Foie Gras

Author: Anu Karthik / Labels: ,

March 1st 2010

I had not heard of this until last Thursday when I received a forwarded e-mail with some information about the same. This translates into 'fat liver' and is a delicacy that is produced by force-feeding a goose and then purposefully fattening its liver. Maybe does not sound too bad in words but made me puke my breakfast almost when I saw the picture of the poor bird with the metal tube shoved down its throat and corn fed in. I cannot erase its eyes looking into mine ever I think, so helpless and as if making a plea. You can read more here . 

To clarify, I am not trying to advocate vegetarianism as I am not qualified and commit many crimes of my own. This e-mail only made me look a little bit deeper into how even though I am educated, I tend to take the easy way out and ignore many things as long as I am not exposed to it head on! For example, have I ever wondered how the cows whose milk I drink and the hens who eggs I eat are treated in their farms. I don't think any cow was made to be machine milked. Just mere internet browsing enlightened me that the male calves are killed or disposed off as soon as they are born and in general calves are separated from their mother as soon as they are born because the mother has to be milked. I cannot imagine that I am a consumer of this product.  You can read more here .

Where am I going with this, I don't know. I am thinking and need to think some more. For starters-the killer whales in Sea World used for entertainment, the animals in the circus, the granites in our homes, the diamonds on our hands, the crackers at Diwali - all gotten subjecting another to misery to bring a smile on our faces.  Is it worth it? How demeaning it is to see the king of the jungle jump to the tune of the ringmaster's whip? Why blame the whale for doing what comes to it naturally - it is not called a killer whale  so it can eat small pieces of tuna, is it?

I had to vent because I don't have answers but I hope my body follows my mind as I need to make some lifestyle changes. Easier said than done. Some things are easy to give up while some others not so much but maybe I can atone for some of the sins I commit by exploring alternatives and  giving back in other ways. I hope and pray.

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V's first bad word

Author: Anu Karthik /

Feb 26th 2010

So I swear I am not responsible for this. And though K might have used this in the past, he is a model citizen/ father these days. So we were baffled when for the first time we heard V use this word.  It took all of my self-control and then some more to stop myself from laughing, but I had to or this kid would catch on and then keep repeating it. But K and I wondered where he would have picked it up, and today I found out.

From a tomato. Yes 'thakkali'. V says the O word that rhymes with for 'thakkali'. He kept pointing to it today and just kept on saying '*kkali *kkali' and wanted me to feed him some.  So I asked him with a straight face 'Vrushab ku thakkali venuma?' and then gave him some. And then stifled my laughter and then came here to share it with you.

God, I love children and the joy they bring to our lives !!!

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Why I should have stayed in graduate school

Author: Anu Karthik / Labels: ,

Feb 18th 2010

  1. Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy less meetings.
  2. There were no *working* hours, I worked for as long as I wanted on some days and not so much on other days.
  3. I mostly did not keep track of vacation days.
  4. Dress-code- what is that? most days I was happy to come in after taking a shower.
  5. We got to use words like "ginormous", "ground-breaking", "innovative", "path-finding" etc. to describe our research unlike just "Get it done or you get fired!".
  6. We were the cool nerds who knew how to have fun.
  7. We could actually talk about our work to others and discuss it with our colleagues without having "confidential" stamped all over and getting sued and also not have our ideas stolen :)
  8. What pay was offered in our offer letter was what we got paid, and no one took away 1/2 of it in taxes, who cares that it was peanuts..at least you got what you were promised.
  9. Work-life balance was there because work was life, had to get that doctorate remember?
  10. We got to travel to cool places for conferences, and present our novel work and win awards, ok just one also counts :P
  11. We got student discounts everywhere- on airlines, amusement park tickets, restaurants, you name it and we got it!
  12. You had time for your interests and your passions.
  13. Life revolved around conference deadlines and paper presentations which was not too bad coming to think of it.
  14. People knew you (even because you were notorious counts) and you were not a nameless face lost in this whole sea of engineers
  15. Most important of all, we had a kinship with our research projects and kind of owned it and defended it left, right and center only to have it torn apart and start over all again :)
And the reason I left, so I could for once answer the question "So when are you done with your PhD?"

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