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.

When life throws lemon at you and you cant make lemonade...

Has it every happened to you? I am going to rant for something here that I needed to do to take the stress out of my chest...

When you are a faculty guiding 9 Ph.D students, 3 students sending papers in a day, 1 student submitting thesis in 2 days and 3 master students submitting their thesis the next day. The masters thesis reaches you in the evening of the penultimate day, despite 10,000 reminders with no title, no discussion and a billion typos and errors. You are single parenting a 4 year old who needs infinite patience; Your 4 year old goes to a day school that is very particular abut timing and parking is non-existent when you reach 1 second later than 9 am. When your domestic helps are on leave and you have to make 3 lunch boxes, one breakfast, one 10 am snack and one evening snack for your daughter, pack school accessories and feed her breakfast which she refuses to do. When you realize that you have a project submission due on the same day and 10 page write up to CSIR head quarters all in the same day, and all landed on your mail box just a day before...

When you have a meeting at 11 am, 1 PM and 4 PM and pickup scheduled for your daughter at 5 PM. When you have to cook for yourself, clean the house, get ready by yourself. When your daughter does not sit and do homework despite you calling her 100 times, sitting with pencil, eraser and still no luck. When your toddler refuses to take bath and you have to take bath after her and get ready in 5 minutes and that includes everything. When you have forgotten what is breakfast is like and you worked till 10 PM the previous night in the lab correcting the thesis and getting up at 3 AM again correcting thesis, so the students can print and submit them on time. When you realize that you have had a bad ear infection and liquid substances are oozing out of both the ears drenching the pillow in the night. When you dont find your medical files and dont know when is the time for you to see a doctor... Today is such a day and I needed to write this.

Just an update. I survived!!! I cooked, got my daughter ready, came to work, did all the meetings, managed to cut salads for myself, did 30 minutes yoga. Corrected the masters thesis, Ph.D thesis, gave bonafide certificates to all, chose 8 Ph.D examiners..... And it is 9.41 AM. I still have 2 hours before I write the last CSIR proposal before moving on to meetings... 

China trip pains

I am here in China from 9th April to 12April 2018 for the OMGN conference. My last trip was in March 2012 and was eventless. This time around however it was difficult. Difficult for the fact that there were no direct flight, I had to stay back in Shanghai overnight. Next day I realised the distance between the hotel and the Sanghai Hongkiao railway station was 1 hour drive. That is quite an expensive deal though. I asked the organizers to bokb me a railway ticket and they did. But you can only collect them from the window. I went there gave my passport and reference number and was told that the number is incorrect. So I had to buy a fresh ticket leaving after 3 hours. I did that, but there was no one going to pick me up, so had to struggle with the hotel name and address. After some struggle they understood. Apparently, there is a Chinese name to everything. So, if you are traveling to China, make sure you know that, internet may not work. None of your global nrtwork phone will work. Neither Gmail, Facebook, Twitter will work. So, take a VPN connection if you want to use any of these. Additionally, phone, messages, ehatWhat will not ewor. It is a scary ecperexper. I don't want to come back to this again.

Work Life Balance workshop by the CSIR-HRDC September 6-8th at Ghaziabad Delhi

For the first time I took a sponsored course at the HRDC, Ghaziabad conducted by CSIR for women scientists and officers. It was  an amazing experience. I took my almost 4 year old toddler with me not knowing how I will deal with it. I thought I will have to get in sit for sometimes and the rest of the time, most likely I will be outside playing with her. But everything was proved wrong. My toddler sat next to me with her a headphone and my laptop watching cartoons. She did not budge neither did she disturb anyone. Only time she was playful or making noise was during the break.

The first session started off with Dr. Suneeta Singh from NTPC. The session started off with lots of interactions, a video, where the take home message was be your self and enjoy. What others say or do actually mean nothing. You have the power within yourself to take charge of you. We all are aware of this, but re-inforcing in another context was very refreshing. The second session began with another faculty Dr. Meenakshi Gandhi. She started off with a coin and asked the most important event in the year the coin has. Although she was exciting in the beginning, I lost interest later on because she was citing her examples all the time. But the message she was trying to convey was try to love yourself then things will fall back in place. Take a break and read a book and pamper yourself. I take that because many times we neglect ourselves trying to juggle work and life. But we are not thinking what is that needs to be done for us.

The third session was a yoga session where the teacher made us do few OM sessions, guided meditations and yoga. The fourth session was by Ms. Anubha Muarya Walia. I enjoyed this session the most because she was talking about the power of positivity. She said the universe gives you ultimately what you ask for. The rationale behind this is when you want something, you think about it and you start working on it. She also asked everyone on what was their person, professional and emotional goals. It was very interesting. She also made us write what we want from life in a wall, and to write nice things about anyone in the group. In addition she taught prioritization in a very nice way by putting points on the activities, that we did. It was a full of fun class. Also Dr. Suneeta and Anubha both made us write behind others back on what we think about them and there was a pattern. I liked that very much.

The last day Dr. Suneet came back again with the mirrors and asked us to look at it into the eyes and say that I love this beautiful creature. Power of affirmation. And the eliminate the word should. It is always about a choice and if we keep saying that we love to do what we are doing life becomes easier and enjoyable. The take home message is always same. We create our thoughts and that becomes our destiny. So we can control it at many points and also choose our destiny. The power of positivity, power of communication and good thoughts are something that can solve every problems in life.

Then the last session was by a behavioural therapist who gave us a list of questionnaires and  that was about the behaviour of people. I came to know my true nature and the session came to an end.