Far far away, on a mystical land where the sun rose in the east and set in the west, where stars twinkled, where graduate students toiled for free food and western blots continuously failed, there lived a great graduate student called 'Ram'. He lived in Ayodhya Apartments which was managed by Lobos - promising realtors who tried everything in their might to prevent the death of their tenants (especially due to bathroom flooding).

His advisor Dr. Dasharatha (MD/PhD) was a great man who collaborated with evil principal investigators like Dr. Kaikeyi to whom publications were more important than the funding of graduate students. On the day Ram finished his lab rotation, Dr. Dasharatha crowned him with the most coveted GSR position much to the irritation of his collaborator. Dr. Kaikeyi then reminds Dr. Dasharatha about the contractual agreements of the collaboration and sends Ram into an endless journey of finding protein interactions using Westerns and CO-IPs. Meanwhile, Bharata, the new post-doc enjoys all the limelight, the new lab coat, the personal cubicle, and more such amenities while Ram struggles with just granola bars for lunch.

Sita, the lab technician and Lakshman, the annoying undergrad accompany Ram in this perilous adventure where dangers like Santa Cruz antibodies and wrong buffers could ruin their lives. After traversing through the chasm of death filled with take-home-exams and paper discussions, and slaying the two demonic journal club presentations, Ram finally comes to face Dr. Ravana and Co. - his thesis committee!

Dr. Ravana has everything in him to make the lives of graduate students miserable. His presence and aura gives self destructing attributes to the students; Dr. Ravana himself and his army (from other departments) were all set to launch a brutal attack on Ram. Lanka Hall, the new conference room in Scaife Hall would be the battlefield. The battle has begun. Ram dodges, bends, ducks, moves, retaliates, fires, and finally emerges out of the battlefield, hurt, hungry, tired, insulted, injured, exasperated, and yet victorious and relieved !

Baratha personally comes to receive Ram and gives a piece of his half-eaten pizza to him. Back in the kingdom, Dr. Dasharatha is happy to have his graduate student back, qualifiers cleared, and looks forward to put him through another infinite years of frustration and lab bench maintenance.

Thus ends the greatest epic of all times - the Ramayan - the journey of Ram - a true story depicting the ideal advisor, the ideal graduate student, and the ideal committee, the duties of life, the duties of relationships, and the duties to be performed during incubation times (checking gmail, playing farmville, updating status messages, and for people like me, blogging!)