Ishani's Pen

I was 18 years old when I moved out of my hometown, Guwahati for a hostel life in Delhi. That was July 2009! And now with the successful achievement of doctorate in 2019, I have completed 10 years of hostel life. With each hostel, I had gathered new experiences and made many new friends – some of whom are still in contact with me – and learnt many different things about different places of India. Like every other PhD student (and losing my father in between), I too was faced with the dilemma of whether I should continue with further research and move abroad or look for job in India. I believe that everything happens    for a reason – we just need to seek what that reason is! Though I had got a postdoctoral position in one of the “white collar” institutions of India, NCBS Bengaluru, I decided to join a teaching job in another city of Karnataka, Mangalore. After a tiring and SOLITARY journey of almost 7 hours (with 2 flight halts in between) from Guwahati, I landed in this ...

A very common question that we are asked as kids or perhaps that we too ask kids is “What do you want to be when you grow up?” As a child, I used to be very happy when I was asked this; it seemed more of a flaunting my wish to be a doctor or a teacher or something else (which changed from time to time of course!). The deeper implications of this question never occurred to me at that time. But now if I think deeply, I just wonder “does growing up stop at an age or rather after attaining a certain degree or getting a particular job do we stop growing up?”   It took some time to realize that the definition of a grown up is specific to each individual. My house has a very strong wrought iron gate and it almost impossible for me to pull it shut. A 3-year old boy in my family saw me (a 28 year old doctorate) one day, tugging hard at the gate, in a vain but desperate attempt to close it. He came upto me and said “You will be able to do it when you grow up, not now.” I just came t...

I had a chance to visit Bengaluru a few weeks back for some work. It was my first ever trip to this beautiful city and thus, my first-ever landing and takeoff from Kempegowda International airport. However, what I am about to pen down is interestingly not about this high-tech city itself but something that I observed in the washroom of its airport. Interesting isn’t it? As I waited for my turn in one of the women’s loo of the airport, a sign posted outside the door caught my attention. It said something about “Bio-Clean” with a picture of a comb-like device. As I was trying to figure out what that meant, the lady in front of me came out and I went into the loo. Call it my habit or my over-conscious sense of cleanliness, the first thing that I look for in any public washroom (apart from it “being clean”) is a functional tap with mug or jet spray and to my surprise, I found none. No!! This can’t be possible- this was an international (though a domestic terminal) airport; what ar...

Humans are considered to the most superior of all creations, isn’t it? Because we are endowed with a brain that can think and reason for its own. However, there are certain things that I have observed in the recent past and it really got me thinking – is this what being the superior of creations mean? Orissa was recently hit by a tragic natural disaster – the cyclone ‘FANI’. Many videos of the havoc were broadcasted by the news channels and circulated by people through social media. Though the focus of all these videos was to spread the news quickly to the masses, what gripped my attention was that where there were people running for their lives, there were others who were smiling and waving at the camera on which these videos were being shot. Doesn’t it seem a bit odd – I mean there are precious human lives in the middle of a catastrophe and there are others, who instead of helping these people, are having the fun of their lives. Somebody sent me a video few days back on wa...

Khapla was a 23 year old man residing in a small village of Manipur, India. Born in a poor family, Khapla’s parents could not afford to send him to college for his graduation, though he had secured good grades in his 12 th standard in Science stream. Despite lacking higher education, there was no end to his inquisitiveness and thirst for gaining knowledge. He loved his hometown, his folk culture and his ethnicity. He was very proud to the fact that he was born in North East (NE) India, which was abundant with natural wealth and spent his free time in observing and studying the plants in the forests. He did a number of odd jobs in his day time for his family’s sustenance because his father’s meagre wage (who worked as a mason) was not sufficient.   One day while going to his work, he decided to take a detour through the forest and enjoy amidst nature for a while. There, Khapla saw a man, dressed in a suit (which immediately indicated that he was an outsider), carefully examini...

Many people might say that at my age, I haven’t seen and experienced life at all. But I would just like to say (and my fellow research scholars would agree) that in 5 years of PhD, we seem to experience almost every facet of life. My journey as a research scholar began with my sister’s wedding and it is sort of ending with my father’s first death anniversary, with the birth of my niece in between. However, something else has shaken me up quite as much and led me to write this piece. I was educated from an all girls’ convent in Guwahati in the late 90s’.   I remember how innocent and naïve we were in those days. In high school, if some boy from Don Bosco (an all boys’ school at that time) just looked at us, it used to be a huge discussion in the class.   The topics that are sort of ‘in vogue’ today like “one night stand, live-in relationship” and most importantly “sex” didn’t really grab our attention; in fact, I don’t think any of us knew the proper meaning and use of ‘...

A Holocaust survivor has said "Hate is a very strong word....It is a disease........Never say I hate a person; you can say i don't like this person but NEVER say i hate this person" Mohabbat baaton doston...nafrate to pehle se bohot hai duniya me #spreadlove#