Rewriting the script: The Ordinary Scientist
My journey from falling in love with stories and writing to its loss and its rediscovery as a fundamental lifeline for living well as a female scientist.
It’s the early 1980’s in Calcutta, India. A little girl, six or seven years old, sat with her grandmother, wrapped in a shawl, on a slow, dark winter evening. The neighbourhood was hit by a power cut, which was common in those days. They sat in a dimly lit room with a candle or two, weaving stories to pass the time. It was an unlikely pair to find common ground. One brimming with the enthusiasm of youth and the other reminiscing about bygone eras. They shared the darkness, which offered an empty slate to fill with curiosity, experience, and friendship.
The young girl’s eyes focused on the yellow flame of the candle in front, which revealed the room’s objects weakly. They had come alive, taking the form of gigantic shapes swirling in shadows on the wall that sat opposite them. She imagined deep forests navigated by brave little children who fought magical creatures, the adventures of unlikely heroes, and friendships forged in difficult circumstances that lasted a lifetime. Her grandma told her stories from Hindu mythology to a time when she, as a little girl, had traveled to India with her family during the Partition that had divided the Indian subcontinent and ravaged several generations.
When the electricity was restored, the translucent light washed over, snuffing out the characters and their stories. The television roared back to life, and the room looked small and filled deceptively with ordinariness. The little girl found this change of scene surreal. She wasn’t annoyed by the power cuts that plagued her visit to her Grandma’s. She waited for them. They unveiled a peaceful canvas that could be coloured and lit with her imagination.
That little girl spinning yarns of imagination was me.
As I grew up, I was grateful to keep reading and telling stories. I found comfort, hope, and courage between the covers of books. I wrote to make sense of the world, and sometimes myself. At times, words heaved within like frenzied waves that wouldn’t be stilled except when captured on paper. Regardless of the odds stacked against me, whether I stood at the throes of despair or picked the pieces in a pall of gloom afterwards, words helped me befriend unfamiliar and daunting emotions.
While literature is my first love, I didn’t go to college and study it. I was afraid that it would lose its beauty and mystique once I forged it into a career. Instead, I studied biology and went off to pursue graduate school on another continent. I enjoyed the sciences, so this wasn’t a terrible compromise. Life happened. Work and building a career as an independent scientist took over every crevice and breath. For a bit, I stopped writing outside of science. Without writing, my life somewhat withered, and I felt lost, like swirling aimless in a desert storm.
Eight years ago, I started my lab, now back in India, and my daughter was born. For a while, I struggled to put in order my own incoherent mind, immersed in building my lab, an enterprise to successfully live my scientific vision, and conflicted as to what I should be doing and feeling as a mother.
Then four years ago, I took to running, quite by chance. It opened the doors to feeling like myself again, though I had never run before. I started writing for creative expression once more. The organised chaos of everyday life began making a bit more sense, and I wondered how I kept away for as long as I did.
I found Medium not very long ago, and I am here for the inspiration. I share my experiences as I navigate the challenges of academia and research as a female scientist leading a team of researchers, my life as a mom to a fiery six-year-old girl and two beautiful cats, my best friend and partner, and my loves, running, dark chocolate, coffee, rugged mountains, and romancing the sky in her many moods. I also share how my perception of life and time has changed in my forties and my strategies for living with intention.
I don’t know if I will carve a niche or whether my stories and voice will stand out on Medium. For now, I am grateful for this community and for the ability to keep writing to refill my cup.
Thank you for reading! If you found that this resonated with you or if you have had similar experiences, please share your thoughts in the comments. Please consider following and subscribing to my writing. Your love and support would mean a lot, as I find my feet as a fledgling writer. You can also find more of me on Linkedin.
