Seven Samurai? No.. just a tag game

Raj tagged me in this meme called 7×7 Link Award. The rules are simple.

1: Tell everyone something about yourself that nobody knows.

2: Link to a post that fits the following categories: The Most Beautiful Piece, Most Helpful Piece, Most Popular Piece, Most Controversial Piece, Most Surprisingly Successful Piece, Most Underrated Piece, Most Pride-worthy Piece.

3: Pass this on to 7 fellow bloggers.



Tell everyone something about yourself that nobody knows.

When I write numbers, especially after the decimal point, I sometimes read/write the order wrong. I discovered this a few years ago while doing my PhD and realized that it is really out of my conscious control. I would really like to know what it could be if any of my readers know!

My Most Beautiful Piece  

I personally think Conversations with the Cat is my most beautiful piece. Mostly because it was written in less than fifteen minutes and it came straight from the heart.

My Most Helpful, Popular, Surprisingly Successful Piece

Believe it or not my recipe for making Gajar Halwa has been my top post for the past four years. I guess people all over the world are really dying to make it. Makes me want to consider writing recipes as an alternative career (in addition to owning a coffee shop, a restaurant and an agony aunt forum).

My Most Controversial Piece

About three years ago I wrote a really controversial piece criticizing  Roger Federer for publicly crying after a loss. I was amply bashed and I took it in its stride. But about a year later, I realized I was just being an ass when I wrote it. So I deleted it. Of all the stages of writing that post including thinking, writing, getting criticized by my readers as well as friends and then deleting it, I think, realizing how dumb I sounded to myself just a year later was the most amusing and satisfying part.

My Most Underrated Piece

I tried writing a story about three tomatoes long ago.I feel like going back and making it a bit better every time I read it but I stop myself. I think it meant a lot to me when I wrote it. Not just the process of creating something completely imaginary, which is difficult, but also the phase I was in personally at that time in my life. So yeah! I think I love this piece more than anyone else has.

My Most Pride-worthy Piece

I wrote this post/letter for/to my dad when I was still very new in Australia. I don't agree with the categorization of this section. It is not really "pride-worthy" but it is close to my heart. 

Now the seven bloggers.
I am going to tag people who are hibernating for God knows how long! I absolutely do not buy the "I am too busy" excuse for writing because if I buy it, I am telling the world that I have a lot of time to waste (which is SO not true). 

1. Meera Rao of artbymeera : I have been following Meera for over a year. Her blog is unique because it is about art. She displays her own work but she always has a profound message. I enjoy her short write-ups as much as I enjoy her paintings. 

2. T.A. Abinandan of  Nanopolitan : Abi's blog is mostly about academia and it is very well written. I have learned a lot about being in academia through his blog before I actually stared working in academia. He is the "cool professor" that I follow. 

3. Shashank Kanade's English posts : Shashank is a PhD student in the US. I really like his posts but he does not write these days. WAKE UP SHANKY!!

4. Mandar of  Footprints  : Footprints used to be a really nice English blog that I followed too. *Sigh* 

I like Mandar's poetry a lot. He is also very good at writing detailed reviews of the stuff he reads, hears or watches. But he is SLEEPING TOO!

5. Gayatri  of Gray at I  : I am a fan of Gayatri's Marathi blog. But I read her posts in English long time ago (yeah the last one here is 2006!) and I think she could try and revive this little sleeping beauty.

6. Nandan of Viprashna : Again, I know Nandan more for his writing in Marathi but I have always enjoyed reading his contemplative posts on Viprashna. 

7. Dattatraya Gokhle of Alone with Life : I have been a fan of Alien's poetry since the time I started blogging. He is into hibernation too. But at least he is in Russia. So it kind of makes sense. :P 

 

Thank you Raj! This was a fun thing to do. I hope I have introduced some new blogs in the process. 

How to pick an orange

The process of buying oranges is really traumatic. I think of all the problems I have faced in my life, the dissatisfaction that is caused due to having to eat an off orange is the worst. I know I sound like I am overreacting but I am not. I have eaten enough off oranges to know that whatever I feel makes perfect sense. You know, orange is one of those devious fruits that has the ability to make you feel remarkable vulnerable and helpless. It is like a little slice of life itself. You never know if the orange you pick up at the supermarket is going to be good. There is no guarantee. And even if you take that chance, of buying something based on say, instinct (or undying hope), there is still a significant effort on your part to be made before you can consume it. Peeling an orange is not something I enjoy doing. Usually, I cook for my best friend Elodie as an exchange for getting all my oranges peeled.

 The feeling you get when you spend those seven minutes of your time carefully peeling the fruit, getting an occasional squirt of essential oils in your eyes that makes you weep and then, finding out that the orange is off is really enraging! Some oranges are downright sour. Some are downright dead (the ones that make you feel like you are eating 100 % fiber). It is easy to forgive those two kinds. But I get really mad when the orange is just past its prime. You can taste the hint of sugar it had but it is not longer there, which kind of teases you. It makes you feel like this perfect little orange was waiting for you all this while, but you only decided to pick it when it lost all its enthusiasm. The orange has sort of moved on, gone ahead without you to attain whatever fruit moksha it is destined to attend. 

I observed that Elodie always picks the good ones of the lot. So I tried to ask her if there are any rules that I should follow to get a good orange. I should tell my readers at this point that she is French. So she told me a few things (using her arms, her eyes and her shoulders more than words). Then every time I went grocery shopping with her, I realized that she changed her rules slightly. When I tried to audit her on this, she declared that picking a good orange is a combination of science and art. I usually give up when people bring me to the interface of science and art. I tried to follow her rules when I went shopping by myself but every single time, I came back home with a bunch of sad, off oranges.

Sometimes, my sadness makes me want to give up oranges all together. I don't really need them. I can do without. But then a few days later I feel as if the Universe is doing great injustice to me by depriving me of oranges. It is not so much about the orange as it is about my inability to pick a good one. Then, I let Elodie pick my oranges for me. Things were going fine for a few weeks but then this inescapable feeling of utter and total dependence started creeping into my mind. I wanted to pick my own oranges independently. After all, Elodie is not going to be there forever. There will come a time when I will have to face my own oranges, in their total and complete offness. I tried saying a quick prayer before I chose my orange and then a quick prayer again before I peeled it. But that just made me feel dependent on God. I mean, if I am unwilling to depend on a clearly visible and breathing human being, how then can I let myself depend on a faceless, formless entity (that changes its own rules in every culture and country?).

Then I decided to study the oranges at the supermarket, wondering if their carbon footprint had anything to do with their quality. A number of plausible explanations came to my mind. Maybe the Spanish people were insecure about their economy and so they plucked the oranges too soon so that they could ship them over. Maybe these premature little babies (with their giant carbon footprint) spent a bit too much time in the cold storage. Maybe that led to acceleration of ripening process when they were taken out. (As I was wondering all these things aloud, Elodie informed me that I should either see a biochemist or a psychotherapist.) So I started buying oranges from South America (hoping that their smaller footprint would help, along with the fact that South American countries are not as stressed as Spain). I always ended up buying off oranges.

Then I thought maybe something is wrong on the metaphysical level. Maybe I need to purge my mind of all this hatred and stress I have around the thought of buying oranges. Maybe just thinking more positively about the problem would make it better. So I started believing (with a fanatic certainty) that I had it in me. I had the power to pick a good orange. But my lack of confidence (owing to repeated failure) was making me fall into the same trap again and again. I cleared my mind and started a lot of positive thinking. But you know, positive thinking is really exhausting. You have to stand outside your own mind like a guard. Stopping negative thoughts from entering it. It just made me shut down and crash all the time.

So I started distracting myself with other citrus fruits.

"Grapefruit is good for weight loss! You should just have grapefruit instead. Anyway, it tastes so bad that you don't even have to worry about it being good or bad. There are blood oranges. They are easy to peel and they usually taste okay. Tangerines, tangelos, mandarins! Sky is the limit! This is just for citrus fruits. Imagine venturing out of the citrus fruit domain. Apples never disappoint (but I don't like the crunching noise I make when I eat them). There are so many other fruits!"

 But my mind always comes back to oranges.  I really want to be able to pick a good one and just for one fleeting day, a single fleeting moment, believe that I can pick and enjoy a good orange, all by myself. :)

Behind Elaine Benes

I happened to watch an episode of "Inside The Actors Studio" with Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Julia played Elaine in the first-of-its-kind show Seinfeld. I have been a Seinfeld fan for years. It is one of those shows that I have never really grown out of (I have not just grown out of  Friends, I have also developed a serious aversion to the series). One of the reasons why this show is timeless is because it is true to its tagline -- it is a show about "nothing". And Elaine is the quintessential 'dude's girl' in this show. If we had to do a serious psychoanalysis of her character, we could say that she represented the 'liberated' woman of the West. But that would be a sad way to put it.

My admiration for Elaine has never waned. In fact, it increases with every repeat. Her character and her stories have philosophical undertones (see the video). I like it how in a really casual train conversation, the writers bring forth the entire liberal revolution. Elaine is at the center of this change and she is not always comfortable with it. But her frequent outbursts of fury are hilarious. I think I like her more because I have an Elaine inside me too. The only difference is that I can't express my frustration and fury as openly as her. :)

It will certainly get better

A few weeks ago, I watched an exclusive interview with Dharun Ravi on ABC. As many of you might be aware, Dharun has been convicted on multiple counts, the more serious being that of bias intimidation -- a conviction that could land him in jail for up to ten years. This is a  tragic tale of two college freshmen at Rutgers, with diametrically opposite personalities. What is perhaps worth pondering over from this story is the extent to which social media has tightened its grip around young people today. The trial was built entirely on the digital footprints these kids left behind during their first few weeks as roommates. What makes me sad, is knowing that neither tried to talk to the other face to face. If this had happened twenty years ago, it would have been hard to believe that someone could get bullied or intimidated without having any direct contact with his bully.

As Ian Parker explains in this meticulously written New Yorker article (The story of a suicide), this conviction can be interpreted as 'a state’s admirably muscular response to the abusive treatment of a vulnerable young man or as an attempt to criminalize teen-age odiousness by using statutes aimed at people more easily recognizable as hate-mongers and perverts.'

Dharun was offered a plea deal twice before he faced the jury. If he had taken this deal, he would have been excused from serving a jail term and a possible deportation to India, only under the condition that he accepted that his actions were motivated by a hatred towards homosexuals. This twenty year old declined the plea deal twice 'on principle'. In his interview, he candidly accepts that he was stupid and self-absorbed. Some of his peers describe him as somewhat of a jerk. But he did this two years ago, when he was barely out of high school and certainly not out of his teenage years.

This is not the first time that twitter has got someone into trouble. One of the most remarkable things about being alive right now is that movements and revolutions can follow you into your own legitimate social Universe. You don't have to go to a march to express solidarity with a cause that is close to your heart. You can do it on Twitter or Facebook. There are pages dedicated to Tyler Clementi that put the entire responsibility of Tyler's suicide on Dharun's twenty year old shoulders. And there are pages, albeit less popular, that urge people to reflect on Dharun's situation. The pro-Clementi group wants to use this trial as an example and a message to the young generation that they must be aware of what they say, especially when they say it online.  

This case also challenges the traditional image of bullies we have. It brings forth an entirely new trap that people are falling victims to -- the social media. It is an extension of the good old fashioned "what others say about you" syndrome that has driven so many human achievements and failures. It has taken a new dimension on the Internet where people constantly judge you by your pictures, the websites you visit, the email accounts you use, the friends you have and the music you listen to. There is a new layer of coolness attached to teenagers today. They have a real world personality and an online personality.

What made me reflect after watching this interview was that a twenty year old kid faces the camera with a stoic expression and says that he would never regret not taking the plea deal. That taking it would mean accepting that he hates homosexuals. And he'd rather go to jail than live with that all his life. I would not have been able to take this stand if I were in his shoes. I would probably have chickened out and taken the plea deal. Of course, I am not saying that what he did was right.But if I retropolate (am I inventing words?) the amount of world exposure and experience I have now to when I was twenty, I would have definitely been shattered by this. In the face of such an exaggerated media hatred where some people went on record accusing Dharun of 'outing' Tyler by posting a video of him having sex online, I would have crumbled. Irrespective of what punishment he is given, I think this young man deserves credit for facing the consequences of his actions with remarkable calm (at least in public). Especially considering this was his first tryst with the real world.

Whatever the outcome, for going through this honestly, Dharun, I am sure it will get better. 

Buddha on willpower and ego

I have been listening to talks given by Buddhist scholars on audiodharma. I particularly like talks by Thannissaro Bhikkhu. He has a way of teaching by using examples from everyday life. He does it with humor too. Although most of these talks are common sense, when you listen to them, you realize that when you are caught in a battle between the different "yous" in your head, this common sense evaporates like ether.

In this talk about Buddha on Willpower.  Thanissaro talks about the 'categorization' of actions Buddha gave us. There are four groups of actions that we do in our everyday life:

1. Actions we like doing and bring us good
2. Actions we don't like doing and bring us bad
3. Actions we like doing BUT bring us bad
4. Actions we don't like doing BUT bring us good

The measure of our knowledge is in how we handle the last two of the above. Most problems that I create for myself are due to bad handling of the last two categories.
Whether it is sticking to my diet, or finishing the tasks I have given myself at work. All of it falls in the last two groups.

In this talk about Buddha on Ego, which is titled 'Wisdom of the Ego', Thanissaro talks about how the West thinks of Buddhism. In the West, people do not see human ego as a necessarily bad entity. In the East, we are brought up believing that ego (ahankar in Sanskrit, which literally translates as 'the sound of me') comes in the way of happiness. Buddhist philosophy talks about Annatta (non-self) which is an essential step towards attaining wisdom, happiness and enlightenment. However, Buddhism does not call for an annihilation of ego in order to be happy.

Then, he compares Freud's functions of ego to Buddha's functions of ego.

According to Freud, ego is essential to human beings because it is able to carry out certain important functions for the well being of the mind.

1. Anticipation (it can anticipate the dangers in the near future and guide us)
2. Suppression (it can help us postpone gratification for our own long term happiness)
3. Sublimation (it can help us divert our attention from desire by engaging in art, sports, creativity)
4. Altruism (stems from the belief that we need to make others happy in order to be happy ourselves)
5. Humor (helps us laugh at ourselves)
 

Buddhist philosophy also explains all the above functions in it's own way. The concept of non-self is not rejecting oneself. It is about expanding the mind's eye to realize that there is much more to the world than me and my thoughts. Buddhist philosophy accepts the existence of ego, anticipates the damage it could do and evolves strategies to minimize the possibilities of the ego going out of control. Since there is no all-knowing God in Buddhist way, disciplining yourself starts with understanding your own mind. It is a very difficult path but it changes you for your own sake.

There are descriptions of the self (mind/ego) in the Bhagwad Gita too
In the fifth verse of the sixth chapter (Dhyanayoga) Lord Krishna says,

बन्धुरत्मात्मनस्तस्य येनात्मैवात्मना जित: |
अनात्मनस्तु शत्रुत्वे वर्तेतात्मैव शत्रुवत् ||

The self (mind) which is conquered by the self (mind) is a friend. But for someone who has failed to control the self (mind) , the self (mind) harms like an enemy.

What I like about the Buddhist philosophy is the absence of an all knowing, accounting and punishing God. What you do, is for your own self first. Even your generosity stems from helping yourself and not others. So the delusions that could occur as a result ("I did this for you!"), get mitigated by the thought that it is for your own well being ("I am doing this for myself").

Even in letting go, the Buddha says,
"Whatever is not you and not yours, let it go. That would be for your long term happiness"

The life long experiment in controlling one's own mind for one's own sake is one of the most ideal yet most difficult states of being. These talks sound simple because of the meditation that has been devoted to them. It brings back the recurring realization I get -- that most simple things around us are profoundly difficult to achieve. And it also includes simple joy.

Audiodharma is available free to the world on the principles of Buddhist traditions. Their talks and guided meditations are very helpful if you are serious about daily practice. This website is run entirely on donations. So if you find it helpful, please let them know through a small donation.

The Happy Post doc

Moving to America has been a powerful change. One strong realization is that there no happy ever after. I think at this point, it is reasonable to accept that a complete clarity of who you really are is beyond reach. Nonetheless, post docing has been a really refreshing change too. I had read this post by FSP long time ago and I had imagined how cool it would be to be in a similar situation. I am very fortunate to say that despite all the hurdles I faced coming from a smaller, not-so-well known group to a bigger, famous group, I completely agree with the her. On most days, I am a Happy Post doc.

The one really happy change I noticed in myself was a remarkable improvement in my ability to plan. As a PhD student, I sometimes assigned myself unreasonable targets, mostly because I failed to see what could go wrong (or was in happy denial). Also, I had a tendency to suppress nagging pop-ups my mind came up with about what the reviewers might point out in an experiment. Most of these doubts turned into reviewer comments and I had to go back to the drawing board. As a post doc, I can sense that I am more rational about doing a thorough study right now than wait for it to be a reviewer comment. I also seem to have a better understanding of what could go wrong (I am the Cassandra for my own experiments!).

Like FSP says in her post, working on different projects and see them shape up separately is one of the exciting bits of this job. My ability to multitask has certainly been a big plus. Managing different experiments and collaborating with different people on each project is really exciting. I think I am more in control of what I am doing now than I was as a PhD student. There is no thesis to worry about. My fear of failing has been diluted to a great extent too. Although I sense that the overall uncertainty is still the same and failure now would mean an overall failure in life, I strangely enjoy being now and here.

Stepping into a new country/city, a new lab, being alone all over again was really daunting in the beginning. But now, a few good friends later, I realize that it is this confidence of being able to start over again that keeps me happy most of the time. The feeling that nothing really clings to you and you don't cling to anything has been a source of great happiness. I have also realized that I work better if I start happy. I think a really good voice for my thoughts would be this Ted talk by Shawn Achor.
Working in the lab has been a source of curiosity, joy and wonderment all over again. I hope this feeling stays *touchwood*. :)

A single excellent night

"Let not a person revive the past
Or on the future build his hopes;
For the past has been left behind
And the future has not been reached.
Instead with insight let him see
Each presently arisen state;
Let him know that and be sure of it,
Invincibly, unshakably.
Today the effort must be made;
Tomorrow Death may come. who knows?
No bargain with Mortality
Can keep him and his hordes away,
But one who dwells thus ardently,
Relentlessly, by day, by night --
It is he, the Peaceful Sage has said,
Who has had a single excellent night.”

I heard this talk by Andrea Fella. It begins with this poem by Gautama Buddha. I recommend Audio Dharma to all my readers. It is a website hosted by the Insight Meditation Center, Redwood City, California. It is a rich resource of Buddhist philosophy. My most favorite speaker is Gil Fronsdal  . I enjoy his talks as well as his guided meditations. 

I have started enjoying half an hour of guided meditation every day. One important thing that it has taught me is that you can feel the actual physical existence of your entire body when you meditate. You can hear your heart beat, you can feel the twitching in your muscles, you can sense your breath brushing against your windpipe and then inflating your lungs. You can feel your diaphragm, the relaxation of your stomach with breath and sometimes even your pulse as blood flows through aching muscles or constricted spaces. The only one entity you can never physically pin down is your mind. Yet, it drives, occupies and dominates your physical body to such an extent that most of the times, you are completely oblivious to the fact that you are carrying around this beautiful, intricately designed machine of a body that is helplessly attached to the software of your mind. :)
 

Tissue or a beer?

This post by FSP led to a pop-up memory window in my mind.
I think a good measure of  how much mentoring experience your PI has would be to see if they have a box of tissues in their office. My current PI does and, considering that it was almost empty the last time I used it (oops!), he must either have cranky sinuses or a lot of crying students. Judging by how kind and soft spoken he is, I think I would blame the sinuses.

But any mention of  weeping in your PhD supervisor's room takes me back to Brisbane. I have the world's worst anger release mechanism. When I get angry, I start weeping. My Australian supervisor was the kind of guy who calls a spade a spade (or a crappy first draft, well, a crappy first draft). I don't know why I was so regularly offended by his adjectives considering I had seen him use them every single moment that I spent with him ever. Even his praise was peppered with expletives.

There were days when I used to sit in his office from seven in the morning until four in the afternoon going over my writing. Sometimes, especially towards the end of the week, my anger got the better of me. The resulting weeping would not faze him one bit. Instead of offering me a tissue, he would say, "let's get out of here. You need a beer."

Honestly, I had never thought that I would miss weeping in his office but I do!

New Year Revolution

Happy New Year to everyone!

My new year "revolution" was to deactivate my Facebook account. Well, this ain't a hormonal reaction to the slight panic every new year brings into your life. I had been thinking about both my active and passive involvement in Facebook for a long time. Finishing up PhD and getting a job just made it clearer. Apart from the fact that I spent a lot of time just deciding what goes on Facebook and what doesn't, it also took some  real productive work time out of my schedule, merely due to my passive involvement (checking others' profiles, reading comics posted by others, looking at pictures posted by others). I started realizing that I don't get as much time to write as I used to when I was a student (which by the way, was another revelation about my productivity as a PhD student).

So what did I learn from my almost four year long existence on Facebook?

1. People have Facebook personalities

Some like to live through Facebook, some like to vent through Facebook, some like to reveal as less about themselves as possible but reading everything about others. There are Facebook drama queens ("I am so lonely. It is unbearable"), Facebook philosophers, Facebook clowns, Facebook reporters, Facebook stock market and political analysts (they also kind of pushed me to take this final step), Facebook revolutionaries ("Anna [Hazare] Rocks!) and very proud but slightly annoying Facebook mommies.

2. My Facebook profile is like a 1 mL (mostly happy) extract out of 1000 mL of life experiences

I say this only through my own experience. My profile, the way it looks on Facebook is the least likely representation of my real life. Yeah, I have an exciting social life. But most of the times, I am battling various annoying problems. Honestly, sometimes I am just barely able to squeeze in all that I want to do in a day. My everyday life is so boring that it has earned me the nick name "granny" in my close friend circle. The things that give me true happiness are not cool enough to be on Facebook. More importantly, I never feel like sharing the experiences that truly make me happy and enrich my life, on Facebook. They are reserved for a little corner in my heart, in a sanctuary of their own.

3. Not having an instant medium of expression actually matures my thoughts

I had done this with my blog in the past. I would like to think more and express less. So that the quality of my expression does not embarrass me a few years down the line. I would hate to see the record of all my online comments pooled over a period of few years. I know I have been firmly convinced about things in the past. Only to grow out of my convictions by realizing that I was mostly ignorant.

4. Obscurity is the new "Cool"

About a year ago, I was flatmates with a French girl. Her boyfriend flew over to see her in Australia. He was probably the first person of my generation, who not only did not have a Facebook account but also did not own a cellphone (even in his own country). I was secretly angry to find him (the kind of anger you feel after you realize that your "basic needs" are frivolity to someone else) but I was really amazed to see how happy he was without all of these things. I asked him what happens if someone needs to urgently reach him? He told me he has an answering machine on his land line and that he goes home every single night. :)
After meeting him, I have met others who prescribe to his view to varying degrees and I found that all these people were really interesting. Mostly because I pictured them as  these giant Sequoia trees standing their ground against the Social Media winds. :)

To be honest, no one cares about your Facebook profile. There are people who genuinely care about YOU. But you don't need Facebook to realize that. Or maybe you do.

In this new year, I plan to write more on my blog. Write about my travels in the Unites States, my impressions of the midwest and also about being a postdoc in a big research group.

Happy New Year again and good luck with your revolutions!

Different Realities

These days I am working on a little music experiment. I pick a Raga first thing in the morning and search it on Grooveshark. I listen to all the tracks that are listed in that search. Initially, I was doing it only to improve my understanding of Indian music by listening to as much of it as possible. But now I realize the hidden beauty of my experiment. A collection of five or six notes, repeated over and over again to create a tune did not really bring the word "variety" to my mind. But then I listen to Ahir Bhairav on sarod by Amjad Ali Khan, on flute by Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, vocal by Kishori Amonkar, on the sitar by Pt. Ravishankar and I can "hear" for myself how different the same collection of five notes can sound. Although it always creates the same image of a fresh morning in my mind, the little details of how a morning could come into one's life are vastly different. Often for me, it comes as a sip of freshly brewed coffee, but sometimes, with early morning honking in an ironically practical Mumbai suburb. Sometimes just as a reminder, with the smell of my shampoo lingering inside my beanie at dusk and sometimes, the annoyingly cliched yet refreshingly beautiful image of Rekha singing man anand anand chhayo (in Ashaa's voice!).

How music is delivered is obviously different. You can see that when you listen to Pt. Jasraj open almost every single rendition with the Shantimantra. But then you get to hear Mero Allah Meherbaan in Bhairav. Or a Bhavani Praise in Bhairavi by Begum Parveen Sultana. Sometimes, they sing for the audience and sometimes they sing for themselves. There are also those ethereal moments when the rendition gets its own identity and who performs it and who receives it suddenly becomes trivial. I love those moments. They have happened to me at live concerts. How music is received has so many faces too. I don't know what kind of emotions an early morning Bhoop inspires in others but for me, it always inspires a fresh start. Even if I listen to it at midnight. I learned classical music when I was seven. So I could not understand why Kafi would make me feel a bit sad, which it did, without my googling it up to find out that it is supposed to inspire longing. :)


There are many things in life that can be precise and mathematical. Music is one of them. How it is built, how it sustains itself and repeats, how we come back to the same point after each avartan -- is all very mathematical. And so is life itself. But then again, there is a common territory, a common ground where life, mathematics and music meet. Perhaps, where logic and art meet. Those territories come alive when you get lost in the alaap until the tabla reminds you that it is over. I always struggle with this question of what is more important, the habit of following order and pattern or the tendency of giving in to the larger chaos. Even though I always come out as a strong "J" on the Myers Briggs test, I have come to resent the negative connotation we attach to the word "chaos" in recent times. If anything describes my take on this question aptly, it is the structure of Indian classical music. It follows a routine, a pattern, a regime, a discipline. But then, on that rigid framework, it drapes the colors of melancholy and euphoria. The twists and turns that sporadic outbursts of passion create, the spaces between too much joy or too much sorrow that are filled with soulful notes of introspection.

For whom do I sing?
Sometimes I sing to be noticed.
Sometimes, to not notice.
Sometimes I sing for myself.
Sometimes I sing for others.
Sometimes, I sing for my song.
And then, when I can no longer see the purpose..
I would have truly lived my song.

PurpleMoon Turns Five Today!

..and I forgot all about it until Prachee (with whom my blog shares a 'birthday') reminded me. So here's wishing PurpleMoon a very happy birthday and hopefully more posts too. :)

In my kitchen..

In my kitchen, no two coffee mugs
Would look alike..
Earthy ceramics, shiny metal and pretty polka dots
Would grace the shelves hand in hand, side by side.
Just like the people in my life.

No two plates would carry the burden of staying together
Until an exhausted late night crash makes them part
They would all come in a group that is together
Because each one of them is unique and beautiful..
Not because they have to maintain the harmony
Of  subtly dictated artistic uniformity.

Between cups of chai, green tea
And awful American coffee,
And bites of tikka masala, apple pie,
Pumpkin soup and spaghetti
My kitchen would quietly celebrate
My life and its diversity.

The doorbell will ring; the oven will sing
The yellow lights shall stay on till late,
And despite the fragility of too much diversity,
In my kitchen, no one will fret over a broken plate.

Misgivings of a virtual citizen

I am glad I have a voice.
I Tweet, I Facebook, I Blog.
I think my political opinion, at last is being taken seriously. I am, after all, an opinionated, middle class, virtual citizen of India. By that, I don't just mean someone who is away from his/her own country but also someone who is being a part of the political discussion online. I am a virtual citizen even when I am in India because most of my experiences are virtual. My fights are virtual and so is my anger. It is all online. I read online, I see my friends online, I fall in love online and I get my heart broken online. I also go into spells of online bitterness and online fury.

I am grateful for my upbringing. My parents taught me to see right from wrong at a very early age. They built protective walls around me. Life according to them, was a long assembly line. It was a chronology of important milestones (complete with a no-more-than tolerance). All I had to do was to conform and pass those milestones at the right time. Everything was designed to minimize damage. I am grateful for that. But sometimes, I feel a sense of isolation. Although in my virtual life, I seem to have many identities, in my real life, I feel oddly directionless. I am smarter than most. That is one thing I am sure of. If I ever feel insecure about my knowledge, it is only one click away. I love debates and discussions. Sometimes my discussions turn into tirades and monotonous ego-battles. My opponents and I throw links at each other to prove a point. Sometimes, every member of this forum resides in a different country and often, that country is not the country of their citizenship. But I wonder if I am wise enough and perhaps, this virtual citizenship is keeping me away from real wisdom.

I am never happy with my country's government. Mostly because it is not the government that I would have chosen or  maybe people like me -- mature, well-educated, middle-class citizens would choose. I am unhappy about a lot of things going on in my country. I wonder why I cannot see people who think like I do, come to power. And I don't know where the people who actually want this government come from. I guess that is another thing that I am confused about. I simply cannot understand people who come from outside of the conveyor belt on my assembly line. Sometimes, they stay far behind. Grappling with issues that were never even included in my growing-up-syllabus. Sometimes, they whiz past in their super fast cars. The next I see them is in newspapers or on television. I feel confused when I see Westerners in their mid twenties take a break from school for three years just to 'see the world'. My parents would call me crazy if I decided to jump off the belt and 'see the world'. It would mean that someone else would occupy the empty spot and get ahead of me. Sometimes, I worry though if there is such a thing as an empty place that you leave behind. I wonder if leaving behind an empty place would fill a bit of emptiness I feel inside. And whether the space that I would otherwise occupy is significant enough to justify this feeling of constant restraint.

Then there is the "Religion dilemma". Growing up, religion was peace, a legacy of love and devotion. Religion was poetry. Religion was philosophy. Religion was work. Religion was faith in humanity. Religion was being devoted to the devoted. Religion was art and music. It was always a road that took us within. It was a personal experience. It still is. Or maybe it isn't. But sometimes, I am reminded of my religion because of someone else, belonging to another. It seems as though Religion has lost its many faces and personalities. Now it is a label that I stick, or sometimes is stuck to my forehead to classify me, my anger and my discontent. Sometimes I feel that meeting as many people as I could, shaking as many hands of real flesh and blood as I could and looking into as many eyes as I could, would be a bigger religion to follow. Then again the walls around me would not let that happen.

I don't know why I feel so angry. I am not sure whether my helplessness comes from outside or it comes from within. I have started gathering a suspicion that the secure walls that were built to protect me from going off this belt, were actually conceived from the same fear and helplessness that I find myself trapped in now. Perhaps this anger is not at the situation around me. Maybe this situation is merely a mirror. Stepping out of this virtual world takes great effort too. It is now like another mind in another space. It is another wall of a secure and rigid identity that I need to cross. Although my voice is being heard and sometimes answered, I think, that all of this -- inside and out, these thoughts and their virtual shadows is not my voice.

It is just an abysmal incoherent noise.

Dilli Ho! Part 1

Time for a travelogue people! :)

I spent the past six days in and around Delhi. It was my first time in Delhi and I wonder why it took me so long. Before I left Pune, I was in two minds about my travel reading and by a fortunate coincidence; I picked up Mark Tully’s No Full Stops in India. It is one of the most appropriate books you could read on a trip to Delhi. Tully’s love for Delhi makes you want to walk out on the roads he so fondly describes in his book. And when you drive past the formidable and unnaturally clean neighbourhoods of Racecourse and Janpath towards the old Delhi, you can’t help but chuckle at Tully’s apt description of the two faces of the city.
But that is not what my post it about. I have discovered a lot of things that I would want to do over and over, every time I return to Delhi. The first and perhaps the most important is a visit to the Bengali Sweet Centre (BSC) in SouthEx 1. If I were a teenager right now, I would have described my experience at BSC as, “Oh My God (OMG), OMG,OMG!! It’s like totally awesome.” When a salesgirl at Meena Bazar (Ansal Plaza) told me that if I want to taste Delhi food, I should go to the Bengali Sweet Centre, I was not really impressed by the name. But I went to see what it was about anyway. Even when I saw the rather humble looking board outside and a huge dish of neatly stacked barfis through the glass, I wanted to change my mind. But when I entered and started ‘checking out’ other patrons’ food (Yeah. I check out other peoples’ food. You can label and box me now), I realized that I am going to have to come back again, preferably every day, for the rest of my stay to sample all of what I really felt like eating.

It really depends on what you feel like. The first day, I was desperate for a paratha and lassi. Next time around I tried the ‘mixed chat’ and golgappe. I agree that assembling your own golgappe in a hygienic manner goes against the spirit of eating them.
But I changed my mind again when I had the ones at BSC. And let me not even get into the shondesh, malai chop, hot jalebis, dhokla, kachodi and rasgullas. Sadly, I did not get a chance to eat all of those but I looked at them through the glass long enough to get a funny look from the bhaiyya across the counter. You don’t just get a variety of food there; you also see a variety of people. You can find people from every age group and socio-economic background (Geek!) at BSC. I found out later that Amitabh Bacchan and Rajeev Gandhi were regulars at this little joint.
If anything Delhi has taught me, it is how to eat and more importantly, how not to think when you are eating out. We went for a wander around Chandni Chowk. Initially, I was a little reluctant to get into a bicycle rikshaw. I found the idea of a human being pulling us along a bit embarrassing. But it has nothing to do with the previous paragraph. So when we got into Salim’s bicycle near Red Fort, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of sad compassion for him. Fortunately it evaporated in about three and a half minutes. I think the cycle rikshawallahs around Chandni Chowk could prove to be tough competition for the auto rikshawallahs in Pune. He was fearless, rude and ruthless, to a point where I started apologizing after him. If he got a penny for every angry person he left behind his rikshaw, he would not need the rickshaw anymore. He promised to stay with us through the ‘tour’ but asked my mom to hurry up and move on to the next shop. She asked him to leave but he stayed on. Then when we went to look for him where we had left him, he had happily disappeared. So we went for a walk to the Paratha Galee (Paratha Lane).

Every shop was full and it looked as if the Paratha people had a lot of mouths to feed. I had been chirping about this lane pretty much since I came to Delhi. But the transparent and honest process of making a Paratha on the street got me. Paratha chacha was happily shoving a handful of stuffing into the dough. The rolled Paratha however ended up in a wok of pure desi ghee and was literally deep fried. The ‘menu card’ of the shop was proudly displayed outside. It included some unusual combinations such as rabdi (condensed cream) paratha, karela (bitter gourd) paratha, bhindi (okra beans) paratha, kela (banana) paratha, and papad paratha! I could not muster up the courage to eat a deep fried paratha. So after expressing my sincere respects for the occupants of the shop, I moved on to the lassi shop and had a huge glass of lassi in a kullad (clay pot). The shopkeeper told me that the kullad was mine after I finished the lassi. As I was walking about in mild bewilderment as to where would be the proper bin to dispose off a clay pot, I saw Salim approach me with his big beetle nut stained smile. When enquired where he was when we came back to fetch him he gave us the typical “I was there madam, you did not see me.”
So off we went again in his lightning bolt, avoiding accidents by a quarter of an inch and getting dirty looks from all the vanquished he left behind. He left us at the “Old Famous Jalebi” shop. Our driver had told us that leaving Delhi without having one of the Old Famous Jalebis was a crime and we are god-and-government fearing Maharashtrians. So we went to see what this old famous jalebi business was all about. Well, I wish I had been blind folded. Only that could have helped me not commit this crime. Hot jalebis, about half a foot in diameter, soaked in desi ghee for thirty rupees a piece! I have never been in two minds about something this toxic. But my wimpy mind won again and I chickened out. The Jalebi wallah did not even try to convince me. He had a long line of eager customers that he was busy managing. As we walked towards the Gauri Shankar Mandir, we saw little shops selling neatly stacked piles of kachodis and samosas; every shop had its own happy clientele. I overheard someone get angry in Hindi. In an even voice he said, “aap apni ijjat ka khayal kijiye. Agar hamari buddhi kharab ho gayi to sochiye aapka kya hoga”. Quite a contrast to the street fights back home in Pune! It is really remarkable how much respect a language can spell for the listener. Listening to the Chandni Chowk shopkeepers talk to each other was a treat to the ears.
It was a Monday and the temple was very busy. The Gauri-Shankar Mandir has an idol of Shiva and Parvati. But many other Hindu gods also have an office each inside the temple, complete with a personal priest. We paid respects to all the gods and just as we were about to leave we heard someone sing. It was a bhajan with a twist. The artist was singing a Shiv bhajan that sounded suspiciously similar to a famous Bollywood song. Ironically, the wordings of the original tune were, “Maar diya jai, ya chod diya jai, bol tere saath kya suluk kiya jai”. A very crude English translation would be, “Should I kill you or should I let you go?”

Dilli Ho! Part 2

Next destination was the Taj Mahal. How can you go to Delhi and not see the Taj? Well you can but I wanted to see it because I had heard a lot of people talk about it. So we went to Agra. We picked the wrong day. It was raining incessantly since morning and we kept going on only in the hope that it would stop soon; but it showed no signs of slowing down. So I struck up a hard bargain (so I want to believe!) with a street seller and bought an umbrella for a hundred rupees. Later I found out that you could get it for fifty. But if there is anything you must learn to be able to survive in India, it is having absolutely no regrets about a bad bargain. You will always find a better bargain somewhere else. :)
The umbrella was of no use in the harsh rain. So by the time we moved inside through the queue, I was half drenched anyway. The Taj Mahal has a wonderful shock element in its architecture. You see nothing but red sandstone all around for a long time during your walk towards the Taj. In the modern times, you are also distracted by the million procedures that you must submit to before you are finally let in through the gate. You walk through almost a kilometre of red sandstone that is so characteristic of other structures around Delhi and you enter a dark, narrow gate. Suddenly, you see the Taj. Marble white, a complete contrast to everything you have been used to looking at. It does not grab your attention ever again as it does in that moment. Its magnificence, its grandeur and its pristine beauty makes you blank for a moment and even though you always think of Shahjahan when you say Taj Mahal, in that moment of shock and awe your heart goes out only to the artists who created it. That, I think is the true joy of looking at the monument. It has been built so beautifully that it forces you to think of the unknown hands that came together to create it, and not the emperor who commissioned them using his wealth and power.
The next stop was Fatehpur Sikri. But before that, I went into a government owned “handicraft emporium” and bought a whole new set of clothes. The rain at the Taj had completely drenched me. As I walked out of the changing room, I thought I heard a faint applause from the shopkeepers. :D
The fort at Fatehpur Sikri was built by Akbar in the honor of the sufi saint Salim Chisti, who prophesied the birth of Akbar’s son Jehangir. Right in the middle of the courtyard of the fort is a beautiful dargah. It is a common belief that if you wish for something and tie a thread to a filigree wall inside the dargah, your wish is granted. The guides were constantly pestering us to get our wishes granted at a small fee. But we flatly refused. Each wall that surrounds the dargah is made of marble and has a different pattern. These walls are carved so intricately that sometimes it is hard to believe that it is marble and not lace! As I was walking out, I heard the most magical voice outside the dargah. A sufi singer was singing outside. His band consisted of a simple harmonium and another person playing the tabla. The rhythm was accentuated by bystanders clapping in the typical qawalli style. I waited there for about twenty minutes listening to him. Listening to a beautiful sufi song outside a magnificent dargah! What more could you really wish for? Maybe it is true. Maybe you get what you want, even without tying a thread!
On our last day in Delhi, we mustered up courage and went back to Galee Parathewali. I asked the shopkeepers if they could just pan fry my paratha instead of deep frying it in ghee and they gladly obliged. I had a mulee (radish) paratha and bits of karela (bitter gourd) and bhindi (okra beans) parathas. I survived on that for the rest of the day without even thinking of food. :)
We spent that day wandering around inside the Lal Quila (Red Fort). It is another magnificent structure with many innovative architectural elements. But the most enticing part of Lal Quila was the gardens with huge Bakul trees. It is a shame that you can’t sing, write, touch or photograph fragrance. The experience of sitting under a Bakul tree on a hot summer day cannot be expressed, no matter how hard one tries. The shade embraces you gently and the breeze brings the sweet fragrance of flowers and cools you down. After your nap, you find little stars of bakul blossoms all over your hair and face. It also took me back to my days with my grandmother when we used to spend early mornings picking up bakul and parijat flowers.
I walked back one last time through the markets of old Delhi. Every city has a personality of its own but what can I say about Delhi? I think I am in love. :)

Have you been TALed and Mantised recently?

For the past month or so, I was caught in what can be called an (unnecessarily) anxious wait for my US visa. I was offered a post-doc at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) in the United States about nine months ago. From then to this day, I have gone through many agonizing waiting periods. Of course, the biggest of them all was finishing my PhD.

I have to accept, I need to put a lot of effort into increasing my ability to handle unforeseen, unexpected and uncertain situations. This was not my first time under the (now) famous 221(g) administrative processing delay. I spent some furious six weeks in 2009, when I missed a conference due to the same process. What makes it even more annoying is that it is applied to only certain individuals under certain circumstances, making it almost impossible to avoid a suspicious or funny look from a regular US tourist. I decided to take this opportunity to blog about it so that people become aware that in certain cases, a United States visa can be delayed indefinitely.

Post 9/11, US has made the visa process stricter. Some US visas are delayed due to the Security Advisory Opinion (SAO). The Department of State has categorized applicants according to their circumstances. The Visas Mantis SAO is applicable when there is a probability of use of a sensitive, illegal or dual use technology. The Department of State has also created a Technology Alert List (TAL). Exchange scholar, H1B and sometimes student (F1) visas are also subject to a TAL check. The TAL check typically involves providing the Department of State with a detailed Statement of Purpose (SOP), resume, applicant's travel history and purpose of US visit. Applicants from countries that possess nuclear technology (India, China, Israel, Pakistan and Russia) working in a wide range of scientific fields such as Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Aeronautical Engineering, Biotechnology, Biomedical Engineering or employed by research institutes that use sensitive technologies can be adversely affected. For security reasons, this list is not published anywhere on the internet. However, almost all the branches of Physics, Chemistry and Biology are included in this list.

I have accepted now (after wasting a lot of time and peace of mind) that I am going to be a regular at these security checks for a few years to come. There is only so much euphemism at your disposal when you are trying to tell a visa officer that you are going to work on making fuels. There is nothing on my resume that would not prompt a Mantis or a TAL check. (un)Fortunately, I am not alone. There is a page dedicated to people stuck in the US administrative processing which I found very helpful during this wait. There is no fixed deadline as to when your visa will be approved. So many people find it very difficult to accept that they have to wait indefinitely. For them, a clever website has already been designed. Check reporter lets you enter your own visa information (date of interview, date of approval, consulate, visa type) and update it whenever your application is processed. This has helped create a comprehensive database of processing times from November 2008 onwards. Processing times have been shortened considerably over the past three years.

I hope this information helps people who are in the process of applying for a US visa. If you ever go through it, as the Visa Officer who interviewed me would say, "You are only paying the price of being very smart".

Kitchen Chemistry

I have been drafting posts for a while now. But nothing I write really agrees with my mood. So I have a stack of unpublished posts on blogger.
One thing that agrees with my current state of mind 100% is baking. It has been a delightful one month back home. I have been experimenting happily in the kitchen. So I thought I will share some of my happy monsoon-special recipes with my readers.

Banana-walnut cake

You need...

1 1/2 cups flour (you can also replace this with whole meal wheat flour for a healthier version)
2 eggs
1/2 cup melted butter (in India, you can use homemade butter too. No need to buy processed butter)
1/2 cup sugar (you can replace this with Kanak Gool. Talk about self-endorsement haha!)
1 cup mashed banana (it is a good idea to just mash the bananas by hand. It gives the cake that rustic feel)
1/2 cup crushed walnuts (crushing in a pestle and mortar instead of grinding in a blender also adds character to the cake)
1 teaspoon grated nutmeg/ nutmeg powder
1 tea spoon baking powder

How you do it...

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
2. Melt the butter and sugar in a glass bowl
3. Add eggs and whisk until everything mixes well
4. Slowly add flour and baking powder; maintaining the consistency of the mixture
5. Add mashed banana, nutmeg and crushed walnuts. If the mixture is too viscous, add some milk.
6. Cover a baking tin with a thin film of butter. And add the cake mix. Make sure that the cake mix does not occupy more than 3/4th of the baking tin to allow for the cake to rise.
7. Bake for about 40 minutes. Test whether it is cooked using a skewer (for beginners, if the skewer comes out clean, Bingo!)

I am actually crazy enough to sit in front of the oven and watch it rise. But I understand that not everyone has such an unhealthy attachment to their work of art. :)

How you serve it...

Goes well with tea, coffee and happy company.

Variation: Apple cinnamon cake
Instead of using Banana+walnut, you can replace the fruit element with apple+cinnamon. In this case, unfortunately, you can only use white sugar to maintain the aesthetics of the cake. :)
If you wish to make this variation, peel the apples and boil them until they are soft. Blend apple and cinnamon into a paste and add it after step 4 above.

Happy Baking!

Going back to Charles Dickens

I downloaded the 'Complete works of Charles Dickens' on my Kindle recently (thank Amazon for coming up with this blessed device). The toughest decision at hand before leaving Brisbane was which are the absolute essential books that I absolutely, positively cannot do without. After three rounds of serious grouping, I managed to narrow it down to eight kilograms. I had no qualms whatsoever about getting rid of two thirds of my entire wardrobe. In fact, I am sure I have created for myself a trail of unwanted garments going up to the Brisbane airport just like Seeta did, with her ornaments, when she was abducted by the cruel Ravana. So having a device that is handbag-friendly and can hold eight kilo worth of knowledge in paper, without making you sweat and panic is indeed a blessing for me.

I went back to Charles Dickens after about ten years. I read his books with a great adolescent appetite. Now I realize, most of it was just to put a 'Dickens Flag' on my "well-read-ness". The first book I chose to read this time is 'Great Expectations', and I cannot imagine how the seventeen year old in me could have appreciated it. Apart from the fact that I was immensely touched by the character Biddy, I think I missed most of the then-intangible and now-evident subtleties in the book.

I was drawn to this book again because of its mention in Amartya Sen's 'Idea of Justice'-- a highly academic yet refreshingly enlightening piece of work (which can only be ingested 10 pages at a time for someone like me). In his opening chapter Sen quotes none other than Pip from Great Expectations.

Pip is very sensitive to injustice and in one of his honest musings in the book, he says,

"In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice." Outwardly this seems like an obvious statement. Only upon reflection do you realize its perspicuity.Every adult, I guess, has a child in them that can go back and relive the grossest form of childhood injustice that was inflicted upon them.

When talking about the crystallization of memories, Dickens again makes me reflect when he says,
"Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day"
In his descriptions of an unfortunate orphan's thoughts, Dickens has planted carefully, these meandering memory lanes that invite everyone, no matter where they come from.

When little Pip goes away to town to play at Miss. Havisham's, he comes back feeling inferior about himself. The life that he has lived to that moment has never been labeled as 'common' or 'coarse' or 'low'. But fighting with this feeling of isolation, he wonders (and it brought tears to my eyes),
It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be black ingratitude in the thing, and the punishment may be retributive and well deserved; but that it is a miserable thing, I can testify.

When the utterly discontented and ashamed Pip begins work as an apprentice for his innocent mentor Joe, and his conscientious admission,
I know right well that any good that intermixed itself with my apprenticeship came of plain contented Joe, and not of restlessly aspiring discontented me, was something again that seems remarkably universal. The last three adjectives 'restlessly', 'aspiring' and 'discontented' make the sentence read as if it has been both conjured and meditated upon!

When the wise old Biddy talks to Pip about his attraction to the pretty and temperamental Estella, in one of their tender moments of truth, her words have been weighed and calculated to reflect and hide so many emotions:
..because, if it is to spite her, I should think-- but you know best--that might be better and more independently done by caring nothing for her words. And if it is to gain her over, I should think--but you know best--she was not worth gaining over
I realize the significance of the 'you-know-best' now. It is such a subtle expression, yet without those you-know-bests, I don't think those lines would have so much meaning!

There is much more that I can add to this but I would like to leave the obvious for you to find out!

Goodbye Australia :'(

I had never imagined myself tearing up at the end of my final PhD talk. I had practiced it in front of the mirror some 5 times before I actually appeared in front of a room full of audience -- most of them plant biotechnologists; who had no clue as to what my research really meant in terms of chemistry. But they were there to cheer me on. So when I reached my last well-rehearsed acknowledgment bit, I was fine until I thanked my family. When I started thanking Australia -- a place that gave me so many friends, I found myself suppressing that well-known feeling of having hot air trying to escape your throat and eyes. :(

It has been a hectic and enlightening three and a half years. I don't know when I am going to fully realize the value of this phase; both in terms of academic and cultural experience. But my guess is that I would continue appreciating this all my life. If there is anything Australia as a culture taught me, it is how to relax. I have still not fully grasped it, because I am an unnecessarily high strung person.

I will miss a lot of things about Australia. I will miss being woken up by this -- a kookaburra laughing in a tree. It is no use being used to hear the song of an Indian Koel if you are planning to move to Australia. The first time I heard a kookaburra call, I thought the bird was dying, and the first time I saw an Australian magpie, I thought it was a crow with a skin condition.Here's Danny Bhoy  --a Scottish comedian (who is half Indian!), talking about Australian wildlife. And to be honest, he is not exaggerating! :)

I will dearly miss the Australian accent. How the sentences here end in inflection points and how the Os are uttered like a strong surf wave hitting the Australian beach. Here is a better description of the Australian accent by Danny Bhoy again.
I will also miss the Queensland beaches with their golden sand and deep turquoise water. Sitting on the sunny beach watching the restless Pacific were some of  my rare, calm moments here. :)
I will miss the touch of the Mediterranean that Australia has. With Greek, Spanish cuisines almost an Australian staple. The small shops owned by European entrepreneurs, proudly presenting the very best from their countries, the Italian caffes and Greek tavernas.

I will miss my friends. I remember when I came to Australia, the only people I knew, that too through the Internet were my PhD guide and my would-be flatmate. When I landed in Brisbane my unreasonable worrying mind was wondering what would happen if the girl I met on the Internet is in reality a scary trap! :)

I value what I learned outside the lab more than what I did in the lab in order to get a PhD. It is a strange feeling to know more everyday yet feel like you know nothing yet. To see people who have lived lives exploring paths that never even existed in the road map that was carved for you when you were growing up. To meet people who have come a long way from their home but have still managed to carry their home with them. And then to meet people who have never left home, but have long journeys embedded in their hearts. It is quite perplexing to slowly see yourself lose the ability to make strong judgment. To see yourself as a collage of many identities and to be less certain of what is the most predominant of all of those. What is more surprising than being less certain about who you really are, is being happy about it!

Kabir and Kumar Gandharva

Following the spiritual thread from the last post, I have two musical recommendations for you. Both are Kabir bhajans. I have always been fascinated by Nirguni Bhajans that celebrate the formlessness of the divine. Kabir bhajans are not just about formlessness; they are also lessons in detachment. Like this one by Kumar Gandharva. It portrays the spirit as a swan that flies away, all alone, making this whole world a mere visual spectacle.
Although the song is about detachment, Kumar Gandarva's sincere rendition makes it impossible not to attach yourself to it! :)
This one, by Kalapini Komkali (Kumar Gandharva's daughter) is a less popular but much more beautiful rendition of  "chadariya jhini". The more popular version is by Anup Jalota. A short introduction to her style and her gharana can be found here. She transports you into the realm of an oddly satisfying emptiness. The poem establishes a parallel between human body and weaving of a shawl, only to remind the listeners in the end not to confuse this shawl with an eternal possession; for all of us have to leave it behind one day.