Shortest weekend!

Today in l'ametlla del valles!

Tomorrow the same time ! ooops! where can I see Green colour!

Today's dose of Nature!

Breakfast Venue!

Had lunch on the banks of this lake, just next to these ducks on the rock!

In the laps of Nature!

End of a very stressful week, I thought its better to take a cheap flight and fly to the laps of nature than to eat the brains of the fellow lab mates. Cheap flights meaning, you can get tickets for 14 euros to go to Spain, but it will take 4 hours to reach the airport just to take one and half hour flight. But when an exciting weekend break is waiting, I really have to thank the Ryan air! Landed in Girona, directly went for fishing, I just caught a tadpole though! Had a evening nap on a floating Mediterranean rock! Sound of sea, splashing waves, all this with a lovable person, what a perfect stress therapy! more of Sa riera Beach!

Survival of the Likeliest !

I recently read this very interesting article, linking Darwin’s theory of evolution with second law of Thermodynamics. It took long time for me to digest this article, and I am still not sure, if got the complete picture right.

When there is life in a physical system (Pond) there is use of solar energy, entry of this energy into the system increases the randomness, the entropy of the pond (struggle for existence) and then there are ‘spontaneous changes’ to get back the ‘harmony of the system’.

When living things using only solar energy can lead to such a big chaos, what type of chaos we should expect when we ‘living things’ started using the fossil fuels and the atomic energy. Bigger the Chaos! Bigger the Struggle! Scary! Only fittest of the fittest will survive! Well! I survived Indian cheats! But not the Italian!

Penny Wise and Pound foolish!

Did I say “I am getting economical!” in my previous blog? I guess some sneaky Italian read that, I was cheated by an Old Italian gentle man this Sunday! Right at my door step, he told me a sad story about ATM card and jacket exhibition and almost took 6% of my salary! YES! I CANT BELIEVE IT! I cried enough and now almost out of my depression, atleast good enough to write this blog! It took three days to recover after crying over three strong shoulders! Thank you Alci, Micha and Anton! More than tears, bit of curse to him and his family and the good old Indian beliefs on Good Karma and Bad Karma, helped me to recover ! Even though my friends don’t agree with me (Specially Marc and Arjun) I should say I transferred some of my ‘bad karma’ to an Old Italian gentle man. If you want to know more details about this cheating, just Google “Italian Jacket Scam”, they are doing this all over the world! And I am just an innocent victim in Paris!

Why do I blog?

Earlier it was my airtel, now it’s my blog space! I am getting economical!

Pouring Clouds...

Some wise man once said, “Only constant thing in this world is changes”! You just cross continents and you will find people’s attitude towards rain changes. Through out my childhood, we always welcomed rain. How Indian movie heroes would have survived without falling for their heroines, dancing in the rain? Now here for the Parisians, nothing can be the worst news than to see a weather forecast about a rainy weekend. Last few days, the passing clouds were also pouring once in a while. Well! Paris neither have enough of soil bacteria to have petrichor nor dancing kids on the road but a nice chat with a friend over a Italian martini and the fresh air after rain can be refreshing, it definitely helped me to get over my sulkiness about the passing cloud.

Passing Clouds!

I was trying to overcome my recent emptiness and trying to concentrate on my writing; the clouds distracted me, through my huge window by switching off and on the sunlight and hence the shadow of my new orchid plant, which was falling on my writing desk, I realized my distraction only after I clicked few photos of the passing cloud, Thanks to this little distraction, now I know the reason of my emptiness, my life seems to be a passing cloud, so many changes in such a short time, and me trying to stop the moment in vain, by catching every frame in my camera. Finally left with images and memories of past, just like this gif image I created using the photos I took today. Well! I can’t do anything about these passing clouds, but atleast I can make the memories and the image perfect if I use a tripod. More over thanks to this diatomist’s diary I can share both the perfect and imperfect memories of my passing clouds.

14th arrondissement ,,,,

That’s the district I live…not very far from the parc (park), Last few days filled with empty feelings, Neither happiness nor sadness… far from home! Missing my parents 35^th wedding anniversary….still waiting to overcome this occasional emptiness and to say Paris je t'aime!

record breakers!

Just 10 days back Mumbai people were surprised to see Boeing 737 stuck in the city road, blocking the traffic. Yesterday French put me in a similar surprise; I was practicing roller blades with my friends next to the river, and suddenly saw the TGV, the fast train which recently broke the world record, happily floating in the river.

In India or in France life is full of surprises! More on TGV’s success story… and more pictures on the banks of seine.

Women have 'stronger' senses!

Do you know women have stronger chemical senses (the taste and the smell) than man? We can even identify the smell of fear and joy from the body secretions it seems. May be that’s why women started taking care of children, sitting inside the caves, using smell to sense danger and the sense of taste to give the best food for her family? Even now a days we can see the pregnant women becoming hypersensitive to the smell and taste. They crave for strong taste at the same time they can’t stand the smell of cooking…hmm! Very tricky period. Tamil cuisine has a set of seven different rice dishes (coconut, tamarind, lemon, lentils, mango, sweet and yogurt rice) with sour and sweet sauces, rasam and chutney. These dishes have strong taste and less smell, so they are specially cooked for pregnant women. My friend Meena is Pregnant (wow! I will be an aunty (again) soon!) . So, we cooked this pregnancy kit for her yesterday. Hmmmm! What a feast! Thanks to this small and successful Indo-French project of Meena and Eric.

Thanks for the photo Meena...more pic..

Backup Job!

Now a days I am spending hours together writing and commenting blogs, but procrastinating my research article completion, yes! it was suppose to be completed six months back. I think…I should quite science and select an alternative career? Well! this thought of quitting science is the first symptom towards Phd completion it seems, so may be I am towards the end of my Phd? Alternative career? May be as a cook in some Indian restaurant? May be a hardware job to fix laptops? As I was successful with my laptop repair, I got some new student to learn this technique from me! Bala, I know you will not believe me, I can hear you saying that its just a “Self Image Build Up” thing…but check this picture, I was teaching my friend Alcidio to separate the display screen from the keyboard.

Confession Note: Now they are using the key board linked with their TV monitor , well! It is mac..so putting back the display screen is not same as dell. But, Alcidio is still considers me as his friend!

My friends and my boss have oceans of tolerance!

Growing younger?

A girl’s best moment in her life is when she tells her age and people around her scream “NO”! And just that “NO” makes her feel 10 years younger than what she is. I guess it’s a common disease among girls, the thirst to look and appear younger. You may not agree with me to call this quest as a disease, but as a girl I can see girls suffering from such things! When a 35 year old girl feel 25 at heart and behave accordingly, can be painful for her and for the people around, I don’t know why only girls in their path of metamorphose, refuse to come out of their cocoon and see that they can be a beautiful butterfly if they grow and mature with their age. Girls! Just by postponing from being a wife or a mother doesn’t keep us a teenager for ever! Most of the people ‘get older’ as they see their children growing. Recently I got enlightenment about my age, when my nephew, for whom I have even changed nappy, buzzed me in orkut, wow! He has grown into a handsome teenager! This weekend, in my lab picnic in Fontainebleau, as I was struggling to handle a one year old baby, I realized that I am refusing to be butterfly. I felt I am missing something very important in my life, a reference for my growth and aging.

some more pics from my lab album... 1... and 2...