What's New, this New year

The NewYear 2009 came without much fuss this year. Though the loudspeakers in the neighbourhood kept us awake till 12.0am ,on our part we were passive spectators to the change in calendar. The semester also ended in Dec last year so we had vacation (or rather still having) till 19th of Jan 2009. Today however we were called to evaluate exam papers and I spent the whole day turning pages after pages…it was a pleasure when the pages contained good stuff but it was a headache to wade through some of the pure gibberish material the students had come up with. What really takes the cake is that some of this undiluted garbage is written in neat handwriting and overflowing into never ending pages!!! I was hoping all the students pass through as our job is much dependant on that – but some students did not give any cause for those grace marks. The papers will be evaluated by an external examiner also and I am hoping he is filled with compassion on these students. Anyways, we are supposed to get 75% of the students pass to hold on to our jobs so a few students not making it may not matter.

On a happier note, I praise God for answering my three prayer requests. One was for the practical exam in molecular cell biology that I was responsible for. I was quite apprehensive about it as an external examiner conducts it and it is well known among professors that they can be testy at times.It turned out that the external examiner was known to me and he was very kind and compassionate. Some of my colleagues were not so lucky and some were even asked to do the experiments along with the students and complexities were added to the procedures.All my students fared well scoring over 80%.It is only the grace of God as these students are no Einstein’s!!!

The other request was for my research seminar before all the faculty members of the Institute . It was a nail biting event but it went off well and many congratulated me on the presentation saying they enjoyed it a lot. God be praised.

The third request was for the conference at Pune and my fears over how my sister Dolly ( who is physically and mentally challenged) would take my absence. God was in control and she was very happy and cheerful and the conference went off without a hitch.

Now I have another prayer request and you can join in praying for me – my upcoming grant presentation before Expert Committee at Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. I got the letter two days ago from Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi informing me of the event on 24th January ’09. I didn’t even know where Gorakhpur was and had to scramble to get hold of an India map. I fly to New Delhi and take the train to Gorakhpur so the whole event takes me just 3 days instead of 6 if I took the train. It is a lot of money to fly but I am hoping my grant will get funded making it worthwhile. I hope my college refunds some of the amount. Anyways pray about it too.

So much for now.More later

Attending Conference at Pune

I am writing from my room from Yashada conference center in Pune. I am attending the 32nd All India Cell Biology Conference at Pune which is close to Mumbai- 4hr train journey. It took me 26hrs to reach this place from Chennai and I had noisy teenage boys in my compartment.So I was completely tired by the time the train chugged into Pune station at 2.25 am in the morning. As the train neared Sholapur station - railway police got into the compartment and asked us to down our shutters - after the recent bomb blast in Mumbai all kinds of precautions are taking place. I imagine the average citizen will be inconvenienced in many ways while the real perpetators will go undetected. That's life. Colaba where the gun battle took place was where we lived when I was in Std6. After that we moved to Dadar a crowded surburb of Mumbai and lived there for 17years - thankfully Dadar was spared.
Anyway the conference was quite good - though there were diverse topics ranging from hydra and drosophila to human studies. I find I am more comfortable in a cancer biology conference than a pure basic sciences conference. There were some excellent poster presentation on angiogenesis ( creation of new blood vessels) and DNA repair which is connected with cancer biology so I did find my niche in the plethora of information.
The food was Maharashtrian ( as Pune is located in the state of Maharashtra) - so there was "sabudana " (sago ) pudding and typical Maharashtrian dal with sugar in it and stuffed parathas and chicken masala and fried fish among others.
I leave for Chennai early morning at the odd hour of 3.30am tomorrow and am waiting to get back home to be with my mentally and physically challenged sister . God has been gracious and kept her in good spirits through my absence. I was quite apprehensive on whether I should go as she started crying nonstop when she saw my packed bags. But Mariamma and Shiela have looked after her well and she was quite cheerful when I spoke to her over the phone. Not to mention my dear brother who had lunch with her. Everything worked out well - may God be praised.

One day at a time

I got this in the email and was impressed how taking one day at a time can make a world of difference.



The Daffodil Principle

Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, "Mother, you must come to see the daffodils before they are over." I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead "I will come next Tuesday", I promised a little reluctantly on her third call. Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and reluctantly I drove there. When I finally walked into Carolyn 's house I was welcomed by the joyful sounds of happy children. I delightedly hugged and greeted my grandchildren. "Forget the daffodils, Carolyn ! The road is invisible in these clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see badly enough to drive another inch!" My daughter smiled calmly and said, "We drive in this all the time, Mother." "Well, you won't get me back on the road until it clears, and then I'm heading for home!" I assured her. "But first we're going to see the daffodils. It's just a few blocks," Carolyn said. "I'll drive. I'm used to this." " Carolyn ," I said sternly, "please turn around." "It's all right, Mother, I promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience." After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand lettered sign with an arrow that read, " Daffodil Garden ." We got out of the car, each took a child's hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path. Then, as we turned a corner, I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight. It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it over the mountain peak and its surrounding slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, creamy white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, and saffron and butter yellow. Each different-colored variety was planted in large groups so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers. "Who did this?" I asked Carolyn . "Just one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on the property. That's her home." Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house, small and modestly sitting in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house. On the patio, we saw a poster. "Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking", was the headline. The first answer was a simple one. "50,000 bulbs," it read. The second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain." The third answer was, "Began in 1958." For me, that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountaintop. Planting one bulb at a time, year after year, this unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. One day at a time, she had created something of extraordinary magnificence, beauty, and inspiration. The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration. That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time--often just one baby-step at time--and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world ... "It makes me sad in a way," I admitted to Carolyn . "What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a time' through all those years? Just think what I might have been able to achieve!" My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. "Start tomorrow," she said.She was right. It's so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask, "How can I put this to use today?" Use the Daffodil Principle. Stop waiting.....Until your car or home is paid offUntil you get a new car or homeUntil your kids leave the house Until you go back to schoolUntil you finish school Until you clean the houseUntil you organize the garageUntil you clean off your deskUntil you lose 10 lbs.Until you gain 10 lbs.Until you get married Until you have kids Until the kids go to schoolUntil you retireUntil summerUntil springUntil winterUntil fallUntil you die..There is no better time than right now to be happy .

Scripting a new chapter in its space programme, India recently launched its maiden unmanned mission to moon 'Chandrayaan-I', a research project that propels the country into an exclusive global club of six moon faring nations.
"It is a historic moment as far as India is concerned. We have started our journey to the moon and the first leg of the journey has gone perfectly well," an ecstatic ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair said soon after the indigenously built rocket PSLV C-11 blasted off from the spaceport here in cloudy but rainless weather.
The spacecraft was put into orbit exactly 18.2 minutes after the textbook launch at 6.22 a.M. From the second launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre in this island in the Bay of Bengal, about 100 km north of Chennai.
With the successful launch, India became the sixth country after the US, Russia, European Space Agency, China and Japan to launch a moon odyssey.
At Rs 386 crore, the Indian mission is considered to be the cheapest in the world which will help generate the first-ever comprehensive maps of the earth's only natural satellite.
The 44.4 metre tall four-stage PSLV rocket injected the spacecraft in the earth orbit from where it would be guided about 3,87,000 km away from the earth to the circular lunar orbit, 100 kms from the moon's surface, by November eight.
The spacecraft is carrying 11 instruments, including six international experiments, which will help prepare the first comprehensive map of the moon.
President Pratibha Patil, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K Advani congratulated the space scientists on the successful launch.
The focus now shifts to ISRO's telemetry, tracking and command network (ISTRAC) at Peenya in Bangalore, which will be the country's nerve centre for tracking and controlling Chandrayaan-1 over the next two years of its life span.
After circling the earth in its highly elliptical Transfer Orbit for a while, Chandrayaan-1 would be taken into more elliptical orbits by repeated firing of the spacecraft's Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) at opportune moments.
Subsequently, the LAM would be again fired to take the spacecraft to the vicinity of the moon by following a Lunar Transfer Trajecctory (LTT) path, whose apogee lies at 3,87,000 km.
Later, when Chandrayaan-1 reaches the vicinity of the moon, its LAM would be fired again to slow down the spacecraft sufficiently to enable the gravity of the moon to capture it into an elliptical orbit.
After some more procedures, Chandrayaan-1's orbit would be finally lowered to its intended 100 km height from the lunar surface, which was expected to take place around November eight.
Later, the Moon Impact Probe, carrying the Indian tricolour, would be ejected from the spacecraft following which the cameras and other payloads would be turned on and thoroughly tested, marking the operational phase of the mission.
Chandrayaan-I will help prepare detailed maps of the moon, its topography, mineral contents and look for water in the polar regions.
The maps could be of immense help when ISRO and other space agencies plan to land spacecraft on the lunar surface or plan to use the moon as a base for future interplanetary missions.
ISRO scientists spent many a sleepless nights to achieve perhaps one of the most difficult parts of the journey to the moon and faced some anxious moments as rains hammered the spaceport and surrounding areas for nearly five days.
"We lost 10 hours in the countdown yesterday due to inclement weather and almost lost the hope of making the launch. But working against all odds ISRO team has won the game," Nair said.
"The 360-tonne PSLV-C11 has precisely achieved the objective of placing the satellite in the orbit around the earth with its nearest point being 250 km (perigee) and the farthest around 23,000 km (apogee)," he said.
Nair expressed the hope that India would be able to send the first man-mission to moon from Indian soil before 2015 and that mars was the next natural destination for the ISRO.
Chandrayaan-1 was built at ISRO's Satellite Centre, Bangalore, with contribution from various wings of the space agency, including the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram.
The ground facilities of Chandrayaan-I would perform the highly important task of receiving the microwave containing the health information of the spacecraft as well as the valuable scientific information, which the spacecraft sends.
It also transmits the radio commands to be sent to the spacecraft during all the phases of its mission.
Three cheers for India!!! Hip!Hip!Hooray!!!

World Blogging day has come and gone ...and I dont have single piece on the topic "Poverty"..anyway better late than never.Most of the worthwhile things have already been said on Amrita's and Julia Dutta's blog.The singular thought that I had was if we as a nation wasted less food ,then we could see all of our poor fed. Each day as I walk past a three star hotel on our street, I am startled to see how much of rice and good food are wasted and thrashed in the garbage bin...the entire garbage can overflows on to the street with food. Recently, at college at a staff meeting the vice-chairman commented on how they dont know how to dispose of the vast amount of food that was left over in the hostels.They were talking in terms of finding land fills and the sort...pretty pathetic ...till I saw the other day while walking into the campus, a man on a scooter with two large containers of food strapped to the back seat, coming from the hostel.Evidently he and his community had found a worthwhile solutions. If more people distributed the food to the needy before it got bad, it would be a better world.

In keeping with the theme, Mariamma the other day made 'pakoras' (fritters) from quess what...cooked rice!!!!. Some cooked rice was left over so she mashed it with gram dal powder, onions, chillies , turmeric powder and deep fried it- it was quite tasty and the hot fritter went well with the rainy weather outside!!!

holidays

I am towards the end of my 12 days off from work- official holidays starting from Oct1 -Ramzan Id to Oct12th -(includes Gandhi Jayanthi and Dassera festivals) . I enjoyed the extra hours of sleep in the mornings (on College days I am up at 5.15am as the bus arrives at 6.45am and cruises through the shuttered streets of Chennai for an hour and half before arriving at the college gates) and the leisure of reading. Unfortunately the library that was just outside my home was bulldozed down together with half dozen shops that was the barber's, grocery, tailor,xerox ,tea shop as they were part of unauthorized construction and the municipal authorities were looking to widen the road. I felt saddened by its absence as he was well stocked on PG Wodehouse books and Robin Cook's series. I met the owner the other day while he was cycling distributing magazines to housewives and he said they had moved into the opposite street. Well..where there is a will there is a way... Anyway I had a few books that I had bought a year ago and plunged into it. I read R.K.Narayan's Malgudi days - a compilation of short stories on routine life in South India. Enjoyed it. Mariamma ( of breaking chair fame ...refer older posts) insisted on me getting some Tamil movie CDs and I obliged. There is a CD shop closeby and it is home delivery ..so it is convenient. I watched the Tamil heroes jump buildings , climb into fastrains and cars that jumped like it was doomsday while Mariamma danced to the Tamil Numbers ( fortunately she didnt break anything in the process this time). Mariamma also made Dahi Vada - a snack that is a delicacy from North India. It is made from Black gram dal that is soaked overnight and then ground to thick paste. Salt and cut ginger pieces are added to it and balls are added to hot oil and fried till light brown and immediately put in cold water for 2-3 mins. It is then gently squeezed to remove the water and put into the yogurt sauce that is seasoned with roasted cumin powder, green chillies, sugar, little salt, and dash of red chilli powder. Actually Mariamma made it South Indian style which meant she added onions and red chilli to the vada and didnt add sugar to the yogurt sauce. It was tasty nonetheless.

Teaching days

After a stint at grant writing, I am back to teaching M.Sc Biotech students. It has been a trying time as I am teaching a subject new to me - Cell and Tissue engineering to students who are completely new to all the terminology used (no similar subject at the Undergraduate Level) - so it might have been like the blind leading the blind but for my pre-lecture preparations. All my time is spent in it. Either I am lecturing or preparing for it !!! To compound matters, there are some students who sit in the back benches and dont take down notes- and obviously do badly in monthly tests. So I decided to dictate notes in class - this worked for most students. Or so I thought. Till I discovered that one of the students was writing more furiously than I was dictating. He was a picture of total commitment and dedication. But since I discovered that the rate at which I was dictating was less than the speed in which he was writing, my curiosity was aroused. So I decided to investigate. I asked for his notebook which he reluctantly parted with and tried to convey with his smile that the matter that he was furiously writing on was not one that I was dictating. I sat on the front benches ( there are no table and chair for the teacher - that is another matter) and went through his book. It was all about his likes and dislikes - how much he loved music and novels and would be better off with them. He went on pages and pages of his future line of action - business was for him and so on and so forth. He wrote at length of his friends and how he enjoyed hanging out with them. I closed the book and handed it back to him - trying to match his smile with a thought so!! I did not shout at him - as thoughts that he was going through a delicate phase in his life crowded my mind - I just meekly said all this is fine but you must think of Cell and Tissue Engineering sometime too. Two days later he was at the staff room with "Could I have all your notes . I will just xerox them" Wow it was a breakthrough - he was working towards a solution himself!!My day was done.