Hmmm

The exhaustive rush from the green-house to lab to the friday morning seminar made me miss my morning coffee. Promptly, my friend brought me a mug to the seminar. The coffee was just perfect. From the temperature to the mix of decaf to Columbian blend, no one could have gotten it so right. Thats when I thought of this.

Another night, three girls bunked together trying to make my friend come out of depression. We watched Sex and the city, grey's anatomy and Private practise over oreo cookies and avacado smoothie till four A.M. Probably not the most unhealthy way of coming out of a relationship. But what the hec, atleast she did not have to take seratonin. We continued the ritual till she could gradually move to "out-door" activities or people.

About recently, an hour of empty, cheesy conversation with my best friend across the seas made me break out my week-long unknown monotony and PMSs.

One of my best memories from college, is taking walks. We used to wait until we loaded our "gel" which would technically take about 45 minutes to "run". We would delve into a little escape into the backyards of our college. The college I did my Post grad in did not have a green campus. But behind the buildings was pretty much wild. I dont think we were allowed to go there. We would sit on a little water tank, and talk. They were the most brilliant conversations I have ever had. We did not talk about people, places or career plans. It would just be thoughts. We would almost reach a schizophrenic state of self-realization with the warm Madras sun on our necks and a bottle of powdery chocolate milk. Looking back I can feel the warmth on my cheecks and twinkle in my eyes that came just from those talks.

Here it is. Raising a toast to all my girl friends who form the thickest whipped cream layer!

diwali!!!

Its 6:00 AM in Madras right now, and the air probably is filled thick with fog and a strong smell of patas is permanently in the air. Without a second's gap there is vedi satham. Its probably the second or third round of crackers, some of the kids' hands are silvered with chemicals. There is definitely "vellai appam" and chutney followed by okkarai awaiting for breakfast and a whole round of patti mandrams and Rajini movies to top it all. My nephew and neice am sure are discussing who burst the first thousand wala and at what time standing below first block, Seetharam apartments, while am googling diwali videos in youtube with a gel waiting in the lab to be run.

I definitely miss diwali at home, though my memories are getting fainter by the year. Its the third year outside home and I have to constantly remind myself of how it used to be. There are distinct memories though. A bunch of us hanging around in third block terrace at six AM after heavy cracker bursting for three hours. There would definitely be one scene putting girl claiming child labour and not bursting patas. Then there would be salwar/frock comparisons, visitng cousins, vellai appam for breakfast and sight aduchufying (the only day probably the men in my apartment used to look presentable), followed by a monotonous afternoon of bijili bursting. The nights were saved for the best new dress and vana vedikkai.

Unsuccessful attempts to make it seem like real diwali in this place. Drawing a maakolam with lamps and making ladu (which is more like boondhi in sugar) makes me look even more stupid. The dot should probably be reminded of the thalai diwali. He has probably spent just four hours sleeping in the last 48hours and is living on a caffeine-iv. Its definitely a better idea not to put undue pressures of nalla-ennai during finals week.

All said and done, its still a lot of fun to have diwali nights way after real diwali is finished, pot luck dinners, light lamps and hear patas over the phone. But the attempts to make this place seem like real diwali will be persistent however stupid it looks.
Happy diwali to all those who have the luxury of India.

Noble?!

Some of the most inspirational men I have met till now are scientists. The prejudice here is only due to the limitation of opportunity to meet a lot of others. Sydney Altman (catalytic RNA- Nobel in chemistry, 1989), Craig Mello (RNAi nobel 2006), Anders Naar, Anindya Dutta, Ashok Srinivasan and Ahmad fakhoury. There is nothing common about them. I did not see the "burning passion" in their eyes or a tremendously dynamic personality in them. What I saw was an "I work for myself" attitude and a bow-down in complete obeisance humility towards science. They were good spokesmen, excellent thinkers and had a down to earth attitude when speaking to 20 something young minds. There were two things that clung on to me that were blog-worthy. One, when a bright young bulb piped to prove his interes in making conversation with anindya asked "how do you define a good student?", without a second thought he replied, "Just do what you love". It was not altogether about the statement. It was more about its timing and the momentum with which it came. "When someone has to tell you, you need to put in more work, you are a lost case." I found a strict teacher, a chronic workaholic and a man ruled by his mind in him.

Second, small talk with Anders Naar lead to a conversation about learning. "What is all this hue and cry about love-to-learn, enjoy everything you do attitude? It just doesnt make sense. How are you going to understand or appreciate this world if you have to learn only what you love?". Maybe crudely put but very true. I did not like calculus, strongly loathed high school probability and could not understand what the hec was bernouli's theorem. I hated mugging the multiplications tables and strongly disliked homework in any shape or form. But I have reached a point where multi-disciplinary is absolutely essential and now appreciate myself for having that knowledge.For even being just a molecular biologist requires atleast once a week of complex math solving. Everything is not fun or cannot be made fun, but sometimes its required to bite the bullet and swallow it. And once the head is set right, it just amazes you how much you can take in so easily and how much you fall in love with learning.

Change....

"How has marriage changed you?" In answer I would retort with a stupid joke like I dont have to steer my hang baggage into the restroom everytime when we travel. But in truth, it has changed me a lot. I feel different. I feel secure and grounded. I feel like there will not be anymore self inflicted roller coaster rides, and even if all the time I dont feel like I am on the top I wouldnt keep noticing how hard it is to be at the bottom.

I dont yearn for approval from anyone, even him. I know I have his. I wake up everyday feeling beautiful, even if he is not around to tell me that. I cook a stash of food and store it away, without the slightest thought of how it is going to taste. It doesnt matter. I still like my taste in clothes, movies and my opinions on the world and now I say it louder. Maybe I was a highly insecure person before marriage and thats why the change. Maybe its too soon to say I am happily married, but I am bursting inside and I cannot keep it anymore.

Amazing Paati (contd)

"Indian coffee!!" Paati would proudly refer to the pazhaya satham kanji and thats enough to send my mind on a road trip from Madras to Shimla, kadayam or Aravankadu. She would describe her routine prior to marriage (which was when she was 13). Her mother made her draw the kolam, clean the house and sit and do math tables. If she outdid all her sisters, her dad would open a small wooden cupboard and give her a square of "english chocolate". In the afternoon her mother would have found pieces of cloth for the sisters to sticth, and only then were they given their mid-morning meal. I was ashamed at my 13 year old self.

This was a "routine", and Paati's life was full of routines. Paati would also recall as to how during her time mother and daughter were pregnant at the same time. Its just another routine mid-wifing and child rearing. While dosas were a luxury, the pregnant women of the house alone got big dosas made out of "nalla-ennai". Then there were stories across the country, on how cold Shimla was that she had to be given a "thee kayam" when she was born and how she managed an entire household in Calcutta with just 30 rupees and she herself being just 18. Incidents that demand atleast significant amount of great grieving, like how they lost the T.Nagar Coats road house, next to the present ugly GRT thanga maligai (am sure its worth several crores now), gave away their Sion house in Mumbai gracefully and how her husband was cheated at his work were told nonchalantly, with an air of practicality. It was her nature to not be emotional over wealth. She just had to feed everyone who was under the shelter, be it her own children, her sisters' children or a distant far-away relative.

The trams that run across Madras, my thatha's routine (whom none of the grandchildren have met), his way of life, the summer trips to Veeravanallur thirunelveli district, her mom's house, along with a minimum of six children (if they had six children, she got a free ride as a guardian) set me fascinated. Chithra pournami at the Sashtha kovil which was set in the interior of a thoppu and considered dangerous to travel on your own and Thenkasi Sivarathri celebrations sounded truly exotic. During the nine-day navarathri all the "kanya pongal" would kummi around a center kolam at the agraharam, made me want to live in Chenkottai or Sundarapandipuram (Since she described veeravanallur as dry). She would re-call marriages, teach the origin of customs, basics of theetu-pathu, her idea of astrology etc. She can beat an IIM-MBA without even a high school degree. The way she would describe food at her house, aah thats a whole story altogether. It would make my mouth water even if I had had a full three course meal just a few minutes earlier. There were aluminium tins always filled with murukku, thatai and cheedai and children back from school would run straight to it. And then the thinagai maavu urundai. I dont think I liked the palm sugar stuff half as much as I did when she described it.
This is how I wasted my study holidays during college listening to innumberable stories rendered with the most amazing details and right emotions, post the 3:00P.M coffee break.

I dont think she lived an opulent life in the least. But I think its her practicality, acceptance and more than that cheerfulness that gave it the wealth. She would describe money management, losing her husband (whom she completely doted on), getting her girls married with the bare minimum that she had, without sentiments or emotion. Thats how life is. What was important was to not lose your spirit or your "routine", in other words, the discipline.

Well, its three hours since I read "The toss of a lemon" and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Being brought up by my maternal grandmom, a strict widow herself and the house run like any other Iyer household, I could totally relate to it. The blog is a result of gushing memories of paati.

Amazing paati

There is a purple coloured blanket at home with a pink border on it. It is made out of a madisaar pudavai that I wanted to hold onto forever. It still has a faint smell of paati, its a mixture of vibuthi and her cooking and for a second I can almost feel her skin.

When she used to sit down with her afternoon coffee, she would always be telling me stories of herself, the family etc. That was probably my moral science book.Being a fifth standard pass, but having learnt immensely from the world, she would appropriately use sophisticated english in her stories. From her stories, I had great respect for just two kinds of people in this world. One, people who "pulled their life back together". Its not a big deal if you have your life planned out, you had great parenting and you did amazing well in school from grade one. But it is if you had gotten into drugs, cheated on your wife, ran away from home, shrunken responsibilities, but at the end of the day managed to pull your life back together, and do great. The other, are "self-made" people. She would raise her thumb up, bring her lower lip up and say that about someone. My heart would swell up with pride for that person. This category of people probably attracted me the most and I probably married one too.

Well there are probably a hundred and one things paati had taught me, this is not to list all that. Its just to re-iterate that I think only two things matters in life. One, to be non-judgemental, and the other to work hard in continuously shaping yourself. I am glad I atleast know these things.

Back to wilderness??

When Thomson woods donated 750 acres of land to the Illinois state, his only condition was that the land should be maintained as it was. And as an honour to him the SIU campus till date is WILD. You would have huge deers, small fox and snakes as your passers by, and racoons to eat your garbage at night. Signs like "Fawning season, Deers can attack" and e-mails that warn you of a viper on the prowl are not uncommon. The first week I loved the campus having immigrated from a concrete sticky jungle. Then there were mood swings. I just hated seeing crawling objects all over, pest controling like I lived in the Amazon jungle and having to walk around a beautiful lake with the fear of attacking animals. When an inland tornado hit Carbondale it cleared out most trees but still left another 100 standing making it difficult to walk, and worse, we had to live without power for four whole days. Life stops in the United states without power. No gas stations, which means no groceries, no internet, no charging phones, no connection with the external world, no work, nothing. But plenty of sunshine, outdoor cooking,(most of our stoves work on electricity), late night on the lawn conversations, cricket with strange guys, eating at an "Agadhigal Mugam" and playing cards by candle light followed. It was a lot of fun, like camping from home itself. We were almost sighing when power was restored. I just loved the campus then.

Immediately, the whole India-wedding escapade followed. At one point of time, I had no clue what was happening and was not sure if I was the victim. Trust me, its a difficult job being a bride and trying to look good. The only things I really did the last one month was hop from Sundari to nalli to RMKV (in Madras summer), matching bangles with sarees and cleaning my feet obssessively for the "metti" episode. Its actually slow poisoning. At first your forced into it. At first you find amma and the chithi/periama gang continuously telling you that you have to shop intelligently, its your D-day, explaining why you cannot have a simple temple wedding, how yours is the only second daughter's wedding in the family etc. But before you know it you are deep into it with no one to blame. You are practically practicing your bridal smile, a bridal walk trying not to look like kudurai, deciding on "pinnal styles", deciding intricacies like whether an arching eye-brow shape or a normal one looks good with the bridal get-up and apadiye all cold feet is thrown right out of the window. I now understand how Indians have little or no cold feet. They have 101 ceremonies and 10001 people to worry about which leaves no room for anything. But its fun all the way. But yeah coming to the point, after all that, am glad to be back to Amazon jungle, even if I am missing the important other. I am glad to be back to MacDo meals, around the lake walks, biking across the campus, grocery shopping, Ipod walks, sitting around, walking around the lab like a zombie, PCR setting/gel loadings escapades, girls' gossip at the office, coffee at four at StuC, late night-nonsensical journal reading that will never ever help me in my research, eternally eating chana dhal and frozen veggies for dinner, uncombed hair and mukka pants, free food and PHD comics. Am back to the grind and loving it. And the cherry on the top is that its summer and its beautiful outside. The campus I described above is as wild and beautiful as ever.