I am on the verge ...I quiver frightfully at the very edge... of submitting my third grant for this half of the year and the mouse has welded itself to the palm of my hand all this season ..if anyone out there knows some brilliant hand exercises, do oblige ..it needs urgent servicing...Now for the next five years be it grant writing or experiments in the lab, the mouse is here to stay. All my last three grants are on mouse models.. so after almost a decade of tissue culturing ,I am back to my Ph.D muse, the mouse.
That reminded in true indian filmy style .. an interesting flashback... I was doing my Ph.D at the then Cancer Research Institute ,Parel, Mumbai ,India ...now it is the pompus ACTREC lying like silent monster on the outskirts of Mumbai... and my project was on epidermal carcinogenesis as studied in the mouse model. This required for the most part ..painting the skin(not with painter's brush but with syringe and 28gauge needle) with different carcinogens and waiting and watching little cancers mushroom on the back of the white swiss mice. We had to sacrifice ..yes the humane way, by pinching its cervical cord and pulling its tail ...one swift movement ( not the inhumane way I have seen in US .. unanaestized mouse guillotined..ohhh gory,gory ) . When I was new, I was not very sure of holding the mouse and pinning him down by the cervix.. so invariably on most occasions, the little fur would squeeze himself through my wabbling finegers and bound through the glass jar s , down the bench and out into the corridors of the Institute with me and my lab mate ( another newcomer like me) in hot pursuit. The major part of the day would be taken up thus.. trying to corner the escaped white mouse. It tooks several months to master the art of clasping its neck before it wriggled out and later when months turned to years.. I was indeed an expert in this dark skill of life, and I would be chit-chatting with a colleague in uninterrupted, earnest conversation ,complete with laugh and giggles,as I would be if I were tearing lettuce for a salad and chatting with a friend simultaneously, while all the time with the seasoned grace of a master executioner , I was pinning the little blisters by the neck and pulling their tails, killing them by the dozen without so much as a glance at the luckless creatures ..
That reminded in true indian filmy style .. an interesting flashback... I was doing my Ph.D at the then Cancer Research Institute ,Parel, Mumbai ,India ...now it is the pompus ACTREC lying like silent monster on the outskirts of Mumbai... and my project was on epidermal carcinogenesis as studied in the mouse model. This required for the most part ..painting the skin(not with painter's brush but with syringe and 28gauge needle) with different carcinogens and waiting and watching little cancers mushroom on the back of the white swiss mice. We had to sacrifice ..yes the humane way, by pinching its cervical cord and pulling its tail ...one swift movement ( not the inhumane way I have seen in US .. unanaestized mouse guillotined..ohhh gory,gory ) . When I was new, I was not very sure of holding the mouse and pinning him down by the cervix.. so invariably on most occasions, the little fur would squeeze himself through my wabbling finegers and bound through the glass jar s , down the bench and out into the corridors of the Institute with me and my lab mate ( another newcomer like me) in hot pursuit. The major part of the day would be taken up thus.. trying to corner the escaped white mouse. It tooks several months to master the art of clasping its neck before it wriggled out and later when months turned to years.. I was indeed an expert in this dark skill of life, and I would be chit-chatting with a colleague in uninterrupted, earnest conversation ,complete with laugh and giggles,as I would be if I were tearing lettuce for a salad and chatting with a friend simultaneously, while all the time with the seasoned grace of a master executioner , I was pinning the little blisters by the neck and pulling their tails, killing them by the dozen without so much as a glance at the luckless creatures ..
2 comments:
Wow what a cerebral blog I 've got a Stuart Little running around in the house and he is so clever he did not eat the poison cake I set out for him. I 'll try again.I love the rose cookies and murkus and all the Chennai snacks. The banana, jackfruit and tapioca chips are super and the bhajjis too. I remember the coconut water and chilli bhajjis on the Marina Beach.One day i 'll come to Chennai to enjoy that.
Yes Amrita that is what I recommend ..jet down to Chennai and we will slow fry with the Chennai snacks to hearts content..now the air fares have discounted quite a bit ..if ther e is good deal -300 to 500 rupees you can take the plane instead of baking in the train for over 24 hrs. Millie from taftee class got us the bananna and tapioca chips from Kerala.. yum yum.. we await you arrival.love janet
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