What Else Do I Do? Languages, Bureaucracy, and the Art of Making Sense

While my day job involves trying to understand how brains control behavior, my curiosities extend far beyond the laboratory. Let me tell you about the other adventures that keep me busy.

Languages: The Ultimate Neural Network

As someone who studies neural circuits, I'm fascinated by perhaps the most complex neural network of all - human language. I speak several languages (Bengali, English, French, Hindi, and bits of others), and each one offers a different window into how the brain processes and organizes information.

The Neuroscience of Multilingualism

What's particularly interesting is how multilingual brains work. Research shows that speaking multiple languages literally changes your brain structure - increasing gray matter density, improving executive function, and even providing some protection against cognitive decline. As someone who switches between Bengali with my parents, Hindi and English with my wife, English for my work, and French for daily life in Paris, I'm essentially running a personal experiment.

Language and Thought

Each language I speak shapes how I think about concepts. Bengali has a richness for expressing emotions and relationships that English sometimes lacks. French has a precision in philosophical discourse that's hard to match. English excels in scientific and technical communication. This isn't just academic theory - I literally think differently depending on which language I'm using.

Science Communication: Making the Complex Accessible

One of my passions is science communication - taking the complex, technical work we do in labs and making it accessible to everyone. This isn't just about "dumbing down" science; it's about translation in the deepest sense.

Why It Matters

Science that stays locked in academic journals serves no one. Whether it's explaining why we study zebrafish to understand human balance disorders, or helping people understand how their brains process language, communication is crucial for:

• Building public support for research funding
• Helping patients understand their conditions
• Inspiring the next generation of scientists
• Informing policy decisions

The Art of Translation

Good science communication requires understanding both your audience and your subject deeply enough to find the right metaphors, analogies, and examples. It's similar to the challenge of translating between languages - you need to capture not just the literal meaning, but the essence and implications.

Bureaucracy: The Unsung Art Form

This might sound strange and to an extent, but I've developed a genuine fascination with bureaucracy. As an immigrant researcher who's navigated systems in India, Switzerland, the UK, and France, I've come to appreciate bureaucracy as a complex system that reveals a lot about how societies organize themselves, and as a tool to oppress.

Bureaucracy as Social Architecture

Each country's bureaucratic system reflects its values, history, and assumptions about how society should work:

• French bureaucracy values logic and systematic organization, but can be inflexible
• Swiss systems prioritize precision and thoroughness
• British bureaucracy often relies on tradition and unwritten rules
• Indian systems reflect the complexity of managing incredible diversity

The Immigration Experience

Navigating visa applications, residence permits, work authorizations, and university enrollment across different countries has been like conducting a comparative study in institutional design. Each system has its own logic, its own assumptions about what information is important, and its own ways of processing human stories into administrative categories.

This experience has made me both more patient with bureaucratic processes and more aware of how these systems can exclude or include people based on their ability to navigate complex requirements.

History and Political Theory: Understanding Our Present

I'm also drawn to history and political theory, particularly around questions of migration, citizenship, and how societies manage diversity. These aren't just abstract interests - they're directly relevant to my life as a researcher working internationally.

Migration and Modernity

The history of scientific migration is fascinating. Many of the greatest scientific advances happened when researchers moved across borders, bringing different perspectives and methods. Today's debates about immigration often miss this crucial point about how mobility drives innovation.

Language Policy and Power

I'm particularly interested in how language policies shape access to education and opportunity. Why is research published primarily in English? How do language requirements affect who can participate in international science? These questions matter for making research more inclusive and global.

The Connections

You might wonder how all these interests connect with neuroscience research. Actually, they're deeply interconnected:

• Language research informs our understanding of neural plasticity and learning
• Science communication requires understanding how brains process and remember information
• Bureaucratic navigation involves executive function, decision-making, and social cognition
• Historical perspective helps us understand how scientific paradigms develop and change

Making Time for Curiosity

The academic world often pressures researchers to specialize narrowly, but I believe that broad curiosity makes better scientists. Understanding language helps me think about neural circuits differently. Navigating bureaucracy teaches patience and systematic thinking. Historical perspective provides context for current research questions.

Plus, these interests keep research in perspective. When an experiment fails or a paper gets rejected, I can switch to reading about linguistic evolution or writing about the absurdities of visa applications. Intellectual diversity is as important as any other kind.

What's Next?

I'm always looking for new ways to combine these interests. Maybe a project on how different languages describe scientific concepts. Perhaps research on how bureaucratic stress affects cognitive performance. Or writing that makes both neuroscience and the immigration experience more accessible to broader audiences.

The brain is endlessly fascinating, but so is the world it tries to understand. Why limit ourselves to just one slice of that complexity?

What are your interests beyond your main field? How do they inform your primary work? I'd love to hear about the unexpected connections you've discovered between different areas of curiosity.