The great hunt of all Biotechnologists- Jobs

Came across this post at Youth Curry about the sorry state of BT employments...we should know. In a batch of 70 students, only 13 placed, 9 of us in Infosys, and 4 in E-value serve, which is a KPO. Simply no one placed in a core biotech company!

One, by Richard Bach

How many times has it seemed to you, that what is happening right now has happened before; that you have somehow seen this scene before?

It happens to Richard and his wife Leslie when they attend a conference of intellectuals. The names of the delegates, the ideas they present- they have heard them before, they have met those people!

Not really, not in the actual, physical sense. That way, they are indeed meeting them all for the first time.

But, still….!

Haven’t there been times when we have all felt like that? Richard Bach has created a whole novel out of it!

Samy gifted me this novel last week, as a return gift from her sister’s wedding. And I was overwhelmed to have got it just then. It almost seemed as if this book had worked its way to me!

For quite some time now, I have been thinking of writing a novel. I have the story I want to tell, but I can’t decide on a suitable format. The ‘way’ has to be right for the story to be effective. And the one way that has really held my fascination is of “What if?”

Haya Grewal is the protagonist of my story. I have been thinking of writing my novel as a series of “What Ifs?” What If Haya had made that decision at that cross-road, and this decision now, what if she had known this, or had not known that, what if this had happened, and this had not happened…..What really fascinates me is the infinite little permutations and combinations of events that shape our lives, and if any of them had been a little different, we could be totally different from what we are!

So, instead of focusing on what Haya is, I thought I would focus on “What she could be?” and the factors, known and unknown to her, that kept her from being so.

So, imagine my delighted surprise when this book came to me. I just went “Wow!” It is based on the same premise- of the many possibilities hidden in each one of us, of what we could have been, of what we can be.

It underlines the impact of the choices that we make. We are indeed made by our choices.

The theme of the book is really fascinating. The treatment however is not that good. There are times when Bach gets so lost in his musings that he forgets that the reader may not be interested. Some portions of the book are a drag. I particularly found the part about the Russian couple and Marsha as irrelevant to the story. In those parts, the book seemed to have been reduced to a blatant platform for making statements about his political ideology.

So, I will not relish this book for being a wonderful reading experience (it’s just average that way), but for the thoughts it gave me.

In the book, Richard and Leslie get a “one-in-a-trillion” chance to visit many of their alternate selves, the people they were or could have been. But the thought that came to me was that even I could visit all such alternate selves of me- if only I let myself. The thing is that we just don’t let ourselves think beyond certain limits. Whenever our questions try to go beyond those boundaries of comfort, we immediately pull ourselves back, “Shhh! I must not think that way.” We just don’t question our beliefs and ourselves. And I think that is how we limit ourselves.

The one idea I particularly liked in the book is Richard’s thoughts about war and the army. He had joined the Air Force, mainly because that would give him a chance to fly the best planes. Flying was his passion. He had no compunctions dropping bombs on cities during wars, because as a soldier, wasn’t it his duty to follow orders? He was fighting for his country after all, and that was an honorable thing to do. These are the platitudes with which he would silence his guilty conscience then. He just didn’t let his conscience ask difficult questions, because he was scared of the answer it would give- that he was a selfish murderer. He could silence his conscience then, but now, when an older Richard visits his younger self- the soldier that he had been- he throws these questions in the face of that soldier. The soldier is unable to avoid them anymore. He must face them. And by doing so, he can make a different decision from what Richard had made in his youth- he can choose not to be a part of the war machinery, and thus move away from the path that will lead him to the present day Richard. By facing those difficult questions, he can alter the future he is apparently destined to!
The book could have been better-written, but still it is worth a read, if only for its really unique concept.

The Sister Of My Heart, by Chitra Banerjee Divakurni

This book is about two sisters and their love for each other, which anchors them as they face the trials and tribulations of life. The girls could be anyone from around you; two ordinary girls. One is a brat, the other a beauty. This novel charts their tale from their birth to five years after their marriage.

I started the novel in the lab yesterday, and did little else till I finished it today. It is an engrossing tale, and very well told.

I have often been fascinated by the concept of “ordinariness”. What, or rather, who is ordinary? There are some people, about whom everyone says, “Oh! He’s going to be a great man.” The reason being that such people exude charm, confidence and energy; so people think they are going to achieve great heights. But do they? Or do they get trapped in the ‘ordinariness’ of life?

Anju is one such girl. She is totally willful and independent, and an avid book reader. Since her childhood, she has challenged the stereotype of the “docile, traditional girl.” She wants to learn new things, and explore the world. She wants to be the one in control of her life. She is enthusiastic about joining college, and wants to help her widowed mother run their bookstore. She wants that she, and not her husband-whoever he will be- should inherit the bookstore from her mother. She is wary of being trapped into wifehood.

Yet she plunges into it with gusto, when the boy chosen by her mother seems like “her type of a man,” a man who reads Virginia Woolf. Her image of marital bliss is of both of them reading Woolf’s novels together on a couch. And she is exhilarated that it will come true! Her husband seems quite a feminist, and ‘open-minded.’ He lets her join college, and their equation is one of equality. So, she has a perfect life, one would say. Only, that it's not. To the person who is actually living that life, it never is.

Sudha is the other half of this pair of sisters. She is very beautiful, and quite the sweet, caring, traditional girl who has learnt to live for others. Since her childhood, she has known that her main purpose in life is to get married, and raise a family. That family is her dream. The desire of being a fashion designer has been quietly buried by her as being improbable.

She is married to a man she doesn’t love, and plays out the role of the ‘perfect bahu’ for many years. She has always been passive about life- letting things happen to her, letting others decide the course of her life, till she gets pregnant, with a girl. Her in-laws tell her to abort the child, because the first child of the family must be a male.

This time, she says “No.” She walks out on her husband and her in-laws. She has never survived on her own, nor did she think she could. But now, when the choice had to be made- between conformity, and following her instinct, she knows she made the right decision. That she will somehow survive through it, and with dignity.

So, this is the story of two sisters. One, who seems quite bold, and yet makes many compromises, without even realizing. The other, who is quite the conformist, who confidently takes an unconventional decision.

It is not a feminist story, not in the usual sense. The women in the story are not ‘oppressed’ victims of circumstances, or of their gender. Neither are the males insensitive egotists. Each character has their dignity. There are no heroes or villains, just humans. Just like us, each with their own shades, each being what they are, because of the circumstances of their life.

Yesterday, as I lay scrunched up on the sofa, immersed in the book, my cousin asked me why people read novels at all. I just said, “Because they tell stories, and sometimes you can relate to those stories,” and went back to the book. But, I think the reason why novels are read is that they tell you why people are the way they are. In this novel, I found many people who would mirror people I know. But in real life, I just ‘react’ to these people. I do not know why they have a particular perspective; I just agree or disagree with it. But in a novel, since you move along a character, you can see how that perspective has developed. This is how novels aid your understanding and make you more tolerant to others. Everyone has a reason for what they do or don't.

No person is ordinary, because, a novel can be written out of each person’s life. This is why I was so enchanted by this novel- it intimately showed to me the life of Anju and Sudha, and in their ordinary stories, I found many echoes from my own life. I am glad I read this book.