Thursday, March 31

So I watched the cricket match - yes, the TEST match. It was such a disaster. I really think Ganguly should retire gracefully. I cant remember a captain ever being booed off a field or acting so stupid.
So, he was bowled for 2 by Danish Kaneria in the second innings, by a ball that turned at least a couple of feet, beat his bat by a mile and through a gigantic gap between bat and forward lunging pad smashed into the off stump. Dada stood his ground and asked the umpire whether the wicketkeeper had removed the bails???? I mean it was a crash..loud enough for everyone in the stadium to hear!!

Either way it was a shameful performance. Some friends of mine were discussing this over dinner, and mentioned that it was quite possible that some members of the team lost this match purposely to lose Ganguly his captaincy. I cant believe that, except that there was quite a few comments made to somehow make me believe that it wasn't improbable.
For example, Ganguly was pointedly asked whether Tendu was asked to play to a plan. Tendu and Ganguly had a disagreement on the field when Tendu was bowling. Manjrekar mentioned it as well. So, a bit suspicious...

Formula One is finally getting exciting, Sania Mirza was brought down to earth with a first round loss, Federer is in awesome form and Henman with a 6-3 record against him is backing himslef to give the Swiss a run for his money, Wales won the Grandslam, Aussies thrashed the Kiwis ...AGAIN, Narain might be around next year if he continues like this...Fingers crossed and finally our man Anand after playing very poorly in Linares is in fine form at the Monaco Rapid tourney.

I am not a Chess fan in the sense that I cant tell between a Kings Indian and a Sicilian opening, but I must admit that Kasparov's retirement makes me sad. I never liked him and read an interview The Independent conducted and he is arrogant, opinionated and rude BUT probably the best ever. I think it takes away from any victory now if you havent beated Kasparov. I dont think Anand or Kramnik will ever feel satisfied being world champion without defeating Gary.
Kasparov is now moving to politics and is launching an aggressive campaign against Putin, who he believes has made Russia as corrput, poor and suppressed as the erstwhile Communist regimes.

To end here is my tribute to Gary and all the other great sportstars out there :
This was written more than a century ago, but somehow still holds true -

WHAT makes a hero?—not success, not fame,
Inebriate merchants, and the loud acclaim
Of glutted Avarice,—caps toss’d up in air,
Or pen of journalist with flourish fair;
Bells peal’d, stars, ribbons, and a titular name—
These, though his rightful tribute, he can spare;
His rightful tribute, not his end or aim,
Or true reward; for never yet did these
Refresh the soul, or set the heart at ease.
What makes a hero?—An heroic mind,
Express’d in action, in endurance prov’d.
And if there be preeminence of right,
Deriv’d through pain well suffer’d, to the height
Of rank heroic, ’t is to bear unmov’d,
Not toil, not risk, not rage of sea or wind,
Not the brute fury of barbarians blind,
But worse—ingratitude and poisonous darts,
Launch’d by the country he had serv’d and lov’d:
This, with a free, unclouded spirit pure,
This, in the strength of silence to endure,

A dignity to noble deeds imparts
Beyond the gauds and trappings of renown;
This is the hero’s complement and crown;
This miss’d, one struggle had been wanting still,
One glorious triumph of the heroic will,
One self-approval in his heart of hearts.


Wednesday, March 30

Haven't blogged for years! Why? So, I had my lab talk on 17th which was quite ok. I have some really interesting stuff to show over the next couple of months.
Then soon after I was visited by Ms."SPOS" and have spent the last weekend there getting to know their family better.
Learnt some piano from her 8 year old niece and finally broke my chocolate fast by eating tons of chocolate and making a disastrous brownie. I seem to have very varied results with my brownies. I made one some time ago and it was a beaut! Have taken a photo with it which I shall put up soon.

Anyway, a friend of mine has had family affected in the Indonesian earthquake on Nias. His family was in Nias and I pray that his family is well. I feel horrible sitting here comfortably ensconed in life in Oxford, eating out, going to the lab, watching movies. Its like a cocoon and often it seems I live in another universe. You know how we complain about Americans not knowing anything beyond America, I sort of understand that. It is really difficult to imagine and to a certain extent empathise with the situation in Indonesia. It is very hard to fathom and relate to the difficulties of daily living in that part of the world, and if I cant begin to feel the sufferings of these unlucky people, it must be close to impossible for Americans to.

What is wrong with that country? What is wrong with the world? How can you subject one region to so much grief and sadness? Why there is such inequality to children? why are some children born into wealth and comfort while others are left desolate and orphaned even before they are old enough to walk? - Is this what they mean by Karma?

This is for all the times I spent at home listening to Bujul's "noise"
What else could I write
I don't have the right
What else should I be
All apologies

Sunday, March 13

Science?

The Ig Nobel ceremony came to Oxford on Friday. I opted to spend time with friends instead of attending a farcical and often unamusing circus. I spent time getting my palm read and getting tips from Will Smith in Hitch. He used some very classy lines, must remember to use them on SPOS!! It is a reasonably decent romcom, with some funny scenes but like most romcoms gets extremely mushy and corny towards the end. Not recommended for cynics and those without prior experience in watching romcoms.

I was told that I would live till 80 which meant all my aspirations to greatness have been shattered. Ever since I read that Alexander and a few other famous men died young aged 33, I have always hoped that I shall do so as well, but it was not my destiny.

Anyway, I have watched the Ig Nobel ceremony held at Harvard last year and like most other American things I slowly came to dislike it. You can watch the ceremony here.
My main concern about the Ig Nobel is that it recgonises bad science and slowly it appears to award prizes in direct proportion to vulgarity.

I appreciate a minority of the awards given. For example, Peace Prize to person who invented karaoke, thus teaching people to tolerate each other or the letter published in Nature about people's perception of politicians.

If you read the organisers argument for the Ig, he says that it is a prize recgonising :
1.Firstness - I have rarely come across prizes given to people who do things second.
2. It is neither good or bad, or commendable but is something which cannot or should not be repeated - If you do something which cannot or should not be repeated or remade or used again what is the point of doing it.

Lots of people work on identifying cell proteins which most people will not work on again, but that doesn't mean it is useless. Science must be first and foremost useful.

If the Ig was started and is run with the aim of encouraging and igniting interest in Science, Medicine and Technology it cannot and in my opinion SHOULD NOT be done by highlighting useless science.
I have always wondered how children are interested in pursuing science if they believe that medicine is about investigating the angle of the penis in the vagina during sexual intercourse by using MRI!!!

I think people believe that making fun of science might help in demystifying it and popularising it. I dont believe that is true, science is made interesting by demystifying nature and explaining the rationality of natural phenomenon. I disbelieve the notion that the Ig makes uninterested people suddenly curious about science.

I must admit that some of the science applauded is good science and all is published,but if the aim of doing that is to popularise science and recgonise that everyone has done something, then you must explain the science behind it.
It is interesting to know that herrings communicate by farting, just because a lot of us are curious to know how dolphins communicate, do dogs have their own languages etc. but I am not interested in knowing about belly button lint, or for that matter praising someone who has sat down and researched 70 things that have irritated him.

Here is the list of winners and I leave you to make up your own mind. Just remember that the person who won by investigating homosexual necrophiliac ducks was getting paid to do it!!

The aim of research is the discovery of the equations which subsist between the elements of phenomena.
Mach, Ernst (1838 - 1916) Austrian physicist and philosopher

Saturday, March 12

Random Thoughts

I have been really lethargic this week. Done no work at home, lab or other ECA. My brother it seems has suddenly become this high-flier, winning moots and debates. He earned 700 bucks for coming second in some debate and seems to be making a living from talking and arguing (hang on isn't that what he is studying law to do!!)

Coming to the unphonetic nature of the English Surnames(just like mine), it has been the butt of jokes for years now. I was first taught how to go from FISH to GHOTI. Rather easy transformation. But, notice a few other peculiarities.

Here is the longest surname in the England : Featherstonehaugh, but some lazy guy decided enough! I cant go around calling my best friend "Fea ther stone hau gh" everytime I wanted to call him and so decided to shorten it to "Fanshawe".

Ingenious people! You see when you invent a language and are close to the only people in the world speaking it, you can say anything you want and it becomes language. I mean, look at the Americans. They actually believe they now speak a completely different language : American English. How I wish IBM and Microsoft and were English companies and stopped giving us the option of American English spellings.

Here are a few more surnames, Cholmondley - Chumley and of course the common Beauchamp became Beecham.

Anyway, let us deviate from what appears to have become my obsession with names and move onto some sport news.

Karthikeyan finished the Australian GP!! GREAT GOING. If he can finish 80% of the races this season in his car given all the draconian rules introduced this season. Me thinks the rules are refreshing change to the season and should provide some excitement and competition. I stopped watching formula one last year, when it seemed that people were fighting for second place. I like Schumi, but I think he should lose the first couple of races. I have yet to see Schumi being pushed really hard in the last couple of years, the last person I think to do that was Mika Hakkinen and they had some classic races!! Hope it happens again.

Sania Mirza, the darling of Indian tennis is now ranked a fantastic 77 in the world. However, she finally discovered the pressures of being a crowd and match favourite at the Dubai Classic. After riding on crowd support to beat Kusnetsova (world no.7) she lost in straight sets to Jelena Jankovic. I hope she builds her body a bit and really works on her serve and fitness. She already has an ankle injury and that is after 6 months of serious touring. She really must try and stay fitter. The last thing you want to do is the Belgian Syndrome. Both Belgian women out of action for close to 6 months now and just dropping out of the rankings!!

I have a lab presentation next week and have a few jabs to do and hopefully some exciting results shall come my way. It should be fun!! Immunology is really interesting and exciting. We have some new theories about things discovered 3 years ago and its fascinating to learn about memory T cells and B cells and how we need to vaccinate at different times. It is such a fast moving field and great area to work in. I am learning a lot from my Mexican postdoc, whose Birthday it was yesterday.

Now before I forget and I soon shall I am putting down people's birthdates here that I have learnt over the last couple of days.

Ms."Happiness" - 12th Jan, Ms."Palm Reader" - November 2??, Mr."peace" May 7th, Mr."Halfmoon" - 28th March( for whom I am ordering gift from the land of the free)
Ms."Blue Sky" July12th. SG - April 11th. RA - Feb 16th

Some utility of this blog other than keeping my mother informed about my whereabouts. Ok, I am now off to the lab.

BTW, discovered this great Indian restaurant in Oxford yesterday. The only place in Oxford where you are served good Indian food, with some taste. I went to Mirch masala the other day and the food, service, decor, portions were Awful. In short the place was a disaster. Of course, it was someone's b'day and you put on a brave face and praise their choice of restaurant. Of course, the sad thing is the person had been to the place before and thought the place was good.

I hate Indian restaurants in Oxford. They are not authentic, serve food that tastes awful and are exorbitantly expensive. I have only once been to an Indian restaurant out of my own volition and that was a disaster as well. So, back to point ..... Qumins this great place and shall go there again once Ms."Second para of song"( henceforth in bollywood style abbreviated to SPOG) gets here.

Now I really have to get to work and get my lazy bum to the lab.

My early morning thought for the day :

Lazy people are always anxious to be doing something.
and with that I run off to do my myriad other activities

Friday, March 4

Whats in a name?

I love my name, its unique and it means something AND i wuldn't change it for anything in the world.

Someone wrote : "Whats in a name?". Without thinking you would have to say the person is from the UK. (This taking into consideration that at the point of writing this memorable, now cliched truism there was no USA). Point being that it is only in countries where names often dont mean anything could this be written. For example, Radha cannot be the same as Damayanti can it? ( I mean they are different centuries) But, Jane and Jeanne??!!!

Here are some quotes about names and then I shall pick up from where I left off.

`It's giving girls names like that', said Buggins, `that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane.'
Wells, H. G. (1866 - 1946)British writer. Referring to the name Euphemia. Kipps, Bk. I, Ch. 4

SEE WHAT I MEAN!!!

Here is another just to drive the point home!

'Ball...how very singular'.
Beecham, Thomas (1879 - 1961)British conductor. To a man called Ball. Sir Thomas Beecham

I'm called Little Buttercup - dear Little Buttercup,
Though I could never tell why
And I am called Saranya, dear old Saranya and I can never tell why!!
Few oft asked questions :
1. Isn't it a girl's name?
2. Don't you pronounce it as Sharanya? Why dont you write it as that?
3. what does it mean?
4. I have never heard it before? Are you Indian?
Of course, what often happens and now a major source of giggling laughter is when I receive formal letters addressed to Ms. Saranya Sridhar. I remember getting one from the Sri Lankan government!! Its then I appreciate the English custom of addressing everyone by their first name without any prefix. Who cares about gender when you are addressed as Jaspreet, Kiran, Shaheen instead of Mr.Jaspreet, Ms.Kiran and Ms.Shaheen.
So, this is what I tell everyone(although it would be great to know the truth).
My grandmother, a lovely old (now deceased lady, its always better to fib when the true source of information cannot be reached) lady was hell bent on getting a girl. This was because my grandfather( another lovely old man, since deceased) was in great debt to a fellow. My grandmom, always the shrewd one, deciding to make a deal for all her debts, promised her unborn grand-daughter to this Shylock fellow's 2 year old grandson. ( When I was told this story in class IX, after reading MoV wondered who the Shylock was!!)
Those of you who are shocked at this point by age-old barbaric Indian baby selling customs, STOP READING.
But as luck would have it my dear mother didn't comply and produced a son. While in every other family, this might have led to outpourings of joy, in my grandparents mansion (soon to be taken away) four forlorn people sat around a GREEN EYED MONSTER.
Did I tell you my grandmom was the shrewd one? Yeah..so here is she what she came up with.
"lets give the kid a girl's name and throw a huge party(she was a party lady as well) and the naming ceremony blah blah blah", she said. " We can say that the child is unwell and still in hospital or something and still confuse Shylock". Convoluted thinking, ufff.... nowadays they would say something like I was gay or something and that would be it!
So, in short that was how I got my name or at least, thats what my mom told me!
All characters in this story are untrue and based on non-fictional people. I take all responsibility for any untruths or confabulations that may have arisen in the narration of this story based on true events.
So, the next time you write to someone called Saranya, the least you would do is refrain from assuming their gender.
And finally, the trite expression that sparked this outburst :
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet
yeah, right......

Tsunami Concert

Hi! Have really been busy last week organising a Tsunami Charity Concert in collaboration with the Indonesian Students Society. That was fun, we raised £1300, got told off by the venue management that we had overcrowded the place, served some green and brown concoction we tried to pass off as Jal Jeera and "More". Truly atrocious organising but in true South East Asian form the event was a success!!! People went back happy having sampled some Indian and Indonesian culture.

But, before I begin bitching I am really happy someone other than Ms." Second para of song" and my mom read this blog! I got a comment from Dr."Maths is Horrible"!! Yay!

Ok, back to event details. Pictures shall be put up soon and the link sent to all concerned.
We started off with Gamelan which is a bronze percussion orchestra from Java. Played by some Indonesiophiles (I dont know the actual word for them) it was supposedly very nice. Others in event management shall commiserate with my situation. Organisers never get to watch the show!

Rumor and feedback has it that it was a good peformance and they loved the way "the music rained on them". Anyway, the gamelan were a nuisance to say the least. They wanted special Indonesian food(ridiculous) and some housewives in Reading were cajoled into making it for them. They wanted three car parking facilities despite being warned there are only two!
The natak these performers have!!

Next we had three (two gorgeous) girls doing an Indonesian dance with japanese fans..hmmm...
One of them reminded me of a friend of mine from school - Ms."Red Light bus" with Elvis Presley sideburns. Anyway, even if you concentrated on the two similing pleasant looking ones, it gets slightly tedious to watch three sarong wrapped women fanning themselves and doing the same dance moves for 15 minutes.
What I forgot to mention is that the sound system failed and like many school performances, we had to fast forward and rewind the tape for a long time.

Next was Ms. DC(Dark chocolate) who gave a magnificent performance. By far, the best of the evening. Technically perfect, nice music, it was a pleasure to listen to her play. 10/10. She made my day!!

Then a dance by Ms."Blue Sky". I thought it was good. She missed a couple of beats and steps, but otherwise flawless. However, I was told by higher authorities and professionals like Ms."Happiness" that it was not brilliant. She did not hold her torso up as firmly as she should and more importantly she wasn't feeling the dance! 8/10

We had a break where we proceeded to serve disastrous "traditional Indian drinks" (Yuck!). Next was Ms/Dr."Dancer" who in her first performance was terrible. Now, I dont know a lot about dance, but when someone seems to be losing balance while spinning, I suspect it isnt right. The worst bit was when she began spinning on her knees and almost banged into the wall. It was a difficult display to watch. Ungraceful and mechanical. She did another piece, Maiya Mori which was better and in my opinion saved her a few blushes. 7/10 extra marks for crowd involvment and presentation.

Then, we were treated to a childish, lost and pathetic Balinese dance performed by Ms."Red line bus with large sideburns". As my Indonesian friends told me, it was embarassing to watch. It turned out as a fusion between break dance and a stroll in theparks. My dear Balinese lady, this is no way to protest the bomb that went off in your country. Torturing innocent children and adults makes you as much of a criminal as the terrorists!

Last we had a martial arts display. fantastic stuff. graceful, strong,skillful it was a delight and the crowd favourite. 10/10

Ok, enough bitching for a day, now back to some experiments. Jabbing some stuff. Lets hope it gives some nice results.
Some idea of what I felt like on the day managing the ticketing :

Proportion ... You can’t help thinking about it during the concert, where it doesn’t exist.... It’s like listening to a symphony of cats to walk along them. Senseless discords and a horrible disorder all the way.... A concert of Brobdingnagian cats. Order has been turned into a disgusting chaos. We need no barbarians from outside; they’re on the premises, all the time