Writer's block followed by Mind block leading to laziness causing an unending saga of a stagnant blogspot...in short a WASTE of blogging space. In an effort to inspire myself to write I led myself to believe that maybe the MoJo in the blogspot site was lost and that moving to a new site was essential to infuse in me some new ideas and to rid of the block on my not yet so magical fingers. So followers please continue to follow me at:

http://veenaz.wordpress.com/

Thanks for reading!

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????

A Dozen New Year Resolutions to Break at the Advent of the New Year!!


1.Speak less so that the other person doesn’t zone out while I am talking

2.Speak less British words so as to receive less Bewildered looks from the Americans

3.Learn to say Oh my Gaad rather than Oh my GOD or just say OMG for I can save the energy lost in reiterating

4.Speak Slowly for I am not missing a flight

5.Work more to get reproducible negative results

6.Write my lab notebook everyday to keep a track of my progress

7.Read one paper a day on my research topic

8.Take less walks in Snow for a longer face time in the lab

9.Remember not to throw Snowballs on one’s face during a snowball fight for someone might get offended

10.Drink less to have a respectable reputation until I graduate

11.Learn to play and be a Pro at Trivia Pursuit so that atleast 1/10th of me feels like a Pseudo-American

12.Last but not the least…BE NICE to people




New Year Resolution to keep :


NEVER TO MAKE ANY RESOLUTIONS!!

Adrenaline rushes…..is something that comes naturally during winter:

The first snow: Four winters have passed and the first snow of the season always makes me want a snowball fight, take a stroll, look up into the sky and see where the snowflakes are falling from, stretch out my hand to hold some snowflakes in my palm ….. a valiant and yet an unsuccessful effort to appreciate the beautiful architecture of the flakes, take pictures, make footprints on untouched snow laden grounds and then get snow all over my clothes, make snow angels…..least did I know that this adrenaline rush comes with a price (after all nothing in this era is for free???!!!) ….white lines of salt on my trousers and shoes marking my actions in snow, with every new act in snow a new line right above the old one like the annual growth rings on a tree trunk!!!

Ice skating: Looks amazingly simple when you see a “Pro” skating, but the moment you set foot on the ice rink you know how grossly misled you were, similar to the advertisements that give a rosy picture to their viewers!! The first time was painful in multiple respects: I couldn’t get my feet into the mulish skates-third time into skating and the person renting out the skates mentions that I need to be wearing a Men’s 8 size [guess I am a Big Girl ;)]; spent an era contemplating whether the skates are taut enough to secure my feet and not be able to swivel my ankle; difficulty balancing and walking on blades; and then the worst of them all was getting on the Ice laden rink. The first step and BOOM….i crashed…..right on my Bum!! Try getting up yourself…..BAD IDEA…tried that and fell again. Finally my friend came to my rescue and I was back on my feet but this time I was hugging the rails so that I could try and maintain my balance (REALLY????) The first round was interesting for I was trying to understand the rules of skating – You are supposed to skate with your knees bent as if you are about to sit …..man does that sound painful??? Weeeeeeeeeeeeee………Wooooooooo were the gibberish expressions that everyone in the rink heard whenever I was even close to losing my balance. I think that was the reason my friend decided to leave me alone as she felt that she doesn’t want to be associated with a crazy person like me. The second round I was trying to realize my center of balance. The third round and a five year old comes up to me and says “ Hey….do you wanna play with me??” Sweet….Yea…but I barely know how to balance leave alone playing while skating....HAH!! Finally by the fifth round I was trying to skate without support….guess there was an iota of confidence a.k.a “OVER”confidence seeping into me! For about one tenth of a mile my feet were supporting my weight ….. a fraction of a second later and KABOOM….back on ice again! A dozen times my butt was on ice and I was done for the day!! The two other subsequent times that I went, were a year apart, so one could imagine how efficient I would have been on the skating rink! However, mishaps in the rink have still not despirited me....instead have boosted in more energy than ever to rein over ice with mere blades on my feet!!!

A sense of excitement fills my heart

For my eyes get clouded by the snow laden grounds

A strong gush of epinephrine excites every neuron in my body

For my mind plays games as snow falls from far above

A challenge to conquer the impossible inspires me

For I see myself in absolute hegemony of the ice

An awakening of the child in me overshadows my age

For I sense a feeling of Bliss engulfing every part of me

As the snow swathes every speck of the naked ground!!!

At 12 she was Somebody

For she was young and oblivious of what the world thought of her

At 16 she was Just “Some” “Body”

For the world equated her to her peers

At 18 she was Anybody

For she got entangled in the realm of equations

At 21 she was just a Body

For she transformed with every growing second

At 25 she was Nobody

For she was so intimately involved in revamping

That her “Identity” was no more than a mere Mirage!!!