Yes, it is Brain surgery
It took me three months to psyche myself into doing honors. It took three minutes for my P I to totally destroy any shred of confidence I had that I would be able to do this project. It took a three hour long ISD phone call to the U S of A to gather up all my spilt guts with some much needed words of encouragement and send a simple " yes, I'll do it no matter how tough you say it'll be" email to the same P I.
Its been three weeks and I'm still alive. Woo hoo.

Now, I'd louve to say that it was all much easier than I thought it would be, that it had only been fear I'd had to fear of at that first instance. No, I had very real things to fear, like the wild and wonderful jungle of my mind, where stray thoughts prowl and pounce at will, and eat words like "focus", " accuracy" and "concentration" for dinner. I'm hopelessly scatter brained. Of course, thats what makes me such a colorful delight of a person, but its not exactly the ideal skill set to bring with you to neuro biological research.

My first lab rat, my very own, the rat that was named after me, ARN/02/07, died pathetically on the operation table. I think I squeezed its skull too much while fixing it up for brain surgery and it hemorrhaged. It wheezed and whined and died sullenly with a " now look what you've done" expression on its face. Crap. I nearly blinded my supervisor with a prepared injection syringe full of atropine and displayed my fantastically poor arithmetic to the entire lab on my very second day.
But I've also uncovered a few talents that have lain buried under assumptions of daintiness. For one, I have no qualms about post-mortem. I can drill on target, any marked point on rat-skull. I can scicssor and scapel my way through innards, diphragm and ribs, all the way to a tiny, delicate heart, beating away its last on my fore and mid fingers. I can cleanly pull out a rubbery spinal cord from its housing in the vertebral column.

I know, it all sounds rather gory, but we're studying the nervous system and the effects of morphine on it and I feel its important work, the kind that might just make a difference in world. Of course, I feel like a bumbling fool on many days, but its all passing to give way to something really exciting...and ( I hardly believe I'm saying this) Fun.

Back at home

Yoga, filter coffee and temples. And cooking, the exciting artistry of spices. I've been busy this summer. Its been a long and lovely escape (including two happy weddings!). Home was more than worth enduring 6 hour flight on a bus with wings pretending to be a plane. Now why would I do anything as inane as sit in front of a box and punch out words from on an ancient, stubborn keyboard? I guess its because I'm kind of gearing up to get back to school.

My oldest friend (as in the one that goes the longest way back) is now a Mrs... Now the aunties look at me and say " The next invite will be for your wedding. Ah, I remember when you from when you were this high", they smirk with pseudo nostalgic looks. I smile back and supress the urge to retch. But still, I have learnt a few things from all the wedding fever- I am determined that I will never have a wedding in Guruvayoor, which is like an Indian Vegas, and my wedding sari will have nothing to do with any shade of brown.

The monsoons came early this year, it's first raindrops were shot straight to my face by the whipping wind and woke me up on the long bus ride back to Coimbatore from Calicut. I took 2nd class public transport both ways across Kerala- to experience real life, after an overdose of the MRT and glittering malls in Singapore. All I can say is, I'll take my upper middle class bubble of AC three tier on all India trips hence forth.

Real estate prices are at an all time high here, in Coimbatore, so high, that there's nowhere for it to go now but downward. I can't be sure but I must be growing up, since this excites me considerably and I can't wait to get my own stretch of earth to erect my dream house on. I told this to my mom and she said that on the contrary, this makes me sound more young and stupid than ever before.

I made honors. Now, I can be a Bharatanatyam dancer and a scientist, like all those fancy Tamil Brahmin chicks. All of them have a heavily left brained job- surgeon, computer whizz, magistrate, electrical engineer (now employed at Infosys, were all employees get free buttermilk daily) plus an artistic career on the side, usually classical dancer or musicienne. Of course, I have no business saying things like that...but I've never met any tam-brahms who weren't multi talented. I know, I spent all my time in school competing with them. So yes, I'm in that league now, after all these years.

*Like it actually matters*

Esplanade is on the calendar this August. Unless Teacher decides to throw me out of the show since I'm extending my stay at home by another week. O well, you win some...There's also an art exhibiton thats scheduled for December for which I'll have to do some major homework before I finally settle on my piece. Life looks so exciting all of a sudden. And ocassionally, its even clear to me, how the story unfolds. I can't explain what I mean, not just as yet.