Post Doc - Post Post-Doc

AND 2015 AND 2016 has gone by. I am reminded of blogging again and am amused at all the time that has gone by without me ever considering this. Well, this is good news - as it implies life just got a bit easier. Although I haven't written any blog whatsoever, I've had plenty of structured writing to do in this time and given the rut I was in, I am going to use "this implies, the evidence suggests, this indicates" so on and so forth, so very often. Anyways, post PhD, post post-doc I finally move out of University. A couple of days away from starting a new job in a start up where I expect to slog a greater deal, yet here I am very fondly looking forward to this new phase in a beautiful island city.

Embracing this new found peace - I have started reading again. And what did I take up - Harry Potter! All over again! Well, reading Harry Potter at 28 is significantly different from my experience at what, 14? For one, I can't stop being impressed at JK Rowling. How did she conceive this story excelling in all respects? Depth of story line, the numerous layers, profuse human emotions, brilliant brilliant array of characters, humor! It's just got it all, how did she manage this huge project? My initial memories of this series was that of a fantasy, with Potter, an underdog zooming around in broomsticks, cracking mysteries and winning trophies over trophies. But now when I read it, it only occurs to me as a painful story of truth that life can only be unfair - always!

Well - there's too much going on in my head and it would do me good to write a separate post analyzing one particular character that chokes me up - Severus Snape - soon.

The Indian Headshakes!

I shake my head when it is a Yes! I shake my head when it is a No! I shake my head when I am indecisive! I shake my head even generally when I m simply listening to you :P Oh my! I never knew I shook my head all the time :D 

The theory of the Indian Headshake - Well, I was introduced to this home concept, the first time by a Brazilian colleague of mine. Sooner there were other non-Indians everywhere I went who seemed absolutely flabbergasted as I nodded my head in all directions pleasantly or seriously or angrily when I m conversing with them or others or just as I m sitting alone while working or even while I m lost (*smirks*). It seems like shaking my head is an intrinsic feature of my expressions. 

The funniest incident that happened recently though was when I had to be at a hospital after breaking my ankle. Although now I m secretly proud about the adventure of a broken bone (that I do not wish to experience ever again- touching all the wood I can get hold of), at that point it was a complete state of frustration and anger. Ok! On account of assuring to the gods what I pray for - "I still dread it, NO! that was definitely no fun - no pride whatsoever!" 

Anyways, coming back to the funny part, my disinterestedness during the period led me to completely shut my mouth leaving the quakes of my head, the only mode of communication. And Oh My! How that scared the nurse who was in shift. Well, either she was really scared and worried for me or she was subtly being humorous (a type of humor that I find difficult to comprehend even when I m healthy with my 8 hours of sleep a day). Whatever it may have been, my head-shaking was indeed quite an object of curiosity/amusement to her. I say curiosity/amusement as I found her constantly vacillating between asking me if I had a problems of seizures to a complete fun-filled bewilderment when I replied No. I had to re-assure her almost about 5-6 times that it wasn't a medical condition and rather what we normally do. Maybe I do a little more than others. On retrospection, I hold those Bharatnatyam (Indian classical dance) classes that I took as a  kid culpable for this. "Shirobhedha" (Head Movement) is an "Anga Lakshana" which is an important constituent of this dance form's interpretation of rhythm. Although this is a fact, I am just kidding as I did not graduate beyond learning to shake the leg - that is "Padabedha" ;) :D. I did not make these explanations to the nurse then, as I had a broken foot. Perhaps, she was satisfied with a simple "that's my habit and most Indians' too". But she didn't leave before narrating a story of her nephew who suffers from convulsions!

Memory recall after a peek at this hilarious video :D :D :D

Isac Asimov said - Change is the only constant!

Isaac Asimov a professor of biochemistry who wrote science fiction books once said that “It is change, continuing change, inevitable change that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be...”. What follows is going to be fairly serious for there is profound depth in what he has said, but I m not going to be quoting more of Isaac - Sorry for the disappointment!

I am rather going to begin by describing something I read out of a book called “Gora” written by Rabindranath Tagore. Some quick bits about Tagore. He was a polymath (which refers to a really intelligent (wo)man with expertise in so many areas that he/she could think like no other of that time! Leonardo da Vinci is a famous example for this). Tagore was the first non-European to win the noble prize in literature. He formed a bridge for Indian literature to the rest of the world. He has created a legacy and continues to lives on in many hearts and lives even today. So you can imagine what to expect out of a book written by a man who could be described in all these ways. He stirs the soul and creates a rattle ;)

Gora which means fair-faced is a book with a plot that debates on the foundations of an orthodox society with strict norms and how it can affect an individual’s welfare. It does so through the unfolding of events in the lives of a few characters and weaves it through their identity and how it is (if it were) influenced by their surroundings. Briefly, throughout the story, one can see matches against any two contrasting personalities – be it between a fierce spirit and a compassionate spirit, a believer and a non-believer, a simple mind and a proud mind so on and so forth, while at the base line always a fundamental question is addressed - Which is more important? An abstract non-tangible society that is built "essentially" for an individual or the real individual itself!. This thought provoking subject is set up amidst the blooming of liberal mindedness in an essentially orthodox society (that was India in the 1900s and earlier). The hero himself turns out to be an extraordinary man deeply embedded in the dogmas of society, so much that he actually impresses boundlessly when he speaks up for orthodox behaviour that our modern mind (accepting equal rights and democracy to all) has been trained to shun. His passion is so fierce & ideas so strong and clear, that is gives him a confidence, some of us can only dream of. I would sum up by saying, he makes a leader that one is almost compelled to follow (personally for me, just out of admiration for his megalomania with an honesty - or so I think).

This is not a book review, I am but going to describe what I experienced at one particular scene through the course of the story. The scene is, a father discussing with his daughter the love affair of his younger daughter brought up to be a liberal with a man who was learned and practised in orthodoxy. The situation is much more complicated if one discerns carefully the boy and the girl involved. But I am motivating to just focus on the gloomy discussion that was in hand about what is right and wrong in this matter of hearts. The union was not as simple as it presented many complications to everyday life which even a liberal thinking man could not fathom what to do about. Just at this grave hour, the man’s youngest son comes hoping about and whispers something in his sister’s ear. On asked by his father, what it was about, the kid shoos his sister not to reveal it and runs back happily in oblivion to the fact that the daughter later describes to her father that it was nothing but just something about an achievement he made in school that he was so eager to show to everybody with a well-built surprise. And the chapter ends, presumably with the scene continuing in the grave note that the father-daughter pair was in. The author writes…”the boy had not realised that in this world the object of his most secret thoughts could be ascertained so easily”.

Such a simple distraction in the screenplay garnered a more than deserved appreciation and attention from me. The introduction of the boy and his own little world into the crux of a discussion so serious seemed to me as something that was more than what meets the eye. The diversity of worlds that is created when one breaks away from a child's innocence, created a moment of drama in my mind with chords striking and all that. It had well, inspired me to even write this much convoluted piece!! I realised that while I was immersed in the discussion between the father and the daughter, it had worked up in my mind as such a big problem, when originally it is unimportant-abstract & non-real (from a larger perspective). But then, are they unreal? If I was a child - yes they are. In the unfortunate event that it is not so, I must conclude that whether it is real/unreal it is not easy to break away from. Philosophies of society and its decorum are difficult to interpret – the great Tagore has written this book on it and I have not even read it fully yet! :P  The abstract nature can be compared to the understanding that is held to a non-science student about the fact that there are billions of neutrinos travelling across the thumb any moment.

I m going to conclude the essence of this really, with this rhetoric question - can one live a child’s life even as he/she grows up? Why is it that we have to think so much and complicate a life that could be so simple and once was? Playing with balloons and running in the gardens are not the soul sources of happiness. All the complicated hierarchy that man is standing on today never occurs easily to the simple mind of a child.

“What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare” said William Henry Davies.

Innocence is a thing of beauty – it presents a life full of surprises and free of worries but innocence stays with ignorance which is bliss but never pardoned under any law. Change is unfortunately inevitable, one has to grow up constantly, constantly changing with the way the world changes. However, that is a very negative note to end on. Get the best of both worlds. Play intelligent and hold onto innocence when you can, and at other times bend to steer clear !

A post 3 years later!

It is March 2014 and I return to blogging. Three years after my last post! It is shocking to realise that the circumstance under which I had resorted to blogging then and now is the exact same. But, this time around is going to be different coz I now know there indeed was a bottomline purpose why I blogged back then. Thus after three years of fun & frolick and so many life-changing events, alongside my attempts on making some progress (the sad story!) towards being a doctor someday soon, I am here trying to collect my thoughts yet another time :)

Something beautiful that I read somewhere.....

Is it my time yet to do all the things you said I can do?
Do I have to wait until the stars line up on that special day in the special year?
Time keeps moving and I must still wait
Yet as the clouds move swiftly across the sky I look at my dreams pass me by
Will I be another? You know what I am asking
Will I be a beautiful mind wasted to time?




What can God do through me tomorrow that cannot be done today
What more do I need to be the conduit I was designed to be.
I am your mind beautiful and willing
Time keeps moving…why should I wait
This moment is as powerful as the next
Will I be a beautiful mind wasted in time?




Set me free and let me do that which I was purposed to do
Set me free and I will drive out the fear
Set me free from the bondage of fetters and illusions
Live as you were purposed to live
Fulfill your destiny and let the beauty of me flow through you
For a beautiful mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Beauty mesmerizes me ..................................... &&

Lately it has been GREEN for me. I look for a coat to buy, I go for green.. I look for a toothbursh to buy, I pick the one in green.... and then when I was leaving from dehradun two days back at 7 in the morning when all the green was at its "green best!" i realise.... ahhhh..... no wonder my eyes are selectively picking the green ! :-p

Two and a half months at the Green city in Uttarakhand, if not in other ways, was definitely a gr8 feast for my eyes.That time, when I frozE seeing the lights on the queen of hills, mussorie from the Dhoon valley - all I can say even if it is cliche - my heart skipped a beat - it really did dammit!!

And so, as I thought the trees and the mountains are the ones so hauntingly beautiful, the monkeys and doggies scrapped a notch higher! the cute fur, the lovely eyes, their cuter kids!!

I m slightly dizZy now..- too much on the platter, but the alluring continues....

and what was it now?!

this' literally what else I saw! - princessessssss......!! the feminine beauty took me to fairy tales, where I read about those beautiful women under the veils - I ve seen 'em! ;) :D

what is this place ?!! with beautiful trees, beautiful flowers, beautiful hills, beautiful valleys, beautiful water(!?!!), beautiful dogs, beautiful monkeys, beautiful SKIES(!!), beautiful girls, and beautiful guys!!!

ahhhh.... if only i could write, I could have turned a poet ! but maybe i will one day, coz all that I saw is still in my eyes ...!! I m turning into the cliche queen ! But I ve begun to believe cliches are cliches only coz they are so good that they have to repeated over and over again - it's sort of a growing up requirement - everybody grows up, everybody goes through cliches!! 8-)

So, the beautiful journey comes to an end with a view of the snow-covered white himalayan ranges from 11 km up in the sky....how can I describe what I saw.....?! Here it is.............. !! :D

And the fairy-tale ends...,, welcome back to earth...!

Jus one thing that I will say now.... coz I shall be able to say no more after that

I have thought in all angles. Every possible way. Yet, I cannot categorise air-hostesses as anything else but waiters who stand-by, serve and clean-up with a lot of skin show!! But whoaa the attitude, i wonder where they get that from... but what comes to my mind at this point exactly is what Kajal says in a movie "To get treated well by such people, treat them like shit!" I d like to add to that - treat them like trash too!!

At the dawn of the new year.....

There is always something solid to stand on,
Or, You Shall Learn to FLY.......
Oscar Wilde

I clearly see the tiny stars shining in the big dark sky --

I clearly see them shaping as a bear, shaping as a ship, shaping as a deer, ohh, how much I can see from so far off...

And as I see it, my brain tells me, what a silly pair of eyes!

But what when you begin to wonder if dreams are in a way, those huge constellations.....?
Who is to claim it -an illusion or not?

Who is to say –silly or not?

What is to do when the classic “reality strikes”?!


F A I T H – I shall learn to Fly......



It is difficult not to believe that the new year will be better than the old one! And this illusion is not wrong!

Dehradun on new year's eve ! ;)

Let our deeper sense of belief in the new year,

gather bounds.....