Twisted Words

Monday morning; after a weekend of joint-stiffening, overextended sleeping, uncontrolled binging and a good-for-nothing existence I was getting back to the institute, armed and ready to do some research. Of course, I use the term loosely. I entered the gates; my bag felt reassuringly heavy, it had the five research papers my professor had asked me to go through over the last week. It was a sunny day and the smell of wet earth pervaded the campus; after all, the monsoons had arrived the day before. I walked along the tree lined road to my lab, awestruck by the majestic, century old Gulmohur trees, the sheer extent of which seemed to absorb the cacophony of the teeming city which I'd temporarily escaped. Birdsong replaced ear splitting horns and dried leaves crinkled under my feet. Nature still held her own here and the whole atmosphere seemed to clear my mind. It was like swiping your hand across a window fogged by a sudden downpour.

'Department of Physics', the words reminded me of why I was really here and smiling to myself, I entered the imposing building with its ornate wooden door and along the corridoor to my destination. Since I had come early, the hallways were still quiet but I enjoyed even that, a little bit of letting my mind wander and I would be transported to IISc circa 1910, when the structure of DNA was not known. I got to my lab and interrupted in the middle of another reverie, I took my shoes off, it was going to be another day...

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Monday morning; after a heavenly weekend of utterly relaxing, undisturbed sleep, gorging on some fingerlicking good fried chicken (you guessed it) and overfed on the kind of high that only laziness can induce I was getting back to the institute, stressed and bent under the mental load of forced 'research'. I plodded through the gate, my leaden bag threatening to snap my shoulder bones any minute. Blame it on the tomes my professor had handed me under the pretext of background research. The sun showed no mercy and burned down like only the June sun can. But atleast it wasn't as bad as the previous night when the clouds conspired to catch me exposed on the road and drenched me from head to toe. The effects of the waterlogging were still there; it smelled like muck. I continued my sullen trot to the lab, even the old and gnarly Gulmohurs seemed to be sneering at me, shedding their dead appendages where I walked. I had escaped a concrete jungle only to enter a real one, replete with cackling crows and shrieking mynas. The 'sounds of nature' hurt my ears. My mind went into a frenzy of random thoughts. They were like the last thoughts of someone looking out the window of a car, only to see a truck hurtling towards it.

'Department of Physics', the words loomed ominously overhead. "Rubbing it in", the phrase got a whole new meaning in my life and with my anguished mind and broken shoulders, I stepped through the rotting old door and into the deserted corridors. Atleast I did not have to watch as the Ph.D. students ambled around making jokes about Ramachandran plots and Polyalanine models. Becoming like them was becoming the biggest deterrent in my dream (ha!) to get a doctorate degree. Fast-forward to the future; I pictured myself sitting at the desktop jabbing at the keyboard meaninglessly. The blast of cold air from the lab ended the nightmare, thankfully and I took my shoes off, it was going to be another day...

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Don't always believe what you tell yourself. Never believe what others tell you.