Lab day

There comes a time in the life of every lab when the wheel turns one cycle and the lab is yet another year older - the occasion of the Lab's birthday. Some new publications are added to the journals, some people finish (or get fed up) and leave while some other curious people join - the 'vicious' cycle of university education continues. But in the midst of all this , it is imperative to stop the wheels for a while and look back on the eventful year that has just passed, share some experiences and memories, and look forward to the bright (or gloomy) year ahead. It is also a great time time to catch up and make sense of what has been happening over the last year in the research community and try to make a semblance of sense out of it all.

In true lab tradition, we celebrated the birthday of the MAS lab at Ecole Centrale with full pomp and glory. The previous week ended on a not very high note for our lab, as we had just lost the Inter Lab Soccer Cup - but all was forgotten and everyone was keen to have fun today. The proceedings started with the customary speech by the lab director and then went on to have presentations by some members of the lab. It was the first time I actually saw the lab in almost entire strength(some were out of town) and it was nice to see everyone taking the day off, in essence, and having a nice little party. Martin was the only presenter whom I knew, and I tried hard to pay attention but soon was all out at sea - was it because I did not have the required background, or because it was indeed a very difficult subject - hand tracking? Or perhaps, it was because his and all the other presentations were in French, of which I hardly can understand even common parlance, leave alone technical terminology.
Soon, I was holding "Neverwhere " (an English book that Regis mercifully gave me that morning, sensing my incompetence at understanding the proceedings, and not wanting to be subject to a French to English translating session again - translating the pre-movie advertisements, when we had gone to watch Tarantino's Death Proof had convinced him that that was disastrous) in my left hand, a cup of orange juice in my right and balancing mini versions of croissants, pain au chocolat and pain au raisin on my thighs. Having food in the room while the presentations were running, was a very good move by the organizers, and it was good to see that everyone stayed in the room throughout. At every available opportunity (the end of each presentation), I would go for a full refill. In an hour, I had consumed 40 pages, 4 each of the aforementioned bakery items and a litre of juice. I now felt like I had just been through a series of short haul flights, where juices and bread are all you get while inside.

Finally the director of research wound up proceedings and called for lunch. In a few minutes the very room that was host to 40 odd chairs and was like a board room just a moment ago, now looked like the last page in an Asterix comic book, just before the big banquet. The food spread was amazing - everyone (well, almost everyone) brought something along and the huge table was soon filled with all sorts of food.

Now at this stage, you would expect that I would have monopolized the endo-foodulation, but I was intimidated by the conspicuous absence of vegetarian food. And just when I was faced with the scary prospect of going straight onto dessert, Salma saved me by giving me a foil-wrapped package - she had brought Arabic preparation, Mtabka,and had made out some vegetarian versions, just for me! They were great and I was amazed that they bore an uncanny resemblance in taste, to the Indian Dhokla.

That and some Greek epinard and fromage dumplings that Kostas had brought formed the bulk of my main course, along with some baget(French bread) that I had with Camembert(pron. "camom-bear"), my favourite French fromage(pron. "fromaajzhe", cheese). This fascination for camembert had begun a couple of weeks ago, when Charlotte had given me very generous helpings(in fact, packs!) of a few varieties of fromage, made in the traditional way. I felt a magnetic pull toward this innocent looking melt in the mouth cheese that was just irresistible - I now knew exactly what to have at the multitude of French restaurants that one finds all over Paris. Bread with 3 fromages - camembert, camembert and camembert.

Once the main course was done, I continued the conquest in familiar territory, and soon had more than a mouthful of cakes, pastries and confectionery. Then, it was time to play and we all waited outside the gymnasium for quite a while, not having the key. Once opened, volleyball, basketball and badminton were going on in parallel, and we kept switching between them. Martin & Radhouenne, and later Regis & Takure joined Chaohui and me in some nice games of badminton, where nobody fully knew whether we were playing by the old rules or the rules, save for that we were playing. But in the midst of this I had lost total track of the time, and was jolted when Regis left the game, saying it was 5 pm! I was supposed to meet Tanya(a friend from Switzerland, who was at IIT Madras last year) at 6 in Paris, and it was quite late. An SMS from her saying that they would be arriving at 6 pm "Indian time" was very comforting. I reached the Saint Michel fountain at 6.10 and while I waited, was pondering - During the course of my trip so far, I had realized that "French time" was not too far from "Indian time", definitely not 3 1/2 hours behind!