I'm feeling rather political thanks to
a) bucketfuls of instant coffee, generously provided by my flask
b) a lecture about drugs, mental illness and the government

A few days ago I went to a public lecture by Professor David Nutt who is a psychiatrist (no conclusions shall be drawn from the combination of his name and his profession) and also ( Read more... )

"रुक जाना नहीँ तू कहीँ हार के, कांटोँ पे चलके मिलेंगे साएँ बहार के.."
"Don't give up yet, feeling broken-hearted; only after treading the path of thorns will you find the shades of spring.."
-- Majrooh Sultanpuri, from his song Ruk Jaana NahiToday was my first day of work at the research lab where I will be doing a study for the next six months ( Read more... )

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This may not be news to most of you, but Israeli prime minister Netanyahu has come out as a bloodthirsty, manipulative warmongerer.


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I turned 22 last Sunday ( Read more... )

I went to Birmingham the week before last to see Russell Peters' show live. We had started out from Newcastle at 5 AM, traveled at full speed in a bus and reached Birmingham at 10 AM, stopping in various cities on the way. This being the second time I've been to Birmingham, I thought it would be slightly easier to navigate around.. but alas, it ( Read more... )

I've spent the rest of the summer doing very little. My time in Dubai was taken up by (in order of decreasing frequency)

1. Watching sequences of episodes of Arrested Development - hilarious show!
2. Treating Cleo the cat like my firstborn child
3. Reading - about Bad Science, Shi'i Islam, and killing mockingbirds


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We'd been scared stiff of the daily protests going on in Srinagar so we were advised to leave at an ungodly hour for the airport to fly to Delhi. Following this advice, we left our houseboat at 3.30 AM and sped through the city to get to the airport ( Read more... )

With only two days having passed since the agonizing waits to get into Gulmarg were ingrained into our frighteningly short memories, this time we were clever enough to leave the sleepy village at exactly 4 AM for a two-hour ride into Srinagar, the capital of the state ( Read more... )

We left Pahalgam at 8 AM, which was four hours too late. We were advised by our drivers to leave at 4 AM in order to avoid the stone-pelting mobs of village folk on the way to Gulmarg, our next destination. We learnt our lesson when we were stopped on the road a couple of times by people telling us that there were indeed mobs blockading the road ( Read more... )