Just having the 4th highest GDP in the world, while 27% of your huge population (>1.1 billion) lives below poverty line and >35% population is illiterate, doesn't make you a developed country - and most definitely not a superpower as some part of Indian media likes to project India as. You can blame it on colonialism, which to a very very large extent is true as it brought the richest and most liberal country of the world to what India was in 1947, but there comes a time in a country's history (just like in a person's life), when it has to start accepting the responsibility of its actions/policies and taking the control in its own hands. I think India has started doing that, and hopefully we'll see some imporvement in the near future. However, the 60 years of communist experiments (in the name of socialism) in India have only benefitted one society - that of ruling politicians, as evidenced by the $1.4 Trillion of corrupt Indian money in Swiss bank accounts.
Anyway, Friday was a good day for me. It started normally, I reached office around 8.30, started with quick email check and then some readings. We tried to arrange a short training session on the Flow Cytometry, but the poor old machine couldn't find its rhytm and eventually gave out. The training has been indefinitely postponed. Then, I had lunch with the group (http://staff.science.uva.nl/~arents/mmp/) and had an interesting conversation with one of my office mates - Roasanne - a quite cool Dutch girl. She has also started only this week as a PhD student and apparently writes columns (in Dutch ofcourse) in a journal (Megahertz in http://www.mareonline.nl ) in her hometown. She has promised to help me learn Dutch, and wants me to very soon start speaking in Dutch with her - I guess she is not aware of my laziness. :D Another of my group-mates, Nakul, had a rather lazy day in the office and he was visibly excited about finally having a fellow Hindi-speaker in the group, as he would every now and then strike a conversation with me in Hindi while others looked on in confusion. :D
Our discussion on all sorts of controversial issues continued after reaching office, and work took a back-seat. However, around 3.00 I decided to get back to work and started writing the summary that my boss had asked me to.. and as luck would have it, he ventured into my office around 3.45 pm while going back from the coffee break, and saw me working hard.. saved by a whisker there.. :D... around 4.30, we had a birthday party on the floor.. which meant some food and beer (or "bier" in Dutch).. I had a choice between Dutch and Belgian beer, and I unwittingly chose Dutch beer... I was told it's good, but Belgian is better.. well, next time maybe.. One of the most fun and social guys - Martijn - then led the group to a bar ("Kriterion") across the street from our building.. this is where things started going crazy. This was around 5.30 and I kept drinking for the next 5 hours continuously - had 8-9 beers... got fairly drunk.. had a rather passionate discussion with Mark about tennis - especially about which Aus open 2009 match was better Fed Vs Nadal or Nadal Vs Verdasco.. I argued in favor of the latter while Mark was adamant about the former. Bless his soul for the poor guy didn't know that you don't argue with Kushagra Singhal, and definitely not when he is drunk.. :D... However, I tried to stay out as late as I could to meet the maximum number of people, even as other people kept leaving, and new ones kept coming. And I did meet a lot of people in the group, most of who might, by this time, be disappointed by my drunken antics. :D
Finally, a PhD student started looking out for me (I guess my condition demanded that) that even before I could say no to more beer, she stepped-in to make sure I didn't have one.. I guess I am the kid of the group - I must be one of its youngest members anyway, besides the undergraduates ofcourse. But I am also talking about being a kid in terms of my maturity level, which everyone knows is fairly low.. :D.. So, I took the last tram home, but Marcela (the PhD student) was fairly (and justifiably) conerned about me being able to traverse the distance on my own.. I did get back home ok though, without any problems - which is a surprise considering the amount of alcohol, instead of blood, I had being pumped to my brain every minute.
Today, for the first time since my arrival, I opened the door to the balcony outside my room, and found 2 pigeon nests there.. with eggs! And I saw the pigeons "incubating" them. I had a slight temptation of picking one egg and cooking it.. I didn't do it alright, stop grimacing! But I did break the smoke alarm when I tried to switch it off after setting it off with my cooking. The weather is nice today, I am planning to go for a little walk later.. but am too lazy to get off the bed right now.. especially with cricket on :D
In conclusion, this week was awesome, but next week is going to be even more fun, I hope.. :)
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