What Do You Know About Love ?

This is exactly what happens in love;-) Who else can define the feeling, other than the brilliantly bizarre twosome-Calvin and Hobbes. So where have you found it or planning to find it? What do you know about love? Do let us know, because 'To love is to live...to share.'

Wishing you all a festive time:-) 

-R.

'Strong' Reasons

Reporting in the laboratory is a serious business. A tiny microbe missed under the microscope is nothing less than a blunder. For reasons like this and many more we tend to remain quite sober and involved while working in the department. But sometimes it so happens that we cannot help but laugh. This happened around last week or so, everything was as usual. Screening was on in the different sections of the lab in the afternoon. Bacilli and cocci were our routine visitors but along with them we had a special guest this time.  Everyone was more than excited and in fact we were all in a queue to have a look at him. We microbiologists fondly call him ‘Strongyloides’ and this is what my peers had to tell about him, amusing and interesting perspectives I must say!

A: So cute!!! [Really?]

B: Looks like a baby snake !!! [Well, he did look like one!]

C: No wonder he is called ‘STRONG’ yloides [ Quite a whipper he was!]

D: Aww…must be hungry, poor fellow.

E: No! He must be searching for someone.

F: Is he the one who causes ‘Loeffler’s Syndrome’[ A nerdy opinion this was !]

G: His esophagus!!! Can you see it??? [Nerdier...]

H:  What do we do with him, why doesn’t he stay in focus? [ Ahem…]

And finally we clicked his pictures for our lab memories. In case any of you are wondering what makes him so special, here is all the microbiology associated with him Strongyloides stercoralis-Wikipedia.While I was searching for his kinds on the Internet, I came across this list:

‘Reasons to date a Microbiologist’

-We do everything 10x 40x 100x bigger and better       

- Size does not matter

- We know the meaning of complement

- We always wear protection and use sterile technique

- We can run our own pregnancy and STD tests

- We do it on a stage

- We don’t wear anything under our lab coats

- We know the importance of direct contact during conjugation

- We wash our hands before and after everything

- We love Corona virus with a lime

It’s a microbe’s world after all;-)If you do not believe here is what Bill Bryson has to say:

“Every human body consists of about 10 quadrillion cells, but about 100 quadrillion bacterial cells. They are, in  short, a big part of us. From the bacteria’s point of view, of course, we are a rather small part of them”

-R.

Fence And Fortitude

Picture courtesy

Fenced by the wires of a strange reality

My feet stay still on the no man's land

While there are striking forces at play

The ones which make all life look bitty

I see the sky and wonder why I stand

When wings of power within  heart lay

Well why do not I try, why do not I fly?

What keeps me bound to the unseen?

The clock ticks whether or not I think

Hopes a hundred in a silent choke cry

Or is it how the whole world has been

Does fortitude stay only for a blink?

-R-

Between The Lines

Picture courtesy

Among the many things I always feel like doing is visiting a book store or a library.The sight of books gives me some weird 'feel good'  joy which no other thing does. It has been ages since I was at one, hopefully I can find here in this town. I am planning to search for one tomorrow or day after, anyone knows a good place for bookworms in Mangalore? Suggestions please! I am currently hooked to Emperor of All Maladies, a very insightful perspective on a very ill understood illness what we dread and call cancer, a highly recommended read.Having lost a few close ones to it and first of all being a doctor I could not stop myself from reading this book.And last week I finished reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel, another interesting tale which for all good reasons made me think 'The world is an open zoo:)'. I loved it in and out.

The beauty of books is each tale takes us into a different world. Even a ill written one has something to say, something to teach us. When someone says "That makes a bad read" all I tell them is that it is actually good because it is letting us know what qualifies as bad. Isn't that absolutely necessary?How can a book be bad? Do you know of any? Tell me why you found it so:)

Here is my 'To Read In The Coming Days And Nights' list:

• Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
• Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• Marley And Me by John Grogan
• Notes From A Small Room by Ruskin Bond

I will definitely be adding more;)
What are you all reading by the way?:)

-R.

The Difference

Picture Courtesy

Some friends are just like the butterfly, they flap their little wings and the breeze they send is strong enough to lift our world to cloud nine!


This poem is for the only butterfly of mine:)

A story begins with a word

A sky is no place without a bird

A drop does make a sea

A leaf for the green of a tree

A petal to blush the rose

A friend I will always keep close

The world may wonder what this rhyme may mean

Though just one, he is all the life I have ever seen

And I call him

'THE DIFFERENCE'


-R-

Here Is Where I Belong

Picture courtesy

The whiff of air through the window was like a pleasant alarm, it woke me up to a familiar sight. Blue buses and yellow black auto rickshaws were rushing past the green Namma Metro boards and the concrete pillars in the wee hours of morning all along the road. The busyness was slowly and serenely reverberating. It felt like a heaven which I know of and have lived in for years. I realized what I was missing all these days.

Times have changed, people have and so has this city. From a retired man’s paradise to a silicon valley this place has been all. Like anywhere else, there are many positives and negatives here but somehow the former outweighs. There is a strange welcoming calmness in the faces, they smile and you smile. This is one of the few places in the world where the locals try and speak the tourist’s language.The roads want to be walked on and the air just wants you to breathe free. Traffic, pollution and all other complaints apart let me tell you something, if you are a Bangalorean by birth or by heart you will stay so for life. That is the magic.

I reached today and I am here for a couple of days which already seems very little. I miss this place not  only because I was brought up here .This city has given me everyone and everything. It has made me what I am today. Despite all this and more good there is something about Bangalore which makes me feel 'Here is where I belong'. I guess every Bangalorean will feel this. And every time I keep my foot down from the bus and reach home this feeling just gets stronger than before. I think it should. The road back home is easy right? It is just that most of us find it hard to turn back even for a moment, sigh life ! 

-R.

I Live, I End

I live

Time flies

Colour fades

As I sit quiet on this fence

And look at the ones who come and go

A wanderer among them today gives me a stare

While he asks me “O’ lady bright and beautiful

Why does the world call you the ‘bougainvillea’?”

All I tell him”Even I do wonder why, why so

What is in my name, what is in my pink?”

As I sit quiet on this fence

Colour fades

Time flies

I end.

You And I

Tomorrow is the first Sunday of August and we all know what is special about it. Cards, gifts,  parties, roses, texts, wishes and friendship bands aside think of that one friend who gives you this feeling every moment “Ah! Blessed is life!” If you have one, well you are lucky and if you have many, luckier! It is not hard to find make such friends, but it is harder to keep them. And the efforts are not always mutually exclusive.

While we have grown through various phases of life we have categorized our friends into childhood friends, school friends, gully friends, pen friends, stamp friends, coin friends, cricket friends, college friends, neighborhood friends, travel friends, office friends and then came this current network era of online friends, orkut friends, facebook friends, twitter friends so on and so forth. It is more of the lasts in this list nowadays.Don’t you think this categorization is pretty lame and ordinary?

How many among these are the ones who give us that ‘blessed life’ feeling? Although the availability of candidates for our idea of friendship will be surplus, the way in which our relationship shapes up  will depend on a hundred other factors and circumstances. Not all carbon turns diamond if you notice;-) A few among the bunch touch our hearts where no one has ever dared to. These are the people who love us just like how much we love them or maybe even more!

Isn’t this entire concept wonderful, two persons by random chance meet and relate to each other so much or so little and still never get fed up of being with each other! Sociologists say ‘No man is an island’, everyone needs friends but how many of us today make them only to keep them? Or do we make them only because we need them? Why does it have to stop at that or does it?

I have so many such questions in my mind. In all these years I have lost friends more than I have made, a few weird ones just choose to stay for all the goodness that I show ;-) When I look back I realize nothing was planned, everything just feels like it was meant to be. Of course I regret not keeping in touch with a few, the distance has inevitably come. But what is it that makes some friends really special that you can do anything to keep them? Will things be the same if we do not talk to them or see them for years? Should be, right? Actually more often than thought we are scared of losing such friends, at least I am!

And on occasions like these I come up with such gratitude filled blog posts, I also make sure that I show a little of my love in some way or the other everyday to at least one of them. Because I think ‘Life Is Too Short To Hide Your Love’ and my friends are the ones who make everything about it matter. These are subtle feelings, it may not matter if we do or do not acknowledge every time I know. But I am sure most of you will agree when I say that sometimes a laugh, a hug, a smile, a look and even a little tiff with such friends makes a lot of difference in our lives, a lot!

This post of mine is dedicated to all of them and this poem is for that friend of mine who makes that huge difference in my life:

You And I

The smile in your eyes when you show me the clouds and stars in the sky

The tight bear hug that you give when often and for no reason that I cry

The endless fights that we have when our fiery moods swing low and high

The spark in your voice when you shout and mean only the truth but no lie

The sound of your silence when you hint ‘Anything for you O’ friend my’

A million such things beautiful turns friends like  ‘Us’ from ‘You and I’.

-R-

Nothing matches the feeling like this song does. A Happy Friendship Day & Sunday to you all:)

-R.

On The Broom, Behind The Bug !

I do not mind riding a Firebolt;-)

Imagine a life in which you are a cleanliness freak, and also you study nothing but microbes everyday. To spice things up there are contrapositive souls sharing your space. Well I am living one right now and it is really tough, especially when you belong to the kinds who think a hundred times before even daring to oppose the other. It does not necessarily mean that you can bear with all of it either. The funny thing is to hear to the list of complaints they come up with, like the famous Sanskrit Subhashitha goes:

 संपूर्णकुंभो न करोति शब्दं अर्धोघटो घोषमुपैति नूनम् ।

This is equivalent to the 'empty vessel- more noise' idiom in English. Someone must listen to the people who surround me here, they are exactly like the 'Ghatam'. I just stay mum. When I look at the mess that is around me I cannot help but wonder "Am I being too fussy, why don't I take it easy? What if it is just lying there, let them clean it if they want to!" and then is when I satisfy myself with this thought "Cleanliness is next to godliness, a ritual which I will practise everyday no matter who does what!".It is difficult but possible and also let me remind you it is more of the former when it comes to enforcing it on the others;-)

This issue sounds more like a complaint I know, I just could not resist blogging about it today. I will come up with some humour next time as per someone who advised me, he finds my blog posts very philosophical these days. Frankly I am a very serious person who takes trivial things more than seriously, if you speak or do something remotely close to nonsense I will complain about it and think of staying away from you for the rest of my life.Oh I forgot, that someone also says" Stop Complaining!".I guess this is the only solution that will help me survive anywhere I go, especially here.

Sometimes it is always good to mind my own business is what I am learning now. This is not  typical of me but it does not look like I have a choice either. Most of us satisfy ourselves with this, right? We cannot will not do anything if a crazy man spits from a moving bus, we cannot will not do anything if another crazy man is voiding everything that is stored in his bladder on the wall. The world has all kinds of such and more specimens you see, most of them obnoxiously human and shamefully out of human control. And trust me when I say more than half of these culprits are well educated !!!

What is more disturbing is all of us treat and think of this planet as nothing but a dustbin in some way or the other. How ethical is it when we let our filth flow down into the rivers and ask for only mineral water bottles to drink, or when we give the atmosphere only smoke instead of the oxygen that we breathe every moment. We write essays and debate in schools on every pollution that we are accountable for, our governments make futile policies and hold awareness days once a year and that is the end of it all I guess. This planet has never and will never have anything filthier than us humans. Our conscience hardly pricks and even if it does it can only stab the others. Like how it is happening over my place right now, and if someone is at the receiving end of all the rubbish like me, we brag blog about it. I am having a hard time for I am not able to decide where to draw a line with these people. It is all the more difficult because I have to see them daily and cannot completely keep away from them. I cannot teach them about being clean for they think they already are, I hope you get what I mean! Can someone suggest me something?

Some smart fellow must have come up with this:

'Support Bacteria-They are the only culture people have!'

-R.