Comic on science reporting

I could not help posting this comic from the Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comics. It is too hilarious and reminds me of the science reporting I see in many Indian newspapers (and some non-Indian ones as well). Enjoy!

A Picture of Britain

This BBC TV series 'A Picture of Britain' presented by David Dimbleby is a masterpiece.Through the six-part series Dimbleby shows how the british landscape has influenced painters, poets, novelists and composers over the years. He takes us to see Wordsworth's daffodils at the lake district, the barren landscape of Haworth Moor reflecting Heathcliff's anguish in the Wuthering Heights, the cliffs of Dover that inspired Turner to paint his war-torn seascapes and the blissful flatlands of Suffolk painted by Constable.

The series combines two of my loves- landscape paintings of the impressionist era and travel. I have wanted to own the DVDs ever since I first watched the programme on TV. As the photo shows, I now have my own copy! I watched the part on the romantic north (the lake district and the Yorkshire dales) this morning. I couldn't have asked for a better start to this bank holiday weekend!

Second-hand bookshops

I grew up in Kolkata which boasts of an entire street full of second-hand bookshops. I don't think there is another city in the world with something close to Boipara. Wikipedia calls it the largest second-hand book market in the world. It is hardly surprising then that I developed a taste for old and used books. I strongly feel that the kind of second-hand bookshops a city has speaks volumes about the city's character.

I discovered the Select Bookshop off Brigade Road after I went to live in Bangalore. A modest-sized house was converted entirely into a shop. Here books were stacked from floor to ceiling in every room with hardly any moving space between them. The oldest books had their covers torn off and no visible titles. I had a lot of fun in picking up one of those and trying to guess what it was about. My most prized buy from Select is a special edition of R. K. Narayan's The Emerald Route, illustrated by R.K. Laxman.

One couldn't ever fool Mr. Murthy, the owner, when it came to the price of the book though. I must say he was pretty generous with students and sometimes would even throw a book in for free if we couldn't afford it. A trip to Select on a Saturday morning almost always ended with coffee and scrambled eggs on toast at the Indian Coffee House on M.G. Road.

Then I moved to Paris and the bouquinistes on the bank of the Seine immediately reminded me of Boipara. As I spoke and read very little French, I could only buy old copies of Tintin comics from them. Pretty soon I discovered shops in Paris where one could find used English books. Shakespeare and Company near Quai St. Michel sold both old and new books. During most weekends in summer I used to take the RER B from the Cité Universitaire to St. Michel-Notre Dame, pop in to Shakespeare to buy a book, and then spend the rest of the morning reading on the banks of the Seine.

I can't remember where I first heard about Tea and Tattered Pages. The name caught my fancy, and one Sunday after lunch I set off for rue Mayet- an otherwise non-descript residential area of Paris. This bookshop also doubles as an English teashop. But what I loved the most about this place is that it had lines of poetry randomly displayed on the bookshelves.

On my way home from work I sometimes saw a serious-looking (i.e. bespectacled and bearded) young bookseller outside the main gate of the Cité universitaire. He would put his books down on the steps outside the gate and then simply start reading one of them. He rarely made any effort to sell his books. I bought my copy of Le Petit Prince from him. I never found out whether he was just an impoverished student trying to make some money by selling off his old books or a regular bookseller.

I have moved yet again- to Cambridge this time. There are quite a few old bookshops here, probably as an outcome of the large student population in the town. The travel writing section of the Oxfam bookshop on Sidney Street is one of the best I have seen until now. The other Oxfam shop near the Magdalen bridge also has a small but good collection of books. Galloway and Porter, although not a second-hand bookshop, always offers good discounts on new books. But amongst all the bookshops I have been to in Cambridge- and I have been to almost all of these- the Amnesty bookshop on Mill Road has the largest selection of both fiction and non-fiction works. And most importantly, you end up supporting Amnesty International everytime you buy a book from them.

Internet radio

Yesterday, thanks to a colleague, I discovered the last.fm website. I love the 'radio' feature that allows me to listen to a similar genre of music when I type in the name of a singer (or, song). Since then, I have listened to a lot of flamenco, rumba and country music.

And, does anyone else love BBC radio's 'Alan Titchmarsh with Melodies for You'?

To vote (absentee) or not

I voted in my first UK and Euro elections last week. As a citizen of a commonwealth country and a UK resident, I have the right to vote in UK elections.

Sadly though, I could not vote in the Indian parliamentary elections last month. Not even by postal ballot. India does not allow absentee voting except for defence personnel or citizens who are abroad as employees of the Government of India. Wikipedia has more details on the subject.

There are ethical, constitutional and logistical arguments for both sides of the question. While I understand why it might not make sense to allow non-resident Indians to vote in local elections (living abroad, I may not be aware of the local issues), I am not convinced that the same set of arguments hold when it comes to parliamentary elections. Wherever I may live currently, I am still a citizen of India and carry an Indian passport.

I have already had lengthy discussions about this with my friends. I have also been trying to follow on the web what people think about this. I found this blog post and the subsequent comments quite interesting. Some fellow bloggers at Voters Without Borders have even started an online campaign to try and earn electoral rights for non-resident Indian citizens.

Is the number of Indian citizens abroad not that large enough to matter electorally to any political party in India?

Hi there!

I have been regularly reading blogs (mostly science-y types and a few general ones) for quite a while now and got inspired by the ones I follow to start my own blog finally. I am a science researcher. But my work is not going to be the primary focus of this blog. This is a place where I share my thoughts about other things in life.

Let me start by sharing a photo. This is a tree outside our living room window. After a dismal and grey winter, it feels like spring is finally here.