WE ARE ALL MOTIVATED- either positively or negatively

I heard a story of two brothers and wanted to share with u all.
One was a drug addict and drunk who frequently beat up his family. The other was a very successful businessman who was respected in society and had a wonderful family. How could two brothers raised by the same parents, brought up in the same environment be so different??????The first brother was asked, "What makes U do what U do? U r a drug addict, a drunk and u beat your family. What motivates U?" He answered, " My father. My father was a drug addict, a drunk and he beat his family. What do U expect me to be? That is what I am."The second brother was asked, " How come U are doing everything right? What is your source of motivation?" And guess what he said?????"My father. When I was a little boy, I used to see my dad drunk and doing all the wrong things. I made up my mind that that is not what I wanted to be."

MESSAGE

Both brothers derived their motivation from the same source, but one was using it positively and the other negatively. Negative motivation brings the desire to take the easier way which ends up being the tougher way.
Thanks!!!!

Fly above the cloud when it rains...

I have posted this on my lab door to motivate my students and myself. This is what I tell to myself time and again when there is a crisis situation - although technically there should be no-crisis-like situation.

I have joined IICB during a time when all the Networking projects were decided, 12th 5 year plan was laid. So, there was very little scope for me to get into any of these lucrative fund giving projects. Fortunately or unfortunately I have been included in one of the networking projects but I am still clueless about the fund part. I only see occasionally some mention of the fund, its reduction and so on, but never saw anything for my lab as yet... Anyways leaving the complaint part aside, how do I run my lab? Director is generous enough to have granted me some money for my sequencing programs and servers which I thought was adequate, but balancing sides such as purchase, vendors, payments have been a herculean task for me.

I will give an example here. I want to do some genome sequencing with a third party. I call them, negotiate a price (With promise to give them more business later). They take few days finally before making an offer. Now I look for money, get it sanctioned and raise an indent. But unfortunately there sits a man who has the power to reject it for no apparent reason. The reason - he does not understand what it is. Fine, no one is suppose to understand everything, but will it not be nice to come back and ask? Then you go back and ask, and then  he agrees to reverse it. By then the buggy software makes the account zero. You then go and talk with the same man he holds the power to change that zero status to previous status, will make you wait for 30 minutes and may be finally do that. You raise the indent again, then he sits on it before you really go and ask about the status. Then comes a committee formation and finally giving an order. When you get the order you send your samples to the company and the company does the job and sequences the samples and gives you the bill. The lousy department sets some date cutoffs (twice a year). If your bill reaches later than the cutoff date, your money disappears and truly disappears and you are responsible for paying the bills. Just imagine the life of a scientist is suppose to be much more skewed towards research rather than these mundane activities, but it is unfortunately so here.

All these money giving, money disappearing act happens when the money is given by the institute. Now, the only way around is to get your own fund. So, I am rather more determined to get the money from outside rather than from inside. With lot of deadlines hovering on my head for grant submission let this be a motivation rather than having negativity towards the people that create impossible situation. So finally I can say amidst my work trips,  my carrier trips (Carrying DNA samples, getting the bill in hand), my personal trips, I have survived, meeting deadlines and submitting 3 grant proposals back to back to DBT. Hope atleast one of them gets funded. So, this is what I would say running above the cloud when it rains....

A million heroes!

Aamir Khan, Madhuri Dixit, Amitabh Bachchan, and ofcourse not to forget the bollywood baadshah Shahrukh Khan; they are all heroic figures to atleast a million people! Few of us even worship them, celebrate their birthdays, and go mad to get a glimpse of these sitaare zameen par! Like all others, I also admire these actors but not to a point that makes me go crazy. I admire them because I like their acting skills. But, unlike a crazy teenage fan, now reason for my admiration has changed from looking them as stars to looking them as workers doing their job!

Once I got to listen to an Art of Living preacher; the words which stayed in my mind were “everyone and everyone’s job is equally important in this world; noone or no job can be put above the other”; if sweepers are considered quite low in society then just imagine what difficult situation can arise if all the sweepers in this world goes on a week’s strike; it could lead to some pandemic kind of situation! I know that still we would talk about the superiority of professionals like doctors or for some of us the priests, both of which are worshipped, atleast in India! But are we not aware of the greedy doctors involved in organ thefts or the so called great preacher cum rapist Asaram Bapu!

I guess one shouldn’t be assessed by what profession one belongs to but by how good one does in his/her respective field. In every profession, there are some people who excel, some mediocres and some who bring bad names! In this context, for me every single person is a hero if (s)he does good in his/her respective field; be it a scientist, a sweeper, a driver or a doctor! 

Yet another smoking article!!

This piece I wrote exactly 11 months back for our apartments journal club, dont know what happened to the article though. Today while looking for something in my laptop, I re-discovered it. It is again about smoking .....

Do passive smokers have a choice?

Have you been sick? I bet all of us at some point of time must have fallen sick. Do you recall what you felt during your sickness? The overbearing thought of getting well is what comes to mind when we fall sick. So, now the question is if there are people who really want to invite sickness. Well, I can give one group of people that definitely invite sickness for themselves and also for others. So, who are these disgusting set of people – the answer is the people that smoke in public places.

Even a first grader knows smoking is hazardous and those who smoke can eventually face multiple problems including cancer, high blood pressure, low immunity, palpitations and a range of other diseases.  Smoking continuously, reduces your life span by 10 years. Again it affects your quality of life substantially even if you managed to be alive. People, who continuously smoke, age faster than non-smokers. While most of the smokers are aware of this, they just do it never-the-less. While, it is a choice they make for themselves, they have no right to be the bearer of poorer health for others. So, what are the dangers of being a passive smoker?

Study reveals that passive smokers also face health hazards exactly similar to active smokers. Wikipedia records reveal that passive smoking can even cause disability and death. Passive smoking causes cancer, cardio-vascular diseases and respiratory diseases. It is known also to cause asthma, dementia (loss of memory), crohn’s disease, tooth decay, allergies among others. Does it sound scary? Yes it does. Ever since we came here (to be precise on 25^th July 2012), I have noticed one common trait – people smoking everywhere - more so in public places. I got appalled that no one is raising any concern to this!! I was undergoing some job medical test, and one of the panel doctors was smoking in a closed room and to my horror, the other doctors present there never raised any alarm. You go out on the street; I bet you will find every 2-3 feet one smoker carelessly puffing up smoke without bothering about the surrounding. I have lived in other parts of India and abroad but never seen anyone smoking as much as they do here. I am wondering if there is a special reason behind this.

While smokers are willingly destroying their health, they have no right to put others in danger. There is a nationwide law against smoking since 2008 – that bans people from public smoking. If someone found smoking in public then a fine of $5 can be slapped on them.

What can we do to protect ourselves?

Anytime you see someone smoking in a public place, just try and raise your voice. I think it has been that the smokers have taken it for granted that they have every right to smoke anywhere they like. If everybody raises voice, then they will be conscious and eventually this practice will die a natural death.

Wish you all a very happy and healthy smoke free dussera.

Completing 1 year in IICB....

Today exactly one year back I landed in Kolkata. I will be completing one year in IICB in a week now. Amidst all fear, speculations, we took a rather bold decision to come back to India. My position was not permanent, it still isn't. We both left our comfortable jobs, beautiful home, green card to work for the country. Now after a year on when I look back, I don't think it was bad at all... It has taught us a lot of things, but at the same time I am lucky to have my students, my lab and a very loving environment here.

I will share some of my experiences here:

What I learnt the hard way:

1. Dont accept objects you did not intend to order or never open a pack:

Some of our lab purchases has been excellent, some were OK and some were awful. Among the awful stuff I bought was a set of 3 non-performing UPS from Business Center ( I dont know where this name came from). First thing is I was coaxed into buying 2 printers that I never asked for. Then these UPS that never ever worked and the lady that sold us promised us that she will not ask for money for a year. In between we processed all the bills, but our lousy purchase department lost one of the bills from Business center and it could not be paid. Finally I had to pay it off from my contingency.

2. When processing bills, if you give a file to someone keep a copy or keep an evidence of it.

Here in IICB, when the bills are processed, it passes through a string of processes. I still dont understand why it has to be that way. For me purchase should be straight forward. You choose the company that sells a particular product, then procure it and send the bill to account section for final payment. But here, it goes to division A (I am not sure about their role here), then they sit on it (If they did not loose the file) for sometime before passing on to x, y, z division before it finally makes an entry into finance. Be cautioned, at any stage your file may be lost. If it is lost, not only your bill will be unpaid, but also you have to make an arrangement to pay it somehow, since the money goes away every march if unspent. Now the most logical solution to that will be to have a device to record that you have really handed over your file to someone. So, keep a scanned copy of your doc, make the people sign on a paper that they took the doc and so on.

3. Follow up:

Here nothing happens without following up. You may tell one thing one time, but the other person does not take it seriously till you tell it N number of times. That is true in every aspect of life here. So follow up on each and everything. Buy a tape recorder if necessary and play it multiple number of times.

4. Have infinite memory:

Since you have to follow up on each and everything, you need to have infinite amount of memory. If you already did not have it, buy an external hard drive t:)

Now I want to tell something nice about what we have achieved in a years time.

1. We released a product - a successor of VMD: Before I joined IICB, I contacted the director and the head about availability of Oracle, since VMD ran on oracle. Although there were several copies of Oracle license floating around, I could not get hold of any. Then came the idea of launching the whole thing in Mysql. VMD has a very complicated schema and it uses Oracle's materialized view concept heavily. So, I had to think carefully about how to emulate this feature in Mysql and which tables/views to retain so that the front end remains unchanged. Finally we achieved this, and our successor to VMD named as Eumicrobedb.org is available in a new platform. We are building tools and wrappers around it to get rid of other dependencies so that it can be portable. Thanks to my MTech. student Akash Gupta for the efforts.

2. We sequenced 2 economically important BGA genomes! 5 more in pipeline and one probiotic bacteria also in the pipeline!

3. Standardizing assembly efforts of the BGAs that have a mixed read length [Thanks to Neha's tireless work  on this].

4. Collaborating with cancer genomics group on cancer marker finding and cancer exome sequencing projects [Again thanks to Neha, Sanjib, Pijush for this].

Apart from all these, I have already written 8 grant proposals. One is funded with me on 0 budget, one got a nod, one from CSIR (although I have received nothing from it yet), 2 got rejected, one is under subjury, two more ready to be sent, one more under preparation.

I got good money from my Ramalingaswamy contingency so I could hire 2 people, and generous start up fund from director for all the proposed work.

I thank my entire crew for our lab achievements. I thank Lubna for helping set up the lab from scratch. I thank Madhu, Arpita and Deeksha for taking care of purchase of chemicals/equipments. Deeksha for standardizing DNA extraction protocol, Madhu for taking care of cultures and looking after lab cleanliness. Arpita for working on Inventory database system, Subhadeep for taking care of newer culture facility.

Our lab now has 3 Linux servers; access to India's superfast computer; access to HPC cluster in IICB; 10 PCs(including 2 laptops); one computational lab room and one wet lab room; laminar flow; incubator shaker; centrifuge; balance; pH meter; -20C; refrigerator; digital microscope; gel electrophoresis unit. We use nanodrop, geldoc, ultrcentrifuge, maldi, sequencer and many more equipments from the core facility, so we are more or less and fully functional group with tons of enthusiasm to execute world class research.

Where "Habena" is the keyword...

Ever since I landed in Kolkata, the most frequent word I hear is "Habena" - means not possible:)) Who says impossible is a word written in fools dictionary - it is here; adopted by the young and the old; the wise and the ignorant; the rich and the poor - alike. Now, this is not a Kolkata phenomenon alone, the whole nation rides by this doctrine. You go to a govt. office, the first response is "this will not work". If you are desperate and don't have enough time, then you go and offer bribe money and get things done. I feel the basis behind this "habena" business is "pay me under the table then I will make it happen". It is frustrating yet there is a silver lining to it. We can change it if all of us act together. Be persistent, ask for the rule book, ask for the complaint number, ask more questions and refuse bribe.

I will give a positive example here. When I shifted to my official accommodation, I asked for an extra light point in the room that I planned to make my office. The electrician as usual said "habena". I asked him why? He said coyly, because the light points are very far off and there is no scope. Then I showed him a point nearby and asked him to draw wires from there. The next explanation he gave me was since no one has it in this entire complex, you should also not have it. Then I said, why can't I be the first one to have it? Then he thought for a while and said he will do it and finally did it also :-D

Now, I am working on a project (Not my real work project, but a silly one), where I have to get my gas connection agency transferred to a newer location. The gas connection is in my husbands name. The earlier agency gave a transfer letter in his presence, with all the requisite documents. But the new agency will not accept the letter stating that "the person has to come personally". Now what is the rationale? Is it that you fear I get a connection which is in someone else's name? How is it possible? The person stays in this household as evident by the postal address proof. Person 'X' living in house 'A' can only transfer the gas to house A. So where is the scope of fraud here? If fraud is the only objective, then in this internet era, one can skype, get the digital signature and get it done...

I am in  the middle of this, amidst my grant deadlines, my paper deadlines, students projects, research  problems and host of other issues to get the gas connection transferred to my new location - where it rightfully belongs. In my todo list the next thing is to get to know the rule, call the main head office and find out if there are any exceptions and the last but not the least is to file an RTI to know if they have transferred any connection line in absence of the person concerned...

Nutritive value of goat meat

Goat meat has been established as a lean meat with favorable nutritional qualities, and it’s an ideal choice for the health-conscious consumer. lets compare the nutrient values of prepared goat meat, chicken, and other red meats consumed in the United States.

lets see the nutrient composition of goat meat and other meats....

Nutrient	Goat	Chicken	Beef	Pork	Lamb
Calories	122	162	179	180	175
Fat(g)	2.6	6.3	7.9	8.2	8.1
Saturated fat(g)	0.79	1.7	3.0	2.9	2.9
Protein (g)	23	25	25	25	24
Cholesterol (mg)	63.8	76.0	73.1	73.1	78.2

Goat meat is lower in calories, total fat, saturated fat and cholesterol than traditional meats. Less saturated and less cholesterol meat is the healthy food, moreover goat meat have higher levels of iron comparing to beef, chicken and pork. It contains the potassium content with lower sodium levels, the amino acid levels the goat meat resembles to that of beef and lamb.

Nutrient	Iron value (mg)
Goat meat	3.2
Beef	2.9
pork	2.7
Lamb	1.4
Chicken	1.5

Health benefits:

The nutritive value of the goat meat is increasing in health management of the people today. The amount of saturated fat in goat meat is less than the total amount of unsaturated fats, which may be important in human nutrition. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, which are in liquid form at room temperature, are known to decrease the risk for heart disease and stroke.

            Less saturated fats and relatively high proportion of unsaturated fats makes a goat meat as good healthy meal. The good fats (unsaturated fats)  improve the blood cholesterol levels, ease in inflammation, stabilize the heart rhythms, plays many beneficial roles.

Based on the research they have found that the goat meat helps to lowers the blood cholesterol and reduces the risk for arthrosclerosis and coronary heart disease and the goat meat can be included in the healthy human diet.

Some basic cookery rules:

1.      Cook the goat meat at low temperatures due to its low-fat content and lack of marbling (small streaks of muscles found within the muscle) the goat meat can loosen the moisture and toughen quickly if it is cooked at high temperature.

2.      Cook the goat meat with the moisture.

3.      Next is as usual can add the marinade on the meat before cooking and cook with moist heat such as stewing.

i  think these tips are useful to have a healthy life and can create awareness by not having McDonald's chicken burger or KFC chicken