TRANCE...

1.       I am on some beach with my family and few friends …we find a place to settle down and hog on some sandwiches that we packed for ourselves and head straight to the waves. Its day time but its not sunny as one might expect. But it’s just a perfect day as it happens to be in the month of July in Mumbai…all cloudy dark and rainy…a day when you feel hitting the Worli Sea face and getting hit by those marvellous but dangerous waves!Now amidst enjoying our splashes in the kind of violent sea suddenly with one wave we all get  smeared with sand what is popularly known as ‘reti’ the grayish black one. And I manage to kind of take it along with the water down my throat. So now its kind of chocking me, I am coughing hard, spitting at a very high frequency…in the middle of this may be when I am in the TRANCE  of sleep and being awake I open my eyes see myself lying on my bed and trying to spit! A part of hygiene conscious, neat and tidy me saying don’t spit you will spoil your bed!!! Other which is fortunately more practical (and understands life comes a zillion light years before being clean and all that) saying you are chocking you idiot spit, spIT, SPIT and… I open my eyes SPIT! Observe that it’s just few drops of saliva there wipe it off and sleep back!!! After I get up few hours later I feel eew for once and then feel thankful...my survival instincts are all at place and functional! :) 
2.     I was at some pool in Mumbai it was an awesome huge pool I must say, swimming rounds after rounds enjoying all the swim activity TOTALLY. The pool was scarcely populated I mean may be 5-6 ppl in that huge pool so no one can possibly bump into each other. I get out of the pool and meet one of my acquaintances she is a doc now from JJ and suddenly there is some another lady there who starts interviewing her right there! She asks her a question it was some nice question I remember just that… to which my friend cant answer...at the same time even I am thinking of the answer but can’t get to it...I kind of give up! The lady who asked the question in the first place she herself answers it … can you beat that!!! And in the TRANCE as I call it … I am wondering DAMN IT its my BRAIN - my DREAM, my brain is formulating these questions that are coming through this lady and still I myself can’t answer it at one moment and at the very next moment MY very own brain answers it through that god damn lady!!! COMPLICATED phew!Later in the morning I tried real hard to remember that question but failed! But I must say it was a good question cause it gave me a nice feeling when it was asked and again when it was answered! :)
3.      Now this was just outside Matunga central station I am alone I mean there are people around me like they would have been near the stn as always but I am not accompanied by any of my friends or colleagues or acquaintances. I am heading towards the stn and I see one man heading in opposite direction to which I am moving …we both cross each other and at the very moment I smell that he is heavily drunk and say to myself ‘bevada s****’ Now again in the trance I think how can I smell in my dreams and believe me I actually did smell in real, that moment!!! I mean seeing a thing clearly is kind of okay normal, but this was the first time I smelt in my dream! It was kind of eureka moment in my sleep and I slept again!My first encounter with smell in my dream! Don’t know why but I was kind of happy that morning! It was as if I had discovered re-discovered the sense of smell…! lol
4.      Once I was on a visit to some school or college and there was this huge old building which had an auditorium hosting some function. Don’t remember what was the assembly all about but I was there to attend.  The auditorium was filled with students - girls and boys at least 500 (rounded off to lowest fig. definitely much more) all were seated occupying the benches /chair whatever. I was moving back towards the end rows in search of a seat. Trust me I could actually see faces of all the students I passed none of them I knew or have had seen before or even later in my life! Again in the TRANCE I think how my mind can make up these distinct,entire human faces all at once! I am over burdening it of generating too much of data… move out, move out of the auditorium...NOW  and I moved out and my dream continued outside the Audi!

I  wonder in awe about the marvellous thing that evolved and happened to all of us called BRAIN!!!

P.S : Article in SciAm on 'seeing' in the dreams! 

What are you working on?

A question that comes to me *too* often these days after the initial greetings and what are you upto these days inquiries!

I truly appreciate the curiosity and I like it when someone is interested in knowing what kind of work do I do?

BUT the point is the people asking this very *interesting* questions are in our common usage terms *layman*

Just to give an example,

If I am working in the depths of Mariana trench, they are at the shore/the beach! And now, how will one at the shore in *unscientific (read sane/layman)* terms understand and if by a very gross mistake understand; appreciate the need, fun and challenge in doing something AWESOME called *RESEARCH* which in the general perception is a boring, insane activity restricted to the nerdy, whimsical minority!

I mean when I was working for my dissertation,

I at least had *circuits* handy- to which if I attach genetic its okay! Cause out of *genetic circuits* people definitely have heard of circuits (I don’t expect them to know what it is, the meaning part, except for those with science background) but it’s okay I mean! SAVER

And then comes *protein* (in my mind- sorry no substitute available here, might give milk protein caesin as an example but no SUBSTITUTE) and then this *protein* (still the person figuring out what I just said) is never produced in constant amount (Why? I don’t allow them to ask or this question never comes to the person’s mind, don’t know! BUT THANK GOD) so, we have designed a circuit which will produce the protein in constant amounts! Tadaa!!!

And there is SILENCE Golden SILENCE until one of us comes up with a CHANGE of Topic!!!

BTW now I work on expression of stress, cell division and repair related genes in E.coli, which has been evolved for 2000 generations in the lab under Oligophilic low nutrient conditions!

I better not talk about this one!!! STRESS (in cell?) REPAIR (what to repair, in a cell?) and EVOLUTION!!! (BTW almost everyone knows or has heard of Darwin J )

(I wish to appear SANE to the layman’s world, I am no different! I am your kin, your species! )

I think every RESEARCHER/someone doing SCIENCE must have gone through such a dilemma where you are so eager to talk about your work; but even after trying hard, harder and still Hard(btw if you do this you are boring) you are not satisfied with your own explanation and convinced that the other person *layman* has not understood it! I go through this definitely!

Nonetheless, howsoever boring I might sound while I talk about my work to you (which is in the *true* sense, is not boring, you fail to appreciate it due to: still figuring out what?)

I LOVE DOING IT

IT’S AWESOME

NOTHING ELSE MATTERS!!!

            

P.S: All special characters are intended!