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.