Selfish me

I am angry at the world today. I am infuriating with anger on people who take credit for what they are and feel good about themselves. When you expect a lot from yourself and push yourself to do better, it is good. But just because you did well, you cannot take the pleasure to feel superior to people who did not have the same opportunities as you had. Your efforts count very little when compared to the chance you are given to do it. Be it study, work or just live a life without anxiety and fear or have three meals to eat, you possess them, while millions of others dont. We can now happily sit down with a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and discuss why we have to pay so much tax or how anyone can expect us to give our hard-earned money to someone else. Why can there not be an ideal world where everyone is eating, vacationing and building houses only upto what is needed for them and then allow the rest of the world to use whatever is remaining? It is unachievable, right?

Sadly I have resented to the fact that equality can never be achieved. My dad often says "If you arent a communist at your 20s something you do not have a heart and if you are still a communist at your 40s something you do not have a mind". It is true. Even my 20s something friends do not think equality is a good idea. But I cannot applaud a doctor's son who turned out a doctor as well and consider him close to God while look down on the lorry driver's daughter who was in the slum, abused and failed in the eyes of a successful career. Give equal opportunities and then feel intellectually and socially superior. Even genetically, brain wise, just because you can think or act better you are not a better person.

How selfish is it to grab ten people's opportunity and give it to one person on a silver platter and force it down his throat and he finally gloats about being obese. It is a crass example. But inequality strikes to such an extent that no one wants to think or do anything about it. Ego is good only if you are pushing yourself to do better in terms of expecting more from you. It shouldnt make you distinguished just because there is a mass of people who are not as "good" as you. Well I donot know what I am trying to say on the whole. I guess I am plain upset at the fact that research, medicine, economy, literature, sports are growing day by day while there is a whole world of people wondering how to feed themselves. It is so unfair. Maybe there is nothing that can be done about it and we have to live with it. I am not going to stop researching, eating, over eating, indulging, reading, vacationing and work for these people, am I? So I dont even have the right to talk.

Springing to glory

"Its time to bring my barbecue grill out" Scott commented on the weather, when I was out of the lab for a brief moment. The janitor was cleaning the mess we had created in the name of research. That was when I actually looked around. It was a low 70s with a mild breeze, and at seven in the evening, the sky had just turned a pale orange. There was enough light to last for another hour. The side walk trees were alternating with purple and white leaving a fragrance of wild flowers in the air. There is a lake just opposite, yes there really is and people who know me would know how much of happiness a body of water brings to me. The lake was bringing to life the verses "beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze." There were daffodils all over. Thats when I heard the "All done" from the janitor. I had to get back to my experiment. Or...

I decided that this day is never going to be back and so put my ipod on, requested a labmate to watch over my useless experiment and headed to the lake. I reached my favourite spot at the deck and stood there for a thoughtless moment. My ipod shuffled to play the saxaphone bit from duet "naan padum sandham" and I watched a father in his mid 50s trying to get his teen daughters to dance with him as his wife played the guitar. This was worth the freezing winter, ditched lab experiment and for the moment forgotten biochemistry. I was glad I got out.

Maya and Adhav

I forced myself to get out of my laziness and write this post because I do not want to forget how it felt to see Maya and Adhav for the first time out of the incubator. I realized the complete meaning of a "bundle of joy", only that there were two. It was a marvel just to wake up in the morning and stare at them for hours together, to feel their soft breathing on your face as they slept on your shoulder, or to see them smile in their sleep. Its amazing how two 7 pound odd beings could hold so much of happiness.

The best noise of all is to hear Maya "sigh" when she accomplishes something big, like when she just finished a meal or adjusted herself to sleep. Amma commented saying, "Etho iva than karthalernthu ela velayum mudicha mathiri".

Whom do they look like?? hmm...In my opinion Adhav epitomizes Subbu and Maya, me and my sister and all the other women in my clan. Maya needs perfectly serene environment to be herself,is extremely reactive and needs her place in the swing. Adhav responds to everything at his own pace and settles himself accordingly. Its ecstatic to just watch them. Well, not everything is green, they are a full time and after hours including nights and weekend job for four people. They are a handful.

All that said, I did not imagine I would love these two so much!! I just cannot wait to hold them again.

speculating..!!!???

The whole world, along with me celebrated the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin. He had a kick-ass work life. Well, whats better than vacationing in a lonely island and calling that your "laboratory". Have you seen ours??? Ok the scientist in me continues further, so here we go!

Born at a time when studies could not be done at the molecular level, Darwin and spencer "rightly" correlated origin of species to the origin of the universe. It gave rise to some agnosticism, triggered by the conflicting concept of God sending the 13 spp. Also, it gave a lot of scope for science fiction for years to come.

They were born to be skeptical, to question everything giving rise to 'science' as such. To think of what was achieved centuries agao, I speculate if we as a group of scientists are even reaching anywhere. Nothing really has changed over the last twenty years. With advance in technology like having a whole genome sequenced in less than five minutes, we havent achieved breaking success with either cancer or AIDS. We have only added to the list with mutant varities of bird flu and salmonella.

In my opinion, scientists today compared to 100 years back, are more concerned about short term success and material recognition. (like publishing a paper). Added to the fact that we have made education comprehensive and rigid that there is no scope for thinking beyond. Like for example, what if our categorization of animals and birds were all wrong? Anything that lays an egg outside itself is a bird, whereas anything that breast feeds is a mammal? We have learnt and accumulated so much knowledge, that we are not sure when to give our radically different ideas a chance. Should we go unlearn everything to give ourselves a broader perspective?

no6 kalyani

13 Bagirthiammal street, is the house amma grew up in. It is in the heart of Madras, accessible to all places. Many early afternoon coffee sessions have turned extremely interesting listening to paati's stories about the house, and the innumerable people who lived in it at different times. The mamaram, thengai maram, magizham poo maram, malli poo pandhal are all too familar due to my imaginary head. I myself, a total T.Nagar and Madras fan, have passed by that house many a times (now an ugly apartment stands there) imagining how early Madras life would have been with the tram and all that. I kept wondering how so much emotion could be attached to a house. Appa, being a banker we had to shift several houses and one could not afford that kind of emotional attachment towards a place. I am happy I still have association with most of the houses/places/apartment complexes that hold great memories, except with No6 kalyani I guess.
The saidapet srinagar colony house is set in a "posh" locality and the only individual house, unlike the rest of the family living in tiny boxes. Periappa moved into the house when I (along with the extremely intelligent ganesh and sriram) just finished 12th std and was entering college. It perhaps does'nt hold any better memories than coimbatore, pallavaram or madurai, places where me and my cousins have had the best of times. But it is a place where I recognized I share an unbreakable bond with my so called extended family. They are really not that extended. It is a place where we lost both our grandparents, where madhu and vijay got married (not literally) and where we have had many a basketball games, motai madi singing and literature fights. The front room must have a sighed a relief, no more high pitched and off note shruthied people singing "sri meenatchi thaye". I must have been one of the very few creating the off note, for most of my family can sing. Well, it created a sense of belonging, so who cares about off-notes.
"The periavar" decided to move out and I guess we are going to have vague people take over that house. I think I will also be saying stories of its broad front yard, its sit out from where you could watch the kids (us) playing basketball with a coffee at hand, the motai madi which has been tortured the most by vimal trying out every musical instrument possible (listening to him practising them is usually a very difficult task, nevertheless we have been encouraging cousins. He would finally come up with a pehala nasha in his guitar, or play a song with mouth organ and say "guess which one it is?". Even the most raaga gnyanamed people fail at this)and its coffee+ aratai sessions, athai's shopping episodes, futile carrom board coaching for me and its huge kitchen which was always buzzling with activity (That is the best part). So i guess I have some interesting stories for my grand children, too!

PS: I think day by day, am getting too nostalgic in my blog! Will try to work on writing about the present a little more.

why am I the poop checker.!

My colleague and I were helping a grad student extract DNA from her samples. All sophisticated equipments around, gloved hands, lab coated and hair tucked behind. We even look like scientists.
We overheard her boss discussing how it was extremely difficult to get PCR products out of ..faeces. Saara whispered "OMG., is it really poop?" I did not even want to know. "Which animal is it?" she inquired. "Goeldi's" came the dignified reply. "Its a monkey". Saara said ironing out my forehead creases. "Its a south Amercian monkey, found in Peru. It is an endangered species, so we can't afford blood or skin samples. He is very pretty you know, and we are trying to find out the environmental concern that is leading to its extinction. Isnt it exciting?"
But its still poop right? Now is the only time I am proud that I work with fungal rots on plants.
Out of context here, but I just connected it to Sid saying "Why am I the poop checker?". I love ice age.

Beginnings...

There is a certain flavour old advertisements can bring back.Especially if you are an Indian. The old humara bajaj, complan ,aarthi(KG theatre ad), rasna and diary milk used to be favourite, after which came most of the paint ads. The bajaj ad especially, when I saw it back on youtube brought back a wiff of the early nineties. Rangoli, sunday morning watched with toothbrush in hand followed by jungle book with a liter of oil on my head. Its amazing how a piece of music can bring back a whole atmosphere which is intertwined in a neuronal mess... From famco shopping, woodlands/geethanjali dinners(geethanjali was especially my favourite with the rabbits to watch), to annapoorna,"cheran plaza",race course drives, pazhamudir shopping to gangothri, copper point, bessie beach, (few additions like bike and barrels, leather bar, anokhi and amethyst), to lake shore drive, giordanos,strip road and what not! Its been brilliant (concentrating on the oor suthal part).
The best part about this flashback is recognizing the time frame, a beginning. Every span of time was in its own way is fresh and unique. While I was enjoying this sensation in my head, I hit upon a video that landmarked a beginning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1STKiZnB_Ps&feature=PlayList&p=D17F34D9EA15A11D&playnext=1&index=8

I can still remember how a local cassette shop owner sold us a plastic boxed audio cassette (cassettes till then mostly came in thin glass boxes) of "roja" way before the movie was released saying a young music director has done a brilliant job. We were hoping we did not get tricked. It turned out to be the most used, abused thing at home.

Its good to reel bact to look at beginnings, they themselves are the biggest inspiration.