Does metta bhavna(loving kindness) meditation really work?? - YES IT DOES...

Exactly about 27 days ago, we walked into the buddhist temple opposite my house during an evening aarti. The aarti ended and there was a gentleman who started discoursing on meditation. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise that he started teaching it and described the benefits of doing this particular meditation.Meditation was not new to me. I have been doing some general meditation for the past 6 months, on and off while I was yet to really feel any specific benefits of meditation. But nevertheless I used to feel very good about it. Now, about metta bhavana meditation. the monk said the following things:

1. Start with a close eye and smiling face (If you smile you will be happy and vice versa!!!). Imagine yourself in a very happy and pleasant state. Think that all is well with you and all is going to be well with you, no matter what.
2. Imagine your very inner circle (the immediate family members). Imagine their happy faces and tell that all is well with them and is going to be well with them. While imagining the faces continue breath deeply and gently. Dont allow any other thoughts to sabotage this feeling.
3. Slowly expand this to distant family members. Imagine their happy faces. Go slowly to your friend circle, acquaintances etc. Imagine any unhappy soul on the street or anywhere whom you want to give this special loving kindness. Then continue to people in your office building, apartment building, city, state, country and entire universe. All this while keep a very smiling face.

This may last between 5-7 minutes depending on how many people you are specifically sending this loving kindness.

I have been doing this meditation may be every other day o n an average. Even I include the people I am not particularly fond of.

Yesterday, I got a phone call from a person whom I am not very fond of, but nevertheless I have included her in my meditation. She was speaking very fondly about me!!!! This is like a miracle. So, also another person, I am not very fond of also has been pleasant with me. So, I am assuming this is the result of this metta bhavana meditation. How nice it is! Hope this will work for you as well  

My Balcony Garden

After I moved to my official accommodation, there were a lot of things that needed to be fixed. The lights needed to be fixed, the wall fixtures needed to be added, water Reverse Osmosis needs to be in place, kitchen needed fixtures. I needed wall mounts for bathroom, screen rods and many more things. As finally all is done, I am now focusing truly on something that I enjoy as a serious hobby - that is gardening. I have a small balcony and an unsightly wall to work on. While I have had  my tryst with the wall and to some extent it is manageable, but I still have miles to go before I make what I really would like to make it. I am posting some pictures of my balcony garden and wall garden. I will catalogue and follow up after few months on the progress....

Mangalayan and India..

India has successfully launched Managalayan with a fraction of the cost than that what US has spent. I read many articles where people say several things like India should focus on alleviating poverty blah blah blah. I know the general perception people have about India is it is very dirty, bad roads, anarchy, no clean drinking water, poverty, standard of living poor etc etc. While I agree to most of these, but there remains a component that you will not find anywhere, that is humanity. By saying humanity, I am not talking about the rapists or the terrorists or the murderers, as their number is far too lower than the number of good people.

 I will share an experience here that I had recently. I was coming from New York airport by AirIndia. AirIndia allows you to carry two carry ons and one handbag. Now I just had one big bag and that weighed slightly more than the allowed limit (23 KG). There was an African American sitting on the counter and she was really brutal. She said I will not let you take this, take out your stuff! I said I am just carrying one bag and one laptop, so can you not adjust this. She said a big NO to that. So, I opened my bag and tookout whatever was there on the top. And unfortunately I had a ziplock bag carrying toileterris , so I took that out, packed in a separate polythene bag (Since I did not have an extra bag) and checked that in. To that, she asked her colleagues if a polythene bag can be checked in and they said NO. So I thought I will carry it in my hand not realizing that there were LIQUID IN THERE!! Now I was about to leave and suddenly realized this fact. Then I went to the same counter and told the lady that these are liquid stuff and I cant carry them in hand. She is like I dont care! I said OK can you give my bag back, so that I will exchange this liquid with something else. She then said, I am not going to get your back, you climb up the belt and get it yourself. I was on the belt and then people from other desks started shouting what are you doing? I said she asked me to do that!! Then they sent another person for me to get the bag. Then I tried to exchange the liquid stuff with some clothes. At that time, there were few ladies (Of Indian Origin) came near me, lowered their voice and soothingly said, hurry up, pack it this way and helped me. Then I suddenly realized the difference between the 2 sets of people. One is very rude, mean, rigid and the other is considerate, compassionate and ready to help. This kind of people you will find only in India. I was thinking while leaving also my luggage was slightly overweight and the lady thought I am just carrying one bag, so why not to let me go. On the other hand here this lady knowing that my extra weight (Fraction of a kilo) is not a problem, still created a big fuss. So, this is what I like about India. If you are in trouble, they will all come and help you like they are your own, but elsewhere there is hard to find this species.
So, in short, India is not about poverty. In India, people are rich in heart. People may be living in dirty conditions, but I know for sure that they are not starving to death. Everybody has food to eat and they dont live on drugs or alcohol or debt. So we are richer than what others think about ut.

Attending Genome Informatics Meeting at Cold spring harbour

[Between 29th October - 30th October Ensembl workshop; 30-2nd November GI meeting]

It was a last minute decision for me to come here and I am glad I did. The talks are simply exhilarating plus there is so much information. Everybody is a pioneer in their field. So no complaints there although I was hugely inconvenienced because of the schedule, travel time and my unfamiliarity with the place and railway systems in NY. Now if anyone is coming to New York on work or business I can advise. If you wish to book a place to stay for relatively longer, it is better to choose Airbnb site , since the houses are relatively cheaper and also you can cook if you want. We did this before also and that is why I chose it again. If you are going to Long island, then don’t stay in Bronx, rather stay somewhere close to Hicksville or Syosset. These are like small towns and you may get cheaper motels and rent a car if needed. But if you are coming for sight seeing then Bronx may be good for you depending on the locality. Bronx is uptown of manhatten, so most of the uptown trains go there. Carefully look at the MTA map and locate your train station and see which train goes there. In our case, it was train no 2, called as 2 train, that moves back and forth between the place I stayed to Penn station from where I can catch LIRR trains. For Bronx, there are other trains as well e.g; 1, 3,5,6 etc. But each of them go to different destinations. But there are stations where they all intersect (That is where they announce transfer is available). Choose the proper direction of the train. Usually the last stop of the train is announced as the destination, so accordingly go to the platform. Buy a weekly MTA pass that costs about 30 USD and is good enough to take you around the city.

For travelling to Long Island, the best way is to take the Long Island Rail Roads (LIRR). It is a separate line that connects Penn station to Long island. The main station in this line is Jamaica where you can get air train to JFK airport. The train starts from Penn station (34^th street- Manhattan) to Huntington or several other location. Huntington train is like a slow train stops at each stop, but another way to go to Syosset is to get down at Hicksville (By taking Ronkonkoma) and take Port Jefferson or Huntington train. Once you reach there cross the bridge and there the shuttle services to Cold spring harbor will be there.If not, just walk back and you may see Syosset taxi services that takes about 10 dollars to the Grace auditorium. Today I am venturing into going to JFK using public transportation system, I will write if there are any problem or issues.

Mentoring Talks and Social Interaction

We recently concluded our second Ramalingaswamy conclave at Pune (12th to 14th Sept 2013) hosted by NCCS at Mariott. I always liked to attend this event - partly because so far it has been a paid fun trip for me. I have not been asked to present my work so far. But the next one is going to be different I guess. They have already announced that in the next conclave we have to pay for our stay and food, which has been borne by DBT so far. I am not sure how many will turn up on that case. If I am not to present and asked to pay my travel and stay in a five star hotel off my contingency, I would rather skip the show. In this financial crunched state, contingencies sound more than a life savor. Now coming to the real business - the business of science. We had this time a lot of breakout sessions starting from issues dealing with purchases, writing grants, dealing with administrative issues and so on. Some of them were really useful and informative; some of them left me baffled as what is purpose of such a session could really be. I simply dont get it when people ask questions such as in our institute our purchase does this or that what to do. I just wonder how someone else will provide you with a solution when they have no clue on what the real nature of your problem is. Just hearing from ones side, does not really reflect the reality. Many of the questions asked easily has an answer either in the R award letter or in some manual. I simply dont relate to this. To me questions that are not found in a manual or elsewhere but with the person in front of you should be asked. I get tired hearing silly or useless questions by people. I guess probably that is just me. Everyone else in the audience seem to relate to everything said or talked.

Similarly, when in the lunch dinner breaks or tea breaks, I am unable to engage in a conversation with the stalwarts. I dont know why. I always feel that I have nothing to ask or know from them. I just end up talking with the people with whom I have some work or business. Casual conversation with strangers is something just out from my dictionary. I hope there are other people like me as well or I am just alone in this behavioral pattern paradigm??

Creativity flows in...

Creativity is the mother of invention. We in India now lack creativity these days, so we resort to copying from others. Today while on my daily ritual to the walk to the Nirvana park, this thought popped in me, so thought I will write it here. I have not been very regular in this blog these days as complained by one of my very good friends (she is one of the reasons I write here:)). In any case, I have noticed when I do a nice nature walk a lot of nice thoughts come in including very creative ones like on new research ideas, programs, topics for the blog etc. which I can't do even if I sit quietly for long hours on my desk or try to read an article. This gets me into thinking about the rationale behind pupils sitting under a tree and getting education in vedic era. Now also this practice thrives in Shantiniketan.

Today, I saw 2 street dogs walking slowly, then I heard a noise - a noise of a dog crying. Then suddenly one dog started running and the other also competed with this one. I was wondering what could be the motivation. May be there is some food somewhere. As I walked close to the place where they were running, there was this dog looking at the lake and crying. These two were just running to be by the side of this one!! We call this humanity (If humans do it), do we have a term called as doganity? There was incessant rain and the water level of the lake was all time high, may be this crying dog lost a loved one and all others were rushing to be by his side and were wagging their tail back and forth near the lake to draw attention for help. This type of things we only see in India I guess.

Ever since I came here, I think I have become more mean. Earlier I used to just believe the intrinsic goodness of people, even many instances I used to leave my door without locking. But now I am kind of suspicious on people. But then there is this amazing thing as going overboard and helping each other that I have seen with some street people and now with these dogs. After all we have not lost it all. Still there are remnants of good being lying within us. When I used to go to the office by car, for six months I felt really restless. I kind of missed the energy of people around me. That happens when you walk or take a public transport, you brush with people and get their energy. Now why I am writing all these things when the title is about creativity. There is a link. The spirituality of humanity (or doganity) can be the creative energy that we need at this hour. The feeling of bliss well being will start flowing if we just get past our self  loving self and step out, be with nature, be quiet, give some time to our own thoughts, introspect and meditate. Om Shanti.

A renaissance of sort...

This post was due last month, sorry folks I delayed it.... Spring came and went by summer came and almost on the verge of going, I documented my life and surroundings took pictures but never posted'em:) Today I am kind of delayed to work since my brother is coming and some electric work is going on in my house, so thought let me blog this long pending subject.

I have become a nature, green, exercise freak for sometimes now. I live by a great park, which according to me the best park ever in India (although my memory of parks in India is not very rich). When I walk in  the park in the morning, I feel divine. Lately I found a spot in the nature park and do meditation. At that point, time just stops, serene divine feeling sets in - What could I ask more?

In the morning, it is endearing to see people walking, practising yoga, meditation, pranayam. I have never seen this duing my childhood. It has reached a renaissance of sort. I went to Delhi, and on Lodhi Garden, the same scene was there. You go to any place in India these days in the morning, you will find regular walkers/joggers/yogaikars and so on. Behind all these there is a hand which we often fail to acknowledge and that is of Baba Ramdev. He began popularizing yoga and pranayam and deshbhakti through Astha channel. And now a couple of years back, there is this Brahmakumari revolution. This is just so amazing. As some people would say, kalyug is going to end and satyayug is going to come and that is what I am feeling. How incredible that will be if that happens during my life time?

Thoughts are very powerful...

I have been watching sister Shivani's program for quite sometimes now. Not that I want to become a monk soon, but her teachings are very convincing and helps us analyze ourselves better. Many things I agree(around 95%), many things I don't (about 5%), but nevertheless I thought it makes us a better human being if we practice what we hear. But sadly most of us don't including me.

I will give an example here. My father calls me almost everyday, sometimes during office hours, and mostly after work hours. Many times I am not in a position to take the call and then he keeps calling repeatedly till I pick up the phone and then asks why I was not taking the call. Although I understand that he is very anxious, but often I loose my cool. Recently, I got so irritated that I told him to stop calling me. That is not what I meant, but I don't know why I got so irritated. Having practicing and believing myself to be a follower of sister Shivani, this sounds really uncanny. After the episode I tell myself several times just cool down and never get irritated. Since thoughts are very powerful and can be channelized to reach the impossible, it is extremely desirable that we control our thought and conquer over our anger.

After I shifted to my official quarter, I have developed a great interest in decorating it and making it beautiful - which I never did in my entire life. In the middle of the apartment, there is a large room with one side open with glass and the other side with a structure that has abundant amounts of holes. I was advised to buy a unsightly plastic sheet  and cover it, other wise there will be bird menace as well as rain menace. I have been thinking about it and suddenly a thought came to convert that space into a vertical garden. Then I often imagined to have hanging baskets there covered with plants. Then I was not aware where to get them and how to get the desirable plants. One day while on a haat, I accidentally discovered large nurseries filled with plants. Then little bit of more probing, saw these hanging baskets. Now my unsightly wall is a beautiful garden. So, the point I am trying to make here is to generate good thought, which we are perfectly capable of converting into reality. So, why waste our thoughts in negativity where as so many great things can be achieved by just mobilizing our thoughts in the right direction and  doing something great for the humanity...

I loose my cool way too often these days....

I am going through a deep introspection now, more so because I am becoming more judgmental, more volatile and less cool. All these days I believed that I am working on them and on the verge of concurring all the evils, but that does not  really seem right. I believed strongly a saying that Dr. Deepak Chopra said "What others says about you is actually all about them and NOT about you at all - so it is none of your business. Leave others judgement of you to themselves only and don't get purturbed". I tell this to myself many times, but at the same time, I often fall entrapped to the "what people will say". Hope some day I will concur this and will stay fearless of others judgment on me..

Recently somebody visited our house, and in a harmless sort of conversation (this is what I thought), she got offended and walked off. It got ugly, and I could not comprehend what would have triggered that. I realized later that my unwanted advise is what made her mad. Now I am beginning to wonder whether I have concurred over any of my annoying habits... In the first place I should NOT advise anyone, second I should not get upset because someone gets upset on me. It took me one full day to realize that it is me who is at fault (how difficult is that to accept your own mistake:)). I should be more resilient and steer clear from the advise zone. At the same time, I also learnt a new lesson and that is: If you advise, people tend to think that you are showing the perfect side of your life - which is far from perfect. Here, I just remembered a popular TV show in this context - "according to Jim". Here the lady of the house, Cheryl is always concerned about her near and dear ones and would offer help (read advise) on any matter. Now that made people around her revolt and she decided to stop offering her advise on anything (Can you believe? She was actually successful in doing so!!). After sometimes, the husband got so bored that he begged her to be her old self and offer free advises. But this is just a TV serial - everything does not have happy ending like this, so folks refrain from advising people, more so, when the other person believes that s/he is perfect....

Who is a copy cat??

We have been used to seeing bollywood movies are copies of holywood movies and bollywood songs are lifted from some popular western songs. However, not so long ego, I noticed one popular number by JLo is a copy of yester years bollywood number "Sochna kya jo bhi hoga dekha jayega". The you tobe video is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91YtNfGRO-0

Here is : JLo On the floor song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4H_Zoh7G5A

And check this song by Shakira:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arW3xLkanh4

A day filled with action...

Some days go by when you smile in the end thinking "my time was well spent". Indeed today is one such rare day - I can vouch for that as a successful day. I have shifted to my official quarters on 8th of April and 9th 10th a trip was planned to Shantiniketan. Upon my return I headed for Ahmedabad followed by Mumbai. Hardly there was any time, for me to set up the new house. The physical allocation of objects to the places have already been done, but my aesthetic sense did not get kick start until today. Of the loads of work that remains to be done here, one more task that was always existing as a priority but shifted back in  the queue is the checkup of our new car! And learning driving in Indian cars and roads. I decided to take driving lessons and my trainer comes at 5 AM in the morning. Today was one such day, when just before leaving the house I casually grabbed my purse. But later remembered that I forgot my cell phone. To that I thought, well I will not need one... Today was my second class. It is needless to mention that in my first day, it was tough I could not get the vechicle move more than 2 inches. But today I was very comfortable with gear and clutch. Then we realized that the car  needs fuel. So, we entered a gas station and filled in diesel. Bam, after that the car would not start. This problem existed earlier also, and we were taking it easy, now it was in its most severe mode - it did not start at all... I am not sure about my affiliation with god, I love to believe in karma, but then, all of a sudden I felt the urge to pray and request god to start the vehicle. It worked before most of the time, but sigh this time it did not. I thought damn, god is not going to help me, now what to do. Now long story short, I called my husband who  made several phone calls. It was 6 AM in the morning, so obviously much help was not available. But miraculously, he found the customer services number that can tow your car for free if it is under warranty. Now they arrived towed the car to the dealer and did the machine checkup. But we were planning to schedule a car checkup earlier for this saturday, but they said , no it is not possible. But now it seems the car went forcibly for a checkup on saturday and that to we did not have to take it. That was the best part of it. I bought some plants, placed it in my sun room. Bought certain essential things of the house that was pending for a while. We posted 2 important documents that was also in thje todo list. The post office is just 10 minutes walking from my office and I got a call from flipkart guys that they are waiting at the office to deliver the product. I thought what a great timing!! I received my solar lantern ( a very cute one), got my nameplate, got names printed for the lobby and post box.Now this is called as the time indeed well spent and I am really very happy about the whole inconveniences, troubles amidst the silver lining that made the day a very happy one:-)

An Incredible Trip to ShantiNiketan

Shanti Niketan is located near Bolpur railway station about 150 kms from Kolkata. I have already visited the place twice, ever since I joined IICB. Part of the reason is, one of my professor with whom I collaborate is an HOD at the Biotech department at Viswa Bharati. He has the largest algal collection in India and I am very interested in these tiny photosynthetic organisms since nothing much has been studied about them. They have great potential as nitrogen fixers and biofuel producers.

April 9th and 10th are the 2 days we kept for visiting the University. I took my entire group along, some working in this project and some not. It is noteworthy to mention that my students had a blast. We took an 8.30 morning train from Howrah to Bolpur. I forgot the train name though. It took about 4 hours to reach there at 12.30 PM in Bolpur railway station. My professor had also invited me to speak on nextgen sequencing for the Msc. biotech course work. I was felicitated by none other than our Institute directors sister, who is also a professor at Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics and a visiting faculty at Shanti Niketan. One thing to note here that it is customary to say sadhu in  the end of a talk rather than clap. That is a culture at Shantiniketan. My stay was arranged at the picturesque Ratan Kutir and my students stay was arranged at the Purbapalli guest house.  In the evening, I had a meeting with my professor and the students and he introduced me to the organisms one by one with their proper history. It was really amazing the way he has kept them and collected them. In the evening I had the opportunity to have a talk with the VC of Ravenshaw University. The next day early morning, I got up to attend the prayer in their prayer hall, that remains largely closed through out except for every wednes day in the morning at 6.30 AM. There is a nice banyan tree under which Ravindranath Tagore used to meditate, that is protected quite well. On 10th there was an Oriya Literary meeting, where they formally introduced me and I had a chance to meet with VC of Shantiniketan. It was incredible feeling to be among the learned. Meanwhile, my students had good time taking pictures of themselves in many poses (courtesy facebook). At about 12.30 PM we returned to the railway station and took Shantiniketan express back to Howrah. From there E1 bus back to Jadavpur. I must say it was a really really nice fun, crispy productive trip. Looking forward to getting good results...

Listing is important in Life

It was great to meet all my near and dear ones in the US and I truly had a great time!! Chitti's special dosas and cookings is simply awesome. Dewal's house, her vegetarian dishes and the movies were the best things I enjoyed. The walk by the small railway station, the snow laden soil, the jumping fence will stay with me forever! Well all good things and bad things passes away with time...
I have been back from the US about 10 days back, and still the jetlag passes over me on and off. But the best thing about the trips is you get to get up early which I was struggling with for quite sometimes now. I am in a much happier space right now. Early morning getting up (Thanks to jetlag:) warm water with lemon followed by crispy chai then yoga/Zumba as it comes..
What works for me best is to make a list of action items and strike them off as it goes. It gives a incredible sense of success and feeling when all my action items are struck. In my new lab space, situation is different. I am sitting on the drivers seat, where I am responsible for lots of things including the finances, the science part, the trouble shooting part, the teaching part. It is overwhelming at times, but I am sailing through. Being a manager is not easy. Earlier, I used to think managers are just a waste of everything, but jobs getting done is the managers responsibility. The most important thing as a manager is to be patient and persistent and stay cool. I have learnt it the hard way. I have to keep following up on items that I would not like to. Sometimes I get to the nerves of the people by repeated following up or you can say over following up... Any chemical comes, equipment comes, whether the item is perfect, whether the quantity is OK, whether the payment is processed are all my job to oversee. So, folks if you are transitioning into being a manager, you are entirely in a different territory and lonely! You are on the other side of the fence. Be prepared to be gossiped, to be criticized, to be mis-understood, but never ever take any of these personally. Just focus on your goal and keep moving...

Trip To Asilomar

Much water has flown in the last 3 months and I have not blogged anything for a long time. I feel terrible about it. Not that I don't have time, but my mind is not that calm anymore. It is chaotic. When thoughts pass by, I am not near the computer -when I am near the computer something else takes the precedence.

Today I am leaving for Asilomar, CA for attending, presenting a paper and chairing a session at the Annual OMGN meeting, 2013. This will be my first international meeting after coming to India in exactly about 7 and half months later. What is good about this trip is I am traveling on my own grants, presenting my own lab work!! It feels incredible!!

My last trip was to MAU in December the 14th. After that I made a quick one day trip to Bangalore cMMACs, to avail the computational resources of one of the state of art computing facilities run by one of the CSIR labs. After that I have made several trips, one to attend the Ramalingaswamy conclave at the Raviz International, next to Kollam creek. It was a lovely place and I had lovely experience. I met very nice people there including several of my potential collaborators. My room mate is the soul sister I was looking for. She has similar life experience as I have. We run a parallel life, so we instantly connected. I will be in touch with her for ever!! Then there are good potential collaborators, friends and mentors. It was overall great experience. Photos will come soon....

My next trip in February was to Lucknow, and I visited SGPGI ( where my soul sister is a faculty and she invited me to discuss collaborations). Then I made my next MAU trip to teach metagenomics. This time the trip was special, since I took my parents along. The only bad thing about this trip was we had to travel by sleeper class in train and it was cold. I regret that part!! We all caught cold and had restless time. Other than that, trips via Varanasi during Kumbh time and travelling in a II tier sleeper (that was treated like general class) was not very good, especially when travelling with parents!! I don't think I want to repeat that mistake again. My Mau trip was OK sort of but the major reason I was there is to get the BGA strains and follow up on the grant. I am not sure how things work though. I believe in 80/20 rule, so my 80% efforts can potentially go wrong and I am thinking this may be one  of that 80%. In any case, no regrets! Happy thing is parents were treated well and saw a new place. A new change for them. They stayed with my uncle on 11th Feb night in Lucknow on our way to Varanasi, so it was very good. Again photos will follow soon.

Next was a IICB picnic to a place called Mogra haat, that is about 45 KMs from Kolkata. There was a resort that charged IICB about 10,000 rupees per day. We all had some very oily food and enjoyed nature for sometime.

Now is my next one. I will write more once I am back. Excited to meet my friends Chitti, Dewal...

Trip to Mau - 14th Dec 2012

This post was long due. I wanted to document my trip to Mau, that is about 150 kms from varanasi airport. I was invited to teach bioinformatics in an ICAR lab in Mau on sequence analysis, sequence assembly, primer design, gene prediction etc. As lately I have started enjoying teaching, could not say no. Started on 13th December to Varanasi on a Indigo flight which was late by few hours. That would mean my arrival time in Varanasi is shifted further. Knowing the road conditions and night time, everyone was extremely concerned in my family. But the experience turned out to be a good one. Dr. Singh (the person who invited me to Mau) had sent a student to accompany the driver to fetch me from the airport. That student was a freshman starting his Ph.D work on nextgen sequencing. The roads, as imagined, was severe, but somehow the driver drove the van at a very super-fast speed and it took approximately 3 hours to reach the guest house. The arrangements were perfect. Room was very nice and everything was almost arranged perfectly well. Although that was not enough, students were always on call.

Next day we had breakfast on the beautifully manicured lawn. Food was served. I started off with my lecture series and the audience were awesome. Needless to say, girls were the best. Lunch was served and I was taken on around to visit the departments / labs. I was thoroughly impressed by the setup. The lab has everything you name. A central facility, a cry-preservation center, sequencers, central microbe repository facility etc. The next day I had just half a lecture then I started on my return journey from Mau to Varanasi by van followed by train to Kolkata. In Varanasi station, I had some time and was wondering if I could sit and do some work. But to my horror, that station is in such ran shackled condition, that there was no place to sit lest do anything. Overly crowded, dirt adorned the station. The waiting room was also horrible.

In any case, I managed to grab some lunch and was trying to do some work, to which my network did not support.

One more interesting thing about Mau was the students. I wanted to take some pictures, but as it goes, it is we, who always carry our cameras and request someone to take pictures, but in this case, I did none of that. There were 2 students, one held my bag and the other took my pictures in her nice camera and send it to immediately. It was overall a great experience, which I was out of touch for quite sometime now.  

Rule of 80/20 in Life

I read somewhere about a management principle that governs every ones life in some way or other - that is the rule of 80/20. This rule means that 80% of your efforts will yield you 20% of your total result and 20% of your effort will give you 80% of your result. Think about it. If you look back you will find the paper you have worked very hard on has not given you the score you expected but surprisingly you get good scores from another paper that you spend least time on. This may not be the right example, since more or less I get what I expect from my work exam wise. But overall in life exams and scores don't define everything as such. In my work life, I have experienced this a lot. I spend a lot of time in a paper or a collaboration which fails to bear any result, but all of a sudden out of no way some collaboration that I most desire happen just like that effortlessly that is much more rewarding than the ones I was chasing after.

Look around and you must have met someone whom you think is quite lucky in life, just gets everything so easily. In this case, we just see the 80% of his/her reward out of his 20% of work. But we don't see the 80% of the effort they must have spent that would have just yielded 20% of output. Life is fair after all.

I have tried to collaborate with A, B, C, D and most of them failed one after the other. But there comes this collaborator X and Y that I would have chased after all, and there you go, they come forward and extended their hand without my own initiation. I am in a happy position now after knowing this 80/20 principle of life.

Our recent Ramalingaswamy conclave meeting was a very successful one for me. I met a number of people that I always would like to work with and I want to make it happen... More on this meeting is on my lab blog: http://computationalgenomicsiicb.blogspot.in/2013/01/second-ramalingaswamy-conclave-in-gods.html 

My recent trip to Bangalore

Recently, I had chance to visit Bangalore after 11 long years. My flight was suppose to reach at around 8.40 PM and I must say I was little bit worried because it was night and my destination was about 50 kms from the airport. Not to mention I was flying in AirIndia since it was an official trip. I kind of had a love hate relationship with AirIndia. When I was in US, I even fought with some travel agents to book tickets in AirIndia despite their warnings. But, lately since it is mandatory for us to travel airIndia, my love for the airlines has vanished. My last Lucknow trip was memorable since I ended up coming in the majestic dreamliner, that was nice. But this time, what surprised me was the timing and professionalism of the airIndia staff. It was just about right. They started off at the right time, served food and were very well behaved. The best thing about the majestic maharaja, was the leg space and passage space. Indigo airline on the other hand, is extremely narrow and when the person in front of you bends back for sleeping, you gasp for breath. Another thing I noticed was a lot of Passengers of Nepal origin from Kolkata to Bangalore and vice versa – was there a pattern? Don’t know whatever may be the reason.

Now coming back to my airport to guest house trip. It was more than pleasant and I must say I would not miss US for this. There are KSRTC cabs from the airport, and you get an easy ride through the employees helping you to get into the cabs. The cabs are uniformly sized and very well maintained. The roads were almost built like highways of any other developed country. I passed through Hebbal, where I lived once upon a time, but I failed to notice anything that was there before. This place has completely changed for better. Kudos to the government!! I was put up in NAL guest house which is right next to Leela Palace. Guess what the room rent is just Rs. 25/- per night. The room was big with 3 beds, large enough for a whole family. That is the advantage of being a govt. servant I thought. Meals, tea and everything else is subsidized.

Finally I went to work on 10^th  Jan 2013 to cMMACS lab that is located in a place called Belur (just 5 kms from the guest house). I took an auto, and it costed just Rs. 50/-. This time I liked everything about Bangalore. Just wondering what it will take to replicate this model in other cities. My new found home Kolkata needs to learn lessons from this.

I could do some stuff in the institute, but because there is no ssh and sftp access, file transfer is a big pain. There were JRFs and SRFs, that I was put to work with to get my installation done. Although they are extremely good, but they don’t talk. That is the big problem! Here in India people know their business but don’t know how to present their work. I had very tough time communicating with those folks. But nevertheless, could do some work. I was trying to compare them with their US counterparts. They in this place will be so pompous and talk so much..