The Deep Cut

P anic attacks, not Paris attacks. Although my condolences and solidarity is with them. I know I've been writing some really serious stuff on my blog almost exclusively, and that it's been a while since I wrote something lighthearted from my everyday life. In the desperate attempt to keep my blog relevant, I have sought refuge in promotional posts, movie reviews (which is worth it) and global issues. A panic move, perhaps. I have really been busy off late with work and otherwise. But as I am gearing up to spend most of December with family back in India and Christmas with my dearest friends, I might have found something to write about. So, here goes. I got a message from my sister a few days back. I read it while I was half asleep - 'I have emailed you a list of things you have to get me when you come home' . Alarmed, I woke myself up frantically and tried to get hold of the nearest gadget to view the email in it's full resolution. Reading emails from my s

A positive result in the lab was all I wanted on the day preceding the opening day of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015, which for me, was on the day before the Valentine's Day. And boy, the Western Blot didn't disappoint me - a little nerdy moment there. And in the wake of the good result in the lab, I realized that I could suddenly leave earlier than usual. I reached home at 5 and quickly tuned the TV to the streaming of the first game of the tournament. Sri Lanka versus New Zealand. And the first innings of the game was a good example to teach a fellow American (and also the average Indian armchair critic who has never played cricket beyond his own batting in gully cricket ) of how a long format of the game can be exciting and extremely dynamic. The game shifted sides so easily, swaying initially towards the hosts in the beginning and rather extremely, towards the end. While Herath and Lakmal tried to wrench it back in the visitor's favor during the middle overs.

These days, I find myself providing strange and quirky examples to elucidate certain   concepts in  molecular biology  to a classroom of 50 sleep-induced, hungover and relatively withdrawn young minds. "Imagine you want to murder someone.. and you want to do it with a knife. Why a knife? Well, because knives are slow and painful and you can see the fear in your enemy's eyes as life slowly drains away.." (Here I paused, to give theatrics a chance)  "..but then I go and hide all your knives away! You come into the room to face the person you want to kill. But suddenly you can't kill him - or her, not to sound sexist - because I took away the only weapon you ever had!" I paused, to let them try to figure it out a little by themselves before I give away the final conclusion of the elaborate example - "that's what EDTA does. It takes away the cation cofactors that the nuclease needs, in order to cleave the DNA. Get it? Get it?" Sometime

It must've been Phoebe, who woke me up a wee bit earlier than I expected to get up yesterday morning. In all fairness, I had fallen asleep late the night before. It was only after I had my dinner, did I start watching the 'Nick Nite' marathon of the never-gets-old TV series that, as I realize only now, is actually a typing nightmare! If you consider the full stops in between each of the unique capitalized letters from the English language... F.R.I.E.N.D.S! While I was doing that, I heard the neighbors drive in late in the night. It was a Friday, so it's only normal. I spied on them for a while from the gaps in the blinds. When they had moved inside their house, I noticed two extra cars parked on the parkway in front of my house. As if the repeatedly rhythmic sound of the bed springs from upstairs wasn't enough to tell me that both my roommates had had their 'better halves' come over after a long time. One of them had brought along her dog, named Phoeb

Last few weeks have been such a whirlwind that I've been all like Whaaa-?! Okay, so I really dunno and I'm also kind of clueless about what to fill you guys in with.. except.. that suddenly one day I decided to pack up my things back in Kolkata, and shove everything to the back of that giant thing they call an aeroplane (and hop in to like 4 of them - connecting flights) to travel halfway around the globe to this place named Tallahassee, in Florida. Unlike back home in India, where a state-capital city is like a big bustling, marginally chaotic city (usually the biggest in the state), the quiet and slow college-town of Tallahassee is the state capital of Florida. Not Miami, as you'd have  perhaps   thought. Don't worry, same mistake was made there! Nothing could've prepared me for that REALLY LONG journey than perhaps the craziness of American college football (which you get only here, so there goes that plan)! It was something like this: Kolkata to Delhi (2:3