Inward microscope

As I was scanning old email in my inbox (I know…it sounds like I don't have much to do, but it is a nice pastime), I noticed an email I wrote to some student in SUNY Buffalo asking him about my chances of getting into his school (with funding). Doe-eyed and optimistic, I had written an email in my finest English (as much as possible while trying to appear colloquial) wherein I had told him about my GRE score and acads, and declared proudly my dream of helping rid the world of disease with my formulation skills. I had even attached my CV. (which basically was a list of my mediocre academic achievements, along with some embellished extra-curricular stats.)

Oh man…how he must have laughed. As a graduate student of some years, he might have identified the rosy pictures I had of research in the US. I was such a fool back then. I actually believed that I was going to be the answer that pharmaceutical sciences and drug delivery technology was looking for. Time, and more time beats the optimism out of you. It certainly brings you down to earth. I realize, as a graduate student of a year and a half, that I won't be the crowning glory that I was so sure I was, but actually a small part in a large organization that needs me, but that I need it more. There is no shame in being a part of something that is so much larger than you that you might seem insignificant in comparison; but one must not forget that one is not insignificant to such an organization.

There is so much that I want to dip my beak in, and the growing finiteness of my time, energy and abilities is beckoning me close every day, only I have been putting it off for some time now. It is definitely time to recognize it and address it. There have to be a lot of efforts put here, and it will consume me. The end result will not always be pretty, but there will be the satisfaction of having worked hard. There will be the triumph of having committed to a project and seeing it to the finish. And when the inevitable situation comes where I realize that a particular task is too tough for me, I wouldn't shy away from asking someone for help, for I would then be secure in my achievements.

A funny thing happened as I was typing this out. Microsoft word 2007 crashed (damn you Bill Gates), but then restarted. You know what, it had completely recovered my write-up. So I forgive you Bill Gates…there is something to be learned in this experience that any realization, even if it comes late, is not too late…

Unbridled blasphemy

As I was gumming down a bowl of soup that some diet-friendly misanthropic nihilist might have invented, I glanced around the cafeteria to see if there were any of my friends or pretty girls nearby (Both groups are surprisingly not mutually exclusive!) There was this Latin-American female who monopolized my attention for a whole minute, after which she started walking, leaving me with her image still implanted in my head (persistence of vision is a blessing!); and after that I noticed a banner which read, "Maybe God is the answer?" That was the message verbatim.

Now, most of my regular readers know my cynicism about religion and might consider it hypocrisy that I joined a catholic university, but let's move past that for now. Please note that this is not a slight on Christianity but on religion in general. In fact, my kind of atheism is strangely ecumenical as it unites all religions while calling them crazy. What hurts me deeply is the marketing of religion that is done today. Many a graduate student can testify to being accosted by a missionary with the dangling carrot of free tuition in exchange for accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior. "God wants you to give till it hurts" is one of the many lines smoothly delivered by buff evangelists as they continue to mercilessly fleece poor innocent people.

Another cheap shot especially practiced by religion is that it attacks people when they are the weakest. Terminally ill patients are often known to have complete conversions during their last hours. While the religiously fanatical lobby notches this in their victory column, it can also be explained as a form of mental anesthesia that people crave when their fear, desperation or pain gets too much to handle.

The Hindu, Muslim and other religions are not far behind in their hypocrisies and their endorsement (and sometimes instigation) of atrocities. They too captivate people when they are most mentally feeble.

Richard Dawkins, the geneticist & acclaimed atheist, says that religion is the best product to sell because neither its virtues nor its promises are vulnerable to scientific testing. This is a product whose qualities you cannot experience until you die. The funniest part is that the people who tell you what happens after death lack serious resume points in the experience category themselves. If, in a scientific discussion, someone throws conjecture after conjecture at you without a shred of data to back them up, you would show that person the door. Yet, we grant religion a free pass and complete immunity from all logical accusations.

Sam Harris says that most people who follow one religion are atheists with respect to others. They believe in no god but their own god. Atheists, Harris says, simply go one god further. Bill Maher notes the pejorative connotation of the word atheist in modern times, and prefers the word rationalist. A rationalist is simply a person who does not conform to an ideology in principle but questions everything and is a natural skeptic. You need to convince such people, and not preach to them or command them.

I have met many people who argue that as I cannot disprove the existence of god, there has to be a god. To this, the great philosopher Bertrand Russell proposed a theory that there is a small teapot orbiting the sun and that its orbit lies between that of Mars & Earth such that it is too tiny to be seen by the most powerful telescope. As we cannot disprove the existence of said teapot, it must exist, and we are free to worship it. This kind of juvenile logic would be rejected by most children if said in the context of the teapot, and rightly so, for it is impossible to prove a negative, and hence the burden of proof should be shouldered by the people who claim the existence of any object.

The least these religious people could admit is that they don't know. I would still respect that. It is their unwavering certainty in the face of many a contradictory proof that baffles me the most.

A friend of mine once gave me a patronizing smile during one such argument and said, "We must not critique these stories & fables in religious texts, but merely take the good out of them." Is that not a critique in itself? Does it not take critical thinking to separate the grain from the chaff? And who is to decide which is which? Are we free to choose?

I consider it an offense to be told to suspend my critical thinking for any reason whatsoever. Richard Dawkins opines that we can lead perfectly moral and decent lives without being taught so by religious scripture. Having considered that, let us weigh the damage wrought by religion against the little (not unique) good it does. It pains me to visit ground zero in NYC. That horror would not have happened if there was no religion. If there was no promise of an afterlife, no one could have convinced young men to throw their lives away and take many others with them. There would have been no Holocaust. Closer to home, we Indians have seen enough brutalities committed in communal riots to know what I'm talking about.

If you woke up one day and saw that Princess Diana was speaking to you, you would suspect that you were hallucinating. Substitute that with the voice of god (which, by the way, you have no way of identifying) and you might just be called a prophet or a messiah.

I am very cynical & venomous on this subject simply because of the time, money, energy and other resources I see being wasted on this selfish mental anesthetic. Let's face it. We humans fear the unknown. Death is the ultimate unknown. So no matter how incredible the explanations offered to us are, we swallow them down just like I swallowed that soup-we have a void to fill, and when we are really desperate, anything goes.

Waltz with Bashir

It was colder than a witch's t$t that day. All day, it had been pretty cold. Full body cover and head gear were a must, and the biting cold winds made you swear off every ungodly thing you might have done in this sorry little life. Somehow I reached Lincoln Plaza cinemas on 62nd and Broadway by 7:30pm.
My cousin was due to meet me there with a buddy of his. I called him up only to learn that he is in a cafe somewhere. Ah! Enjoyin the warmth when I am counting body parts that I was losing to frostbite. Anyway, he came soon enough, and told me that the friend would join us and that we should go inside. We bought the tickets and went into the movie theater hallowed with heat.
The movie was 'Waltz with Bashir'. It was...wait for it...an animated documentary. That is a rare genre, but enough exploited to make some kinda statement alongwith saving money.
This movie was about the recollections of a man who fought for Israel in the dark and gloomy depths of Lebanon in the 1982 Israel-Lebanon conflict. He finds, in the beginning that he cannot remember anything significant about the conflict situations. So the whole movie is his search of people who were with him (with better memories) and their recollections of how it went down...so to speak. Bashir was the name of the president elect of Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, who was assassinated around that time. The Lebanese Christian Militia, also called the Phalangists, were sympathetic to the Israeli agenda, and 150 Phalangist forces routed the Sabra & Shatilla camps, hence the name "Sabra & Shatilla massacre."
The movie was disturbing, and thought-provoking. While I would support Israel in most situations, it being a democracy in a middle east riddled with theocrats is an important thing to me. The movie is amazingly poignant today in the event of the invasion of Gaza, and dare I extrapolate to the Sri Lankan annihilation of LTTE?
All in all, it was enjoyable, but tiring, because staring at subtitles for an hour and a half when you are already tired is not easy. I would recommend the movie to my serious connoisseurs, but I would prescribe some light reading of the 1982 conflict.
Later, off to some desi restaurant on Amsterdam ave. with that friend of my cousin's who caught up with us after the movie. We ate something called Gajar ka halwa there, although the color and taste failed to ring any bell. A couple of beers later, another freezing walk to the subway station, and home sweet home...

The precipice

"Hey man...is it possible for you to come over in an hour?"

"Ya sure...what's up?"

"Aa jana phir batata hoon."

"Okay, see you in an hour."

"Accha sun, quarter leke aana."

"Sure...Royal Stag?"

"Abbe kanjoos, abhi to note chaapne laga hai...bring JD at least!"

Forty five minutes later...

"Early as usual!"

"Well, quarter ghar mein padi thi...and traffic was low..."

"So, you came via Panch Pakhadi?"

"Yeah, but with a few unorthodox detours on the bike, I managed to avoid traffic...now tell me"

"Arre...let me make a small one first...soda for you?"

"Make mine with Coke, by the way, go slow, I brought only one quarter..."

"Arre mera to on the rocks hone wala hai...I took the liberty of ordering some Chicken biryani..."

"Is this discussion gonna be about your job or the relationship you are in?"

"Oddly enough, both. You see, I got a promotion...did you watch the match?"

"Congrats! Yeah I saw, in spite of Ponting's century, Aussies lost...but unka to time aa gaya hai...what is the new designation that you have been promoted to?"

"Associate Sales Head for Mumbai division; it means a lot more money and some real responsibilites for a change...by the way I ordered the biryani from that guy Khurshid in Talao pali..."

"That is amazing, so your career is finally taking off...Khurshid is ok...it is Rashid whose biryani is amazing...how does this affect your relationship though?"

"June 2006, third Sunday...I had called you up and told you that she has given me a committment ultimatum...remember?"

"How you remember dates and days with such feminine accuracy I will never understand...but yeah I remember the ultimatum, and come on...you guys have been together for 4 years now and there seems to be no serious problem...other than your usual committophobia!"

"Why thank you, I seem to recall you siding with her even then, by the way have you yanked out the knife from my back or have you got a new one?" Anyway, do you remember how I had warded her off?"

"Yeah something about you not being in the place you need to be career-wise, and waiting for a promotion to some post...oh...so the time of reckoning hath arrived?"

"Exactly yaar, is promotion ne maa-behen ek kar di meri! I don't know whether to be excited or not."

"The way I see it, you love this post, what are you thinking about...take the promotion and don't tell her anything...so you will be safe.."

"Nahi yaar...she is a part of the legal team which we had contracted for these two years...another pair pe kulhaadi from yours truly...she will definitely hear about this...I have to take the promotion and I have to commit to her now."

"Or, of course, you can break it off...are you ready to do that?"

"No re...everything is fine now...we meet often, and we are both saving money, and I definitely see marriage in the future for us, but not now...I am only 29 damn it!"

"Only 29! At your age half our graduating class has had their first progeny...forget that, how are your parents placed on this issue?"

"Same old same old...they want me to do whatever I want...but in reality they want to see me saddled and bridled right now."

"Why do you look at committment as imprisoning instead of empowering, by the way have you seen my Dido CD, I have lost it..."

"Yes, and once you find it, you must start looking for your testicles as well...committment is empowering!"

"Chubbe...chal repeat bana."

"Sure...the reason I called you is that I want you to take stock of my relationship and tell me what you see..."

"I see a smart, good looking person wasting time with a good-for-nothing useless dickhead."

"Oh come on! Help me out man..."

"Sorry yaar, I'd rather crack String theory than explain this shit to you...you claim to love this female, and yet you do not want to commit to her, is there someone else?"

"No...I haven't looked at another girl all this time...well except Tanya, that sales rep we had hired last week..."

"Or Seema, the HDFC bank girl whose totally useless personal loan you almost took.."

"Yeah but..."

"Or Rekha, that hot neighbor of yours.."

"She's married!"

"Like you care...or Romila that cute girl your girlfriend carpools with..."

"Pagal hai kya, one wrong stare and she will destroy me..."

"What about Sameera, that tall wanna-be model you give occasional lifts to..."

" Well, we work in the same building..."

"Or Reena...aaah Reena.."

"Can we get back to the topic at hand?"

"How many times have I told you never interrupt me when I'm picturing Reena?"

"Sometimes I wonder how logically stunted I must be that I court your advice!"

"Okay chill dude...look, the way I see it, you are being an ass...she loves you and by your own admission you love her...why not just take a few days' break and think over what it is that is preventing you from making the ultimate committment, if there is a genuine answer, you might consider breaking up with her...or swallow your fear and go ahead because that is probably what you want deep down."

"Just when I completely give up on you, you reach down into that abscess you call a heart and come up with something pretty pragmatic."

"Well, I'm drunk enough to give a rat's ass about your problems and sober enough to make sense!"

"Let's stop here then...I am taking a week off and going to Kerala to meet my grandparents...who knows meeting elders or even the journey itself might lead to some quality introspection..."

"Promotion milte hee chutti le raha hai...make way for the employee of the month!"

Blogger types?

Blogging is more than a pastime. It happens to be a responsibility. Once the blog actually gets a decent audience, it becomes all the more important for the blogger to use it well. In the old days one had to be really good at writing to be heard simply because even the lowliest college newsletter had an editing panel that filtered off the complete crap that was so bad that the week's recipies were more interesting. 

Today, it has become a lot easier for one to be heard if one has any kind of thought about any issue in the world. While that has helped get the ball rolling on people sharing ideas, it has given way to an unimaginable verbal diarrhea that needs to be controlled. 

I guess we can say, don't look at a blog if you don't like its content, and that's that.

Still, there are various species inhabiting the blogosphere. 

The first one is the veteran blogger. This guy has had his profile visited more than playboy.com, and has a fan following that regularly checks his url for his latest update. RSS feeds were invented for this kind of species I guess. These are the people whose blogs have urls ending in .net or .com or something else exclusive unlike us lowly blogspot/wordpress people.

The next one is the regular blogger. Most of us fall into this department. We blog because our friends do so or because some poor misguided soul once told us that we had a talent for writing and we took them seriously. We smartly blogroll each other in a mutual back-scratching way and take care of one another. We leave comments on various blogs just often enough to induce regular hits on our blog.

The third kind, the one to watch out for, is the 'me too' blogger. This guy is usually someone who does not really have the aptitude or the passion to write but has enough blogger friends and simply does not want to feel left out. Too many blogspot domain names are forever lost to these wanna-be Pulitzers who start a blog, write the first article, usually a self-descriptive hubris chant that asks readers (meaning friends and relatives who have been emailed/scrapped/pinged the url of said blog) to watch this space for more. Such bloggers do not really deliver and the blog tapers off after the first or the second post.

All said and done, the fact that every useless thought that enters our head can now be voiced says a lot about technology and our reach. Let us use cyberspace responsibly and humorously.

Rab ne banal di thodi

After much ballyhoo and brouhaha that would take pages of this blog to fill, I reached Sahar airport (Yes, I refuse to call it Chatrapati Shivaji, get over it). One night of tossing and turning and a morn beset by jet lag slowly morphed into my sister dragging me to the latest SRK movie, "Rab ne bana di jodi." It came highly recommended by her friends, which should have been my first warning, which I did not heed. Nonetheless, I found myself in the movie hall, watching previews of a movie called New York, which seems to be akin to the oft-beaten drum of Muslims in post-9/11 USA. Forget that.

The movie opens promisingly enough, with SRK in his simplest clothes, wearing a fresh, un-starlike look that impressed me and convinced me that even Yash Raj films has come of age. A blushing bride, too pretty for him to have obtained her under circumstances other than the tragic death of her original 'would-be', and sure enough, that is what happened. Kudos to the banner for cutting to the chase initially, instead of vacillating on tears and trials.

Kudos to the peppy music, thumbs down to the intellectually numbing lyrics. Back to the story. Imagine a man who thinks that he is too uncool for his wife to be considered a suitable husband to her. Compound that with the fact that she is recovering from the loss of her real love and her father. Garnish it with her bold statement that she can never love her husband but would strangle her dreams to be an ideal wife. This is SRK's position as he keeps sharing with his suggestively gay-seeming hairdresser friend (played to perfection by Vinay Pathak). SRK metamorphosizes to a cool (using the term loosely) chiseled version to capture the girl's attention with innuendo and slapstick humor. 

While he succeeds in interesting her enough to become her friend, he realizes that the more she falls for the new guy, the further she is getting from the boring original guy he is. This ego conflict is the only part of the movie worth intelligent analysis, and as usual, Aditya Chopra has left a lot to be desired in this department. He fails to capitalize on the fact that he has an actor with potential (see Swades) in SRK, and a wonderful angle to exploit. 

Instead he sticks to the familiar pandering to the Indian culture where a woman is supposed to love her husband no matter what. He dresses it up in a deceptive tone of "Mujhe isme rab dikhta hai", but be not fooled, it is the same Bhagwan ne hamein jodiyon mein banaya hai crap.

Many reviewers have written pages on the fact that the new girl can barely act but shows her body well. Don't even bother with the fact that a woman cannot recognize her own husband when comes sans moustache and in tight t-shirts.

All in all, like a typical Yash Raj movie, this one is an insult to human intelligence, with glimpses of cuteness that are so few that they need to be filed under the topic of sheer chance. SRK does a decent job as the shy, unassuming, bumbling Suri-the power company worker, Vinay Pathak does a nice job, and newbie Anushka Sharma is strictly okay. Honestly, some movies need to come with a refund option, but then again, what can one do about the lost three hours that we can never get back?

Emptiness

Ah! The post exam relief is sublime…the end of responsibilities, no need to feel guilty about reading The Kite Runner when you are supposed to be reading Process Analytical Technology, no need to feel like you are wasting time listening to music when you should be captivated by Quality by Design and such like. It is a moment of freedom, where you realize that you are truly done with your subject for the semester. The chains have been untied and you are free to pursue what you really want…aimless enjoyment and idle pursuits.

Or so it is for most people.

To me, there is a cold emptiness that follows the end of an exam. I don't want to read books, or listen to music now that it is not taboo anymore. I don't know about others, but I've not been a model student during any part of my life. My parents have never really had the joy of telling their cousins and the like about how I'm always first in class, although I find it hard to believe the embellishments of all my aunts of how their children are perennial toppers. Somehow, the numbers never added up. There are far too many toppers for me to take those statistics seriously…but I digress.

A lot of our syllabi have revolved around memorization skills, with the best parrots in class sweeping up the top spots. With all due respect to their hard work and dedication, I've always nursed the idea that education should be about making professionals and experts and not mere encyclopedias of trivia…and I'm so not alone.

So whenever an exam has presented itself, I've found myself neglecting the memorization parts on principle, and taking the low marks without a frown. The parents were disappointed, but I couldn't care less most of the time. I have to admit something controversial here. I have always loved exams. The idea of a piece of paper, if well framed, being able to judge what I have taken out of a course fascinates me to no end.

Getting my grades were a kick too, for I was so arrogant and self-satisfied that unless I am really convinced otherwise, I have always used my grades to judge whether a course was taught, tested or graded fairly. This happens most of the time.

I have been lucky for the most part of my academic life inasmuch as I have never had to work too hard. I can't help feel bereft of that supreme sense of satisfaction that one should feel after working hard over something and seeing it to fruition. Chalk it up to arrogance, ADHD or plain laziness, I have always been on the casual side.

Hence the emptiness.

I spoke to a friend of mine, one who has these problems too (I have seemed to attract many friends who share my affliction). If anything, that guy probably needs to work even less than I do for results similar to mine. I put forth a theory to him expecting him to smash it with positive logic, but he concurred, and not only so, he even added to it.

So, our theory is that people like us (and there are many) who don't work hard for some tasks, (academics being at the forefront) do so because of an all-consuming fear of failure. They are so afraid to give everything to a task, because they don't want to find out that their everything is not enough to excel at said task. In other words, they do not want to accept the finiteness of their abilities. They are far more secure in their fool's paradise where they proudly put in less effort, and are not surprised when the consequences are not excellent. Worse still, they almost look down upon the ones who dive into their responsibilities accepting their faults and shortcomings and trying to fix them. Many would not want to admit this, and are going to be shattered when they see this, and see themselves in this. Of course, if there are so myopic about themselves that they ignore this theory, they will need a stronger stimulus. So deep is their denial that they would probably never see the light. Maybe their denial will last as long as they do. If so, I don't know whether to pity them or envy them.

I'll settle for a compromise. I will understand them, for I've been there too. I have always noticed that my blog posts are more objective than most. It's probably because I'd rather focus on external issues than turn the microscope inwards. I guess I should take heart in that I've recognized that problem now, and it is not too late to reform.

This post is more serious and vulnerable than others, so I hope my readers would forgive my indulgence. The ends of certain times are times of introspection and personal growth. Who knows, maybe my readers would use this post to look inwards and find their vulnerabilities too. At a minimum, this post puts forward a theory worth discussing.

Flashback

Nothing quite salutes the ego than blogging. Here is an idea where one can take one's deep thoughts (regardless of their value) and immortalize them in cyberspace. It does not matter whether your works are of publishable quality or simply not worth the chips that store them as memory. You have written a piece and so shall it be, forever. Then comes the idea of posting links on facebook and orkut directing unsuspecting friends to your blog where they can get a taste of your narcissistic personality. Shameless self-advertizing sounds too egotistical, and hence bloggers have resorted to scratch each others' backs by a fantastic tool called blogroll. Here one blogger tells his readers about a list of blogs he follows. I friend of mine (a fantastic blogger himself) had added me to his blogroll, and while I was a little slow on the uptake in adding him to mine, I found many messages on orkut, some on Gchat and a couple of phone calls where I was urged to blogroll him. You know who you are…so blush away!

Well, I've been tagged by buddy to post links to five posts of mine w.r.t certain topics. The list is Family, Friends, Yourself, Your love, Anything you like.

Here is the strange thing. I have not written jack about family. I don't know why. So, sorry buddy. One down, four to go. Friends are few and far between, but the ones there are, are for keeps. The guy who fought so hard to get into my blogroll is a true friend. There aren't many posts on that either. There is one I wrote when a friend was making a presentation. Somehow, I was able to pen down a poem during his apparent soliloquy.

Yourself: Now that is a topic on which any self-respecting blogger can write volumes. So here, here and here are some links on articles about myself.

My love: This is a topic where I cannot speak much, given my shy nature (wink, wink). So here and here are some posts which might shed some light.

Anything you like huh…let's see…I like to talk about various issues: God, politics, philosophy, writing etc.

So here it is, a slate with some of my shameless self-advertizing, or what we call a blog! I am supposed to tag five others, so here they are: avalok ishwar, phoenix, rydhun, sthitapragnya and buddy.

To all you nitpickers out there, I know I am tagging buddy uselessly, as he has already done this one, but I am not gonna pass up a chance to call him brilliant. That's it man…no more compliments for you for a month at least!

Cheers

Liberal

Custody rules

The Supreme Court of India has recently granted custody of a minor boy to his teacher mother of humble means. The father in this case, a Mr. Gaurav Nagpal kidnapped his son after the divorce, and was holding on to him against the rule of law. In this case, the ruling was absolutely right. Clearly, the father has displayed a lack of moral fibre with his acts. Let me say on the record that I completely support this ruling.

The Times of India titled this story as "Money has no meaning in custody battles: SC." The bench is quoted as saying, "In determining the question as to who should be given custody of a minor child, the paramount consideration is the 'welfare of the child' and not rights of the parents under a statute." Fair enough. It goes on to say, "Simply because the father loves his children and is not shown to be otherwise undesirable does not necessarily lead to a conclusion that the welfare of the children would be better promoted by granting their custody to him."

The welfare of a child in a custody battle is paramount. I get that. I also understand that a child needs a mother during the developmental years. Gaurav Nagpal in this case is a rich man who is providing his son an education well beyond the mother's means. He used this point to state that he is in a better position to take care of his son. The SC ruled that as the education of son is very important, the father should continue to pay for the education while the son stays with his mother.

My question is this; to what extent must the mother be proved to be a deviant for the father to get custody? I appreciate the need for maternal love in the growing years of a child, but what if the son is 16 years old? I would contend that he needs his father more. I don't know the age of the boy in this case, but I'm pretty sure that the bench would be skittish in granting the custody to the father if the son was a teenager unless there is sufficient proof of the mother being abusive or something.

I am unclear about this topic as I am far from the stage where I would consider myself mature enough to have a child of my own, but I was always old enough to have an opinion. So readers, please chime in with opinions to clear my mind a little.

Café speak

"A grande latte please, no cinnamon…"

"Boy! You've not changed a bit I see…"

"Hey, if old habits are allowed to die hard, I think coffee preferences deserve immortality"

"Double cappuccino, just a hint of cinnamon, less foam…"

"Wow…living on the wild side, I've never seen you order cinnamon…speaking of old spices I hate, there's Sam…"

"Sam…surely you mean Sameer, don't tell me he has Americanized his name too…he is just in his second semester…"

"I know, it is presumptuous of an international PhD student to become red, white & blue before he clears his comprehensives."

"Ah! What the hell…I heard the NMR machine in his lab is a 600MHz! Is he using it now?"

"Not unless you count the new Taiwanese MS student being spread-eagled on it succumbing to his lecherous advances as research!"

"Well…chemistry manifests itself in weird ways!"

"That stab at humor was passé even for you"

"Hey…you should have ordered a decaf I guess…the last thing you need is more caffeine at your crabbiest best…I take it your animal protocol was turned down again?"

"I will never understand how a person who regularly endorses the slaughter of cows and pigs with a casual saunter into Burger King can cry like a baby if the protocol has a lower quantity of anesthesia than regarded as appropriate…for god's sake I am researching pain management, how can I do that without causing the animals some pain…"

"Calm down, they are doing their job…we can't have people being callous about animal handling in the name of research…so tell me do you get time to spend with your girlfriend at all?"

"Not really, between her trips to the polytechnic department for the gel filtrations and my constant bickering with the animal department and numerous protocol addenda…we manage to squeeze a phone call in every 3-4 days or so…"

"She lives three blocks away…her lab is three buildings away from yours…I think one or both of you might be consciously avoiding the other…"

"I need a refill…what about you?"

"Yeah…tell the waitress to repeat mine too…so I got lucky last night"

"God! I noticed that grin on your face ever since we sat down…I knew if I did not ask you, you would certainly rub in my face all the action you've been getting…so who is she?"

"Remember that cute ABCD biomed student of mine…well…she is not my student anymore, so I asked her out and she came in if you know what I mean"

"Your innuendoes never cease, do they?"

"Yeah whatever, while you spend your nights playing pocket-billiards mulling over doses of propofol, I am playing the game…did I mention I am up for an NIH grant?"

"F#$% you…all the fun and yet you get the laurels too…you cell culture waalahs get your own way on everything!"

"Well, not to sound too churlish, but animal research is like having a girl friend- lots of work and negotiation and not much scoring…cell culture is like my life…scoring all the time and no adjustment!"

"Hey…I have a lab meeting in half an hour…need to shave, shower and order pizza…"

"You are proving my point!"

"Same time, same place, next week?"

"Until then!"

"Bye bro…bye Sam (a little louder)"

"Bye…Hey Sam…guess who I banged last night…"

You dared, you failed

Yes, we are not silent, but loud

We are obnoxiously rich and proud

We are shameless flaunting our prosperity

Not in richness and baubles, but integrity

You came through our shores,

We did not stop you then

For there are many who come so

We'd rather not prejudge them

You betrayed our trust, transgressed our boundaries

Hurt, maimed and yes…killed our brothers

We know not what you want, what you desire

We would like to know the cause of your ire

But fear we shall not, as we never knew trepidation

Your shenanigans budge us not an inch

There is nothing we desire more than peace

But we shall not lose sleep worrying

You dared many times to breach our strongholds

You think you have succeeded

But look at our faces, our resolve, and our demeanor

Do you really dare celebrate?

For your greater target lies unachieved

As it always shall be, for our heads will never droop

We believe in rights, privacy and fun

You took none of that away

We are not those who believe

In ruining life in fear of death

You can try and try again

We shall not blink as you can see

But let me also say in return

That we are not as passive as we might appear

The day we know what it is you are

We shall obliterate you with no trace

To leave a clue that you existed

Until that day, live with knowledge that

You've done nothing to shake us

I love my city to no end. This is a tribute to Mumbai and her amazing resilience.

To all Mumbaikars, it's time we declared just how valuable she is to us.

Weird events

Here is a list of weird things that happen or have happened in my life, which might overlap with some of the events in your lives too.

• I went to the restroom in the college library that day to wash my hands and face as I was working tirelessly on this term paper (which means I was watching youtube and chatting while on invisible mode). I was scrupulously washing my hands and was done drying them when the urge for a constitutional came over me and I went into one of the booths. The other occupants of the restroom looked at me as though I was the poster boy for OCD who washes his hands before the act.
  
• This happens to me too many times. I am waiting for someone, and I look at my watch for no reason really. The next moment, someone asks me the time, and I need to look again!
  
• I have nice interesting conversations with pretty girls which peak with them telling me that my shoelaces are untied. The sad part then is that I never then find a low stump to rest my foot on whilst tying the lace (Murphy is my constant companion), so I need to go the full monty, bend all the way and tie them up, by which time any girl would excuse herself from the conversation.
  
• Waking up early is that much easier when you have nothing to wake up for.
  
• Dreams seem to become less Sooraj Barjatya and more Alfred Hitchcock every night. (That is a comfort, trust me)
  
• Eating food has become one of the events to look forward to these days
  
• An ex-roommate of mine once stared philosophically at a roll of toilet paper and said, "This is one of the added expenses in the USA, which we never had in India"
  
• I saw this girl I knew while walking down the street. I did not know what magnitude of smile intensity would be considered appropriate. What if she gives me a small smile merely acknowledging my existence while I floor her with 32/32 teeth. She will consider me a creep. However, if I give her the dignified smile and she flashes the pearly gates, I look like a snob. Also, I lose any chance of another of those smiles. I took the conservative route, and gave a small nondescript smile. Would you believe it, she gave me one of the sweetest, broadest smiles ever, and now I feel like an idiot. (Damn that Murphy never takes a break!)
  
• I felt very good one day. I had purchased a packet of bite sized peeled carrots. Great! Now I could guiltlessly munch on these during those long movies etc. Before I realized it, I was having those lovely red denizens of fitness Elysium with potato chips and mountain dew!
  
• I went into this quaint pub near Kew gardens with a buddy, and ordered an Absolut vodka straight up. The bartender was impressed as she asked, "Straight up? No ice?" I said, "No ice!" and pondered that for one moment in my life, I actually looked macho. Then she shattered it with, "May I see your ID please?"
  
• There are many more like these, but they probably make for duller reading than the above.
  

Quirks & peccadilloes

To be very clear on this issue, I have not been tagged by anyone to write about my quirks. Seeing as everyone in the blogosphere is writing about these, and that I have some really weird quirks of my own, I decided to write about them.

So here goes…

1. Good Mornings
   

   Mornings can be of two kinds for me, good and bad. Let me stop you right at the beginning if you're gonna say that that happens to everyone. My good mornings are ridiculously cheerful, and you would think that not only did I get up on the right side of bed that day, also that that bed was co-occupied by Angelina Jolie or something. I bid cheerful greetings to passers-by who are often irritated (that includes fellow students, lab mates, the Dunkin Donuts staffer…)
   

2. Bad mornings
   

   These are really bad, and I yell and snap at cheerful people (see above) who have the audacity to greet me. I say things I don't mean, and write things in blogs that I really feel.
   

3. Food
   

   I am a complete non-vegetarian, with some tendency to consume veggies now and then. When I eat something with meat in it, I eat all the other crap first, saving the meat for later. Then I wonder that why did I leave so much meat
   and no dressing to eat with it.
   

   When I eat M&M's or tic tacs, they have to be in even numbers, such that I put half on one side of the mouth and half on the other side.
   

   Until they enter my mouth, different food items on my plate can never touch each other.
   

   When I drink soda, the fizz has to remain till the last drop (difficult huh!) so keep closing the soda bottle after every gulp, each time tighter than the previous, and then I wince when I have to open it.
   

   Any coffee I drink has to be hot till the last drop, hence a microwave is indispensable when I have the large cuppas.
   

   I refuse to eat with chopsticks. No negotiation there.
   

4. Misc
   

   My wallet stays in my front pant pocket, no matter how suggestive the bulge becomes. It is the aftermath of years of travel in Bombay trains, and pick pocket paranoia, although now that I think about it, in Bombay my wallet never had more than Rs 20.
   

   I always always put on my left shoe first. (This, I think is common)
   

   
   

   This has barely scratched the surface. More later.

Tedious rants

People! Stop holding doors for other people! Even in crowded bustling New York City; it is insane how you manage to pump chivalry and politeness into such crammed workdays. It is one thing for you to expect me to hold the door open when you are right behind me, but if you're far away, you're on your own. One wonders what the limit is, beyond which the intensity of chivalry wanes. I like the 5-second rule. If you can get to the door in five seconds, I hold it open. The calculation of how soon you reach is mine only…non negotiable. Of course, if you are lagging, I suggest you buck up, although the energy wasted in the speed increase could be used to open the door…

The next person who tells me to have a nice day is getting the shraapam of his life. He is forewarned of boils in very private organs which will make small pox seem like a mosquito bite. When I reach the checkout counter of a grocery store, I will not ask you "How are ya?" Not because I'm rude, mainly because I don't give a tiny rat's ass. I mean that with sincerity and honesty; you know…the kind that you don't mean when you are asking me about my day, and then telling me to have a nice one. That applies to smiles too. Let's have fewer but more genuine smiles. And once in a while, let's see some frowns. We could all use some bad expressions. Kinda colors the day more.

If I sneeze, and you are right in front of me, and we are having a conversation, and you are done wiping yourself dry, I will excuse the bless you. All those who scream bless you from the other end of the car of the E train at Penn Station need to get a life. We could all use a little less blessing and little more reality…maybe some paper napkins too…

People hawking politicians can stop pretending to know their stuff now that Election Day will pass soon. It is so annoying to see people wanting to vote for Obama but not being able to name any legislative action he has taken as senator.

Women who are bad drivers, you have an added responsibility on you. Don't reinforce the stereotype that women cannot drive well! The majority of women who drive competently are continually judged because you usual suspects always come along and make people roll their eyes. Apologies to women everywhere for this rant.

Many more to come…

Deconstructing heroes

As a naïve schoolboy often doused & immersed in polar concepts like good and evil, black and white, day and night, I was used to viewing things in extremes. It is, of course, an easier way to teach people at the developmental stage, to show every concept or idea in terms of its upper and lower limits. Some would argue that some issues need to be examined at the extremes of their ambits in order to understand their impacts fully.

Once, during a Hindi movie, where the villain happened to be the father of the leading lady (big surprise), I failed to understand why he would care to save his daughter when he was, after all, a villain. My tiny brain thought, "As this man kills without compunction, he is evil and that's that. After all, if he were to care about his daughter's well-being, shouldn't he empathize with the other people whose sons and daughters he indiscriminately harmed?"

People who are determined to like me read that as precocious empathy, while naysayers would chide me for my naiveté. I would agree with both. Mind you, I was six years old then.

As I am older, I often contemplate the role and structure of a true hero. Bill Maher says that heroes distinguish themselves by willfully putting themselves in harm's way. I agree. So what exists in the fabric of a person that confers upon him such ultimate altruism and selfishness?

Panderers would be quick to say that these are the chosen ones and they are really gifted; and we must all emulate them.

When you stop to think about a society filled with heroes, the utopian desire to have a firmament of altruism disappears. When you really think about various motivators which help determine (or even predict) behavior, the one that beats all else is self-preservation and self-interest.

It is probably the lynchpin of the theory of evolution which is all about adaptation to various conditions. It is understandable, therefore, that people around us will act on their self-interest more than anything else.

Let us go back to the fundamental gene or elemental particle that makes a hero a hero.

It would be simplistic, and quite simply demeaning, to characterize such people as self-loathing or self-destructive. There is more to this.

Now, most people are not perennial heroes; there is more likelihood of an ordinary person stepping up and doing something heroic. So, most lives are characterized by long periods of self help and preservation peppered by moments of altruism.

Our eyes now move towards understanding the more elusive 'small heroic moments'. News archives are replete with people trying to describe what went through them during that moment. There is hardly anything going on in the mind as to whether to do that heroic deed or not. That part is so much more instinctive. A person sees a situation, and does what he can to correct it, within reason. A hero almost discards reason to save another life or a cause.

All this rambling is leading nowhere. Perhaps this post serves only the purpose of making people reflect on those moments where they have seen or done something that can be agreed upon as heroic. I do salute heroic deeds, but I also know that while they are few and far between, there is something in the totality of evolution that has a spot for heroism and probably even explains it fully. We need to look hard enough; it is waiting to be found, patiently, like all other explanations.

Blog Action Day 08 - Poverty

This is a subject that we all pretend to be very concerned about. Pretend to ourselves that is, I would never accuse my audience of pretending outwards!
The other day I was standing with a lady friend discussing casually various things including the weather and the vagaries of our professors when a clearly destitute person came up to us and asked us whether we could help him out to get a meal: I have spent a year in the USA and should be ideally used to people speaking in English, but even now, a beggar speaking in English is striking and stands out...but I digress.
I pulled out a quarter from my pocket and gave it to him: that was all I was going to spare, besides, this was being given to get rid of him: my mind spun to the same old cliches, he seems able bodied, why can't he work for a living?
Upon some sensitive reflection, I realized just how shallow I was being. True, this person seemed like he could do a hard days work; but do we think it is that easy to get a job in this world? The ubiquity of poverty has numbed us to its effects. If we look at it objectively, the only thing we will see is its horrible spectre. Annie orphan had some choice optimistic things to say about poverty during the great depression in the US, but those comments suit the visage of a twelve year old with very little real world experience. In reality, some cynicism should temper the blank optimism that is being touted as the mantra for success.
Again, discussing poverty does nothing to any of us except maybe guilt us into donating a dollar this week or something, and while that will benefit some poor homeless person, it is not something that will gather force or pass a tipping point in our war over poverty.
Que bono or who benefits is an important question to be addressed when understanding the cause of something. Now, one can debate the reasons for the birth of poverty ad nauseam, and it would not serve any purpose. What we do need to discuss is who benefits from the perpetuation of poverty.
As far as poverty is concerned, there needs to be some more awareness about it.
The idea behind this post is that 15th Oct has been declared Blog Action Day - 08, where all bloggers talk about poverty; in the hope that more than anything else, it would feature in our minds more often. Let's do all we can.

Kilimanjaro

He wiped his brow and frowned. This was going to be a long climb. His muscles had started to ache. This was more due to inaction than actual strain. Working whole days and some nights punching on a keyboard wiped his body by the end of his week. The weekends, when not working, were filled with mental fatigue and angry snappy remarks at good natured advice to slow things down. He looked up and calculated the number of paces he would need to take to reach his destination.

As was the norm whenever he felt any physical stress, he swore to start gymming. He needed to get in shape. He was the fittest of all the software engineers working on his side of the block, but that wasn't really saying much. He was sweating profusely now. There are some climbs that one must undertake alone, he thought. Some battles that need to be fought alone, no matter what. Ever since the breakup, he constantly found himself subjecting his body to all kinds of punishment. He knew it was not his fault, but there was some culpability. He knew she did not love him, but he was still trying to get over her. The pain of loving someone with full confidence at no returns is unbearable and indescribable, and he needed physical, dull pain to counter it.

He was not a person given to suicidal thoughts, and this was no different situation. In fact, despite his situation, he knew he had a certain joi de vivre which prevented him from completely drowning in morose thoughts. His self-imposed tasks simply required more stamina, but his body simply refused almost as though his frequent pants and poohs were his body's way of saying, "Are you kidding me!"

His legs were starting to burn now. Maybe she never loved him; maybe it was all an illusion to her. She probably thought she loved him a lot, but once the initial attraction faded, she simply saw the light. Too bad for him though, he knew where he stood during the whole time: he wanted to make a life with her, a life that would not happen now. Somehow, even though his disappointment was too much, he managed to understand that it was for the best. One can never forget one's first love: that adage would be tested in time. For all he knew, she was having some trouble getting over him too.

He was so naïve, when he actually heard the four ugliest words in the Engligh language, "I wanna break up." He contrasted them with the three ugliest words he had once heard, "I am pregnant." It had turned out to be a false alarm, but his heart had skipped several successive beats. He remembered the stoic expression she had had on her face as she said it; as if probing him to see his most instinctive reaction to the news. In any case, she had gotten her period the next day, and both of them heaved a sigh of relief and doubled their protective measures.

He had to sit down now. This level of exertion was just not correct for a person of his poor fitness. He breathed heavily, with his heart pounding, and just collapsed on the ground. He swore, the next time the power went out, he would wait for it to return, instead of foolishly attempting to climb up to the 23^rd floor.