19 till I die

As Each Day Goes By Mitochondria conspire within me Insiduously Sparking off free radicals They eat my flesh in a gnawing rage Inevitably, pushing me to age. I'm still a young and feisty soul With a zest for life and set goals I long to understand life, I want to ride across continents and run from pit to peak, I want to meet new people, See new cultures And move the masses... But there are other things For which the time has passed Time slipped by, just too fast. Age is like true love, Of course I'll never get it! Until it smothers me on the sly Leaving me with shriveling skin and a drying heart Rickety knees and a frying mind So Age isn't just a number But surely, a phantom future It'll someday be the present I brighten it now by living it up For I'm as aged as my thoughts As old as my deeds I'll keep them youthful And let the phantom age. What a coincidence... my 24th birthday approaches! :D... Kidding. That has nothing to do with it.

Calling 0091... I wanted the next article on this blog to be an analytical comparison between the UTSW grad school and TIFR. The article is on its way guys... Someday! But then I want to beat my chest in public. I want to shout out how much I miss India. It isn't just about missing home. It's a LOT more. Somehow evry sense feels deprived I miss being in an Indian environment. The people speaking a familiar language (Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Bangla...). Discussing a familiar sport : Cricket! (People I've met here think that cricket is still a five day game). People in a bustling hurry to get to work. Chatting up with the sweeper about how his kids are doing at school. Randomly conversing with passengers in a train about how Manmohan Singh is Mrs Gandhi's puppet; the virtues Rabindra sangeet; (in Marathi) about how the Bhaiyyas (which includes me, I guess they didn't realise) are the canker of Mumbai; to North Indians about how this a free country and merit gets rewar...

Veery Real Khrishen and I were walking towards the car. The students parking lot is at a distance from the Student Carrels and Khrishen's lab. I ogle at the first car, a BMW coupe parked right in the Faculty parking. I almost want to touch it. But then my eyes veer to silver Lexus posing at a different angle. Oh... and how could I miss the Porsche GT Carerra, purring silently in the other corner. I'm thinking "What sheer propulsion it'll give. Raw, smooth power!"... "Do you want to touch it?" sneers Khrishen in his Mauritian French accent. Not quite Poirot, but pleasant anyway. "Nah... it's the thrust of the engine beckons me" I retort... and we smile. Khrishen is a year into the graduate student life and I a day into it. Judging graduate student lives is tough. At twenty four, people have set ideas of what constitutes a good day. Khrishen is happy with his Sunday. He did some clean immuno-staining today and gathered three other papers supp...

An Ode to Colaba Causeway To those who haven’t been here I’d like to to say, You’re missing a glamour-fest Everyday For every inch is glamour doused From Regal Cinema to the Electric House Bracing the Café christened Leopold Is a bustling market, fairly old. Keep your money to yourself Away from predatory merchants They lure you with trinkets and T-shirts And lockets and pendants And telescopes and DVDs And other wasteful commodities. I suggest you trudge along In your head, sing a song For just watching is no sin Plainly, to avoid greed’s din. You’ll see many things be assured And many a beggar have endured But sadly have slapped them aside Like ticks pricking the conscience inside. At night you look overhead And see the sky black and dead “Where are the stars?” They ask sans delight Then look around… Smile And bask in starlight The stars descend everynight To this streach of road: young and neon bright They take every shape, colour and size And boldly drape to please the eyes. Every ...

The Work Culture at DBS, TIFR: A student's view I'm being presumptious when I say that all my contemporary students in DBS will agree with this, but a fair fraction does, and that makes these views non-trivial. Feedback hunters... listen up! TIFR and NCBS arguably offer the best exposure to biological research to their students, the country can afford. The GoI is generous in funding researchers at all stages and levels of their career in these sister concerns. This translates to top notch facilities and hands on experience to all students during the course of their training. The scientific prowess (publication ability) of scientists at these establishments is unquestionable. Their publication profiles are good and the last review of the department conducted by a panel of internationally "BIG" biologists was favourable. Publications are after all the only legitimate yardstick of research output from a lab. The department is scientifically active with regular journal c...

The Moon and I Once the sun has dropped to dine A rock in the sky starts to shine And I return the smile For it is the moon, an old chum of mine. And we gaze at each other Playing different parts every instant Once a mistress, once a brother And then a monster or then a mother. An untold affection holds us Awaiting the others varied form: I'm sometimes pensive, sometimes glum Sometimes ebullient, sometimes numb. The moon is so expressive in turn A crescent of silver, a golden urn Pleasant laughter, a precocious smile Angry rubour or sulking black denial Or sweetly a BIG lump of sugar, Flying high, in style. Suddenly then I'm gripped by jealousy Crying that promiscuity is heresy! And the Moon flirts all the time With poets and novelists And Werewolves... and just wolves And serial killers and tides. And then I summon my senses Reminding me I'm human. Humans had best be my friends And not the Moon's terrain, Or I'll surely turn insane. Yet, I'll never let this mat...

Witches of Yore: Biologists and Medics today There were witches then, who used bat ears pickled for thirteen days in lizard blood with armadillo's nails and Lion's ear wax, stirred nine times on full moon days with the left hand to the right hand side and on new moon days, six times with the right hand to the left hand side to create a cockroach with dragon's wings, bad breath and (reference unavailable). We now have biologists growing human stem cell lines that lie submerged in fetal bovine serum over mouse embryonic fibroblasts, infected with virus (grown in cancer cells, again feeding on cow blood extract) that has in it genes from a fluorescent seaweed (put there with the help of the juice of bacteria that were grown on ferment and rotting meat, and molecular scissors from Escsherichia coli), injected into an embryonic mouse's brain to create a mouse with 10% human brains!(Muotri et al 2005) Come to think of it, the way genetic material is being cut, pasted and str...

Dhananjay's Law of Availability Girls are either taken or untakeable. The most elusive exception justifies the pursuit.

A Responsible Scientist To the vast majority of of the Indian Public (maybe others as well), the person in a white coat pouring a lustrous green clear fluid from one raised test tube to another raised test tube containing a bright scarlet fluid, is a scientist! In rural areas where literacy equals education, the concept of a scientist might be a little alien. In urban centres, where in some select schools and colleges, select Science educators work passionately, the notion of science and and a scientist is a little clearer. What makes a scientist a responsible one? The view of a practising scientist or student is likely to differ from what the society thinks. It should be rewarding to examine both perspectives. A web dictionary search for the word 'scientist' yields definitions like "an expert in science, esp. one of the physical or natural sciences". The layman's picture of a scientist is critical. It determines the aspirations of the next generation of kids taki...

Been here a year now! I’m writing this upon someone’s request. Not that I didn’t want to earlier but I officially have a reason now. The request was ‘tell me about the “I-have-been-in-TIFR-experience”’. I have but a year behind me in this monument that India maintains to honour and perpetuate Science. The experience may just have been like any other to a hardened researcher (other than from Physics and maths; the biologists and chemists understand each others grievances better). But for someone fresh out of a BSc and fairly naive in the ways of research, it has been a roller coaster ride! A lot of people feel they have achieved something big when they come into TIFR. Most of the time it reflects in their confidence, at times to a point of arrogance. I felt differently (at least from my point of view). From the outside, one perceived it a different world altogether. One expects brainy minds zipping back and forth, discussing weighty issues of scientific truth in its ungarbed, realistic ...

Irony I awaited a local At Andheri of all stations A nagging feeling Testing my patience Mumbai's funny thought I Where shit and gold together lie The best groomed people Their overfed pets The sad plagued people Envying those pets Afore me a sick man lay Harbouring as many worms As straw in hay Blistered skin with infected wounds He was pain personified What more do I say? To his right was a mutt A broken leg, it had no hair Fungal eczema everywhere Ticks at its eyes blinding it Its suffering too gave you a scare The sick man saw the mutt He got up, his temper amuck He couldn't move much Very little energy as such But upset he visibly was He seemingly liked not dogs A diseased body shooed another Drove it in someother direction Both in hunger and in pain The sufferings of both were just the same Both were stray, both were sad Yet an arrogance one of them had And then, what happened next was sadder stil There came a dog, not at all ill. A pomeranian on a leash Its clean white c...

Company 3rd September 2004 This cool dusk post monsoon, I wish for company, really soon I can't sit still and watch the moon For lonliness lays me a loon. Every evening this does happen My concentration does slacken Saturation with books reflects on my looks My nose alert to what elsewhere cooks. Yet my conscience it presses Due to various sorts of stress es Work I must in excesses For acaedemic grade muscle flexes. But Company I crave Be it a Saint or a knave I do not rant and rave Why must this evening be grave? I might fancy a lover Be it Preity or another Spending time is all the matter But let it be meaningful It makes the interest fatter. Still, there is literature Way appealing than viral nomenclature Though its quality could a be fixture Books provide company I believe Alas! The sort I wish to leave It had best be a friend Conversation with whom would have no end For him, my schedule I'm willing to bend Or better still, time suspend For the while my pen sufficed Kept me...

Published in the IIS Newsletter Jan 2006 A Graduate’s anguish As the nation marches towards vision 2020, the scientific community in India is impeding its own progress. The Intelligentsia of India bears the sacred task of furthering knowledge and learning. A better job can be made of it is a prevalent feeling. The situation is likened to a racer who just can’t utilize the abundant fuel available to it. The student component of an educational institution is as important as any other. Being among students here, one easily realizes the tremendous potential that lies in our human resources. The fact that Indian students contribute majorly to the world economy speaks volumes about our potential. Unfortunately, these diamonds in the rough aren’t quite being polished. It must be acknowledged that primary and secondary education in India can do a lot better than it is doing now. However, the importance of higher education can’t be neglected. Denying training to virtuous students can be quite a...