Where The Mind is Without Fear..

Today, I was talking(in google talk) to my friend, Ahamarshan, my master's classmate and a very good friend. He is very good in poems and writing, currently doing his Phd in Oxford. He always encourages, specially when I am down, by saying "whatever you do shall prosper and no weapon that faces against thee shall prosper". He is one who believe in me more than I do on myself, and wish good luck for me more than I can dream for myself. Today as we were discussing some real serious issues about East and West,and about writing in blog, he quoted me a very nice poem from Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore, which won Nobel Prize in 1913. Here it is...

"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake"

from Rabindranath Tagore's Geetanjali

Men build too many walls ...

"Men build too many walls and not enough bridges." - Issac Newton. I read this nice quote today in the Paris souvenir book that we got for Assaf... Today is Assaf's farewell, we had a party in a friend's bar, with a nice Moroccan dinner. We got him few gifts, one was this book with nice pictures of Paris and beautiful quotes, we signed in different pages. I signed in the page which had the above quote and photo of one of the oldest bridge built during Napoleon's period in Paris. I felt this page was just made for me,to express myself to this man who build bridges instead of walls, Assaf is the first person who helped me as I took my first step into West! He helped me to build the bridge between East and West, Today, he is confidently leaving me behind with this beautiful bridge, lovely friends of him and wonderful memories to join Nivi in New York!

True Importance!

Today I read this short and sweet story by Paulo Coelho, His book 'The Alchemist' was big inspiration for me in a very crucial stage in my life, Also wrote a email to him regarding that and got a cute inspiring reply from him ! :-)

"True Importance!" by Paulo Coelho From his collection of short stories( can download freely from his site)Now..Here is the Story...

Jean was out walking with his grand father in Paris. At one point, they saw a shoemaker being insulted by a customer who claimed that there was something wrong with his shoes. The shoemaker calmly listened to his complaints, apologised and promised to make good the mistake.

Jean and his grandfather stopped to have coffee. At the next table the waiter asked a man if he would mind moving his chair slightly so that he could get by.The man erupted in a torrent of abuse and refused to move.

"never forget what you have seen", said Jean's grandfather. 'The shoemaker accepted the customer's complaint, while this man next to us did not want to move.Men who perform some useful task are not bothered if they are treated as if they were useless, but men who do no useful work at all always think themselves very important and hide their incompetence behind their authority.'

Nivi's Day!

It’s Nivi’s B’day Today! Happy B’day Nivi! But unfortunately she was not in Paris to celebrate it together…busy in her Art School in New York. But we got great news that her phytoplankton,Diatom cartoon titled 'zoom into the bloom was accepted for publication, along with Assaf’s Research Paper in one of very good Biology Journal. Yeah! That’s the phytoplanktons, zoomed in by Nivi’s artistic hands.

End of a very hectic week, I was completely brain drained and dead, I was about to leave the lab, just then Alcidio dropped in with his friend Micha, and had a very nice Japanese Dinner, with three very cheerful men (Iam Just posing with the sticks for the photo,never able to eat with that ;-), Brain is now completely charged up with their laughter, and excellent sushi, for a rocking weekend... Bon weekend!

Grand Ma's Medicine With Picasa!

All these days, I am really working like a nerdy scientist; it was just work and reading blogs, I saw some really interesting blogs on Pongal, had a nice chance to see pictures of Pongal celebrated across the world, try the “Blogger Search” with keyword Pongal. Thanks to Google’s Blogspot! As I was reading Arjun’s blog about his visit to china and his pictures from china, saw an interesting collage picture of him and his friends, I asked him a very intelligent question if he printed the photos and arranged it and took an another digital picture of that. I guess, as photography tutor of mine, he might have really felt ashamed of having such a dumb student, like me, he said its just few clicks using Google’s Picasa! It’s the bit of homework I did with college option in picasa, that’s Arjun, taken when he was sick and had to take my grand ma’s medicine. Milk with turmeric, honey and black pepper powder, It really works well, but by his ‘before and after’ drinking facial expression, you can imagine how yummy it can be! ;-) If you have throat infection try this medicine and Picasa, if not just try Picasa!