Hi, thanx for visiting the J pages. J stands for Jyoti (pronounced with a hard 'J' [half the letter pronounced if its possible for you :)] plus 'yoti' as in yolk). I know its intuitive
if you are Indian, which is
where Im from
- New Delhi, India, but in southern California where I am
at right now doing a Ph.D. in Neuroscience (Computational Neurobiology
actually if I need to be precise or Biology if I need to be less
technical), Ive heard pronunciations ranging from 'g.t'. to 'hoti' to
'josie' and so on which don't even come close to reality.
Well, in
India every name has a 'deeper' meaning, mine means light, which
isnt very deep if you think of a light bulb but I'm sure you can
extrapolate finer meanings... For instance, at school we used to sing
a Hindi song everyday whose last few lines were "apni aatm-jyoti se
pulkit apne surya swayam ban jao", which means 'inpsired by your inner
light become your own sun'. The translation may not do the verse
full justice, but it sort of represents my philosophy - aim higher, not
be afraid of
challenges, and when in doubt look within. Actually, Im not too sure why this page exists, but I figure I can save some time answering some very frequent questions that people throw at me every now and then. For instance, everyone here (in the US) who meets me for the first time would say "Im surprised you dont have an Indian accent inspite of just being here for three years." And I always say that well, I can fake accents easily. When I went to Japan, I learnt how to do a Japanese-English accent, and I can do a Spanish one, and of course when in India I speak like my Indians. Ive also tried a French one but I need to be exposed to the country for more than a month to refine the accent. Id love to get a part British accent just because it sounds so nerdy. Sadly though I cant make a comedy routine out of all this because I can't switch accents voluntarily (although my Ph.D. advisor can and its hilarious) - it's an automatic process that makes me speak in the accent that the person Im speaking to speaks in. Its almost like being a chameleon, which is also in my nature: I like being completely adaptive to situations and I like to keep only one suitcase worth of essential belongings with me - the lesser the material attachments the happier I am. One suitcase worth of belongings makes me travel easier too, and I love to travel everywhere and anywhere to explore the culture, history, people, cuisine. It makes me wonder sometimes if I should have been a travel show host.
But not really, because I love where I'm at and what I do, i.e. Neuroscience. I wanted to be a scientist for as long as I know. Althought I didn't know this profession was called being a 'scientist' when I was younger. I loved doing school science projects, I even did some of the ones my li'l sis got assigned coz it was so much fun. And I've always loved talking about science too. As far back as 6 years of age I pretended to give conference talks to an imaginary audience (no I have no history of hallucinations) with my room posters as backdrop, which was largely influenced by seeing tapes of my Dad's medical lectures that would always end with resounding applause!
