To Assaf and Nivi

As I promised on Friday, its time to write about the my friends Assaf and Nivi. Assaf works with me in my lab,a great..great scientist and Nivi is his girl friend, who is a wonderful artist and two of her books, kids cartoon book will be released soon. It would have been impossible for me to handle the 'Cultural lag ' problems(during my first few rough days in Paris /Sometimes even now :-( ) without them. In a Hindi Movie "Munna Bahi MBBS" they often talk about The 'Jadu Ki Japi' (The Magic Hug), a hug which can cool down any emotionally stressed person. I understood/experienced the real meaning of this 'Jadu Ki Japi' only because of them. Now to the Exciting Part, this friday, with after the big emotional arguments about love (as an impact of JK's quote on Love) I checked my mail and I saw Assaf's mail, saying, By the time I read the mail, he would be crossing the ocean to meet Nivi in New York (which was a surprise for her) and to propose her, Today he was back in the lab with successful and exciting Love Story...Wow! Now! Its time for me to pack up and be ready to go to Israel for their wedding....! Yeah ! Thats Assaf and Nivi in the picture, taken during a party in Chris's (My Boss) house.

In spite of Hindi Movies famous for many many crappy sentimental stuff...this 'Jadi Ki Japi' sentiment is really really good....If you have not watched this movie "Munna Bhai MBBS" yet...the first thing you guys should do is, to go and see this movie and the next step is,when ever you see someone down, give a 'Jadu Ki Japi' and say ' tension nahi leneka.. apun hai na' ( Dont Worry! I am there!) Believe me it really..really works!

Love in Finding Nemo!

More on Love! Oops! I am still stuck with JK's quote on Love. Today as I was seeing " Finding Nemo" for 101th time, I was able to sense different types of love in the movie, beautiful depicted using different characters. The Negative aspect, like the Darla's Love for fish, a high intensity,lethal love. She loves fishes so much that she calls herself 'Piranha', a Amazon fish refered as Man eaters in old movies, without scientific evidence. Darla, inspite of having love for fishes, she is called the 'Fish Killer' in the movie, often the love when expressed with such high intensity, leaves the beloved in suffocation. And Marlin's Love , a high intensity, semi-lethal Love for Nemo, a type of Paranoid Love. Often we love like Marlin, the negative things around us or the negative memories of the past, the fear gets mixed up with love and the love loses its charm. The most pleasant form of love in the movie is the one of Dory's, least contaminated with the negativity around her, not infuenced by the negative thoughts of past,the fear (she 'suffers'? / 'enjoys' !! from Short Term Memory Loss). Now putting this in terms of JK! " Fear destroys love. You cannot have love - love cannot exist where fear is. So thinking has created fear. Right? Thinking about the future, thinking about the past.Thought is born of experience and knowledge, which are inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man. Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant conflict and struggle. Love is: dying every day. "

First Fondue

Today I started my day with reading Jk's quote on Love!!! I was so excited to read it, I felt my thoughts were stolen even before, me and my thoughts were born, but on my way to the lab, for a moment I felt even JK might have lived in Utopian world like me. As I reached my Lab two exciting love stories were waiting for me, got to know about the exciting Love adventure of two good friends of mine. ( I need to dedicate two blogs for them and their girl friends in the days to come) ...OK , JK may be right...Selfless Love do exist... and today evening was the first snow of this winter, its so beautiful to see the snow flakes falling, that was the first gift Paris gave me as I landed in Paris nine months back. Now to the more exciting part of French Dinner, with Ale. Today For the first time I tasted the Fondue, Its Boiling cheese over the fire on your table,It was just... Wow! Yeah that's Ale and me drooling over fondue tonight (check out for more Pictures in the flickr.com) And this lovely romantic winter evening came to end as I cycled back home in -2 degrees, with Adnan Sami singing "Kabhi tho Nazar Milao..' for me from my iPod.

Dalai Lama in a Science Congress!

In Science Magazine's "news of the week" there is an article about Dalai Lama's talk in a Neuroscience Congress. Its interesting to read about the controversies, It reminds me of Aldous Huxley's view on such conditions..here it goes...

"At any historical moment human behavior is a compromise (enforced from without by law and custom, from within by belief in religious or philosophical myths) between raw instinct on the one hand and the unattainable ideal on the other – a compromise, in our sculptural metaphor, between the unshaped block of stone and the many-armed dancing Krishna."

When there are two contradictory paths, do we always have to select one? Follower of Religion...Non Follower...Why cant one be "Just an observer"?

Philosophy starts in a Paris Bus Stop!

Nine months back, when I just landed in Paris, I was trying to find out all the possible(bus,metro,RER etc) way to reach my lab. Found that if I take the bus Line 38, the nearest bus stop is "Auguste Comte"...Oh No! Another tough french name...!!! In spite of me having 'google search disease', this name never inspired me to do a google search, may be I assumed that it should be the name of a famous french painter or a writer, as the most of the streets and places are named after them(Thanks to this system of Naming). Today I was reading an article on Altruism, which is evolutionarily, culturally, socially, and religiously significant word. May be this is one of the word where the three different poles. Science,Religion and Philosophy shake hands. And this French Philosopher,Auguste Comte also referred as father of sociology coined this word 'Altruism' it seems...

In Phytoplankton, including my diatoms, its been observed that they sacrifice their life for the survival of the its neighbours in the 'colony', in the time of disease and food(nutrient) limitation. Also this nature of 'unicellular altruism' might be an evolutionarily significant event which lead to the formation of multi cellular organisms(including the 'selfish human'). Today the BBC news says that 'Loneliness could be in our Genes'....Oops! when did 'we' lose this altruist genes of single cell ancestors and got these 'selfish' genes. Something ..Somewhere..Seriously.. went wrong!!!