Lot of my friends who blog like to narrate trips they make. Sometime when I read them, I feel good for them and I think I should write down the trips I make somewhere coz I feel those are times..fun times in your life. The fear that words would make a good trip a dull one often keeps me away from doing it. But then I am gonna try this one. I could be boring ...I warn you.

Indiana Bones : in the land of Ding Dong (PART 1)

This winter I set off on a road trip to Bloomington (Indiana) to meet a friend (Ding Dong) who happened say come over. Every hero has to have an entertaining company if he is setting off on an adventure. Its not my theory.. look back and you'd find that Shrek had donkey, Tintin had haddock (and calculus) and so onn. So, to be an Ogre on an adventure I picked up the donk(ey) from Philadelphia. Donk I should say did justice to the annoying donkey we so loved. Unfortunately I had to see it from where Shrek saw it and not on Tv sets ! It had the right to remain silent..all it lacked was the ability. Ability ??? Whats that ?...Donk asked.

The love was evident just minutes after it all started. In todays world where some wackos think being geeky sounds cool, we decided to start the war with ipods. Mine or Donks. Mine were all loaded with the hand-picked collection of the best 'gana songs' in tamil, hindi, English,telugu and malayalam. Donk was all Daler Mehndi and cousins. The sons of Punjab roared for sometime untill I ran short of stable mind. Force, power,for good, whatever you want to call it, ipods were switched. And we had a song for every mood. Indiana bones had won the first battle. No listening to the cries of the sons of Punjab. Kuthu songs rocks !

There are a few things that happen so often in my life that I deny it as co-incidence anymore. Everytime I set on a roadtrip (long one I mean)...it has to rain. Rain is an understatement ..it has to rain as though its the last chance for the clouds to pee. And they did. Donk I should say got into my car with not much hope to get back in one piece. Thats the trust Donk had on the way Bones drives. The dark clouds, the rain, the curvy roads in Pennsylvania, the Kuthu songs and Bones by her side. Donk could see the set of a horror movie right in the car.

For a guy wearing the Ferrari cap nothing is more exciting than the feeling of steel cutting through thick air. we zipped past the curvy Pennsylvania, the slim West Virginia to hit the big fat Ohio. Ohio, a place where rest areas are atleast 70 miles apart is a perfect place to get stuck on cold, windy night if dying was your dream. We had the whole of Ohio to cross. Its big. Its fat. I hate Ohio. Glad we were to see "welcome to Indiana". 11 hours after the ipod wars started we reached Bloomington.

One of my friends in school taught me : Never let go a chance to surprise others. You learn it young, its gonna stay for long. Standing outside Ding Dong's apartment we called her to tell her that we are still an hour away.

"The plan was to go up and knock her door...she will open and will be surprised to see us so soon." How dumb !!!! It wasn't me.

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When in a team be a team man. As Donk instructed I knocked at the door. The door opened. Surprise....It wasnt Ding Dong's house. 11.30 PM - a nice time to knock someone's house and say sorry. I can see what would happen to someone who does that to me.

Now that we had practiced it once we executed it perfectly when the right door was knocked. Donk: Surprise...we are here in 10 minutes.
Ding Dong : Woww...am so surprised. How did you make it so soon. Did bones drive so fast?
Donk : Thats surprise...

Bones (thinking): How perfect. Do they practice these conversations over phone? whatever..Donk's idea wasnt dumb..she perhaps knew Ding Dong would buy it.

All that starts bad ends well. Yea they changed it.

The first part ends with Donk, Ding Dong and Bones enjoying the dinner with a yummy chicken curry that Ding Dong claims to have made.

P.S. Bones writes his diary. (for the biologically inclined)

blah blah.....Ding Dong has chicken (on porcelain plate) for dinner and not LB (Luria Broth) on Agar plate as the world claims.

A life full of foolishness for a second of fulfillment. Any day baby!

You age. Priorities change.The past seems foolish and the present a big challenge.One question persists. What am I doing next? People call this by different names. Some say its life.

I still wonder what made me do certain things that I did a few years back. Then I thought they would change my life. But it didn't. Foolish I was, now I think. Foolish it was to do what landed me on a deserted highway at 3 in the morning with some stray dogs for company. Foolish it will be. But foolish it dint appear then. Thanks to the guy who owned the tea-shop, the dogs had to give up. That was just one of them. Looking back I see a past full of foolishness. I lived through them to write this post which might appear foolish the moment I am done with it. Thats life to some.

If you think about me (if you ever!) and feel that I am foolish, then thats because you are living in my past. I am no fool as I write this. To me this will change my life somehow. I wont know how because by then this would be past (and hence foolish). Agree or not friends, I tell you this is life to some.

Then what do I do to see my life changing as I do it? Do something that influences your life right as you do it. Live for the moment. Not past.Not future. Because for some your actions wont make sense then. To them life is all about 'now'. These men live just a 'fraction of a second of meaningful life' their whole lifetime.

Thats life to some. To some looking back everything falls in place. All the dots connect. Every action that didnt make sense then starts to make sense. Being stranded on the highway at 3 that morning appears to determine what I am today. To them you live your life every moment of your life time. The joy appears to be cumulative. To some that is life.

Now why am I trying to make sense out of all this crap? It hurts when you are punched and when it hurts you think if everything leading to that punch was avoidable or not. Someone I know fairly well made a comment on what I did to my life and how he had lived it for the moment and enjoyed it to the core. Although I wanted to speak for myself then I could not gather enough courage to kill his joy. Probably I wasnt sure if the punch was avoidable then. Looking back I am happy I took it and dint give up.

Calvin, Hobbes and my Prelim


Trying to prepare for my qualifiers I realized that I was reading about the history of railways in the world for sometime now. Two hours had just flew past. One strip from Calvin and Hobbes and I will start preparing for sure. And look what I ended up reading...lol..there is nothing to beat Calvin and Hobbes. I ended up reading it the whole night !

CHICKS FROM MARS AND MEN FROM ALDGATE

When I started blogging I thought I'd write incidents in my graduate life, interesting, embarrassing and weird worth being laughed at when I am seventy two. Although a lot of things happen , my laziness ensured that they went unaccounted. Sitting jobless on a Friday evening with 2 beers down my throat I feel the time is kind of perfect to recall moments I should have taken down the grave with me. Also, since I have too many of those moments now I feel its okay let go some milder ones.

Thanks to blogs, I now feel its cool write them and have people laugh at me.

August 2nd week 2005.

Never seen a fall before. Never stood when the rains froze down. It was my first week in the united states and aldgate was where I lived. I had just begun living my 'American dream'. Never did I get an opportunity to have chicken in my dream. Although supermarkets here sell chicken, the house I was staying was inhabited by pure 'nice' herbivores. Never would I want to make them feel bad by getting home a roasted chic.

Meanwhile, me and my 'gonna be' roomies felt the need to have chicken...bad..really bad. We rush to MARS (this is no science fiction..MARS is the name of a supermarket). 'S' says no to buffalo wings; loudly claiming that he has only chicken. Do buffalo's have wings he asks in the same breath.'V' and me look at each other...."dude what do we do of him". After educating 'S' we agree on the chic to pick.But once we get the chic where would we take it ?

"Indeed thats always been the problem with chics - where do we take them?? "

Cant go to the place where I was temporarily accommodated. 'V' and 'S' (who were going to be my room mates once we get a town house on lease) decided that its not wise to go to the place they were put up. They were living with 6 other souls like us who might be wanting a chic as bad as us. Taking our chic there would mean we'll end up having just 1/9th of what we are entitled of.

Cheap minds think alike. Share of chic becomes the priority of our lives. 1/3ard we deserve and 1/3ard we shall have.

We get her outside the shop - red and naked. Squat by the road. Chicken leg in one hand sauce in other. Eyes closed we take our first bite. Waah !!!...why is everything so good the first time...? Soon the juice dries down and we realize that we were on the road.Very much like the people I saw every time I walked to the Egmore station through the rear entrance. 'S' had sauce all around his mouth and was dripping on to his clothes, 'V' was trying to push a piece much larger than his mouth down his throat. Thank god I couldn't see myself.

Embarrassing it was. I still remember some of those looks. Curious people. we had lots of them there on that day. Every time we have had chicken outside since we think of it...and we laugh. Irresistible it was on that day...the sauce dripping down 'S' s mouth told it all.

What makes India - India and Me an Indian ?

Going by the words of Jayaprakash Narayan -"the states of India are held together by force and not by the sentiment of a common nationality. It is an assumption that makes a mockery of the Indian Nation and a tyrant of the Indian State". These words were controversial especially having said in the context of an independent Kashmir. But thinking over it 44 years later I am not sure how to see it.

Recently over a cup of tea with my dad, we had a conversation over this issue. No matter how many ever times I have heard the same things, I love to hear it from him. After all, its his thoughts that formed my early idea of the world. But now, I feel I have grown tall enough to reach outside his shadows to think on my feet. Big enough to question his thoughts. Whatever, at 23 I still love listening to him.

After going through phases were he believed that the Nehru family were more of a curse than good to our country he now admits he might have thought wrong. "Thats something we all Indians have uniquely common irrespective of where we hail from and what we believe in" - he says. Cummon dad..I thought putting up a face that convinced him that I was with him. But the way I am, made me hesitant to agree with him. I had to think different. I am tall now. I am grown-up.

On my trip back from India I was busy finding reason why I shouldn't agree with his statement. Do we need a 'Nehru family' to define ourselves?? Although I respected the Nehru family till he made that statement; I started thinking otherwise now. I was thinking the way my dad thought when he was my age.

Language..what do we have in common? More than 200 languages spoken in 30 states not considering the regional variations. People of all possible faiths and sects. Food, dress, culture, art.... you name it, you'll find more than a 100 types. Ours is a land thats proud of its diversity, not commonness. Even if anything is common its not unique to us. So what are we left with??? Are we held together by force rather than sentiment? Whats the common sentiment we share? The likes of Nehru family ?? The Tata's , the Birla's , the Ambani's?

True isnt it? When the Tata's make the news for good I feel proud with them and in their loss I share a part of their disappointment. Being no way related to them it feels kind'f weird when I think of it now. For the world they represent India and maybe I feel that I am identified through them. The more I think of it the more I see my thoughts being grounded. That leaves me with two choices - JP or dad; tough indeed. If my dad is wrong, then JP's words fits perfect. And I am left trying to put up a face to convince myself that I am with my dad.

Anyday I'll choose Nehru to JP.

Shame on Me .....and You !

Shame on you Sachin. Shame on you Yuvraj. Shame on you Sehwag.

Shame on you, you can't win matches. Look at the Australians.
Shame on you , you cant even abuse your opponents on the field. Look at the Australians.
Shame on you, you play for a country that forgets all you do today. Look at the Australians.
Shame on you. Not sachin, not Yuvraj, not Sehwag.
Shame on you guys who call yourselves Indian cricket fans.

Shame on you, you who make god out of a man today and turn him villain two days later.
Shame on you, for both those actions.
Shame on you, for being the best character assassins in the world.
Shame on you, for not knowing to respect talented people in your country.
Shame on you, for wanting to be someone but you.

I am an Indian and quite proud to be one. Thats why it hurts me when my countrymen show off thier foolishness. When things dont go according to the fairy tale, we go clueless. And thats when we show others how foolish we can get. Cricket is just one such example.

I was rooting for team India this worldcup and was dissapointed like million others when they put up a show that would put themselves to shame. In fact what dissapointed more was the show we millions put up after that.

Parading cut-outs of your yesterday's hero on a donkey and forming a funeral line for someone who's still in the best part of his life is not something someone would excpect from a civilization that claims to be one of the oldest in the world. What civilization are we talking about when we dont know what it means ?

I was just wondering what would happen if I was asked to govern the operations of NASA. What came to my mind was the state of BCCI and Indian cricket. Oh yea Niranjan Shah knows how a cricket field looks like. So can I tell you what a rocket looks like. I dont want to say that Pawar and Co are doing a bad job just beacause India crashed out of the world cup. What I dont understand is the double standards they often adopt.

When Greg Chappel goes to the press and goes on air repeatedly about what he thinks about the attitude of people who are atleast a million times talented and dedicated than him,the board puts its finger across its lips. He's an Australian and knows what he's saying.When Chappel says India's best captain ever has some problems mentally and needs to sort them out. The board sends an email asking him to refrain from such comments (that too after much criticism). When he openly claims that he was not given a team of his choice, the board stays quiet. Noone reads out that particular section in Article 38 loud then.Why do they have to come up so strongly when Tendulkar tries to clarify that he is still the same person he was for the last 15 years. Why do we forget that he was the only performing player in Team India for the last 15 years. Does two innings change everything that Tendulkar was?

Grow up guys...we need changes for sure but smart ones. Stop blaming people because they couldnot enact what you read in DC comics.


Shame on you Sachin. Shame on you Yuvraj. Shame on you Sehwag.
For what I'd want to know.

Deep and Dirty - The forgotten faces

Its not rare that I tend to think tangential to the problem at hand. Its not rare that my focus often strays. Its not rare that these arbit thoughts often land me in tricky situations which makes me think "what I am".

Beggining last semester, I volunteered to work at the transgenic mouse facility ( or simply 'the mouse room') in my department on weekends for a couple of hours. 'Volunteer' would not be the right word to use since I get paid some extra cash for making sure that the mice live a clean and happy life over the weekends. I hate to say but I hate doing this thankless job. Then why do I hang on to it? I do have a handsome scholarship good enough to help me live a life appropriately luxurious for a graduate student. Although I tell the world that its for the extra bucks that I do it, I know thats not all. Its just not money, sometimes I feel.

Neither is it my love for the poor animals who are being sacrificed so that science and scientists can boast their accomplishments. Even they do a thankless job in a way, aint' they? Like me, do they hate it too? What am I gaining thinking about it? Isnt this world all about who gains and who loses?

The two hours I spend feeding starved captive mice gives me some time for myself. Except for the horrible odour of rodents, the rooms pretty much offers nothing which stimulates thoughts. Peace, maybe lonliness. Or is it the trauma of doing something that I dont like which makes me think about my life? Whatever it gives me space to evaluate my actions.

How often have I thought about people who crossed my life at somepoint in time long lost, at some point in space I fail to remember and did something out of their way to help me. They never expected anything I'd presume. What made them so altruistic? Were they destined to help me ? Was it fate that I never thought of them untill I got holed up in a dirty climate controlled room filled with rodents , sick and stinking, all by myself against my likes but not will ? If everything in the life was about gain and loss, who lost if I gained? Did I really gain? What did I do to them? Forget.

Its true that many people I hardly knew helped me become what I am today. I forgot their existence as new faces came in. They too did a thankless job. Volunteer is the word. Today as I stood changing the wet cages many of those faces came up, I dont know why. Some were of 5 year old children with whom I went to school long ago. All this reminds me of what Brad Pitt says in Fight Club - “ your life is worth more than the last column in your pass book".

Its definetly not about gains and loses. I realized.