musings

Phantom In my Brain

2008-07-06T15:38:00.002+05:30

Let this be the last post on this beloved blog of mine. A shrine to beloved memories. I'll try posting someplace else, I think, after a while. Symbolic. Of moving on. Or trying to at least.
Though I do doubt how successful I will be in this venture of mine. Simply because I don't want to. I want my old life back.
Hope is a terrible thing you know, it makes me think it's real, the phantom in my brain.

2008-06-29T18:41:00.005+05:30

My igoogle page has a page element called 'famous poems'. It displays a new well- known poem everyday. Most of them are ones I have never read or heard of before, (which does not mean they aren't famous, it just means that I don't really know many poems) but the other day I was plesantly surprised to find William Wordsworth's Daffodils on my igoogle homepage.
I could almost smell the crisp new pages of my 7th Standard English Textbook and see the poem printed in it with markings by pencil as the teacher pointed out the figures of speech and rhyme scheme of the poem. Brought back a lot of memories...

Daffodils
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

- William Wordsworth

Stuck

2008-06-03T13:44:00.001+05:30

I had decided not to go anywhere during my month long holidays and finish a lot of pending work. This included finishing some project reports, doing some work for dad on the computer that he wants me to do, and figuring out exactly what I want to do after my Masters and how.

Now with only about a week left before college restarts, I realized I haven't done any of those things. I also wanted to freak out with some light reading, and watch loads and loads of movies. I haven't done much of that either.

What happens during the course of the day is that I sit down to do some important work, but it's a half hearted effort, since I go on telling myself that this is my 'vacation' and I should be chilling with some cool movie right now. So I start watching some movie. But again, a small voice in my head says that I'm wasting my time and should be finishing the tonnes of pending work. So I try to get back to work, but the going is really slow and I get bored soon, and start reading some book. After about a page or two that small voice in my head gets louder and louder till I slam the book shut, and try, in vain to get back to work. My thoughts just swing like some tennis ball between two courts and I end up gaining absolutely nothing but exhaustion.

It's not like I don't know what I should do, I know very well that I if I allot just a couple of hours per day to work, I can be free to do whatever I want for the rest of the day. I'll also be freeing myself from that irritating voice in my head, but it is easier said than done. I can't believe I'm saying this, but deadlines are actually good, and stern professors that grill you if you don't reach your target are what a lazy bum like me needs. Shucks…

Ok I have been staring at what I have written so far so the past 10 minutes. And I can't believe I am actually stuck in such a sick mess. If I want to enjoy my vacation to the fullest I seriously need to get that work done. NOW!

Sinking In

2008-05-31T15:24:00.002+05:30

I can picture you on this gigantic ship. It’s too foggy to discern the details of the ship, but I can see you standing on the Upper Deck (I am guessing that’s what it’s called..). And surprisingly it’s not beer or any other form of alcohol you’re holding in your hand. It’s coffee. And somehow there aren’t any other sailors on board that I can see either. Maybe it’s a form of symbolism. I reckon 6 months out at sea could get lonely.

The fact that I won’t be seeing you for the next 6 months is slowly sinking in. (pun not intended). And the fact that we didn’t even have a proper goodbye isn’t in any way helping me get over this sinking feeling. I won’t ramble on here about why I didn’t meet you that day. Going that way would be futile.

So I’ll just wait here, wait for the 6 months to get over.
Hey, what do you know, one can be lonely on land too...

It was good while it lasted

2008-05-15T20:37:00.004+05:30

"Here, this is my card", he said giving her his business card.
"The first email address is mostly for official purposes but I generally keep in touch with friends via the second one", he explained.
"And this is the address to my blog. I totally love to blog. Do you blog?" he asked excitedly.
"Blog?"

That word triggered the release of old memories, long forgotten in the recesses of her brain.
"Oh yes, I used to have a blog..." she said and trailed off, thinking about her beloved blog. She was suddenly walking down memory lane; those wonderful days when she wrote regularly and looked forward to people's comments. Where had all those times disappeared? Did she seriously have no time now to write about the tiny little things happening in her life? Or had blogging been just a phase of her life that had faded away, like her harry potter craze?
Somehow she knew those 'phases' could not be brought back to life, those days could not be relived no matter how hard she tried now. Somehow she knew she would never be 22 again.
"Well, at least it was good while it lasted anyway", she consoled herself.

2008-04-16T22:51:00.002+05:30

My laptop previously had Windows Vista. i had heard bad things about windows Vista,so i had it only fr a couple of days and then changed to XP through someone.

But now i miss Vista!!
It was...kewl...

But I was told you can have the Vista Theme on an XP operating system. Now how does one do that? I'm not a very tech savvy person, so...do i download it from somewhere, or what?

stuff...

2008-04-14T12:12:00.002+05:30

its been almost a month since i last posted...so much has happened since then... my theory exams are over!! now pracs to go, they shall end on my budday, last year my pracs began on my budday... improvements! my project report...and then lessons i learnt on the way, boy i could write a thesis on that itself!
i'm actually chilling today, after days and days of 'bhag daud', my laptop!!! i'm actually posting this from my sexy new laptop! though i did feel a bit low while giving away my old pc, it had been with me for the past seven years! but i took it's pictures, you know just to remember it...

2008-03-24T22:28:00.000+05:30

Exactly 1 month to go...!!

Revel....

2008-03-23T23:07:00.003+05:30

2008-03-06T21:30:00.002+05:30

ok thats it. I am going to walk into the tigress's den. Whether i survive or not, whether i come out scarred or victorious, we shall know tomorrow.

Wish me luck.

2008-03-04T20:22:00.003+05:30

"Did you know there is a Greek God in Jodha Akbar???" asked Pranali with a mad glaze in her eyes.
"What? a Greek God?? in Jodha Akbar??", I asked.
" Yes! and his name is HRITIK ROSHAN!!"

Waah, pranali is having Hritik fever again, I realised.
I was a bit sceptical about watching the movie with her, this babe was going for the movie for the third time, and was planning on going again next weekend. I like watching movies quietly and without too many comments from the people beside me. So when the theatre lights dimmed and (according to pranali) we got ready for "3 hours of the ultimate drool experience" I wasn't really looking forward to her "abbe kya dikhta hai be!!!" in the middle of some fight scene.

But guess what, this time I actually joined her! She'll have company to go for the "the ultimate drool experience" again next weekend - ME!!

another chance

2008-02-29T00:24:00.002+05:30

To reach the very end of your limit,
and to know there is a lot more to do,
to know you have done your best,
but someone's not happy with you...

will there be another day?
will there be another chance?
in this Kingdom where the Queen rules supreme,
hah! fat chance...

stop judging me!
stop subjecting me to one of your doses of hardwork.
don't you have mice for that?

so here i finally speak my mind,
i seriously am not good enough,
i am not worthy of your praise,
so here i finally bring home the truth- i simply don't give a damn.

oh, but don't get me wrong
no, no.
not that this is not what i like.
i'm willing to try,
i'm willing to push,
but just sometimes,just sometimes, cut me some slack,
just gimme another chance.

Some things never change

2008-01-13T10:32:00.000+05:30

Whenever I bought brand new shoes I used to come home, remove them from their box, and stomp around the house with them. They were brand new, un-soiled; Mom couldn't stop me from wearing shoes in the house as long as they were un-soiled. So the period between bringing shoes home in a box to wearing them out the next day was some sort of period of golden oppurtunity for the school-going me. I could wear shoes anywhere in the house, even the kitchen and bedrooms! Delightful!

Kiddish, no?
Well, maybe not, for I caught myself doing the same thing even yesterday.

did you know?

2007-12-23T14:32:00.000+05:30

remember the Complan ad?

'I'm a Complan Boy!
And i'm a Complan Girl!'

It used to be aired many years ago.
Do you know who the boy and girl in that ad are?

SHAHID KAPUR AND AISHA TAKIYA! (well, a 12 yr something shahid and aisha anyway)

They were doing a show famous old ads on one of the news channels the other day.
Thats where they mentioned this.

2007-12-16T11:54:00.000+05:30

I haven't even completely opened my eyes, but I can sense its early morning already. Time to get up. My head has already started listing out the things I have to do today.
1) have to start distillation of the 3rd extract.
2) have I kept enough ice in the freezer? Will have to check that first thing when I reach the lab
3) will have to talk to ma'am regarding the saponification, thats still a major jhol...
4) should ask everyone if they know the whereabouts of my tiffin, why didn't anyone take care of it while I was gone?? mad people, must be busy joking around in the canteen...
5) do we have to feed the mice today? The book said we hve to starve them before dissection...
All these thoughts and more in the fraction of a second, before I realise something wonderful- ITS SUNDAY!!!
aahh Sunday! No college, no alarms, nothing to keep me on my toes.

The list of 'things to do' can wait! I have some sleep to catch up on...
Pure blisss...

Gattu and the incident of the cat at night-time

2007-12-05T18:52:00.000+05:30

Aditi Agrawal is a pretty normal girl, in the sense that her favourite colour is pink, and her wallet has little hearts on it. She likes to stack her pencil case with lots of cute-looking stationary, from coloured pens to fancy erasers. She looves to go shopping, has about 15 different cats at home whom she loves more that anything else in the world, and says things like 'ooohh how cuuuute!!" and "wow!!! thats soooooooo chweeeeet!" and yes, she is doing her..ahem.. Masters in Zoology from our college.
We don't call her 'Aditi', Aditi is too boring a name for someone as chubby and pink-fair as her and who has this perpetual innocent little look on her face. No, we call her Gattu.

Wednesday's pracs were a little too hectic for all of us. Our awesome prof had squeezed in 3 experiments in one session, and the 7 of us we running around in our lab, racing against time trying to co-ordinate all the incubation times and the waiting periods and boiling baths for 'n' number of test tubes. Not really an easy task if you have someone like me loosing my temper, and barking at anyone for doing anything. I let off some steam on our dear Gattu that day, said some words I shouldn't have said and the poor girl cowered under them, but said nothing. Later we found her sitting in a corner, buried in the lab-book writing some stuff down. We couldn't see her face, but could easily see the ink swimming in the tear-drops that were falling on the lab-book.
"Gattu is crying" said Shantanu, stating the obvious.
"What happened Gattu?", "what happened re"?, "aare got hurt kya?" , "what happened?"
Even as this shower of "what happeneds' fell on her I already knew why she was crying. I had been too hard on her, and I didn't have any right to. I felt angry at myself for making a dear friend actually break down. "Oh shit, what have I done? How could I have been so stupid? Why did I shout at her like that?"
"Hey I'm sooo sorry Gattu! Aare you shouldn't pay attention to what I say re! I go on shouting at anyone for anything. Abbe really sorry!"
Gattu shook her head. "No its not that".
"Then what is it?" asked Bajri.
"My cat lost her babies!!' she wailed.
We caught each others' eyes after hearing these words and tried our best to suppress our giggles and laughter. For me it was followed by an intense sense of relief, "Oh thank God! She isn't crying because of me!". But this relief was short-lived for what followed was down-right guilt at feeling relieved in such a situation; here was my friend, crying because something very dear to her had gone away from her, and here I was feeling relieved that i wasn't the cause for her tears. How self-centered could I get?
So first i was pissed as the expts were going hay-wire, and was firing at anyone near me, then I felt very guilty at making my friend cry, and was pissed with myself, after which i felt relieved for a nano-second, then I fet guilty again for feeling relieved!

People were trying to pacify her by saying things like maybe your cat didn't loose them, maybe they had gone off somehwere and all, and the mother knows where they are.
"But she was calling out to them! She was actually calling out to them! They must haev been eaten by a dog or something at night!" she said and we could hear the intense grief in Gattu's voice.
So I hugged her and tried saying funny things to cheer the poor girl up. "Isn't the mother a very young one?
"Yes, this was her first litter", she replied
"Hah! then why are you worried?" I asked. "She still has a long active life ahead of her, she'll be a mother every few months, that babe's gonna have some fun! Trust me." At this lousy joke everyone laughed, including Gattu. Seeing that my tactic was working, I went further ahead. "Aare you don't worry re! Next time the kittens will be even cuter, they'll have a studd of a father!" and after hearing this our pyaari Gattu felt much better and wiped her tears. The group relaxed and Gattu got to her feet.

"Stupid girl!' said Gargi to Gattu, "You totally tensed Yashada up!" she said, giving me a side-ways glance. It was then that I realised that Gargi had known all along what emotional roller coster ride I had been through in the past few minutes. "Why, what did i do?' asked ?Gattu, oblivious of what panic alrams she had set in me.
"Arre Yashada thought you were crying because she shouted at you!"
Although I knew this myself, the words poked me deep inside. And I dunno what came over me that now I actually started crying!! Seeing my tears Gattu started crying again!
"Aare no! you didn't make me cry yaar!" and now she hugged me.

Picture it, 2 grown up girls with labcoats and gloves in the middle of a lab, crying and hugging each other and trying to pacify each other. And a bunch of boys standing in the corner, complete astonishment etched on their faces, trying to comprehend how girls' brains work.

But I don't think the boys gave it much thought as the next moment they were cracking silly jokes amongst themselves and Bajri as usual had removed his camera and was clicking away at our tear-stained faces.
These boys, they still don't really know why I started crying; to tell the truth, neither do I!

2007-11-25T23:55:00.000+05:30

My dressing table:
Lotions, lens solutions, perfumes, deo sprays;
this cream, that cream;
earrings, bracelets, anklets, scrunchies;
Pick one up and down goes the other,
like dominoes they fall.
For there are way too many,
far more than i need.

Lotions way past their expiratory date,
scrunchies with lost elasticity,
those hideous earrings (what in the world made me buy those??),
old lens containers,
combs with broken teeth,
now in the garbage bin they lie.

My dressing table:
clean, neat, well-organised.

Should also do this with my head
once in a while.

2007-11-20T11:33:00.000+05:30

A UNIVERSITY JOB POSTING (OR BECOMING A PROFESSOR IS HARD THESE DAYS)
By David Ng

(pasted here from The Science Creative Quarterly)

This is a call for outstanding candidates to apply for a tenure track assistant professor position within the context of the Department of [subject name] at the [institution name]. The successful applicant is expected to work in areas of interest to current faculty members, to interact with related groups within our network and to have demonstrated ability in producing research material of excellent quality and interest.
Due to the competitive nature of this process, we ask that all candidates at the very least meet the following criteria:
The candidate’s current area of specialty must contain at least fourteen syllables.
The candidate’s expertise must speak naturally to collaborations with the disciplines of science history, Jungian philosophy, international peacekeeping, French Canadian politics, molecular genetics, early 80s pop music criticism, and West African cuisine.
The candidate must be able to “flex arm hang” for a minimum of twelve minutes.
The candidate must exhibit no more than two degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon.
The candidate must be able to rub their tummy and pat their head at the same time.
The candidate must be, in no uncertain terms, hot.
In addition, short listed candidates will be subjected to a rigorous interview process that will likely involve puppetry, ultimate fighting, and some interpretative dance techniques. This, of course, might be televised nationally on CBS, so it is advisable that all applicants prepare in advance for these skill sets.
The successful applicant will covet a salary that will commensurate with experience and research record, but realistically is dependant on an obligation to play as the principle string in the University’s Chinese Orchestra during the first three years of his/her track.
We will also endeavor to provide the applicant with reasonable research space, and note that we have one of the country’s best supply of camping gear, should this be an issue. We do however ask that successful candidates will themselves provide start up funds to the sum of $1000, which must be used within 48 hours. During that period, you will, of course, be wearing brightly covered overalls and have access to a skilled carpenter who will almost certainly be just as hot as you.
The [institution name] is one of the leaders in North America with strong connections with many well regarded institutes, and we look forward to continuing this tradition with this placement. We hire on the basis of merit and are committed to employment equity. We encourage all qualified persons to apply; however citizens and permanent residents will be given priority. No losers please.

bbyee

2007-11-10T15:50:00.000+05:30

I sent emails/scraps/sms es to all those i'll miss for the next 7 days (i'm gonna trek in Rajasthan, for all thsoe who didn't know), and I realised I'll miss my beloved blog too!!
So bbye beloved blog, see ya soon!

(Call this post cheesy, corny, pinky, girly...watever..i don't care)

So old Dumbly is gay

2007-10-26T23:22:00.000+05:30

(Ok, may be i'm a little late in posting this... but i've had a looong week)
So Dumbledore is gay.

Someone's feeling a bit left out of the spotlight as its been 3 long months since the harry potter mania last erupted( i'm referring to the release of the 7th book of course...). So here is a fine example of last ditch efforts to come back into the news- by creating a controversy.

Just so you know Mrs. Rowling, I really didn't need to know this little piece of information.

Sometimes

2007-10-13T21:50:00.000+05:30

I once read a certain poem during my SYJC, and really liked it. So i copied it onto a piece of paper which I used to keep in my wallet. That poem stayed there, tucked away in my wallet for about 2 years after which my wallet got stolen in the bus. More than the money, I regretted loosing that poem for I couldn't remember the name of the poet, and so couldn't find it anywhere.

Today, I tried my luck again and after some permutations and combinations found it through google :) And here it is:

Sometimes

Sometimes things don't go, after all, from bad to worse.
Some years, muscadel faces down frost;
green thrives; the crops don't fail.
Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war,
elect an honest man, decide they care enough,
that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best intentions do not go amiss;
sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow that seemed hard frozen;
may it happen for you.

-- Sheenagh Pugh

The poet says she doesn't like it much as would love to disown it, but apparently thats not what everyone thinks of it.
Do tell me what you think of it.

A rational analysis of why I lost myself after losing it during my GRE:

2007-10-09T22:38:00.000+05:30

How often does one enjoy studying for an exam? As far as I know, I haven’t always gone through my studies with a smile on my face. However, this time it was different. I liked solving those quant sums. It had been eons since I touched math and it felt nice to go back to those basics I studied in school. I somehow found the concept of actually getting to learn new words everyday and having to give an exam on them quite pleasing. Memorizing those flash cards in the bus rides was a joy…in fact my bus journeys had become much more bearable thanks to those kewl companions, flash cards.
But my college studies had been left untouched because of this exam, my attitude being ‘deal with the things in hand, you can recover the losses of college studies after GRE’. So the college work just kept on piling at exponential rates and the only source of comfort was me telling myself, it’ll be all done by the 8th of Oct and I’ll be able to give full attention to my college work after that.
At the end of the 8th of Oct, I had a miserable GRE score and an enormous backlog. It was like a dam waiting to burst. And burst it did on the 8th. I was completely unprepared for four major seminars that I have to present in the coming 2 weeks, had not touched my journals (actually have completed 2 pages so far, just 98 more to go!), whose deadline is over lapping the seminar dates (and the journals are going to be checked by Dabeer ma’am, so no chance of postponing the date), our team had four major projects to finish by Jan, forget about collecting those sea water samples, we haven’t even begun on reference work yet. And don’t even get me started on the Marine Biotech conference.
If you look at it, its not actually a very big list of things to do, I mean I have been through worse, but it was the feeling of complete loss thanks to my GRE scores that left me high and dry. Suddenly I felt like the last 2 months had been a total waste. That I had achieved nothing. My efforts have been futile and now I faced a bleak future, near and far.
Talking did help, thanks to Four Seasons, Diti, Viraj and Sairam for listening to my endless ramblings and helping me come out of that phase. Its not like you can’t get up by yourself when you fall, but its more comforting when there is a helping hand nearby.

2007-10-04T19:23:00.000+05:30

Haiku on my average IQ

2007-09-09T15:00:00.000+05:30

IQ 112,
A 20 minute test decides how intelligent I am,
Apparently i'm just about average,
'mean' huh?

Silver Lining

2007-08-26T13:13:00.000+05:30

Nothing but the agony, no; AGONY, caused by hopping around the house with a sprained foot wrapped in bandage, searching for an insignificant little thing such as your hairband or a pencil can bring the truth home - that you are an amazingly disorganised person.

Well, at least now I know for myself what Mom's been trying to tell me all these years- that I have to get organised!'

2007-08-18T22:06:00.000+05:30

On my way home from the local market the other day i heard someone call out my name.When I turned to look, a pretty-faced girl with a demin knee-length skirt and black shirt was smiling widely at me. "Hi yashada!"she seemed simply overjoyed to see me. I on the other hand couldn't even remember who she was.

Well, I knew she was from school as I could picture her in our school uniform and black ribbons tied to her shoulder length plaites. But I couldn't recollect her name, nor which year she was from. And here she was, positively delighted to have bumped into me like this. "Hey how are you? You live in Vinit Tower no? Are you heading home? Chal i'll walk with you...", saying this she actually did an about-turn and started walking with me.

From the brief talk that followed, I discerned that she was one of my juniors. We talked general stuff, 'what do you do now?', 'Are you in touch with anyone else?' etc.

But after a while I could stand it no longer and I asked, "I'm so sorry I can't remember your name."Her smile weakened and I could see that she was hurt as she realised I had not recognised her entirely.

"I am Joy, remember? Well, actually Joylan, but everybody called me Joy."

Yes! I remember!

She was just some girl whom I used to occassionally meet while on my way home from school.
I felt so ashamed that here she was so happy to see me after so many years; she could remember my name, where I lived, which year I was in. And here I was asking her her name...

2007-08-12T23:50:00.001+05:30

DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T READ HP 7 BUT INTEND TO. MAJOR PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD. NOR IS THIS POST MEANT FOR NON-POTTERFANS AS YOU POOOR SOULS WILL NOT KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.

I have early morning practicals tomorrow, for which I have to brush up on amphibian bones and start afresh with fish vertebrae. But this is so extremely important that I simply had to switch on the pc at 11.45 in the night and blog it down, never mind the vertebrae.

Now some people may not find anything new in what I have to say in this post, for instance Pranali, whose reaction was 'well, isn't it obvious?!"after hearing about my discovery on the phone. Anyways, I for one, melted on the spot when I heard it from my good friend Anupamaa this evening, so here goes:

question:"What were Snape's last words? And why?

answer: (and I quote from page 528 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, British Edition): "Look...at...me", he(Snape) whispered.

The green eyes found the black, but after a second something in the depths of the dark pair seemed to vanish, leaving them fixed, blank and empty..."

So he said 'Look at me",

Why?

Because Harry has Lily's eyes!!! Snape died looking into Lily's eyes...

For me this was one of the most touching moments in the Potter series.

My handwriting

2007-08-07T20:25:00.000+05:30

I was enrolled in an English Medium School till my 2nd std, where we wrote in what is called disjointed handwriting. In my 3rd std we shifted to a new locality where I joined a Convent School. Here by 3rd std the students had already been taught to write in jointed or running or cursive handwriting. I remember my class teacher freaking out after she saw my note book; it probably resembled that of a Junior Kg kid. This was made into a great issue with my parents being called in the very next day. I guess I stood there mutely staring at them fussing over the way I wrote. After this meeting with Miss Daisy (yeah Miss Daisy with her flowery blouses and matching skirts, and a gold tooth at the back of her mouth), Mom started a campaign to teach me to write in cursive handwriting before the rapidly approaching 1st Unit Test. And this is how I learnt to write in cursive form.

Now cut-to my early Senior College days. I realised that most of my teachers and classmates hailed from vernacular meduim and had trouble reading what I wrote. Or to be more precise, not 'what' I wrote but 'how' i wrote it. Realising this may result in me loosing my marks in my BSc finals, I decided to change my handwriting. The transition was not as bad or cumbersome as you might think. It worked very well and soon my handwriting was legible to one and all.

A 3 month hiatus passed before my MSc course commenced. And to my utter surprise I caught myself writing in my cursive handwriting again in the middle of the lecture. Old habits die hard. So I tried going back to my disjointed form during the same lecture. But as I said, old habits die hard.

And now my handwriting is disjointed with sporadic bursts of jointed thrown in. It looks horrid! Urghh!! Help!!

Gearing up for another year

2007-07-31T20:11:00.000+05:30

I search for the sheaf of papers in my cupboard ; those loose, lined papers you get for 40 bucks per kg. I start punching holes into them and drawing lines to make margins. Should prepare in advance for tomorrow. Don’t want to do all this when the lecture’s already begun.
I search for the huge plastic bag in which I kept all my empty files. I’ll need those tomorrow too. I file the sheaf of papers on one of them.
They still have their old labels on them, those files. ‘Comparative Anatomy Paper I’, ‘ Epidemiology Paper IV’, ‘Haematology Paper II’…stare out at me and I stare at them; while in my mind pictures of our old classroom, ppt presentations, misplaced forceps and shark liver floating in the tray flash by. And the students of course. Gossip King hissing into someone’s ear, Mata intent on writing down every word the prof utters, Four Seasons brooding over what Sid’s just told her…

Think I’ll decorate my files this year. How about the Deathly Hallows symbol? Or maybe a printout of H2G2? Or maybe a tyrannosaur skull?...Anything that connects me with the things I love and cherish. Things that the people in my classroom are oblivious about.

Another year. Same campus, same bus route, same college, some new students, plus some old ones, but a different degree.

2007-07-28T00:58:00.000+05:30

(THIS IS A REALLY LONG POST, SO IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE TIME DON'T READ IT)

I shall now recount here a tale of the most daring and certainly, the most stupid thing I have ever done. But first let me give you an introduction; set the stage for the incident I shall never forget.

Last May I visited Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR), located in the state of Maharastra, 142 km away from the city of Nagpur.

The summer had stripped most of the trees of their foliage. They stood there bare and naked as we peered through them into the jungle depths on our routine safaris. Even though the forest was primarily dry, it was on its way to sprouting anew again. For the rains had arrived just before we had and the jungle was going through a transition phase of turning from brown and dusty to green and lush.

I was visiting the Reserve with a group of about 35 noisy naughty school going kids and equally noisy naughty college going adults along with very good resource persons and guides; one of them my cousin Vikrant, working for the National Youth Association of Science(NYAS), who were conducting a Jungle Reading or ‘Aranya Vachan’ Camp in the Reserve.
We were to spend 7 days in each others’ company during which the tiger kept us company too, along with the nightjars and owls and the chital and all the other jungle folk.

The tar road that crisscrossed the national park passed by our dormitoriy that was bang in the middle of the jungle. A compound wall surrounded our dorm and along the stretch of road that passed by the dorm, some large trees had been planted. There were some Ashoka trees, a Laburnum (which was in full bloom and looked so splendid!), and a large Mango tree too. Just beyond all these trees and around the compound wall of our dorm was the forest itself. So sightings of chital (spooted deer), wild boar etc were quite common.

The group of noisy, naughty kids that were with us, however noisy and naughty were still, kids. Which meant we could boss them around. So after ordering them all to go to bed early, we turned off the lights, and sat down on the porch, about eight of us, for a round of 'gappas' that strected into the night.

This relaxed, laid-back atmosphere was suddenly turned into an alert one by a single spotted deer alarm call that rang through the night-air. Herbivores give an alram call when they sense the presence of a predator. It is a call meant for the entire jungle to hear, telling the rest of the denizens of the forest to be alert, for an enemy is near-by. It is a loud, short call that has an instant effect of silencing the woods, as all the jungle-folk stop their activites and go on high-alert.

We judged that the call came from our right side and the deer were very close-by. The predator too, should therefore, be somewhere near-by, and at Tadoba it could be anything from a wild-cat, to a bear or a leopard or the mighty tiger itself.

I saw Vikrant's silhoutte as he quitely raised himself up from the floor, torch in hand. The torch light's beam fell on the chital as he switched it on after standing up. He then slowly moved the torch from the chital to our front, near the gate. No sooner had he done that, he quickly switched the torch off and plopped down amongst us.

"There's a leopard on the mango tree outside the gate!", he exclaimed.

Now you must understand that we were all a bunch of college going enthu-cutlets wanting to have some fun. (I am trying here; probably in vain; to justify what we did next.)

Vikrant elaborated in whispers that when he focused the light on the chital he saw them alert, staring at something near our gate. Realising that's the general location of the predator, he turned the torch in that direction. The light caught the leopard as it was climbing up a tree branch with its back towards us. When the light fell on it, it turned towards it, staring directly at Viku. (Although all the leopard would have seen would be a bright light focused at it.)

As I explained earlier, we were all there to have some fun anyway. So we all wanted to see the leopard for ourselves. I mean, a leopard right outside your compound gate, now thats something you don't see everyday!

So we got up and Viku directed the torch light up the mango tree again. Nothing. Where did it go? Did it climb down? Was it there in the first place? Or was Viku just playing with us...but then what about the alarm call....so there was something definately out there...

More searching. More torches. Viku became desperate to spot the leopard again. I guess he thought that unless we all saw it, we wouldn't believe him, and if that happened his ego would be hurt...

So he had the enormously stupid idea of venturing outside the gate and having a closer look up the tree. And if that wasn't enough we came up with the more enormously stupid idea of following him outside the gate.

We all went outside, stood below the tree, and he directed the torch light up at the branches again. He was scanning the branches slowly and a moment came when the light just slid onto a pair of red eyes, staring right at us.

O, those red red eyes! I think I wanted to let out a whimper, but couldn't find my voice. I don't know for how long I stared into them, those hypnotic eyes, that bored into me and ate me up from within. I don't think we stood there for long, we were ushered into the safety of the compound wall by those of us with better nerves.

To stare into a predator's eyes, to actually feel it's intent to kill....with absolutely no barriers between you and the beast....that is definately the stupidest thing I have ever done.

2007-07-23T11:36:00.000+05:30

I can feel the numbness again; creeping from within me, taking over my being. The all too familiar numbness that engulfs you after the first reading of any of those seven books.

By the time I was acquainted with Harry Potter, the first four installments of the series had already been published. I remember devouring them at break neck speed; racing through them, and suddenly falling into a void, into nothingness, and waiting; waiting for Rowling to deliver yet again...

21st July 2003. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Raced through it like I had nothing else in life to do.
16th July 2005. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Thought it was her best work so far, and that’s saying something!

I remember all those hours of speculations and discussions, about how it’ll all end; what the 7th book will be like; what it will feel like after the last line is read; what it will feel like to not look forward to another Potter…

21st July 2007 finally dawned. I could feel the excitement on all the faces at the bookstore. It’s always nice to meet fellow potterfans, but this time it was different for me. I wanted to do it by myself. Just me and the book. Like meeting a lover. It’s too personal a moment to be shared with a whole bunch of people.

A part of me wanted to race through those 607 pages, I had been waiting for so long! And yet…yet another voice in my head cautioned, “Don’t hurry up! It’ll be over too soon.” And that’s exactly what happened. Before I knew it, it was all over. Inertia kept me rooted to the spot. I wanted time to stop. Wanted to be suspended in that world, forever. But reality was calling to me, had to go back to my own life. Lost in this state of transition, the numbness took over me again. Talking about it will help, I told myself. But no one I knew had finished reading it yet.

Writing. Yes, let me write. And hence, I write.

Ohh come off it yashada! It’s a mere book! It’s not real! Gawd how can you be so mad?

“Tell me one last thing”, said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
Dumbledore beamed at him…"of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?”

2007-06-23T18:22:00.000+05:30

Genting is to Kuala Lumpur what Matheran is to Mumbai- a convenient place to spend the weekend away from the city, except that it's not just you who wants to get away from the city, it’s the entire city that wants to get away from itself! So you end up going up a hill and finding yourself in the same spot from where you started, surrounded by the same kind of people you wanted to get away from.
Genting was just like Matheran, except that things were on a larger scale. For instance, the First World Hotel, where we stayed could have easily housed a thousand others like us.
Breakfast here was something to behold. Picture a really large hall with shinning chairs and tables, and buffets scattered amongst these tables. These buffets had Chinese, Continental, Malayan and Indian breakfast items. Enormous piles of varieties of breads from white to brown to croissants, huge bowls of peanut butter, the usual butter, 2 types of jams, muffins, eggs; hard boiled, soft boiled, scrambled, omelettes, mango juice and apple juice, and Milo, and milk, coffee, tea…you name it! And this was just part of the continental menu.
I saw people piling all these things on their plates, like they have been hungry for days. Little kids whose stomachs can’t even accommodate special kiddy meals at McD’s were looting the table of its king-sized breakfast.
I saw the same kids leaving the breakfast table with plates just as full as they were, more than half the food untouched. But what irritated me most was that the kids’ parents did the same thing! They took it only because they had paid for it as part of the hotel reservations. Why not fill up the plate with all the food you like? After all, we did pay for it! Never mind whether we can finish that much food or not. This attitude was apparent on everyone’s face.
The cleaning crew cleared the table after the occupants had left, throwing the barely eaten food into their dustbins, and making way for another family which did the same thing as the one before- hardly ate anything and wasted most of it. Roughly, for every morsel that went into a person’s mouth, four morsels must have entered the garbage bin.

“So this is how ‘First-Worlders’ eat breakfast”, I told myself. How typical…

2007-06-14T14:19:00.000+05:30

(I'm trying not to compare, I’m not saying one is better than the other…)

Quiet. Very quiet. Whatever sound there is, its only in the form of the recordings on the train -"Doors closing", "Please mind the platform gap"... The only other sound is made by sound waves traveling from earphones to the listeners’ ears. You get to hear occasional bits of them as the person sitting next to you adjusts the volume. The songs played on the cell phones don’t change the emotions on their faces. Their emotionless faces and designer clothes and expensive perfumes, and hair that looks like its been conditioned ten times more than normal, and layers and layers of make-up on the women's faces, and slim and trim girls that could walk the ramp...
They sit there staring into space, not talking to each other. Not making eye contact. Waiting for their station to arrive. They get up from their seats not only when the train has reached the station, but when the automatic doors have opened.

Suddenly a typical scene from a Mumbai local flashes by in my mind. The fisherwoman sitting at the door with her smelly basket, the bhikaris, orange peelings lying on the floor, the BMC servant returning home after a long hot day, their body odour, the iron-rust-dust-garbage-dissolved in sweat-smell, the absence of good light during noon, the tension that builds as a station approaches and the travelers get ready to alight, as if they are getting ready for war and the final stampede that follows after a train reaches a station.

The madness of my mumbai- the kalkalaat, the looking directly into a person’s eyes; making contact.
The quite sophisticated atmosphere of Singapura’s MRT.

Truly Asia?

2007-06-09T15:05:00.000+05:30

The real experience of a place, the real flavour of a country can only be tasted by meeting the people on the streets, not air hostesses and travel guides.
The way the citizens of a country dress, the way they eat, talk, behave with foreigners…says a lot about the country as a whole. For it is the people that are the building blocks of a nation, like the cells of a living organism, the structural and functional unit of the nation.
In this respect Malaysia was a bit of a flop, really. Kuala Lumpur was only a couple of degrees better then Mumbai itself, that’s all. . In some cases, it was even worse than Mumbai.
Every man, woman and child had a cigarette in his hand, most teenagers were dressed like punks with unnatural coloured, spiked, highly gelled hair, Chinese tattoos, nose rings, eyebrow rings and many other such rings all over the place, and with eyes that clearly said ‘I am here to make money and you are my victim’.
Even the police looked us up as if we were exhibits in a zoo, standing there for the entire city to stare at. (Although I think we stood out in the crowd, among all the punks).

I had heard so much about it, Kuala Lumpur is a shoppers’ paradise, the Petronas Tower is phenomenal, so is the KL tower…Bullshit.
But how can that be? Did I go wrong somewhere? So I asked myself, what was my source of information? Who were the people who told me all this? From where did I personally hear praises about this place? And then it hit me.
Obviously they are going to find it heavenly. Obviously they will love it. When they travel in air conditioned Kesari or SOTC buses with guides who spoon-feed them all the way during your travels, its no wonder they found Malaysia marvelous. After all, they only saw the good bits…
We on the other hand had to find our hotel from the bus depot while incessant rain lashed down on us, soaking us, and our luggage, while the people on the streets were of absolutely no help at all.

I’m not complaining, mind you. The reason I chose to travel without the usual travel and tours company was to have experiences of this kind. Otherwise, how predictable and boring would my vacation be!

Singled Out!!

2007-06-02T16:17:00.000+05:30

potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:17:11 PM): heyyyyyyyyyy
yashu (5/31/2007 1:17:33 PM): listn
yashu (5/31/2007 1:17:38 PM): i got newssss
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:17:49 PM): wat wat
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:17:52 PM): am listening
yashu (5/31/2007 1:18:02 PM): guesss
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:18:14 PM): is it bout potter
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:18:18 PM): bloomy?
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:18:21 PM): shrek?
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:18:23 PM): wat?
yashu (5/31/2007 1:18:31 PM): no nt tht
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:18:34 PM): then
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:18:37 PM): bout studies?
yashu (5/31/2007 1:18:39 PM): no
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:18:44 PM): ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:18:49 PM): wait a sec
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:18:54 PM): yashu
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:18:55 PM): babe
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:19:01 PM): r u still single?
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:19:04 PM): or................
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:19:09 PM): heheheheheheheheh
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:19:18 PM): U HAVE A DOOOOOOOODE?
yashu (5/31/2007 1:19:25 PM): yessssssssssssssssssss
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:19:31 PM): AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:19:36 PM): AWESOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMME
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:19:40 PM): AWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESOOOME
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:19:43 PM): BAAAAAAAAABE
potterfan6 (5/31/2007 1:20:08 PM): i'm soooooooooo happy for u
yashu (5/31/2007 1:20:17 PM): thnx sooooooooo muchhhh

After this highly girly-girly conversation with my younger cousin, and after all the “ooohh’s and “aaahhh” s were over, I had a nice walk down memory lane.

Scenes of fighting with invisible swords, during hot dry Dombivli afternoons, of ‘bhatuklee che khel’ that we girls played and our cousin brother stamped on and ruined our miniature kitchen, of telling ghost stories at late night that seem so lame now; all these scenes flash by as I remember summer vacations at my cousins’.
As time passed, Vikrant became more of a recluse and it was only after a year or so that I learnt he had a girlfriend!! Wow, we sisters bullied the hell out of him that vacation, it was as if we were avenging for all our broken dolls and stamped miniature kitchens. But somehow all our teasing and harrowing was not affecting him at all, suddenly my bro had ‘grown up’.

Amongst us sisters, Neha was the one with the most noticeable ‘I hate boys’ phase. When she was 12 she wanted to marry boys and divorce them the same day! “So that I can ruin their lives forever!!!” she used to say, with a devilish grin on her face.
So it came as a bit of a shock when she told us about Ketan during one of our ‘girls only’ dinners. Listening to her strong opinions about relationships and how different they were from mine, again made me realize how we all were developing our own independent opinions, how we were all growing up.
Now we no longer tell each other tall tales about meeting ghosts in the middle of the night, no way, now its about meeting more interesting beings!

finally sinking in...

2007-05-13T16:14:00.000+05:30

“Geography is such an interesting subject”, she thought. Although it sounds quite boring when Ma’am reads it out from the school textbook. The maps seem dry and lifeless, little black lines drawn on poor quality paper. No fun at all. On the other hand, when you watch Lonely Planet on Discovery, its a whole new ball game. Even their maps are better, the squiggly lines actually move and trace the path of the adventurers. She liked calling them that- adventurers, gave a romantic touch to traveling.
School was over for the rest of the day and she was sitting in her room doing her geography homework. She brought out the atlas her father had presented to her and checked out Borneo, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and other such regions of the South-East. These places are ‘real’ she told herself. These lines on the map actually are landmasses full of people. People working in farms, fields, going to offices, schools, building schools, fighting, quarrelling, laughing, sleeping (with each other, she sheepishly added). And they are all present on the same planet. I share my planet with them.
And as she allowed her thoughts to just meander through her mind, little did she know, she would be lucky to visit some of these places one day!

Food, Shelter, Clothing and that 'something'

2007-05-13T00:02:00.001+05:30

In this context,
'something' = 1) the prospect of studying phylogenetics of orangutans in a lab far away
and/or
2) the thrill of meeting people online that makes you forget your chores and screws your 'things to do list'
and/or
3) eating mango flavoured ice cream wth tons of chocolate sause (don't ask...) at 3 in the morning with your best friends
and/or
well, this list could be endless actually

Crash vs Babel

2007-05-07T14:52:00.000+05:30

i personally preferred Babel more...
although Crash was the first one to be made, the 'coincidents' seemed a bit contrived. Babel had better treatment. Whats more, in Babel you just zoomed in and out of the situations with ease. It gave you the bigger picture, like you were watching it from the moon, and easily shifted to the personal mode.
What do you think?

we muggles...

2007-04-14T14:17:00.001+05:30

(this is the continuation of my earlier blog entry which was, i admit, kinda vague)

Saturday, March 03, 2007

We muggles are as close to having self-maintaining computers as wizards are to self-spelling wands...

In std. 10th we had this poem, sadly i can't remember the names of the poem nor the poet. It was about how technology has changed the way we live, it gives us 'the world is at your fingertips' view. At the end the poet says that he needs no magic lamp to do all his work, technology is his magic lamp.
(if any of you can remember the name of the poem/poet or can find it on the net PLEASE send me the link. This explaination seems lame, i want to post the poem here, but sadly don't even know what to type on google, ' magic lamp' etc ain't working, obviously.)

But what the poet has conviniently left out is that today's magic lamp needs maintainence, servicing and fixing. After every few days my pc slows down, the car has to be serviced, the water purifier has to be cleaned, the vacuum cleaner needs new bags, the cell needs to be recharged...and so on...
Wouldn't it be great though to have a pc that does a virus scan on its own without you having to do it, or you having to wait while it does it? A car that services itself etc etc.?
Now you may say i have reached the height of laziness, the peak of 'asking for too much' and maybe I have!
but as i was thinking of such scenes full of self maintaining appliances, a statement from Harry Potter occured to me. "Molly, we are as close to catching Sirius Black as we are to inventing self-spelling wands!"
And this brings us back to my previous post "We muggles are as close to having self-maintaining computers as wizards are to self-spelling wands..."

My Things To Do in the Vacation List

2007-04-14T13:18:00.001+05:30

1) Relaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax
2) Waste time without feeling guilty about it...watch tv for hours....laze around and do absolutiely NOTHING

Well, now that i have said 'Do absolutely nothing' it means this list ends right here!!

The Mess Up

2007-04-14T12:38:00.001+05:30

I switch on the pc,
the routine follows,
gtalk
yahoo messenger
orkut
gmail
yahoo mail
replying to emails
updating bolg
im windows pop in and out
long distant friends drop in
so do the 'regulars'
somewhere in the background i hear mom
"yashada, switch off the gas after the pressure cooker whistles thrice"
i say 'yes' but my mind registers not a thing

abhniav wants me to give mrunal some message
i'm talkin to rima regarding a holiday
replying to a professor from pune university
talking to charuta about butterfly garden

and then i hear mom as she comes back home
and sees the pressure cooker whistling for the 'n' th time

i'm dead.....

All that glitters is not gold

2007-03-14T14:30:00.001+05:30

I was woken up today by mom and dad's hushed voices saying, "Toh bagh! Toh bagh! kiti sundar!!"
i opened my eyes to see my parents peering out the window, pointing at something. Getting up from the bed i joined them to see a rush of golden-yellow wings flutter past the window. In a fracton of a second, they were gone.
"Golden oriole!" i cried as i rushed to get my binocs. I could only steal a glance of that beautiful bird as it sat perched on a tree away from my window.
Having atleast seen the golden wings in flight i sms ed my friends telling them about the delightful sighting. Later i could hear the bird in the viscinity but couldn't see it. I tried looking out of the window every now and then, and finally i guess my persistence payed off. The beautiful bird emerged out of the foliage and sat on top of a coconut tree branch for all the world to see! It sat there for about 5 minutes before flying away.

It was then that i asked myself, "When was the last time i did some bird-watching, the feathered kind, mind you. (well actually even the non-feathered kind, as a matter of fact, but thats another story).
Getting up early on a sunday and visiting Borivali national park or some such place and spending the entire morning with my feathered (and non-feathered) friends, is something i haven't done since TY started. The joy of first hearing a bird, locating it by the direction of its calls, and finally seeing it is simply indescribable. Many of the times the identity of the bird is debatable, so there is a rush for the bird-guides, followed by a hushed conversation in the group to identify it correctly. Its abolutely fun to stand there in the middle of the road or a clearing in the jungle, trying to see what treasures it has kept for you to discover!

So here is one more item to be added in my ever-lengthing LIST OF THINGS TO DO AFTER UNIVERSITY EXAMS- Do some bird-watching (feathered and non...!)

2007-03-03T19:51:00.000+05:30

We muggles are as close to having self-maintaining computers as wizards are to self-spelling wands...

Negative Feedback Mechanism

2007-02-20T22:02:00.001+05:30

Homeostasis is a good topic. One of the interesting things it teaches is Negative Feedback Mechanisms in our body. It is associated with increasing the stability of systems in our body.
If the blood-glucose level in our body rises more than is necessary, insulin is produced. Insulin reduces the level of sugars in our body. But it can't be reduced too much. So then glucagon is produced which increases the level of glucose. And so the cycle continues, and a state of equilibrium is maintained.

Now I have a better example: I tend to study in the mornings. I study really nicely but then i loose the tempo by afternoons. So i tend to waste my time. This leads to the increase of guilt in my system which stimulates the centres in my brain that ask me to study again. And so the cycle continues....

Run Yashada Run!!!

2007-02-11T16:26:00.001+05:30

this is what i scribbled in my diary on the night of my last practical preliminary exam:

I cannot believe i'm saying this, but here it is: I'm tired of zoology. Of the fish scalesand pituitaries, the Clupia toli s and scoliodons; tired of COD and BOD...the same lab, the same old building and the same old people. I'm tired of Her.

I long for a break. "Mountains Gandalf! Mountains!!" Can i go to the elves the way Bilbo did? Can i go to the mountains? They beckon to me like old friends, lure me to their cold warmth...

Its been so long since i wrote anything. Why did i stop? Why did i stop writing? Don't i belong here in the field of Biology?Why won't it accept me? Or is something else out there thats calling me all along and i've been too stupid to listen? The click of an idea, a story in my head, the laziness that makes me postpone the fusion of pen, paper and my thoughts, the uneasiness that follows, the restlessness till i finally give up and sit down to write. Is that world calling out to me? Is Biology letting me go?

Maybe its just a phase. Maybe its the peak of exam season thats making me feel this way. Maybe its a false alarm. Tomorrow is my last prelim...the day before the last exam, the last leg of the journey, the last few steps are always the hardest anyway.

"I want to go on a holiday, a very long holiday; and i do not intend to return"
- Bilbo to Gandalf in LOR.

(i have safely reached the other side of the exams and i cannot help but smile at what i thought during those stressful days.)

-yashada

My window to the World

2007-01-25T20:05:00.000+05:30

A long time ago, during the holidays my friend and i had decided to visit a bookstore ALL DAY. We had made plans to go there and spend the entire day going through books, sharing stories and having long conversations on them.
What a wonderful way to spend ones time, we thought!
But alas, that day never really came, our holidays were over long before we knew it and once again we were submerged in the college rountine.
Finally, out of the blue when we met last week, we both had this overwhelming urge to visit the bookstore. We hardly had any time in our hands but still, we went there.

The moment i entered the store, my eyes fell on the periodicals rack. Stacked neatly between Better Photography and Spiderman was......The National Geographic Magazine.
I think a smile must have crossed my face when i laid my eyes on it!
I picked it up like someone picking up a priceless piece of jewellery. For the next hour or so i had forgotten about my horrible college, my journal submissions, my reports...everything.
i just sat there and all i did was just go through the stuff the magazine had to offer.

I had tried subscribing to this magazine in my school days but sadly it never really got delivered. I was later told that the moment the courier boys learn that you are receiving an expensive world class periodical, instead of delivering it to you, they sell it in the market and earn a little extra money for themselves.
So i read old issues from Dad's friends. They were, as their advertisement described, my window to the world!!!I spent countless hours visiting tribesmen in Papua New Guineu or traced mass extinctions that occured 65 million years ago. All those days came flooding back to me as i sat there in absolute bliss.

As i sifted through this particular issue, i asked myself, what is it that makes National Geographic tick?
Well, consider this:
On a given page there was some information regarding snowflakes. A genius dude at Caltech had worked on them and found that their shapes were closely linked to the temperature at which they were formed. If you read the actual research paper on this topic, i'm sure you would think its in greek. But these cool guys at national geographic had made an attractive page describing the research in a few simple words.

This is an age when people studying science are considered geeks and are not treated with the kind of respect they deserve. I have read that in the nineteeth century people from all walks of life took active interest in the work scientists were doing. There used to be discussions in large halls on matters of science that were attended by the common man. Today, all the people interested in science are the scientists themselves, i think (with a very few exceptions). The main reason for this is that people do not understand scientific jargon. The moment you don't understand whats being talked about, you obviously loose interest in whats being said. Moreover, they find the jargon intimidating.
Thats what makes National Geographic My Favourite Magazine. Scientific work is being made available to the public. Presentation of highly technical work to the common man is what they are doing, hats off to them!

Will You.....

2007-01-11T02:21:00.001+05:30

Will you walk with me under the stars and talk about Foundations, Empire and the Robots?
Will you listen to the lions growl in the middle of the serengetti with me?
actually(and not pretend to be) interested when i talk about some obscure little spider living in a forgotten corner of the amazon?

Will you hitch hike with me through Checoslovakia on a shoe string budget?
And talk about Asimov, Adams, Dawkins and Darwin?
about genes and plasmids, simulations, consiousness, rainforests and conservation?

(this so called poem may seem to be incomplete because the writer can't go any further than this in revealing her thoughts)

2007-01-11T01:50:00.000+05:30

And so the year of 'James Bond' is well into its second week and yet i haven't posted on my beloved blog.
There are so many things to talk about, so many things to share, so many things i want to tell.
but why this silence then?
why so quite am i?
why indeed...

2006-12-29T15:01:00.000+05:30

And so the earth is close to finishing one more revolution around the sun....and we have reached that part of the year where everyone starts reviewing another year that has passed us by. Newspapers, periodicals,colleges, my friends are all bust doing it. And...me?
what about me?
all i know is, the review won't be very positve. and maybe thats whats keeping me from walking down memory lane.
maybe next time. maybe on a brighter day.

-yashada

My Cell Phone = My Horcrux

2006-12-23T22:17:00.000+05:30

A hundred and sixty five sms es in my inbox alone,about 50 of my all time favourite songs,a hundred cool pics, my tasks and reminders.....gone ...all gone...and all it took was one train journey, one fateful journey and my cell phone was gone...stolen...
In harry potter's latest book we are introduced to the concept of horcruxes. Voldemort saves his soul in material objects. i, unknowingly, did that too. My life was in my Sony Erricsson 550i w series.. I Loved it...its colour, its themes, the way it indicated 'text message received', 'missed call'..its ear phones...the sound, the music, everything. that cell phone was my pulse, it connected me to the world, to my friends, relatives, loved ones. And now its gone. Forever.

i want it back. i desperately want my cell back!!!
i try to think rationally. it was a piece of metal and plastic. the songs are in my pc too, they are in my cd s as well. the pics too are in my pc. the sms es can be collected again. then why that attachment?

'detachment' is intimately connected with spirituality. the more 'detached' you are, the better. and if you want to avoid pain and suffering, thats what you have to do. EXCUSE ME??? don't you want me to feel? don't you want me to have emotions? i don't care what those spriritual books or the leaders say! i AM attached to that piece of metal and plastic and i want to stay attached! is that going to make my life miserable? Yes definately, well then...i'll deal with it...somehow....

maybe i got it wrong. maybe i'm too naive or short sighted to see it.
i know that the 'adult', or mature or grown up thing to do will be to move on.
BUT I DON'T WANT TO.
call me whatever you want. call me a baby or a..schoolgurl or ........................stupid???
yes thats the word...stupid.
well, i don't want to be that! anything but stupid.

so..bottom line: i have to move on (no the bottom line is not that i'm stupid)
how????????
i actually get dreams of my cell phone. i'm holding it and using all its cool features and fuctions...
i guess time will help. i guess when sufficient time has passed i will be able to look back at this incident and not feel that uneasiness in the pit of my stomach. till then, i'll have to live with it. and listen to motivational songs to get me through this period (on my pc, mind you)

A Series Of Unfortunate Events!!!

2006-12-15T20:29:00.000+05:30

Ok, so here i am having a wonderful, quite, peaceful nap in the afternoon when suddenly, i hear a loud bang . I'm so deep asleep that my mind vaguely acknowledges the fact that there has been a loud noise of some sort, but does not wake up my body. Closely followed by this noise is another deafening bang. Thankfully, my sleepy brain does decide to make my boby react to it; i wake up, run towards the general direction of the sound, which is towards the kitchen.

Its a bit dark, i am not wearing my contact lenses, so from what i see lying on the floor, i ask myself ,"What the hell is the AC doing lying in the middle of the kitchen floor??"
It is a few moments later that i realise its not the Air Conditioner, but our microwave, only tilted in such a way that i cannot see its front.

By this time my brain is fully awake, but i guess i must have had my eyebrow raised.
What probably happened is this:

Our microwave has been placed on a sheet of glass which in turn is placed on a stand drilled to the kitchen wall. Below this stand is part of the kitchen counter. This arrangement has not changed for a few years now. Apparently, the stand decided it was tired of playing Atlas and gave way. The glass on which the microwave rested and the microwave itself inclined dangerously and finally fell on top of the kitchen counter. (That was the first bang.) But because they fell in an angle, they weren't steadily on the counter and thus, crashed to the floor. (The second bang.)

wow.

Previously, on the same day : I'm busy having lunch when mom calls from her friend's cell phone. She has accidentally switched off her own cell and does not know how to switch it on again. I give her instructions on the phone, the cell starts and asks for the PIN No. She feeds the PIN but the cell does not accept it. After repeated attemps, the cell fails to accept not just the PIN but also the PUK No. So her cell remains switched off for the rest of the day. I'll have to try to figure out whats wrong when she comes back home.
While i'm talking to her on her friend's cell, i try to lower the volume of the TV, and realise something is wrong with the remote and it has stopped working. I go to the TV set and try to reduce the volume from the main control panel, and realise its not working either.

Dad comes home later in the evening and says the car servicing guy gave him a call. He had given the car for the usual servicing earlier in the morning. The guy called him in the afternoon to give him the sweet news that there is something majorly wrong with one of the car parts and requires urgent attention.

Double wow.

Some ancient cultures had gods for pretty much everything. I think the time has now come to pray to another God - the God of technology.( The TechnoGod or something, must come up with a catchy name; any suggestions?)
Maybe this God is angry with me, and i should perform some high tech ritual to pacify him...again...any suggestions?)

Dear 'Goddess',

2006-11-24T17:33:00.000+05:30

Why have principles that you don't or can't follow?
Why contradict your words by displaying exactly the oppposite actions and emotions?
Why stick to certain rules when you don't want to?
Why show modesty when your cheeks are swelling with pride?
Why deny something when you know, that we know, that you know??
Gurl, if you like the guy, admit it, and save us all the miss-goody-two shoes nausea.

your,
yashada.

Alone

2006-10-30T15:01:00.000+05:30

i see people drifting away,
day by day they grow apart,
and no amount of messengers and orkut can glue them together,
each wrapped in his own cocoon,
i wonder if they'll ever metamorphose...

am i noticing it now?
or has it always been happening?
or have i entered that phase of my life with all my friends and family growing up, coming of age,
going in search of education, jobs, careers...

i have never experienced this in my life,
this is what they should teach us in school,
coping with the realities,with 'distance' ,
with being 'alone'.

Is it not ok to be needy sometimes?
(Mind you, ‘sometimes’)
so its not so cool to show you can be vulnerable once in a while,
but everyone is, at some point of their lives or another
then why not admit it?
Why hide behind a curtain of ‘make-belief’,
Why make your life some sort of page 3 party?

Because we don’t trust each other enough
Because we have slowly, without realizing it, grown apart from each other.
Until we find ourselves, stranded on an unreachable island
Surrounded by a sea of distrust
A sea we have given rise to ourselves.

Dido

2006-10-30T14:58:00.000+05:30

so here i am listening to her songs...
they are confidant, in a quite sort of way,
and whats more, that confidence is contagious!
it gives you strength and makes you realise you don't have to be LOUD to make yourself heard.

she knows exactly what i am going through and can make it into a song!
isn't it wonderful to get the right song for the right occassion?
you can listen to them all day and not get bored with them,
they can just go on and on and you don't want them to end....just like good ol' times

My school reunion

2006-10-27T20:07:00.000+05:30

So Pranali calls me up today and asks if I have plans for the following evening, Why? Because a sudden school reunion has been arranged.

My first reaction- “Arrrrggghhh!!! Noooo!!!”

I have better things to do, thank you.

I mean, think about it, what could be worse than being greeted by some female (who, apparently, thinks showing your undies through your jeans and your nipples through your tight top is cool) with a big , “ HI!!! YASHADA!!’ and pecking you on your cheek (because it’s the hep thing to do) while you franctically try to jog through your memory trying to remember her name.

Did I say, what could be worse? Maybe this: Some other ‘babe’ showing off her new state-of-the-art cell phone and ‘accidentally’ scrolling to the folder full of her latest boy friend’s pics. While you smile back and throw some words of admiration at her, you are going “YUUUK!! what in the world did she find so cute in that guy??!”

And then the usual, “ I’m doing blah blah course from blah blah college” and “ My brother is in UK now, I’ll be joining him this fall”

No wonder you get to watch Desperate Housewives on TV, not Desperate Men.

I shifted to my dear wonderful school when I was in std 3rd. I did pretty much the same things that I did in my old school, but somehow things were different here. Why? Well, you can give it any other reason you like, but I think there is only one answer to it.
My previous school was co-ed, this one, was girls only.

(I am not trying to be anti-feminist or sexist at all. I am simply pointing out to you what life is like in such a school. And I am sure many of you will oppose this view strongly, but ‘freedom of speech’ are the only words I can think of).

Anyways, so I joined this school and searched for a niche for myself and tried to ‘fit in’. And in time I found one (for all those who don’t know or don’t remember, I was the weird kid in school who thought dinosaur names were cool and by-hearted the geological time-scale for fun.)

Not that school years were altogether bad. The one thing I am really glad about is that I forged an ever-lasting friendship with Pranali. And…..um…well, ya that’s pretty much it. Can’t think of any other ‘good’ things….

(As i write all this, at the back of my head, i'm visualising my clothes rack, thinking 'what shall i wear for the reunion? hmm, wonder if i should do something with my hair...'
i hate to admit it, but i'm no different from those girls!!)

-yashada.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us

2006-10-19T00:26:00.000+05:30

" I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened," Frodo said.
Gandalf answered him, "So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

'There are greater forces in this world Frodo..."

2006-10-14T23:34:00.000+05:30

guilty guilty guilty!!!

2006-10-12T22:31:00.000+05:30

Let go...inner strength...Whitney Houston's 'I'll Always Love You'...Dido's 'White Flag'...Freedom...My freedom...Footloose...different paths...desire, longing...hope?...no...no...

Entropy and Me!

2006-09-28T00:25:00.000+05:30

The Second Law of Thermodynamics, states in a nutshell, that entropy is always on the rise. In any given system, order tends towards disorder.
This explains the curious phenomenon exhitbited by my study table, my locker, my cupboard, my room, even my mind! No matter how neat and clean i try to keep my belongings, they always get messed up! I try and I try to keep things neat and tidy, but chaos ALWAYS results!
I used to feel really guilty about this fact. But now, i have scientific proof of why its impossible for me to have order in my life- my life is simply following the Second Law of thermodynamics and you can't go against science, can you?!
haha! this makes me feel really good!( Although, i doubt if mom will buy this argument next time she tells me to clean my room...)

DENTAL DIARYII Brace Yourself

2006-09-25T19:29:00.000+05:30

so my new jewellery worth thousands is finally here! And i have to wear it for two long years...in my mouth!
First couple of days felt positively weird. I mean, imagine having wires in your mouth. I think every fourth person you know has had wires in their mouth, so we tend to ignore the sheer weirdness of the idea-of having WIRES, yes, wires in your MOUTH!
Thankfully, you get used to them in a couple of days. But the pain felt in chewing food...takes all the fun away! and the restrictions- can't eat this, and can't eat that! thats the saddest part. Meals, for the first time, become a problem, a chore, or a task to be finished as soon as you can. For me, thats the only draw back.
Hopefully, i'll get over it.

intimacy

2006-09-24T17:13:00.000+05:30

I see them at it day in and day out. They haven't known each other for long, but some people...just click...just like that.
His time management skills are non-existant. Also, his notes, his journals, his stationary always loose him. But he manages to keep his life in order, just because of her. She manages everything for him, from his dissection box, to his 'to do' list, to helping him make important decisions. And she enjoys doing all this!
He is always there for her. They talk about everything; he knows when her chums are due, takes extra efforts to keep her smiling, carries her heavy bag for her and cracks mad jokes to make her laugh.
They fight about the silliest of things, on the silliest of issues- anything from not calling on a particular time of day to loosing a favourite eraser.
Both are riding together on an emotional roller coaster. Will a final 'down' ever come? If it does, will they be able to handle it?
She voices her anxieties to me; about their future, the paths they might take together or on their own. They haven't confessed their feelings to each other yet, its not 'official' but...looking at them, its so obvious. But as usual, they are plagued by doubts. (Isn't everybody?)
And all i can say to her is "At the age of 19, you already have what most people dream of for their entire lives and sometimes never get it. Cherish these moments now, even if things don't go well, you can always say, "been there, done that!"

-yashada

Thank God For Anasthesia

2006-09-02T22:12:00.000+05:30

'Damn it! the tooth just won't come off! Ughh...!'
Dental Surgery. Whats so scary about that, you might ask? Hah! I used to think the same...but not anymore.
My left canine is wedged inside my palate. It has not surfaced at all. If it stays there it may develop a cyst around itself and may cause trouble later. So it had to be exposed and removed. Its not a very simple procedure because its situated in the palate behind my other teeth. But it CAN be done. In my case it wasn't possible at all.
It seems the crown of my canine and the roots of two other teeth are very close by. If the Doc tried to remove my canine, the other two would come off too.
but what was so scary about it was the sheer desperation in the Doc's voice as she tried to pull it out, the tension in the assisstant's voice, the various tools,-medical equivalens of hammers and chisels. I was under local anasthesia so couldn't really feel the pain (THANK GOD FOR THAT!) but sure could feel the pressure and the tension in the operation theatre.
So we had to settle for another option. Remove a pre-molar, expose my canine, put wires on it and pull the canine in the vacan't pre-molar's place. Now thats a loooooong procedure, that is!
So after the operation, i had to rush from the hospital to the orthodontist to get the wires fixed. Then i was told i can't have anything for the next two hours, and later to remain on a liquid diet, also i wasn't allowed to speak. Great. thats just great, i thought.

I didn't ask for all this. All that blood, and the tension. It all started with another canine- the one everyone can see and makes fun of. Its not located in the right place, i've been called anything from Dracula's daughter to a member of Family Canidae due to that tooth. It was going to get fixed with wires, but during the check up the orthodontist realised the truth about my left canine...and so....
And all this during my TY....

Aditya weds Meena

2006-08-26T20:40:00.000+05:30

frankly speaking, i hate weddings, especially Maharastrian weddings, i even hate the boring receptions after the weddings.
Weddings that i have attended have been those of my parents' friend's daughter's someboby's somebody's...basically those of people that i did not really care about. I would just go there with my parents and give false smiles and laughs, hog the ice cream and come back.
But Aditya happens to be a good friend of mine, we have had talks on all sorts of things ranging from (much needed) careeer advice, to total tp talks like his school days, and how he messed up his exams by studying for history when the paper was that of Sanskrit...his life at iit, in the US... and what not. Yes, and of course, his wedding.
So this wedding was something i was really looking forward to! Here i met all the people i knew, and they knew me personally, not as raghuvir's daughter whom they meet only at such events. i had so much fun, even though i was surrounded by adults, they were really cool!
I used to blame Maharastrian weddings in general as i had heard that some other weddings like those of my punjabi friends last for days and they have a ball. They celebrate with mehndi and dance and really cool food, and all sorts of other stuff. But i guess, its the people that make all the difference, not the place or the food or the duration of the event after all.

o happy days!

2006-08-13T14:12:00.000+05:30

Its been ages since i updated my blog, one of the reasons being technical problems with the comments section, but it seems, the problem is no more since i changed the template.

The past few weeks have been, arguably the worst so far and i was absolutely in no mood to do anything. For no understandable reason, i felt...miserable. All i did was attend increasingly meaningless lectures all day, perform practicals robotically and complete journals and tutorials. In the remainder of my time i spent boring hours online, not enjoying anything i did.

People did try to cheer me up, but i knew that if i wanted to improve my situation, i had to do it myself; and no amount of chilling out, taking breaks in front of the tv, or online or chocolates or cream biscuits were going to help. The only medicine for this disorder was- study.
Yes, study. The one thing i had not been doing ever since my TY started. With exams fast approaching, i had done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Literally. But as the last lecture of the week ended on saturday, all thought of journals and tutorials ended too and all that stood between me and the exam was one single weekend. As this plain simple fact stared at me i decided there was nothing else to do but open my books and start reading. And thats what i did. As i raced through marine environments and history of the marine explorations, as i studied i suddenly felt better. It was as if a huge burden was lifted up from my shoulders. It was bliss, pure bliss. So this is what was missing in life!
funny huh? studies! people usually run away from them, but i guess i...i have to run after them.

-yashada

problems with this blog

2006-08-06T14:56:00.000+05:30

there seems to be something wrong with the setting of this blog. There does not appear any option for comments. I tried changing the settings 'n' number of times, but it simply doesn't work! I don't know what to do! If anyone knows how to solve this prblem please let me know.

2006-07-11T22:44:00.000+05:30

seven sevens, nine elevens, seven elevens...how many more do u want?

Richard Dawkins and Douglas Adams

2006-07-09T16:55:00.000+05:30

During one of my surfings on the net i just learned that two of the people i admire most for their works in science and literature, were actually very good freinds!
Richard Dawkins is the Charles Simanyii Professor for the public understanding of science at Oxford University while Douglas Adams was a famous writer known usually for his Hichhikers Guide to the Galaxy Series.
I read about how the two of them met; Richard Dawkins wrote to Adams, you could call it a fan mail i guess, after reading his book, 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency'. they met after that nad became good friends! Adams also introduced Dawkins to his future wife.
It was suuch a warm feeling to know that the two of them actually knew each other!
in fact Dawkins even wrote a eulogy for Adams after he passed away.

uncertainty

2006-07-05T01:11:00.000+05:30

There is a very thin line seperating fear from thrill, when it comes to uncertainty.

I have no clue how my future is going to turn out to be. I can see myself a few years down the road doing things i want to do, but don't know how i'll get there. Cannot see the path. I try. I do try. But maybe not hard enough. There is always this problem of 'you could have done better'. Nothing is good enough. Sure it has its plus points but it can get you down sometimes.
Everything is so uncertain.
Its during times like these that good movies or books come in handy. Lord of the Rings for example. It helps when you take inspiration from Aragon or Gandalf. As you see them fighting their battles, you get the strength to fight your own real life battles. They can really help you through the rough times.
And so can dear friends.
I had a small talk with a freind of mine online. I felt so much better after talking to her.

2006-07-03T21:02:00.000+05:30

Ever since my HSC exams were over, i said bye bye to maths and physics, gladly. However, there are a few things, concepts or ideas that still do linger in my mind, and heres one of them:

In 9th grade we were introduced to these intimidating subjects of motion, distance, displacement, potential and kinetic energies and what not. In one of these chapters i remember reading about scalars and vectors. For all those people who are either new to these terms or vaguely remember them, heres the deal- We were taught that scalars is when only magnitude is measured, whereas, vectors is when magnitude as well as direction was taken into consideration.
Also we learned a law called the Law of Conservation Of Momentum which says that in the absence of any external force when two bodies collide with each other, their total momentum after collision is equal to their total momentum before collision.
During the course of the chapter, they also gave us an example; that of a bomb.
'When a bomb explodes, it breaks into fragments which fly in different directions with different velocities. In this case, the law of conservation of momentum is obeyed. Before exploision, the total momentum of all fragments is zero. After exploision, even though various frgments move with different velocities, their directions are such that the vector sum of their momenta is equal to zero.'
So imagine the bomb just sitting there having potential to explode, and then imagine the bomb actually blowing up.
Now imagine a similar object, a really really tiny object many physicists call singularity. Then imagine the object blowing up, and forming- the universe. What i'm trying to say is imagine the Big Bang.
If its possible to count the vector sum of all the moving parts of a bomb and then say that its the same as the initial value (zero), then...
If, (and mind you, thats a big If), it was possible to measure the vector sum of all the moving parts in our universe and finding thats it is zero, won't we be proving the existence of singularity? So if we knew that singularity existed and that it blew up and our universe was formed, won't we be proving the Big Bang itself?
I know its not possible to find the vector sum of all the moving parts of our universe, but i'm speaking purely theoretically here...it was just an idea in my head, that of comparing a bomb explosion to the Big Bang.
I have a very strong feeling ive got it all wrong, that theres an important piece of fact that i'ev ignored or haven't comprehended, so your comments are welcome...

in a parallel universe somewhere...

2006-07-02T16:38:00.000+05:30

One of my most favourite authors is Douglas Adams. He actually merged sci-fi and comedy together to create The Hitch Hikers' Guide To the Galaxy, a radio show on BBC which was later compiled into a series of books.
In one of his mad stories, our hero, Arthur Dent is lost in the universe and wants to get back to earth. He tries vey hard to locate his home planet and finally lands there to realise something bizzare. He is on the right planet alright, but the WRONG UNIVERSE.
Douglas borrowed from all sorts of theories regarding space and time and used them in his works, one of those theories being that of parallel universes - That there could be univeres parallel to our own, an infinite number of them. And as they are infinite, there could be other earths out there and the things going on on those earths don't have to really match the things going on out here.

So i use this idea in my own life every now and then,
whenever something in life doesn't go the way it should, i say to myself:

Well, in a parallel universe somewhere, i DID get good marks,
in a parallel universe somewhere, 9/11 did not happen,
in a parallel universe somewhere, brazil did beat france in FIFA,
in a parallel universe somehwere, i DID eat batata bhaji instead of bhendi,
in a parallel universe somewhere, Douglas Adams is still alive...

on tadoba andhari tiger reserve

2006-07-02T16:13:00.000+05:30

tadoba andhari tiger reserve

tadoba- where the tigers roam free,

chital, wild boar, sambar and bear aplenty.

Birds i saw in numbers great,

building nests along with their mate.

Babblers, mynas, rollers blue,

racket-tailed drongos too!

and along with these birds,

our pheromones flew too!

twelve teenagers flirting around,

cracking sleezy jokes, burping aloud

O! tadoba of the tiger fame

wish i could go there again!