Career student.

Yes, its true. I wish to be one. I think there is something seriously masochistic about wanting to be a student for life. The horrible hours, the low pay and the lack of life. Then why do we do it? For me, its simply a combination of fear of the world outside and an interest in science that is narrowing down perpetually leaving me too specialized for the world outside. As long as I am safely ensconced in my lab, surrounded by familiar clicking and whirring noises, with only fellow nerds for company, I am happy. I wonder how long this will last though. One day, I'm sure I will want a different life. But there's a good decade between now and that time.

I am sure this comes as a shock to those of you who were with me during those years of wondering before I came out of the academic closet. I openly confess, I am a nerd.

But think about it some more. Doesnt this explain it all? The hours spent (voluntarily) in the Honours library at St. Xavier's College (not reading dirty limmericks, DP), the evenings spent at marine drive discussing some wonderful natural phenomenon, the obsessing over a greying Oxford scholar (may the blind watchmaker bless him), the moments of exhileration over a new discovery (when you know something that nobody in this world can claim to know, even if it is the fact that an hpr null B. subtilis mutant is still repression competent), and the pride I invariably felt when someone called me a geek (that's you, Marie).

This tells me that I should hang in there when the going's tough (like now, for example), since deep down I am the nerdiest of the nerds and can take the insults of this career. And when I am overwhelmed, there's always Spaaten and salsa. In that order.

Spring is in the air!!

This is the first time that I am witnessing the American obsession with weather up close. I have so much to learn! I can not believe I've lived most of my life not knowing that spring officially begins at the precise moment of vernal equinox, which this year happened to be 8:07 PM on march 21st (I think). The locals waited with such anticipation for the clock to strike 8:07 that I half expected the snow to melt, flowers to bloom, fresh leaves to spring out on bare branches and butterflies to emerge from cocoons all over the world, all in the time it takes for you to say 'aaarrrgggghhhh'.

Having an official start time for a season seems as preposterous to me as buying an incredibly sexy sports car on your 40th birthday knowing full well that you look just as ridiculous in it at 40 as you did at 39.

Explain to me why people wait for the official first day of spring t0 wear yellow, or go for a walk, or take anti-allergy medication. Time, tide and pollen wait for no man, I say. If you chose to trust your calendar more than your heart, you missed the day before spring which in my opinion was just as beautiful and fresh as the first day of spring. Also, how do you explain waxing eloquent about the joys of spring and screeching upon finding a beetle on your sleeve at the same time? I have a friend whose idea of communing with nature is speeding past everything in her car with her window rolled down (just a crack, lest those motherf*$&@ing bugs got in). She needs to watch the news to find out what the weather was like the day before. So guarded is she against all things natural, that she hops from her home to her car to her lab, so she doesnt have to know what the temperature outside is.

I guess, back home in Bombay you dont have an option. You can't get away from the weather if you tried. The weather is all pervading. It is in our homes and in our hearts. It brings with it not just flowers, rain and frangrances but also bugs, sweat and the flu. The monsoon for example is heralded not by the news channel but by the inexorable march of songbirds and cholera along the southwestern coast.

So what would you rather do? Observe the change in seasons first hand? Or have a stuffy meteorologist tell you when it is alright to have a little spring in your step or a hint of a smile on your face?