New additions to my friend list

IDEH

Ideh suddenly announced yesterday "its my birthday today!". What she meant was that she had completed a year in our lab. That reminded me that she is not really new to me. So I can say that I got to discover her all over again during our Pondicherry and Trichy trip.

My South India trip wouldn't have been half as interesting without her. Here's one great example. Bhakti and I were nicely sitting in a bus which would take us to Trichy while Ideh was standing down. All of a sudden we found Bhakti's suitcase in Ideh's hand which we clearly remembered having placed on the rack inside the bus. It turns out that while we had been busy looking out of the window one old man had cooly picked up the suitcase and walked out of the bus. Ideh told us that the man was walking so confidently that she almost believed the suitcase to be his until she peeped into the bus. That's when she literally snatched the case out of the thief's clutches!!

What I love about Ideh is her enthusiasm and boundless energy. She hardly ever complains. She can make an instant connection with anybody. However hard Bhakti and I tried to get our point across to our autowalla he only understood whatever Ideh said. One of the owners of a shop at Pondicherry actually believed Ideh to be an Indian when she is actually from Tehran. Her friendliness is infectious. I'll never forget her attempts to make me drink bitter coffee which would help me appreciate the sweetness of sugar.

Ideh is full of life and enlivens everything and everyone around her. She alone can blow a whistle on being bowled over by a classical dance performance. :)

AZAHAR

I've rarely called him by that name. To me he is Dingu or Mr Why. Dingu because whenever I talk to him I end up with bells going ding-dong in my head. And Mr Why because he has a habit of asking me the question "Why ?" all the time.

Two months back when we first chatted on ym he wanted to know what my plans for the future were. He totally wasn't satisfied with my answer that I was waiting for a year to go and then decide. Since then he has been after me to think and plan... think and plan. I have to admit thanks to his badgering (hehehe) I have ended up facing things that I had conveniently put at the back of my mind with no intention of bringing them to the forefront.

The other day Dingu said that if by making use of his suggestions I succeed in doing some new in my PhD then it'll make him happy. As his blog profile says he truly has a way of thinking which is unlike others.

I particularly love one of his quotes "Home is where the heart is and my heart is always with me... so I am always happy".

My South India Trip

I went for a short trip down South with two of my labmates, Bhakti and Ideh. The trip wasn't exactly short condsidering our 24 hour train journey to Chennai and the 5 hour bus ride thereafter to Pondicherry. After spending 2 nights and a day there we spent 6 hours on a bus to reach Trichy. We'd gone to Trichy to attend a 3 day coneference. From Trichy I came back alone to Pune with a brief stop over in Bangalore.

Here are a few excerpts from what all happened during the journey.

MR. SORRY

This was a character sitting in our compartment... absolutely meddlesome. He interferred while Ideh, Bhakti and I played cards telling us the rules on rummi. While Bhakti was being an amateur astrologist he once again interrupted to give his theories. Once he brought some weird people along with him to sit in our compartment. So I hid myself behind my Chemistry book Atkins while Bhakti made good use on the newspaper. Then he got some people who had been smoking fined by the TC when he had himself been smoking. Towards the end he had a fight with one of the train staff who was collecting money for the food that was served. Raising his voice he flashed his wallet showing something and saying filmy things like "you don't know me".

And after all this Ideh asks him how we can get to the Chennai bus-terminus in order to take a bus to Pondicherry!!

Anyway... It was Ideh only who came up with the above name for this man who had made a habit of saying sorry whenever we gave him cold looks as he'd try to get involved in our activities.

AUROVILLE ASHRAM

One of the places that we visited at Pondicherry was Auroville which was started by a lady follower of Sri Aurobindo who is fondly called by everyone as "The Mother". The idea of the starting the Ashram was that there should be one place on Earth where there are no differences on basis of religion, caste, creed or country and where noone works for personal goals. There are no posts at the Ashram and the researchers there are not awarded any degrees.

My one main question is that when at Auroville Ashram they do not believe in idol worship then why build at its central point a Matri Mandir?

Would the Ashram still be able to function if it was not started in a secluded place like the outskirts of Pondicherry but somewhere in the heart of a thriving city like Mumbai?

They might not be giving any degrees or offering any posts but what about the feelings of competition and jealousy that are so inherent in humans?

In order to unite people you tell them to leave their religious and cultural beliefs behind. I believe the real task would be to make them tolerant to each other's philosophies while still holding on to theirs.

DOGS AT AURO BEACH

While Ideh went to have a swim in the sea, Bhakti and I sat down at the beach cafe to eat something. My stomach was growling on account that it was nearing 4 pm and we had taken breakfast at 10 am. Besides we had walked quite a bit in Auroville Ashram and also in the local market for shopping. Soon growling came from some place else. Two huge dogs came and went on staring at us. One Uncle came to our help some 3 times and pushed the dogs away but they were real stubborn and kept on returning to our table. Finally Ideh came to our rescue and saved the day. But she couldn't save our appetites. The dogs succeeded in getting what they wanted... our food.

Anyway... the fun that I had at the beach eventually compensated for those few minutes (which felt like hours then) of discomfort.

IDEH

There's so much I want to write here that I am going to dedicate my next whole post to her.

DINNER AT COAST SIDE HOTEL

The food was absolutely yum but the service was verry slow. When they didn't serve us water for 20 min I went and complained. 5 min later Bhakti literally banged the table of the man-in-charge. Everyone seemed to be waiting for food to come. Finally when one group was obliged they gave a huge round of applause to the waiter and even tapped their glasses with spoons. :p

BUS RIDE TO TRICHY

There is only one word that I have for the scenery.... green. But the number of shades of green that were there were amazing. Obviously my unskillful efforts at photography couldn't capture what my eyes saw. It was beautiful and peaceful all along and a nice journey to contemplate. I didn't feel the need to talk in order to pass time.

SRIRANGAM TEMPLE

The temples were beautiful but what caught my attention was this sign... "Pay Rs 20 to go by shorter route (to see the temple idols)". It was sad to find men having turned even places of worship into a business for minting money. Another disheartening spectacle was to learn that these temples were restricted to Hindu's only. Had I read the notice before I wouldn't have joined the queue. Why do people create and then highlight the differences? Who are we to decide who is eligible to enter a place of worship or not?

Your dream vs your family

I saw a serial some days back in which the hero in order to decide whether he should marry the heroine or not asked her the following question. "If you had to choose between your family and your dreams what would you do?" The girl's answer is that she would never break the dreams of her family in order to fulfil her dreams.

This scene reminded me of a conversation between two of my friends that I heard while we were passing time at the Trichy railway station. One of them exclaimed "how can I leave my family who've been with me for 22 years, for someone whom I've got to know only for a short period of a year or two?"

The counter question by Ideh was "what if with this someone you would have ended up spending 30-35 years of your life?"

Life sure doesn't look like a box of chocolates to me. :p

Differently enabled

An article with the same title as above was printed in today's Times of India. I am quoting a part of the text here:

"The chief technology officer of Tata Steel, a person with multiple sclerosis who uses a wheelchair, has even the South American coal authorities turning to him for advice on the future of coke-making in Colombia. The advisory systems consultant of IBM Global Services India, who is visually impaired, is a member of a 4-member IBM world-wide team and the first blind IBMer to achieve IT specialist certification. The assistant director of filmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali is the "anchor on the sets" of his films.

People with disabilities are busy conquering new frontiers everyday. Every sphere they break into, they instantly win accolades and ardent supporters with their competance, professionalism and dedication, changing the way entire sectors look at people with disabilities."

Such people are living examples of the fact that how our life turns out depends up on what we make out of it.

In my class XIIth English textbook there was a story. It began with a blind beggar recounting to a rich businessman how he lost his eyesight when he was trampled in a stampede as someone from behind pulled him down in order to reach the exit first. The beggar was hoping that on hearing his account this rich man would take pity on him and give him some money so that he could survive another day. But what happened next was something unbelievable.

It turns out that this "rich businessman" was also visually impaired and the tale that the blind beggar had been narrarting in truth took place the other way round. It was the beggar who had pulled down the man in front of him and the man in front of him was none other than this businessman.

What makes this story extraordinary is that the stampede had occured in a mill where at that time both the beggar and the businessman were employed as labourers. Facing the same circumstances while one man chooses to use his disability as a means for generating sympathy for himself, another one chooses to succeed in life going on to prove that he is simply differently enabled.

Summing up... it really is on us to let a hurdle remain a hurdle or to jump over it and move ahead in life.