Sleepless nights …

Sleepless nights…. It is strange to feel the same was as three years before. Three years before around the this time, I got the confirmation for my PhD in Paris, spent few weeks of sleepless nights, fighting the society for my freedom and final exit , with dreams and nightmares about venturing into this huge city without knowing a person . Landed in Paris with the enormous amount of freedom, that gave me courage to fight this western society from imposing ways to misuse my freedom. Now few more weeks to go for my vacation to India, suffering from the similar sleepless nights with dreams to see the places where I grew up and the friends who were with me during my final struggle, also nightmares about taking back home this freedom that have become a part of me. Will my society welcome me with this freedom which they never wanted to see me with?

Experiencing such conflicts and depression, no wonder the closing lines of the movie , 'Elizabeth: The Golden Age' got tears in my eyes yesterday.

“Unmarried, I have no master. Childless, I am mother to my people. God give me the strength to bear this mighty freedom."

Christmas Pilgrimage ...

I know...I wrote yesterday that I have lots of work to finish, but for Christ sake its Christmas. I took a day off and ventured into one of the region of France that I have not been before, Centre (Val de Loire ) . This region is well know for its castles (châteaux ) of Loire Valley. Today I went to a small pilgrimage village called Chartres; just few hours away from Paris where you can find this calm village. Beautiful Cathedral , considered to be one of the finest Gothic (Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres)standing in the middle of a little town traversed by a small river and covered with a very thin layer of snow. Hmmm! Its difficult to say wheather the cathedral is adding a spritual peace or the cold, snowy winter is adding peace to this little village. More Pics

Holidays...

Thats how my holidays are going to be…I have something similar to that, but no regrets… Christmas holidays are the best time to be in Pairs, I should say almost 50% of the population is out of the city, calm , quite and an empty lab. Above all a very rewarding holiday is waiting at the end of this holiday! Ok…let me get back to work now…

Happy Holidays!

Coming from a country where festivals are seen as bundle of rituals; here I see festivals as an excuse to get together and express the love and gratitude, eat…drink..and party. In the last one week, I had six Christmas dinners and parties, the most impressive ones were the one with my French class, with people across the world, representing all the major religions sitting around the table, contributing some Christmas stories and food from each country, it was a emotional moment; another impressive story was how Micha bought tears in people’s eye by distributing his cute little German Christmas cookies pack. Adding a cherry to the above events was our lab’s Caribbean party today .As I entered the lab today the Caribbean music was breaking the roof tops and we had Gerald behind the bar, to make Caribbean cocktails by lunch time everyone was drunk then it was time to say Happy holidays; we had few high and low times last year, I hope my third year will be better. With this happy note and having few more Christmas dinners to attend before Christmas…Happy Holidays!

un burro viejo, aparejo nuevo

un burro viejo, aparejo nuevo - for an old donkey, a new bridle. The older I become, more exciting the life becomes; Each year birthday day seems to be getting better and better, filled with people pouring love and affection and more exciting things to do. This year I visited a very small mountain village in Catalonia. Inspite of the beautiful landscape the highlight of the place was the donkey farm. Around 40 years back when farmers started using cars, they started slaughtering donkey it seems; when this very rare variety of Catalan donkeys were at the verge of extinction, this gentle man collected the donkeys from the farmers (only 30 was left at that time it seems) and now he expanded it to few hundred; it was so amazing to see this old man’ s passion for the donkeys, seeing this beautiful majestic Catalan donkeys, it’s not so difficult to fall in love with them. Mild snow….beautiful village…friendly people…people who make difference in some one life….meeting man with a mission… Thank you Anton for this beautiful gift.

more pics...

Frozen lake!

Started a long weekend break in Catalonia, directly from the airport went to the nearby mountains, we stopped by a small mountain village Granera, just 75 inhabitants and a very beautiful frozen dam.I have never seen a lake like this, completely transformed into ice, beautiful to see the stones bouncing and sliding over the ice with a magnificent sound echoing in the valley

marriage of hearts...

Exactly six years before on this same day (how can i forget a terror filled day) I underwent a similar condition, of course i didn't have remote in my hand, anyway choices aren't so great though. A person like me ( with all the regrets and no valid explanation for this behaviour of mine)...who like to see again only less than 50% of people I meet in my life and get along and be friends with only less than 1 % of those people..... Just a stronger feeling of self is common in these 1% people ( self respect , self confidence and a genuine love for the person I am.. glittering in their their eyes ) ...I know ....i 'may' burn in hell for rejecting the rest 99% of people from my life and for getting tears in my mom's eyes everytime when i say no to her choice.... but being an hypocrite will turn my current life into hell right??? May be I am still following a very cheesy saying , from my childhood bed room poster, give a genuine smile to many but heart just for few!

its christmas....

A day filled with good news and surprises;

Got my new laptop delivered, almost a week in advance, my lab mates call it the Ferrari...beautiful red ... looks super cool and works super fast.

I thought i will be left bankrupt by this my first big investment, to my surprise some cash flooded into my account; thanks to my friends and family !

One of my paper got accepted for publication

I will have weekend break in snow covered? mountains... as a birthday gift

I got my tickets booked for my next big vacation ... to God's own country! next month this time...I will be there!

Rich and famous…

Most of us crave to be rich and famous, if not both at least any one for sure. Infact one of my ‘Biggest’ cultural shock I faced in girls here (I should be more specific and say girls of my lab) is that they can do anything with their body to get men’s attention, being a fashion victim and following the hyper sexualised society like a sheep…in spite of knowing the fact that physical ‘beauty’ and the attention you get out of it is not going to last for ever…. anyways I am not here to decide on which is the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way to get attention but to introduce you to a guy who came up with his own formula for ‘being famous’, fondly called as ‘super star’ Rajini , the most famous movie star in Tamil Nadu…. Just watch a small fraction of the people’s response to his latest movie.

In India.... And Outside....

A guy who started his life in the foot-path (literally) to the status of the super hero, without having any of ‘stranded’ hero phenotype, at the end of the day what makes people so famous? I guess its their ‘individuality’, daring to be different and confident about their ‘unique’ self will help them to be noted by people than a sexy outfit or sexy body gestures. Girls! Each one of us are gifted with our own unique ‘self’ lets not mask it with make-up or sexy outfits and cry in loneliness for attention. Rajinikanth, worshiped by many…ridiculed by few yet a revealing his own secret formula to be famous, as he celebrates his 57th birthday tomorrow, may be it’s a right day to start being confident and to appreciate our own wonderful, unique ‘self’ , which will add charisma even in a wrinkled skin....

Happy Birthday Rajini! a 'role' model sagittarian!

Some action thru my window

After a loooong time, my lab was filled with some fun life and action, with new group of people moving in and the absence of 'annoying people' made some big difference... laughing at some silly jokes...I don't know when I last laughed like this...we laughed so much that it got tears our eyes and pain in my stomach. And also today..I fulfilled my long-term dream..., I always hear about 'the famous french demonstrations. After two years finally today got a chance to see it in live....People (god knows for what..t) were on the road making in a big rally..with police trying to stop them in vein..we witnessed some action thru the window. We were locked in for sometime to prevent the crowd from entering and breaking down things in the lab as they did in the near by university last time. Here, in a developed country where most of the people don't have problem for their basic requirements ...like food, clothing and shelter , Still they invent some new needs and demands and go on street....Oops! All the human needs can never be fulfilled...may its just like trying to fill an pot with a hole.

one problem less

Thanks to Marc! its so kind of him to make use of his childhood hobby and fix my bike, just not the seats, the annoying noise, the loooose chain, the bent wheel...I wish i can do all these by myself one day. Touch wood...only few more problems left...I just need to get rid of my flu/cold, fix my leaking kitchen and to fix my crashing laptop...all without pushing my bank account to negative. Thanks to Paris...I am learning to count the penny(cents...)

Meet the evil monkey!

Evil Monkey EXPLAINED! - The best home videos are here

So, here is the real evil monkey, a character in my favorite "family guy" ! (thanks to my brother he got me a complete set of season one of this American animation series !) but I do meet some evil monkeys in my real life. Especially I am not able to stand the people who forget that "face (eyes) is the index of mind" and try to mask their malice and hatred just with a smile. I grew up hearing that such people living in close proximity with a big smile but sabotaging you in their thoughts and at your back can bring some bad luck for you....yeah! that belief may be as true as Chris(the boy in family guy) seeing a evil monkey in his closet, anyways.... all the evil monkeys may have a sad stories in their past (like the 'real' one) which made them this evil but we are humans and we can try to get this evil monkey out of us." lets try to smile only when we mean it! that will add more charm to our smile"