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.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment