Ode to the roomie

[ With contributions from Vidy]

Vidya speaks >

It was a typical 9:00pm drive. Its something that both Katrix and I look forward to. Especially after a day filled with nothing but “ G’morning…..O No Ur Fine…That’s ok……..O That’s fine I can come over the weekend and work on it…….Sorry…Please….Excuse Me……..Thank You…..” Phew! What a day. Finally the 9:00pm drive.

Vidy: Tring tring
Katrix: WHAT!
Vidy: Hey u think we can go for the usual chakkar?
K: Hmmm wait 10:00pm is Friends, so if u wanna go we have to go now
V: Ok done can u come and pick me up.
K: Sure.

Ten minutes later both of us are in the Chevy, the car that has been a dear friend, philosopher and guide (believe me when I say guide. I read this book….Why Men Don’t Listen And Why Women Don’t Read maps…..I believed the former….courtesy Dad, but the latter dawned on me only after I came to the US of A.

So we are on our way, I turn the radio on and am thumping my hand on the arm rest. Katrix has her eyes on the road, she has improved tremendously……except for the occasional speeding over a bump or past an amber light that is accompanied by a predicted “What the F%#$!. This place has the worst bloody roads” and a faint heart attack for me. But today I am oblivious. I am absorbed in the world of Squaredance by Eminem…….he is making no bones that he hates the Bush administration. I make the mistake of mentioning that to Katrix.

Katrix: I like Bush! I mean what the hell! He is gonna come to power then all these suckers will keep their mouths shut.
V: Hmmmm. Hey this song is by Nickel Back. I love it!
K: Yeah me too. *grin*
V: Ammam very funny K.

Note: For ppl who don’t know Kartika well enough…which is rare, her sense of music is non-existent, kinda like my knowledge of American Politics.

V: Hey you know what John just said--- he has this awesome LOTR stuff that he wants me to see.
K: U and LOTR. I hate anything that’s fantastical. I think Matrix is awesome. I mean the philosophy applies so much to our lives.
V: WOW! Wait a sec, why would I want to see a movie that tells me something practical and banal! I like my fantasy world, my knight in shining armor…Arag….
K: Who-- the Hidalgo guy!
V: His name is Aragorn not Hidalgo *frown*
K: Whatever! U are such a kid!! Grow up, two year old!
V: Podi! :P
I know what to do to irritate her. She hates the “Homies” lingo. My “yo bro” vocab has improved thanx to my interest in afro-american singers and my passion for Comedy Central! Bring it on Dawg!

V: Yo B%&*#! Whatcha doin goin on at 45mph instead of 30 huh! I gotta tell u gurl I don’t want nobody stopping us and …..
K: SHUTUP!!!!!!!!!!!! My god! How the hell can u talk like that! Chi that’s so unsophisticated.
V: Hey that wasn’t nothing. Don’t front me gurl! U know I am down for u forever
*wink*

That did it! She had had enough! She switched off the Radio. Be fair! Who is the two year old!
Well its moments like these that make my mundane life worth living. So, here we are—two two-year-olds, in a Chevy, with music blaring. We love our small world; it’s our time, our spat, our semicharmed life!

V: Hey u know what, I think I like applied bio, I mean its awesome. Its really not enough to know how things happen, its great when u say “ hey u know we can use that to do this” isn’t that awesome!
K: I hate applied bio! I mean its like, paper publishing science.
V: Hmmmmm
K: Nope, it's like this. I wonder how nature thought of everything. I treat biology as a philosophy --know what I mean?
I dont, but I just nod anyway. After a few months with katrix, you kinda figure you have to let her have her way sometimes. But if she goes on and on about it, she's goin to get it back. She knows that too, I guess, cos she says that and stays quiet.
K: "well, I think jeff has that feeling too ---that I can philosophize about nature, but when it comes to techniques I am out on the running"
Another katrix trivia-- when she starts talkin about jeff, you gotta jus let her ramble.
V: olve is cute too pa! He is good at everything! I think aloud, ‘Are men like that made anymore????’
Double sighs!!!! Hmmmmmmmmmmm
Silence……
V: Hey u know what, we should do a barbecue. I learnt how to cook chicken from Jes. He says hickory wood is the best wood and all. Lets try na!
K: WHAT! NOW???
V: No, no. Some time later.
K: why is it u talk about things that are gonna happen one month from now? U are funny, girl!

That’s one thing I have noticed about myself. The “thinking-ahead” trait isn’t left at the work place. It follows me like a shadow, wherever I go. Sometimes I wonder what its like to live with me. It can be difficult I am sure, but not too bad I HOPE!

V: Omigosh we got to vacuum the house too.
K: Good God! What’s with u! relax. My god u are a Monica alright!
V: Yeah, you and your friends.
K: O bummer I am gonna miss Friends!
Note: Bummer is used when the mistake is self made, “ what the F^&*#?” is when the traffic light turns red, some guy is driving within the speed limit in front of her or any thing that is not her fault. This discrimination is very important for me.
K: HEY! Friends is the only thing that makes me happy, ok?
V: o yeah, that’s not fantastical at all. Am sure there are loads of such jobless friends living in lofty apartments in NY! How real!
K: I love Ross. He is so weird!
V: I like Chandler *grin*

Ok, so I am a hypocrite. I like Friends too, don’t deny it, but not to the same intensity as K. I have learnt that for K, everything is extreme---be it the strength of the coffee, the amount salt in sabzi, the state of her room. She feels everything to the extreme—love, hate--- both with equal intensity. I wish I were like that. To like something as much as she did, to hate something as much as she did. I wish I could crash and burn, not just linger!

K: He is just a regular guy. Nothing great about him except his good sense of humor.
V: That’s hard to come by now-a-days ok!
K: yeah that’s very true!

Peals of laughter. Finally we agree! Joy!!!! To celebrate we decide to stop at a café and pick up lattes. Back on the road.

Katrix’s mind Speaks >
Let’s move from the tales of Katrix’s adventurous driving to more mundane matters---like say, a typical work-day late evening. Fox news channel, the couch and the potato (no pun intended) are all I need to keep me happy. Vidy comes running out from her now-to-post-midnight-slogging-schedule for a five minute respite to toast a bagel.

"Shut up you guys, you are not making any sense," she says to nobody in particular; it takes me a moment to figure out she's talkin to the reasonably intelligent panel on Hannity and Colmes. I wonder how ANYthing would make any sense when you have just had a fraction of a second of real-world air after getting out of a room floating with protein crystals, much less self-proclaimed liberals and conservatives discussing Dick Clarke's latest book. She’d do more justice saying that to her crystal structures.

"You haven't even heard them for five minutes," I say.

She waits for exactly that amount of time.

“They don’t make any sense."

I feel a little better. At least she has had the chance to give them the benefit of doubt. And hasn't.

"I don’t know how you watch this. They all talk at the same time.” I don’t tell her that one more person only complicates matters further.

Now, from the boring details of a normal week day evening to the boring details of a Friday evening. Sigh! Yet another one.

"Why the hell don’t I have anything to do on a Friday evening?" Now, that could have been me or her---or any of the umpteen 20-somethings who aren't committed yet (Put that way --it sounds much better ---why on earth would I wanna commit to anything? I am a pretty non-committal person, except when you are talking about capitalism, Sampras or philly cheese steak).

Anyway, usually following those fateful 13 words is dining out, a movie or a drive to the mountains.

Let’s deal with each one in its entirety.
Blockbuster movie night! Yaay. It’s not American politics or moral values, so we decide on a movie pretty much without argument. But whether both of us are ultimately satisfied with it is a different question.

“Kate Blanchett is the most under-rated actress,” Vidy says for probably the twenty-fourth time during the course of Missing. There’s no response. She whips around. I don’t blame her. If I have willfully given up a chance to refute a statement (even if it is for the twenty-fourth time) there’s cause for concern. In other words, I am either muted or dead. Quite the opposite, in this case, however. The movie’s put me to sleep.

“She sure is under-rated,” I agree. “Her soporific skills haven’t been discovered yet.”

“It was an awesome movie. Can’t believe you didn’t like it.”

“I just can’t stand slow-moving movies.”

Of course, that’s an adjective no one else would use to describe the film.
And when you hear one of those words, which don’t mean much anywhere except in the katrician lexicon, you have pretty much hit rock bottom. End of argument.

Well, let’s just say Texas Chainsaw massacre is more my kind of movie.

“I hope it’s really scary,” I say from my signature position on the couch.

“Yeah, I hope so too”, Vidy says emphatically. And as if to reinforce her point, she ducks her head under the table at the first hint of a skull like object.

‘Is she just trying to make the movie scarier for me?’ I wonder.

I decide not when after a few minutes, all I see is something akin to the contour of her head under the comforter. I have to admit, the guy did hack through the man’s body with a chainsaw, but doesn’t the title of the movie pretty much spell that to you?

By the next chainsaw incident, Vidy had said, “I am not watching this movie” about five times. In all fairness, at least she’d moved further and further away from the television set. The second half of the movie happened with Vidy yelling, “Hey, what happened?” from the hallway every ten minutes.

Some way to watch a movie, I must say.

Dining out---now, that’s always fun considering our mutually exclusive eating choices. While I inarguably go for the first steak dish on the menu, Vidy is looking for that miracle food which comes without a trace of meat in it. If it’s nearing the end of the month, however, both of us restrict ourselves to the right side of the menu; it could be flavored grass for all we care.

After the usual “You really should start eating meat” from me and her “That thing smells”, and no offence taken by either side, we dig into the heavily decorated food with gusto.

The conversation is as rich as the food, although I make half of it incomprehensible by talking with my mouth full. Vidy hates that but then habits die-hard---I have always put food first.

We drive through downtown and I decide it will be fun to window-shop at The Cupboard—our favorite novelty shop. Both of us spend the time reassuring ourselves that we should be able to afford all that stuff at some point in life. “Wow, look at this cup—its wrought iron,” I say.

Vidy has a startled expression but all she says is “That’s porcelain. That’s how good porcelain looks.”

“Oh, really?” Didn’t know that. That doesn’t take away from my liking, however.

She shows me how to figure out good porcelain by placing the mouth of the goblet near my ear. She’s right. Even to my ears, that sounds musical.

After a Coldstone dessert or equally likely, a novel concoction at Alley Cat, we’re headed home.

A drive to the mountains- wow- or at least, we seem to be going in that general direction. We can’t see them in the night. ‘Somewhat similar to our lives,’ I say. ‘It’s there, yet not there.’

That begins a spate of philosophy-- on our different natures, our social lives—or lack of them, her passion for science and my hatred for it, my plausible writing future, dream men that elude us and family that’s always there for us.

In the distant background, a song plays. Vidy convinces me it’s my favorite song. “Really?” I start tapping my fingers though I could swear to you I have never heard it before. But on music, I think I trust her judgment more than mine.

The "bloody" letters

To paraphrase my friend, “got that mailbox of mine to better utilitarian value at truly minimal cost”.

Yeah, I am one of those that has a hang-up about deleting emails from my mail box, threatened every so often (by people that purport to be my friends) with an inconsequential and shamelessly huge zip file or a word attachment that goes to lengths to describe humanity’s impending trip to mars, about which, quite honestly, I care a rat’s ass. (I’d rather have mars or venus or better still, jupiter come crashing down on earth sending humanity and all that’s in it to its ultimate and irreversible doom).

Okay, that said, and apologizing in advance for an outrageously long blog, let me introduce to you the characters below as my pals, A, B, C and D (to preserve identity, as the discussion to follow might instigate a normal human being to wreak assault on such grotesquely hilarious characters).

(All the characters henceforth mentioned are alive and kicking, and NOT on drugs. They just tend to go into these discussions on certain topics that the rest of humanity doesn’t give a damn about--to paraphrase Dave Barry-- somewhat akin to the policymakers in Washington, that the rest of America does not give a damn about).

It all started one bleak winter day in February '02, when A decided it was time to be explicitly philosophical about one of the most common habits of human kind.

Quoting A (with absolutely necessary modifications; it’s assumed that A’s inherent problem with diction will be excused, in light of the rather insightful thinking).

“ok, kuming to tudays issue...if u guys are still with me and this mail ain't in the trash yet.........................
this line is from a poem ritten by a friend of mine...........

why water(tears) attempts
to take the shape of grief
it can't ever fill?

and it set me thinking............on the futility of teers...... not to mention greef.......
we all cry. Period. (its almost a default criterion to be human......so 'E' you are in too, by default !)
yes, teers are futile, never propotionate to feelings.........
wat konstitutes them? mere water........
why did the all omnipotent , omnipresent , omniscient , of all compounds chuse water for teers.....................
let’s say we shed teers of blud ( of kourse, that wud literally and figuratively b “eratha kaneer”)...........

For one, i kan think of atleast 3 peepul on the list who wud b severely anemic........

and poets wud sing "the ruby drops of red that gently trickled down cheeks, soft as rose petals"

am sure sum of us in this list remember nites of krying ourselves to sleep and upon day break the tears of nite forgotten, though the heaviness of the heart remains.......and the pillow just a silent witness to the nite’s happenings....... but imagine how dramatic it wud be to wake up to a crimson red pillow that u remembered spotlessly white b’for you drifted into sleep?

One thing’s for sure, it wud have to be laundered or chucked...... perhaps an incentive to kry less........a beggining, at least !

and guys wudn't slash their wrists to proclaim their love......how futile that wud be, when gurls cud shed blud thru their eyes..........

and no billet doux ritten in blud.............

ok, now throwing in sum physics and dynamics of fluid (makin sure the email caters to everybudy).......
blud coagulates.......
blud flows thru lachrymal glands and blud has viscosity unlike water.......and it wud form perfect spheres ........ so how wud stokes law be modified for the rate of crying?
wat abt the gurls who wud go booooo at the snap of a finger.......wudn't her rate of teer flow defy stokes law........
and the blud reeching the exterior coagulates and the outer rim of the lachrymal glands wud soon have a lining of coagulated blood (mostly for the boo cases, cos of too much blud kuming)..... this in the course of time wud reduce the diameter of the lachrymal gland with more deposition of coagulated blud, which in turn shud be directly proportionate to the rate of krying and ofkourse, the frequency of bursts of tears........
so u have coronary artherosclerosis being mimiked in the lachrymal glands........
but hold....... how dus the clog back fire?........u wanna cry and u can't (literally and figuratively, we have experienced it and if we cry teers of blud the third dimension of science wud also be satisfied ). dus this clog grow in size and clog your brain , that u die of brain hemorage (oh i luv nan-glish, cudn't have got dat brain damage ever rite in inglish) or wud it leed to the heart and u die of heart failure ?!!!!
dunnot no the route of lachrymal glands, but for god’s sake they need to empty sumwhere into the interior just as the open into the exterior.......

next, wats gonna substitute teers on tabloid... without doute, tomato ketchup, probably diluted..... if it wurked for psycho(the famus shower scene- AH used tomato ketchup) , sure bollywud and tollywud wud resort to it...

and wud gurls and wumen be chosen by evolution to kry less becos already theres an alloted slot for it every munth?

so there r a lot of unanswered questions....... wen it kums to futility of teers.....
but if teers were blud, indications r u cry less......

so perhaps the futily of teers is a paradox in itself ..... cos it ain't futile after all ...
atleast we dunnot bleed ourselves to tears which wud b bleedin ourselves to death!!!!
hey guys isn't that a lot of positive thinkin goin into futility of teers!!!!"

B responds (wouldn't take an einstein to figure out who THIS is!):

"and while i pretend to b unoffended by the fact that i was not included in the inhuman category with E (i take this opportunity to officially re-introduce the robotic unemotional B of yore), i decide to credit my dear friends rantings with the true objectivity expected of a rand-ian, firstly cos i have nothin better to do and secondly bcos my friend will be greatly distressed if she does not hear my well-sought-after opinion on her thoughts. and since she surely is one of the people that she purports would end up with chronic anemia, i decided i wasn’t goin to be the cause for her ailments, cos she is hard enough to deal with as it is...
without further ado (like 8 long lines wasnt enuf ), i shall delve into the basics of bloody tears....
i think its a fabulous idea...first, the pros--
imagine, jus how easy donating blood would be ---no painful needles---(and the girls score better on this than the men, for a change)...all you have to do is feed the lady an anticoagulant and tell her she looks ugly and bingo, u can have all the blood u want!
and then, the dramaticism---and the things it can achieve....come to think of it, most of my childhood accomplishments can be attributed to tears--i got all the stuff i wanted, all the things i wanted to do..... cant even begin to imagine how much easier life would have been if the tears were blood...i mean, nobody wants you streaming blood all over the place.... it ain’t good for you, it ain’t good for the house and surroundings.....
so those are the pros...
as for the cons...
the coagulating! yes, A, that would be a huge problem...but i betcha like nature thought of everything, she would have thought of that as well ...there ought to be some natural anticoagulant that would allow the steady flow ........
and then the anemia....the solution for this would be simpler...the more u shed tears the more u would need to eat ! doesn’t that jus work to our advantage?! or maybe we could try this...collect the blood in buckets and drink it up! * puke *
but just another thought--- I was wondering what would happen to li’l babies! I mean, imagine---they cry all the time, much to my disgust, and if they lost all that blood crying! jeez..they are too much of a pain as it is...
and i love the idea of getting up to a bright red pillow! we will never need to go on a drive in the snow or have our car burn in front of our eyes--life will be james-bond-like, jus waking up!
anyways, shall leave the physics musings to the physicists in the group....shall take your leave, with but a tear...."

C writes:

"Just saw the flurry of emails on this topic that was so eloquently initiated by our dear friend, A. I think it almost can be classified as science fiction. Very well written indeed, not to mention a very fertile and bloody thought process.

As for commenting on B’s reply......one of the pros missed out was......the easiness with which our dear friend can collect blood for HIV research with the inherent "cons" associated with it.

And as for the comment on a child crying and it being bloody.....one could regulate the lachrymal glands such that it turns out to be "developmentally regulated under the control of an erythrocyte promoter". This way it gets turned on post-puberty !!!!

Just a thought.....

flames accepted....."

D writes:

"if we were then to take the point a little further and say - suggest replacement - blood takes the place of water and water takes the place of blood (after all why stop with tears)
......imagine the result to the vast body of communication, and not to say laws of physics that would occur......to start naming a few items that come instantly to mind.......
it would make tom sawyers and huck finns oaths of blood pale a little in significance if they could cry out their oaths........
and the whole idea of bleeding transparent fluids would lose the immediate visual sense.......
swimming in a sea of blood!!!!!

moses turning water red!!!!!!! (sic?) (that famous scene featuring Mr. NRA)
what about blood being thicker than water...............
those are the cons
and the pros.......
and poets wud sing"the ruby drops of red that gently trickled down cheeks, soft as rose petals" - which reminds me instantly of lines from "Happy Prince"
`When I was alive and had a human heart,' answered the statue, `I did not know what tears were, for I lived in the palace of Sans-Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime I played with my companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the Great Hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness. So I lived, and so I died. And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot choose but weep.' "

A tribute to the Idiot box...

Wouldn't be fair if I didn't commemorate the color tv on its 50th anniversary.

So, here's my commemoration:

A feel-good winter evening, curled up on the couch with the heat up and the comforter around me, the idiot box unfurling one bout of Friends after another, the aroma of falafels and hummus filling the air. 'God bless the chickpea' as George Clooney is saying right now on television....

Ah, bliss....

But, for chrissssake, how am i s'pposed to savor all that delightful food while maintaining my prostrate position ?

there's just no pleasin some people....

Keeping the eye on the ball

Keeping the eye on the ball. That's how easy Roger Federer makes tennis look like. And with a backhand as effortless as his forehand, he doesn't have much trouble hitting the ball when he gets to it. Not to mention his unbelievable nimbleness on court.

When Safin came into the Australian Open Final after destroying the youngest and oldest American favorites, Andy Roddick and Andre Agassi, he seemed pretty much unbeatable. Not to Federer, however.

Just as much as he has his eyes set on the ball, so does he have them set on a few other things---like, being number one, breaking a few records and having some titles in the bag for good measure. And then he goes out there and gets them.

Not to belittle Safin in anyway. It would be unfair to say Safin wasn't relentless against Federer's incredible passing shots (that are often just a little out of reach), his impeccable backhand winners (that land in all the right places) and his amazing return of serve (a weapon he used against the insurmountable Pistol Pete a little over two years ago).


No wonder this match had some of the most impressive rallies in the game(more often than not broken by Safin). Also, the Russian rebounded from a bleak 0-40 to deuce more than once in the game. He drove Federer up the wall early in the third set with a couple of deuces before the Wimbledon champion finally won the game. After which it could only be uphill for the Swiss.

Safin came up just a little short. Roger Federer was clearly the better player. The players came into the match with no odds against them--- both in their early twenties, each with one grand slam title under his belt, no broken bones and no twisted ankles.

Unless you want to count Safin's lack of cool. The crowd might love it but quick temparament has never won a tennis match. Individual sport is all about keeping your calm. Little wonder then, that racket breaking Ivanisevic, McEnroe and Safin always make the crowds go crazy while stone-faced Sampras, Borg and Federer are the ones that walk away with the cup.

There's no doubt that Safin has both the character and the game to win a tough tennis match. You'd agree with me if you'd seen him against Agassi in the semi-finals. Agassi came back into the match from two sets down to take the next two sets, only to lose to Safin 3-6 in the decider. While it takes a player with Agassi's familiarity and all-round game to turn a match around, the younger player often has just the little more resolve and the little more gas that's needed to win.

Call me an early nineties person, but anything about Agassi brings to mind a similar situation with Sampras in the picture. (Well, alright, ANYthing about tennis does :) ).

Hmmm....little less than three years ago:
Center Court, Wimbledon.
Sampras, two sets down to then upcoming player, 20 year old Roger Federer (who had incidentally vowed to beat Sampras on his favorite turf) came back to stay in the match and win the next two sets, but the final one was Federer's to take. Ivanisevic won the tournament that year but Federer came back to win Wimbledon in 2003. Now, with the Australian Open title under his wing, he's the only player to win at Wimbledon and Melbourne consecutively, after Sampras who did it in '93-'94.

So, the next Sampras? As opposed to Pete's predominantly serve and volley game, Federer has an all court performance, which can only be good. While he can also stay at the baseline, he rushes to the net every so often and can just as well fire an ace and follow up with a good volley when he needs a quick point. He's got Pete's mental toughness and calmness on court; he also seems to have a warm and engaging side to him, that might make him a better crowd favorite. But does he have a game that can compare with someone who lost just one match in a total of 57 matches at Wimbledon in 8 straight years?

Will Federer and Safin continue to give tennis fans the incredible treat that Sampras and Agassi never failed to deliver? And will Federer emerge the eventual winner like Sampras always did?

I'm jus rambling here....

so if you're one of the few that takes my blogs seriously, DON't this one !
well, I took up this book called 'Against the Gods' ...naah, it's nothin like it sounds though I'd be only too happy to say i am more often atheistic than not. And most of my closest pals know that I am a closet theist. And now the whole world does. Alright, now, let me believe that the whole world reads my blog. It keeps me content--and more important--quiet.

Anyways, if you think I am gonna give you a book review here, you're wrong. My brains are dead. I haven't done any math in a long time--not that when I did, I was good at it---and Bernstein's got me completely warped on the history of mathematics and words like die and roll and toss are swimming in my head right now. But one recommendation for lovers of statistics and the history of reasoning---it's an awesome read when you have the mood and brains for it.

Since I don't for now, I have set the book aside as well and all I have been doing these past two weeks is go down memory lane and meandering, complicated roads and I must say, the sweltering 40 degree sun also hasn't been good to my brains (so all u snowed-in people out there, go green), eat authentic south indian cuisine and mumbai chaat alike, watch cricket and tennis and spend a fortune of my dad's money---basically leading a trite and meaningless life and boy, does it feel good!

I realize I haven't really made a point, so let me make one all-important one and put an end to this.

Confessions of an IBCD….

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,
From wandering on a foreign strand!

Yeah, I am back in India after two and a half years and both Sir Walter Scott and convention demand that I say I couldn’t be happier. What I really would mean by that statement, if I said it, is that the banana skins on the sidewalks, the lori and bogi fires on the middle of the road, muddy puddles of water, stray dogs running haywire, the chaotic autorickshaws and horsecarts and the occasional cow streamlining traffic on a not-so-busy street all set my heart pounding and give it the sense of elation it has craved these past two and a half years.

If I did dodge my forthrightness enough to say “It’s different. I grew up in this kind of a scenario”, I still wouldn’t be meaning that I missed any of this. Why I would want to breathe sand off unpaved mud roads, see dust settle on every knick knack at home, put up with unwarranted sights and sounds from inconsequential passers-by, worry about ants infesting my favorite rasmallai on the dining table, refrain from walking out into the garden in fear of citing a menacing little roach, encounter a constipated face at the store counter instead of a cheery “how are you?” and wait hours before finally connecting to yahoo.com is completely beyond me.

Pardon me, but I certainly don’t believe that being born in a country is reason enough.
And it’s not just about fast cars and ATM machines and high speed internet. It’s about living life the way you have always wanted to live it, about being able to do the things you want to do within the bounds of crippling finances, about finally being free from the clutches of society and its stringent rules, about living without the restrictions that come with being born into the weaker sex.

Yeah, I know it for a fact now. I belong to that rare class of people that don’t fall into either of the known categories of Indians living in America today. IBCDs they call themselves, for Indian born confused desis.

Ten things I miss most about the US:
Fox news channel
Philly cheese steak
Life-saving Google.com at the click of a button
Uninterrupted power supply
Air heading at the democratic presidential candidates’ debate
24/7 Friends
IHOP
Left lanes and 100mph
Live coverage of the Australian Open
The rockies…..

Blog's takin a break.....

i mean, what do you say when you have nothin to say....

yeah, this is that phase of life when the only part of day to look forward to seems to be the night, tempting for it is in all its unreality...

when nothing in the day seems to happen to your liking, oh, what bliss it is to crawl into the warmth of the comforter, shut out the real world and dream of the things you'd rather have happen ...and when your mind finally runs out of creative ideas, it seems apt only to let go and have the tears roll...

Women and Colorado are unpredictable

[Players involved: sun, moon, wind, mountains.
Predictions are fair and balanced:
10 to 1 to Sun
10 to 1 to Moon
10 to 1 to Wind
10 to 1 to Mountains]

If you thought it were important enough, I could swear to you that I had the courage to open the windows and stand in the courtyard for a good five minutes early last morning (early, here, ofcourse meaning 9 am) and only after that grueling test did I decide that my fleece-lined jacket (proud as I was of it) would be a phenomenal disgrace to the sun that had decided to come out of its hiding place of three-----no, four long-----days.

Being a scientist robs you of certain basic requirements---one of them being that www.weather.com fails miserably in comparison to a 5-minute test; yeah, we are taught early on to trust "fool"-proof experiments to mere words printed on the computer screen.

But if you want more conviction on the inappropriateness of weather.com for the case at hand, let me recall here what my "software" pal (http://atool.blogspot.com) himself once told me-- "If you don’t like the weather in Colorado, wait for five minutes."

I could surmise quite accurately from the above statement that he also doesn't quite believe weather.com would give me a workable prediction of what 9 pm would be like at 9 am.

Anyway, so getting to the point in question, I left home that day, hugging on to a 0.000000000005 mm thick sweatshirt with machismo that rivaled that of the terminator (No, I don’t plan on running for governor--- if governors could decree the weather, however, I'd give it some serious thought). B’cos, once the sun started its game of peek-a-boo with me, I was pretty much frozen and out of sorts.

So, today, I decided to learn from my mistake. The smiling face of the sun didn’t fool me as I chucked my five-minute test and instead made sure I had on sweats and fleece and wool and thermals (read: everything but the carpet).

It was after I walked into my building and got a look at the thermostat that I began to think I was a little overdressed for 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The way I tackled that problem was by making sure I did not do the all-important centigrade-conversion. Yeah, after two years in the US, f-words still don’t mean much to me *grin*. It also helps when you can’t handle 9/5F x 32 mentally (yet another one of those exclusive scientists’ traits).

That brings me to the next item of the day---a professor once told me "Women and weather are unpredictable". I shrugged it off as the untested doctrine of an old bachelor. Then, another one told me, "The female of the species is deadlier than the male". I discarded that as the ranting of a male chauvinist of a bygone era.

Yeah, I think my professors specialized in the subject. At least now you wont blame me for my inability to divide and multiply.

Anyway, suddenly, surprisingly and pretty much recently, I realized that they were right all along---at least about the women. I got hit on the head with my discovery--- somewhat like the proverbial newtonian apple.

Well, let’s talk about this woman I met about three months ago and that I refuse to name. For a while, I was, to this woman, a cool, neat and friendly person to hang out with. I’d think that’d be an awful lot to pretend, so let’s believe that she did really think all that in the beginning.

And then, overnight (I attribute it to a really devastating nightmare), I was transformed into a complete antithesis. Thereon, EVERY thing I happened to do was either wrong or taboo--namely, eat, sleep, breathe, smoke, drink, drive (and not necessarily in that order).

Anyway, since this woman in question doesn't necessarily make my body shiver or my teeth chatter, I manage, quite easily, to give her no precedence.

It is the unpredictability of the other "w" that concerns me. And the thought of now having to walk out into zero degrees is indeed THE reason for this blog.

Oh, well, tomorrow will be another day ---you can trust Colorado on that.


(‘If you don’t like the weather in Colorado, wait for five minutes’. I have decided my five-minute test is in need of serious change. Starting tomorrow, I am making it six. THAT should work!)

I plead not guilty

[Everything that has a beginning has an end]

I decided to follow the matrician concept of pretending that Matrix-III never happened; until this morning i was awoken with the rude shock that I had in "reality" spent two and a half hours and six bucks in the pretence of watching the concluding sequel to one of the greatest movies of all time.

After waking up from that rude shock, I was all set to trash matrix-III like a couple of my fellow-movie watchers have done, but then, being the forgiving soul that i am, i decided to cut the wachowski brothers some slack.

here is the plea bargain i want to offer on their behalf, since they wouldn't be available on or off screen to justify their horrendous movie themselves:

argument #1: the abstract:
after indulging in the "reality" and "virtuality" of the real and the virtual, they decided to let their viewers experience the feeling of waking up from that matrician dream......somewhat similar to what happened to me, so, believe me I understand it perfectly; if you wanna experience it, i am willing to get into a wire-entangled pod and try to pass on the same impulses to your brain, jus' so you can feel it for yourself; just make sure you come to me with a brain.

argument #2: the mundane:
keanu reeves has been threatening hollywood that he is going to quit movies because of his sick sister. the wachowskis tried to overcome the problem of an absent keanu reeves by "pretending" that he was "virtually" available on the sets for Matrix III but believe it or not, the Matrician concept pulled a fast one on them--- so they had to quit the idea and cook up a quick (read: meaningless) tale before their lead actor's dissappearing act.

argument #3: the obvious:
"I can only show you to the door. You have to walk through it" Morpheus.
gee, the movie meant a great deal, not their problem if you aint smart enough to figure it out, and they aren't going to show up to interpret it for you----they are too busy fighting the giant squids that escaped from machine city.


the defence rests.....




if you wanna put your money on argument 3 above, you need to get help: either go see a shrink pronto or refer:

• The A to Z of Matrix

The Matrix—Pluggin’ in....

[I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds and all external things are merely the delusions of dreams, which he has devised to ensnare my judgment.
-Rene Descartes]

Anyone who has watched a "behind the scenes" coverage of the Matrix will know that the Wachowski brothers pretty much stay off the stage--- on either side of the backdrop. While I appreciate their insistence to leave the interpretation of their phenomenal film to viewers, I must say it has had some outrageous consequences---not the most insignificant of which is the fact that the movie sits in the "sci-fi" section of the video store, alongside AI and space oddyssey.

Spelling facets of mysticism, philosophy, action, surrealism, religion and society, to me, science fiction is just one aspect of the Matrix, albeit over-hyped, because of society's inability to grasp at its deeper connotations.

Despite the fact that The Revolutions left far to be desired, I await the release of the concluding sequel tomorrow, with anticipation akin to the delerium of pre-world-cup bangalore or the fervor that grips americans a week prior to superbowl and decide it's time to credit my fascination for the movie with a little blog.

Let us, for now, leave aside the mundane story of the cyber hacker who is made to believe that the entire world is an elaborate computer program and do the Wachowski brothers’ unparalleled innovation some justice.

The idea that what we take to be the real world could all be just a dream is not alien to the philosophical world. Rene Descartes of Renaissance fame set the stage for the movie ages ago by questioning if that feeling we experience is not just an electric impulse being sent to our brain by a computer we are wired to. By doubting all that could be doubted, he took 17th century renaissance to a new level.

He might not exactly have been flabbergasted at the matrician idea of every individual within the matrix seemingly living out a normal life on 20th century earth, while in reality spending it in a wire-entangled pod.

Let’s now turn from the profundity of pre-renaissance- philosophy to 21st century biology and the power of the human mind.
Cypher: You know, I know this steak doesn’t exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious.

When you delve deep into the neural circuitry of the human brain and learn that it is the all-controller, that it is impulses from the brain that make you feel, touch, hear and smell, how much harder is it to believe that Neo can will his brain to fly across skyscrapers and dodge bullets or the little girl can cause a metal spoon to bend to her whim?


And if you look a little closer (literally), you realize that Neo doesn't just happen to hollow out a book of such depth (pun intended) as Simulacra and Simulations to stash his blackmarket software. The French sociologist contributes more to the movie than camouflage for contraband, thus giving the movie its “sociological” angle. Baudrillard’s advocation of a “simulacram” or “a copy without the original” quite neatly describes the Wachowskis’ computer-generated dream world, where the “imitation” eventually gains more vitality than the original, with man becoming a slave of the “system”.

Agent Smith might well say, “The Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world, where none suffered, where everyone would be happy.”

To me the answer is simpler: the inexplicably “real” post-matrix feeling of walking through walls, bouncing off cars and flying home from the theatre.

[The most powerful instinct of man is to be in conflict with truth, and with the real-- Jean Baudrillard].
For fellow Matrix-die-hards:
Kat recommends

• Which Matrix persona are you?



• Matrix Search Engine

And while I'm in movie-mode, here are my must-watch movies of all time:

The Matrix
The Shawshank Redemption
A Few Good Men
Jurassic Park
Rainman
Bend it like Bekham
Memento
All the President's Men
The American President
My Fair Lady
The Life of David Gale
Double Jeopardy

Getting RNA-logical

[And that’s my second oxy-moron so far, cos RNAs, believe me, have no logic. I am waiting for someone to start an RNA Renaissance, and I must say (proudly) that with my relentless battle with my tube of RNA, I have indeed successfully managed to a instigate 'cold' war of some sort].

Hmmmmm....I went through my blog just now and hell, am I ashamed of myself.....I realized I am not behaving like a scientist AT ALL ! I write three essays and there's not a single scientific word...unless ofcourse you consider "asthmatic" and uhmmm, well, gravity and friction and air drag....that's quite a few....let me put it this way—there’s not a single scientific word in the right context....

So, I decided I needed to devote one blog to science....or atleast to "Whatever i (supposedly) do for ten hours everyday and that earns me my bread (it's weird that my entire life's earning is captioned thus--I mean, after all, a loaf of bread costs one buck.. You might as well give me that one buck to discontinue writing my blog)"

Okay, so getting to the point here, I realized a week ago that my whole lab is on my side, though I can't say the same about science...yeah, my entire lab empathizes with me cos my RNA (expansion: Routinely Not Available) just wouldn’t express and they know I am workin my ass off for it...here's a little note for you laymen out there----first of all, the scientific expansion for RNA is RiboNucleic Acid, though that doesn’t always apply; what ALWAYS applies is 'Routinely Not Available' (and I have unshakeable proof of this), but the scientific community (warped as it is) wouldn't take my suggestion.

Anyway, so RNases, apparently, are very different from RNAs, in that, they are ALWAYS available and EVERYWHERE...RNAses eat RNAs by the way (scientific lesson # 1: add "ase" and you get a predator). Hmmmm, so that's the reason why RNA is routinely not available--- cos RNAses are everywhere---- the palms of your hands, the benchtop, on the lid of the centrifuge, in the tube that has your RNA, the water, the air and practically EVERYwhere).

That is exactly the reason why, last week, when I went strutting about the lab in RNA-less agony, I had the luxury of listening to tales of how long each one in the lab had to wait to express their maiden RNA..... Phew! Was that encouraging or what! So, bottomline: I'd rather have my lab empathize with me and listen to all those stories than have my RNA up and running, really...who cares for that little black band on an X-ray film, anyway...I can think of a zillion ways of generating that (actually, I can't but I am sure if I went to the experts they could give me a zillion ideas).

Well, and as fate would have it, exactly when i DON'T want something, i get it! yep! Reversal of history! My RNA expressed! A shitload ....turns out, I was using dirty water. Note: there is absolutely NO WAY that dirty water can enter an RNA lab...it's blasphemy. (Courtesy: Dr. Jeff Wilusz, reference: Methods. 1999 Jan;17(1):21-7).

But as with science of any form, shape or nature, happiness is transient....yeah, I DID get happy eventually, I am learning to behave like a true scientist..... and just when I stole myself to get happy, my RNA wouldn't turn over! for the non-scientifics out there (including myself) turn over is "degradation" ...yeah, i am studying RNA degradation.... funny that I spend an entire year trying to make RNA only to "want" it to degrade to shit! DUH! scientists....they don’t make any sense whatsoever....the only thing that makes worse sense than scientists is their science...

anyway, so, point: now my RNA doesn’t turn over... and I betcha if there is ONE smart person out there among my readers (chances of that happening are exactly 2 in 1000000000000000), you'd be able to suggest that all I need to do is dump in some RNase (‘some’ here equals 2 in 1000000000000000 of a microliter by the way) and bingo, my RNA would degrade! But that is EXACTLY what my boss doesn’t want ! get it? scientists are funny......you have a zillion milli-molecules of stuff floating all around that can get you the job done and you don’t want that ....you want to do stuff the hard way...did I mention that I add RNAse inhibitor in my tubes to actually prevent RNAs from getting degraded?

Uh, well, I guess I’ll stop before I begin to completely realize the futility of my efforts ...

And I hope at least one of you out there is compassionate enough to one day walk into my lab (1300, Center Ave., room B325, Ft.Collins, CO, USA) and dump some RNase from your dirty fingers into the tube that contains my RNA.....

I couldn’t do it cos it would go against all the norms of being a true scientist (norm#1 being ‘make life as much harder for yourself as you can’).

Learning to greet Uncle Sam

I am all set to go to India in December....
On second thoughts, am I?, I ask myself ...
Ofcourse! A new credit card with a 2000 $ limit just landed in the mail box and I almost have my tickets confirmed. What’re you talkin’ about?!!
Yeah, yeah, but do you still say “talkin”?
Uh, well, yes.
Do you still smile at that stranger across the street?
Yes. :(....
Do you still thank the bus operator before getting off?
*sigh* Yes.
Do you still keep your teeth and your tongue in tight check when the shop attendant takes an interminable ten minutes to bill you?
YES!
All set? Think again!

While I’m in the process of un-learning savoir-faire in preparation for my impending trip, I might as well try and recall how I learnt it in the first place....

Hmmm.......it’s not everyday that you land in the richest country in the world and receive a greeting from a stranger like he hasn’t seen you in years. Well, you’ve never ever seen a stranger in years, but considering the trials and tribulations of an artless Indian trying to handle the white sociability (or was it supremacy?) is bewildering enough, I’ll reserve that for another day.

The sprawling Boston Logan Airport, the series of tall buildings in the city’s skyline, the myriad number of lanes and terminals did not overwhelm me as much as the tiny little man at the end of the concourse and more so, his cheery How do you do.

Hailing from a country where even a ‘hi’ from a stranger is considered taboo, ‘how do you do’ happened to be one word too many! So I decided to contest it by rattling off my medical history to the flight attendant, whose only fault, I agree today (after a lot of contemplation), was being nice and friendly, just like an average American is expected to. I have never been gladder for my myopia, which rendered me blissfully oblivious to the amused ever-so-slight raising of his eyebrows. Oh yes, loud as the greetings are, the sarcasm is but subtle.

I learnt the long and hard way that the How do you do and take care stemmed more from years of polite upbringing than any real interest in a saga of my health record. Within weeks following my entry, I had learnt that the more appropriate response was ‘Good’ (and this did not change if you had just been fired from your job or given the final cold shoulder by the love of your life), followed by a prompt enquiry in reciprocation, accompanied by the best smile any given circumstance would allow.

Having learnt that, I soon found myself incurably absorbed in the intricacies and nuances of conventional decorum. Calling out ‘good’ followed by the customary ‘how are you’ and then responding politely, all within the time span of a few seconds, which is how long it takes two humans to pass each other (given the gravity, friction and air drag at any time) proved tougher than I’d imagined.

Putting creativity and diligence to work, I figured the best way to achieve this was to jump the gun. So, instead of waiting for my relatively nonchalant acquaintance to do the honors, I decided it was easier to be the first one to call out the greeting. In my anxiety to get the whole charade over with (within earshot of each other), I found myself shouting out the ‘hi’ even before my associate had noticed me (Whoever said light traveled faster than sound?). It took a lot of long hard math and a fair amount of trial and error to decide on the starting point (both temporally and spatially).

A few problems I encountered were the inherent inconsistencies within the system-- for example, sense of hearing, sight and gait. There were some ethical issues involved as well---I began to discover the gory details of my associates’ medical problems— some had better hearing in their left ear than their right, a few were astigmatic and others had flat feet. So much for genetics----all you needed to discover one’s ailments was to say a hello to somebody! Americans and their meandering ways..... I still prefer the straightforward Indian method of rattling it all out, though.

Two years in this country hasn’t brought me any closer to determining appropriate conduct, but in retrospect, I think, for all its forthrightness, the hostile push I used to get so generously in a Mumbai train made me no happier than the rather specious yankee greeting (which indeed does manage to pep me up consistently).

[Besides, they say it takes anywhere between 5 and 53 muscles to smile; pray, how can THAT be skin-deep? Now, exactly what WAS my point?]

Quibbling over the X and the Y

[I don’t think it’s fair to your dad that you spend twenty-two years of your life believing that he was “supposed” to take care of the television when it conked and pay the electricity bill when it came and yet “you” are the all-independent
new-age (wo)man........I don’t think it’s fair to you that after believing in all that, at the vulnerable age of 23, you are thrown into an alien land where you not only cope with urban life, differing attitudes to race, women's rights and socially taboo subjects such as homosexuality, BUT ALSO telemarketing, health insurance, customer service, toll-free calls and cell phone bills.....But then, whoever said the world was a fair place.....]

My little mop of hair was disheveled, my laces were out and as I rubbed the sweat off my hands onto the shorts that clearly couldn’t take it any more, I tossed my friend an evil, victorious grin. As you can probably imagine, I didn’t make a pretty sight. But I’d beat him in a roller-skating race and that’s all I cared about.

Life was simple then....

That was the time when the best part of day was the early morning when I’d scoot right out of bed and trot along beside my dad for that wonderful morning walk, drop off my sister at the bus stop and pout all the way home if I didn’t get to run across the road like that boy did.

When it was my turn to get to school, however, early mornings were no longer fun, but once I was scrubbed and uniformed and satcheled, the worst was over, for what followed were fantasy lands harboring magic chairs, the less exciting but more likely merry-go-round, unintelligible yet very real goods in the art book, the world of limericks and the joy of seeing my name in print; but nothing felt as good as that all-important high-five from the boy that crossed the finish line just abreast of me.

Then came the phase of stringent teachers, boring morning math, incomplete home works and unfair penalties, but it seemed a price worth paying for the afternoon that was to follow---hours of back-bench popcorn munching, unpunctuated periods (pardon the pun) of delightful dozing, barely suppressed snickers and cross-classroom-chits, Shakespeare in uniform, endless throwball, an occasional hiking expedition of vying to do just as well as the guys and everyday attempts at clinging on to that last precarious step on the bus because all of them did .......

High school brought with it late afternoons of hanging out at umpteen fast food places by the alma mater, a badly timed yet luxurious home-cooked luncheon, long hours of the salty seaside air, discussing Darwin and H.G. Wells alike through miles of formidable Chennai road, carrying back the remainder to the phone (in the unusual case of running out of breath before topics to talk on), uninterrupted, thirst-ridden reading, oratoricals and sales appeals and What’s the good word and the realization that competing with the men on an intellectual level was just as much fun....

College had something different to offer--- late evenings of sneaking onto the terrace and gazing at big bear while discussing dream men and our fond hopes of finding them in the not-too-distant future, on-the-spur-of- the-moment decisions to watch the latest romantic comedy in town, long hours of cycling through pitch darkness in the pastoral surroundings of the university campus, rejoicing on a sudden opportunity to go home to loved ones, endless games of Literati and cracks at The Hindu Crossword, contemplating on Rand’s objectivist philosophy in the wee hours of the morning, aiming to read A Brief History of Time because all the smart men out there had....

Where my moments of greatest reproach included buying a Barbie doll on relenting to peer pressure and giving in on one occasion to rely on a man to pull down my baggage for me, I prided myself on being one of the few girls that could handle a yamaha with effortless ease and having the privilege of being thrown out of hostel for heading one of the most far-reaching strikes in the history of the university! Perplexing, because bagging the academic proficiency award in high school or winning at the top art competition in the nation had left me relatively blasé.

Life sure was simple then.

Somewhere between leaving my home country and traveling to a foreign land (albeit my cherished dream for years), between wanting to be with home and family and wanting to be all on my own, between loving solitude and freedom and suddenly finding myself with too much of both, between looking at men as mere yardsticks and looking at them as potential life partners, I had redefined too many standards in life.

I don’t take credit for the redefinition, however........

That credit goes to that month-old American Express bill on my desk screaming for attention, that hour-long toll-free call for one extra dollar billed to me (yeah, yeah, I said toll-free), the familiar-screech of the fire alarm after 250 difficult minutes of oh-so-delightful Indian cooking, the life-and-death matter of haggling over that important car insurance quote, the conking of every possible gadget I own after a fateful power surge, that half-a-day of NYPD-grade explanations because I forgot the existence of the burglar alarm, Microsoft Word giving up on me two hours before my qualifying proposal was due, finding myself homeless because my room mate happened to find a cheap thrill in hanging up on the land lord, the spectacular snow storm that decided to take me, my friends and our rented car through two exciting 360° turns, the three hours I spent trying to get home because I dodged a jug handle on a complicated Jersey highway, my priced Camry bursting into flames, minutes after I stepped out of it.........

Yes, those are the moments in your life when “wanting to be as good as the men” takes a backseat.

And standing testimony to those very moments is that little bundle of brown fur in the far corner of my room....

Cyber-kat

[Befitting as the caption might be for a seasoned blogger, a better oxy-moron I could not come up with! To give you a little perspective, just about five years ago when the rest of the twentieth century world was glued to www.you-name-it.com, I was still toying with the idea of giving up the conventional writing pad and switching to Microsoft Word ......... Finally, I did, as you can see (and I still don’t dare Adobe Acrobat) and this has sure brought me a ‘blong’ way! Nevertheless, since I am trying to reflect here a certain contradiction in my personality (think Jekyll and Hyde), I decided to stick with the misnomer.....]

For as long as I can recall, I have gone about life looking for that ‘one’ thing that would make me happy, not really knowing what it was. I still don’t, but now I have a name for it ---‘cheese’. And for those of you who are worrying about the amount of calories I have gained, nope, much as I love that coagulated chunk of ripened milk, this name is more out of appreciation for Spencer Johnson’s Who moved my cheese than any craving I might have for the real thing.

I have been carrying the weight of “searching for happiness” about my shoulders since age 12 and always felt good about it. For a long time the cheese was really myself. I loved the way I was, my many traits and idiosyncrasies and took great pride and happiness in just “being me”. It was after I realized that the task of being me was wonderful, no doubt, but was proving to be as prosaic as breathing, an act that every human on earth is capable of doing for himself (let me not make light of it, considering I have been asthmatic for atleast six painful years, but it sure doesn’t come under the category of leisure in any diction), that I began to look for other ways of entertainment.

So, my cheese became the enchanting world of books. I lived, breathed and ate books for eight straight years from there, personified every character that I loved; even walked, talked and spoke like a few of them! And when the black and white of paperbacks ceased to inspire, I turned to the colorful world of celluloid. Living the intelligent Darby Shaw during a recess in academic achievement, a successful Laura Cameron during a particularly vulnerable moment or a boisterous Kate Blackwell during flashes of feminine helplessness did feel extremely good but amidst this myriad of personas, I was in constant fear of somewhere losing the real me.

I was soon absorbed into this deep chasm of botheration that I was living in a fantastical dream world that had no chance of transposing to reality. Hence followed a “realization” phase that included everything from rock climbing expeditions to a course in journalism. But alas, I still did not like the way my cheese was tasting.

The Wachowski brothers timed it well. Matrix could not have come at a more opportune time. Launching into philosophies of the real and the virtual, I was soon trying to comprehend if the ‘best actress’ award I had won in high school indeed tasted any better than the sight of Abel Rosnowski’s first and very own Baron Hotel (with all due thanks to Jefferey Archer).

Setting all my skepticism aside, I launched into limitless journeys of the human mind. With it, came my entry into cyberspace. The intriguing mysticism of the digital world added a certain dimension to the fantasies that hitherto ruled my life. My online counterparts not only had a profundity and abstractness that made me oblivious to living, breathing people around me, they also did away with the uninteresting prospect of dealing with the banalities of the tangible world. My flesh and blood companions were baffled by my relentless love of the computer. “This isn’t real” was their constant complaint.

“Well, what IS real?” Like all things, I grew out of my virtual existence and now I have a “real” world where I continue to say hi and hello, continue to discuss the weather, continue to go on a reasonably challenging hike. One recurring thought comes to mind--- I told an online counterpart once that I would love to go on an expedition like that in the Amazing Race; he echoed the thought that crossed my mind in retrospect --‘I’d rather have my mind go on such a journey’. Since then I have never used the term ‘couch potato’ for anyone. There is far more the mind can explore in a single day than the body can in eons.

---the cyber-kat that until a few years ago never knew a mouse that responded at the click of a button.