At my Second Home...

Yeah! Today I arrived in India…sorry Italy…actually… I don’t see much difference between India and Naples. Crazy traffic…dirty streets…. wonderful food…smiling people…also lots of thefts and cheats on the street, I feel at home… From the airport I directly took an taxi to go to my lab, the taxi driver started friendly conversation and start to show me around, people were surprised that I arrived saftly just by paying 22 euros usually the taxi meters from airport to my lab show from 18 to 50 euros it seems…just as flexible as Indian auto rickshaws. If you are wondering which lab I am talking about... FYI …my boss Chris have two labs one in Paris and one in Naples. Naples lab is located in a lovely beach facing the sea. In one of the oldest marine biology institute. Its in the marine biology lab…so, this is my new cute little friend in the lab…people in the lab call her valentine but for me he is the little ‘Squirt’ as in finding Nemo.

Gulf of Naples

I disappeared for sometime, I was lost in my preparation for the Marine genomics Conference. .finally.. I am leaving tomorrow to Italy …yes! very excited about it…that too to the birth place of Pizza. I will land in Naples tomorrow and the conference is in Sorrento, and will do a bit of traveling after the conference. I may disappear again from my blog for next 10days or if I get hold of good internet connection, will update you guys with pictures from this beautiful gulf of Naples, the sleeping mighty volcano, thermal springs, natural thermal spa and lots of Pizza... See you all from Italy…

Grey Weather..Happy Working!

Weather is grey for last few days, in fact its favouring me to stick with my computer to finish a tiny project before my conference. thanks to the weather again, I got some time to do a quick and dirty scanning of photos which I took during my summer holidays (Switzerland and Nice) with my SLR.

World Peace!

We all crave for Peace in life and that’s the thing the world needs the most. Many people believe that they are working for world peace, and they make “war to have peace”. Today morning as I was reading the News on the potential Nobel peace prize winner for this year, I was really shocked to see Sri Ravi Shankar’s name. He has a spiritual organization called the Art of Living; I really don’t know how it works, but for its very basic nature that it’s not affordable by an average Indian, makes me have my own doubts, as I grew up seeing lots of money making spiritual organizations of India. Can we sell peace and harmony as a commodity? Finally among all the controversies, it’s nice to see this year’s winner. Hope this decision will make people think about the fellow human being who are still fighting for just one complete meal, before they waste money on war and religion, ironically in the name of Peace.

Blessing(Ticket)in disguise...

Yesterday, I got extremely lucky to see an amazing concert of Shiv Kumar Sharma and Zakir Hussain . You may be wondering that the ticket posted here is not used and it says Samedi (Saturday). You are right, last week I went to buy this ticket and I saw a display board saying Saturday - Complete, I asked for the Sunday ticket, and she gave me a cover, which I didn't open it till yesterday morning. When I opened it on Sunday morning ....I had shock of my life...The ticket was for Saturday. I was almost into tears, anyway I wanted to give a try and thought of explaining the mistake and try to get a replacement or something. But when I went there, I saw "Complete" (House-Full) board. The Theater people just asked me to try my luck in the entrance, if some one wanted to sell their ticket or something like that...It was just 10 minutes for the concert, Poonam,who was suppose to see the concert with me and as I bought both the tickets, she was also in the same mess as me. When I made up my mind to go back home, I heard Poonam wishing some one and heard her saying.."Sir! this is my friend Uma.!" I didn't know who he was, I just said,"Hi ...Sorry! I am in Mess and Put Poonam in the mess too! " , After explaining him the condition, he said he had booked four tickets and can gift us two tickets. Finally this 'ticket mess' promoted us from the last row to the executive class in the 5th Row. and Later I got to know that the Angle who gifted us the ticket was Owner of the Garment factory, where Poonam is working. In all these mess I forgot my camera, even if I had taken it with me, I wont be able to give you guys the feel of the Magical hands of Zakir Hussain and Shiv Kumar Sharma.

Nuit blanche

Today is Nuit blanche (white Night) in Paris. Every year in October, I guess on full moon night they have this thing called white night, when all the museums are open for free till mid night and many art pieces and installations exhibited in main areas of paris. We went to an Iranian museum, many gold and silver art works remained me of ancient art pieces of India. I felt the same in last week’s Thai expo too. I guess our ancient India had lot of cultural and art exchanges with the neighbors. We just strolled through important monuments...that’s in my favorite square, Place de la concord.. Fountains and statues around the square were lighted blue. People were going crazy in the road,city looked as if the whole Paris was on the street, took a hell lot of time to drive back home, with the drunken teenagers jumping in the streets.

My New Office!

Just today, I moved into my new office, just across the corridor but nice, big and sunny. It was lot of work, we bought the flooring and fixed it with Marc and made some cleaning and moving my things, with all my plants…Hmmm! Lots of work….but Nice to be on the sunny side, just in time for the winter. Thats my new office..

Thai Week

End of a long, exciting 'Thai' week, Started the week in Thai village, with lot of Thai food, music,arts and dance. In fact Thai cuisine have very less options for vegetarians, but we manged to get some delicious veggie stuffs, it remained me a lot of south Tamil Nadu food, with lot of coconut, banana leaves and spices. I have been to Thai restaurants before, but this experience was very different as it was made by Thai people, who just visited Paris on the cultural exchange Stuff,so it was very authentic. Thai week came to an end with Thai movies. Micha is working as a Junior curator in Center Pompidou, Musée National d'Art Moderne in a crazy colourful modern building in the heart of Paris, as part of his project he arranged for screening of movies by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a Thai director, who was also present on the occasion, spoke about his experiences in movie making.