PhD= Piled Higher and Deeper...arre toh Pehle kyun nai bataya....??

Some gyani on Orkut dictionary has rightly said PhD stands for Piled Higher and Deeper...and I could not agree more.. ..today morning as i stood looking at myself in the mirror..i was so painfully brought back to the reality..of starting my Phd ..i mean looking at my chirpy and happy-go-lucky n cool kinda image that i have adorned for years now.... i never feel as if i will ever fit into that nerdy, studious and no nonsense only studies kinda persona..its too heavy for me yaar....when I was young i used to take phd as nothing less than a stigma which literally kills your happiness and murders your overall personality by crushing it under the heavy tome of books and research papers...i mean look at this word research..trust me it sounds funny to me..Re-Search..i mean what is the point in re- searching something when it has already been searched...beats me to it...thats why these poor scientists are so confused..like i already have the first absolute sign of a good scientist...thats my confusion...
There is no denying the fact that i have loved every moment after I received my admit letter/letters from US of A...I was so elated about going to Amrikka that I almost forgot the second part and that was the most vital one..and it read PhD. In the mean while my parents were partying at the very thought of their darling daughter going for a PhD.It only occurred to me after few weeks of of my vacation on the eleventh cloud...in any case I am still little overjoyed at the prospect of going to AMrikkaaa...well Phd toh hoti hi rahegi..

.i feel that it would have been so much easier to discover new things in the earlier times..i mean..you keep sitting under an apple tree and a falling apple leads you to a discovery...sounds great to me...but whenever i have tried to develop my critical thinking skill at times..whatever i found novel was already patented by someone else years before..So i have begun to feel that either i have come in very late into this world when all the mysteries of existence have been solved or that my critical thinking skills are too low a stage to be reclaimed critical at all......I am all the more worried about my mentor...who should be saying his last prayers had he known me that well...i mean when everything has been researched upon then what am i doing going into this...
I have to admit that I have been into some serious research ( see this is the first symptom of PhD Patient ..frequently using ..term 'Research' even if referring to have found a pin on the couch) on America...well so much that I could give some serious competition to Mr. Obama...or maybe the best travel agent of America....I have a fairly good idea of the malls, Amusement parks and rivers and beaches and the routes and roads and trains and flights to the good worthwhile destinations of Amrikkaaa...including Disneyland...the other day my dad wanted to know whether i have still checked out the class schedule and the syllabus and i was suddenly looking haywire like some idiot who has suddenly got amnesia and no more know the meaning of syllabus and classes....my dad was not so pleased.....and my sister nearly fainted when she heard that I was giving due thought to another admit from a univ. in Kansas state...as according to her it lies in the central Low lands with no beaches and good places around...then I had to convince her that no I was not going to Kansas and she can breath in peace....man seems like i am going for a five year long vacation instead of Phd....good lord..what has this generation come to..? she was even against applying to any such univ. where there werent enough good tourist places...as it meant a serious setback to our plans of world tour...with my family...after i get there...but i somehow managed to apply because she had to leave for her univ. in between...
I went to a research lab last week to face the bitter facts of my upcoming life and to have a tryst with the lab work and its captives....now having your parents in research does have its own set of perks firstly, you dont have to stick to the drab, dull, and boring dressing style and I went there almost dressed as if I was already in America...if you haven't been to a lab then lemme tell you wearing colorful and funky t-shirts and jeans is almost a taboo till date ..you need to look the role..with colorless clothes which have to be ill fitting and if you have a thick frame dadaji waala specs on your eyes then you are a perfect fit for the lab and the obvious pride of any mentor..n means a direct entry into the institute...otherwise even the guard at the main gate will ask you hundred questions and scan you before letting you in. like they always do to me unless i m accompanying my parents....(hopeless guards.....hats off to their short term memories)...now the first thing that really grabs my attention is the faded, dull and off-colored painted buildings looking at which seems like community people got it painted with the charity money..and did a huge favor for it...or like the neighboring buildings all conspired against it so that they could outshine it any time......and the interiors which constitute of nothing more than apparatuses, instruments and no wonder the wallpaper is made of the numerous publications that you have earned over years...and it completely depends on you how well you can cover those off white walls with your published works....i knew all this and hence i wore my usual bright colored clothes to keep up my liveliness through all this trust me and everyone stared at me as if someone had just ruined there last experiment setup and most probably it was me.....but the moment they come to know my dad is a hotshot scientist there...they seemed so amiable and warm at once.....and if they knew that i was the one going to USA...they would shower all their courtesies on you plus invitations to lunches to educate their kids for GRE n TOEFL n all....man... what hypocrisy...after the image thing well the lab experience was just as boring as any Subhash Ghai's movie which seems to go nowhere and leads you to NIMHANS in case you survive the whole movie...but i have to say that there is one big difference in his movie and in research labs..at least you get to see good faces in his movie like Hrithik and all...but if you even by any chance expect that in a lab then my friend you are sadly, seriously and depressingly mistaken...well every time there was a knock at the lab's door i didnt even care to bother my muscles and turn around..because it had to be someone past their primes and no TDH guys from hollywood or daniel steele novels...i mean a lab is not a place for a person who appreciates beauty of any kind...trust me on this...
thats when i realize what serious research is all about...though there were some young guys and girls there..who were trainees there but looking at them made me feel as if they were returning from some 'namesake noon show' or they were dumped by their respective girlfriends and boyfriends for someone better than them...n i dont blame them for this dumping act...
I am glad for one thing in my life that even for research then I am off from here where atleast there is no specific dress code and even facial expression code..you are supposed to literally whisper in a lab and always talk science and have to look serious....otherwise you are not good enough...and the center might cancel your fellowship too...in case you even look light hearted....or non serious types...and plus in case you are infront of a computer you gotta always look for research papers and not enrique's n rihanna's latest songs download as I always do without fail ....
Well having said enough I have to say atleast I have this one charm of going to America and i just hope that the researchers and trainees out there are a little cool, funky and alive....
Keeping my fingers crossed..and with this i gotta sign out...as right now i can see my books kneeling, cringing and begging for my little attention which they hardly get these days....i guess i should oblige them for now..before ramlal* finds his way to them...
so my dear books..here I come... :)

Ramlal* : in case you don't know...ramlal is my cute little fellow rat who comes on a flying visit to our house at times...in order to find something worthwhile to nibble...and to give some exercise to our neighbor's fat n lazy n good for nothing cat...