Daycare/School thoughts

The time has come. Almost too soon, I think. The boy is only 8 months old and already I have to start thinking about school. Unbelievable.

[I should point out here that by "school", I mean day care. In my mind, "school" is any place that kids go to outside of home, for a few hours, on a regular basis and where they learn something. Thought I would make that clear before you exacting readers protest at my usage of "school", instead of "day care"- tis all the same, see? ]

Like any over-protective mother, I have some criteria for my boy's school:

a) There must be no exams or tests or anything ridiculous like that.
b) There must be no TV
c) There must be nap-time, preferably with music in the background.
d) There must be a small number of kids per class, so that my boy gets the attention that he needs. And the teacher must RUN (no dawdling about it) to rub and kiss his head/knee/elbow as soon as he hurts it. LOL this list is making me laugh. But I'm serious, mind you!
e) Nobody should laugh at the boy when he unpacks his "puliyogare-thair sadam", while they eat their meat-filled "macaroni and cheese".
f) Nobody should make fun of his name and call him Annie, instead of Ani.
g) He should be allowed to play in the mud and the rain.
h) Nobody should be allowed to bully him, my little ladla beta!


Jeez... this list shows that I am no better than any other besotted mother in the world. How lowering! I thought I was far more advanced... apparently not.

Anyway, I have 3 options in mind: Waldorf School of Pittsburgh, Jewish Community Center and the University of Pittsburgh Daycare.

Waldorf, I read about in the New York Times. The picture that accompanied the article showed a bunch of kids tramping about in the mud, collecting stones or flowers or frogs or whatever caught their fancy. And that caught MY fancy. What fun those kids seemed to be having!
My own kindergarten years were in Mt.Carmel school in Bangalore and it was a right old nightmare. There was no playground- only the road. We would have to run to the side of the road any time there was any traffic. And the teachers would cane us (not the "lift your skirts and show me your bum" kind of caning, but the "show me your palms/knees/shoulders/head and I'll strike it with a ruler" kind of caning). Nobody's gonna cane my kid.

Whatever I've read and seen about Waldorf, Pittsburgh, I like very much. It ranks #1 on my list right now. However, it is beginning to feel a bit uppity. Their admissions form for their Little Friends Program (for 18 month-4y kids) has questions like "How was the pregnancy?", "Where was the delivery?", "Was your child breastfed?" Okay, how does it matter? I understand that the teachers/care-givers have to know if there were complications to the child's health at birth or later, but shouldn't they just ask that directly? Why this roundabout manner?

Jewish Community Center of Pittsburgh features on the list because I have a secret desire to turn the little chap into a rabbi..... I'm kidding, dudes! Yes, there is a Jewish madrassa right opposite my house, but I'm not that brain-washed. Yet.
The JCC is very close to my house and they seem really good, very concerned about child care etc. I had a good feeling when I checked out their facility: lot's of happy little kiddies, singing and playing. The only negative thing to this is that kids can't play in a garden or among trees or such, because the JCC is in the heart of the city. Only concrete jungles everywhere.

And finally, the University of Pittsburgh Early Childhood Program- easily, the best daycare choice for Pitt employees, faculty and students... BUT they have a wait list that is 2 years long. The little chap will be 3 years old before there will be a spot for him. So it stays on the bottom of my list for now.

February is the deadline for applications to the first two programs. I can't believe the kiddo's old enough for this stuff. My little chammathu kutti! Grown up already! With 4 little teeth and a killer crawl! Okay Varsh, control yourself.

Perceptions

Sometimes, life is so busy, so full of little things that all add up, that I forget about things that make me happy and grounded. Mostly, life gets that way because I let it. A chance remark by somebody, a declaration by someone else, makes me think that I ought to be the way these other people are. Instead of thinking about how my life, as it is currently, makes me happy, I think about what I ought to be doing to try to achieve some ideal. That ideal is never reached and I begin to feel like a failure.

It's all in the perception.

The truth of this statement is becoming clear to me slowly. If my goal is to have a house that is spic and span and never dirty or cluttered, then I am never going to be happy, because that state is impossible to achieve. "Spic and Span", "Dirty", "Cluttered" are words that are entirely subjective. So, no matter how clean the house actually may be, it will never live up to the fantasy that I have built up in my head. Instead, if I were to focus on objective, measurable, achievable goals, such as "I must have a clean towel after a bath every day", or "I must have clean utensils to cook in", then immediately housework becomes scalable. More importantly, there is a feeling that housework is DONE.

A month or so ago, I was complaining that my list of things to do never got shorter. As soon as I finished things, there would be others to take its place. With my new epiphany, I have consciously begun to shorten this list. Does the laundry HAVE to be done today? Nope, we have clothes to last us another week. Does the floor HAVE to be swept and mopped today? Nope, let me just remove the big, visible dirty stuff that the baby won't shove into his mouth.

All of a sudden, I have time! Time to read, time to bake, time to play with my baby and time to stare into space. And I have space! Space to breathe slowly, to walk slowly and to think that I ought to call my friends and see what they're up to.

This method has worked so well that I am trying to adapt it to my work. What is the bare minimum to do to get an answer? Do that first. Then, what is the bare minimum to do to confirm this answer? Do that next. Suddenly, I have chopped down my list of experiments from a couple of pages, to about 3. Sure, the experiments listed probably will be done at some point of time. But in my head, since I perceive their importance differently, there is suddenly more space. My head is no longer cluttered with lists and lists.

So. Lessons learned: do things that make your mind uncluttered. If you perceive something as lessening your happiness, don't do it. Change your perception about it.

I feel empowered.

Annual Retreats

Another year, another poster presentation and another disappointment at not having won anything.
I understand that this department can't give me a prize because I don't technically belong to it. But I really don't understand why they force me to participate, raise my hopes and then dash them to the ground every year.
Fine. Keep your stupid money, people.

Projects that will always get awarded: vaccine work/ work on therapeutic drugs, even though each of them may be more cytotoxic than not (and they will be awarded despite the fact there's data on the poster showing that they are cytotoxic). Basic research on vaccines and therapeutics is a) repetitive and b) totally random in the case of drugs- you pick a drug from a million screens, and you hope it will work. Vaccine design, at least, has some elegance to it.

Projects that will always be second best: work on host restriction factors. Host restriction factors, in my mind, are so beautiful. They build such a lovely story of the evolving immune system, of the ever-present combat between microbes and the immune cells, of adaptability of systems and of nature, as a whole. Of course, I am biased.

Projects that judges will always shy away from: mine :(

Thus, I wallow in self pity.

My project is on something people discovered 24 years ago, have figured out a lot of things about, but cannot figure out exactly what it is. After 24 years of ifs, buts and maybes, nobody wants to touch the stuff any more.

Hey. Writing this up has suddenly given me some insight into myself: maybe the reason I've been so wary of doing basic science in the future is because of my PhD project. If I were to pick a project in the future, I would not pick one that is so nebulous, so prone to variation between humans, between systems and between cells. Because when something is that wishy washy, you stop believing in it.
Somehow, I have to finish up this PhD. Then, I need to do something that will give me some results within a reasonable period of time and with reasonable amounts of energy. Something that works beautifully and consistently. Because this project is slowly draining me out of all my optimism and love for science and research. Because I know that it is time to call it quits, wrap it up, dust my hands and say, "Enough".

Buried Deep Within

We had our first organized lab clean-up in.... wait, can you take a guess as to how many days/months/years? Hmm... one semester?? NO! One year?? (Not a bad guess given that we have an annual lab inspection and we have passed it every year).... NO! First time since I have joined the lab, which was 4 years ago?? NO!

Okay, this could go on forever. I'll give you the answer:

It was the first time EVER!!! In, give or take a decade, 3 DECADES!!

Guess what we unearthed?

-->Bags of cotton autoclaved in 1990- with the autoclave tape slowly crumbling to dust and the cotton getting the consistency of cotton candy
--> pH meter from the 80's era
--> Media from 2001 (someone has been very carefully storing that media for close to a decade now, without ever using it.... and not even the least bit of fungal growth in it. Surprising, no?)
--> Lab notes. Dozens and dozens of books of former grad students, sitting around smugly. It is always fun to read bits and parts of other people's lab notes. In the initial, innocent years of research, lab notes are serious tomes, focused only on science. By the final year, lab notes are insouciant. And wedged in between experiments are grocery lists, monthly finances and, if the student is female, menus and recipes.
--> The coup de grace... hold your breath.... Tritium!!! It was sitting inside a little glass vial, looking, for all the world, like some harmless cytokine which somebody forgot to return to the fridge. I picked it up and shook it, because it seemed a bit thick and yellow. Then my brain rather slowly registered the words "3H isotope". "Maybe all 3H is not radioactive?" I was thinking because this vial looked so innocuous. Then I turned it around and there was the orange sign with the words "Caution! Radioactive Isotope!" written on it. Yikes!

I used the cotton-candy to wrap up the vial, Lori stuffed it into a tin (couldn't find lead) box and Kathy found us a Geiger counter. Poof! No counts registered- we probably were at more risk from the radon in the room than anything in that vial. Good thing too... even though it makes a boring end to what could have been a sensational story. Our lab would have got into SOO much shit otherwise. I wonder how old it is... the lab stopped registering as a radioactive isotope-user nearly 10 years ago.
Anyway, half life of tritium apparently is only about 7 days. So, it couldn't have been radioactive for very long after it was bought.

This cleaning session was only 3 hours (for which I was late, as usual. But only by half an hour!). I wonder if we will have the energy and motivation to continue cleaning next week or the week after. After all, there are still EIGHT more lab rooms that belong to us and that probably need to be cleaned :s

Tamil-English Part 1

Thanks to my friend, Mangai, I no longer have to struggle to figure out what to write on this blog. Fungi-Mangai, for that has been her nickname since the time we first met in the dusty classrooms of Alagappa Chettiar College of Technology more than 9 years ago, has a blog: http://rainbows-ahead.blogspot.com/

She's got into the habit of blogging once in a while in Tamil. I've got into the habit of reading, very laboriously, these Tamil blog-posts. Why do I love reading her Tamil blogs? For one thing, it is the type of Tamil I more or less understand, rather than the high falootin', literary type of Tamil in textbooks. Plus, she uses English words once in a while, which I grab on to with the fervor of a novice swimmer being thrown a lifeline while swimming in deep waters.

Anyway, the first post I read is called "Chennai". Lovely! Land of my heart (and pools of my sweat!), how I miss you! I know why she wrote about Chennai. There was a reunion of our batch from the above-mentioned AC Tech on the 15th of August this year and she had attended it. When I say "our batch", I don't just mean our class of 50 from the Biotechnology course. I mean, our batch of more than 200, who belonged to Leather Tech, Textile Tech, Chem Engg and Biotech. We had classes, all 200 of us crammed into one large (and dusty, as previously noted) room together, in our first semester. What were these classes, you ask? How could all these disparate courses have anything in common? Well, you're right. They don't. That's why we took classes in subjects that had nothing to do with any of these subjects, but that were considered mandatory for anybody graduating with an engineering degree. Weird, no?

These core classes were: Engineering Mechanics, Engineering Drawing, Physics, Advanced Mathematics, Technical English, and worst of all, Workshop, which consisted of 1.5 months each of Filing, Welding and Carpentry. Well, to be honest, Workshop was kind of fun. It was the viva-voce examination in Workshop that was truly terrible. I was rather good at filing, welding was a piece of cake- the instructor would come and hold your hand (if you were a girl, that is) and do the welding (he liked holding girls' hands.... we didn't mind, since we could get out of the class quickly. Boys had to wait in line, till we girls finished "welding" and then had to do the stuff by themselves. It was not easy being a girl in Chennai, but there were advantages)- and carpentry was the worst. You had to pick a piece of wood, saw it to the right size, file (or something like that) THAT to make it look neat, and then saw it to make all sorts of joints- T joint is the only one I recall. Anyway, that was not fun. A classmate called Mohammed, God bless him, helped me do all my carpentry- "help" meaning that I would pick my piece of wood and struggle with doing anything with it for the whole hour of the class, then he would come by, and do whatever had to be done with it in 15 minutes and hand it in under my name. Nice of him.

In addition to these classes, we all had to choose one of the following- National Social Service, National Cadet Corps or National Sports Organization- to be a part of, for one year. Most of us lazy buggers chose the NSO, since all that meant was you had to jog every day and participate in some kind of activity that passed for sports. Earnest, hardworking folk joined the NSS and truly macho chaps (and tough gals) joined the NCC. I believe Ram, as a student, had joined NCC. I would have been totally impressed by this, but somehow I cannot imagine him shooting at anybody or following orders, so I think he must have, somehow, talked his way out of any hard work.

So anyway, that was what we all underwent together and I suppose it created a good sort of bond.... that after 9 years, there was a reunion, which, going by the pictures, looks to have been fairly well attended.

Long intro to what I actually wanted to talk about- which was Mangai's post. Let me get to that in Part II

Godawful waste of time

That, in a nutshell, is the movie 'Dostana'.

Why do I watch movies that are
a)at least 3 years old, and b) have already proved to be huge flops
and then curse the movie for wasting my time and then, waste some more time by writing a review on it that nobody will read?

I do not have time for this. I will shut up and head back to lab.

But really man. What a horrible, terrible, awful... wait, let me make this list alphabetical.... awful, atrocious, horrendous, horrible, silly, stupid, terrible movie.

Why did I watch it? WHY???

NO MORE HINDI MOVIES..... until Aamir Khan comes up with his next one. Which, come to think of it, is today.

Hmmm...

Of Feces and the Microbiome

How Microbes Defend and Define Us: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/science/13micro.html?src=me&ref=general


Boggles the mind, no?

Quick precis of article: Lady has massive, uncontrolled Clostridium difficile infection. Antibiotics don't seem to have an effect. Doctors take a small amount of feces from the husband, mix it up in the saline drip that they have on her and voila! Diarrhea stops, woman recovers. Long discussion on the role of microbes in the human body follows.


Ja wohl?

I do not understand the rationale for this fecal transplant. I mean, if they mixed fecal samples into the saline drip, the bacteria would enter the bloodstream, not the gut. How did she NOT end up with sepsis?

Could her existing C.difficile condition have caused some kind of gut permeability, which then leaked C.difficile into her blood stream, leading to initial inflammation and then an exhaustion of the immune system?

Or could it have something to do with the fact that it is not a single strain of bacteria that is being injected but an immensely complex population of bacterial species, which could somehow detract the body from going into septic shock?


If the underlying rationale was to provide competition to the C.difficile, why didn't they use lactobacillus as a safer option to begin with?

Point to note, appreciate and ponder about: they used her husband's fecal samples. Why do I think this is important? Not because I detect (an admittedly dubious) romantic angle to this business, but because of another point of compatibility. If two people live together and cook and eat together, chances are that their gut flora are similar (or at least, more similar than two randomly selected people). So even if this woman had her gut flora cleaned out by the C.difficile, chances are that her husband's flora might be better "suited" to her.

[Of course, this is a big assumption: for all I know, they may not have been together that long, or perhaps they don't eat together, or perhaps one is a vegetarian and the other, a die hard carnivore. Okay, the last point is not so probable- after all, most times, people marry other people who share their value systems, especially when it comes to food. A hard core vegetarian and a carnivore may live together temporarily, but it cannot be a happy coexistence.]

Coming back to the point, I think it is important that they used someone to whom this woman would have continual, long term exposure to. This is a belief not substantiated by any data.

Technicalities: How did they decide just how much feces to add, I wonder? Was it a one shot bolus, or was it a continual drip? How fresh should the feces have been? How in the world did they mix up a bit of feces to a fine enough suspension that it passed through the tiny needle? Maybe they used a low intensity sonicator?

This is a whole new twist on the Morarji Desai angle. Now somebody should shoot some pee into another person and see what happens. Then, we can vindicate Desai saab's beliefs.

A promise

One day, I will live in an apartment that is either
a) On the ground floor with NO steps or
b) Has an elevator.

Am TIRED of climbing 50 steps to my flat every day!

More things

This blog shall be in the form of bullets, because today, I have a neat and orderly mind.

a) I find myself intensely bored with the same old sambar, rasam and boiled veggies, which form my cooking repertoire. These same things were awesome when mom cooked them for me. Now I loathe the very thought of having to cut up radishes for radish kozhambu, I dislike having to make the "vogarNe" with mustard and hing for the rasam and so on.

b) The foods that make me drool right now: a) fettunicini alfredo and b) risotto.
F/A is soooo bland that I cannot understand why I have this hankering for it. Perhaps I only want some cheese. Anyway, both recipes are there on http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/ which used to be my number 1 reference for non-Indian recipes. Now, after nearly 12 months of relatively healthy eating, just the amount of butter and cheese that lady uses makes me shudder. It's okay for her- she's on a cattle ranch, no doubt she can work off her fat somehow. It is different for me, when the only exercise I get (or am willing to do) is walk, somewhat slowly, to lab (~2.5miles. Not bad, right?) and that too, only on some days.

c) In effort to make something, ANYthing new, I turned to "Regina's International Vegetarian Favorites", which, when I had bought it some two years ago promised to open up a vast world of new and interesting things to cook. Unfortunately, all her truly interesting recipes require a visit to the grocery store (or many grocery stores). And of course, the only stuff I have readily available are those suited for (bah!) humbug Indian cooking. Anyway, I chanced upon this recipe called "Curried Cauliflower Soup" in her book. It is your normal Gobi sabji, which she then purees.
I should have just made my stupid sabji and eaten it. But no, I went ahead and pureed it and now all I am reminded of is my grandfather. My grandfather, during the year before he died, decided that he was thoroughly bored with chewing food (he later became thoroughly bored of eating itself). During this year, he made the cook puree every single vegetable that she would make for the rest of the family. This way, he would say, he got the nutrition and the taste without the effort.
Curried Cauliflower Soup is depressing. I need to repair it somehow before Ram comes home.

d) I can no longer reliably use the rooting reflex of my baby to check how hungry he is :(
For those not in the know, the rooting reflex in newborns is when you gently stroke the side of their mouth, and if they are hungry, they will open their mouth and root for your finger. Depending on how eagerly Ani would root at a finger, my parents and I could predict how much time we had before he started bawling uncontrollably for his food.
Now, however, he turns towards my finger even when he not hungry, because he wants to chew my finger. I think he is teething, though 11 weeks seems a tad young for that. Nevertheless, he grabs on to anything he can find- his fists, my shoulder, Ram's knuckle etc and chews studiously upon them and makes really loud sucking noises.
Anyway, I guess my little baby is no longer quite as newborn as he was.

e) Ram and I watched "The Judgement at Nuremberg" recently and it is a brilliant movie. I love stories that I can keep recollecting and brooding on for months and months after initially coming across them and this one promises to be in that category.

A lot of random things

a) The Jewish school, which my apartment overlooks, has a summer "camp" every year. I think it's to turn the not-so-Jewish kids who go to normal schools the rest of the year into the ultra-orthodox types that Sq.Hill specializes in.
The kids who attend it are about 8-10 years old. The camp instructors are in their mid to late teens. Okay so far?
Then get this: every morning, between 9:04 and 9:06 am, they start their prayers to the tune of "You are my sunshine", followed by counting in Hebrew, and then, another prayer, set to the tune of "Row, row, row your boat". Because they can't help themselves, after the Hebrew prayer, they segue automatically into the English songs.

So, first you hear this
"He vo patti, ke he seera
hehopatma lavote
teke phero, nanote-eeyah
thanananananana
you're my sunshine, my only sunshine,
you make me happy when skies are grey"
etc etc

Then the older chaps pick on some little kid who has to go up to the front and lead the counting. Each number is punctuated by a punch in the air (which the kid in the front always does with great enthusiasm... punches kind of look like the "Heil Hitler" salute hahahaha)

Then comes the "Row your boat" song.

What really astonishes me is how earnest everybody is. How ridiculous must you feel to sing a prayer set to a nursery rhyme? Aren't teens supposed to be surly and sullen and rebellious? Not these ones. They must be mutants. Or maybe ultra-orthodox Jews are like that only.

Oh wait. Actually, I just remembered. Back in Bangalore, in the Jain temple next door, they sing prayers set to Bollywood songs. Specifically, to "Ek Do Teen" and "Dhak dhak".

So it's not just a Jewish thing.

I ought to become a prophet and start my own religion. I would call it "Rational Religion" (an oxymoron, if I've ever heard one). It would be like the Free Mason society of this age.

b) Breastfeeding is HARD. I have no doubts as to why two generations of women in America decided to toss the whole thing out and stick to bottles. And at the end of all that hardship, there is no award at the end of it. You, as a hardworking mom, may feel like you have a halo around your head, but it is visible only to you. And your child, though he may (or may not. Who can tell with babies?) care now, probably won't give a shit about it a few months from now.
I'll give this whole business till the kiddo is 6 months old. After that, goodbye breast milk! I'll rub my hands together in glee and regain control of my life and my hormones. October, I await your arrival.


c) Speaking of halos around one's head, I deserve an extra big one, for reasons other than breastfeeding. It has now been 4 days and 21 hours since my parents left for India and I think that the kiddo has been taken good care of by the man and me. In addition to taking care of the kid, I have cooked at home every day (except last night when I broke down and ate a couple of slices of pizza for dinner), done groceries, laundry & utensils, kept the house from descending into shambles, mustered up energy to play a game of badminton with the man nearly every day and oh yes, let us not forget, go to lab for a bit every day. To be honest though, lab work has been relegated to a very low position on list of priorities. Oh well. It will not be for too long.

d) Ram and I have devised a new game with the kiddo. We call it "The Adventures of Captain Cute Litte" and make up new adventures involving the baby. So Captain Cute Little wins the hearts of his unruly crew at sea (by threatening to cry or pee on them) and then discovers new lands and tames its barbaric people. And the next day, he climbs a tall summit (me or Ram, depending on whose story it is) with great difficulty and surveys the landscape. Then he makes friends with the bees and butterflies of the land (toys from the floor gyms) and tells them his story. Stuff like that. Captain Cute Little also changes his name to Sweet Little or Naughty Little or Beautiful Little depending on the fancies of his parents.

Okay, Captain Pee Pott just wet himself, me and the bed. Time to end this blog post.

Love in the Air

The NYT Weddings/Celebrations section makes me sigh in romantic bliss every time I read it.

It is only interesting because of the couples they pick- a lesbian one (both women looking very pretty.... if all gay men are incredibly good looking, are all lesbians very beautiful?), an Indian-Chinese pair (huh?! Not possible ANYwhere else in the world, but the US. What would they cook for dinner? Probably pasta), two Rabbis (I had no idea Jewish women, or Jewesses, as Sir Walter Scott might say, could become rabbis. And they were married by two other rabbis. That article, 365 words long, had the word "rabbi" 17 times in it... As an aside, I read "rabbi" as "rabbit", and so was very intrigued by the line "Two rabbits fall in love, although they didn't want to"), and an old white couple who had been together for nearly 40 years before deciding to get married. Wow. And they said the reason they finally did get married was financial- so they could take care of each other. Hmmm... very sweet, I suppose.

Do you know why I can guarantee that the NYT Weddings section would be a bust if they chose other conventional couples? Try reading the testimonials on a matrimonial site, like Shaadi.com or Bharat Matrimony. B-O-R-I-N-G!! Always accompanied by the picture the couple must have taken for the purposes of the marriage registration (passport size picture of groom in blue shirt and garland, bride in full wedding regalia also with garland, both looking serious, like they know what they are getting into), the text reads invariably as, "And so, since the horoscopes matched, my uncle got in touch with his father and the families met. We talked in the balcony for a full half an hour and after that, we both agreed. We have been married one week now and I think that he is my soul mate"

Or worse, "It felt like we were destined to meet and get married"

One can only take so much of this stuff.

Anyway, here's the link to the section: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/fashion/weddings/index.html

Oh, and as a joke, here's a link to Bharat Matrimony: http://www.bharatmatrimony.com/
Scroll down and click on Success Stories (they have changed this since the last time I was here, which, before you think that I regularly check this stuff, was about 4 years ago... before RK and I decided to get engaged, and when my mom still had my details up. Embarrassing to admit, but I am honest like that)

I wonder how the process of finding mates will change in the next 20 years. Perhaps we will have holograms that we can project of ourselves and which can interact with the holograms of our potential partners.

Things that make my baby cry

a) Tugging at his own hair too hard
b) Sticking his index and middle fingers down his throat during efforts to find thumb to suck on
c) Pausing while breastfeeding, and then looking for breast in the opposite direction

Babies are silly :)

The discovery of breast feeding

A long, plaintive wail brought Eve out of her slumber. At first, she didn't know what it was. Then, "Oh God, oh no... not again", she whispered.
She struggled out of her make shift bed and lifted her son up and gazed at him helplessly. She knew that this plaintive cry would only get worse, would transform into an unending, unrelenting shriek that shook the walls and echoed in the darkness.
And sure enough, it did.
Eve was frantic. She stared at Cain, willing him to stop. She closed her eyes, muttering prayer after prayer. When she opened them, her baby had been transformed. It seemed to her that no longer did the baby have any resemblance to her sweet Cain, his face had been mottled, distorted, eyes scrunched up, face a deep red. No longer was his mouth a lovely rosebud. Instead, it was a monster mouth, opened wide open, shrieking, shrieking and shrieking.

"Oh God, stop! Just shut up!" she screamed back in her own head. How to get him to shut up? She shoved a finger in his mouth- it had worked before. No dice. He merely spat it out and continued unabated. She needed something bigger. Something the approximate shape of his mouth, to shove in and plug that monstrous hole.
Then! She tore off her top and with trembling hands, brought the baby/monster to her chest and stuck her breast into Cain's wide open mouth.

Silence. Beautiful, tear inducing, awesome silence.

Gas issues- one of many probable parts

The boy lay, reclined in an indolent pose, his feet propped up, his hands behind his head, on his bed. He stared expressionlessly at the person looking at him so hopefully, beseechingly.
Then, slowly, thoughtfully, subtly, never shifting his gaze, he moved his left leg. And let out a fart. A loud, squelchy, long passage of wind.
There was a minute of electric silence.
Then, the person fell upon him, patted him and said, "Oh, my boy, my son, my champion! What a clever, clever boy! How perfectly ingenious of you!"


Yes.
The baby has farted.
Perhaps we can all go to sleep now.

Recent readings

A thought provoking and well reasoned article arguing for a ban against garments covering the face: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/opinion/05cope.html?hp
France is trying to pass a law that forbids people from wearing clothes that conceals their face. Critics argue that the French are discriminating against Muslim women who wear burqa. This author points out why it is not discrimination.

A book I've been reading recently is a collection of Guy de Maupassant's short stories. I don't think I've ever read Maupassant before, but his name is so familiar because my mom kept talking about him when I was younger. So it is surprising that I don't recall even a single book of his lying around at home. Anyway, the collection is called 'The Necklace and Other Short Stories", a book that seems to be present in every second hand bookstore in Pittsburgh. I'd picked this up nearly three years ago and only now got around to reading it. They are beautiful stories, heartrending, compassionate and honest. I can only get through one story a day, because each story makes me pause and reflect and brood.

Before my maternity leave gets over, I must get hold of short stories by Somerset Maugham and Saki and see which author fits what mood the best.

Hello, little peanut!

Aniruddha Raghav
April 19th 2010

Business Plan

I'm not good at business or finance- let me make that clear upfront. I'm not one of those people who look around and find amazing entrepreneurial enterprises hiding in plain sight, nor am I particularly good at figuring out how to make more money.

But, disclaimers aside, I have a business plan in mind which can ONLY succeed and I'm surprised that nobody has figured this out yet: South Indian delis.

If Jewish people can have their delis serving pastramis and pickles and Italian people can have pastas and pizzas, why can't Indians (well, Tamils anyway) have their kozhambus and pacchadis being sold in little restaurants in the right areas? Nobody would argue that in practically every city of the US, there is a good sized pocket of Indians. Everyone knows that 33% of the Indian population is vegetarian. Why is that nearly all the Indian restaurants in American cities serve crappy, greasy North Indian fare? And, I'm going to sound like a typical maami here, why the heck does an Indian restaurant combine non vegetarian and vegetarian foods? Haven't we evolved enough to have a purely vegetarian restaurant?
In Pittsburgh, there is a single purely vegetarian, South Indian restaurant called Udipi. It has great demand, makes a good deal of money (I'm willing to bet) and is located miles from civilization, making it impossible to get to without a car and a decent sense of direction.

What are undergraduate and graduate students without a car supposed to do? So we eat shit, literally. We hog on fries (salads, when we feel guilty) and "garden" burgers, we search for veggie options in the multitude of Chinese and Thai restaurants around us (ignoring the little voice that says that most vegetarian fare in these places contains fish oil anyway), or we go to cheap Indian restaurants which serves the most godawful food in the world.

We need a bunch of mini-Udipis around university campuses. We could sell truly good, inexpensive, veggie South Indian food and not only be happy that we are not contributing to the obesity crisis, but also feel satisfied that we are able to make enough money to sustain the business. And it doesn't even have to be just South Indian. Gujaratis and Marwadis have extensive vegetarian menus too.

So here's the outline:
Type of business: small restaurant
Location: near by university campuses
Type of food sold: see above for detailed rant
Initial capital to be invested: hmm... will need money for
a) shop in prime location (not more than 1 block from undergrad/grad schools)
b) for ovens (for fermenting dosai and idli batter in winter), stoves, grinders, blenders, and pulverizers (for making sambar and rasam powders)
c) for getting suppliers for selling large quantities of the ingredients that go into these powders, batters etc- various types of lentils, chillies, rice, wheat and so on- basically, the stuff you'd find in any Indian kitchen, on a larger scale.
d) licensing for all the restaurant... which should not be as expensive as one might expect, since there will be no charges for alcohol, there won't be issues of keeping frozen meat sterile and so on.

Our target population: Indian students, staff, faculty at the universities (mainly), and also non-Indians who like vegetarian food.

Other services offered: free delivery (initially, at least) to offices, if they order a few hours in advance.

Okay, need to stop this post and go eat... all this talk about food is making me hungry.

Message to baby

Okay baby,
Come on OUT.
I'm tired of lugging you around
I'm tired of telling people that I am
Not tired
Not sick
Not scared
Not unhappy about how I look
Not finding it difficult to walk
Not concerned about how I might get into my pretty, pre-pregnancy clothes.

If you could move your butt a bit
and wiggle into place
So that you are in the right position
To squeeze out
I will be content
That you are doing something for this process,
That we are equal partners in this deed.

Right now
It feels like you're mooching off me
And will continue to do so
forever and ever.
And all my dreams of turning you into a Man,
one who will cook and clean,
and be courteous and chivalrous
and kind and considerate,
and yet be a true lion and
conquer one and conquer all,
will have to stay as dreams.

Please. Get a move on.

NDTV

If NDTV were a person, it would be a woman. And if NDTV were a person, my hands would have, by now, spontaneously gone around her neck and choked the life out of her. My loathing of NDTV is so much, that I can imagine my fingers slowly tightening their hold around her neck, can imagine the gurgling that will come out of her throat, her Adam's apple cracking and the life leaving her eyes. Yes, I have imagined every step of this murder and then I become happy. I LOATHE NDTV.

Why am I so sure that NDTV is a woman? I agree, Pranoy Roy would be the first person anyone would associate with it... only because he was there in the beginning. I like Pranoy Roy- I would be very sad if something were to happen to him. But NDTV, on the other hand, can go jump into a lake with some bricks tied to her legs and I would cheer by the banks as she drowned.

NDTV is overrun by women. And not just any random women. These women are clones. These women have the same nasal tones, the same sing-song cadence of speech, the same modes of expression. They dress the same, they ask the same questions, they moderate discussions the same way, they make the same mistakes while pronouncing words (darlings, it is not the "BJP Pahty" or the "Congress Pahty", or the "Indian Ahmy" it is "PaRty", "ARmy"... please, stop dropping the Rs).

You can tell when NDTV is on because you don't even need the words, you just need that tone. It's like a cat walking on metal with its claws extended, it is like nails scraping against board, it's your skin crawling when you realize that open can is a can full of worms.

Please NDTV. Do yourself a favor. Scrap the women and get some deep voiced men. Give those women some off-screen work. Get those pot bellied, sweaty, hairy men with mustaches back on the screen. We don't care how they look. We just prefer the way they sound. Believe me, your ratings will go sky high right away.

Chinese hackers intrude into Indian defence ministry computer networks

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/science/06cyber.html?hp


Wtf?

Wouldn't it be nice to believe that:
a) The stolen data was planted there by supremely intelligent Indian spies and contained bogus information
b) Indian hackers re-hacked Chinese systems and retrieved not only our data but THEIR data too.

It is possible, no?

But not probable.

:(

Knitting

When I was younger, my mom used to tell me stories of her convent school education in Andhra: nuns who taught her knitting, sewing and crochet, how to set a table (at 10am, for lunch at 1pm), about how she got yelled at for taking help from her mother to finish some sewing project (handkerchief... her mom helped her with the corners), about how crazy those nuns, in general, were, and so on.

But one thing those nuns seem to have drilled into mom is a liking for knitting, sewing, embroidering, tatting, quilting, crocheting and all other activities womanly. Give mom a piece of thread or yarn and she'll start fiddling with it and then a few hours later, have produced some kind of thing from it. The usefulness of the thing is not very apparent, although it is usually quite pretty. It usually is a work in progress that stays as a work in progress for years, if not decades, because she'd have either lost interest in it, or forgotten where she put it.

Mom, being an inveterate and indefatigable teacher, decided that her daughter should learn some of these skills from her. Hence, during my early teens, I learned some bits of crocheting, some bits of embroidery (holler if you ever need a Lazy Daisy design on something!), some bits of sewing (we both went for sewing classes, where we learned to make baby clothes and mom learned how to cut and stitch that everlasting mystery, the saree blouse). What has been retained after all these years in my sieve-like brain, is knitting.

The reason I could never quite discard knitting as being too boring or repetitive was because of a book: one of those Agatha Christie novels set in Baghdad (was it"They came to Baghdad" or "They came to Mesopotamia"?), wherein the heroine, after having escaped narrow death in the desert, is rescued by a dashing young archeologist. They have tea and something in the conversation reminds our heroine about Madame Defarge. Supposedly Madame Defarge knitted the names of those killed by the other Madame (La Guillotine, simpleton!) into a scarf. Our heroine believes that she could do the same... and she says, "yes, I see how it could be done...knit knit, purl purl and there! A secret list which no one would ever know about!" Needless to say, that is the key discovery which saves her life and those of her comrades, and not just that, but saves earth from anarchy.

And for years, in fact, for more than one and a half decades, the ONLY reason why I never forgot how to knit was because I thought I too should be able to make a secret list of names (what names, but? Instead, maybe equations to help me in my exams? But what kid wears a knitted scarf in the sweltering heat of a Chennai/Bangalore/Pune examination hall?). I studied the instructions given by Christie, scrutinized every word of it and still couldn't figure out how the heck one would be able to knit in letters and names without the whole world figuring it out. Later, I examined "A Tale of Two Cities" to find any mention of Madame Defarge knitting the names into scarves, and though I found plenty of references of her knitting, I couldn't find anything that said that she knitted secret lists. So intent was I on searching for knitting references that I didn't read the rest of the book and had to make up answers, for the English exam, from the abridged comic version that my dad had bought me years ago.

Anyway, now that mom and I are spending so much time in each others' company (after a really long time, actually. Most of our time earlier was spent in a)arguing b) her cooking for me when I studied for various exams or c) my scolding her for going to the grocery shop so much), and since we have a joint project (to get house ready for baby) and since I seem to have grown up enough to not snarl and snap when my story book reading is interrupted (wow...that is a big step in the right direction), we seem to have come up with a huge variety of things to do and make. Needless to say, that involves sewing (her favorite) and knitting (my kind-of-favorite). Since she knows way more knitting than I do anyway, and has more patience, she finishes my well-begun-but-half-done projects and fixes all the mistakes I make along the way.

After attempts at baby booties (check this out: http://cyberseams.com/article/105035/all_things_knitting/knitted_baby_booties_size_newborn_to_six_months.html
They even have a video! Isn't that the greatest?!), I have moved on to scarves (http://cyberseams.com/article/105605/all_things_knitting/knitting_a_scarf_pattern_that_has_yarn_overs.html)

I feel awfully accomplished and maternal.

I wonder how mom feels.

:p

Preggo status

Today I milked my pregnant status for all it was worth.

I had my thesis committee meeting today, and I got away with:
submitting a report less than 24 hours before the meeting (it is to be submitted at least one week before the meeting),
a presentation that lasted perhaps 30 minutes (usually they last for 3 times as long)
and having no additional experiments suggested AND
the meeting ended with an undisputed consensus to let me graduate soon-perhaps even by the end of the year! (Inshallah, let it happen!)




My friend Advay, when he was here in Pittsburgh last week, told me that I wasn't taking full advantage of my condition. He told me that I should get people to do WHATever I wanted. Advay, my buddy, see how good things happen to people who wait? *smirk*

Last Leg of the Journey!

4 weeks to go (plus or minus 10 days) for the big day! Too many things going on in my head to pen down, but I shall attempt it so that when the kiddo's 20 years old, I shall reveal this blog to him and say, this was me and this was about you.
When the kid's 20 years old, I shall be 48, and Ram 49. Yikes!

The big thing in my head is my thesis committee meeting coming up on the 16th of March. My lab mates are SICK of me going on and on about this meeting. But I can't help it. I feel mentally so unprepared for this meeting and also, slightly worried about what my committee will comment about the baby.... regardless of what anybody says outside, I wonder if they will think that I have timed this baby all wrong, that I ought to have waited till I had the degree in hand before starting this new venture. Then again, how is it anybody else's business but mine and Ram's? I shall tell myself this every time I start feeling self- conscious.

Next big thing: my visa expires! I20 expires at around the same time that the kid will make his appearance, which means that I will be illegal to hang around in this country after that. And F1 expires in June. Have merely scratched the surface in attempts to renew I20, but I need to do this quickly. Arrrggghhhh I hate these bureaucratic procedures.

Third on the list: Taxes! My tax form comes to me only by the 3rd week of March, which gives 3 weeks to complete the forms and send them out by April 16th. Big disadvantage of being an international student on a fellowship. Usually I rather like preparing the joint taxes for Ram and me... it makes me feel like I'm unraveling one of the great mysteries of the universe. This year, it just makes me feel stressed out. And it's not just one set of income taxes to file. There's state and local too. I heartily dislike local taxes... especially because I filed them incorrectly one year and didn't receive the 200-odd dollars that I was supposed to. Regardless, in case the whole microbiology research thing doesn't work out, I might think about accountancy... I'd be pretty good at it.

Other things on list:
Baby crib- check. My friend Advay will assemble it for me.
Baby clothes- we have plenty of cloth and my mom and I shall make some things once she returns from N.Jersey.
Infant car seat- uncle will send it. In case it doesn't reach here on time, I have an infant to toddler converter car seat.
Infant car seat inspection- Will have to see.
Packing of my suitcase- I am reminded of one of those women in TV and books who always go into labor while shopping or traveling in a car or something, but have their suitcase stashed away at arms length. I, unfortunately, am not so well prepared.

Have a list of things to keep, but really don't feel like packing anything yet. That could be because of the kinds of things the list says I ought to keep- a focal point to stare at while laboring (I am thinking of keeping Obama's picture saying "Yes We Can!", but even I realize how ridiculous that may seem), CDs to relax me (I hate listening to music when stressed.... maybe I ought to pack a few books instead... or perhaps audio books?), cameras (but why? Newborn babies look kind of ugly, don't they? I would much rather wait a couple of months, while the kid puts on some weight and looks chubby and cute, than take a picture of it all bruised, blotchy and cone-headed), cell phone numbers to call (hey, I am NOT calling ANYone. I hate having to speak on a cell phone on a normal basis. The last thing I'm going to do is keep a list of people to inform. Ram can take care of this.... or perhaps he can send out an email).

So see, this list doesn't give me a quick guide to stuff a few things in a bag and be done with it. It stresses me out. What the heck should my focal point be? What music ought I play to bring the kid into the world? I did NOT think that these were the essentials of child birth preparation.

Way down the list: lab work. Should I start a bunch of new experiments so that I will be forced to come to lab after the baby is born, just to keep me in the spirit of doing work? Should I set up my electron micrograph samples since they take 3 weeks to get ready anyway? Same thing with the microarray- if I set it up before I leave, then the genomics lab will do the experiment when I am absent from work and send me the results to analyze, which I could do from home and save time after I return to work. Decisions decisions...

Anyway, now that I've typed up all this, I can feel happier and less burdened and forget (more or less) all about the issues I have thought about.

Awfully self obsessed post, no? But then, which one is not?

Satisfaction

South Indian vegetarian food three times a day- the BEST way of avoiding weight gain, while not feeling hungry at all.

I love my mom's cooking!

Money Matters

I do not understand finance. I thought Immunology was bad for making up its own vocabulary and calling it English, but I swear, these Finance Folk (FF) are no better... actually they are worse. Immunologists at least realize that they may be making no sense to the lay person, whereas FFs blithely continue rattling away about their CIRs, portfolios, maturities, dividends and whatnots.

And the totally strange thing is, you don't need a PhD to understand all this, apparently. Janitors and bus drivers know about this stuff!

Check out this sentence (and congratulations to you if you can figure out its meaning... no points if you work in a bank or any other financial institution):
"The Comparable Interest Rate (CIR) is the after tax rate of return necessary on a savings account under a "buy term and invest the difference" scenario so that the value of the account is equal to the policy's total cash value at the end of the comparison year."



Err... okay

Prepared Childbirth Classes

In a sudden panic attack over the impending arrival of the Wiggly Fetus into the world, I'd signed up for two classes at the Magee Women's Hospital: Prepared Childbirth (not the one with Lamaze) and Baby Basics for First Time Parents. I registered, paid the money, and forgot all about the classes (does that happen to you too? Do you feel like your job is done once you shell out some money for something?).

There I was, hanging about in lab yesterday, playing Minesweeper and browsing the net without a care in the world. I'd typed in "Post Doctoral Careers" in Pubmed to see what I'd come up with (a more amusing pastime than one might imagine, Pubmed having the worst search engine in the world) and among the results that came up were "First time childbirth experiences in and out of the hospital: a case study in Australia". How could I ignore something like that? I clicked on the link, opened the report and saw something about midwives and home deliveries and breathing exercises and it struck me with a flash that I'd recently paid a lot of money for learning how to breathe. Shoot! Had that thing already started? Could I get a refund if the classes were already over?

I googled Magee Women's, got hold of their phone number and called. After umpteen transfers and many hours of holding, I got hold of a woman who seemed to know what I was asking about. "Which class did I sign up for, again? When did it start?", I enquired. I was in luck. The first class of the Prepared Childbirth series was that very evening, from 7 to 9pm. "Excellent. I was just checking", I said, as though I had known about this all along. Five minutes later, I called the woman back and asked, "So, what exactly am I supposed to bring to this class? Do I need any special clothes?" She didn't know. She thought I'd probably require comfortable clothes.

By 5pm, I was done with work, bored, hungry and cold (like all buildings in America, in my building too, the heaters are kept at full blast, and the air conditioners switch on automatically, so that each room is either too hot or too cold). I thought I'd get to the hospital by 6:30, grab a bite to eat at the hospital cafeteria before heading to the class. The weather had other plans. It was snowing and blustery outside and a thin sheet of ice had formed on the sidewalks, so that walking was difficult. I slid and skid my way to the bus stop, realized that all the available buses had just passed by and that it was too cold to hang about waiting, and walked on to the hospital. It took me a good 20 minutes more than anticipated to get there, what with the waddling and skidding and I regretfully dismissed the idea of getting food first and made my way to the class.

"No support person"? asked the woman there, as she took in my bedraggled state. "Nope, just me", I said and walked in.

Soon, the other members of the class began walking in- always in pairs. I pretended to be engrossed in a booklet that the instructor had kept for the students (though, soon enough, there was no pretense required- that book had some pretty detailed info about why I had the various aches and pains that I did. Made me feel much less of a hypochondriac). Anyway, by about quarter past 7, the class was full and I took a good look at my classmates.

Firstly, the demographics: Most were women in their mid twenties to mid thirties, like me. Two were teenagers- definitely not older than 18 or 19 years.
All the twenty-thirty year old women (excluding me) had brought their husbands along. The two teenage girls came with their mothers.

Directly opposite me was a woman who was just downright beautiful. She had a such a maternal look on her face, I instantly named her Madonna- not the Kaballah lady, the Renaissance one. I couldn't stop looking at her- she was so calm and collected and so incredibly well dressed. And her husband was so solicitous! He plumped a pillow up for her back, made sure she was comfortable and that her feet were placed up. He supported her if she needed to get up or change position. They held hands all the time, it was all very touching. She was also at the most advanced stage of pregnancy compared to the rest of us- in her 36th week. Come to think of it, she'd probably have her baby before the classes ended, since this is a 4 week course. I came to learn later that this was the first baby that was biologically their own, they had adopted one 15 months ago. Needless to say, my fascination with her only grew after knowing this.

Anyway, my hunger, tiredness, the fact that I was all alone, made me almost teary for a while. In the booklet I'd mentioned above, were pictures of couples practicing different labor postures. I fervently hoped we wouldn't get to that stage in the first class itself- whom would I practice with? Who would give me support? The wall? Initially, I was annoyed at Ram and my mom. Why weren't they here? But then, my annoyance got transferred to heartless residency programs who wouldn't allow their poor residents to spend time with their wives and with the weather, that wouldn't allow my mom to comfortably leave the house when she wanted to.

I didn't want the class to think that I was a single mother with absolutely no one to support her. During the initial introductions, I said, "My husband couldn't be here with me, since he's a resident on call, right here at Magee actually" - a lie, since he was actually at Children's Hospital ER, but I couldn't help myself. I wanted them to think that he was familiar with all this childbirth business, and that should he have some time free, he would instantly be able to come to me. Then, when the spotlight shifted from me, I felt bad about my lies- why begin something on a deceptive note? What kind of things would my kid learn if his mom couldn't stop making up things and announcing them to the world?

To make matters worse, I'd also mentioned to the class (because the instructor asked us to), that we hadn't yet decided on a name and were still arguing about it. To which, the instructor said, "Oh, I see, you don't discuss or debate, but you ARGUE". Which, of course, put a different take on the whole thing- a nasty take.

So I was pretty unhappy the first hour of the class.

The class itself was okay, though. Most of this first session was just talking- what we ought to think about while preparing a birth plan (epidural, other medications, liberty to eat or drink during the labor, liberty to walk or change positions during the contractions and so on). Then, about preterm labor, actual labor and false contractions. All sorts of things about where the baby's head is at different stages of the labor process, why contractions hurt so much and what happens when the water breaks. Things that are good to know, because then you can picture in your head the processes going on within you when the pain starts and then you are not quite so scared or stressed out.

Phew! Long-winded post.

Bt crops- vague thoughts

I haven't had a chance to think deeply about GM crops or GM microbes and their effects on economy and environment. But I came across this note written by Jairam Ramesh, the Minister of Environment and Forests in India, in The Hindu: http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article103839.ece

and was struck by many things: the transparency of the process, the chance for all stakeholders to participate in the decision making process, and the detailed communications that Ramesh seems to have had with many scientists and policy makers all over the world and the very pertinent points brought forth by various people- for and against the Bt strain of GM brinjal.

Many similar points had been brought up about a decade ago in the debate about Bt cotton (Bt stands for Bacillus thuringenesis.... had learned that up for quiz competitions in school and feel proud that I still remember it!)- that particular genetic modification reduces the need for chemical pesticides on cotton plants. Permission for commercial cultivation of Bt cotton was given about 6-7 years ago and Bt cotton apparently is the crop of choice in Maharashtra and Gujarat, among other states, nowadays.

Many people from India moan that nothing is transparent, everything is corruptible and corrupted and the politicians hog all the money- a complaint that never grows old and which I recall people saying even a quarter century ago (this puts me in mind of something from Bill Bryson's Shakesphere: John Stow in his "Survey of London", published in the 1500s, complains that the traffic in the city had grown impossible and the young never walked). Regardless of the pessimistic attitudes taken by these people, I still feel such a sense of optimism and pride when I read reports like this in the newspaper. We have definitely come a long way in improving transparency of the policy making process in India.

My first responses to Bt-brinjal are of instant rejection. We have the ability to produce food enough for all our teeming masses. Our problems with starvation comes from a lack of infrastructure in storage and fair distribution. Producing more brinjal may put us among the top producers and exporters in the world, but it won't solve the starvation problem within India.

Also, homegrown technologies in non pesticide management are slowly gaining the capacity not just to reduce use of chemical pesticides, but to do away with pesticides altogether. Surely more encouragement ought to be given to these industries?

What rankles me most about huge corporations like Monsanto is their insistence that every farmer keep buying seeds from them every year to sow. It is the most unfair thing I've ever heard of and goes against every grain of decency. I would love to stick my nose up at these buggers and say, get lost, just to deny them those extra billion dollars... but then again, I am not an impoverished farmer trying to grow brinjal.

We are not amused

Two days after two feet of snow got dumped on our fair city, I can safely say that our city
a) is not so fair anymore and
b) has no idea how to get itself back together.

Apparently, richer suburbs (that pay 1% city tax) have gotten themselves a make over in the 48 hours that have elapsed since The Great Dump, whereas the neighborhoods in the city itself (that pay 3% city tax, ahem!) are reeling under piles and piles of dirty show, ice and slush.

Consider, if you will, the path from my apartment (well within city limits, 3% tax) to the bus stop. On Saturday evening and on Sunday, it was exciting to see that unending, undulating mound of pristine, glistening snow. My mom and I exclaimed, Antarctica is probably just like this! Since nobody bothered to shovel that snow away, a raggedy path has emerged from people flattening it out with their boots as they walked their dogs. So, not only has this path emerged, it has also been liberally decorated with the pee and poop of the afore-mentioned dogs.... this path is an uneven white-brown, with a border of gold and dark brown (are these dogs slightly dehydrated? Why is their pee so strikingly golden in color?)

Because of its origins, the path isn't straight: it veers gaily and drunkenly... wherever the dog led the master. When you are walking gingerly along it, you see a bend in the curve and adjust accordingly. However, these bends are also the spots where the canines decided to lift their legs. So you turn your body, try not to slip on the ice and at the same time, veer away from that disgusting yellow trickle on the side wall of snow. It is exhausting work.

Anyway, after 2 hours of availing myself of every mode of transportation available on the roads today (including, I might add, my butt, as I slid down a particularly icy downhill stretch), I reached lab, only to see that I was the only person in the whole building. Now I have sit here for another few hours, just to compensate for the time it took me to get here.

Humph.

In the meantime, Oakland, that haven of hospitals and schools, is in no better shape. How are people supposed to come to the Emergency rooms of Presby, Montefiore, Magee or Kauffman? What if my due date was this month, rather than 7 weeks from now? Where would my 3% have taken me, My Fair City? Probably straight into one of those snow banks with dog pee on them, that's where.

My issue with tissue

There are many traumas an intrepid traveler faces after landing in the US from India.

Firstly, there's the problem of language- watching endless reruns of "Friends" sitting in your house, fanning away the mosquitoes, while eating sambar rice does NOT prepare you for the barrage of words that comes out of the big, black officer at the immigration counters at JFK. You can only stand there, mouth slightly agape, looking a bit goggle-eyed while he (or she) sighs in frustration at yet another uneducated, uncool, fresh-off-the-boat novice.

Next comes the total unfriendliness of the chaps loitering about the baggage claims area who refuse to help a lone woman out with her luggage. They lean back, hands in their pockets, with the look of men who are about to enjoy the spectacle of a small being wrestling heroically with a piece of luggage twice her weight, trying to get it on to the cart which refuses to cooperate. Mute appeals for help are met by blank stares.

You finally leave the area, pushing the cart ahead of you, catching your breath, and you come to the airport lobby where there are shops galore. You step into one of them and get the third jolt- the excessive friendliness of the American checkout girl. This friendliness is, of course, fake to some degree, but the trick is to learn to what degree. You can't respond to her with unabashed gratitude, then you'll be met with a freezing stare. You can't respond to her with a totally aloof look, a supercilious raised eyebrow, say. Then you're just being a bitch. You have to balance it out- learn to play it aloof, yet approachable. Friendly, but only to a certain degree. Warm, but with the definite possibility of cool.

But all these are very minor jolts, blemishes on your horizon that blow away as soon as you stop thinking about them. But the big jolt, the one that you don't think about at all, but makes your life a bit miserable every, single day is the toilet.

Public toilets in the airports of the East, whether in India or Dubai, are equipped with an invention which, in my mind, is the greatest one in the past century- the little butt-washer shower. This is a tiny little shower, which has a handle. When the handle is pressed, a stream of high pressure water comes out of the shower, which you then direct to the essential parts of your body after you do your deeds. With a little maneuvering, there is no excessive water spillage, no need to struggle with toilet papers, no need to keep flushing a thousand times to get rid of unseemly stains and best of all, a truly clean nether region.

No toilet- public or private- in the US has such a nifty system. You have to struggle with other people's spills on the seat, then with the toilet paper dispenser and then with cleaning your hands and if you're truly paranoid, viewing with suspicion other people's hands. If you leave any messes in the bowl, you either shrug and say, Eh, the cleaning lady will take care of it or you stand there and flush and re-flush till you feel you can leave with some dignity intact.

And even worse, the doors on these toilets don't close tightly (what IS with that?). Who the heck wants a little space between every single piece of metal making up the booth, such that everyone outside the booth can see (if they just stared a bit) all your trials and tribulations within it? Why can't people just make them like real rooms? No. Some of them go to the extent of placing couches with pretty cushions and intricately carved tables inside the restroom, outside the booths (in the off chance that someone may want to host a tea party in there) and then they make the booths such that the person inside can look outside through the spaces between the door and wall, and the people outside can catch glimpses of the bare bottom of the person inside.

You cringe in the beginning at this blatant lack of privacy, at this open show of non-hygienic cleaning. Then, you reconcile with the first, saying, ah well, it's not like I have anything that everybody else doesn't... so let them see me and I shall see them.

So, as with everything else in life, given a little time, you adjust.

But the cleaning of the tissue is the real traumatizing issue of all. Let me wring my hands together and say those supremely ineffectual words, "Something needs to be done about this!"

Woe is me.

You know what the secret horror of every scientist is?

That they cannot, try as they may, reproduce their work.

Actually wait, I take it back- there are two horrors. First is that of reproducibility (if you can't reproduce what you did a few months ago, then who can?).

The second is this: getting brilliant results, then realizing there was a problem with the experiment design, expecting that results with the new and improved version will be even more brilliant and then realizing that nope, your results with this version are exactly opposite to what you predicted and what you got last time.

Ethical dilemma! Do you stick with original design because it gives you what you want, even though you cannot entirely explain why it worked that way? Or should you be good and swallow the bullet and admit that perhaps your entire hypothesis is incorrect?

But then, what if the assumptions made while forming the hypothesis were incorrect? Then, the results from the two designs should give you an unanticipated insight into the whole process. But then! What if you can't reproduce the damn results in either case? AAARRRRGGGHHHH

Where does that leave one? Cursing oneself for not writing down EVERY single detail in lab notes.

Humph.

San Jose, Honduras

This is the village in Honduras that Ram goes to every year as part of the Shoulder to Shoulder (Hombro a Hombro) group. They have a clinic in this village, which is up in the mountains, and this group has run it for over 10 years. And twice a week (I think), some of the doctors get on a caboose (ass) and travel to the neighboring villages, which cannot be accessed any other way. Ram broke the camera on his very first day in the village, when he attempted to jump across a river, slipped and dropped the camera. But these were the pictures he had clicked before that happened.





I love his stories about his trip to Honduras. The village has no electricity, so every night, all activities end by around 7pm. Ram and his friends would tell each other ghost stories for hours and hours, and then be terribly scared to have to get up and go to the bathroom at night. Every morning, they would get coffee from beans plucked from a field behind the building, freshly roasted and ground every day. And Ram would try out his Spanish on the patients who came there. He claims that Spanish sounds just like Hindi and that he would end up substituting Hindi words for words in Spanish that he didn't know, and would still be understood by the locals :)
Here's a picture of the examination room at the building

Pongal in Bangalore

Nice, no? Look at how warm the day appears to be. What I wouldn't give to be there instead of here.

Prenatal Yoga

I have not attended my prenatal yoga class in 3 weeks and I have NEVER felt better.

Going for the yoga class meant that I'd take the rest of the week recovering from it- everything hurt. And my labmates teased me about how I waddled about even though I wasn't terribly far along in the pregnancy. People say that attending the classes regularly and performing those exercises every day are a good way of preparing and practicing for child birth. So what's the logic- you are undergoing a good deal of pain every week during the yoga class, so that your pain threshold increases and so the process of delivering a baby no longer feels as bad?

Yoga was tolerable when we had a particular teacher in the class- she was in her 50s, she had given birth when she was 47 (!) and she understood all the attendant aches and pains of pregnancy. Best of all, she was of the opinion that all most women wanted, was to stretch a bit, relax a bit and listen to some soothing music while letting go of all the stresses of the day. Unfortunately, this teacher was only the substitute. The real teacher came along four weeks ago and literally ripped apart this mild, soothing visage of prenatal yoga and gave it an aggressive, aerobic avatar.
The result? I was completely out of breath halfway through the class, but grimly held on till the end. My legs wobbled and I nearly lost my balance while walking back home from the class and I was in acute pain for the next two weeks. I couldn't turn over in bed without an acute terror of the oncoming pain, I couldn't breathe deeply because my ribs hurt and I couldn't walk without wincing.

Now I'm just pissed off. Fine, so maybe I'm out of shape, but who the heck says that anything has to be this hard? Who, in their right minds, would deliberately go about ruining their self confidence like this? It's bad enough knowing that you're no longer able to fit into your clothes, that you can't stop your stomach from rumbling every 4 hours and it's bad enough having to worry if your little kid is getting the right nutrients and having to juggle housework and real work and everything else. WHY would anyone want to put themselves through the torture of a workout that leaves one physically and mentally exhausted? And what kind of a twisted mind would think that experiencing pain during pregnancy will make one better prepared for child birth? The only thing it does is leave a lasting dread of the whole experience.

Prenatal Yoga, I wash my hands off you.

And today, striding along the corridor at a pace that definitely was not possible when I was doing yoga, I feel incredibly good about myself.

Gazing at Bangalore

Gosh, am on a blogging spree these days.

My new activity to pass time has been to gaze at the road map of Bangalore. During the years I lived in Bangalore, I never did that- even when I knew I was going to get hopelessly lost. It was almost as if looking at the map of a city one considered one's hometown was admitting to being a wuss- much better to get lost or overpay the auto rickshaw driver. Perhaps other people can live in a city for a while and figure out how to get from place to place without looking at a map, but such skills are beyond me. I was the laughing stock of my cousins, especially my cousin sisters Madhu and Mridl, but hey, at least I could hold my head up high because I wasn't one to resort to a map.

But now, gazing at the old Bendakaluru (I thought that meant "city of boiled beans". Apparently not. It means "city of burnt rice"... kalu means beans, no? Anna means rice... so at the most it can be "city of burnt beans"- surely my Kannada isn't that totally off?), I suddenly realize, hey! Many of these places aren't all that far away from my house as I thought they were.

Here, let me show you:




The red circle is where I live: Rajajinagar.
Things in black and green are places that have a special meaning for me.
The orange lines are even more special.
Let me tell you about these places:

Shivajinagar: supposedly, it's the closest place to Rjrngr. But I swear, it takes a good hour to get to the place! I thought it had to be MUCH further away than it actually is. It seems like a single road connects the two, doesn't it? Hah. If only that were true.

Why is Shivajinagar so special? Because you take the bus there and walk about 15 minutes (less, if you don't get lost) and you find yourself at Commercial Street- my favorite street for shopping EVER. The women of my family have gone to that place for our clothes shopping from even before I was born. I think, personally, that it became such a 'staple' only because my cousin Madhu used to love going there. Madhu is an indefatigable shopper. If I had to explain why she got into the habit of going there, I would say that she probably discovered this place when she was in college, and then began dragging her mother and aunts there for everything. They would have put up with her because she would know all the places to get inexpensive, but good quality clothes and would know whom to haggle with. And of course, by the time Mridl and I were born and were old enough to take shopping, she was the unrestrained and unchallenged Queen of the Shops. My memories of Commercial Street, and really of Bangalore, are firmly linked with shopping (oh, and how could I forget eating? Madhu, in addition to knowing the best clothes shops, also knows the best eating joints) trips with Madhu.

Anyway, if you have never been to Bangalore, go to Shivajinagar without fail. You will find EVERYthing that you will ever need there. Really.

Next stop on the tour: Jayanagar. Where Madhu lives (really, this post is becoming more about her than anything else!). Jayanagar is SUCH a beautiful place. It's got old trees lining the streets, it's got gardens and parks and it's got true character. See where that red ballon with an A is on the map? Somewhere there is the big bus stand called "Majestic" (no, I lie. It's called Kempegowda Station now), where you take bus number 2 to get to Jayanagar. When you get down at the Jayanagar bus stand, there's a Nandini milk outpost, where you buy flavored milk to cool yourself down before trying to figure out how to get to her place.

I was going to do this by distance, but let's do South Bangalore first, and then move up north. See where it says Ramagondanahalli? Don't know what 'gondana' means, but 'halli' means 'village'... so it's supposed to be a village somehow connected to Rama.
Anyway, that's where my youngest aunt lives (except "village" and "rusticity" are the farthest things from your mind when you see where she lives). Her place is very nice, of course, but the halli isn't too bad either. There's a shop selling coconuts right outside the compound and the bus stop isn't too far off. So you can get yourself a coconut water drink and wait for the bus (which can tend to get a bit crowded, but hey, you're moving, so it's not too hot). Honestly though, I have probably taken the bus ONCE in my whole life from her place to mine. So, my impressions of the halli are a bit vague. I mention this place because I have a big huge soft spot for it- it is THE most serene place in all of Bangalore and I have the happiest memories there... errr.. I'm talking about her house, not the halli.

Much further south is marked "Sarjapur", where another of my aunts lives. Actually, I have NO clue where she lives, but I know you have to take the Sarjapur road and then ride off into the wilderness. Her house is built on what used to be a farm, far far away from the city. I love it, not because I have actually been there too often, but because in my head, it's like an escape- from the city, from tension and stress and everything else.

Now wheeee... let's zoom up north to the orange arrow on National Highway 4. Guess where that leads? To Kolar! That's where the man is from... well, technically, he's from Bangalore too, but he lives in Kolar. And really, NH4 is THE closest road to their house and runs behind it. I like their house- it reminds me of my own.

Further up (man, this is getting tiring. But I will finish) in green: Jakkur Layout and the vicinity. Why is this important? Because of NCBS! National Center for Biological Sciences is where I did my undergrad projects for 2 years and JNCASR in Jakkur paid me to do that research! To get to either NCBS or JNCASR (they are two different places), you would have to take a shuttle from that almighty temple of science, IISc. What a place! And what a place NCBS is! It's where I had my first taste of independence and I loved it!

Okay, maybe I should actually go do some work now, instead of constantly writing on my blog.

Thoughts about the Future

I've been giving some thought to what I ought to do after the PhD for the past few weeks. I hope to be done by the end of this year, but I guess it's never too early to plan. Also, a few of my close friends who started their PhDs around the same time that I did are graduating soon and while that's always melancholy, it's also very interesting to hear their thoughts about what they want to do next and why.

I decided to do a PhD for all the wrong reasons. My main wrong reason was that I wanted to get out of my home, hometown, country and everything that was familiar and safe and live life by my own in a totally new place. I also wrongly expected that a tepid liking for research would be enough to dedicate 5-6 years to it. There was peer pressure (and how! Nearly 35 people out of 50 in my class applied for PhD programs in the US, India and UK. And our undergrad teachers practically brainwashed us into thinking that a PhD was the only thing of worth that could be done), a significant superiority complex (how could I, with my scores and recommendations, think of doing anything as measly as a Masters?) and a conviction that a PhD would give me the expertise and authority to be able to dictate my terms to others. I guess there is some truth to that last bit, so I wasn't 100% misguided in my wish to join a doctoral program.... perhaps 99% misguided, but not a complete 100%. That makes me feel slightly better.

I'll save the process of getting a PhD for another post. Let's just say that it's like one of those clothes dryers- it wrings everything out of you. At the end of the process, you are left with the unshakable truth that no matter how bad things get: a) they might just get worse, and
b) somehow you will be able to get out of it- with or without dignity intact.

Anyway, I don't want to make the same mistake of entering something after the PhD for the wrong reasons. Which is why I am so leery of doing a post doc- if I do one, will I be doing it because everyone else is, or because I really, truly in my heart want to do one? And I don't want to join something with that lamest of excuses: "There are no other options. I can't do anything else".

So I am writing this to clear up my head about what I would like to do after the PhD.

What are the aspects I would like to promote in my professional self?

a) I think I would like to teach- from whatever little teaching I have done, I find it fun and I think I am good at it. And thinking about teaching doesn't give me a secret fear that I will not be adequate for the task, it makes me feel rather warm and happy and excited- even the thought about grading or setting exam papers. So, definitely, this aspect should be present in whatever avatar I take post graduation.

b) Writing: I am pretty darn good at it. Sorry about the lack of modesty here. I'll be a bit more objective: I am very good at writing about my own research and my own scientific thoughts in a simple and concise manner and I am very good at editing other people's writing. And while I am not truly excellent at critiquing other people's scientific work, I'm not terrible at it either. I haven't done well in scientific reporting, I regret to say. My writing tends to become wooden or worse, fake sounding. Perhaps that is because of lack of practice- don't have too many occasions to write in detail about someone else's work.

c) Research: has two aspects to it- the thinking about, and the actual conducting of. I'm good at thinking about research. I can break down a question into smaller objectives and I can think of the drawbacks to measurement techniques and find a way around them. Which is why I can write a research proposal fairly well. What I cannot do without great fear of failure is actually conduct these experiments and measurements. I am not terribly good at lab work. Isn't that a sad admission from a bench scientist? And I know why. It's the same reason that my cooking sometimes is brilliant and sometimes fails quite dramatically: I cannot follow a recipe. I improvise and I make excuses for it. And sometimes, I'll admit, I'm just plain lazy.

So it's these conflicting attitudes to research that make me love it some days and hate it, fear it on others.

I think the best option for me is to do something that doesn't involve a great deal of bench work, that involves thinking and planning research experiments, and that involves teaching and writing.... I should just skip the whole post doc experience and become a principal investigator... haha....

Anyway, this has clarified that the standard post doctoral experience, with its focus on bench work and lab skills, is not for me.

What are the alternatives? I could teach- in an undergraduate college or a medical college. Both these places do promote research, but to a smaller degree. And in such a place, without the pressure to perform magic in the lab, I might actually find myself becoming better at bench work. In fact, in some place like this, I could, in addition to teaching, start a grant writing course or an introductory course to research. This would involve a lot of thinking and writing initially, of course, and then would gradually proceed to lab work, by which time I might be prepared for, and even excited about, it.

Industrial jobs- scientific writing, post docs, media relations etc- really don't thrill me to bits. I wonder if I am a product of that class of academia that puts its nose up when it comes to the industry. My adviser is a bit old fashioned like that. Maybe I take after him.

Phew! Enough thoughts for now- my brain is getting tired.

Obama's weatherization and my apartment

I finally get Obama - like, totally, really, like completely "get" him - and his weatherization. First time I heard that word, I raised an eyebrow- having never heard of the word before, I figured he, in an unexpected salute to Bush, was making up his own vocabulary. Then I cringed a bit, like a teen would when her normally sensible parent says something silly in front of the whole world. Googling "weatherization" didn't make much of a difference to this feeling of embarrassment because the only people who seemed to be using it were from the Federal government.

Anyway, today made a difference. It is -3F here in Pittsburgh and my house is drafty. I have, with militant vigor, attacked every window and every crevice to track down the source of the draftiness, but to no avail. As I sit at the computer, which is next to the window, I feel my fingers and my feet getting colder and colder. Try as I may, I cannot abolish the tendrils of cold that creep inside through invisible spaces from the windows.

This darn heating-leaking apartment has illustrated one more point of basic thermodynamics for me: cold air sinks and hot air rises. Keeping the heaters on "high" makes my face feel warm, but my feet are still cold, because I place them beneath the heaters. The feet have to feel the cold draft coming downwards from the window above the heaters.

My fellow PhDs from the engineering department: what the hell are you people doing? Stop designing bridges or construction equipment or whatever it is that you do, and figure out a way to stop the draft from entering my house, or to keep the heat from escaping out of it. I'm DYIN' here, I tell ya.