It has been a really long time since i last blogged ... and the last time i had attempted it i had been put off by a truant keyboard with the most infuriating space bar that completely disrupted my thought process. So I thought maybe the higher forces of nature have something to do with this and maybe the Gods willed me not to blog. But this time there appears to be no such barrier between me and my long-lost friend- the blogger. So here i am. There was a time not-so-long-ago when i had started blogging with such frequency that not a day went by when i had not put a word online (as opposed to putting pen to paper that is) ... The increasing obsession with the blog was a little frightening when it happened and in retrospect i think it was a blessing in disguise that there was a break in it when it mattered ...
my major reason in blogging was to give vent to some of the pressures that i was under at that point of time ( read organisation of one phenomenon called Spring Fest ) .... and frankly speaking it was effective in that particular aspect ... of course there was the occasional tit-bit about the latest raging debates of campus life and some particularly unpleasant experiences in the classroom ... but let me come back to the point ... this summer i was in hyderabad for a two-month summer training in CCMB ... for the unintiated that spells out as Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology ... the work was hectic to say the least, with 6-day-weeks, and hours extending quite often beyond what is considered human hours ... but guess what ??? i actually enjoyed it ... i mean ever since i set foot in kgp i have got more and more disillusioned with academics or anything remotely associated with it ... and in this i was aided quite a lot by my dept and the sometimes appalling atrocities that go on over there in the name of teaching ... of what is supposed to be the "purest" of the sciences ... and in the midst of all the bitterness that was welling inside of me like a volcano about to erupt, this period in CCMB was like a breath of fresh air ... i WORKED more than i have in the last 3 years of college life ... but more importantly i LEARNT more than i have in the last three years in kgp ... and at the end of it i actually felt i have gained an invaluable insight into what i think i want to do in the future ... that i can safely say is something i had no idea about even a few months ago ... but this was not all ...
during this time i also had a chance to interact with a lot of people coming from a lot of different backgrounds ... summer trainees all, from all corners of the country, but amazingly like-minded in a lot of things ... we had a number of musical sessions accompanied by my old friend, the guitar, and a number of eager, if uncertain, voices ... its amazing how powerful music can be in breaking the ice between people ... one moment u have relative strangers sitting around in an awkward silence ... and the very next moment u have an enthusiastic bunch of people swaying to the strains of a well-known tune ... i guess music appeals to the sub-conscious and brings out feelings that would otherwise have lain below the surface ... hence i had people who considered themselves as "bathroom singers", opening up and singing along to some melodies, quite oblivious to whether it sounded off-key or not ... and somehow none of us seemed to mind ... coz at such times it is the emotions that matter and not the exactness of the tune or any of those rigid frameworks that exist in music ... that is when we actually realise the true significance of music as a force that binds ... a cohesive force that pervades barriers and opens the mind to the beauty of the world around us ...
all-in-all it was a great experience ... one that i would be eager to repeat given another opportunity ... and definitely one that i will never forget ...
8 years ago
