The Deep Cut

A pparently, some of my best pieces of writing are the ones where I write about my attempts at staying in shape and keeping up with personal health. For over a year now, much thanks to my never-changing eating habits and the fatty nature of Estadounidense food (not American food, because 'This' ) I've begun ballooning. It's almost like the fat trapped inside Anant Ambani's body is transiently entering in my body, without my permission. Technically, that'll be an  'invasion' but they're rich people, so who's to listen? Look what Russia did to Crimea (shakes head). I was so pumped up before November, last year. "Must. Lose. Weight." had become my slogan. I had stood naked in front of the mirror (despite early near-fatal shocks, I've conditioned my eyes to stand the view) a number of times, narrowing down the parts of the body that I need to cut down or build up. Some parts didn't need to be touched at all - they worked just f

A s y'all probably know, I went home to India last year in December. I met, snuggled and caught up with my family, cousins, girlfriend, friends, their families, the house staff, the local grocer and the the homeless man down the street. No I didn't exactly snuggle with the last two. They all asked me about my Floridian life and whatnots. They carefully stayed away from any kind of update on my work life. They're not a very 'sciency' bunch back home. Which was good, because I took a backseat from all the work and instead tried to suck in all the Indian-ness that I've missed all this time. The first thing I did was talk in my UP-waali Hindi with the cab driver on the way from the airport to where I stayed the night in the capital. "Bhaiya, thand nahi padi abhi tak aap ki Nayi Delhi mein?" I started a warm conversation about the speculated delay in the onset of winter in New Delhi. "Nahi, sir ji. Thand ki toh maa ch** rakhhi hai Dilli

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

(Continued from How to be a Workout Nazi ...) "I also remember a guy during those initial days of gym. He used to go Ryan Gosling from  Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)  on us in the locker room. Although not fully nude, he would strip down to his bare minimum and do some free-hand exercises that would require lots of bending and twisting. Things, you don't want to see on your first day at gym. So, trust me when I say I braved it out there in those initial period. Trying to gel in, I stripped down myself to those shorts showing some skinny legs, lest they think I was homophobic!" The biweekly weight check and diet counselling was carried out by a professional who sits in an office at the ladies' gym. Not so surprisingly, everyone at the men's gym wants to get their weights checked all the time. After 4 weeks of working out (and two discarded, outgrown t-shirts later), I was asked to get my weight checked at the office. Little did I know, that th

Apart from the fact that I almost fainted on the very first day of it, working out at the gym has rather been a unique experience. I've met some peculiar people there, have encountered some eccentric work-out routines and have come across some distinctive personalities not directly associated with the particular form of 'healthcare'. Sometimes, your whole life boils down to that one insane experience to write a blogpost about. In two parts, in this case. After being cajoled into obtaining a membership at the local gym, I remember to have regretted it immediately afterwards. I mean what was I thinking? Were my 'club-sandwich-for-breakfast' and 'chicken-wings-for-snacks' days over? Was I really going to commit to such self-inflicted atrocity? It certainly seemed like that at the moment. And quite unfortunately, now I had an entire family in support of my decision! Now although you'd think my physique always needed a facelift, I assure you it

The art of Begging. To thee, I must confess, this weird interest of mine has just become an obsession. I have asked people around me for help. But they only seem to say 'Boy, you're a sadist!' or 'That's so cruel!' or 'Kaam-dhanda nai hai terku?' - that last one is a Hyderabadi friend, so the accent is perhaps understandable. But no one seems to pay enough interest to the various beggars around the country and the different styles they adopt. Most of the beggars in the country are poor, as it usually goes with the formula 'I don't have money, so I will browbeat you to give me some money until you break down with guilt.' But that doesn't seem to work in our country anymore. Being irreversibly poor just doesn't qualify. You have to have that extra 'thing' to score big money. Confused? Let me share how. Yesterday I was walking down the Theatre Road, on my way back from the US consulate. I was happy, as I just go

I have few of the finest childhood memories associated with certain movies. Movies like the 1998 Hollywood-made Godzilla, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and a couple more associate themselves to the times of when I was a lonely kid living in a Dickensian hostel. These movies had released in the time when I was that starry-eyed little guy out to discover science fiction and some damn good animation in contemporary movies. Notice how I make it sound a little too intense? Well, so ever since I saw the trailer of the 2014 redoing of Godzilla, I've sworn upon myself to watch it within the first week of it's release. It wasn't about the stars (Brian Cranston was always supposed to do justice), or the mayhem, or the artistic improvements (Mothra became M.U.T.O. and we thank God for that), or the original interpretations dating back to the Japanese origins of Gojira either. It was for the very reason that made thi

So the greatest show on earth is over. The timing of this post is to make sure that you don't herald the ongoing Indian Premier League or the IPL as the greatest show on earth, even by mistake! And no, I'm not referring to the wedding reception of the octogenarian Congress leader ND Tiwari either. This year was, in no doubt, the most 'fun' and 'crazy' election India ever had. There were ample amount of drama this year with crazy gambles (we had a brand new party in AAP), a nerve-wracking climax (the 49 days of ruling Delhi) and some titular characters - a seasoned villain, a working class hero, a sidekick with presumably no allegiances and lots of comic relief. Made for Bollywood, requiring no further script-writing whatsoever. Mr. Prakash Jha, you listening? Oh sorry, the socio-political filmmaker turned JDU candidate from the West Champaran Lok Sabha constituency of Bihar must be feeling a whole lot down having lost his chances this election. But it is only

All my train travels being interesting, I decided to do the extreme this time. Its a screaming 42 degree celsius in Kolkata, and I decided to travel to Bangalore on a sleeper class ticket on the Indian Railways. Yes, I was the original inspiration behind movies like 'Bheja Fry' . The only sane logic in all this was that wherever I would go, the temperature could only dip. I stuffed my rucksack with everything I did not need and a handful of things that I absolutely required. Then I latched a dozen water-bottles to my hand before I embarked on the journey. Immediately, I made acquaintance with an uncle, who asked me what I do. Making no sense of telling him that 'Dear uncle, I am a jobless globetrotter currently, and still so for another 3 months' , I fast-forwarded my story to a couple of months later and told him that I'm pursuing doctoral studies in the field of cell cycle and cancer. He jumped off his seat and introduced his unmarried daughter to me.

I have come to realize that my parents must've had some really bad confidant during the time I was born. Otherwise why on earth would they give a go ahead for me to be named Arindam at the age of only a couple of days? Do I, or did I ever look like an Arindam? Ughh. Arindam! So I have a problem. And before you say anything that falls along the lines of 'I told you so' please let me clarify. I've come to realize that my name wasn't always what it is now known as, to everyone. At some point of time, my parents had casually listened to some relative and had me   named  Arindam. Ughh. Arindam! What comes to your mind when you think of someone with the name Arindam? What indeed?

Ever since the arrival of two new neighbours, return of an exiled habit, proof of lives in the 6 rooms that face my balcony and a family of sparrows to nest under our air conditioning system, life in my neighbourhood has been different, to say the least. Freud will tell you that people tend to resist change. That they'll almost always react badly to it. But by a twist of natural law, my neighbourhood seems to have welcomed it. There is harmony, cohesion, gossip at the local 'jagrata' club and random acts of rather unusual behavior seem to have made a comeback with a reinvigorated sense of purpose. All this in a matter of months.  Mum says this is normal for our neighbourhood. And that all I needed   to realize this,  was to spend just a little more time at home. I'm guessing she's right! Like always. After fighting a legal battle for ages, the ownership of the land lying right in front of my house was awarded to the local college for women. They were supp

I have come to realize that I belong to that unfortunate category of people who cannot get any of their official work done without a couple of hiccups. The last time it was the passport office, about which I have written earlier , this time it was the Public Vehicles Department office at Kolkata. While I know how to drive a four wheeler, I have not yet procured a licence to drive on Indian roads legally. So I restricted myself to drive on lanes instead, trying to avoid hitting anybody on the road. Only once did I brought someone's door down to it's knees (so what, no one was hurt... and it was a long time ago). Being a nomadic soul (because it sounds so awesome instead of 'transfer ho gaya' ), I have never really been in one particular place for long, and so I never realized the need to get a licence there. But now I do. I need to get it done as soon as possible, as I have some spare time now and prospective reasons, such as road trips and weekend escapades!