An evening in NEHU guest house

 The North East Hill University campus, a sprawling 1225-acre landscaped beauty has several dwelling places. If you happen to stay there, don't forget to take an evening stroll. This campus looks even more enchanting during evening hours with the setting sun and clean air with ducks quacking in the nearby pond. Wildflowers are growing on both sides of the road and are quite pretty. One can take numerous shortcuts and pavements crisscrossed across the campus to reach different locations. It is very peaceful to walk during the evening as well. Near the duck pond, there are lots of activities with students having pleasantries, some feeding the fish and many onlookers stopping by to have a glimpse of the ducks.

The campus is full of Pinus trees that look like Casuarinas. The Casuarinas are  Angiosperms and true flowering plants. The Pinus trees on the other hand are gymnosperms with needle-like leaves. The botanist in me, can't help but wonder how much similarity these two distantly placed species have. Both have cone-like seeds and it is very difficult to tell them apart. In addition, other wild plants are growing rampantly such as Solanum virginiaum. This plant has medicinal properties. If you plan to take the seeds away and grow these plants yourself, then this is the place you should visit.

Walking in NEHU guest house in the dawn

 Morning in NEHU Guest House:

The day breaks quite early in NEHU guest house as we call to “North East Hill University guest house” in short. This is a hamlet in Shillong with picturesque view and beautiful ambience. This is a campus in the Shillong suburbs spreading over 1225 acres of land. It accommodates several institutes namely the IGNOU (Indira Gandhi National Open University), National Council of Science Museums (NCSM), a central school, Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), Sports Authority of India (SAI) and The English and Foreign Language University (EFLU), apart from regular university departments. The campus also boasts of a small shopping center where you find almost everything needed to run your home. There are few eat-outs. The eateries serve Indian, Chinese and Khasi delicacies. Food is delectable to say the least. In addition, there are student canteens, student dhabas spread across the campus

The functional gate is gate number 2 through which all the vehicles enter the campus. We lived in the Tirat Sing guest house, that is the new guest house. The rooms are big with double beds and the ambience is good. You may find some of the electric sockets not working but there are plenty others to make your job done. They provide electric kettles for hitting water and materials for making tea. You can rise up to faint beams of sunlight in an autumn morning. Surprisingly, the birds don’t chirp. There are not enough birds there. The locals say, the birds were eaten up by people, so there are unexpectedly low number of birds. Only you can spot a sparrow or a mynah. No large birds!!

There is quite a good possibility that the place rains through autumn. In the morning, there is cloud floating over the campus and one can literally walk through the clouds. The mornings are best to walk around the campus. There is a beautiful duck pond full of fishes and ducks quacking all over the pond.  It is good to explore all the small roads and pedestrian crossing to find shortcut between the roads. The distance between the old and the new guest house is about 2.5 kms. In between there are numerous departments and small lanes and by lanes to explore. The library building is huge and is straight way from gate number 2. The high and low slopes make it the ideal place for strolling, breathing fresh air and burning calories. You can spot friendly stray dogs that generally don’t harm anyone. So, one does not really have to run away from them. Happy walking in the campus.

When your own people forget you - many more just step in to fill up the space

Birthdays are personal affairs!! It has been so especially when we were kids. After growing up to a certain level, we have realized that we need some kind of attention and birthdays were celebrated extensively with extended family and friends. This has become a habit ever since the experimental posting of birthday in social media came into picture. There was a point in my life where I was actually waiting to see how many have posted on my face book wall to wish me on my birthday. I used to immediately reply to that to "Increase the Impact". Then suddenly, experimentally, I removed the birthday date from my about info and that means that face book will not remind people to wish me. Bang! There you go, there was not a single post on my wall. So, to put it correctly,  nobody really gives a shit about you. They just post a wish because others have posted and what "we will think", if they don't? Even I had some of our distant friends calling me at 10.00 PM to wish me, so that it does not go un-noticed. 

Surprisingly, this year, the only person that seemed to be really excited about my birthday is my 10 year old princess. She made sure her father buys gift for me. Even she moved her friends and made them decorate the public area in the apartment to wish me on my birthday. I am not sure if anyone else remembered. Only my sister did and probably my aging mother did. Not even my very close friend circle remembered. So, this tells a tale! The Maya that we believe people care for us is probably a myth. We all are individual souls and probably, that is the best we can carry it.

This time I have also received wishes from un-expected quarters. That includes small kids (friends of my daughter), my students and some un-expected moms of my kids friends. So, basically my daughter has pulled it off quite well in absence of family members to fill in. I had a full, joyous day which was full of revelation. This makes me now believe that when there is a void created there are always many more people out there to come and fill it in...

Dashami - from my eyes today, a divine experience

 I live in this beautiful SIRSA campus, located in southern Kolkata, India. SIRSA stands for Scientific and Industrial Research Scientists Apartment, true to its nature is the abode for many scientists and other employees working for CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) labs. For the decade I lived here, there were 10 Durga pujas. During my initial years of staying here, I was busy raising my child. I have never in true sense participated in Puja except for doing some puja related work or attending the puja procedures or mass lunch. This time I had the privilege of attending something I rather missed my earlier years.

I will describe the Dashami puja as it happened in the morning today. The puja is symbolically a procedural aspect of saying goodbye to the deities for this year. It is an emotional event. The stage will be empty, and we will not see the face of our beloved goddess Durga and her contour.  The first step was Anjali, paying obeisance to the deities, then the next is to do puja and wear the Aparajita stem around your wrist. I am not sure about this ritual, but I believe Aparajita signifies mother earth and wearing Aparajita means loving and respecting our mother earth. For me the most important protocol of this day was immersion - a symbolic one that to. We take water in an earthen pot, put little bit of turmeric and take a mirror. From the mirror we see the whole body of deity and then we immerse the mirror into the water pot. By this, we signify we have immersed our beloved goddess into water. In the end the priest sprinkles the Holi water on the devotees. Here in Bengal, I have seen emotional goodbyes where devotees, say goodbye to Durga maa by giving her Sandesh in her mouth, wiping her face in their sarees. 

Today I had the good fortune of sitting on the stage and meditate briefly.  I was thinking people ask for things, what should I ask? I have everything I need. Then I realized, I probably can work on myself a little bit and meditate. First, I was thinking oh lord make my child a good person and let her grow up to be successful and get good marks. Then my mind said who defines what is good what is bad? In our own make-believe world, we have defined success and happiness with getting good grades, getting a good grade and having a comfortable life. But in true sense that can't be success. We all are so temporary on this planet; what we think how we behave or what we get in terms of earthy hardly matters to the universe. It is important to train out thoughts. Instead, I started looking inwards and was thinking what I do wrong. Though consciously, sometimes, I am rude to people - that signifies ego. Ego because I feel that I can be rude and get away with it. Rather, I take out my anger on someone else on someone. I prayed to God that please give me strength to get over that. Sometimes I scold my child because I have no patience and say hurtful words. I prayed to God that please give me patience so that I stay calm when I have the urge to shout. Then I looked inwards and saw that I often tell my mother things that I don't practice myself. I tell her to ignore what others say or think about you and celebrate your loneliness. But in practice subconsciously I am also not immune to what people think or talk about me. I prayed silently to God, so I get over this. For now, I hope my goddess will grant me this much courage, so I get over these ailments and do "bisarjan" to these bad qualities along with the deities. Today is the day for all of us to introspect look within and immerse the bad "identifiable" traits we have with good ones. Namoh Debi Durge Durgati nasini, may sense prevails on all. 

What a year 2019!!

Today is the last day of 2019 and is the first and last blog post from me for this year.. I have been very irregular and aptly so I would say. This year was a mixed bag of joy, happiness and disappointments as well. But I would say a very decisive year.

Professionally speaking it was a mixed bag. I got my wetlab renovated this year among other major things. Got a total of 9 publications this year including some of the pending work that we have been doing for the last 4 years. Got a promotion which was deferred by a year though. 3 students graduated from the lab this year with Ph.D. Though I have not received any new grant this year but I have written and got shortlisted for a big proposal.

In personal fronts many things happened including fencing my land, plantation, making my parents dependents and getting medical bills submitted and reimbursed for the first time. One of my long standing wishes to take my parents on LTC holidays was successful when I took them to Sikkim this year in June. I Submitted phone bills after 4 years this year. Starting yoga, running marathons etc. have been few of my achievements this year.

Hope next year is more nicer in terms of publishing great papers from the lab.

khoai er hat or Sonar jhuri haat - An weekend gateway from kolkata

Recently, we had a quick trip from Kolkata to Shantiniketan to spend a quiet weekend break and to see the weekly sonarjhuri haat or khoai er hat  that happens every saturday. There are several trains from Kolkata to Bolpur, but one can choose the fastest ones that runs between less than 3 hours to reach Bolpur. WTDC hotels are there and there are several others to choose from several sites. We booked one hotel through goibibo and it is called deer park eco home. We needed 4 beds so went for it, but sometimes the reviews are not very helpful. We landed in a very congested 2 room setup that included a bunk bed and the second cut out room was very small and untidy without AC. In any case, we managed our stay OK.
For those, who are new to Shantiniketan, one point to note that the entire city is very small and there is one central road that connects everything. All the other places are connected through that road. Now thanks to the govt. there are only "Totos", as they call the e-ricksaws. These are battery operated rides ferrying people between the places and are very pleasant and relatively cheaper. If you plan to visit the Sonar jhuri haat, the haat starts at 2 PM in the afternoon and lasts as long as the day light lasts. This mela has tribal women dance and that is a pretty site. The location is inside a forest of Acacia plants which is otherwise known as sonar jhuri.



The vechicles are parked at the entrance of the haat and the products are sold on the ground. The products mostly includes hand woven fabrics including beautiful sarees, bedsheets, skirts, Kurtas and dresses. Apart from that you will also find handicrafts, many types of terracotta products. Prices are usually much less than the market price and is a way to boost local economy. One can visit the place and spend a good few hours there checking the products and buying.

It is really peaceful there and I recommend people to visit the place once in their life time.

Six years on resetting life back in our own country - an overview

Today is the day exactly 6 years back we landed in Kolkata in the wee hours to resettle back in our own country after wandering around the world for a whole month in a suitcase. That is when our life was reset into null and it was self inflicted, many would term it as madness. We came back from certainty to uncertainty; affluence to penury; order to chaos; clean to dirt; and these are just few.. Most importantly with unsettled job offer and unfamiliar domain. I was offered a Ramalingaswamy fellowship and an adhoc position, my husband left his job completely with an idea to start a company back home. Well, if I look back it was quite a journey. I would say a great one that to. I count the blessings we have now. I have a 5 year old adorable sweetheart and that is the best I got so far. I got a permanent position in a reputed lab. I have guided successfully 9 Ph.D students and many masters and bachelors students and post docs. I assumed the headship of a division. There was almost 100% raise to compensation that was offered while coming back. Got 4 grants, completed 2 successfully and 2 ongoing. Published 18 papers and still counting. One of my students awarded Ph.D already and many are on the way. One student got a job and another one is choosing post doc offers and this is success according to me. I have made great friends, connected back with my school/college friends. Went to attend college re-unions. I can now talk with my parents everyday. I can now visit my parents anytime I wish and see my siblings when needed. I can have the food I like. I have cook and people to clean my house, so I can spend good quality time with my daughter.

Additional bonuses are a huge park near by. Teaching yoga and zumba in our own apartment building. I sometimes look back and think if we did not take the chance probably we would have had the same life - may be gotten richer but none of the other things would have happened. I thank my lucky star and almighty for blessing my life thus. I have delivered several invited lectures, attended all Ramalingaswamy conclaves, made wonderful friends and collaborators. Visited many new places and seen the real life luxury in India. Thank you DBT, India for taking me back. I will try and give back to the country during my tenure in this lab.