the hard phd life that makes them like that I used to think. Now I am beginning to wonder whether I am like that too.

Lets see. In the past ten days I have..

Intensely worried - check
Never smiled or laughed - no.
Screamed at junior - check
Screamed at junior for no reason - check
Given unsolicited advice - check (this was about fly mating, for the record.)
Been in a bad mood - check (but that was because of a hangover. That does not count, does it?)

Not bad. 4 and a half out of 6. I pass!

MEI stories

2007-10-11T14:48:00.000+05:30

Things you must do to be grep ('geekily hep') in MEI

1) Music - Must profess a love for Pink Floyd, Bob Marley or Leonard Cohen. Denver is too pedestrian and Billy Joel is too 'whatever'. Britney Spears and her ilk is definitely a no-no. Though Eminem will do if you can say something suitably clever about his lyrics. To be truly eclectic you can say jazz. But pure classical rules as always.

2) Books - non-fiction - Must have read all of the following books - selfish gene, blindwatchmaker, nobel dreams, tao of physics. Reading them means being able to discuss them or trash them with sentences that begin with "looking at it like a scientist........"

3) Movies - Must have watched (and enjoyed in an explainable, virtue extolling kind of way) a movie in a foreign language - Russian sci-fi, French romance, Irani social commentary, Japanese anime, or Spanish fantasy.

4) TV- Must watch one or more of the following series and profess and undying love for them - Star Trek, Heroes, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, IT crowd or something more geeky. On the animation side, South park or Simpsons but then you will have discuss their social relevance.

6) Books - science fiction - Terry Patchett, Isaac Asimov or you might want to say Ray Bradbury just to show your predeliction for the dark side of things. Non-science fiction - late 19th century fiction if you want to be differently different, or something dense like Nietzsche, Chekhov or Chaucer. Say "I like Rowling" and you will be wandering in the dreary desert sands of MEI social wilderness for years.

5) Graphic novels. They are the IN thing these days. Persepolis is a good start though Sarnath Banerjee is a close second due to his bong connection.

7) OS - "Never judge a book by its cover, a man by his shoes or a geek by his operating system.", so said a wise man. but who listens to wise men anyways? Be warned, you WILL be judged by your OS. You must know UNIX/LINUX or at least pretend to use it even if you cannot use the command terminal and prefer a mouse. OSX is a close second. Mention Windows XP you will be summarily eliminated from the conversation. Vista and you might as well jump into the sea.

8) Dress - dress is everything. This has to be carefully casual. A hopelessly crinkled kurta or shorts. Just to show the world that you are so fracking devoted to your science that you dont have the time to dress properly. Maroon is currently very much in style, replacing black as the t-shirt colour of choice. However, at any given time in MEI there will be at least one maroon or black shirt in a gathering of 5 or more people.

9) Must espouse some social cause, which is a good thing.

10) Must be a blogger or a blogger to be. The latter mainly means reading blogs.

11) Should be able to discuss the pros and cons of the iPhone versus the Blackberry versus any other PDA, even if you have never seen them. All this within hours of their release. Time is critical. If you discuss it before release you will be labelled jobless, if you discuss it the next day it will be yesterdays news. Literally.

This combined with a healthy dose of the relevant recent research in your field of interest and there........you are all set to tackled the behe'mouths' of MEI.

The very idea of 'grepness' involves refusing to be defined. So these very things might just be non-grep tomorrow. You have been warned.

I am what I am

2007-10-05T13:29:00.000+05:30

(This is written along the lines of the weekly article that appears on the last page of the Brunch magazine brought out by Hindustan Times. They interview a celebrity with a standard setof questions. So here I interviewed myself.)

Who is your idol?

Satyajit Mayor, NCBS for obvious reasons.

What are you reading currently?

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

If you were reborn as a man, what would be your first thought?

God! Now i cant lust after Johnny Depp legally (at least in this country anyways)

What is deepest most darkest desire?

I wish I had a cat of my own, rather than sharing one with the entire building where I live.

What is your poison?

Vodka, Dark Chocolate, Icecream.

What is the last thing that you do before you sleep?

I wonder if I died in my sleep when would my dead body be discovered and by whom.

What do you do first after you wake up?

Thank God that I did not die during the night. (Yes, I am morbid that ways)

Who is the most sexiest person on earth?

Rahul Bose.

What makes your angry?

When people call homosexuals perverts.

What makes you happy?

A day when I dont make any social faux paus.

What makes you sad?

Misunderstandings.

One incident that you are embarrassed about.

There are several actually and most of them involve a certain amount of ethanol.

What is the first place you would visit if had a time machine?

The Monterey Pop Festival to see Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin play live in their full psychedelic glory.

A secret never before disclosed?

I am scared of pigeons. Do they have a term for this like Arachnophobia for spiders?

(Feel free to tag yourselves!)

Dreamer of Dreams

2007-09-28T02:38:00.001+05:30

(Stumbled on this poem from this site, where it was just two lines at the bottom of the page, but after that it has been stuck in my head. It is what can be called a poet's poem. What haunts me the most is the last two lines. )

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

-Arthur O'Shaughnessy.

Everyone cribs

2007-09-21T14:31:00.000+05:30

(This post owes a lot to ideas that popped up from a conversation with A. P. and K. over coffee at Barista’s)

Crib: v. to complain (about something)

Most people crib about most things. But everyone cribs about their boss.

A casual link has been reported between cribbing about your bosses and working in sciences which almost attain the dignity of manual labor (hereafter referred to as SWAATDOM and this being the English language and since I have made the word, it will be pronounced as “sweat n doom”, thank you). In other words, if a person cribs about his boss, there is a high probability that he will be from the SWAATDOM. Is the kind of work you do correlated to the amount of time that you crib? Or to put it another way in the eternal battle between the experimentalists and the non-experimentalists, who cribs more?

Do experimentalists actually crib more? Is it the nature of their work that causes the experimentalists to crib more? Or is the admission procedure designed in such a way that in the experimental sciences more cribbers are admitted?

For this we need to know the mental make up of a cribber. Why does a person crib? There is every possibility that given the same situation one person will crib and the other person will not.

Then, there are people who will never crib – they gush about their boss so much that one tends to think that they would propose to their bosses the very next minute. Why does one person not crib? Either he lacks the ability to see the futility of his position or he sees the futility but believes that it is good for him. (e.g. “I know my boss is screwing me but it is for my own good. Therefore I shalt not cribbeth.”) Yes these blissful people do exist.

A person who cribs sees the negative side of the situation. But then why would the admission process in the experimental sciences be designed to select for people who crib? Is it that the very process of cribbing makes people around them give in to their and actually ask them to leave or give them better things to do (say apply to other places for example). But then how do they get past the interview process? It could be that perhaps that little hint of irritation on your face is mistaken for eagerness to work for the SWAATDOM.

Far fetched as it may seem, do the non-experimental sciences really have fantastic bosses who do them no wrong? Perceived or otherwise? Or does this have to do with the nature of the fields? I mean the SWAATDOM is competitive. And is the general nebulous frustration of the bosses reflected in the frustrations of the students? Or are experimentalists in general pessimists? Is it necessary to be a pessimist, forever looking for flaws, to be a successful experimentalist?

Then of course we come to the great inter subject debate. Do biologists/chemists crib more than their non-biology, non-chemistry (a lovely word which though encompassing several subjects is definitely pointing towards those subjects which-shall-not-be-named) counterparts? For that we would need to analyze the cribbing capacity of an experimental physicist/mathematician (a rare entity) to a theoretical biologist/chemist (an even more rare entity)? Would the theoretical biologist/chemist crib as much as his experimental counterparts or for that matter would the experimental physicist/mathematician crib as much any other inhabitant of the SWAATDOM?

Can cribbing be measured? If you crib once a day can you call it a unit say CRB? Would a ‘crib’ involve just the feeling of wanting to murder your boss or the critical point where the feelings reach such a crescendo that they assert themselves vocally? What kind of controls would these experiments require? The mind boggles.

Is the cribbing related to the amount of success that you have? Do you crib less if your experiments are working? No. Working experiments – now that’s an oxymoron. (There exists an unacknowledged belief in the SWAATDOM that an experiment that worked means it is an experiment whose results can be interpreted. And if you interpret the results innovatively enough, you write a paper.)

What are the complex social dynamics at play here? Is cribbing just a part of an ancient evolutionary mechanism for a group to band together with shared unhappiness? If that is so, why have the non-cribbers survived? Have these perpetually happy souls been placed here to torture us lesser mortals? Are they practitioners of sorcery? Bring on the stake and light the fire!

All our life

2007-09-11T22:59:00.000+05:30

All our life we chase a dream
when we get it we realise
it it not what we wanted.
With these words I set you free.
And in doing so I am released too.

Publicación

2007-08-28T17:41:00.000+05:30

Ph.D. students come in all shapes and sizes - intellectual, menacingly intellectual, pseudo-intellectual, bitter, bitter-sweet, dumb, dumber, etc. but there is one word that sends a chill down any graduate students spine – a word so sacred that I will use the Spanish translation –publicación. (I wanted to use French – more artsy - but the damn word is the same in both languages).

What is in a word you will ask? What is in a publicación? What is in a paper? It is a just a bit of recycled (hopefully) cellulose or in this electronic age just some bits and bytes floating in cyber space.

What makes a paper? A lot of sweat, tears, dollops of pain, a swish of frustration and a generous dose of luck. To get more perspective on this, ask a person towards the end of finishing his/her PhD “how many publications do you have?” That is sure fire recipe for hara kiri – social and otherwise.

The number of papers gives you a nice quotable number - a kind of measure of a persons success like asking a professional how much money he earns. But unlike a salary which can be faked, publications cannot. There is always Pubmed, arXiv, mathnet and now Scopus to tell the truth. Therefore two papers are better than one and 67 is even better. Its like those percentages of marks quoted to determine who is the better in high school – 98%, 95%, merit list, topper.

There are and always will be exceptions to the rule but somewhere or the other you will find that your worth will be measured by how many “papers” you have. Therein are legends born.

There are still those hushed whispers of the legend who published 67 papers when he was a graduate student. (Apparently that is an record for My Esteemed Institute.) The Cynics will ask “ah there are 67 papers but what is the impact factors of those journals?” with a mild snigger. But that is a number that is hard to forget – 67!

There are hushed whispers of the person who has [insert random high number here] papers by the time he/she was in [insert number less than four here] year and there is an aura about hir wherever s/he goes. There is that smirk of self satisfaction which the underprivileged (under‘papered’ or un‘papered’) look on and despair. What would people do to be in those shoes. Kill probably. Him that is.

And then the person who published so many papers that every time you refreshed mathnet there would be another paper. And the girl whose publication list on pubmed list ran into two pages and she finished her Ph.D in three years! One could go on.

But then of course one could philosophize about the whole issue -Hard work is its own reward blah blah. Science is not about publishing but about passion. Yeah right! Besides, Samudrika is too much of a free spirit to take anything seriously even passion.

Misery loves company and me is going off to the local pub…........and no I am still not going to tell you how many publications I have. The next person who asks me that question shall experience instantaneous loss of life or worse at my hands.

Current obsession – Champagne supernova – Oasis.

The rant of the NRI

2007-08-25T23:58:00.000+05:30

I went out today with a bunch of people in that wonderfully grey area between friends and acquaintances - not close enough to be rude to (without seeming to be impolite) and not distant enough to be indifferent to either.

Conversation got around to music – over cups of frappe and mocha, Neil Diamond and Eagles were being discussed. This particular bhumi putra got agitated and said that he could never understand 'Hotel California'. After explaining carefully about the Satanic church interpretation of the song, he got agitated some more. Then to psyche him out further in my enthusiasm I suggested he listen to Alanis Morrissette “I am bitch, I am a lover”. "Which raga is that? Which talam?" he asked, half serious.

"The song has attitude. What more can you want?" I said. Which agitated him more no doubt. He suddenly changed the topic to English pronunciation! He started saying what a sad language English is whose letters are never pronounced as they are written. I almost blurted out, "Hello, dont look now but someones just changed the topic of conversation here!" But the juggernaut continued.

The darling started extolling the virtues of the Hindi language wherein he stated that Hindi language is more scientific. That all the letters are grouped according to which part of the mouth they are pronounced with and it is scientific. I nodded politely with a smile frozen on my lips, sipped my hazelnut mocha and sunk further into the comfy couch. (The couches are utterly great at the new Baristas at Colaba, do try them!)

At this point when conversations turn there I am always confused. If you support the notion and you have several reasons to because

1) you think in English
2) you write in English
3) you watch movies, read books, poetry in English

English has its virtues. Yes you love the English language. So you would like very much to counter the argument but it is just not de rigueur. Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Hindi. It is a wonderful language which had done a lot for national integrity but I have problems with the fanaticism of the people extolling its virtues.

But in polite society you allow the bhumi putras to have their way, unless you want a minor riot. Any way to convince them otherwise is met with cries of “oh but you are an NRI”.

The curse of the NRI. All life you are brought up in a foreign land, constantly in hope of returning to your homeland wandering among people whose cultures, accents and attitudes you never understand. And when you come back to your home country you are lost again. Where do you fit in? The city slickers of the metros with their knowledge of the city like the back of their hand and their devil-may-care attitude or the bumpkins with their “The whole world is my friend” and "I trust everyone” candy sweet demeanor. Snap out of it man! Both of you!!

Yes, I identify with Manhattan so much more than Naya Daur. No I have not lived in rural areas and don’t intend to, god willing. I am a city girl at heart even if the heart in question skips to an faltering, distant NRI beat.

Toodle too till next we meet!

(picture taken from here.)

The week that was

2007-08-16T19:09:00.000+05:30

I have had the nicest week ever.

It started with a play at the NCPA – Cotton 56 Polyester 84. It was brilliant. It is a play about the Mumbai mills, the culture they spawned and the way it died. There were several references to real incidents – the rise and fall of communism in Mumbai, the underworld etc. It hit home is more ways than one, as my grandfather worked in the mills. Interspersed with some traditional Marathi music it really made me nostalgic.

Then mid week for no reason we went to Theobroma and I had a huge choco fudge cake sponsored by S. The only thing better than chocolate cake is a free chocolate cake. Hmm..

This was followed by a movie – Gandhi my Father. One of the more ‘intellectual’ movies to come out of Bollywood and I love Akshaye Khanna and since it has been sometime since a handsome guy graced my blog here I put his pic. Muah! He acts well as usual. So does the guy who plays Gandhi (except for his unintentionally funny prosthetic ears). The actors are great. The sets are fantastic. But the film is smaller then the sum of the parts and whole thing just does not gel together. You would be better off watching the play with Naseeruddin Shah and Kay Kay.

A telugu movie on Friday night – It was called Jagadam. Technically it was a brilliant movie, the way it was shot, the scenes, the background etc. The first half hour was actually entertaining like entering a whole new universe. A few minor hiccups. The heroine wearing a short white skirt falls for the tapori hero after he molests her at the theater. Huh? Are we still living in the middle ages? And their way of expressing love? Ok wait for this. The girl sucking water off the heroes shoulder before he has a bath with a straw. This scene is shown three times in the movie for added effect. Meh!

Then a trek to Mahuli – possibly my first trek. And yes the very idea of Samudrika trekking was enough to send some people into hysterical laughter. But pox on them! The high point was a well wishing co-trekker whose idea of de-stressing was making up rhyming couplets as we climbed up. Ah yes dear readers I made up the rear of the trekking group but I managed it. This was followed quickly by a promise to me to not go on another trek ever, until I build up my stamina. To add more interest to the whole thing, it was raining when we climbed down, when all the rocks became slippery and suddenly the trek was non-trivial.

On Sunday I went to judge to St. Xaviers for a science project competition for Malhaar, which is arguably the most popular college fest in Mumbai. It was the first time the famous college fest actually had a science based competition. That was heart warming. The topic was "Novel perceptions of time and its measurement". How thrilling! I am told that Malhaar usually involves judges like John Abraham, so I am in exalted company. Yes, you may have my autograph!

That brings me back to my manic Mondays. Not bad at all. Time to buckle down and get to work or else my pre-thesis seminar is going to be DOA.

AAAAAhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

That was me screaming my stress off. So if you hear some random screams over the next four weeks (I have only four weeks!! Damn! Damn! Damn!), that would be me. Please be kind!

Currently listening to – Don’t worry be happy – Bob Marley.

Promises

2007-07-20T21:20:00.000+05:30

Some promises are like starshine
Which fade with the daylight
Some are like rose petals
which smell sweet but last for two days
Some promises are like silken clouds
which change with the season
But mine are like hard steel
Cold, unyielding they remain forever.

The Boston Brahmins

2007-06-29T21:28:00.000+05:30

I just cannot get this ditty out of my head for the past couple of weeks. In all fairness, it was coined by a friend and all credit goes to him.

That off my chest, to put it in context, one also has to say that it was inspired by the Boston Brahmin toast/doggerel that goes like this.

"And this is good old Boston,

The home of the bean and the cod,

Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots,

And the Cabots talk only to God."

And here is his version of it.

"And this my friend is MEI,

The home of the geek and the nerd,

Where the mathematicians talk only to the theorists,

And the theorists talk only to God."

Peter Pan-esque

2007-06-28T14:05:00.000+05:30

It has been a dreary couple of months - the last week has been the worst. A friend is sufferring from a illness which has no physical manifestations, and an illness which most people would make fun of.(the D word darling!) Sometimes I feel partly responsible because I ignored my friend when I was needed the most. Wrapped in my own thoughts, I did not bother to enquire about hir** at all. But hir is "limping back normalcy" slowly and hopefully all will be soon be right with my world.

Also lots of people leaving MEI - people I knew, people I loved, people I liked. With each leaving, an era ends. MEI becomes slightly more different than it was before if that oh-so-familiar face is not in the canteen, collonade, seashore or library. What is life if there is no one to share late night multi-hour 'information exchanges' with?

Perhaps all this is just a symptom of the high stress life that being in fifth year entails. you know post doc searching, thesis writing, paper writing, boss fighting, recco getting and all that. interspersed with frantic searches on Pubmed to see what your batchmates have been upto for the past five years, regretfully realising that they have done better than you while you devoted yourself to wine, man and song. Literally.

Now its time face the world. start worrying about money, housing, stock options, money, babies, jobs, visas, passports, money, some serious work perhaps, mid-life crises, in-laws, etc and money too.

** - hir - new article which is gender independant. could mean him OR her. can also be used in place of he OR she.

*** - MEI - My Esteemed Institute - a well known and reputed research insitute in India which I study in, but I will not name, lest Google give me away.

Melancholiness

2007-06-26T00:50:00.000+05:30

The cage of our mind
The thoughts and the feelings
Trapped
Swirl again and again
In a never ending vortex
Bending, sometimes yielding
Sometimes not and then
bringing us down
With them.

And us knowing,
Understanding
Dissecting it with our molecular
Tools and steel instruments
Trying to understand its
Convolutions and turns
Yet when it goes down
We go with it.

When feelings of heart
Take over our brain
When the brain is powerless
And refuses to listen to logic
Where our drugs and
Chemicals have no effect
When it goes down
We go with it.

Yeh Madira

2007-05-23T01:29:00.000+05:30

Alcohol always stirs some strong emotions – negative or otherwise. Even before it’s very consumption.

There are issues whether it should be taken or not. Usually people who don’t drink have very strong opinions against it and when you mention that you enjoy a little ho-ho-ho-ho once in a while, you get the best of their disdainful looks.

Then there are people who drink but then are disdainful of the fact that you being a woman drink. Something about a woman upholding tradition and the home. I am in the mood for mischief and prejudice. This is the dominant attitude of people not used to the city life, whose attitude towards women in general sucks and they some very close to saying that women lack the requisite skills to make intelligent conversation with them. (There are others, who admire a woman who drinks and they go and fall head over heels for her but we are not discussing that for the general sanity of the populace.)

The rest don’t give two bits about you and all they want is to know when the vodka will arrive.

What happens during drinking?

Some drink to get solace from their lives – which may or may not be difficult. I am no judge of that. But those are extreme cases where they are running away from their lives and not facing reality, and those I am not considering at all.

There are people who look at it like it is fun - the greatest, the most stress busting thing to do. That was my attitude too. I always claimed that I was an alcoholic in the most weird way possible. Something about needs alcohol to stress bust because my job is so stressful. A little fun- a little thrills of doing something grown up – about letting go. But always that little underlying tone of humour meaning none of it could be taken seriously.

Some drink socially become a little merry but not merry enough to warrant entertainment.

Some drink and say stuff that they would not normally. Relationships/resentments not normally spoken of come to a head. You can either accept what someone says about you or you can leave. Some try to act out their fantasies. Some get dead drunk and then just forget whatever happened.

What happens afterwards?

The after effects are the most long lasting.

In a major part of the population they just forget that something like that something ever happened. Get up the next day and get to work, with a mild hangover perhaps.

Not everyone was as drunk as you right. So they will remember. They will not forget.

What of the things that happened when you were drunk? The things you said, the things you did. Were they what you wanted to say? Would you have done that in real life if you were sober? If no, then why not? Was it because it was impolite or inappropriate?

In other words, what is the real you? The sober one or the drunk one? Can you be held responsible for your actions? When you insulted someone was that to be considered real? Can you hold them accountable for their actions? Could you actually make someone confess or say something stupid by getting them drunk? Is it a crime getting people to drink with the expectation that they will make a fool out of themselves or do something scandalous?

Is it better to have done something or said something when drunk versus keeping it embedded in your mind forever? If you are lucky you are too drunk to remember – so are the others. There are no records of the time spent thus. But digital cameras have taken away that luxury too.

Suddenly drinking alcohol is not fun anymore. Looks like I just grew up.

Currently listening - 2441139 – Anjan Dutta.

(Dedicated to I.)

Summer time

2007-05-21T11:42:00.000+05:30

(This was written last year when the visiting summer students arrived. I have no idea why I never published it then. But today being the day that the summer students start their six week thing, I figure I would post it today. )

Summer time and weather is fine.
If you stretch right up you can touch the sky…

Thus spake Peter Andre – the one with the six pack abs.

However, summer time for a research scholar means something entirely different. This heralds the arrival of the species which in polite terms are called the short-term students. The people from various undergrad institutes that makes their way into My Esteemed Institute ostensibly to learn something new. This is of course all a part of the great initiative of a government funded research institute to encourage science aptitude in the undergrad.

I don’t know how it works in the theoretical sciences but it the experimental ones they get tagged along with some (un)lucky grad student.

Some of them are quite nice and I have had quite an enjoyable time with them. But these days all the summer students come with one thing – attitude with a capital A. I don’t know it is just me , or just me getting old, or some radical shift in perception.

Situation one

Here I am. We use carbon dioxide to make flies sit still so that we can work on them. The CO2 comes from huge cylinders outside the lab. One of these got over. Me poor me standing there with a spanner in my hand trying to move these huge things and fix them right.

This VSRP comes, makes whistling noise as if he pities me and then he just stand there and watchs. Just watches. All this while i have this huge spanner in my hand and I am trying to move these big cylinders because the helpers have all gone for the day.

“Why don’t you use some other less cumbersome method of anesthetizing flies?

Pregnant Pause.

Are you sure you are doing it right?

Another Pregnant Pause.

“This is really dangerous. What if it explodes?”

I had these mental images of crushing his skull out with my spanner. But then I gave him my MEI sneer and he went away.

Situation two

Then the irritating guy (from IIT) of larger than average proportions who comes into the lab.

Opens the door. Door bangs against some book shelf kept behind it. Then he asks why don’t you get rid of that thing? And gives us a look of supreme contempt. Like the morons that we non-IITians are should have fixed that problem earlier.

Situation three

Trying to make some lunchtime conversation – you know the situation where no one knows anyone and you are trying to pass time while you chew the grub. This fellow happened to be working in a certain s***** theory dept - which MEI is supposedly famous for.

Him: So who do you work with?

Me: XXX

Him:Oh I don’t know him.

That is good thing.

Me:What do you work on?

Him: You would not understand.

End of conversation.

Situation four

Then there was the story of the student who thought he knew everything. And then he would catch people at the time when they had the most work and ask "what do you do?" Most people like to talk about their work so someone would start explaining about drosophila spermatogenesis and then he would say “Yah yah I know.” But he does then you start explaining something else and then he would say “yeah I know that too.”
Can’t you just listen? And no you don’t know these things.

And just when you think that you have got it all figured out and you are finally exploiting them to full glory – pat comes the news. Their six week training period is over and they have to leave and you end up finishing all the experiments that they have started.

Truly speaking they do provide us a whole bunch of jokes to laugh at for the rest of the year. Don’t get me wrong some of them are quite useful. and there are the incidental advantages. Some lucky peeps have found mates this way. But most of all they do remind us wizened old souls about why we started science in the first place – for the wonder and joy of it.

Just when you start to forget them, comes a new bunch of them bigger, brighter better - with attitudes to match.

Here's to another six weeks with the peeps that arrive today!