Here I am!!

"Here I am, this is me, there's nowhere else on earth....." I feel like singing.. Yes I am in a really isolated place, a good one at that to be honest, called National Brain Reseach Centre, Manesar. On the work front, I am sort of quite confused and I haven't gotten into the groove yet. But there's another side to it. This is my first real hostel life. Hostel life is something i am super excited about, nevertheless, i can say i am indeed happy that I haven't lived it for long until now. This time, its my 2nd IAS fellowship. So this time around, I was actually looking forward to go around and get a good taste of the NCR. I did quite a bit of this going around, visiting places business last time too and I am always hungry for more of such stuff. It is just two weekends since i am here in this Godforsaken place(strictly in terms of its isolation and nothing else) but I should say I have already got some real adventurous experiences in my kitty.

Apart from the fact that i have indeed finally gotten into this routine of sleeping late, (something almost all the hostel friends of mine would know that i am very,very curious about) and having great fun in the process, this has brought out the brave girl in me, if i can happily say that. Lemme explain..

The first weekend was good fun going around in Delhi. Thanks to arun, we did quite a bit of roaming around business, exactly what i wanted! Arvi and Yuvi joined us from Noida. If u bother to note, its ppl from three different states meeting up.. Me from haryana, yuvi n arvi from noida, and arun from delhi. We went to CP(Oh i still remember the Kaventer's strawberry milk!!), then travelled by Metro (one of my loooooong time wishes) to Chawri Bazaar and there we were in Dilli-6!! "yeh dilli hai mere yaar!!" We actually went to the cramped streets of the place, went to jama masjid in the scorching sun. Scorching, for want of a better word... Omg! I have never burnt my feet in sandstone like that! It was so damn hot! I had boils all over the next day thanks to the super duper heat, but who cares! It was good fun and then we went back to CP(metro again!) and the day ended in delhi... My stint in Gurgaon started at 5 in the evening and i went into the most famous malls of the city, probably the country... Came back feeling lighter.. i mean, my purse became empty!

Then the second weekend... The saturday was one of the most boring days of my life. Very bad. No work, no fun. So we decided to go to "Gobind da dhaba" a typical typical highway dhaba on NH-8 opposite NSG campus. Its a small walk (small in haryana terms, it is actually quite far)from the insti so we made a quick plan and started off for dinner at 8. Then came the first hinderance! Aandhi!! Windstorm!! After it subdued (abated! scary GRE!!!!!) we started walking towards it... The insti's gate is a 25 min walk from the hostel. The security stopped us saying 'ladkon ke saath ladkiyon, raat ko, aat bhaje, yeh, voh'. It was one good crowd of people, obviously, there's absolutely no difference between guys and girls when it comes to good food! But alas, no! we werent let out! God! Our last hope for the saturday was gone! we returned back wid a biiiig frown, totally frustrated! So we took a cornetto at the 'monu ka mall' (in our lingo,it cant even qualify as a dhukan let alone a mall) the only thing called a shop near the insti, to satiate(!) our hunger, and drive away the frustu mood. It did no good. So we said, 'ok we shall go to Ambience mall tomorrow'. Ambience is that huuuuuge 3km mall.But again, malls can get indeed boring, really boring and u end up paying a fortune for getting bored! So we barged into the lab, at 11 in the night, googled on what all places we could visit in Gurgaon. Internet is indeed a boon for desperate people like us and the blogosphere and google maps, a even better bliss. So we noted down, made superb plans for the sunday to go into proper gurgaon. Until then, gurgaon had started and ended in sahara mall for us!Wow!! There were so many places to go!!

Sunday, i woke up early got ready, raring to go, explore gurgaon! 10 :45 was the time the NBRC van starts, well, that's what we thought and wrongly so. And i happened to forget the fact that i was living in a hostel where mornings start at 10! I woke up the other partners in crime that day at 10.. We were almost there at 10: 40... only to see that the bus had gone! GONE! leaving us alone in that isolated, god-forbidden(again, strictly with respect to its isolation) place! All our ambitious plans were shattered!


But wait! Weren't we supposed to be brave, daring girls? The bus has left, so what? There were no guys to accompany us, as silly as it sounds, for safety as they say, so what? It is after all a highway and there were thousands of people travelling on it. Why dont we venture out? Our frustration became our motivation!

So there we were, dabbing on our sunscreens, three of us, walking out of the institute, on NH-8, all alone, with just googled knowledge of where we wanted to go. Then came a tempo, as they call it here(i wouldnt even call it a vehicle with an engine) loaded with wheat sacks, we were asked to sit on top of the sacks! That was bad!! We said no!! We are adventurous all right, but it seemed to be a bad idea!

Then came another tempo, our saviour, this time, empty. We got in and finished off all the tropicana we carried along, thanks to the 11 o'clock sun. The tempo driver suddenly stopped at a temple, took some prashad and started giving us! All of us instantly shouted in the lowest of our voices"dont eat!"What if he planned to rob us giving us something! Okie, it wasnt a biscuit but still it was some eatable! it was oily and we had to keep it. It was prashad after all. Then the next shock! he suddenly stopped in the middle of nowhere and said, go to the other tempo! Apparently its a deal between them about who is to go first or sumthin. We ended up in a smelly tempo in the hottest of weather with some of typical haryanvi villagers. Weird looks were passed as if we were Martians! Wherever i went, all i could hear was something starting wid "akeli mein theen ladkiyon" stuff all over.. Why is this so bad???

But after three four shift, we finally came to the place - Sec 14 market!! It isn't such a big place n all, as u would probly think from my build up, its juz a decent market. But anything out of the institute and within gurgaon limits was heaven for me. Vishala was with us, who has never gone shopping in the whole of her life so she freaked out at the cheap kurtas and added to the exchequer! We gorged on street food(golgoppas and golas, the kala kattas stuff) searched all around for om sweets, ate like aliens to food, went to dominoes and yes we still had time to shop after so much of eating! I put on mehndi, my first love in north india! It was so intricate and good, only that i had to bear with some embarrasing questions and funny predictions about my brother in law the next day seeing the color! And as usual, we ended our day in sahara mall and gurgaon central that day too! We felt like we achieved something great in our lives and the whole insti knew what we were upto that day. Maybe now it sounds silly to me to blow such a simple sunday outing out of proportion, but trust me, the more u want and wait for sumthing, the better u like it. The frustration made us enjoy every second of it, all the more! And dont blame me if u wasted your time reading this, you gotta bear with it!

So yeah, Here I Am, waiting for my next weekend. The plannin process starts on monday morning, but the plans never turn out to be true. Somehow, the moments we have the most fun seem to be the moments that are most unplanned. So lemme wait, this time without any plans, but with loads of expectations, for the next weekend!! While all of u folks remember and keep reminding me that there is something called a week inbetween the ends and all of us are supposed to work!

Happy week ahead!!

P.S: The biggest miss of the first weekend was probably Ghantewala sweets. From my grandpa's days to this day, i have always heard, and once, i have myself tasted its mouth-watering sweets.I really wanted to go there, but somehow, it didnt strike me when i was right there at dilli-6. Well, that gives me one more reason to go to dilli-6 again!

Next, i found(well, actually arvi pointed out!) a truly mind-blowing innovation.May be it has existed for ages, but i have never known. Probably if they asked me to choose this year's Nobel, i shall give it to this. The thing is most, almost all, escalators have shoe brushes on their sides. What an idea! Save time; Save human labor/effort; Step out with sparkling shoes! Awesome! Hats off to the brain behind the idea! And many more hats off to the pioneering engineers of the delhi metro, of which one i heard was from Civil Engg dept of Anna Univ, obviously belonging to the old, glorious past batches.

No more reservations!

Indeed, this has been a personal, a mundane, small scale blog revolving around me and me only, so far. But i do live in a big bad world and i do have my very own humble opinions on a few things, however insignificant they might be. Of course, my opinions tend to be stronger in the issues i'm part of directly or indirectly, or those issues that have affected my life, for the better or for the worse. One such is this huge issue of RESERVATIONS, in education and employment, something which generates a big hue and cry everytime the elections or admissions are round the corner. Enough has been said and discussed about it, still, the issue is never settled.

So here, at reverberations, i wanna say a thing or two about reservations. I fully support the cause of differently-abled people or people from the lower economic strata. I completely endorse reservations in education and in employment for such people, only for such people. But the prevalent system of reservation based on caste and minority/majority is, for want of a better word, ridiculous. Nowhere else in the world, would people of the minority consider themselves to be more privileged than the majority, thanks to this funny system called reservation. The reverse is even more true. The people of the so-called forward class indeed repent their roots, just because it takes away a helluva lotsa opportunities from them. They see their dreams getting shattered through the narrowest of misses of the sky-high, himalayan cut-offs, all their hard work getting wasted in hundredth of a mark, while the so-called minority counterparts, happily walk into the coveted corridors of plum courses and colleges, with marks and merit way less than the original cut offs. What a pity! All this holds good, even if the minority person is better off economically,influentially, a son of a rich person(!)and drives to college in an Audi. And the forward class person is some poor kid of a middle class father who struggles to make ends meet. Okay at the next level, how far does that person who comes in via reservations really do well in that course? Wouldn't the seat have been better utilised by a person with more merit?
Why should so many dreams go futile because of vote bank politics and just because some politician just wants to get richer? Why can't we have reservations based only on economic status and not anything else like caste or minority? I just wanted to voice it out, open in public. Not that this outburst of mine is going to do any good to the system. Also, i do want to categorically state that this absolutely has no personal connotations, to whoever is reading it. I don't mean to take away any credit from the people who have gotten into colleges and jobs through reservation. I should also agree to the fact that sometimes the resources are indeed limited for a few students and reservation is necessary in such cases. But the problem has to be addressed at a different level, namely increasing the available resources or coaching for such people and not definitely by bringing down the standards of the renowned institutions. As Kamal Haasan once said, "Don't make mediocricity a standard". The best of institutions like IITs and IIMs should strive to be that - 'the best'. They can't go on diluting standards like this. A simple fact will clear the air: in Tamilnadu engineering admissions, the percentage of seats reserved is a whopping 69% . And the rest of the seats are not exclusively for the forward class alone. Its the open quota, wherein truly meritorious students of the other reserved classes also compete. Where are we heading to??
So the final word, let there be no reservations. Don't openly call a section of the people intellectually backward! And the people being called that way, don't consider it a previlige to be called backward! It's backward, after all, and they are saying you are, in some way, lesser! If at all reservations have to exist, let it be based only on economic basis, excluding the 'creamy layer' as the politicians love to call it!

And talking of matching frequencies, I found my thoughts to be very, very similar to (reverberate with!) this blogger's. But trust me, his clarity of thought, his use of language is better and this helps to discuss the issue better. Just fitting for an IITian who went in there by merit, i should say, nowhere comparable to me! But come on! the world is big and blogosphere even bigger! It has space for everyone, big or small, doesn't it?
Check out the link and do temme your take on the issue.
http://bawandinesh.name/reservations/

Jai ho!!!

I was literally on the seventh heaven when ARR won the oscar . How it must have felt to perform infront of so many people, win two awards hands-down and still remain as humble as he always is and go on to say ‘ella pugazhum iraivanukke’!! Wowww!!! The world is replete with success stories, from humble beginnings. They say ‘nothing succeeds like success’. Indeed. First it was the pussycat dolls making a remix of jai ho and now its kylie minogue in ‘blue’. People queue up to be with you and ride your success bandwagon the moment you succeed. Here’s the link for the jai ho remix. I would say i really liked it... But then..Nothing can match the original, however spiced up it is…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wltOf-nMn9g&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N28sZZW87lM&annotation_id=annotation_922707&feature=iv

OK. Why I am so bothered about ARR and his oscar (leave alone the fact that I am his die-hard fan, for the moment) is this: the first thing I did that day in the morning was to switch on the TV and watch out for ARR., His performance and his oscar.. I had my coffee mug in one hand and my dear, dearest, beautiful, sleek, intimate, enviable mobile on the other, sharing my jubilation with friends with the mobile, calling and smsing. Watching ARR reach the highest note of jai ho, I dropped both… out of sheer sleepiness. Thudddd!! And the mobile’s motherboard was gone! Along with my mom’s wonderful coffee! I did manage to get another coffee, but my mobile I guess is gone forever. Some how, mobile is something that has invaded our lives to an extent that it has become one of the most personal things, with a definite sense of attachment. Atleast to me. And living without those contacts(replying to every msg thereafter with a ‘may I know who this is’ is even worse!) and a few of those wonderful forward msgs I have treasured all along and all those memorable pics is really difficult. I just wish I get them back….

P.S: I recently read that the congress is planning to use jai ho as its anthem for the upcoming polls and priyadarshan is filming a video for it. Indeed, nothing succeeds like success. Shrewd move by the congress!

Rhinovirus genome sequenced! - Hope for a common cold drug...

I am gonna kill the next person who says 'something is in the air this february'.. everytime there happens to be a virus in the air for me - no, not the usual rosy love virus that everyone talks about.. in 2008 it was chicken pox virus and now in 2009, it was the common cold - causing rhinovirus, both during btx!!

But it turned out that my fever and cold during this btx actually did some good to my biotech knowledge. I googled a bit on cold causing rhinovirus, as I remembered reading recently that its genome had been sequenced. I have a cold often, i have been living with it literally. It's one of the most irritating and annoing diseases i have known and that probably made me to dwell more on his topic. Here’s something more on it.

Scientists say they have put together the pieces of the genetic codes for all known strains of the pathogen responsible for the common cold, in a work that might eventually lead to the first cure for the illness. Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the University of Wisconsin-Madison completed the genomic sequences of many strains of the virus, called the human rhinovirus, and assembled them into a “family tree” showing their relationships. The study appears in the Feb. 12 online version of the journal Science.There has been no success in developing effective drugs to cure the common cold, which is due to incomplete information about the genes. The researchers found that human rhinoviruses are organized into about 15 small groups that come from distant ancestors. The discovery of these multiple groups explains why a “one-drug-fits-all” approach for anti-viral agents doesn’t work. But, perhaps several anti-viral drugs could be developed, targeted to specific genetic regions of certain groups. The choice would be based on the genetic characteristics of a patient’s rhinovirus infection. While anti-virals seem the best bet, the data gathered from these full genome sequences gives us an opportunity to reconsider vaccines as a possibility.
The analysis found that some human rhinoviruses result from the exchange of genetic material between different strains of the virus in one person. The viruses also mutate often, helping them avoid being hunted down by the immune system.

Now we can put together many pieces of the human rhinovirus puzzle to help us answer some fundamental questions: “how these rhinoviruses might mutate as they spread from one person to another; which rhinoviruses are more associated with asthma etc .." With all this information at hand, we can see a strong potential for the development of the long-sought cure for the common cold.

My dearest rhino virus, baby u better BEWARE!! coz we biotech people are after you and not once again would a girl have to sorely miss a carrot halwa icecream topped deliciously with strawberry sauce for the fear of cold!!!

BIOTECHCELLENCE FEVER!!!

Quite literally so. It turned out that I had a bad fever during btx (for people who dunno, btx is the shortened version of biotechcellence, a national level technical symposium on biotechnology with international participation, conduced by the 6th semester students of Centre for Biotechnology, Anna university) that played a bit of spoilsport. Coming to the event, here are some of the afterthoughts that flash in my memory when I think of btx-09..

To start with, the highlight of btx this year..I remember reading these lines somewhere:

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods..
There is rapture on the lonely shore...
I love not man the less; but Nature more...”

Yes, Biotechcellence-09 went green! 10.5 lakhs, hundreds of colleges, 300 papers, a huge response just in proportion with the huge expectations, an explosion of innovative ideas… by any yardstick, it was indeed one of the best of department symposiums ever. Given the amount of planning and preparatory work that was involved, all of us in the class had been very very eagerly and anxiously waiting for Feb 19-22nd.

The preparation for btx would probably take up a longer post for me to blog about. As far as I was concerned, I was shuttling between committees, though officially I was in scientific affairs. What I did was in fact a very negligibly small portion of the work, compared to a lot of other people, who put their mind body and soul into it. I did a bit of sci affairs work (full credit to suman, though), a very little bit of sponsorship, a bit of competitions. The best was for the online quiz, for which apoorva and me prepared most of the questions. It was probably the most interesting of all the works I did for btx. I shall post the questions in this blog soon. The response was good too and that was the happiest part. Many contestants were actually kind enough to congratulate us on the work. Nothing like it!

On Wednesday, the 18th, we had a hands-on workshop for CBT iians conducted by eppendorf. The workshop was good to say the least. We did real time PCR and it was a good learning experience, as we really ‘did’ it, ‘hands-on’ unlike many other workshops. Then there was some last minute work as usual and the day ended…

The next morning was the inauguration. I was just hoping biotechnology and pharmacology actually work - in the sense that my antibiotic worked along with paracetamol to bring my fever down. It perfectly did! Not for nothing is medical biotech being touted as the next big thing! I woke up on the right side of the bed, and yeah, I remember the day for the saree more than anything else. There I was, quite guessably, in a blue saree. Saree in my view, is probably one of the most feminine and mystifyingly charming clothing the world has ever seen. Yes, it is indeed very uncomfortable and doesn’t let u to be the least tomboyish you wanna be, but it is indeed a wonder clothing. Coming back to the symposium, the chief guest was Mr. George, chief advisor to the Department of Biotechnology. The VC was present and so were the other dignitaries along with the Exnora chairman, Mr. Nirmal. We at Btx had really worked hard on the eco friendly aspect and it did pay rich dividends in the end. There were some ambitious plans being made by the policy makers – here the VC and Mr. Nirmal - about making Anna University a zero waste institution and all that. Would be great if biotechcellence provided the beginning for such good ventures. At least, it would be remembered beyond the 4 days, if all of these plans work. And then there was the ‘tribute to 14 years of btx’ that was released on the occasion
So, biotechcellence-09 started with a bang, a prelude of what was in store for the next few days. Probably the most tiring work I indulged in that day was covering up the bamboo dustbins with eco friendly sheets for easy clearance of waste. Quite funny. The food was good too, and I still feel sorry for having indulged in that ice cream that day coz it added to my sickness and I couldn’t attend the next day’s events.

The next day.. Practically the first day of btx.. And this annoying irritating fever, cold stopped my enthusiasm. The antibiotic didn’t do any good and rhinovirus got the better of my immune system. I decided to skip the day’s events and be fit for the next two days, which according to me were more important given the fact that the video conferences and the culturals were scheduled on those days. I did miss being there, of course. It was really frustrating to sit at home and do some work of putting up banners at the venue over phone. As usual, it was my friends who came to my rescue. From what I heard, though everything was really worth attending, there were two things I missed the most. The first was Dr. Yamuna Krishna’s lecture. Her research is simply mind blowing from what I had searched on the internet. Incidentally, she happened to be the first person who accepted our offer for a guest lecture at the event, that too in a very kind manner. When I saw the pics and from what I heard, I missed watching her in person, too. Apparently she was the coolest (actually the hottest, dressed up wonderfully in formal wear) among the guest lecture circuit. Somehow, women wielding power never fail to impress and inspire me, however small their reign and expanse of power might be. And here was a woman, standing tall with her achievements speaking for themselves, still, cheerful and down-to-earth like anyone else. Sure, women on top are always hot, in every sense of the word!

The second thing I missed was the project design event. There is a reason behind that. It was apoorva and me who framed the IDP problem for it, with the help of Dr. Ramalingam, our professor. It really felt great that so many people could take it so seriously, work on it day and night and come up with mind-blowing solutions to it. Really honoured and humbled.
On the 2nd day, there was the videoconference with Mr.Narasimhan Sudharsan, from Yale University who talked about riboswitches, followed by an array of interesting events.
The highlight of the day was the quiz, conducted b V.V.Ramanan of ‘the Hindu’ fame. Though the audience wasn’t as great in the finals as much as in the prelims, the quality of questions made up for it all.
Then it was time for the most awaited event of all, the Culturals. So we went to ‘Green Park’. Had a blast to say the least. Our performance of ‘desi girl’ turned out to be a disaster. It was quite good during the practice sessions, but bad luck!! The worst part was that, I was on an overdose of antibiotics just to sound good, without signs of the bad throat infection, but alas, my mic didn’t work and nobody heard me. We couldn’t hear the karaoke track on stage and ended up making a mess of the song. Thankfully, nothing sounded too obviously wrong as the mood was really upbeat and nobody really bothered about the quality of singing. It was indeed a great feeling when the ‘making of btx’ was screened. BP easily deserved an equivalent of an oscar for that athmika scene alone and hari as the cinematographer and eco-friendly ghajini was simply awesome. Though all the performances were indeed good, it was the song medley and the dance medley that all of us were waiting for, and obviously the ones that hogged the limelight. One thing worth mentioning was the stage decoration and that disco lights. It was superb.. party environs plus a dash of biotech.. just perfect!!
And yeah, the farewell for seniors was good too, with the candle lights and all. Must have been very nostalgic to them. Somehow I just hate to even think of seeing myself at the receiving end just a year from now. Okay let’s reserve that for another post. Back to the scene of action.
After the dinner, (which my fever didn’t let me enjoy to the fullest), I had a good ice-cream with strawberry sauce, (my first ice-cream in btx09), immediately followed by paracetamol and roxid-150! I didn’t want to miss the final day too. The day finally drew to a close. Time really flies when you are happy and when you don’t want it to.

I pushed myself out of bed literally the next day and I had forgotten my fever. I rushed just in time for Mr. Palani’s video conf. That was probably the best lecture of the whole of btx. He was the head of labeling dept of Invitrogen, USA. I shall find time to post more on the content of the lectures some time later. The basic technology was called ‘Click-it’. Awesome applications! It was followed by a host of events. Short films event was good. Met a couple of friends from other colleges, whom I had met in other symposiums. After the spin-a-yarn event, (Japesh had been going around with a heavy blazer all through the hot day just for the sake of that event! Poor guy! ) it was time for the valedictory function. The speech by Mr. Sundar was one of the best. Very interesting concepts and innovative ideas indeed! I actually wasn’t very much into it when I was distributing all those pamphlets with soluble films made of bio-based and bio-degradable materials. I thought of it as just another sponsor-tantrum. But Mr. Sunder was kind of the perfect marketing guy, who was quite convincing about almost everything that he talked about.

All good things come to an end, and so did Biotechcellence-09. (Completely out of context, this is probably why mega-serials are bad-coz they never end). All of us were quite happy with the way everything turned out. The faculty said it was ‘the’ best and that we left nothing more for our juniors to innovate. Probably they were generous enough, but still, nobody can deny the fact that, every single soul in 6th sem had worked for it in his/her own way, in whatever small or big magnitude possible. And that in totality contributed to the success of the event. Indeed, success is sweeter when rejoiced as a team!
To me, what made it so special were the little things - they made it all the more interesting- mud pots instead of plastic mineral water cans, the soft board with comments, the eco-friendly dustbins, Re.1 for exchange of plastic to paper bags, the disco lights during the culturals, the quirky volunteer cards, the bamboo sapling and pot painting mementos to the guests…. I can go on and on… and of course, some of the most interesting of ideas that couldn’t be implemented for some reason or the other - The energy producing eco-friendly machine, the eco-friendly mascot (arvind was the unanimous choice, obviously), using shankar-mahadevan’s NDTV green anthem as a theme (the tune composed by pritika actually suited the mood better, so we went with it), to quote a few… I wish the fun had lasted longer… In all, 4 happy and eventful days etched evergreen in memory..
Curtains fall!!!