The most annoying question in the world..

..has got to be "Who else is coming?" or "Who else is with you?"

F***ing A!! That has got to be the single most annoying question anyone can ask. I don't know about anyone else, but my blood boils over. 

I don't much care about how great I may be to hang out with or not, but you've got to have almost zero social skills to ask someone that.

Next time try to ask :

1. "Is so and so also coming?"

2. "Do we have a plan?"

3. "No ! I've got other plans!"

Asli, Purvi, Prem, Moya, Ani, Vishal, Ruchita, Nikhil, Niraj, Nilay, Nirav, Sima, Nipa, Namita, Gaurav, Maha - My "reliable crowd"needs a special mention to have never asked this question !

Just not prepared...

So I just walked out of my teaching assignment and it was dismal at best... GOD ! I was so not prepared to teach...well, that's not entirely true. I did read up and solve the problems and thought that I had it all worked out well on paper and in my head..apparently not.

I started off well, had the classes attention and then I blundered in one problem. That's ok...I'm not perfect. I made a mistake but I didn't panic. I looked at what I'd written on the chalkboard and then I panicked !! I was completely lost..I had no clue what came next. I turned around, looked at the class and I guess they could see the big "?" on my face..it sucked to see that look on their faces.

I asked them to give me a moment and I ended up taking several. I still didn't get it. All I could do was apologize to them. I guess this is the first time it has happened to me and so I blundered all over the next 20 mins remaining in the section. Ultimately I could only apologize to them..not because I was sorry that I couldn't explain it to them - but because I wasted their time and ultimately their money. I looked at the problems after the section and I could solve every one of them in a matter of seconds...

It was embarrassing, humiliating and extremely humbling. I wasn't not prepared for the recitation; I just wasn't prepared to blank out.

I didn't teach much today; but I learned so much....

A new lady...

has entered my life.

She is petite though her body is slender and sleek. She is learning her grace now. She is active in a playful manner, always inquisitive but at the end of the day just wants to cuddle.

I am happy she is in my life...everyone meet Mica.

Ooff!! The arrogance...

I absolutely detest arrogant people. We're going to come across arrogance everyday; out in the streets, in the workplace, in the home, at school...I hate it.

In academia I feel that I've come across two types of it. The first kind, "I know this is true, been proved many times and what you're saying is utter nonsense." is tolerable. This I've seen from professors who have maybe 40 odd years of experience and accumulated knowledge and are willing to listen to arguments. In the end they may be wrong, but these types of people are willing to change their minds. I can accept this...the brief flare up of anger inside me can be just that, brief.

The second kind, "I'm sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about. I've personally never seen this and I don't think that it can be true" type of arrogance just gives me a peptic ulcer. I've noticed this sort of thing come up in post-docs and other PhD students most often. What nerve !!! In your academic learning life of maybe 6-8 years, you're trying to tell me you've never seen this?? Absolute rot. I've experienced this first hand. It normally starts of with little disagreements, then finger pointing at how inept you are and then finally to open disdain. Well...screw you.

Another form of arrogance, and this may pass of as unnoticed, comes from success. You're successful (in this I mean by how much you earn..nothing to do with whether you're doing a good job or not) and I've heard many times - "Hah ! How can you not get such and such?! Please stop complaining about money. Let's go on a vacation. Come on...are you serious? Surely you can do this..." I've been the giver and receiver of such arrogance before - I hope I've improved in the giving department.

I cannot stand arrogant people and I am more than willing to tell someone to take their stupidity and immaturity somewhere else. No one deserves to be arrogant.

A minute of silent distraction...

A minute's silence, a moment of contemplation, respect for the departed...we've gone through this. Almost all of us. Maybe it was a national hero or leader's passing away, maybe it was a celebrity or someone.... I'm sure we're all been asked to bow our heads down and take a minute or so to think about...what exactly?

At the last international orientation volunteers' meeting we were asked to have a moment of silence for the departed. What is this moment of silence for? The first thought I had was of course of how they passed away. It was a tragedy that they did, but if it was to be a moment of silent respect..then I didn't have any. The driver was drunk and he got two of his friends killed. No...no respect there. But I didn't know any of them and it may be a little harsh on my part. Whatever...after this extremely brief period, I started thinking if I'd ever done anything stupid like that. I didn't. If I feel like I've had half a drink too many, no driving. I guess the correct and right thing to do is not have a single drink when you're going to drive. After spending three seconds on that, I moved on to other distractions. Looking sneakily around, wondering what other folk are thinking, thinking about what exactly you ought to think about? Is there a point to this?

Moments of silent respect - I had these when my grandfather passed away. I think I respected him more than any one I've ever known. But losing someone very close to you don't end with a moment of contemplation; they're normally long periods of mourning and remembrance.

Thinking back to all the times where I've been asked to silently contemplate....I cannot remember even a single time where I wasn't distracted in about two seconds. Its awkward; most of the time you didn't know the person well enough to think about them. The moments after are even more awkward I think - people looking around each other wondering if someone caught them staring at their bellies or looking around wondering which one wasn't paying their due "respects".

I don't know....what do you think when you're contemplating such things?

You work with what ?!

A lot of people who I meet will ask me what it is I do. I will normally start with I'm doing my Ph.D and then they'll be in what - and I'll say molecular biology or cell biology. Then they'll be "WOW ! That sounds tough" or "That's great !" or " My god ! I don't have the patience for that ! You must have a special kind of calm." :)

After that the conversation is normally done (80% of the time..), but a few times I'll be asked "Oh. What exactly do you study?" and I'll be "Aging and I have particular interest in muscle aging." That 99% of the time is the end of that discussion. Very rarely I'll be asked "So how do you particularly study this...?" and then I'll start a whole series of "Ewwwwwww" or "Yuck..." or "REALLY?!" by saying that I work with worms.

My work revolves around determining what, if any, is the role of small RNA molecules called microRNAs in aging, especially muscle aging (Not going to talk about microRNAs!!). Since these are molecules, I should say at the outset that I am in general a molecular biologist and more specifically a molecular geneticist - since these tiny RNAs have their own genes.

So coming back to worms….Now please don't confuse what worm I'm talking about.

These are NOT the worms I work with - but this is the sort of image that most people hold in their minds. And earthworms are very useful as everyone knows and are actually studied. But they are not model organisms - they are not used to generalize a phenomenon or extrapolate a phenomenon studied in their species to our species, at least, not that I know of.

A model organism is one in which a basic or specific biological phenomenon can be studied in detail and extrapolated to having the overall same mechanism in rats, monkeys, dogs, horses, armadillos, and of course the only real organism we care about, humans. A model organism is usually a simple, well-defined system of whose basic biology is easy to understand and shares (we hope) at least some conserved features across different species of animals (and plants and microbes). They should be easy to maintain and rear, they should not have very long generation times (ideally) and finally if possible, their genetics should be well understood (for my field).

The model organism that I study, the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, is almost microscopic (the adults are normally 1mm and even the mutant long worms are no larger than 2mm). It is completely transparent and is composed of exactly 959 cells (yes! Someone did actually sit and count every single cell and every single descendent of every single cell from the one celled stage). It lives for ~3 weeks in the lab (and it is my duty to make them, and by extension us, live longer and happier) and is super cool J

Here is a video of it moving around on the plate-

C. elegans has been used to figure out the details of several very important biological phenomena including apoptosis (how some of our cells are programmed / induced to die in response to starvation, damage, infection or just while they are forming the organism e.g. our fingers are webbed while we grow - cells in between are programmed to die so we have separate distinct fingers), RNA interference and microRNAs (this is what I study and received last years Nobel Prize in medicine), the signaling that goes on between cells when we’re embryos and a whole lot of other stuff. It’s also been a model for muscle aging since the muscles it uses for movement age and deteriorate almost identically to our own.

In any case - I’m writing this so people have an idea about what model organisms are and why worms and the other model organisms shown below are useful - after all it would be slightly problematic to create mutants of humans by forcefeeding DNA damaging chemicals and exposing your “privates” to radiation to better science and understanding !

Model organisms:

1. Escherichia coli - bacteria, most commonly found in our feces :)

2. Saccharomyces cerevisiae - Bakers yeast found in your nearest bakery - used to study cellular replication

3. Drosophila melanogaster - fruit fly found in rotting fruits, garbage, etc and used as a model to study development of the embryo, Neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, heart development, as well as behavioural defects.

4. Mouse - found in the streets of Bombay and formerly in my EX-apartment , used as a model for studying many many many human genetic diseases, obesity, alcoholism, development, etc etc.

Out to sea..

(It shows up as low quality. Click on it to see a better version)

Another species gone extinct !

The once endangered "Great Indian Grizzled Bear" (Beardus unjoinus) is now extinct !



Never again ! hahah!

The price of distance..

..is too great sometimes. Every one of us who has ever moved away, even to the next city or to another locality nearby feels this at some point or another.

To be in another country altogether is even tougher. I will have been in the US for 5 years now this July. I've missed all the usual things from back home like food, drink, friends, family. But the thing that I miss the most is opportunities.

The opportunity to run into someone I know at a bar and have 10 drinks with them. The opportunity to pick up the phone and meet at the nearest coffeeshop. The opportunity to play endless games of scrabble. The opportunity to say hi to my dad when he walks home from work. The opportunity to play "kicchad football" after the first rains. To switch on the TV and just watch the most random cricket game. To sit around sea face and chat about nothing and everything. The opportunity to meet friends of a friend and "bitch" about them. A 100 and one different things. The opportunity to harass my sister about a neice or nephew. To relive moments that have had some meaning to me.

It's not that I cannot do that here. I probably could...some definitely yes but most definitely no. There've been countless times where I'm browsing through my phone book (which still has all the India phone numbers on it) and want to call people up. Random people...people I've not spoken to in ages. Sometimes I'll actually start dialing the international numbers but the time and distance make it difficult and then the moment is gone.

This december I plan on making hay when the sun shines !

Friday the 13th

Here's what happened to me on Friday the 13th.

Awoke to my mirror smashing on the floor with glass everywhere. This thing fell straight of the wall.

All 55 of my samples failed to sequence..this is SUPER rare. Wasted the whole day trying to figure out why..no DNA.

Lost like a newbie in Soul Calibur 3 (14-36) !!!!

Coincidence or a sign?

GOOD Thing I didn't go gambling..

My near-pit experience!

The one GREAT thing about the US and the close proximity I have to New York City is the venues for all the concerts!! This is one thing I will miss very dearly when I am away. Bombay always had its shortcomings in this respect that many artists wouldn't come here or wouldn't be allowed to perform there. The performances which did happen weren't of my favourite bands nor even bands that I liked. So of course I LOVED it when I could go for Roger Waters (he performed the whole "Darkside of the Moon" as well as some of his newer more nonsense stuff), MUSE (YES !! The best damn show ever!) and very very recently Serj Tankian (formerly System of a Down).

The first "real" step into the universe of music for me was Pink Floyd and Wish You Were Here. Now Waters was my very first concert and it was as Pink Floyd as you can get (if you can get it without David Gilmour at the guitar). However it was a great and really fulfilling concert, with the music taking precedence and the crowd more or less in the "swaying with the music" mode. Almost everyone there was donning some Floyd garb or the other, weed could be smelt in the air along with lots of beer. All in a very musical experience.

MUSE is one of the bands I've been following the last few years. Their music is unlike what I'm used to. Their songs are different album by album, their music changes song to song. It keeps things interesting. Matt Delarmy's voice is phenomenol and his guitaring superb! I could go on. The concert was OUT OF THIS WORLD !! They sounded just like in their album (which initially I thought was shady, but apparently the band is completely against lip-synching - watch what they do here!). In anycase, I was in the seated section ( I didn't know that standing would be more fun), but the seats were great. The concert was out of this world and I cannot wait for the next one...

Which brings me to the topic of the post. My near-pit experience. Now the two concerts I've mentioned above were pretty much a mellower music compared to System of a Down and Serj Tankian. Check out some of the tracks from System of a Down here and here (I don't know too many, but they are fairly hard metal). So even though Serj Tankian's new album is much much more mellow than System of a Down, that's obviously not going to matter to the fans..who are here to watch System. It did to me of course, cause I wanted no part of a MOSH pit. Here is a youtube video of some mosh pits though these are MUCH MUCH more extreme than what I was standing one man (sometimes) thickness away from.

So what is a MOSH pit? According to Wikipedia (and NO, I don't much refer to it all the time..) it's "the activity in which audience members at live music performances aggressively push or slam into each other. Moshing is frequently accompanied by stage diving, crowd surfing, and headbanging. It is commonly associated with concerts by heavy metal, punk rock, and alternative rock artists."

Now from the video, you can see that it can get pretty violent. Ours wasn't that bad..there were people shoving each other, one or two fell down but all in all it was relatively harmless. I did feel the pull of joining in; but you know what with my bad knee and my relatively small stature.

This got me thinking, what's with the moshing. Personally I don't get it. Moshing mostly happens at live venues but also can be done for recorded music. Now, I have nothing against people liking heavy and death metal; I'm not into it myself. However, I do understand enjoying your music. Lots and lots of people love hard and heavy and death metal with more screaming than singing; but hey - it's still music to their ears. So what could you get from moshing. I was going through the comments on the many mosh videos and most of them are not about enjoying the music or the dance form (if you can call it a dance) making you more engaged with the music - most of them were about "kicking the shit out of people" and "I cannot wait to get my ass kicked". WHAT THE HELL?!!?

Please someone make me understand? I can understand that while you're being shoved and kicked and scratched, you're actually listening to the music and it means something more - I can atleast pretend to understand that. If anyone reading this, likes to Mosh and it means something to you other than the novelty, then let me know !!

Some more of my favorite shots..

I took this one in Udaipur, Rajasthan during my trip to India in 2006.

This was a stone carving on one of the Jain temples in Udaipur. If you look really closely, the texture is just dried moss growing over the face. Incidentally, this was the only face that I could find carved on the temple walls. My "Indiana Jones" spirit immediately kicked in ! :)

This one is from the terrace of my apartment building in Bombay. The most gorgeous view ! That's Worli Fort (Worli village) on the left with the boats. Through the center and right is the upcoming Worli-Bandra Sea-link project..

There are many more..they are taking time to work on. Keep looking at this page ! :)

My hand at HDR!

So HDR is this new technique called High Dynamic Range.

Sometimes while taking a picture, depending on conditions, it may be too bright or too dark in parts of the photograph. In order to get the whole range of colors, HDR can take pictures of different exposures and compile them together. Then the user can manipulate certain aspects of the picture to get it the way he/she wants.

The pictures can look VERY stunning...albeit sometimes a bit surreal. I like the effect. It varies from person to person..

Here is the FLICKR link for HDR. Obviously as you can see from my pictures, I'm nowhere close to this...but I plan to learn !

Ridiculous

Wonder how many graduate students were at this. There would've been two that I know off...but I wasn't up for waiting in a line 700 strong !

The truth and nothing but...

the truth. I've heard this line most in hollywood movies during a courtroom trial. I never paid much attention to it.

Until I met Asli. She's one of the closest friends I have and though we have many many differences, I admire her a lot. There's a list, but the quality I've come to admire about her the most, is her almost religious need to stick to the truth and live by it. And this has made me think a lot about the truth, speaking it, hearing it, living it and the consequences of that doctrine.

The truth, plain and simple, hurts at the worse of times, most of the times it complicates things, but the best case is when you get this amazingly good feeling inside you on hearing the truth.

"Does this dress make me look fat?" - You must be careful here. The truth may hurt or simply complicate things. If you say "yes" too quickly, then there's doubt in the her mind. If you take a few seconds, there's doubt in her mind. Like I said complicated. Of course, this is probably the most trivial and inconsequential example (maybe).

"Yes, I'm sorry, it was my fault. I promise not to let it happen again." - This may or may not be true. Maybe it is your fault and you're admitting it truthfully; maybe it's not your fault and you're trying to soothe things over to , here we go again, stem the complications. I must be honest and say that I've been in both situations, and in each of them, I've felt a little dishonest.
When it is my fault, and I've meant the sorry and admitted to the truth, I promised that it won't happen again. Of course I intend to stick to it, but sometimes I do it again. And deep in my heart, when I speak the truth to myself, I knew that it would happen again. But the effort to not let it happen again was genuine. The second situation, well, that's straightforward. Everyone's been through it and I'm sure that everyone does, atleast I thought that, till I met Asli.

Then there are truths that make your heart flutter and fly all over the place, singing and dancing in happiness. You know the ones I mean. "I love you too.." from your sibling, parents, girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, husband, best friend. In these times, these words are given special importance and can only be uttered if you're "really really serious.."; whatever the hell that means. You love someone, you say it. Sometimes it will complicate things in a way that even trying to understand Special Relativity can't. Most times it'll give you or the recipient that feeling I'm talking in the beginning. Other ones which elicit the same feeling are "You don't have it..but please be more careful next time !", "I forgive you..", and my personal favourite which comes without hesitation from my best friends "Sure, no problem, time is not a problem. I'll do it. Don't say thanks and all that stuff.." You can count on these folk..

The ugly truths....and these are normally the most important ones. I say this because they normally tell us the "ugly truth" about either ourselves or of somebody else.

"Yes, I've been having an affair.", "I don't think that I love you anymore..", "I don't think that this is working out..", "I'm sorry, but you have terminal cancer." , "I think that I'm an alcoholic.", "I think that I have a lying problem.", "I think our son has a drug problem.", "I think that I'm ugly.", "Don't ever hit me again..".

Do we have the courage to face these? We've probably gone through one of these or (God forbid) several of these in our lifetimes..I've been through one or two myself, and I hope to say that I've come out a stronger and better (?) person. The truth never lies, only we do..

Anything more important?

We get caught up in our daily lives, unaware of what is sometimes important and should, must, take precedent. I’ve been caught up in my daily life almost everyday since the day I landed in the USA in July of 2003. It will have been a long 5 years this July and even though I feel that I’ve gained so much here, I haven’t thought about what’s been really important to me. The unfortunate circumstances that I had to visit Bombay this past week, the city I have grown up to love, has enlightened me as to what should take precedent in my life.

My aunt; my second mom, my family’s “ben”, was diagnosed with ALS and she sought alternative treatment in India. Western medicine had robbed us of hope but we are not giving up yet. I got a call from India at 3am saying that Aunty was rushed to the ICU due to respiratory failure. I was shocked; none of us expected the disease to progress within a week, even before she had a chance to seek ayurvedic treatment.

But my first thought when I saw Purvi’s number on my phone that late was that something horrible had happened to my parents or to Purvi. This is the single most fear that I have in the US; not whether the next experiment will work or whether I’ll have funding for the next year or inconsequential things like rent and bills. I fear that one day that call will really come. It is an impossible situation to describe and the whirlwind which flows through your mind and heart is unbelievable painful as it is sudden. Naïve or not, I hope that I do not receive such a phone.

The whirlwind of the next 7 days cannot really be described. I was the last one to fly out a week later to come to Bombay to meet her. I’ve asked myself every single waking minute why I did that. I love her. She is family and nothing, I mean nothing, can be more important than that. Was I coming because I was saying goodbye? I hope not. I look into myself and I must be honest that in a way it was a goodbye. I can only be positive and hope that everything will be alright. I was also coming to show her that I love her. I was coming to tell her that we’re her family and there’s nothing that we will not do for her.

And that’s what I want to say; there’s nothing that we should not do for our family. I’ve been a hospital baby as far back as I can remember. I remember more than the needles and the medicines and the discomfort, the many sleepless nights my mom and dad have held me in their comforting arms. I got spoilt then, and I’m still spoilt now. They’ve offered me everything they have and even what they don’t have. Sometimes I feel that I don’t understand and appreciate the love they have for me. Sometimes I even get annoyed at them when they try and push and pamper me. How dare I? Mom, Dad, I’m sorry…I love you and I should say it more often; I think we all should. Purvi you’re the closest. It broke my heart to see you leave but I knew that to you as well, it was family that was driving that decision. I love you.

My family to me is the anchor to my life. I’m generally a very closed person; a complaint I get often from Asli. I hate to be probed and questioned. I may be experiencing as much turmoil as any other person, but peace and calm are normally a phone call away. I love every single person in my family; present and those yet to come. You can count on me for anything and everything.

Yeh hai Bombai meri jaan ! (This is Bombay, my love!)

My best buddy, Nikhil, said a very interesting thing to me just before I left Bombay this past week. He said “you’ve really connected with Bombay this time.” I was in Bombay for exactly 6 days. I am currently studying in the US so going back home to me is a big deal, usually planned for 2-3 weeks. He said this to me when I called him from the airport to say goodbye. Even though I absolutely love coming to Bombay, I hate coming back for such a short time. Nikhil, you’re spot on..

Everyone single person whose been to a foreign country gets connected to a certain place or city which reminds them of “home”. And home doesn’t necessarily have to mean the place you were born or you grew up. To me “home” is the place which fills me with peace, calm and a really profound sense of safety. But at the same time, I get this overwhelming pull and a rush just thinking about it. Bombay to me is home. I’ve been born here, grown up here..but it wasn’t until this trip that I have loved it.

It was a very warm feeling that I got when the pilot announced to look at the Line of Control between Pakistan and India on my flight from New York. That feeling just got stronger as we approached Bombay. We were lucky, or not, to have to circle around the airport a few times because “the runway had foreign objects on it.” I heard groans from fellow passengers, but the added time in the air gave me a good opportunity to look at my city. The first thing I noticed is how beautiful Bombay is. I guess it’s true for any city in the night from the air. What’s unique to Bombay is that unlike most cities I’ve visited, it is not a planned city. Atleast wasn’t much planned. Land was reclaimed from the sea as needed. From the air, Bombay looks like a very very intricate henna pattern. Roads are not parallel to each other; there are no avenues and streets. There are no intersections to speak of. Instead, just like the curving patterns of the “mehndi”, each road will connect to some other road by a series of branches and gullies. Some roads will pass through entire “mini-cities” (at least that’s what I think of the slums in Bombay) while others will be wide avenues with traffic speeding through. There’re many dark areas, which I guess were either mangrove swamps (undeveloped land). The lights make Bombay look like a necklace, particularly an Indian designed one with the chaotic arrangements of the roads and buildings enhancing the visuals of leaves, flowers, etc. I absolutely enjoyed the delay of my flight.

When the flight landed and I collected my luggage, I made my way to the exit. Nowhere else that I’ve visited (and all my friends are welcome to correct this) have I experienced the welcome you get at Bombay airport. As you approach the exit, you’ll hear the sound of a very large crowd. As you step into view, you’ll see passenger’s relatives, their friends, distant cousins and a band of another 10 people you may or may not know well, ready with big smiles to welcome you. To pick me up was my dad, my brother-in-law Niraj and my cousin Nipa. I was actually surprised that more people didn’t come. This is true for almost every Indian passenger who was coming back. It’s also true for when you’re leaving; though you may expect a few more people to say their goodbyes. I love it. The smiles that I saw, the happiness is really heart-warming and fills you up with that much more excitement to be back home.

On the car ride back, I’d already ordered Chinese food. I was craving it. In the US, it’s actually called as “Indian Chinese” because its really a different category of food by itself. Indians have a flair for spicy food, and “Indian Chinese” is made to suit our tastes. A healthy dose of garlic, ginger, chillies is what makes this mouth-watering. Staple Indian Chinese includes Manchurian, a soy-sauce based dish with a dark ginger and garlic gravy with vegetable dumplings made of shredded cabbage, carrot and other veggies, Sweet corn soup, which is a cream-based mildly sweet thick corn soup, “Hakka”-styled fried noodles or fried rice. My two favorites are Wonton soup, a watery clear soup with steamed vegetable dumplings and Paneer Chilly, a spicy soy sauce stirfry of garlic, ginger, paneer (cottage cheese), hot green chillies and vinegar. Its normally had as a started. I must say that if you’re a fan of food, Indian Chinese is a cuisine you must experience.

I had an argument with my cousin Nilay the other day. I claimed that every Indian woman is cute or good looking. Of course that sounds a bit ridiculous even to me, but there is an attractiveness that I find in Indian women that I haven’t noticed in others. I think it’s the colors. Indian clothes are traditionally very colorful and I find them to be extremely flattering to anyone who wears them; especially Indian women. They look beautiful in Indian clothes, and all my friends look stunning when they’re dressed up for an Indian occasion. The Punjabi or salwar kameez I think accentuates the curves and the colors, the blues and greens and reds and yellows, draws the eyes. Sometimes it can be a bit overdone, but all in all, Indian clothes to me are very attractive.

This time I spoke to or tried to make conversation with as many random people on the roads or taxi drivers or autorickshaw (three wheelers) drives as I could. Indians are definitely more talkative and more receptive than my experience in the US. I never once got a dirty look from any of them and at best times the conversation would carry on for the duration of my journey. It was light and easy to talk to everyone, but that could be because I was talking in Hindi. At Colaba causeway, a hot-spot for tourist shopping, I had good laugh with one of the street sellers when he was trying to swindle me to buy some replicas of the Taj. I’ve noticed that in the US, mostly in New York, most store/street sellers will not hold you in conversation and sometimes even be downright rude if they know that you’re doing anything but buying. I guess it’s ok, but there’s no need to be rude about it.

The last thing that I want to mention is the traffic and the traffic patterns. I’ve always said that if you can drive a car successfully in Bombay, you’re good for any country in the world. It is chaotic !! You’re not only supposed to be aware of whats in front of you and the two sides, but also what the car in front of the bus you’re behind is doing. A two lane road will normally have atleast 4 lanes of cars so close to each other that the side-view mirrors are almost touching. Even in this cramped space, there are motorbikes weaving in and out of traffic and an occasional hand-cart, though I’ve seen very few of these this trip. It looks chaotic but it’s a very controlled chaos. Traffic can be as bad as any major city, but it works. There’re always a few knicks and dents on the cars and the bigger more expensive cars are more cautious than most, but you’ll never really come across a major accident during the day time. The sheer volume of cars may be the reason for this, but even on clear roads, the cars are moving along without hithches. I absolutely and totally love driving in this city. I didn’t get a chance to this year, but I wish I had. When I drive in New York, you’ll hear me say “Ah ! I better turn my Bombay driving mode on”.

There’s chaos in Bombay and I see Bombay in every chaotic situation. I’m always comparing a crowd or a bus stop or Penn station to situations in Bombay. I’ll always end up saying “If this was in Bombay, then….” It’s the beauty of Bombay and it’s the life blood of the city. Nothing is really ever completely organized, there’re few queues, if any, that ever remain a queue. Bribing is a way of life, though I wish and wish and wish that the corruption would come under some sort of control. There’s greenery and there’s pollution. There are beautiful beaches with beautiful sunsets and then there’s open garbage and litter bugs right there. There are beautiful buildings and slums neighboring each other. There are expensive malls and utterly dilapidated hutments standing shoulder to shoulder. And I love it all.. I cannot wait to come back. Asli told me the other day that Bombay will always be there to embrace me, this time, maybe for the first time, I embraced Bombay..

Marine Drive

Purvi (as in your blog) ..here's something that I made for people to visualize ! :)


Mail me if you want to get the high quality image ! :) I've already printed out one for myself...

(Purvi's blog is purvsoutlet.blogspot.com)

27 and some missing people

So I turned 27 ! Yippee ! It was a fun birthday party in the city (yes yes..to me, NYC is the "city", even though all loyalties lie to Bombay). Did some karaoke, some more eating, and lots more drinking. It was a good time and I'll remember it very fondly.

Wanted to thank a few people. Asli, you're the best, for organizing everything even though you knew that I wasn't much in the mood for it. The cake (See right) was absolutely fantastic (Jeff, Haile - you had better have eaten every last piece you took, else there'll be murder - and yes..God knows what you're doing ! :) - 11 dimensions it seems!). PEOPLE who came..thank you very much. Turnout wasn't as expected, but I could not have been happier (and happier!)

The singing was great fun..unfortunately, due to very hoarse screaming, the feature presentation "Three Little Pigs" was cut short.


Jeff - we owe people a "3 little pigs"

Gifts are always fun and I got some great ones. My staple and favorite cologne by Issey Miyaki (Moya and Aash, I'm BACK !) and Guitar Hero III with a wireless guitar !! Atleast I'll be good at this video game compared to my normal guitaring skills (or lack of!).

Purvi, Niraj, Ruchita, Maha..I missed you guys a lot ! Karaoke is never the same without my sibling and I miss the wise men Niraj !! Ruchita..it's been too long and Maha, well, when we do meet, it'll be a day to celebrate !! Too long now...

Nikhil...it's been very very long since we've celebrated birthdays together; though we celebrated everything like it was a birthday to begin with. Vishal and I were talking about you over drinks (Vishal the light-weight - current, he's promised to catch up to me - claims that I cannot keep up with you, lets have a go next time shall we?) Maybe in May..I'm really looking for tickets.

Gayatri...god knows where in the world you are. I hate reading your one-liner mails. Didn't we used to have longer conversations? Or was that only under the influence? MAIL KAR !

Elena..my Noodle soup date ! Of course I missed you..lots. You're coming back Feb early and I haven't had noodles in a while. Soon we'll catch up.

Shai..our poster party boy(man). No party is obviously complete without you; actually it almost feels like it's NOT a party, if you're not attending. Maybe on my Eurotrip we can hang out..

Below some more pictures....to next year then !

P.S. For those who thought that this was a philosophical lecture on growing older and wiser; here's a line or two..

I grew older
I grew wiser
I grew drunker

(Actually, here is what I feel)

"Remember A Day"
by Pink Floyd

Remember a day before today
A day when you were young.
Free to play alone with time
Evening never came.
Sing a song that can't be sung
Without the morning's kiss
Queen - you shall be it if you wish
Look for your king
Why can't we play today
Why can't we stay that way
Climb your favorite apple tree
Try to catch the sun
Hide from your little brother's gun
Dream yourself away
Why can't we reach the sun
Why can't we blow the years away
Blow away
Blow away
Remember
Remember