The Deep Cut

While I had gone into a self-inflicted exile from blogging and major online activities in the past one month, I was roaming around the north-central parts of India. My journey started at New Delhi - the very seat of governance and strategic urbanization - and went on to rediscover the earthy Indian-ness in the obscure towns and villages of Uttar and Madhya Pradesh subsequently. Barely an hour after stepping down onto the capital city of the country, I could at least tick off one thing from the to-do list that I made prior to landing - a midnight 150 kmph bike ride with my cousin brother tearing into the ice-cold air, racing down the highway with heavy rain chasing our butts! While I was primarily engaged to the India Today Conclave commitment, I made some time to catch up with old friends living in the city. My childhood friend Tanushree took me for shopping at the Dilli Haat and the nouveau-riche locality of the Hauz Khas village. I returned the favour by treating ...

I have always tried to keep myself aware of the world around me. Take a peek into my life, and you'll find me spending quite a lot of my time on all kinds of news feed on my HTC device. Apart from science, I take interest in politics, sports, current affairs - national and international - literature, entertainment and in so many other fields. So when everyone I met in New Delhi asked me what I do, I found myself disappointing them again and again. "How does a PhD in Molecular Biology aspirant find his way to the 13th India Today Conclave?" They couldn't believe me further when I told them of my invitation as the official blogger for the event. Take a careful note, ladies and gentlemen. Take a careful note of the kind of social apathy a gap-toothed, bespectacled science student has to face everyday in his life!

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...

Every time I would be watching a match on the television, there'll be people behind my back stopping time and again to inquire about the game. 'What's the score?' they'll ask. Even my mother, who may not quite follow any particular sport, ends up asking 'Who's winning?' after some time. There's something about 'winning' that attracts everybody all around us. Countless are the inspirational speakers who have made quite a lot of money by quoting Vince Lombardi alone. Their success rate at inspiring even one member from the audience is however, dubitable. Countless still, are the inspirational  non-fiction   books in the shelves of a bookstore. Some of them even best-sellers! They all seem to promise the ultimate 'winning mantra' to their readers. And yet their contribution in influencing readers is something we can only guess at. Countless again, are the people who roam around pointlessly being part of the 'herd', oblivi...

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!

The last two years of every undergraduate student's academic life are riddled with some tough choices, hard facts and prominent decisions. It is the time of life when every student faces the dilemma of choosing either higher studies or finding a suitable job. Whichever decision they choose to pursue, it changes their lives in more ways than they would have   themselves  prepared for. Ask me, I have been through this terrific phase only recently. It has really been a tiring last few months for me - searching for courses, contacting the faculty, sorting universities made up nearly the whole of it. During the last few days in college, we had picked up on an anthem of sorts - assorted few lines from songs (such as the one below; selected few lines from 'What If' by Coldplay ) and movies that reflected of the difficult quandary we suddenly found ourselves in. This quandary is only supposed to be the parts and parcel of the growing-up phase, the prospect of which we always ha...

Blame it on Benaras, if I get even wee bit spiritual and lest my thoughts wander like a Bohemian  septuagenarian,  high on marijuana. The dimly lit ghats, the serene flow of the river Ganga, the calls of 'har-har Mahadev' throughout the city, the high and mighty cows and their cow-dungs and the foreigners smoking pot here, there and everywhere make Varanasi, the most vibrant and timeless city of India.  I also heard a man burp and follow it up with  'Jai Sri Ram!'.  A city, as old as history itself, Varanasi is witness to the migration of and subsequent settlement of Aryans in India. A city, that is regarded as the holiest of all the cities in the world. A city, where if you die, you qualify for all the shortcuts that take you to the heavens. And that, was the most ancient form of reservation, ladies and gentlemen. People who die in Varanasi get the first 10 seats on the Airbus, for a direct trip to heaven (wherein they'll be roasted and fried in boil...