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I feel so incredibly lucky to be in this place. To walk through the same corridors as some of the masterminds of science have walked. To sit in an auditorium listening to people I had only had imaginations about, when I was little. To randomly discuss a book I am reading, with a Nobel Laureate. I know now all these are not a big deal and all those are normal people, but at some point in my life, those were dreams.

I cannot believe that I have at least partially lived some dreams I have had since I was ten. In trying to understand how the brain works. Or working with some incredibly cultivated, intelligent and creative people. And, traveling to places I had touched with fingertips in atlases, from that dilapidated house in Kolkata that was once home.

And there are things I had not dreamed of, necessarily: like getting paid more than what I know what to do with, all just for playing around and doing experiments.

And I have got a feeling for both the horror and wonder of doing research. How draining, but how addictive.

But the most important discovery I have made about myself is this, that I love these fleeting feelings and moments of discovery. I love to question myself. I love to open my eyes and see what I have not before, and sometimes, to be the first one to do so in the universe.

While some of these discoveries are real, most of those are not. That is how science works.

And, I believe, that is only okay, because science is not a story. It is the truth.