Deep Adhya, PhD

Where I am working now, is the heartland of the big cat, the leopard. I do research while leopards hang out in the surrounding jungle, oblivious of our existence. I the middle of Manesar, in Haryana, just where I am located now, lies the edge of the Aravalli range, the home to famous Indian dacoits and the Indian leopard. It is one of the few natural habitats of the big cat left in the country, and that itself seems to be a greater matter of concern than a thing of pride. A couple of years ago, leopards had been spotted in Teekli village off SH-13, and it wasn’t one leopard or one family of the cat, but at least five to six families of leopards spotted at different times near and about that village. The sad but obvious story surrounding any wild animal is the continuous shrinking of their habitat and a continuous encroachment by the multiplying human population. The same story holds true for the leopards of Manesar, Haryana. Leopards here in their natural, unprotected environment have ...

My brain is a tangle of mangled neurons. The thoughts forming in my mind are taking their own course then suddenly losing the plot and going any which way it likes. The urge to express my thoughts verbally has been lost somewhere in the loo that is blowing over North India. What is even worse is that I cannot write anything of much sense, and ending up thinking weirdly and negatively in a very cynical manner yet without the cynical sense of humor. There seems to be a lack of purpose, and of romance in my thoughts, and the dreary life of reasoning seems to have awakened in me finally, to drown me into its vast sea. I can feel a certain unease in my thoughts, and also in the foreboding of more boring days to come. The quality of nervous spikes that are keeping me from dozing off is diminishing, and I am dozing off, slowly. Slow, yes that’s the word that suits the moment. Things are very slow and there is that hint of monotony creeping up already. Desperation, it is rising in my soul, to ...

I just want to say that in this terrible weather, I was sitting in my lab, in the AC, when my bejha was not getting fried, when I thought of a story which I can relate to myself, like many others who can relate to it as well (hopefully), during their own daily ramblings. This story is about a fella, Mike (some fictitious character). Hope you enjoy! It was one afternoon when the Sun was shining so hard, that it would melt any fat lying anywhere, even if it were in the myelin sheath of our neurons. So, it so happened that on that particular afternoon, Mike was walking down the road from his lab to the hostel. He was unaware of the fact that the Sun was beating down upon him like a million joules of heat from a coal furnace. He was thinking very deeply, on a scientific problem and he was determined to find out a means to solve it before the end of the day. The Sun was laughing all the while, jeering at Mike’s foolish ideas and even sillier propositions to be thinking about it while walkin...

Kanhaiyalal Kumawat is our lab technician in NBRC. He is a sweet guy, and I am sorry to say that I can’t say much more about him. It so happened that he went off home to get married just the next day that I joined the place, and the only introduction I had with him went somewhat like this: KK: So you have joined today? DA: Yes. KK: Have you signed in the register, in Sir’s lab? DA: No, not yet. Will you tell me where it is? When you are going to Sir’s room just let me know. I’ll go along. KK: It seems that you folks don’t need money. DA: What are you saying Kanhaiyaji. Of course I need money. KK: So you need money. Then what will happen to people like us? DA: Well, we can all make money together. KK: Hmmm. He probably said something, but I couldn’t quite get his dialect. I reflected in the mean time on the stupidest thing that anyone could say to another person in their first introduction. Later, I heard from all my labmates that Kanhaiya is the nicest fellow on this side of In...