Gee, I can’t seem to find my soul!

Last afternoon I came face to face with a question that most people take lifetimes to ponder – is food more important than religion? It may seem like an esoteric question, but once I’m through – provided you’re still with me – you’ll realize that it is one of the most profound questions of the century...

With all of us lugging in holiday spirit and suitcases to work, I decided I had the luxury of a really long luncheon – complete with food, reading and mindless chatter. So, in preparation for it, I got the best meatball sub ever made and plonked it on my hallmark table by the window; normally, I wouldn’t leave such a marvelous piece of creation unguarded, but an irrepressible surge of thirst overcame all sense of security and I’d just disappeared for a few seconds to grab a bottle of water, when....

I return in mouth-watering anticipation only to find a pious co-worker blocking my view of the sandwich and, worse still, performing his salah. Now, this could take anywhere between 5 minutes and 5 hours, depending on his degree of spirituality. For a split second, my instinct was to dash around him and grab my sandwich – lest you think I am some kind of werewolf, imagine marinara and tender meat balls and provolone cheese spilling out from a toasted roll of Italian bread that can hardly contain its own richness. If you still don’t sympathize, I’m forced to conclude that you haven’t had the world’s best meatball sub (if you want to reverse that -- and I strongly urge that you do – I can be contacted for hours and location ;)).

Getting back to my predicament, my spiritual co-worker probably thought it was a pork roll sausage, cos at least from the angle I was in, he seemed to be directing a lot of his prayer to it. So, being the very considerate soul I am, I decided to wait it out just a wee bit longer and grabbed the next best thing – a copy of the Atlantic, deciding to satisfy my hunger for knowledge instead (some compensation).

He did finally leave after an interminable five minutes and left me thinking about our priorities as human beings. Here was a guy that obviously rendered a brown paper bag, depicting one of the three essential survival factors of life, insignificant in the face of religion. As for me, the only reason I waited was cos it was his religion and obviously extremely important to him. My own religion, I gave up the day I figured out I wasn’t getting any kind of nirvana till I ate that inexcusably juicy piece of angus; the biggest irony is that people pray to the cow without realizing jus how sal(i)vating it can be :)

Like I have said in excruciating detail many times before, I rarely make masochistic promises to myself, certainly none that include giving up food or living with rodents or freezing to death. It’s a short life we lead on this earth (though sometimes it does seem incredibly long) and there is enough misery to deal with, what with destiny and nature and god and the universe all competing to dole out their share. So, other than making sure that my right to wave my fist stops at my neighbor’s nose, I don’t really claim to have any I’m-holier-than-thou principles.

There was one thing, however, that I once told myself I’ll never ever do, mainly cos I felt I needed a “cool” principle, since everyone else seemed to be having one. “Paper bags,” my environmentalist friend would say, fixing the salesgirl with an ominous stare, rendering preposterous, even the mere suggestion of an existing alternative. “Let’s jus walk down a few more blocks, we’ll find the restaurant, I just don’t believe in 411” another would suggest, even if we are starving to death on a cold February night. “I don’t drink Starbucks coffee”, someone else would say a tad condescendingly to the warm and refreshing cappuccino in my hand; I consider telling them the “actual” crime is to stand there and shiver in the cold when a perfectly divine cup of caffeine, albeit capitalistic, is at your disposal, but change my mind. After all, my world-view is much too personal to me :)

So, my own little principle was that I’d never eat veal in my life (bad enough that I am politically incorrect in my thoughts and opinions). Moreover, I do think it’s unfair to feed a perfectly normal cow hormones and make it grow stunted all its life jus cos you wanted a certain added flavor in your meat (on a completely different note, I did believe till a week ago that bovine meat was perfectly divine as is). So, the one thing I told myself I’d never do, unfortunately had to do with food, the one thing I rarely deprive myself of. Isn’t that supposed to be the point of a principle, anyway? Deprivation, sacrifice, masochism? However, it makes it easier to break as well. And hence, last week I lost the last vestige of my ‘soul’ by giving up that little promise.

Before you make any judgments, I think you should hear me out. As it happened, we had this absolutely marvelous holiday luncheon planned in this absolutely marvelous Italian restaurant, where everyone swore the veal parmesan was absolutely divine. I must say I was a tad tempted but I decided I’d hear the list of entrees and give my principle some credence over good food. The waiter reeled off the list: veal parmesan --- long pause --- cacophonous rattle including chicken-somethin, mussels in red sauce, mussels in white whine and something indecipherable at the end. Since I sincerely believe that white meat should not be considered when there is some perfectly good red meat available (Indian cuisine exclusive) and that sea-food has no business in a meal beyond the first course (walnut encrusted salmon and mango-salsa-laced-shrimp-sushi excepted) I decided I just had to go for it. I felt a tiny little pang of guilt, but once the guy waltzed in with a dozen plates of aromatic, sizzling slabs of veal, the regret was long forgotten.

Anyway, the good thing (other than the incredibly delicious meat) was that I wasn’t the last remaining ‘soul-less’ person on earth. Everyone at the table not only ate veal for probably the thousandth time in their lives with not an ounce of remorse, but also had interesting anecdotes to share about the many ways of cervically dislocating (euthanasia, for the uninitiated, though it probably doesn’t sound like mercy-killing) the mice in the lab. Trust a bunch of stem-cell-researching, cancer-curing, evolution-touting, meat-eating scientists to always bring up the rear on the list of soulful people.

Just to clarify, I am not totally soul-less. Every time I have to snip the edge of a mouse’s tail, I feel like a monster. But then I put it in perspective --- half a million people die of heart and lung disease each year, and every experiment that involves a little rodent brings us closer to saving a human life. I gotta do what I gotta do. And in another part of the world, someone else burns a research lab to save that very mouse. They gotta do what they gotta do.

There are some things we believe in and some we don’t. Ultimately, in my opinion, the biggest sin is to not believe at all. Food and God apart, passion is but one of the most important survival factors...I might never understand what prompted my co-worker to abandon all in the middle of a work day and make a trip to the lounge and do his bidding to God, what I can understand is his intensity of feeling – that is the plane we share. You could sit in the Himalayas and count rosary beads, roll your tongue over every inch of that perfectly done steak or spend hours injecting disease-curing genes into little rodents – as long as you believe...

On being judicially judicious

The Shawshank Redemption is the kind of movie you sit through in rapt attention the first time, that you continue to quote from years later and one that leaves you with a very disturbing after-taste, every time you watch it -- not because Andy Dufresne gets convicted of a murder he didn’t commit and goes to prison for life, not because he escapes with an ingenious plot, but because the former is so frighteningly possible in real life and the latter that much implausibly surreal.

Since I don’t believe in justice being served on judgment day or in the after-life, and I barely believe in an omnipotent entity called God who watches over us and balances it all out, I very desperately need the reassurance that man gets his due, both good and bad, in this life, on earth, under the watchful eye of a book of laws (and I don’t mean the gold-gilded black one with the fairy tale about the stable boy). I wish the rest of human kind would get real and concur that we only get one shot at serving justice and even if it is by thought-capable, tangible, fellow human beings it must hold a certain level of credibility.

A week ago, I watched the Jessica Sanders’ documentary, After Innocence and I must say, the movie not only offered a lot of food for thought, but also took away my long-held belief that I held unthreatened monopoly over criticism of the many flaws of the justice system. Last year, I followed the Scott Peterson trial with a certain degree of interest and watched a person get convicted of murder and given the death sentence without a shred of evidence. A stone-faced expression, an extra-marital affair and being in the wrong place at the wrong time do not a murderer make.

What is scarier than the ruthlessness of a man that did or did not kill his pregnant wife, is that human beings are so involved in waging an all-out war against “evil” that they don’t seem to stop and wonder if the evil they are fighting is rightly placed. It could be an innocent guilt-free civilian who hasn’t hurt a fly in his entire life (his only fault being that he doesn’t flex his facial muscles often enough), a husband that wants to carry on what remains of his life after tending to a comatose life-partner for a decade or a 12-year old boy on anti-depressants.

The law not only follows a fault-ridden system in its hurry to dole out penalties, it also brands a person with evil, satanic and heinous tendencies, on his way to the prison cell. I sometimes wonder if the prison sentence is much needed solace for a human being that has been stripped of all self-esteem, virtue and credibility by the mirthless eyes of the court, media and society, that shun him before even proving him guilty of his crimes or trying to understand what heart-rending circumstances lead him to them.

It’s funny that while books like A Time to Kill and movies like A Few Good Men, which look beyond the crude physical act of murdering a person and delve deep into the human psyche are given a lot of credence, we so easily disregard a person’s emotional and mental state of mind at the time of crime in real-life situations.

A few weeks ago, a man was released from prison after spending 25 years in jail for a crime he did not commit. It saddened me that I found it on a corner of the yahoo news home page and didn’t see it mentioned anywhere in the mainstream media. With American news channels as person-centric as they tend to be (Natalie Holloway, Michael Jackson, Ashley Smith & the Runaway bride, for crying out loud!), what IS evil is that a man spends a wasteful quarter century in prison, and it goes unnoticed.

After Innocence focuses on exactly these problems with the justice system – through the representation of the lives (or lack thereof) of several such unfortunate exonerees, it brings out the painfully careless way in which a court of law punishes those that merely have the misfortune of being caught under its radar – basing life sentences on mere eye-witness accounts of victims who are obviously disillusioned post-traumatization, refusing to do a DNA test when it could so easily be done and in one case even ignoring the results of a forensic exam and detaining a convict in prison years after the records clearly ruled out his involvement in the crime.

To my libertarian mind, which defies regulation even when carried out in pristine fashion, vigilante justice, although anarchic, seems a more logical and satisfying solution to the problem, as opposed to a regulated court of law that sadly makes inexcusable mistakes...

In an age of microchips and supercomputers, why are we still using flawed testimonies and circumstantial evidences to make cases? Why aren’t we using science where we can, to make our lives easier and fairer?

In an era of protesting anything Science (abortion, stem-cell research, GM foods) are we merely apprehensive about playing God or are we so terrified by the prospect of an Asimov-grade takeover of man by machines that we are willing to forego an obviously fool-proof solution to a problem and look the other way?

Science is the tool in man’s hands, and it is there for us to use. The micropipette on my bench seems to be in no hurry to turn around and slap me in the face. Let’s use it to add an objective dimension to our otherwise human-error prone society...

Fun with matrimonial dot-commers

When you’re a single desi girl in your late twenties (yeah, officially began on the “late” a couple months ago, a fact everyone in my family seems to be bothered by but me), your parents invariably try to get you to agree to tie that proverbial knot and nothing is going to deter them except, well, another girl of nuptial age, or maybe, just maybe, another girl of nuptial age, cos let’s face it, among the ferocious cyclones and the threat of dengue and the relentless power-cuts, marriage of their incorrigible daughters in alien lands seems to be the singular problem bogging down Indian mid-lifers.

So, if you’re unfortunate enough to be in the subcontinent, they keep foisting on you that good-natured (uh-oh), decent, well-educated guy from that family of good upbringing, who, by the way, did clear the background check (I am not sure what that entails but as far as I can tell, it’s not along the lines of hobbies or favorite foods) till you finally cave in and agree – after all it’s just your marriage and you’re only going to spend the rest of your life with the guy, nothing major. If you’re lucky enough to have an ocean or two between you, however, your parents learn to be a little more creative, namely, resort to that thing that makes the world a tinier place, and usually has a dot-com at the end of it.

And in order to humor your folks (not to mention a certain tangible fear that began to surface when you found yourself single at age 25 and 2 days, and has grown progressively since, not totally unaided by parent-instilled paranoia) you register at one of the online sites. There’s a wide range to choose from, thanks to Indian ingenuity and cyber-competence, not to mention the fastidiousness of ‘single-and-looking’ desis, who seem a tad pickier (as evidenced by the universal dropdown tab, including yes, no, maybe & don’t know for everything from vegetarianism to spirituality), contrary to the parents that are ruled by criteria totally unrelated to living in this day and age; for one, they don’t seem to be able to translate “good, clean, habits” to “forget ever going to a sports bar or night club.”

So, more for the ‘heck of it’, your love of writing (and parents) and amusement with anything foreign to your character, than any real belief that you’re going to find a potential life partner this way, you use your writing skills to their articulate best and put up a rambling, descriptive profile, that includes everything from your ’90s awe of Pete Sampras to your current radically libertarian views and believe it or not, find a pastime quite unlike any you’ve ever dreamed of (unlike that all-important man you’re looking for, who surfaces every so often).

Shaadi.com becomes one of your daily internet stops, and you soon find yourself accommodating it between the more routine ones like gmail and blogspots and bbc-world. Because, despite the sitcoms and late night comedies and the incredibly stupid republicans out there, you are still looking for something to add to your repertoire of daily laughter – duly fulfilled by the guy that comes “from a very close knit family with lots of values”, the one that is “garnished with positive aura”, the fella that is looking “for a nice lady that is loving to her parents and family” or the father that wants a daughter-in-law “preferably in the IT field” (you do give him the benefit of doubt and wonder if the guy has trouble differentiating between linux and unix, and feel a pang of pain that you don’t qualify).

If you’re fortunate, you have a small clique of single, strictly-25-or-older, female friends that you either talk into registering (in the rare case that their parents were less militant than average and haven’t been initiated yet) or better still, share your password with, so they can join in the fun as well. After all, other than the occasional federer-fervor or matrix-obsession, they fit your profile to a tee (let’s face it, they’re not single and 25-or-older and desi and female for nothing).

And then it happens. Your pal forwards you a Shaadi.com profile and you read it in its entirety. You’re stumped. You re-read it, lest you missed something the first time. Again, nothing. Now you get a little worried – you either lost your sense of humor or your grammatical authority – both, in your opinion, utterly precious to your qualifications as a human being. On the third reading, still coming up with nothing and slightly short of breath, you shoot her an email: Relatively well-read and well-informed, inclined to both sports and politics, decent sense of humor, near-equal weightage to the couch and the outdoors, likes food and the television, and even the English is almost flawless....What is up with that?

And then you spot it. The guy has a damn cat. You haven’t lost it after all. You burst out laughing. Now, a rotty would be dandy. A lab, glorious. A golden retriever, just about perfect. But a cat?

There’s a reply from her almost immediately (she’s single and desi after all ;)).

I know you will beat me up for this.. but that guy in the profile seemed really your type... (esp since he named his cat SPUNKIE)

Now you’re really outraged. She’s drunk the cool-aid!
You could put the spunkie in bold black letters, alright, but I still hear the cat a whole lot louder....

And now, having irrevocably jeopardized my chances of ever finding anyone on shaadi.com, I’ll go back and see if someone missed an all-important comma.

All said, this is not so much out of the cynicism or arrogance that comes with being single, but rather that all-essential, self-disparaging and healthy laughter you need to have with your female friends when you find yourself unattached beyond a certain age....No offense to shaadi.com and the dozen earnest matchmaking sites out there, which would, no doubt, allow a simpler human being find her soulmate and live happily ever after. And to be totally fair, I find it hard to resist a smile when I chance upon a fellow Maher-worshipper or the guy that proclaims to watch tennis with the same nail-biting fervor that seats me on the precarious edge of a sofa through Wimbledon, or turn off when another doesn’t share my penchant for Crichton or T-bone steak.

I am just a little more romantic than a feeble attempt at trying to fit my characteristics on a pre-designed template...and expecting someone to even begin to imagine a lifetime with me based on it... a few hours at dinner, maybe, a couple hour-long phone calls, sure, a 10,000-odd word email, absolutely...

But a page-long description with my co-ordinates and occupation and dietary habits? I’m a little more complicated than that.....I wouldn’t be doing justice to myself....or a potential suitor....

It’s holiday in New York :)

And roundabouts...

It is subzero and freezing with the distinct premonition of a snow shower, public transportation timelessly delayed in a city where a third of the population relies on it, some piled up snow on the sidewalk, a huge line at Starbucks, I am walking back on my way home, and I am not complaining. There must be something very wrong.

Or very right.

Here at Walnut and 18th, across from the calm serenity of Rittenhouse Square Park complementing the hub of shopping and dining and stock-brokering and selling, where chariots move with no sense of time, pedestrians gawk, mindless of temperature, shoppers shop, unaware of the limits on their wallets, cars idle, oblivious of traffic lights, and people eat and drink and be merry, the many problems of life forgotten, it’s hard to complain.

The lights of City Hall look on from the distance, smug that they have helped spread the cheer, local musicians troll from a few miles away, so the winds could carry some holiday melody and dilute the chill, the smell of fresh baked bread mixes with that of winter before wafting through the air, to convince even the most melancholic that joy is all around..

And here in wintry-wet Philadelphia in December, right by a mound of packed and dirty snow, I raise a gloved hand to a well-insulated head, as the realization hits: overflowing trash cans and ankle-deep water puddles apart, I love the annoying discomfort of the North East. Reason why, far, far, away, amid the magnificent rockies, the wonderfully warm, sunny days, the clean and harmless powdery snow-flakes, the homes with central air and in-house laundry, the cars with protective heating and vast open spaces to park them in, not to mention narrower, cruder ones to hike and schlep up, I often dreamed of complicated Jersy-an jughandles and crowded Manhattan metros.

I love the long pea-coats that do all they can to fight the windchill, the buses that finally appear on the horizon, instigating a collective sigh of relief, the snow-boots that slip and slide over piles of debris and ice alike, trolleys with the latest movie poster stuck and re-stuck over archaic ones of a bygone era, graffiti on the shady side of a skyscraper recording the sort of poignant emotion that happens but once in one’s lifetime, interminable waits at the Post Office, endless lines at the supermarket and curt orders at the SEPTA ticket counter, bordering on un-Americanly rude...

Receiving that rude remark pays off though – pays off an hour and half later, cos when you get off at Madison Square Garden and the cold winds hit you just as hard as that pedestrian, and all you can feel is joy, you know where you are, for such vices are so easily excused only in the big apple...

Amid the sights and sounds and life and lights and people of New York, ironically enough, the most mundane thing happens in Times Square – lights fade, fireworks sparkle and a huge crystal ball drops, declaring that yet another year has begun...

Here is where it all happens, here is where I am going to be... I’m back by the Atlantic and I am not going to miss it for the world.

And while I go to bed thinking of the workload of tomorrow, one little part of my brain delights in the feeling of three weeks hence and spending New Year’s in New York...

Airport

[Not to be confused with Arthur Hailey’s exemplary work of fiction. On second thoughts, why would it? Everyone calls it an airport; he merely accompanies it with some exceptionally vivid literature].


Most people hate stopovers. I love them. But most people don’t have as much time as I do, or the inclination to spend a few precious hours observing Homo sapiens and their intriguing ways. I rank airports among the top in my list of “pensive, thought-provoking, muse-inducing” places, second only to the fringes of a water body and Park Avenue and 46th Street.

To me, there are few things more fascinating than playing the observant “stranger in the crowd”, reason why I have spent a fair bit of my 20-something life lost in many muses amid the animated bustle of NY Penn station where most people have only one thought (Am I going to make it to the train?) and the pandemonium at Mumbai’s Victoria Terminal where the average thought process gets a little more profound (Am I going to get killed making it to the train?), but limited nonetheless (as evidenced by the not uncommon sight of people running through, under and over trains while getting to them).

Now, an airport provides all of that, and then some. Some meaning a barstool at a safe distance from travel-plagued, time-hungry commuters, not to mention endless cups of coffee and a bagel, whose less-than-desirable toasting I ignore on account of the range of delightful views my situation affords: people sauntering, strolling, striding, stumbling, fleeing or downright hurtling (often dangerously) to the airport newsstand, café & restaurant, restrooms, customer service, telephone stalls and gates (in that order). And for once, I actually watch people without judgment (well, unless it’s as unavoidable as that guy picking up a copy of Cosmo at Daily News or the girl in stilettos struggling to carry a dime-sized piece of luggage).

And if you’re fortunate, you grab that last table by the window overlooking the runway, so you can occasionally turn your sights from the many flaws of humankind, where planes replace people and conduct themselves with slightly more aplomb, proving that man-made machines are indeed more poised than man. However, sometimes you get luckier still and watch bags and boxes topple over each other as they make their way to the cargo hold and contend that the inanimate does fail occasionally (the result of which is a suitcase I will never use again and another that turns around and rolls in the opposite direction just for the heck of it, offering a bout of pleasure to perhaps a likeminded soul).

So, I find myself luxuriating in the wait time of an hour and 20 minutes at Charlotte Douglas International, oodles of coffee, an untoasted bagel that makes up in sheer amount of cream cheese, too many muses and a sorry laptop that bears the brunt of it all (mostly in the form of some visible caffeine and a slightly less efficient keyboard)......

Letting go of the wrong dog

There must be something to this unconditional devotion to a team cos try as I might, I have been unable to shed my allegiance to the faltering, losing, fault-plagued Eagles this season.

Since I have always extolled sticking with the winners, I’ve been making quite a few attempts to let go of the wavering birds from the land of brotherly love, albeit unsuccessfully.

I decided the Colts were a safe bet (a 10-to-0 safe bet to be precise) and much as I love their seeming infallibility and the Peyton-Marvin duo, I realized, to my dismay, that I’d much rather root for the controversy-&-hernia-ridden Donovan pass to Owens, and watch TO play maitre D, however rare or impossible a sight that might be.

My next choice was the other Manning-led team, serving not only the city-state of endless joy but also playing in my older much-loved residence -- you’d think that would be allegiance enough. But much as they are aw-w-w-w-wesome, I was watching the birds play the giants last afternoon and couldn’t quell that teeny little hope that a McNabb-less, TO-less Eagles team that has been fumbling all season long was going to perform a magic act and actually beat the leading team in the NFC East. Didn’t happen.

Since I am in the process of trying out, I then tried out the Steelers (I’ve spent many a day, week and month in the steely town and owe denizenship on account of a couple best pals inhabiting the cloudy sun-less city), but even the enthusiasm of Big Ben and his rushing buddies wasn’t enough to keep me hooked onto them.

Finally, my last resort: the team from my most recent older dwelling, powered as much by fond memories of the mile-high state as the fact that the Broncos seem indefatigable this year (not to mention the observation that their QB is the hottest ever in the NFL ;)), but my channel-surfing seemed inexplicably to come to a stop on the Eagles game, even while Bell was scoring TD after TD on the next station (and considering my surfing abilities, that is saying something).

I find it quite baffling cos I don’t like rooting for losers. And it takes me down memory lane, to when I sat in a packed living room with family and friends and cheered for the Indian cricket team till my lungs deflated, even in near-impossible scenarios. No doubt, it had a lot to do with being Indian, but it also had a lot to do with a team you started your love affair for a game with...something far more binding than geography, personnel and principle...a sort of unconditional devotion if you will, no questions asked, no answers expected...

I am not revising my stand on rooting for the wrong dog because if I were to (God forbid!) start watching the NBA tomorrow, I would sure as hell start with the Spurs. My love has nothing to do with the Indian team being the underdogs then or the Eagles being the poor prospect now, just a certain inexplicable bond established at a time when they earned my fondness, that the loss of a couple players, a few bad games or pathetic performance an entire season is not going to take away.

Same reason why, as much as my adoration for Sampras was based on his invincibility, I couldn’t give up on him in his final faltering two years, cheering him on as I did till the minute he hung up his racket. And now Roger can rest assured of my undeterred adulation for as long as he holds one (this, in the face of his defeat to the miraculous Nalbandian at the Masters'.)

So while the offense is doing a pathetic job and barely able to complete a first down, I am quite content to sit and root for Kearse and Trotter who are doing all they can to keep them in the game or yell in delight when Reggie Brown steps up to the plate and helps out a faltering, unseasoned QB by making a near-impossible touchdown catch...

Now, with the Eagles’ playoff hopes dim, if not non-existent, would it make my life just a wee bit easier to root for the Colts? Sure, but loving the quadrupeds is that much harder after having loved the birds all too dearly so long...quirks, TO, sports-hernia and all...

Can I get a tall cup of happiness.....

With some whipped cream...
And a li’l bit of chocolate drizzle...
Thanks...

I was watching the Lenscrafters' commercial with the ‘unconditional happiness guarantee’ and my first reaction was amusement.

I have never believed that happiness can be bought (or guaranteed for that matter). Reason why the two professions I can ever imagine being in both pay a pittance but usually give me oodles of happiness, one with some stipulated conditions (make sure a microliter is ONLY a microliter) and the other quite unconditionally thus far.

But that was when I was green and naive and closeted under the cloud cover of family in the next room or an o/n bus-ride away, a sworn "friends-forever" clique that loved you no matter what or a campus desi bunch in an alien land (read: whose lives revolved around you as much as yours around theirs ;)) that guaranteed taking you out for beer or hosting you for a well-cooked meal whenever you were low.

But when you’re single AND working in a foreign land and you’re sprawled in front of the very television that comes as close to the happiness guarantee as the commercial you are watching proclaims, you begin to agree that happiness does sadly (and may I say, thankfully) come in little bits of paper, also called the "dollar".

Since I base all my statements on fact ;), here’s my evidence...

I don’t feel like getting out from under the comforter and goin to work.... hmmmm, maybe I'll stop at Starbucks and pick up a mocha with their patented whipped cream. A surefire way to spring out of bed....

I couldn't spend an entire weekend without Bill M's Real Time! Are you kidding? An HBO subscription for 80 bucks a month to make sure you have a good weekend when your limited number of pals have nothing exciting planned [not to mention Sex & the City and Coupling at the touch of a button (disclaimer: if Comcast is your provider, 3 more and an interminable "One moment please")]

A few hours spent at the local B&N: unfortunately it ensures more than just a wonderful feeling – an upto-50 bucks “impulse” buy -- that book I always wanted, the CD I gotta listen to or that oh-so-fancy-I've-never-seen-before writer’s pen (isn’t that what pens are for?)

A co-worker comes up to you and says, ‘I’ve had a bad couple of days... The sun’s out and I thought today could be crepe day?’ Any day could be crepe day, and I haven’t exactly had a great couple of days myself. Sure!

The girl hiding inside me that occasionally cries out for the Rachel-Green-Carrie-Bradshaw cure-all - a cloth-shopping spree at the neighborhood mall, sometimes resulting in something as outrageous as the very floral, pink skirt hanging in my closet :) But as long as it’s not a 400-buck-pair of shoes (made merely to make the process of walking on the leveled, macadamized roads of Sam's land feel like mountain climbing -- now, if you're at EMS, that's a couple hundred worth spending), I am sure I’m still sane, a little disoriented yes, what with the bright spots of color, but sane, nonetheless.

For the weirdoes out there, the complete First season of Friends DVD: may cost 50 bucks but also unfailingly delivers 12 hours of unconditional cheer (now that’s a commercial Warner Brothers might want to lay their hands on)...

And when I am feeling especially spendy (or especially sad), a trip to the land of unadulterated joy (for the uninitiated, that would mean an hour-long, fifty-buck trip to NYC, short for the city-that-never-fails-to-pep-me-up).

So, can happiness be bought? Not really, but sometimes it does come dangerously close to counting on your wallet (or what’s in it, as the case may be ;)).....

Would you rather just be nice?

Ok, after a few months of Dubya-inspired hate posts about Sam’s land I decided it’s time to tell the world (I really do live in my tiny little one, don’t I?) one of the things I love about this country, which ironically, is also one of the very reasons for Dubya being where he is...

Americans don’t ask for much. They really don’t. They might want extra cheese on their burgers and super-sized drinks in their value meals, but they sure don’t ask for much from people. 'Just smile when you see me and don’t kill me.'

I was watching the Eckerd saleswoman explain patiently for the fifth time to a fresh-off-the-boat middle-aged desi what “aisle 1” meant and it took me back two decades. I grew up in Delhi for ten years, knowing that we would always be the “Madhraasis” who didn’t say their ‘kaun’s right. (I did belong to the scornful younger generation that wondered how hard it could be to say the “n” without the “u” but my mom and aunt still don’t get it ;)). My point being that while some in the north of that tiny little subcontinent still have issues with some in the south, Americans seem to be able to dismiss the divide of race and ethnicity and color and nationality quite effortlessly by comparison --- well, until you force them to say your 16-letter, tongue-twister of a last name ;) And even there, they try their darndest best.

It’s not hard to be accepted and loved here: you don’t need to have a Caucasian skin tone, you don’t need to be of more than average intelligence, you don’t need to know how to use your forks and knifes right, you don’t need to speak with an American accent, you don’t even need to be understood, all you have to be is “nice”.

My first encounter with the American fad for “niceness” came quite shockingly during an appraisal for a potential candidate for our lab in graduate school. My boss came up to me and said, “What do you think of X? Do you think he’ll be a good addition to the lab?”

As usual I rattled off more than I needed to, and in this case it seemed, totally off the point as well. “I think he’s really smart. He can definitely think and his background in molecular biology seems pretty solid.”
My boss nodded politely and then said, “Sure, but is he nice? Do you think he’ll get along with everyone?”

Is he nice? Is that why I had been chosen to be part of this lab? Because I was nice? For a person that would rather pass off as obnoxious than dim, that sure was not a compliment.

Not to be unfair to Americans, I do think you can do extremely well in this country if you are conscientious and good at what you do; you may not need the light skin tone or the right accent, but “being nice” is an inextricably integral part of it. You’re sooner criticized for being mean and rude than for being incompetent and unintelligent.

The upside is you just have to be yourself. The downside is Dubya can become president. I have an oft-repeated statement that I take a lot of pride in delivering: I’d rather have Cheney be president than Dubya cos he is smart and can pronounce. I understand it is not a popular opinion. I don’t really mean that, of course (then who’d give Maher and Stewart their fodder?), but sometimes you gotta go to such lengths to make a point.

Recently, Jon Stewart said that TO got fired for being a dick. Talented idiot, was his term for him. My problem: I’d rather watch a talented idiot than a nice fool. And that is not a popular opinion in this land of we’ll-excuse-you-for-being-stupid-but-we-can’t-excuse-you-for-being-bad. Reason why people like the conans over the mahers, the lewises over the owens’ and the dubyas over the kerrys.

I’m trying, of course, to pin this on a whole country where it could quite as easily just be me.

I have always been so fascinated with intelligence and talent that I haven’t bothered too much with this thing called character or moral values or whatever it is they are calling it these days. The best evidence to this is while I can safely say that I am a nicer person than I reflect to the world, I am also a stupider person than I reflect to the world (within the bounds of Randianism, of course, which is a mantra I live quite staunchly by).

The truth is I have actually never met a person in this world that I can call a “bad” person. People say I am hyper-judgemental. Sure I am.

That person didn’t know who Kofi Annan was...
This guy has a really strong desi accent...
She doesn’t come off as being very cultured...
I don’t think he has read a book in his entire life...

What I don’t do is judge people on the basis of character. That, I think, is for that elegant piece of fabrication they call Judgement day. All of us, and I repeat, all of us do stuff from time to time that is repulsive, insensitive, ruthless, even callous, but circumstances and impulsive rushes of emotion drive us to them. If people were always given 24 hours and peace of mind to think and go over their impending actions, I don’t think torture would happen, I don’t think man would kill.

In other words, I think it’s fairly easy to be nice. It’s intelligent and wordly-wise and efficient and talented that is hard to be and Americans quite easily hand out a free pass there. All they ask is that you be nice. I wish my need was that little, my request that trivial, my demand that easy.

I wish someday I could look beyond that baseless, superstitious remark, a badly pronounced English word, the inexcusable grammatical mistake or that conventional, close-minded judgement. I’m kidding, of course. I never could. But I’ll continue to applaud Americans that can.

Meanwhile, when I turn around and look in awe at that perfectly perfected yankee accent by a once true-blue desi or ogle at another that can eat his/her medium rare steak in synchronized perfection with a meat-and-potatoes bonafide, my American friends will have to excuse me, as long as I am nice.....

Digital __ Analog __ [Please check one]

“K, if it is anywhere in the world, it has to be on this block; I just know it,” V says.
“Really? On Curtis? I don’t remember it being on Curtis,” I interject.
“Curtis?” Blank look from V. Don’t names mean anything to these people?
“Yeah this is Curtis and 15th.” It says right there, in bold block letters. Don’t these people SEE?
An indifferent, “Oh” in response.

Apparently, they do see, and very well at that, cos sure enough, we spot the tiny little car as we near the end of the block and V’s ultimatum. It sits there, right in front of our eyes, oblivious to the three hours we’ve spent scouting the streets of downtown Denver, mentally calculating insurance costs and verbally whining to cops in the bone-chilling Colorado winter.

“How did you know.....?” I ask despite myself and brace myself for a response that wouldn’t necessarily mean much to me.
And I get it: “The trees...That’s the only street that has those trees...”
My turn to do the indifferent “Oh”.

Two years later: Different scenario, similar situation:

"I think we should take 18th street dow---", I stop midway cos A is already four feet down 18th.
“What were you saying?” – A.
“Never mind, how did you know we had to take this street? You didn’t even stop to look.”
“That big building over there. Plus, this is the only road that curves this way.”
“Hmmmmm, isn’t it easier to jus look at the sign? 18th street -- can’t go wrong there.”
A disbelieving furrow of the brow. “You mean that tiny little unlit board is more visible than that huge skyscraper two blocks away?”
“Well....” I hadn’t thought of it like that....

I’d always been this way. Hadn’t realized it was weird. I know exactly which ticketing counter at the train station moves the fastest, I can rattle off the bus schedule to the letter, I don’t just assume that the trolley comes every five minutes and I know the intersecting streets for all the Starbucks in the city. In other words, I am happiest when I have all of the information. Without it, I’m lost. It’s like a data piece that I can attach to an item and remember it by. Somewhat like the bands on my agarose gel – numbers 1 through 10, each unique in its own size and shape, nonetheless, I can’t label it ‘thin and narrow’, it’s got to be #7.

I had always thought of it as a strength. It is, to a point. What I didn’t realize was that it was a strength inherently developed to make up for a flaw — an utter lack of observational skills.

I prefer remembering numbers to colors, letters to shapes and symbols to sizes.

V and A (and probably half the section of the population) prefer the world of blues and reds and circles and squares.

We are taught colors and shapes in kindergarten alongside numbers and letters. I think the brain picks a side and stays there – from building blocks at age 2 to street signs at 20.

Now that I think about it, the ceiling fan I drew in pre-school may not have been exactly attractive but it always had the right number of screws. My cousin’s was a lot prettier, but it had no screws. How would the blade hold on? Crazy glue?

I never remember what the cleaning lady looks like, but when I see her in her uniform, I know her name is Cynthia and can call out to her and say hi. I couldn’t always pick out Ewan McGregor from a line-up but I know he was in Moulin Rouge and Trainspotting. Place them in the right context and I am Ms. Know-it-all. Skew their location in time and space, and I couldn’t place them if you put a gun to my head.

I belong to that section of the population that needs a mapquest map to know where they are going and a TO-DO list to see what they are doing. We need the “real” thing – we need the post-it sticky and the yellow pages -- things that we can see and touch, cos we can’t just “feel” and “know”. We need logic, we need proof, we need to make ‘sense’ a 100%, cos the left side upstairs demands it.

We are the ones that don’t always need a calculator, don’t go ga-ga over the blackberry, don’t use the cell phone’s voice activated dialing and don’t configure Microsoft Outlook on our computers. The left side of the brain does it for us, and it isn’t always perfect, but at least we know whom to blame when it goes wrong.

The ‘right’ (no relation to the overbearing wing on Capitol Hill) doesn’t need tangibles and numbers and names. Their brain does all the work as well, but it is so efficient at it, that they don’t see the stages; they only receive the fully processed information --- they have the luxury of calling it ‘intuition’.

Amid the digital cameras and analog watches, I think there is an important distinction we are missing – digital vs. analog human beings – those that remember and those that observe, those that read numbers and those that read shapes, those that need to dig out that piece of information from a corner of the brain and those that “just know”, those that are guided by logic and those that rely on intuition.

In either case it takes two kinds of people to populate the earth -- those that see, and those that follow those that see, so, on the rare occasion that intuition goes awry, they can pull out their Rand McNally and lead the way......We cannot work together cos “15th and Curtis” does not make sense to them and “those trees” don’t make sense to us, but we can sure help each other out, albeit in very different ways...

I walk a lonely road...

I spent most of Saturday curled up on the recliner and huddled under the comforter, the television casting the only beams of light in the dreary apartment on this bleak and sunless autumn day. Finally, at 8 in the evening, I walked the couple miles to Borders, hunched under the umbrella, leather coat pulled full-circle, scarf wrapped tightly around my neck and Greenday’s Blvd. of Broken dreams playing on my iPod...

After a pretty satisfying week of cheerful “how are you”s and engaging conversations with co-workers and salesmen alike, listening to the boss wax eloquent about far-off, fantastical Ireland at a really happy happy-hour, a giggly three hours spent at the monthly “girls’ night” talking about all and sundry, watching fascinating monologues on teen punk rock hopefuls at the free night of theater, exploring the restaurant scene with fellow food-lovers at the cheese-steak capital, this solitary walk on a cold and rainy October night was the only one that made complete sense to me....

I passed couples huddling together for warmth, families engaged in animated chatter, roommates getting back from grocery shopping with over-stuffed bags and singles walking toward a purposeful destination that probably promised love or comfort or both... And I wondered if despite families that love us so dearly from across the miles, friends that stick by us through thick and thin and life-partners that would die for us, if there is ever a moment when we are not completely alone in this world....

Some may tolerate the many idiosyncrasies that make me, a few may like some of them, and a couple may even admire a few, but at any given point in time does anyone ever understand?

Do they ever completely comprehend what makes me stick with Science despite my consistent battle of the micropipette with the pen, my relentless, albeit, unsuccessful attempt to strive to be as good as the men, my insurmountable fear of flying roaches, my urge to constantly reflect to the world the darker side of my character, my teeth-gritting, fist-clenching impatience at delayed greens and slow drivers, my absolute intolerance of the baselessness and impracticality of religion, my need to love passionately and hate intensely, my inexplicable fascination with the English language and my painstaking insistence on rolling the Rs and softening the Ts, my undying love for the heretically incorrigible outlaws of the world, my annoyance with people that don’t hit the 'door-close' button on the elevator and stand blocking it so noone else can, my total helplessness at orienting myself be it in a building or amid the mountains, my absolute refusal to spend five bucks on a much-needed cab made more complicated by the ease with which I would shell out the same for a Starbucks coffee, my Friends-Maher-Federer antidote for every little or big problem in life and finally, my need to walk two miles in the pouring rain and sit in a people-filled Borders café to write a piece on solitude....

I do walk a lonely road....

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

Does it take a natural disaster to resolve an ethnic one?

While inhabiting a conveniently distant part of the subcontinent, I am sure many an Indian has exclaimed, “What will it take to get India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir issue? Shaking up the earth around it?” Until a couple days ago, that question would have been a very valid one and the answer a resounding no.

I was watching with a mixed feeling of sadness and bewilderment the events that unfolded in the aftermath of the quake in Pakistan (at least as much as American news will allow between the more earth-shattering issues of Rove and Delay and Harriet Miers).

Turns out, it takes more than just a shaking of the earth. It takes a shaking of the earth, the US being bogged down with terrorists and hurricanes, the UN relief effort coming up short, and then some.

Musharraf denied Indian offer of aid on account that the pilots had to be Pakistani. Did he actually think that amid the dead and dying, amid bodies lodged between tectonic plates, amid the rampant putrefying smell of decomposition, Indians were going to infiltrate the border and claim Pakistani controlled Kashmir? More importantly, did he actually find time to stop and think about it?

The first line of defense, as always, was seen by survivors at the scene of the disaster: as if to reinforce the needlessness of political and social boundaries, Indian soldiers were said to have gone across to help Pakis with their bunkers. Reminiscent of old war-time movies that portray soldiers compassionately helping a fellow human being across the line of fire, it was a refreshing change to learn that humanitarian instincts hadn’t completely died. That reassurance was short-lived, of course, cos this report was immediately disputed by Pakistan – their bunkers were robust, they claimed. Robust enough to take on a quake of magnitude 7.6. But that is not the point here. Arguing about self-sufficiency and providence in the face of one of the worst natural disasters in history seemed like a joke. Human beings are quite helpless against Nature’s whims and fancies, as the tsunami and Katrina well proved. The least we can do is put our efforts together.

It took a painstaking ten days for the two governments to come to that realization and agree to open up the line of control. What baffled me was the touting of this as a breakthrough effort by leaders of the two countries. Shouldn’t that have been the absolute first thing done in the aftermath of the disaster? Does a line drawn by politics and ethnicity figure way higher than saving lives that could have been saved?

Alongside the history of the partition and the struggle for independence, I think we should be taught something more fundamental – a list of the priorities of life in ascending order, namely, if someone is dying by your side and you can help, don’t dig out your history text book to see if your government is at war with his.

Yesterday’s South Park spoof on Katrina said it best – even while a catastrophe is unfolding, we are standing in the sidelines and trying to connect things so far removed from it, so as to make an interesting story. Over 40,000 people died in the quake – to me, that is story enough, one that defies boundaries and borders that make perfect sense on other days.

Someone came up with a punch line that there is no LoC at this shared moment of tragedy. Clearly, he meant 10,000 moments after it.

I am not urging the unthinkable and saying unite the two countries. Just wait and rebuild your barbed wires and close down your telecom lines when life is back to normal (normal being relative, of course, since life is never normal in Kashmir).

What is normal is that humanitarian instincts come before ethnic, political and religious ones...that’s how Nature intended (and maybe even God cos somewhere between fasting and going on a pilgrimage, I think he mentioned helping a human being in need).

[If this sounds like one of those essays on righteousness and moral values, it’s NOT. I don’t believe in a list of virtues indelibly carved on stone (with due respect to The Rock), but I do believe that sometimes a human being should think about the immediate present instead of being blurred by a rigid set of rules that someone pinned up in a moment of leisure. It’s my anguish at the recurrent fault of human nature that allows priorities to be so wastefully misconstrued and practicality to be pushed far in the back of the mind, behind religion and politics and needlessly drawn lines (I mean, other than tectonic ones, of course, which seem the most needless of them all)].

Introducing Studs and Duds...

Yeah, I decided to put together the three things I do best – make judgements on people, watch the idiot box and overcrowd the blogosphere :D. So, here's introducing the Katrician picks for Studs'N'Duds (stolen NFL lingo). It shall be updated weekly on everything from the NFL to Real Time and everything in between....
And 'course, there’s noone better to hear it from :D
*SCROLL BELOW for enlightenment*

Rantings of a peeved Phila-delphian...

Four months in this city and I must say I am beginning to like it a lot, warts and all [I mean that literally, cos Philly’s potholes have a huge role to play – harbingers of flashes of excitement and squealing rats, they are ;)]
But since it’s not like me to not have any grievances, here goes....

Please rewind, we seem to have missed our Fall!

Somewhere between enjoying the summer and preparing for the winter we seem to have lost out on playing peek-a-boo with the sun. After two falls with, well, NO fall (the sun is not particularly adept at hiding when you’re 5000 feet above sea level and hence that much closer to it), I was lookin forward to my first northeastern, serene, romantic, autumn in three years. What with falling yellow leaves and wind that carries you for miles on end, sun-soaked pockets on the leeward side of trees alternating with the breeze-ridden windward side...not to mention, being blissfully glove-&-fleece-&-sunscreen-free.... I need it and I am not moving on to cold and formidable winter without having it!!!! Put me to sleep when September ends (with due respect to Greenday, and then some)

[I do feel like a monster cribbing about a lost fall when 20,000 people are lost in the quakes in Pakistan, but I can only echo my oft-repeated plea to Nature --- Go ahead and blow up the entire world. And then somewhere in Tatooine, new life forms will emerge. Just make sure I come back as R2-D2 :)]

Why is Andy Reed killing McNabb?

Last Sunday, he had to came hobbling onto field, when they were down something like 30-10 with no hope of winning against the cowboys. If he has to hand off the ball to Westbrook, surely Detmer can do that much? Hell, I think I can do a running play – locating a 200 pound-plus guy even on a field of 200 pound-plus guys shouldn’t be that big a deal!

I must give it to American footballers though: it’s the game and the team that matter at any given time during the game. Now, off field, it could be an ugly falling out or a sports hernia, it doesn’t affect the game. For instance, they had Ackers literally carried out to kick the winning field goal a couple weeks back, with two minutes to go in the final quarter. And that was by no means a one-off occasion: all of their games this season the Eagles have come roaring back in the second half, with minutes to go...GO Eagles...

I am really digging the American sport and I'm almost beginning to excuse their use of the podiatric prefix needlessly; after all, jus calling it “ball” might have some lewd insinuations :D That’s what half time and JJ are for...

The Phillies suck

I don’t even know why they are a team. Why can’t the phillies EVER get to the playoffs? It’s a wonder they were even hanging on to their wildcard hope for that long, considering how they started off. And if not for Utley and that rookie Howard’s homies, they wouldn’t even have figured anywhere. Their hitters suck (Rollins excepted), their bullpen is beyond repair and their fielding is miserable. The only reason I was lookin out for them was cos my old boss wanted me to swear allegiance to his favorite team when I landed in the land of brotherly love...Turns out, I was wasting my time...

Is it curfew time already?

My biological clock is being discriminated against. It’s hard enough to get used to the idea that the sun will no longer come out everyday and kill your melatonin. It’s worse when the only other known sleep-repressor isn’t readily available. There are about 7 Starbucks within a two-mile radius of my apartment; all of them open at 7, and all of them close at 7. I’m mentally unavailable at the first 7, physically unavailable at the second. [I personally do think any human being that wakes at 7 needs to go to another planet (where you can’t tell time), and if they can manage that, there must be some supernatural force involved that doesn’t need the help of coffee?] A person that has trouble getting out of bed at half past eight does – as far late as midnight. And coming from a town a tenth the size of Philly with ten times the number of coffee shops doesn’t help...The numbers don’t add up. Or maybe I’m just bad at math. Or maybe I am just short of caffeine....

We want more ways than one...

Yeah, whatever happened to the pro-choice mantra of the liberal elite? I don’t care too much for gay or straight, but I need to be able to go both ways on the street! More often than not, I am heading in the diametrically opposite direction from where I am supposed to head; but with the concept of one-ways, I am not only in the wrong direction, I’m also on the wrong street. To make up for one ways, the PA Transportation Dept has come up with the ingenious concept of the massive multi-way, namely, a series of concentric circles around the Art Museum, which ensures that wherever you start, you end up at the exact same point every five minutes. Much as I like the unique architecture of the museum, I’d really rather do the touring inside...with all the circling, I’m not sure I’ll ever get around to doing it...

The Complete Idiot’s guide to thinking like a Scientist

['Complete' here refers to the Idiot. This is by no means a comprehensive guide to mastering the impossible task of thinking like a Scientist.]

Everyone in the department is excited about the new zebra fish facility. As am I. To them, it represents the ultimate system to observe physiological changes in real time. To me, it is the most beautiful floor-to-ceiling aquarium. So, we do agree on the basic premise – it’s fun to have some fish around :)

Now that I have convinced you that I am not qualified to give this lesson, let me go ahead and defend it – well, who better than the idiot to write the idiot’s guide?

Don’t get me wrong – few things fascinate me more than the intricacies and nuances of the ingeniously designed biological system. I have spent many an hour of my twenty-something life explaining to people this theme of simple complexity that Nature has recurringly and successfully employed, right from CAM pathways in plants to glycogen metabolism in human beings. But I have always fallen short of getting my message across, mostly because halfway down the road, I am gushing profusely and effusing wonderment and my voice is coming out all squeaky and unintelligible.

Yeah, if it is possible, I am too fascinated. Too fascinated to even begin to explain in any semblance of order or conceivable pattern this amazing phenomenon. Too fascinated to believe that what I read about Nature’s unique engineering in the textbook can be successfully transposed to the laboratory bench. Too fascinated to think I can change any of it, much less, make it better.

Nature has designed the simplest most complicated system that can do all the wonderful things it so effortlessly does. If we toggle with it, we are either altering its simplicity so it no longer works or its complexity so it can no longer do everything it does.

Years ago, during my first real encounter with bench science, when I was trying to convince myself as much as the world that the little blue blob on the gel was really the protein it was claiming to be, my then scientific guru told me that a frightening fascination with text book science was causing my obvious reluctance to go out there and see for myself if it works on the bench -- paraphrasing -- You like to sit at a desk and philosophize about Nature and her myriad ways. You don’t want to get out there and do it where it matters, where it changes the world.

Sure, I countered, but there is a big assumption there: that it changes the world. On some level, I guess I am a scientist: I am almost always able to interject an assumption behind a perfectly valid statement that successfully weakens it – or even better - negates it ;) That’s what scientists do and that’s why they spend so much time doing what they do.

All said, I don’t want to deny my friend’s assessment. While I sincerely believe (yeah, yeah somewhere deep in the bottom of my heart) that my rantings on religion and politics are going to ring some bell somewhere and enlighten someone and advance another, I quite honestly don’t think that my playing with the micropipette is going to make any real difference to the world or its beings.

And yet I enjoy my fantasies of wayward, far-off things. I think “romancing with Science” is the term I am looking for. I walk into the ES cell culture room and wonder if a Jurassic Park grade experiment can be performed with the mice we have and the frozen woolly mammoth can be brought back to life. Surely, somewhere in the ice-caps of Serbia, some DNA should be buried untouched... And I have spent a good amount of my undergrad years exchanging letters (back when Rowland hill’s system was still the predominant one to exchange ideas in India) on Charles Darwin’s theories with a fellow evolution enthusiast wondering if the chicken came before the egg and if so, how.

I look at protein crystallography and drug discovery with a jaundiced eye. Paper publishing science, is my term for it, and yet, that is the science that might find a cure for AIDS some day. I pick up a paper from a 1970 copy of the journal, Nature and look longingly at creative science done in an age devoid of microarrays and biocomputing, little realizing that these toys are aiding and expediting research that would otherwise take eons.

“We haven’t yet understood the most basic systems of Nature. Why are we already beginning to alter it?” is my oft-repeated question. Because, understanding why the fish lost their gills and developed lungs is not going to change the world, but finding a way to inject DNA encoding insulin is, says a little voice in the back of my head. I ignore it and open Stryer’s Biochemistry to marvel at the magic that is the sodium-potassium pump in the dopaminergic neuron.

Yeah, in the case of Changing world vs. Nature, I am quite unequivocally on the side of the latter.

It’s funny that while I look at most things in life through the left side of my brain, I look at the logical, practical realm of science through the right.

As a researcher I know I should be spending more time thinking about the future of Science, but I’d much rather wonder about the past; my contemplation of the future is restricted to pondering the fate of the Bush presidency or India’s economic standing a decade from now.

And then a few days ago, the funniest thing happened. My co-worker came up to me and said that my mouse had arrived. “Really? The one with the CRE transgene?” I wondered out aloud. She just smiled and pointed to a taped white box in the corner. 'Apple mighty mouse for iBook G-4' the box proclaimed.

Voila! I had done it. After a decade in the field, I had finally begun to think like a scientist. And I hear it’s an irreversible process…

When subtle is no longer subtle...

I found myself at a yoga lesson a couple days ago when my Chinese (and hence, supernaturally lithe) friend talked me into it. I don’t believe in yoga, or anything that is as subtle for that matter. If I need to contend that I am putting my body to a grindstone, I have to, well, put my body to a grindstone. So, lifting weights to a point where your arms cry out in pain or running till your lungs deflate are all good, but stretching your hands up over your head and focusing on your “center” – very dubious.

Reason why, since a mandatory second grade class (at a time I don’t recall having bones or joints that would hinder bending and stretching), my only encounter with the popular eastern discipline has been Crichton’s very elaborate account of how it changed his life. Since I agree with him on a lot of things already – writing science is more fun than doing science, it would be wonderful to have dinos back on the planet, computers are for dreaming, not programming — I thought I’d change my mind about yoga. Also, I was excited about any American additions and subtractions I might find (which in the case of food at least, seem to result in something entirely different and quite often more attractive). It’s hard to be creative with yoga apparently (how many ways and forms can you twist two arms, two legs and a torso into anyway?), because, turns out, except for the outfit and the very plush yoga mat, it hasn’t changed much in two decades and 10000 miles :)

I must admit that it was fun, though having put into it the diligence I put in everything else, I have ended up with a sore back and hip, making my daily two-mile run seem like a joke by comparison. And it has left me wondering just how dangerous subtlety can be (here, I resorted to old faithful: the method of thinking where the stretch-yourself-to-the-limit is purely restricted to the mental).

A high school English reading by the very eloquent G.K. Chesterton comes to mind. In “Worship of the Wealthy”, he describes the power of subtle flattery as opposed to blatant adulation. While flamboyance can easily be determined as false, a mild remark extolling a trait that may exist but is not necessarily as exalted as it is made out to be, can be very credible to the receiver, to the point of being dangerously misconceived.

I first noticed the perils associated with artful discretion when I was a newbie to the “American” way; the subtle manner in which professors divulge to a student that he is wrong particularly intrigued me. The student is left with the right answer, no doubt, but the professor has fallen short of stressing just how wrong his initial understanding was. While I am not a huge fan of the blunt “you’re wrong” I often received in response to my carefully crafted answers in Indian high schools (I stopped trying so hard in college ;)), I do think it allowed me to never make the same conceptual mistake again. On the contrary, this polite and gentle manner of evading criticism makes the student hang on to his belief for a dangerously long time, and usually requires three to four refutations, where one point-blank negation would have done the job. It is all good to have the person at the grocery store tell you how sorry she is that they don’t carry jackets (however stupid your assumption was that they do). But when you are discussing transcription factors that regulate the expression of important genes in the human body, a little black and white is in order. In grad school it could mean a hundred failed experiments, in medical school it could make the difference between life and death.

Religion is a topic very close to my heart because it amuses me a great deal; so let me drive home my point by putting it in the context of that holy realm. Despite the fact that most Indians grow up in pious Hindu families that celebrate many a pooja with pomp and splendor and go on a pilgrimage every few years, the younger generations tend to weed out this “belief system” as they grow older and wiser. I have hardly ever seen that happen with Catholicism, however; if you are born into a devout Christian family that goes to church every Sunday, more often than not, you grow up to be a human being that goes to church every Sunday.

Hindus seem to be able to purge themselves of this deep-rooted belief in religion because, quite simply, it is easy to dismiss stone idols of a hundred odd deities and richly dressed goddesses being bathed in milk and oil (note: this is by no means the essence of bonafide Hinduism, but has come to largely represent the religion in Indian society). Christianity, on the other hand becomes ingrained into the very soul, because it comes with no tangible motif to shrug off, no artless ceremony to look at with a skeptical eye, no ornate piece of decoration without a practical basis. The ratio of fanatical vs. moderate believers in Hinduism vs. Christianity speaks volumes. And I do believe, that had I observed enough muslims in my lifetime, I would have come to a very similar conclusion about the idol lacking Islamic faith.

So the next time you bypass a very obviously grease-laden pizza to go for the surreptitiously ranch-dressed salad, by all means, help yourself, but it might be good to remember that while subtlety may appear innocuous in all its tenderness, it is sometimes doing more damage than its loud and forthright cousin.

A good fendi imitation has to have near-perfect linings and seams to pass off as a bonafide -- the plaid cannot be slightly askew nor the tint a tad glossy.
In the case of the imitation fendi, toning down might help, in real life situations, however, you’re better off with a little extra sheen, because more often than not, they’re easier to scrape off…

Abraca dubya

I came upon this google bomb that calls Bush an asshole and got to wondering how this country has such skillful bush-whacking web-savvy elites, avid and eloquent bloggers that just happen to hate republicans, refreshingly creative and often hilarious out of the box thinkers and then, Sean Hannity :(

At a predominantly American gathering a couple months back, I was discussing the Da Vinci Code and was trying hard to tone down my enthusiasm for the book (as my innate tendency to get carried away about the things I am passionate about often defies the norms of political and ethical correctness), so as not to set off any anti-christian sparks; turns out, I needn't have worried cos the only sparks I was turning on was animated approval on how un-put-down-able the book was.

A little surprising considering the havoc Dan Brown created with the main stream media (not just Fox, even the most objective of networks, NBC had a dateline program disputing all of Dan Brown's "facts") and I have read many a review in the very-liberal NY Times criticizing the book. Perhaps, the fact that this is Philadelphia, falling into the bracket of the little strip of blue liberal elite along the Northeast (and we must remember that the state it belongs to did vote democratic saving Kerry the embarrassment of losing in a landslide) kind of explains it.

But that doesn’t explain how practically every person I knew with a right to vote in the not-so-liberal mountain state of Colorado (not a whole heck of a lot--- but 100% is a significant fraction even if it means 10 out of 10) voted Democratic. You can argue that not many moneyed, insular republicans are going to practice research and try to cure cancer (albeit unsuccessfully) at a poorly funded state university even if it is in one of the most conservative pockets of the country.

And then I received enlightenment high atop the mountains: Bush-Cheney propaganda signs peeped out of backyards of the affluent, conservative homes (complete with stables and horses and white picket fences!) on that beautiful biking trail by the front ranges of the rockies. Yeah, you truly have to live in a fantasy-land far, far away from the real world to be able to vote for Bush and still be at peace with yourself.

So, I am thanking my lucky stars that even if these God-fearing, feverishly christian, gay-rights-opposing, pro-life, gun-carrying, death-penalty applauders are all over the place, at least I don’t SEE them cos of my life-style choices (or lack thereof). And when I do see them they are conveniently encased in a celluloid box, rendered impenetrable bcos of as much the nitrocellulose as my incomparable love for it.

So while you can see Michael Newdow (I spent many an hour applauding the “under God” underdog my first few months in this country) fighting his war and making his case because the NY and LA Times and CNN are talking about it, what you cannot see is that majority of middle American blue-collar workers are worshipping Bush because he wont allow a man to say “I do” to another man. They don’t make news cos they are the norm, not the exception.
I don’t know why Republicans are cursing the liberal-media bias -- they only benefit from it. Of course the media is biased – only the out-of-whack, out of the mainstream “wrong”doing liberals become news; the media might applaud them, but people have a way of deciding for themselves if their actions are good or bad, they just get their facts from the networks.

However, Hurricane Katrina seems to have done what 9-11 couldn’t do --broken the Bush-magic. Of course it might be cos there is no election year remaining. And now, thank God, we’ll never know.

Even republican loyalists, most notably Trent Lott, and quite a few regular Bush-suck-ups among the media like Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan have begun to outcry against the inefficiency of the Bush administration in the Katrina aftermath.

But believe me, they belong to the smarter section of the right-wing. To get the opinion of the truly stupid group of the population, that bestow their faith upon one person and then stick by him no matter what, you turn to Sean Hannity. He’s one of the most genuinely amusing men in America: the blindest of all the blind conservatives I’ve ever seen. I bet if Bush went and jumped in the ocean, he’d follow, no questions asked. In any case, I wasn’t surprised to find that Hannity is still on Dubya’s side. Since he doesn’t have anything to say for him, he’s turned this entire blame game onto the mayor of New Orleans. Limbaugh and Brit Hume have turned on Governor Blanco. And they are all passionately involved in the bickering over whether this is a race thing. Yeah, like that is the issue here. Since they need to turn the focus away from Dubya, they can now turn the flashlight on the African Americans. And they have nicely fallen into the trap, since they never think twice before jumping on the race bandwagon.

And Hannity’s argument is that everyone is politicizing this. The federal government didn’t do its job and Bush sat on his ass at the ranch two days after the hurricane hit. If that is not the most important political issue in history, I don’t know what is. Probably Clinton’s having sex with Lewinsky cos hundreds of people died of shock after that..

But this cannot be explained away by tangible interpretations or logical arguments. Maher is not exaggerating when he says ‘Bush works in mysterious ways’. It must take something akin to a god-devotee relationship for people to still be on Bush’s side --- they probably think he can spout wings and fly or walk on water; I’d sure like to see him do that in New Orleans….

Keeping the eye on the ball (Part 2 of ∞)

I've said before -- incidentally, in a nostalgic post-Pete phase when I hadn’t warmed to Roger yet – that all Federer seems to have to do to play impeccable tennis is to keep his eye on the ball, and since there is no better way of saying it, I will say it again and probably a zillion more times to come.

The first set yesterday was a “perfect” set in many ways. There were very few errors from either player, if at all, and the only reason Roger won it was cos he had the edge on his service games, what with a remarkable first serve percentage and the relentlessness with which he attacked the all-time returner’s returns. Most serve and volley players lose out on getting back at the returner, probably because of the extreme confidence they have in the unreturnability of their serves, and frankly, are visibly baffled when someone like Agassi can smash them right back. But Federer takes no chances, and being the amazing returner he himself is, helps him anticipate that the ball is making a trip back.

That said, if not for Agassi’s bad first serve percentage Roger may not have won this match. Not because Agassi is the better player (by no stretch of the imagination), but Roger seems so flabbergasted when he loses a set that he takes a while to regain composure. I realize he is used to winning in straights (an unbelievable record of losing just two sets now in 23 straight finals) but he should realize that it does fall within the bounds of human credibility that he will occasionally need to take a match to a fourth set.

Of course, he is not quite as invincible on a hard court as he is on grass, but even so he didn’t seem as vulnerable against Andy at the Open last year. Granted, Andy is no Andre. A ton of difference comes with that last syllable. But Roger needs to realize that his opponents have raised their games to match up to his, so he has to have his answers to their answers as well. In the ever-eloquent Chandler’s words, “The messer has become the messee”.

Agassi needs a standing ovation for his performance. He played an incredible match for any top-seeded player, but considering the odds stacked against him, he was pure magic. Which makes me wonder if Federer could have beat Agassi in his prime (though some might argue that this is Agassi’s prime — I don’t think he’s ever played better; he’s certainly never returned Pete’s serves as well as he did Federer’s), Sampras notwithstanding. Since Federer seems to be playing a net-rushing game, Federer and Agassi might have been an incredible treat to watch.

Which brings me to my next point — why IS Roger net-rushing so much? Isn’t his biggest advantage that he can play baseline as well as chip’n’charge and while serving and volleying IS the thing to do at the big W, hard courts have always favored players that can stay behind (Pete’s record speaks volumes)? Agassi took advantage and attacked him on all his net points.

In any case, bigger picture: Federer has proved yet again that he can do it again and again and again. When he needed to elevate his game, he did. When you can serve at 75% and get all your first serves in at the most trying moments in a match you have to be a little more than just human. Even the great Pistol Pete offered a few double faults in a tight corner…

That said, I have a tip for Johnny Mac: some times it’s all right to just let it go! Granted, when he is complimenting Federer, his voice is gushing with barely concealed awe, but when he is sounding off and spurting sarcasm, he is doing it in the same unrelenting way that is so becoming of McEnroe. I understand how unforgivable it is to watch the flawlessness that is Roger Federer falter, because I am probably as fanatically obsessed with his shot-making as he is, but harping on every little error (however unbelievable) robs you off some of the pure ecstasy ONLY seeing Roger glide on a tennis court can provide. For instance, glossing over his 75% first serves in (an incredible accomplishment when you are playing in so tight a match against so fearsome an opponent) and going on and on about a backhand slice that went an inch wide took away some of the magic from the beautiful orchestration only two maestros like Roger and Andre can produce (yeah, sometimes you want to see it from both sides of the court!).

That said, Roger really needs to remember that he is not playing at Wimbledon when he slices that backhand like that… The ball is not going to bounce the way it does on grass. Though I must say his backhand returns almost went back to their flawless perfection in the tiebreak, where he won points off them and in the fourth set when he had that awesome backhand crosscourt winner. Tiebreak sealed and leading a comfortable 3-0 in the decider, having regained his composure, and more importantly, McEnroe’s patronage, Federer was back on track :)

The match ended with Johnny Mac (now firmly on the champion’s side) saying, Noone has ever hit a tennis ball as well as Federer. And that is probably the only way to justify Andre’s loss after so laudable a performance. Anyone less would have fallen prey….

[I’ve noticed something about Roger (backhand overheads and versatile forehands apart) --- he never thanks anyone personal in his thank you speeches, except the customary thanks to the organization, sponsors and fans. No girlfriend, no coach, no mother nor father…
Probably cos he depends on no one but himself for his wins…
Can there BE a more invincible human being?]

New Rule!

(Maher Style :))

Yeah, this is my very own US Open Series here….
New Rule: People should quit questioning if Federer is the best tennis player to ever walk the earth. He IS!

The only thing the commentators had against Federer today was that he usually has double the winners as errors and today he didn’t. The moment they start comparing a player to himself you know it’s cos there’s no one else to compare him to.

That said, all credit to Hewitt who played a sensational match today (especially that 9-deuce game which he eventually won) to make a pretty laudable match-up against the grand slam man….

Ok, for all those Federer skeptics still remaining (no more than a very resistant 5%, I bet), Roger offered too many reasons this match to not believe he’s pure genius:

Trying to get out of a break point in the first set where he showcased a volley, a drop, a forehand winner and a backhand slice all in the span of a minute between points… Paraphrasing McEnroe --- Ok, I showed you this shot and this one. Let me now show you this :)

The 21 shot rally when Hewitt had a set point in the second set.. Predictably that ended with Lleyton missing a forehand winner and Federer went on to win that game after saving 3 set points…

He came back from 15-40 at least twice on his serve, incredibly brushing off any whiff of a chance Lleyton had to get back into the match.

An effortless 7-0 in the tiebreak!! And with Hewitt in top form, no less.. Has ANYone ever done that at that stage in a grand slam, between two top seeds?

Mute point. Roger’s done a lot no one has ever done…

The Incredibles!

What an absolutely stunning match between Blake and Agassi !!!!!!!!!!!!
Men's tennis is so full of incredibles....And Agassi so deserves his due for the unbelievable fighter he is, even I am going to give it to him...If he can do to Federer what he did to Blake, we can expect one of the greatest US Open finals in history....
I am hoping that happens after we see another phenomenon between David and Roger tomorrow...Andy's mojo loss is now beginning to make sense...Neither he nor little Lleyton can give Roger anything to worry about...But the 35-year old veteran just might...

Can't wait...

He IS for real !

I did something this weekend that a human being should almost never do. In an irrevocable entwining of fantasy and reality, I went and watched Roger Federer “in flesh and blood” at Flushing meadows.

The good news is I have attained the so-called nirvana that all those old sages got by being one with God, the bad news is, now I know he exists outside of my uncorrupted little silver screen world…



Photograph: Roger: Bring it on! [Courtesy of Vidy, the lens-crafter] They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and quite honestly I’d rather ramble a thousand odd --- reason why I don’t usually post pictures on my blog --- but since Federer has defied every rule ever made in history, I will make the exception :)

Disclaimer: I have never been able to enunciate the supernatural; I still have about five unfinished essays about Sampras in his prime with no hope of ever completing them and my attempt to capture the magic of New York is still wanting in many respects.

But I decided that the only way I can refrain from sighing every time I think back to Sunday or smiling at strangers on the train because I am thinking about Roger’s backhand lob was to put down my thoughts on celluloid even if I only get to convey a third of what I feel, and believe me, that will be a job well done.

Despite the fact that I checked usopen.org and weather.com at the rate of a million hits per minute in the few days preceding D-day, and all but obtained the players’ medical records, I couldn’t believe my eyes when Roger walked onto court. You can hardly blame me; for one, I never believed he was human, and for another, the last two times I attempted to watch infallibility close up, I ended up either conceding to the huge screen on the USTA grounds or glowering at a smug black board that declared the match I had traveled a thousand miles for was a walkover.

My first thoughts:

He is so tiny!
I don’t think this was a result of the seats high-up in the stands (the only ones you can get if you wait till the day they actually announce the schedule so you can be a 100% sure that Roger is going play the session; believe me, the finals is the only round you can positively predict Federer’s presence on court). Roger’s miniscule ---- he’s all of 6-foot-1, but he has a really small frame and I can understand now why he looks so tiny against the likes of the safins and roddicks out there, which goes to show just how much he relies on his mental toughness and mind game. His teeny little figure merely reinforced my picture of Roger -- a guy defying destiny, mortality and the whole world ---- so inexplicably small and alone in his insuperability…

He is so incredibly cute!!
Cute is hardly an adjective one would use to describe a guy that goes about demolishing everything in his way to the crown and with such effortless ease, but Roger Federer is incredibly cute. Right from his mannerisms --- twirling the racket, twiddling with the strings, pushing his head band back --- to giving opponents their due, smiling at Andy’s self-deprecating humor and accepting that he sometimes amazes himself with his own game, he is one of most endearing players on the tour.

It’s a whole lot tougher than it looks.
If you thought that backhand slice he creates from a ball that looks like it’s nowhere near where he is, and assumed the television just made it look impossible, nope! Incredible as it sounds, the television makes it look easier than it is. At the real Arthur Ashe, the sideline is too far in and the net is just too high! Even knowing it was Federer, I had my heart in my mouth for every carefully orchestrated backhand pass and every baseline shot to make it. But knowing Federer, it almost always did…
I think Mark Hodgkinson said it best when he said Roger makes tennis “easy on the eye”. It’s not just that he goes after every point and every ball and gets it, but he makes it look so easy. No bellowing, no puffing, no smashing the racket on the ground, he even moves silently. And you hardly ever see him contesting a call or glowering at the linesman, because, very simply, he can do without that point. He’s got enough to win, and then some.

He is human… He doesn’t look quite as invincible when he is a live Roger. Seeing him in flesh and blood added a dimension of vulnerability to the eventual champion that I wasn’t expecting to see: he can miss shots, he can slip up a little and bang his racket against his leg, and FYI, he breathes.

He’s still as infallible as it gets. Down 1-4 in the tiebreak, he bounced right back and won the next six points, bagging the second set in the way only Federer can. It’s true that tennis legends most often find themselves in tight situations and the mark of a great player is to slowly and surely play his way out of it. But IMO nooone does it with as much versatility as Roger does. He doesn’t just spring up and fire an ace; he seems to have an answer for everything --- amazing return of impossible serves, incredible backhand passes to reach seemingly unreachable shots, forehand and backhand volleys before they become off-center, and everything in between. Nobody says it better than the eloquent Andy Roddick did after Wimbledon, “Maybe I'll just punch him or something.” Quite possibly, that is the only way to ‘beat’ Roger.

[As an objective fan, I do acknowledge that Roger is playing a little below his robot-like precision this Open, and I can’t help but wonder if he has subconsciously lowered the bar to bridge the gap. There were shots he’d usually never miss and unforced errors that are so unlike him. He’s even showing emotion on court and he conceded a set to Kiefer today. And quite honestly, his match-up against the absolutely incredible but sadly under-rated Nalbandian scares me a little. But the fact that in the case of Roger the question only goes so far as wondering whether he is going to lose a set or be broken on his serve, says a lot about the level of his game].

Needless to say, I caused many a viewer some disconcertion by running down every five minutes to watch him close-up and making sure it was the real deal and was responsible for about half the “Go Roger” screams that rang out in the stadium. Not that he needed any of it. I sometimes wonder what he feels about these lesser mortals whose only taste of the supernatural is to watch one in action and cheer him on because the mere thought of contributing decibels makes them feel part of invincibility in some inexplicable way.

I can’t imagine how it must feel to have his peers say time and time again “I gave it my best but he was just too good for me.”

Or to hit that backhand pass knowing that it is going to sail past an opponent and think, “Well, that’s why I am number one”.

I wonder how it must feel to walk in to a court time and time again, almost knowing that this is just a step in the way of holding up that trophy he is going to eventually carry home.

It was one of the most amazing days of my life, watching Roger from a few thousand yards away; I’m richer by a wonderful experience, a picture of me with an icon (pun unintended) of the greatest tennis player ever and this profound ecstasy that comes only with seeing true genius, that is not going to go away in a long time…

I wish I could have touched him though, if only to make sure he wasn’t made of barbed wire and concrete….

To the God of small things....

Like you know from the past, my weblog is a place where I vent my frustration about the things that don’t matter in life, so as to steal focus from the ones that do ;) So here’s to more whining about the little things in life…

Where in the whole wide world was Max Kellerman?

Why didn’t I know of Max Kellerman’s existence until a few months back?
I was watching the great Max make a case for seat-belt breathalyzers in Volvos and I got to wondering: here’s a guy that’s quick-witted, intelligent, articulate and ---not that I care, but you’ve got to be blind not to notice--- incredibly good looking and yet I hadn’t even heard of him like a few months back. Not to sound pompous, but there are very few newscasters or talk show hosts in America that I haven’t heard or at least heard about. Why do we keep seeing dumb, boring liberals like Alan Colmes and Paul Begala, while the Max Kellermans of the world are hiding behind a boxing glove, quite literally? And then we complain that there are no enterprising liberals out there. On second thoughts, is he liberal? Actually I don’t care, as long as he comes and flaunts his wit and airs his views (or the devil’s as the case may be) and puts the equally lovable Tucker to shame every night :)

To hell with sauces and dressings

Before I landed in this country my greatest fear was that Americans didn’t believe in condiments, and now my greatest fear is that they do!
Tucker Carlson said recently that Fries don’t need ketchup or even salt to be divine…… And I agree (as I do with most of his statements). Americans are such ardent “consumers” that they need to keep adding things to things to make them more attractive. My advice to them: DON’T!
To the food industry --- things I don’t particularly care for:
-- nuts (or strawberries or peanut butter or pretzels, for crying out loud) peeping out ominously from otherwise unadulterated, melt-in-your-mouth, divine chocolate
-- barbecue sauce de-sanctifying the orgasmic effect only medium rare steak can provide
-- marinara soaking EVERYting that dares to be Italian (memo: other than spicy Indian food, tomatoes belong only in salads, so let them just snuggle with the lettuce where they feel at home)


We don’t want fillers!

What’s with these people filling in? I watch Countdown with “Keith Olbermann” for Keith Olbermann! And Meet the Press for Tim Russert. I don’t care for Amy Robach or David Gregory. I know you’re trying to carve a place for yourself in the big league, but showing how NOT to be big league is not the way to do it! And by the way, the program is called the “O’Reilly” Factor for a reason, namely, noone else can claim the title of pompous, self-possessed, know-it-all right winger. It’s not like Dave Barry is asking people to write his columns for him or Bill Maher is employing someone to make us laugh during his summer hiatus. If you’re on vacation, I don’t particularly want to see your show! If you spent some time in front of the screen instead of behind it, you’d know that all news shows talk about the same thing, so I am obviously watching your show cos you are saying it, not cos of what you are saying .. Bottomline: In the singular case that Max Kellerman is filling in for Tucker Carlson, I’ll just wait for you to get back from your vacation, thank you.

If doomsday’s here, we don’t need warnings…

Reminiscent of the US Dept of Homeland Security, Nature’s been raising the threat level --- yellow, orange, red…and the hits just keep on coming. First there was the heat wave in Europe, then the huge tsunami in Asia, the zillion hurricanes in the US and Central America and then of course tornadoes, famines, and wildfires galore. If doomsday is here, whoever is controlling it should just go ahead and blow up the earth, big bang style. Not sit there and give us these innuendoes and hints that keep telling ya, “bring out the hurricane shutters”, “board up the windows“, “don’t venture too close to the sea”, “wear SPF 45 and stay indoors”. If you can’t cope, jus blow up… It wouldn’t be the worst thing for the world, ya know…

India’s kickin’ ass

Don’t get me wrong… though I wouldn’t call myself particularly patriotic (in fact too many Indians would pounce on me if I even tried) I can’t help but feel a certain surge of delight when I see all this focus on our motherland :) In fact, I think most of my criticism of India stems from the fact that I see the Gurcharan Dases and the Vir Sanghvis and I wonder why we bother with the Lalu Yadavs and Mayawatis..Anyway, enough about that – this post is supposed to be about petty things. Now, India’s really making waves! Business Week had this huge double issue asking if India and China were the new world economies; and now, Nature has come up with a review that discusses the great strides in biotechnology in India. *beaming*
Now you’re wondering what my problem is. This: My folks back home have one of those fancy CDMA phones that connects to the pc and acts as a modem ….I live in the richest country in the world and I barely have a phone that can be trusted to record voicemails. And that’s not all: the last time I was in India I waited a couple hours for the google home page to load (google---which is a universal verb now---you cant wait two hours for a verb to happen [think breathe, eat, sleep]). I don’t know if you are as inherently discerning as I am, but it seems like technology is playing a game with me. Not to mention religion. It’s stalking me. I escaped from six years of the BJP and fled to the US – only to have Dubya elected to a second term. I leave India and the Congress promptly – and surprisingly -- rises to the occasion. Why do I miss out on the MM Singhs and Bill Clintons and end up with the W Bushes and Vajpayees of the world :(