3 Weeks After

Work

Start new experiment, monitor reaction progress, work up, isolation and purification, send for analysis and confirm results. That’s the routine at work. Depending on the type of reaction and purification process, each routine can take from three to five days. Then the cycle repeat itself. Sometimes they overlap, sometimes they lapse, it all depends on the outcome of the experiments.

Carried out 3 experiments this week. One to make more starting materials. One trial reaction did not give any desirable results. One reaction following the literature seemed to be quite positive so far. I’m still waiting for the results of an analysis to confirm if we had indeed got the compound we wanted. It’s been 4 days already…

Time passed quickly when there is work to be done. Unconsciously, I have been working past 7.00pm almost everyday. I stayed til 9.00pm one night to complete one experiment, just in time for ‘Sir’ to call me to his office for a discussion at 8.45pm! I hope he did not treat me as one of his students!!



A Student's Life

Students seemed to belong to the lowest class in the institute. They have no status, no rights, and are expected to work 24/7, even on holidays. Age ranged from early twenties for the Masters students and late twenties for the PhD students. These are highly educated people, the brains of the country and yet to when I talk to them, I get the feeling that they have been made to think that they do not matter at all. To them, getting a PhD is like attaining a primary school leaving certificate.

Majority of them stay in hostels which comes with meals for a monthly fee. Hostel rooms are tiny, with just enough space for a bed, cupboard and writing table. Food is mass produced in the mess and there are fixed timing for meals. It reminds me of life in the army, only that here, they get their own rooms instead of dormitories and time is spent in the laboratories instead of out in the training fields.

Once, I tried to bring three of my chemistry folks to lunch in the guest house. They were stopped at the entrance and were bluntly refused entry, simply because they are students. Not even when I clarified that they were my guests and I had invited them to lunch. If you are a student, you are out.

The sad thing is, they seemed to have accepted all these as the norm. I felt really bad when they give me a lift back on their bicycles and will only drop me off at the gate, they would tell me that they should not step onto the premises.



Friends

Three weeks have passed since I arrived in Bangalore. I’m really glad to have found friends here and they take good care of me. They are ever concerned about where I will get my food, whether I have got a place to stay and even suggested me to talk to the hostel office for my food and lodging. I really do not have the heart to tell them that the accommodation arranged for me is much better than what they would get at the hostels, and I need not have to eat at the mess.

However, I still join them at the mess for lunch and tea for the camaraderie. On weekends, we will go out for dinners and check out new eating places. It was Chinese food at Chung Wah, followed by ice-cream at Flavours in Malleswaram this Sunday.



More Adjustments

One more week and I’ll be moving out of the guest house to a new place, about 15 minutes by car from campus. It will be another period of adjustments with the new environment, having to commute to work, finding new routes for my runs, etc.

More exciting times to come…