An Afternoon Jaunt

My last visit to jew town (at Kochi) was when I was 14years old and now after ALLL these years I went again, one afternoon with my friend who was visiting from Mumbai for her brother's wedding. To be honest, I was more enthusiastic about the antique stores and emporiums lined along the street than the piece of history the place is known for.

The place has an old world charm and with more western tourists than locals you forget you are in Kochi for a few seconds. Anyhows ..sharing a couple of pictures taken from my friend's iphone as I (as always) forgot to take my camera!

The clock tower next to the synagogue

A part of a dilapidated structure on Jew street

Hanging elephants: A shop display

Caught the sunset from a friend's apartment balcony @ Ernakulam

My Oscar Night

Like many others spent a good, solid 3-4 hrs following the Oscars on TV. I only enjoy the actual award ceremony but just to get into the festive Oscar mood the TV was left running from 4pm. We went about our respective business while getting snippets on who was wearing what and if or how good they looked from the red carpet fashion gurus.I am always amazed how much someone wearing a particular dress can be dissected, analyzed and criticized.
I thought this year's Oscar was one of the best...after a really long time. Perhaps it had to do with the presence of the classic Mr Billy Crystal although I did read somewhere that he was much subdued than his normal self. Well, I don't know...I thought some of his jokes were spot on and the bit with Melissa Mccarthy--ROFL!

So another Oscar sunday and these are a few of my favorite things...

- The host Mr.Billy Crystal (with his classic "I know what you are thinking" bit)
- Octavia Spenser winning best supporting
- Meryl Streep winning best actor
- Performance by Cirque Du Soleil (beyond awesome!)
- The host Mr.Billy Crystal
- Appearance by Will Farell and Zach Galifianakis with Cymbals
- Our own Mr A.R Rahman performing at the Oscars -those 5 precious seconds.
- The lovely rendition of "What a wonderful world" during the memoriam section
- The host Mr.Billy Crystal
- Oprah and a few other significant personalities receiving honorary Oscars!
hurray for Oprah!
- Mr. Christopher Plummer winning best supporting
- The excitement by team Artist for their staggering win under various important categories
- Colin Firth, Robert Downing, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Tom Cruise showing up
- The host Mr.Billy Crystal

And slightly unrelated but--Mr Steve Martin's twitter feeds from the Oscars! What a funny,funny man!

Travel Itch And Mid Week Blues

I am itching..itching to travel. Watched two movies over the week- Somewhere and Blue State. Both involved travel, a bit of travel romance and more travel. And now I want to travel..badly.Not so particular about the romance part...but travel? yes! But for now I'll just dream about it and I am so good at it, its ridiculous!

Speaking of movies, this sunday is the Oscars and Billy Crystal is hosting!Yaay!Super excited about that. But it feels a long way to go before sunday. Feeling impatient a.k.a mid week blues. Normally this is not the case as I rather go to campus and do something than stay home and do nothing. Its funny, but I cook better food and the house is cleaner when I am pressed for time. This week or weeks like this are exceptional. With all the health related setbacks I missed a few days of work and I am in a mad rush to compensate and catch up on all the backlog and by wednesday I am ready to crash. You have to see my desk -its like a bloody war zone. The plan is to clean up by friday and take a decent weekend break.

Monday we have a potluck planned at the lab. One of the lab mates is returning home. And thats that. Something on blue whales off the coast of SriLanka on TV.
Laters!

A Sprain And A "Lovesong"

I am a bit disappointed that I am not posting more often. But things happen that are beyond your control and also you dont always know what to say, which is often the case with me. I have been enjoying women the last few days---listening to them that is (yep I was being cheeky there). I created a new playlist in my ipod and playing them on a loop. This will go one until I get tired of it and discover a new set of songs I want to hear. This is my usual way.

Here is my highly recommended play list:
-One and Only and Someone Like You- by the amazing sounding Adele. The Grammys well deserved I must say.
-Rehab and You Know I'm No Good- by the fabulously talented and quirky-late Miss Amy Winehouse (RIP).
-Zombie and Ode to My Family by the cool sounding chick from Cranberries. Whats her name anyone?
-Ironic and Uninvited -by the woman with the strong voice Alanis Morissette.

There has also been a guy in the company of all these fabulous women- one of my favorite guys in music-Mr Dave Mathews and his band. I love his style, the way he sounds, his music and most of all the lyrics to his music. Listen to Crash into You, You and Me and The Space Between and decide for yourself.

So that in a nutshell is a report on the weekend music fest happening at the house and hope I did some service to humanity by suggesting soul stirring good music. Oh! you are very welcome.

Last sunday was crazy though. Suffered a severe sprain in the lumbar region and had to be taken to the ER where I spent the whole day. Calling it a crazy place would be an understatement. The things and sounds happening in the background does nothing to improve your condition even if it is something trivial as a sprain. But trust me this was no trivial sprian. The pain was so excruciating that I went all cold, on the verge of passing out and threw up twice. The first shot of morphine did not help at all and I thought I was going to die until I went into a Valium induced sleep. Some lab tests, a CAT Scan and probing (literally speaking) by specialists later it was decideded to have more tests over the weeks to come with a possibility of surgery. And although I continue to be in pain there is so much to do on the work/school front that I feel guilty of being unwell. For now I survive on Aleve and will power. Anyways, before this post turns anymore whiney I bid adieu with a lovely song by Adele, appropriately titled "Lovesong".



Yes, this one is in my list too and hope you are listening :)

A Weekend of Excess

It's raining here! Loving it and I also love my new office space! (I need to take a few pictures) By new office space I mean a new corner in our "messy" lab. Well, a messy looking lab.. in other words-there is an organization to the chaos or a method to the madness or an order to the messiness. Our Prof has a room, the two post-docs share a room and the rest of us occupy various spots in our big rambling lab (no, nothing to do with feng shui or vastu-just availability and preference among the chemicals , the equipments , the carts, the soil samples, an almost kitchen , a cycle, and not to mention the two gigantic tables whose purpose remains slightly ambiguous).

If my lab sounds crazy then my weekend was crazier. It was a combination of food fest, music fest, and sports fest at the house. Friday I piled up on groceries(blew up atleast two week's worth supply of groceries) and cooked as if it were my last days on earth.
The music scene was mostly rediscovering old, forgotten ones and I listened to a few of my favorites over and over again- Hey You by Floyd, November Rain by Guns &Roses, Crash into you-Dave Mathews....(Yes, please listen to them if you have not) and some. But I also had a surprising new discovery . A Hindi song from a recent movie called Rockstar. I have always liked Mohit Chauhan from his "dooba dooba" days and I thought he sounded great in Rockstar as well. But just this weekend I actually listened to Sadda Haq and kind of liked it. I thought the starting lyrics were pretty good or perhaps passionate is a better word?
As for sports - it was super bowl Sunday (a.k.a American football) and we gathered up some fake American superbowl spirit and watched the match until it became the real thing when we found the team we were rooting for was actually going to win! So it was fun but not the nail- biting -calling -out- explicits -at- the- tv- sitting -on- the -edge- heart- racing -fun (and I probably broke the world record for the longest hyphenated word) you have watching soccer (the "real" football) or even one day cricket.

Clearly a weekend of excess. Enough with my ramblings and time to get back to work. But before I go....

Tum logon ki, iss duniya mein
Har kadam pe, insaan ghalat
Main sahi samajh ke jo bhi karoon
Tum kehte ho ghalat !
Main ghalat hoon toh phir kaun sahi (phir kaun sahi)
Marzi se jeene ki bhi main
Kya tum sabko arzi doon
Matlab ki tum sab ka mujh pe
Mujh se bhi zyada haq hai

Sadda Haq Aithe Rakh

Mere dill mein ye khayaal aya ki-Kafi sachaayi hai in lafzoan mein :)

All About Weather

The weather's been pretty good here, although I have been a bit under the weather.
No sooner had I reached the campus yesterday morning when my world started spinning..literally I mean. K took me to the university clinic and after about two hours of tests that involved ECG and drawing of blood by the phlebotomist (yep, a new word I learned yesterday from the guy who was drawing my blood, a.k.a the phlebotomist), there is no clear verdict on the cause as the results will take two days. But I guess the doc did not want to send me home empty handed and so the condition was temporarily diagnosed as mild vertigo with an order to go home and rest which of course I was more than happy to follow. At home, in bed I had the choice between reading or watching /listening and I decided to go with the latter as I figured it involved less effort and therefore less energy expended.

Watched two emotionally draining (so much for attempting to save energy) movies- One Day (Anne Hathaway's) and Mr&Mrs Iyer (probably my 4th/5th viewing). This was followed by a lecture by Dr Ramchandra Guha (one of my favorite Indian intellectual/author) where he presented a fascinating analysis on India (I totally recommend it). A light lunch and some light snoozing thereafter I was felling pretty fine the rest of the day. Back in campus today already missing yesterday, minus the spinning ofcourse.

Going off on a tangent here, a bit on my trip home..I experienced Delhi winter again after a really long time. It was all foggy & cool which was lovely (except for the 5 hrs we spent in the plane waiting for the fog to clear before the ATC gave the green signal) and a bit downcast which according to me is the perfect weather...the kind of weather where you can easily forgive and easily be in love. See what I am talking about..


Cochin was a bit humid and warm but lovely and green as always and good company made up for any shortcomings if at all. I want to show off some more pictures from my local road trips..but another day when I want to talk less and let the image do the talking.