Month: January 2017

My mother’s sister and her husband inspire me in several ways. This post is just a massive thank you to them.

My earliest memories of India are deeply rooted in spending time with my aunt and uncle in Bangalore. I was the NRI kid who came down for a month or so, and when I did, there were certain things that were bound to, and had to happen.

The first was that everyone would notice I had grown. Sometimes I had become slightly chubbier and more round, sometimes I had tanned. This one time I had gotten a new set of teeth. Observations about a species educated in a foreign land tended to take up a lot of time. Apart from that came the fact that I was paraded around as ‘My Mother’s Son’, a title I’m proud to hold, but one that meant meeting too many people I didn’t remember. Which led to more people observing me and wondering if I was the same as a kid from Bangalore.

Will he like chakkali? Can he eat our curd?

Yes, and no.

I love chakkali. I could not eat curd that was made at home. Mainly because of cream, which disgusted me as a child.

The first people to break away from this trend of spoiling and catering to my needs were my uncle and aunt. Note, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t pampered by them (I still am). It just meant that they were the first people I was totally comfortable with. I feel a large part of that has to do with the fact that I was 1 year old at their wedding, parading around in my multicoloured wardrobe.

The other thing that happened, every single time I came to Bangalore, was trip to Amoeba followed by Pizza Hut. This HAD to happen, and I looked forward to weekends very often, just to go bowl and eat my pizza. I sucked at bowling, big time, and needed gutters to help me. But I grew through Bowling and Pizza – eventually to the number 6 ball and a medium pizza with garlic bread (on my final trip here as an NRI).

This trip was a lot of fun because it was mostly just the 3 of us, chilling. I could talk about whatever with them – that still holds true today, without any fear of judgement, and they always found a way to keep me entertained, be it boxing with me or buying me storybooks my mother had an aversion to(thanks for Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire [Gangarams]).

It was beautiful. A large part of that relationship stayed the same when we moved back to India, because they saw me grow in front of them.

See, my blogposts will tell you how cool my parents are. My aunt and uncle? Well, you decide.

I went to my first IPL game with my uncle and we had a blast. My aunt came for a fundraiser concert we organized when I was in school. They both also ensured that while I was being disciplined at home – in terms of, ‘work hard, it’ll pay off’, I learnt to give myself a break when I deserved one.

My uncle, to this day, is the one person I admire because of his breadth of knowledge on a variety of topics. The NBA? Cricket? Politics? Books? Movies? He’s got you covered. He is one of the few people in front of whom I feel like my opinions need to be water-tight. Faff can get me past a lot of people. My uncle? Never.

My aunt is who I go to when I’m having a rough time, and I didn’t realize this until today. Since my dad was abroad, a lot of times, my aunt has come and stayed over with my mum & I, if Amma was unwell, or if something was up. We’ve gone over to their house too, just to stay over, if Amma needed a break. She’s also super, super creative, and if there’s one person in our family who whole-heartedly appreciates my horrible jokes, it’s my aunt. She’d be the only one genuinely laughing if I did stand-up comedy. Even my mother would laugh out of pity.

I saw this correlation in my brain when my aunt sent me French language jokes today. I didn’t understand why – she hates forwards as much as I do, and we have pretty much the same opinion toward most things (though I don’t get how she doesn’t like chocolate). It was when I replied, and she said ‘Mission Accomplished! I knew this would bring a smile to your face :)’, that it hit me. I’ve been having a rough few days, and to think that she wanted me to laugh it off was pretty awesome.

My aunt and my uncle were this crazy alternative support mechanism I had, because along with my parents, these guys bridged an age gap by being cool and relatable, but also mature and strict at times. Physics was legitimately the lowest point of school life, and while both parents were super supportive, lots of analysis and self-actualization about Law came about in one conversation with you both. Swalpa senti I’m getting but I remember things vividly.

So, thank you guys. I need more words to explain everything, but thank you. Thank you for housing me for a month during internships, for packing my dabba daily when I worked, for telling me I need a girlfriend in life, for explaining to me that decisions are easy when you compartmentalize your wants.

For taking me to the doctor when I fell sick in Bangalore, for making tomato saaru with floating tomato pieces, and, for being the ONLY people to understand that a 2nd Grader DOES NOT need to do Holiday Homework.

I’ve been lucky to have you around. Thank you. 🙂

 

 

This entire dashed thing is just something I’m doing to convince myself I’m writing daily.

If you’ve followed the blog, you might have read this post of mine called Seniors, where post Freshers’, I fanboyed about some of the individuals I looked upto and admire at college.

And the thing was that last year, I associated them with their achievements.

Today, I shared a cab ride with one of my seniors, and we were talking profound talks about mooting, the mooting system, law school, law school life, and well, it dawned on me that there’s some misconception about the associative value to a person within the confines of college.

It’s strange. It’s not that people here don’t care to understand who people are, or what sort of characters they are, but that the first thing that pops into people’s heads about other people is their achievements. It’s a horrid practice, and I think that it’s rather sad that that’s what we’ve come to. I also believe that this culture is reflective of this annoying competitive edge we develop/have as Indians.

Just think about the number of competitions you’ve done. We, as Indians, live our lives like we have this massive weight of ‘beating someone’ upon us. It’s not like we aim for self-improvement, or just self-satisfaction (insofar as our goals are concerned), but that we aim to do better than someone else. It’s crazy how innate this is to who we are.

For example, board exams, and then, entrance exams. Its all about getting a mark ahead. This extends to the way we approach University applications abroad as well. We don’t try telling people about our multifaceted personalities and the several things we’ve tried, and failed at, but rather, present this all-conquering, all-successful, yet narrow image of who we are.

And I’m being critical of the system not on the merit of what we’ve achieved, but on the basis of where it’s taken us. I mean, competition, and healthy competition is great. I’m an advocate for people helping others becoming better versions of themselves – that’s a great thing, in that it helps people figure out what they like and enjoy doing. But it’s pretty pathetic when it’s the only thing we care about, and well, when we develop an attitude of doing anything to gain a yard over others.

It may sound like I’m digressing greatly, or ranting. But its true. In college, people don’t know you because you’re nice to speak to, or fun to chill with, but they associate you with what you achieve. And its utterly disgraceful, but that is precisely how it works.

Let’s look at what my friends do. People run magazines and NGO’s. And if someone needed a reference, that’s what I would introduce them as. I wouldn’t talk about their desire to do positive social service, or their flair and mere passion for writing and reading.

That was a pretty profound realization for me. It also hit me that it meant that we somewhat ignored people’s knowledge and work and gave larger credit to the 5% of luck involved in every achievement ever.

So I’m going to stop doing that, I think. Actively going to introduce and talk about people in light of what I’ve taken away from conversations with them. Instead of a moot win, I’ll tell people about someone’s knowledge on a particular topic.

It’s a small change, but hey. Might as well attack the system in some way I can.

Time to go back to reading.

 

24 hours can see you go through a whirlwind of emotions, and it’s beautiful to see how much life you can pack into one day of existence.

Today for instance, I gave oral preparatory rounds to a friend of mine, and then spent a good 30-40 minutes relaxing with my friends. Its one of the first times I’ve taken an extended break like that in the past 3 months, but it was the most fulfilling thing I did today.

India’s such a diverse country, and I’ve always spoken about my desire to travel and explore as much of it as I can. It’s the reason I went to Delhi in November, and part of the reason I’m desperate to go to Mumbai in May. I just want to see as much of the country as I possibly can, and try to connect with as many people as I can.

This desire stems out of how spoiled I was when we moved to India from the UAE. Back in the 6th Grade, I couldn’t deal with a lot of things around me. I didn’t know how to respond to the existence of mosquitoes, ants, and black spots on bananas  – in essence, I was used to a very protected, artificial lifestyle, and India thrust me into reality. And it stung.

I hated it for a while, and studying at an International school didn’t help to correct my attitude. Within the confines of school, I was surrounded by like-minded, recently repatriated individuals, and finding ourselves in our motherlands, we did the exact opposite of what common-sense would have told us to. We developed accents and tried with all our might to protect our sense of ‘foreignness’.

That took me a while to shake off. I never really read about India or it’s history. I didn’t bother reading any news apart from Sports pages, and if someone told me about politics (this continued till 10th Grade), I got annoyed and left the conversation.

I think this possibly worked as a defence-mechanism. Some way to show that I wasn’t Indian. The trips back to Dubai didn’t really help me either – I always connected more with Dubai than with Bangalore.

All of this changed as I prepared for CLAT. I realized how little I knew about where I was studying when  I pushed myself to attend coaching classes. I did a lot of firsts in the 11th Grade – traveled by a local BMTC, yelled at an auto driver, fought and bargained with a couple of people in my mother-tongue, and it felt fantastic.

The more GK questions I failed at, the more I realized that my ignorance had hurt me. And that realization really hurt. It sucked to know that I stayed in a place for nearly 6 years and didn’t care enough to understand what the place really was. Which is why what I’ve been doing since then, is mere over-correction.

How all of this relates back to me chilling with my friends, you ask?

Well, I answer.

Even if you don’t ask.

My sense of identity has been pretty weird. I’ve always asserted my inner-Kannadiganess, in my mannerisms and tastes/preferences, but I still can’t read Kannada and appreciate Kannada literature (hoping to change that in the next 2 years). If people ask me where I’m from, I’m torn between Bangalore and Dubai, and often explain my life’s backstory – losing people’s interest in the interim.

So while I read a lot about India, my sense of identity really got cemented when I came to college. I made a decision to study in India when I had an easy-route out to a good University in the UK, and the minute I did that, I decided that I’d immerse myself in everything the country had to offer me, and possibly loot more out of the country, in terms of experiences.

I missed Bangalore a lot in the first semester. And I missed Kannada more. Kannada, the way I spoke it at home – with my tattered bits of English and a lot of slang words. The ‘clean’ Kannada, without any swear words, or pieces of Shivajinagar. The Kannada that was incomplete.

All that missing disappeared the minute I found this guy from Jayanagar and this other one from Basaveshwarnagar. Two people, a Punjabi and a Gujarati, whose flair in the language far exceeds any capabilities I will ever have, and whose Kannadiga-ness I have never doubted. Two people who stayed in locations I knew moderately well, but still made fun of me for being an outcast from Whitefield.

So today when we sat together to chill, I felt like I was at home.

And college is beautiful because you feel like you’ve known everyone forever.

Which just got me sentimental, and I thanked my stars that I decided to stay back in India. Someone else in the UK would have made me feel at home by talking to me in Kannada, but it wouldn’t compare to these guys yelling at me for not knowing the words to ‘Jaya Bharata Jananiya Tanujate’.

 

 

Strange that I miss days of writing in threes.

I have a fear of failure. I’ve accepted this several times in the past, but I’ve never been able to rationalize this. Today’s post is an attempt to figure out what the root of my fear of failure is.

But first: context

I figured out I feared failure first in the 11th Grade, when we were asked to write our strengths and weaknesses. I understood at some point that I couldn’t get over small failures in the past. The failure to impress a girl, the failure to meet grade benchmarks I set for myself. The failure to finish books on time, the failure to be in the quintessential ‘in-group’ in class.

So I listed it as a weakness. And I told my mother. She didn’t understand why I felt that way. My dad couldn’t figure it out either.

I understood at some point that I feared failure because of I was afraid of the type of reaction that I would get from society. There’s a general image that one creates for themselves, and that’s an image you strive not to lose – you believe it’s very essential to who you are as a person. Well, from the start, I was the nerd – the academic guy, the guy who didn’t play sports, but knew sports trivia and statistics. I was the guy who never set foot on a football field but could tell you things about Manchester United from the darkest corners of the Internet. I was the guy who went prepared for exams and did well.

Which is why, when I forgot to study for a Class Test in the 7th Grade (in Geography), I cried when I saw the paper. And I sprinted across to the Counselor’s room, wailing. I told her that I failed my test (I didn’t), and that I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t admit this at that time, but I wasn’t scared from the inside. There were two external factors I was very, very worried about: 1) What would my parents say? and 2) How would my friends react?

Let’s deal with each of these individually.

(1) is a pretty easy question. See, my parents put a lot of academic pressure on me at a very young age. I think they feared I’d become very laid back (which I did in Grade 8), and hence, they ensured I was studying at all times. In fact, I had specific rules that operated around exam time: restrictions on TV time, computer time, my storybooks disappearing, and so on. It’s so infused in our family culture, that even my grandmother got involved – snooping on me during exams and reporting to my mother about my progress (or lack thereof). Hence, failure was not an option. Failure meant having to listen to a lecture on how irresponsible I was. But heck, who cared about responsibility? I didn’t. So yes, I was scared of what my parents would say. And you can’t isolate this only to academic failures. It ended up becoming a recurring pattern – the pressure came from them (although it’s always been positive), and subsequently led to fear, which made me work, and then I did okay – in whatever activity. So when I thought I failed that Geo. test, it created a lot of trauma for me. I couldn’t contemplate the things I would have to hear: ‘Do you go to class and waste your time?’, or ‘What do we buy you books and stationery for?’ (Amma/Appa: not being critical of your parenting style – I love you, chill)

(2) is another simple thing. See, I wasn’t ‘cool’. Nor do I purport to be ‘cool’ now. I didn’t have any striking, defining features, and most of my pursuits as a child were really, really boring. So, being known as a ‘nerd’ gave me a social identity. I was scared because if I lost that, there was really nothing my friends would ever ‘need’ me for. Every kid has a fear of not fitting in, commonly abbreviated in 2016 as FOMO. And I had a pretty bad case. See, people spoke to me when they needed to figure out what exam portions were, or what to study. And I liked getting some attention then (sounds narcissistic, but it’s true). I hated that if I failed, people would poke jabs at me, and someone would replace me as the ‘portion guy’.

I grappled with this in Grades 11 and 12, and it hit me really, really hard at two of my lowest points in school life. The first was when I got 68% on a Board Exam in Physics, and the second was when I was rejected post-interview by my dream University. 68% for me was failure. And that’s when I cried over the phone to my parents. I didn’t know how to come to terms with it. The same thing happened with the University. I broke down and sat at home – didn’t go to class for two days to avoid pity stares from friends.

I had not a clue what to do.

The fear of failure haunts me even today, and I believe that on some level, it haunts all of us, because we create an internal pressure mechanism for ourselves. We don’t live life all that carefree anymore – there’s a need to ‘succeed’ and a weird notion of what ‘making it!’ in today’s world entails.

Now this sounds extremely profound, but it’s 3:30AM in the morning, so I can be forgiven for these thoughts, but I’ve come to accept my fear of failure by figuring out that the only person I will ever feel bad about letting down is myself. I mean, it still hurts me when I let down my parents – because their hard work has made me who I am. But, I can’t live under the fear of not living up to someone else’s standards of judgment of who I am, or rather, who/what people expect me to be.

I’m now less scared of this ‘failure’ thing. I mess up, I learn. And while this is no endorsement of irresponsibility, or treating botch-ups casually, I feel like we, specifically as Indians, need to learn to live for ourselves, and on our own terms. Not selfishly, not by any stretch of the imagination, but just to, at some points, prioritize our own happiness in the choices that we make.

And don’t worry guys. I’m not going through some sad phase of life as I write this. But, I’m about to embark on a week that’s going to be the defining story of my second year. I just really don’t want to be scared as I do that.

See you tomorrow.

No content to write about today,

Except for the contentment I derive out of sleep.

While this may not sound all that meaningful to anybody reading, typing these 40-odd words means that I’m still typing away furiously at my keyboard for 5 minutes having played with 20-odd openings and decided none of them was nice enough to write about.

I’d blog about bits of my life but I have a strange feeling my parents and some family are reading this. Maybe I’ll get over that fear someday.

If any writers around have managed to pierce that wall, drop a comment. Please help. 😛

I fell asleep during one of my classes today. My eyes dragged shut and my head bobbed up and down rhythmically, but I wasn’t bothered. Waking up was probably the hardest part. Took a cold water splash to fix the concentration.

Today was another set of birthdays: the birthday of my grandmother, and a friend who understands me better than I understand myself at times.

My paternal grandmother has been a source of constant support in my life. I used to spend my time as a kid vacationing: a month in Bangalore, and one in Pune. Because I didn’t have any friends here, and my relatives were working, the only thing that kept me sane during the day was the television, books, and my PSP, if I had carried it along. There’s nothing else I enjoyed doing, even though my parents sent mountains of holiday homework they had conjured in a vain attempt to keep me busy.

I never understood it. In Bangalore, I spent my time watching Pogo, staying indoors, reading a few books, and eating amazing rasam. In Pune, I spent my time watching Beyblade, learning about Pokemon, playing lots of board games and eating gulab jamuns and ice-cream  – so much ice-cream.

My paternal grandmother was one of the first to realize I was a child on holiday. She encouraged me to go out in the complex and make some friends. She got me to play football and cricket with the big kids – which led to a hand injury one year, which she tended to and heard me complain about for three weeks. She introduced me to kids and got me an invite to someone’s birthday party – so I didn’t feel left out when I was in Pune. And she traveled with me in an auto to places I really wanted to go. It was fantastic.

We used to speak once a week, and I’m very glad that I’ve taken that tradition over to college. Sunday means one call to Pune, a brief update about how things are there and stuff. She’s a very lively woman – she enjoys cakes and sweets, and since I used to be around for my grandpa’s birthday, we used to get cakes from Mongini’s to celebrate the day. So today, when I called her, it surprised me a little when she said she wasn’t doing much to celebrate. I told her to make payasa, or some sweet, and I really hope she did. The sweets she makes are divine.

And no tribute to her is fitting enough without mentioning her uppinkayi, which is ‘pickle’ in Kannada. Nothing will ever come close.

Moving on to the second birthday, this girl is a person who’s been on my friend list on facebook for 4 years, but who I really got to  know only after we graduated from school. We were in different sections, which means we didn’t really interact all that much, but I hate the fact that I waited for so long to chill/hang out with her.

Since we have become real-life friends, however, no one has taught me more about myself. And she’s the only person I know I don’t have to hesitate about calling, no matter what the time is. While that says a lot about how messed up our sleep cycles are at University, it also points out how close we are as individuals.

We’re also very different people, but she’s one of the few individuals who helps me feel like Lawyers aren’t boring people – and I cannot thank her enough for that.

I’ve always joked about getting a cut of her paycheck, because she graduates in a year from now, and I graduate in 5, and I’m looking forward to receiving my first bit of pocket money soon.

While the common thread between these two individuals is that they both reside in Pune, another link is that I understand things with a lot of clarity when I speak to them. My grandmother, over the years, has taught me about hard work and has reinforced studies by making me understand that my work is the only thing I control. While this 20 year old (eek) has made me realize that it’s good to let loose and give yourself time off once in a while. And not to be too hard on yourself. Because I do that often.

So yup. That’s my tale of the day.

If anyone’s actually keeping up with my daily posts, thank you very much for reading. While I’m really just writing this to maintain a creative outlet, it feels good to share these words with the world.

 

The cycle of me missing out on sleep seems to continue, and is poised to go on till the end of the month (and hopefully resume a bit later in March). It should be worth it, I’m back to being positive and cheery about things after a rough couple of days.

Today’s been a day where I questioned several things about the standards of teaching at Universities – a large portion of which was the result of a Skype call with a friend in America yesterday evening.

He seemed enthused to go to class – not just because the subjects inherently interested him, but because the faculty had meaningful things to say – things you felt were important to your overall growth and development. You just don’t seem to see that a lot over here.

It confuses me that faculty try to ensure that students are quiet in class by telling them to keep quiet, instead of lecturing better. See, from a student’s perspective, and this is rather sad to say, we make the trade-off of what we achieve by listening to you versus what other things we can accomplish while sitting in your class.

Lecturing better is just one way of making us understand that we will fail your paper without your guidance. It’s something that happens abroad – which is why they don’t need attendance requirements for courses. You pay per course, and you end up attending classes because there is NO way you can catch up with a course at the end of the year or semester without going to class.

Our problem is that we learn out of one book. We don’t learn principles. We don’t get readings per week. We don’t have a looped system where we’re forced to read cases and attend class, and be expected to know cases and raise contentions as you discuss them in class.

And I think this is where we need to take blame. We’re really bad college students. And we study for exams. I always thought I wasn’t one of these kids who studied for exams, because I enjoy learning and love studying for fun. Yes, you read that right, I ENJOY studying. Merely because I don’t view it as studying. I look at it all as reading. And it’s fun.

Nobody comes prepared for classes because we’re too busy doing other things.

None of this means that I’m advocating a system that puts more pressure on us. But I feel like there’s an inherent issue with the educational culture here. I find myself sitting in class sometimes, writing notes down diligently, wondering to myself: Will I remember this when I graduate?

And sadly, I find that the answer is no.

At the end of writing this, and as I put my thoughts into flow, I feel like all of this backlash is a convenient way of excusing myself of any responsibility. Which is why I added to my New Years’ Resolutions. I’m going to be spending time reading Law for fun. Outside of my reading, my writing and my mooting.

I think that’s the only way to legitimately ‘learn’. Because I’m not content mugging things up for an exam and writing them in a particular way. I’m not content learning arguments up – I’d like to get creative and figure out what novel arguments you could make, and get them shot down.

That’s what I came to law school for.

Meh. Let’s see if this determination lasts. 575 words in and I’m not sure if it’ll spillover to the 17th at all.

Apart from this general observation regarding education, I got a haircut today. I hate how dependent and hopeless I am when I sit in a barbershop, because that barber decides my fate for the next two weeks at the minimum. I’m very glad I conveniently used the excuse of some important function to explain to him that he could not style my hair.

The net result is that I look the same as I did before I went for a haircut. No Amma, you can’t say that I look better with short hair to smoothen my self-consciousness.

The things having the same hairstyle since you were 2 does to you. Paapa.

Alright, more tomorrow.

 

Today was a special day – my best friend’s birthday. And he’s in America, so I had to wait till 9/10 pm to be able to call him. We even managed to Skype for a bit, which is incredible for people like us.

We were classmates in Grades 1 & 2, and though we spent time apart in Grades 3-5 and after I moved to India, I’ve never encountered an individual I share the same rapport with.

As kids, we used to have several sleepovers. It started off in the era of the Gameboy and where CartoonNetwork.com had some fantastic games to play. We used to spend time trying to link up our Nintendo devices, and fail with every single effort. The first time we slept over, I cried at his house, missing my mother. The second time we slept over, he cried at mine.

We’re two peas in a pod, and our parents exploited this to their maximum benefit. The rules we lived by were the same, our desire to study and do well was the same, and we had similar ways of chilling: a sport to play, a few books to read, and our electronic gadgets.

Soon we both learnt instruments, and before my voice cracked, I sang songs as he played the guitar – which later turned into jamming on his keyboard.

We went to theme parks together, built forts out of pillows, got cricket bats stuck on trees. His parents took me to Church a few times, because I slept over at his house, and we even attended a few summer camps together.

As we grew older, I always worried I’d lose touch with him. He’s a boy I quizzed with, learnt French with, and played PSP with. He’s the guy who helped me get over my fear of Zombies, by making me play Call of Duty Black Ops before sleeping.

He’s a mate who pranked me by making me eat Tabasco Habanero sauce by telling me it was Tomato Ketchup.

And more recently, he’s the friend I’ve been able to speak to freely about University: merely because he started one year after I did (because of Dubai’s education system).

I’ve written far more flamboyant pieces about my friendship with this lad, even did a project in the 7th Grade about how we stayed in touch despite the distance. But for today, this feels fitting.

So Happy Birthday, mate! I hope Boston treats you well, you find a nice thali place you like, and you eat curd rice the way you do: putting the curd next to the rice and mixing it with a fork and a spoon (something I will never forget). May thy year be lovely.

 

What is this? Missed 3 days of writing, fabulous.

It’s funny: results of a practical experience – you don’t really read/see clearly after you sleep for 7-8 hours over 4/5 days. Nor can you remember things carefully.

But it’s all worth it. And that’s today’s story.

I woke up this afternoon feeling dazed and confused. It was 3.25 and I wasn’t sure whether it was the night or whether it was the morning. My roommate was back from a trip to Rajasthan (you know what happened there) and well, I couldn’t see straight.

I decided to sit up, and when I did, a feeling of contentment flowed through my veins.

It’s a different kind of feeling being done with a part of something you’ve emotionally invested yourself in. Something you’ve wanted for a long, long time. And that’s true irrespective of the result, or any frustrations you’ve encountered on your way getting there.

It’s rather lovely.

I’d like to believe all of this was because of the submission I had yesterday.

But I have a very, very strong hunch it’s because I slept for 8 hours for the first time in months.

I also was the recipient of warm water, and, I went out for dinner with my friends – those I hadn’t spoken to for ages.

It’s been a good day.

I’m also slowly beginning to feel like Ted Mosby on HIMYM. New stories every episode, without any concrete ending.

More tomorrow.

I was the gracious recipient of warm water today. It was great.

Today’s been a day of reflection, since 8AM.

I have a theory about how hostels work, specific to hostel bathrooms. In a shared washroom situation, there’s a window of 5-7 minutes before the washroom gets extremely crowded before class. This is because (a) people are inherently lazy, and (b) it is cold outside, which makes you want to lie cozy in your comforter. Therefore, even if you set an alarm for 8AM for a 9AM lecture, you will wake up only by 8:10AM. But that’s too late. Every stall is claimed, because a bucket and a towel have been left there, and no place in the washroom to brush your teeth. You’ll queue up and hope for the best, and in your head, think about how your stomach will grumble at midday because you had to skip breakfast.

This theory applies to the full group, and not individuals. Hence, everyone’s window of opportunity begins at 8AM, and last until 8:10AM. 8:07AM is when you reach danger zone, because the probability of you getting a stall is now dependent on three factors: (a) the distance between your hostel room and the washroom, (b) the speed in your legs and (c) the number of people you say good morning to and the ‘traffic’ on your way.

So, this morning, as I returned to my room from the second all-nighter I’ve pulled in two days, I faced a monumental decision at 8:02AM. To bunk, or not to bunk. First, my attendance flashed before my eyes, and second, the amount of work I had played back. On loop. The balance of convenience favoured the bunk, but I knew that I might experience some pain toward the semester end. I pulled out my ‘Attendance Tracker’ – a lame, colour coded Excel sheet I have, my time-table and I crunched the numbers. Bunking the next three days (a definite requirement) would mean I used up 5/12 of the ‘safe’ bunks I possess, and 5/20 of the ‘exempted’ bunks I have. Not bad, but not great.

It would leave me with a week for my off-days, to remain ‘safe’. Another quick input revealed that I would bunk only 1 class in my subjects, and I knew if I managed a proxy I’d be fine.

I looked at my watch. 8:06AM. I had to decide, it was now or never.

In an instant, I thought back to school. I’d never bunk school. And I’m really enjoying the classes this semester. So I should go.

And then I wore my hoodie, and just like the ‘inner me’ meme, I thought about the proxy I’d receive.

A message to my trusted ally in this task, a message to my friends, and I sat back on my bed, laptop on lap, mouse in hand, glasses on face to resume my work again.

The deed was done.

All in good time, too. Just as the clock struck 8:08AM. Phew.

In comparison to this lovely moment, I merely reflected upon less important things like my motivation at Law school. psh.

But, more about that tomorrow.

Cold water isn’t half as bad as unevenly warm water. Your body is a weird thermostat, different parts understand temperature very differently. And unevenly warm water screws with you. And your back.

You’ve probably guessed, but I’ll state this explicitly anyway: I had unevenly warm water this morning. And I was most certainly not prepared.

Anyway. Today’s thoughts have also been all over the place, so here’s some conscious effort to give this piece a singular flow.

I’ll start off first with the car. My mum informed me that we sold our car yesterday, for various reasons. That hit me pretty weirdly  – I’d never driven the car personally, but it was how I got around. To imagine that being driven away created a type of emptiness I still can’t put into words.

My parents love creating rules. They always have. And I love following rules. I like arguing about them (half the reason I’m a law student). So when they said I couldn’t drive till I was 18, I didn’t appreciate it one bit. I tried arguing and citing examples/exemplars of my friends driving around when we were 15/16, but it didn’t work. It didn’t work at all. So I respected their decision and sat around in the backseat. In my head, however, I was the best driver on the planet.

I’ve been a motorsports enthusiast since I was a child, and driving’s been something I’ve looked forward to for a while. I always imagined myself as an F1 driver, or an NFS character in-game. Except I wore a seatbelt, adhered to a speed limit and all traffic rules that existed. That’s why the car being sold was slightly sad. I thought that would be the car I first drove in, the car I got my license in and stuff.

Oh well.

The other thing I’d like to write about is how stress effects me. I feel like internally I think I don’t get stressed as much, but on the outside, I’m a ticking time-bomb. I deal with stress by closing off and becoming much more stoic – the way I speak, the things I talk about, the stuff I think, everything seems to change.

Hell, I don’t even make good jokes in this phase.

I feel like my stress comes out of some sort of fear. I’m still trying to pinpoint exactly what that is.

Here’s to hoping I get warm water tomorrow.