Of Gandhi's autobiography, comprehensive exams and more...

After an excruciatingly long break I am finally back to my old blogging ways. I can see that the blog world has not changed much over the last two months. These two months have been very interesting. My break started with a trip to Pittsburgh to visit my uncle. I spent the first three days in Pittsburgh helping my uncle unpack and set up his new house.

On the 15th of August I was helping my uncle organize his office in the basement and I came across Gandhi’s autobiography “THE STORY OF MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH” (click here to read the book!) in one of his shelves. Gandhi seemed to be peering through his glasses beckoning me to read the book. I started reading the book with some kind of religious fervor, anxious and excited to read about the MAHATMA, the man I have always considered the greatest ever.

Gandhi’s life is an example of how an ordinary man can rise above everything and everyone and embrace immortality for sacrifice and service. Everything that Gandhi did in his life was an experiment. These experiments were carefully planned and their results were carefully analyzed, interpreted and applied (for example: He turned sathyagraha one of his experiments into a weapon against the British).

I felt like writing about the book because Gandhi remains relevant even today. The part I enjoyed reading the most was about Gandhi’s formative years. He talks in great length about his marriage to Kasturba and the difficulty he had in controlling his “carnal desire” during the early days of his marriage and the drawbacks of child marriage (he was only 13 when he married Kasturba). It is interesting to know that Gandhi who had over 400 million followers had a very bad personal life. His eldest son left him because of personal differences and yet Gandhi remained unmoved in his quest for the truth. It is hard to imagine a man fighting for Independence in the midst of a personal crisis. He was very focused in his goals, and human service came first before everything else. It is a pity that his name has been tarnished and the likes of Godse are being worshipped in some parts of India. Gandhi’s life in England and South Africa played a big role in making him the politician he was. Some of you might argue that “GANDHI WAS NEVER A POLITICIAN!!”

Well if Gandhi was never a politician who is a politician? Gandhi might have never held public office but was well and truly a member of the Indian National Congress. Gandhi was perhaps the best example of an ideal politician. Gandhi’s autobiography is a must read for every human being on earth (at the least all Indians should read it).

I returned to DC after the short trip to Pittsburgh rejuvenated to face the challenges of my current semester. The semester started with a bang with a series of experiments to be performed for the paper I have been long waiting to publish. The experiments kept on failing till last week when I finally got the results I wanted.

I had a viva voce today and my comprehensive examination committee bombarded me with questions for 1 hr and 15 minutes until my brain froze. After a lot of deliberations they finally decided that I could take my written examination on the 27th of October. I guess I am back to blogging sooner than I ever thought I would. I am going to take another break in December when I head to San Francisco for the American Society for Cell Biology annual meeting.