So, these days I'm searching for a brain wave which will probably hit the right spot in my brain and help me come up with an appropriate title for my thesis. Something snazzy, cool and one which summarizes everything that I have been working toward...

We all have to finalize on our thesis titles by the end of the second year but no one really sticks to it as PhD is all about flexibility, checking out preferences and practicalities in the given arena of work. So the titles are quite dynamic.

Of course, I have seen people slogging, with only the faintest idea as to what is that one (or a few!) questions they would like to answer. Just work, gather data, and something will definitely emerge. This is their motto. It's ridiculous and pathetic. You know what that reminds me of? A supervisor writing a recommendation letter for one of his students, not knowing for whom he is writing and yet scribbling frantically on his notepad, and at the end of it, depending on how it has turned out, deciding which student he will give that letter to.

ps. Okkk. That was a distant simile. What to do? Everything these days reminds me of reco letters. Forget about my vices and virtues, I just hope my boss remembers who I am. He asked me few days ago whether I am done with my colloquium already!!!

Huhhhhhh??!!!

I'm glad I chose ecology. Can't think of doing anything else. This is what I know the best, and this is what I love doing...research...logic...thinking...aaahh...nothing can beat it.

The Panther

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars, and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tense, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Sometime

...from now, I will die. May be it's months or years from now. Or maybe I'll be conked off the next moment. With an impending situation like that, I want to make sure my life matters. Not just by having fun and proclaiming that I have lived and done everything there was to do. I want more than just that. I want something to be different in this world because of me.

Someone...

... used this term 'grandstudent' few days back. A great word! That makes me Prof. K. P. Gopinathan's grandstudent. Never met him, but now I want to.

Off the tangent, I've always felt that scientific community is more of a diaspora, less of a fraternity. Where's the bloody brotherhood?? There's a dire need for people to engage in a dialogue. It never happens. Or maybe like what, once in an eon?

I detest some terms. Especially those that commodi-fy natural resources. What the hell is tiger farming? It's a disgusting term...

Almost Forgot...

about Wicker Park...Awesome! Rose Byrne rocks...whattaa performance! And fell in love with the song "Strange and Beautiful" by Aqualung...

The Tunnel And The Light

Last Monday to this Tuesday, the ride has been a roller coaster one to say the least. I spent the whole of last week in trying to keep up with the expectations and deadline and bang on Saturday, just when I thought I have caught up, and fairly confident of things being in control and meeting up the deadline, things started going downhill. It is confirmed now. I won't meet the deadline. It's a big blow.

I conjured up every trick I could think of. Nothing worked. Your data are your kids. The whole world may criticize them, you would want to protect them, come what may. And if someone comes too near to hurt them, you would come in between and do everything possible to protect. After asking boss for a final hearing of the new thesis outline , which eventually led to a negative verdict too, the discussion was over. All my cards were open on the table, and somehow I'd lost this hand.

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One needs perspective to look at things more clearly, especially if one is too emotional about what's happening. And one doesn't need monumental philosophy, even a small sneeze is enough. I got up y'day morning, spent some clueless moments on my bed with blurry vision and then had a terribly strong sneeze which threw me so off balance that I landed on floor. Happened within seconds. I was a sight and the whole thing was too shocking to do anything else except curse openly. It was only when I was in the shower that I could see it differently. Here I was, riding the troughs of life, barely holding onto the reigns, when a silly sneeze shook the wits out of me! I couldn't help laughing hysterically. Still smiling about it. So yeah life is a bitch sometimes and can make you go down on all four. At times you can't control the going down part. What's in your hand though is to get up with a smile and forget about it.

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I love Indie movies. Some of them are too dark, serious and melancholic and I avoid them. Like Boy A. But some of them are exceptionally great yet bearable. Enough has been written about An American Crime and Hard Candy (both starring Ellen Page, who is amazing...both movies are quite gory, especially An American Crime. This was one movie that made me flinch and I watched much of the movie with narrowed eyes, horrified as to what more awaits for the viewer and the protagonist). So I'll pass on them. Two movies I recommend are Keith and Dedication. I don't think these are well known movies. Neither is an edge-of-the-seat thriller. Hardly anything happens. If you like ensemble caste, forget about it. There is hardly any caste at all. Even the plots are quite stale. But something about the dialogues, screenplay and the caste makes it a great watch. Everything very cleverly done. Acting, editing and music (especially of Dedication) is awesome. Both are about love, so those of you who are allergic to such movies, stay away. These are not romantic comedies though. Pretty neurotic stuff lies if you dig deep enough. Almost forgot to speak about One Week. Good one again. Don't pass it. Another one worth watching is The Shadow Dancer. Claire Forlani is delicious.

RIP

Even though I didn’t grow up listening to Michael Jackson, something snapped when I heard that he has passed away. The media frenzy over his death was quite expected. But all those heart-wrenching statements, teary appearances and effusive blogs seemed so fake.

I didn’t grow up listening to his music. I think he was a craze in 80’s (before that, I wouldn’t know)…One summer afternoon, I caught Anand grooving to MJ’s hits and that was how I was introduced to MJ. Needless to say, Anand was the butt of all the jokes for the next few months. The closest I came to listening to his music was just then, when I hid behind a table to bathe in the brilliance of two-left-feet disorder my brother suffered from. The performance would go on but for my loud uncontrollable guffaws. I snatched the cassette cover from him and was greeted by MJ’s black leotard avatar. He seemed like an alien, with his face covered with a curly mop of hair, and his skin ghostly white, accentuated by the psychedelics. I could almost picturize him in front of me. It was nothing like what I’d seen before. He seemed like a spirit in the human form.

I followed his story in the past few months. I couldn’t help it coz it was splashed all over, even in the Indian media. Wouldn’t like to imagine what it would be in the thick of it. Unbelievable. Would you like to read about your life expectancy in the papers? Daily speculations about how long you are gonna live with the morning coffee…there wasn’t even the faintest trace of concern or sincerity. It was almost as if these vultures were waiting for his death so they could collect their bytes and bask in the glory of their 4” wide columns.

And then you catch the same bunch of guys mourning as if they’ve lost someone dear. Assholes…Gimme a fucking break!

I think I thought...

Tough…I can already see the writing on the July wall. It’s been tough and I am grateful for this warm-up coz as I see it, it’s just begun. I wish I had more time to analyse and write, and spend more time on my slides, but as a friend said, improvement is never ending. So maybe deadlines are THE solution. To finish the job and move on. Apart from finishing on time, and hearing from everyone that yes you did finish on time (clap, clap), I am uncharacteristically lured by the increment in scholarship that I will get if I meet the deadline. I’ve said this before, and I am saying it again, we are grossly underpaid. Then I look at dad, grandma, grandpa and keep shut. Seems like a series of thankless jobs. But then that just means many who are doing interesting work are underpaid. Doesn’t justify my low pay-check. So I grumble anyway. And so yeah, money and accolades have been acting as carrots dangling in front of me to finish this off.

You may call me mercenary and praise-hungry. I don’t mind. I have always been mercenary and according to me, scientists need to love themselves and their work unapologetically coz most of the time, they are the only ones loving their own work. Corollary of that is whatever praise comes your way, lap it up. With cool shades. May not come ever again. Anyway, so I don’t mind someone attributing me with those adjectives. Honestly though, I wasn’t like this. Earlier, I would never ever ever ever think of work in terms of money or praise. I sought them in other spheres of life but didn’t think of research in terms of money or praise. So yeah, I have grown up and probably grown up for worse. Coz the moment you start thinking of your work in those terms, all the negative annotations of ambition will start creeping in like insecurity, professional jealousy, jack-knifing your colleagues, and I am absolutely clear that I don’t want to tread that path. I would like to believe that it’s just a phase, probably brought on by the colossal pressures of thesis submission and the importance we attach to it. Hopefully, I will steer clear away in the future. So, yes, I wouldn’t like to mix work with money or fame. Work is work, and should be done with a professional finesse without any thought about the perks it will bring. Geeta says the same too…Karmanyevadhikaraste, ma phaleshu kadachan…

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We are in an age of consumerism…and I get baffled when I see even ecologists fitting the stereotypes. Consume without a thought for future. This is a dangerous trend. I don’t want to sound patronizing (and cliché), but I seriously feel ashamed of the legacy we are leaving behind for future generations. ‘Today’ is the IT word these days, and philosophically thinking, a very nice concept - do things without worrying about the future – but when coupled with consumerism, it’s going to give rise to a very risky and perilous existence. My heartfelt admiration goes to people from our grandparents’ generation who may appear thrifty and frugal but know the exact value of resources. And exactly how it should be spent or consumed. Their actions may not have the support of thoughts and the actions may have at times arisen out of some other needs, nonetheless the outcome is praiseworthy.

BPM

I've realized just recently how potent a poem can be. If done right, a poem says so much more than a work of prose. Something in a verse form that makes it a literary dynamite if done right. So small, and yet so much to say. I was discussing about poetry with a friend of mine and I remembered how I completely abhored poetry in my growing up years (except the works of Kusumagraj and Chandrashekhar Gokhale, both of whom in their own ways revolutionized the Marathi literature). I thought of poetry as a very pseudo form of expression. Also a form which is very processed, and maybe that's why less appealing. Also poems and verses were for sissies. But I think the fault wasn't just with me. Many of the poetry books that were lying around the house were absolutely pathetic. Every other person in our circle had tried her/his hand at it sometime or the other and the house littered with these souvenir copies. I didn't realize that these were below average poets who just went for the art of verbal minimalism to appear someone that they are not. Their work didn't seem real. It was all so fake.

These adolescent presumptions disappeared one day as I bumped onto some hidden away tattered copies of Bhavani Prasad Mishr's poems. I picked it up solely because the book seemed to have been published by a professional publishing house. Also coz he was grandpa's friend, everyone talked about him so much and he was held in great respect by everyone in the family.

Many of his poems were incomprehensible. I just couldn't understand what he was trying to say. But the ones I understood, made me realize that this is not some fake poet trying to recreate the renaissance magic. He was simple, his choice of words was apt, and that he was giving a new meaning to whatever he was touching...even the most inane things in day to day life had been given a new perspective. I fell in love with his writing.



I wrote everything that I liked in the notebooks I kept.

I was 12.

One of the first poems that I read was sarvamsahaa, meaning one who endures everything. I am putting it here (hopefully without violating any copyright laws).

सब कुछ
तुम्हीं पर नहीं है निर्भर
भाई सूरज.
यह रज भी एक चीज़ है,
सारी सज-धज
उसी में से अंकुरी है.
धुरी पर अपनी
वह घूमती है,
तुम नहीं.
निष्क्रिय हो याने तुम
सक्रिय वह है.
प्रिय है इसलिए
वह तुमसे ज्यादा
तत्त्वों को.
पानी उस पर
बरसता है
बहता है.
वातावरण छाया की तरह
उस पर छाया रहता है.
ठीक हो तुम
ठीक है तुम्हारी गरमी
मगर
नरमी उसकी भी तो समझो ज़रा
क्या कर सकते थे तुम
होती नहीं अगर
होती नहीं अगर सर्वंसहा हमारी धरा!

- Bhavani Prasad Mishr

All I can think of these days is about food and sleep. More so about sleep than about food. Even in my sleep, I dream about sleeping...

The Clothes Parade...

At what age do they start making fun of you if you don't have the right clothes on? Anyway, I must be long past it.

Seriously we need to come out of this fucking biz town mentality and look hard in the mirror...dressed to thrill eh? Everyone seems to be so bothered about the way they dress...And mind you, not bothered doesn't mean good bye to cleanliness or smartly dressed...it just means little less time behaving like painted mannequins...

Trends and rules...in clothes? You must be kidding me...One has to be dressed in a certain way...the right way...why? Who decides? What right clothes? Let me not even ask Zen-ical questions like what's right...c'mon man, get a breather, get a life...there are more important things to think about...

Otherwise it becomes a mere dress parade of cheap attitudes accessorized by expensive brands...

The Memory Keeper's Post

We are talking, laughing, having great fun in general, and then you just decide to walk off...

You say you remembered something, some important thing to do but I doubt whether it’s really that or it’s you mutely asking me to ask you to stay. All my pleas of “just 5 minutes more” fall on deaf ears. Before leaving, you turn, give a quick smile and look at me once again. To see whether I’ve given up. If I have, there’s nothing to wait for anymore, but if I haven’t, then there is a chance that you will get to listen to some more persuasive pleading. And that, I think you just adore.

So sometimes, I don’t say anything, coz I know that the only way to make you stay is to play it cool. In expecting me to say something, you sometimes stay for even longer than intended, and that I adore.

Then again, sometimes, I beg you to stay just so that you’ll leave. I keep watching you until you disappear round the corner, and every step you take, every move you make, reminds me of things from the past. Your memories are sometimes fonder than your actual presence.

Do you feel that too? About me? Maybe I’ll ask this to you tomorrow. I’m not so sure how you will react. It’s just one of those hazy wayward thoughts occupying my mind. Today is the closest I came to asking you about it. But I ducked at the last moment coz this brain of mine went into a cerebral overdrive, I was a bit freaked out when I thought about the aftermaths.

Not today. Maybe tomorrow.

Will I hate it if you thought the same too? I don’t know. Maybe. If someone prefers my memories over me, I must be getting more and more uninteresting with every passing day.

I won't ask you that question after all.

It's a series of moments, this life. Of split seconds. And I have been spending them as if I have too many of them...I have been a spendthrift...I wanna live in this moment, without thinking about the moment I just left, and the moment that is to come. Too long has been spent in planning about what is to come. Too long has been spent in doing things to set things right for the mistakes committed in the past. Too long spent in being responsible. Too long has been spent in not living in the moment. I became a pawn in my own game. Just one life...I wanna live it the way I wanna live.

You know what I feel right now? I feel, I have to steal every possible moment of this life and savour it, feel it, live it. You know what I wanna do right now? I wanna do things that make me myself. That give me my identity. That make me a unique person. So what if everyone thinks that's stupidity? Why is everyone so afraid to be who they are? To do what they want? Coz it would mean, they wouldn't fit in? Who cares? My difference with the rest of the world is what makes me unique. And I am not gonna curb it and try to fit in. I will be labelled a rebel. Big deal...I am beyond labels. I am A...nothing else.

You know what I want to do right now? I want to feel alive by running in the rain, raindrops beating against my body. I want to jump from a clifftop into the raging sea and swim to the shore, to feel afraid, and to overcome the fear of feeling afraid. I want to sleep on the beach on a moonless night and wake up feeling deliriously happy. I wanna be loud and careless, singing at the top of the world with not a care. The wind in my ears and hair, a bike full of fuel and a mind full of attitude on a road trip...that's what I wanna do...And several such things...

I wanna do everything that my body desires and my mind minds just coz it would mean venturing into the unknown. At least once.

I am a free spirit and I want to remain that way.

As Tennyson says, That which we are, we are...

For everything, there's a trade-off.

It's raining...it's v.pleasant...

But it sucks coz my experiments are gonna be total wash-outs...the wasps detest this weather and turn highly asocial...almost as if they have wrapped themselves in blankets and enjoying a novel over a cuppa hot tea.

This really sucks...I just hope this doesn't push my experiments to the last day...

Women!

"You never try to get in touch with me by yourself. You talk to me only when I call..."

"You called, yes, but you sounded so dry..."

"Why are you being so artificial? You never showed so much interest before..."

"Is it so difficult for you to show some interest in my life? You are a self-absorbed narcissist..."

When I don't talk, you think I keep to myself. When I talk, you think I am dry. When I show interest in your life, you think I am trying extra hard. When I talk about my life, you think I am a narcissist. Well, perhaps, rightly so.

Ah yes, you have a problem with that too.

You can't have it all ways.

Cud Time

Realizing more and more that life's not about simple solutions...life's complicated, problems are even more complicated and solutions to overcome them have to be sophisticated, comprehensive and thorough. Such a good solution is so difficult to come up with...it's almost impossible...

The more you know, the more you realize what you don't know...

And the more you know what you don't know, more you realize that you are gonna fail...

I guess, you just don't give up...

It's gonna be one crazy summer...beginning of the end...dreading it!