this question has always been there in my mind, sumtimes not at the top of my mind, but hidden sumwhere deep down beneath its conscious workings.
Does the means to acheive an end matter at all? When something good is being done by adopting the wrong means , does it leave any doubts about the intentions? Do the ends always justify the means? The gandhian principles may not apply in today's contenxt, so to correct the twisted, we may have to distort ours ways to a certain extent. But what is this extent? This justifies our means in a highly self-centered and short-sighted society. But I am somehow not convinced by this line of reasoning. Where does the difference between the right and the wrong lie then, if both follow the same/similar means to acheive their ends? After all, the ends being good and bad is only relative, there is nothing right or wrong in this world in the absolute sense.
I have no answers to this intriguing question. For now, am just going to take off from this world while listening to "you don't see" by pussy cat dolls!

I hate having things unanswered, leaving things incomplete, especially in the lab and ofcourse in retrosynthetic analysis. Today I dissected a mechanism for annulation of a dicyanide penta ring, in the presence of a tertiary butoxide preceeding the addition of phosphoric acid. But there are still questions in my mind. I wonder why the reaction as deslongchamps points out, goes via an enamino-nitrile intermediate. Ofcourse I have managed to convince myself of the possibility of this happening. But I wonder if this happens every time, or just this once due to the presence of the tertiary butoxide....

Imagine two people- Ram and Shyam. Both are in their early twenties, living life like any ordinary person, one moment loving it, another, wondering why the grass is greener on the other side. Lets present them in two different situations. Ram pays a visit to the doctor one day with an unsuspecting stomach ailment that turns into a dreaded stomach cancer. He's left counting days. While lets spare shyam of this deadly curse, rather lets assume we know that shyam doesnt live any longer than Ram, even though he is not given any kind of hint about his impending death. So Ram and Shyam die at the same age, but do their lives remain the same anymore?. Shyam-yes, but what about Ram? Poor Ram is intrinsically dying each day. I donot remember where I read this, but when a man is just about to die, the scene of his entire life passes before his eyes. And this very well describes Ram's thoughts and feelings now.

But why this sudden difference in their perspectives? Just knowing when we are exactly about to stop breathing or how many days we have left, makes so much of a difference... this thought never struck me till now! But ironically speaking, it helps us to live every moment of our life (atleast those remaining days) to the fullest. Yes Ram is miserable, he thinks some kind of injustice has been done to him, he experiences immense pain, but amidst all this, he learns to live, appreciating even the smallest things in life. I donot want to sound like a rabbi, but if any of us were in his shoes, wouldnot we want to make the best of what we have left? Isn't that natural? While Shyam lives each passing day like any other day, not realising that this may be the only chance he gets to live life as "shyam"!
I donot intend to turn tonight's blog into a chapter on why life is precious ( in fact I myself dismiss this with a shrug, if someone tells me the same), but I was just wondering how it would be if we all of us came to know how many days we have left. Would it help? or would life turn into a living hell?

Freedom. It means different things to different people. some prefer not to move out of their circle of comfort, and some cannot, even if they are willing to explore. seldom do we realise the cost we pay for a dearth or an insufficient degree of freedom. And when we do, its either too late or too difficult to make a beginning. When we are suddenly thrust with the choice to do what we want to or the breathing space to commit mistakes with out questions being raised, we feel uncomforable, as if we have been punished, and our usually organised and predictable life has come to a stand still. Freedom comes with responsibilites. When people are not permitted to take responsibility for their actions over a period of time, they begin to slowly cringe from choosing to be responsible for anything small or big. Ofcourse there lines to be drawn for every choice we make, there is a upper limit for every decision we take. As and when we start being responsible for our actions, these limits inherently become a part of our actions. I feel that decision making is one of those few things in life that can never be taught to us. It is only learnt in two ways, one is to become a conscious part of the decision making process, another is by looking around us, learning from others. But there is no better teacher than experience.

As life moves on, we slowly begin to realise that one of our most treasured and handy attributes is the ability to make rational decisions, with out fearing whether they are right or wrong. Having the courage to face the music stems from our confidence as an individual.

A pity lots of people are yet to celebrate their indenpendence day!