One minute it was this gorgeous looking, beautifully carved Strawberry Mousse cake and the next it is a flattened, smashed, tarnished, sad looking mushed THING! Such is the efficiency of Veena the CAKE KILLER.

This was the day I re-joined lab after a scientific burst of information at a conference in San Diego at the Salk Institute ensued by an EXPLOSION of unlimited fun in San Francisco…in short the Gorgeous Mountainous California. I was barely getting over the fact that my teeny weeny vacation (actually any vacation seems less) had culminated and while just about when I was reorienting myself to the CST and the lab premises as opposed to the gorgeous ranges and the Red colored GOLDEN gate bridge my lab-mate informed me of the most enticing and delicate looking, meticulously prepared strawberry mousse cake (reiterations are essential in an effort to assert the beauty of the cake)prepared by the tech in my lab who had recently begun exploring the baking world! My very first instinct was to run amok, get a piece for myself and devour every crumb of it to the best of my capabilities. Instead I chose otherwise…..I decided to be a bit LADY LIKE and wait unto eternity a.k.a let my salivary glands prepare for the big event, suffer before I actually introduce them to something wonderful so as to make them appreciate it better than they normally would. Finally the moment arrived when I could wait no longer, resist no longer and decided to take the plunge. I went into the coffee room, walked to the cake box, and while talking to the person who made it, I tried opening the box but for some reason the box was unyielding making me more anxious than ever. Trying harder to make the box succumb to my pressure was a terrible idea for the box slipped. Trying hard to not let it fall on the ground was even worse for the box toppled even further, went upside down and SPLAT on my shoe. The beautiful Strawberry Mousse Cake NO MORE. There was a momentary 2 minute silence in remembrance of the mighty cake followed by a forlorn face and strings of apologies flying everywhere. The tech gave a shrieky shriek and then went into peels of laughter. Momentarily I thought that watching the cake undergo the drastic transition made her insane and that any moment she would pounce on me and eat me alive. Fortunately I was wrong and she was genuinely amused for there existed “NOONE…..NOONE who could’ve performed such a difficult task to such a perfection” (as stated by the post-doctoral fellow in my lab).

One dire deed sweeps thousand virtuous ones. Killing the Cake flounced every noble act I had amassed in the times of yore. Standing on square one I now wait when I have yet again accumulated a thousand noble acts but this time striving hard to preserve its integrity! Whether or not I would see this plan being victorious is for time to tell.

Kripya Prateeksha Karein Aap Kataar mein hain....Please wait you are in Queue....Were the words that arouse the DEVIL in me while I was reading my cousin's blog and I stumbled upon those last profound words by none other than the literature GOD - William Shakespeare. Here it is:

“How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank.
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.”

- William Shakespeare (Very Romantic and Deep indeed)
For some reason I was constantly smiling while reading this and something in me kept instigating me to translate it into Hindi just to see how Ridonkulous this could sound. Most, if not all the Hi-Tech Hollywood movies get dubbed in hindi because they can't be re-filmed with the Bollywood actors (Thank God for the little mercies) for a valid and a sensible reason that re-filming the very same movie with the Sean Connery likes in Bollywood or the Pierce Brosnan likes in Indian film industry would be nothing less than plain simple ATROCIOUS!!!Having lived in New Delhi for 23years of my life, the very same Bollywood effect (sounds like the El-Nino phenomena right?) forced me so to say to translate this beautiful piece of literature to Hindi. For those who can understand Hindi read it and enjoy it and the Hindi Illiterates just Believe when I say that the translated version is Perfect!!

"Kitni meethi hai yeh chand ki roshni sothey huey is kinaare
Yahaan hum baithenge aur is sangeet ki dhwani ko
Raingne dein in kaanon mein; komal pavanrahittha, aur yeh raat
Banne dein is meethi taalmail ka sparsh"

-Veeliyam Shakespeare


This was the closest I could get to try and break the Writers/Thinkers/Lazy Ass goers/ Blah Blah block that I have been having for over 4 months now!! Alas...not too successful...Until the next time Adios Amigos. :)

Heard of Telekinetic pinches?? Well I heard this term for the first time but I experienced one before terming my experience as one!! Its all in the dreams…you dream funny things, scary things, weird things, dreams within dreams but dreaming that something is happening for real is freaky!!!

The dream from last night was one of its own kind…The basis behind my dream was not only a recent conversation with a friend but also the sense of longing for a break….a getaway from the rigmaroles of day to day life for as long as I can remember now (Time is relative when you yearn for something!!). So....I have a night out at my friend’s place and the next day he rents a car from I-Go car sharing on MY name….hah…One, my friend doesn’t have a license and definitely doesn’t have my username or password for the car sharing site…but of course it’s a dream and dreams are like Bollywood movies where a single bullet can be torn apart into 6 to kill 7 targets!!! Oh well….moving ahead….So we start driving and while driving towards Milwaukee to pick up my friend’s bro , the road I visualize is the Nelson Mandela Road in New Delhi where I have lived 23 years of my life. The fact that I love Delhi a lot can account for seeing the road but, my friend who doesn’t have a license, books a car on my name with God Knows what username and password is driving to Milwaukee on a New Delhi road????? I sense something which can be spelled as W E I R D!!!! Anyways….we reach Milwaukee and my friend goes into his bro’s office and forces him to take a leave by telling a lie that there is a family emergency! We then head to Michigan….YAYYYYYYY!!! Something in me on the way to Michigan shouts out loud that it is a dream and it is not happening for real as a plan as sudden and drastic as this cannot materialize so easily!!! So I tell my friend’s bro to pinch me to make sure I am alive and in a real world and definitely in the car that is headed to a GETAWAY!! My friends start teasing me coz they feel I am being histrionic (like any typical male would call a typical Woman!) but I fight my way out and make my friend pinch me. Well…..GUESS WHAT???????? I feel that pinch in the dream (that’s the telekinetic pinch from my friend living in Milwaukee in my dream) and then feeling elated that I felt the pinch I realize that the trip to Michigan indeed is a reality and not a MERE dream. In that ecstatic moment, I raise my hand extend it forward to grab something in the car and BAM….my fingers hit the wall in front of me HARDDDD…..and this wakes me up to the SAD “REAL” reality that I was indeed dreaming!!! That just proved one thing : That my instincts are DEFINITELY not dead when I am sleeping and that even within a dream my brain can think of ways to convince me that I am in a real world, doing real things, with real people who apparently can pinch me and call me HISTRIONIC and not being just a mere fictional entity. Now the Question is....Do I actually get a REAL GETAWAY????