Month: July 2017

To be in a position where I can write a piece targeted toward first-years entering the gates of my University is ridiculous. It makes me wonder about what I’ve done in the past two years being here, but also creates the realization that I have only three years left here. Time’s really slipping away.

But hey! Hello!

Welcome to this centre of learning, and to a place you’re going to reluctantly call home for the next 5 years. Lest you change your path and move on to fresher pastures, you are likely to remain here for a bit. So breathe it all in, and take it easy.

This isn’t going to be an advisory about how to survive Law school – I know I’m definitely still figuring it out. It’s more about the way I’m personally approaching this entire thing, and is something for you to consider.

At this juncture, I’d like to inform you that my third years are now your fifth years. Why is this relevant at all? Because that batch is graduating this year, and I cannot tell you how much I will cry when they leave. I’m very attached to several people in that batch, and cannot envisage what this campus is without them. So if you see me crying some time around the 2nd of May, 2018, you already know why.

Coming back to what I wanted to tell you.

Over the next few days, you’re going to meet a whole bunch of new people. Apart from your classmates and batchmates, with whom you’ll be spending a majority of your time, you’ll meet several seniors.

A lot of us are cynics. It is but a reflection of our time here – confined within grey walls, that all we’ve come to do is criticize. It’s very easy for us to find things we have grievances about, and far easier for us to point out issues that we could improve on as a University. But, none of us do anything about it, and that is a massive problem.

Why? Because it’s a reflection of the fact that deep within, while we recognize that issues exist within the ecosystem that we presently inhabit, we’re also mindful of how incredibly, incredibly privileged we are.

Take a moment to breathe it all in again. You’re at a fully-residential campus that has amenities comparable to some of the best Universities in the country. You’re at an institution that, as a result of it’s national recognition, will enable you to interact with people from all over the country. And, you’re at a place that will help you discover yourself.

Very few within the Indian society, or any society, get to have this experience. Far fewer get to shape the experiences they have – often, as a result of rigid institutional rules, or rigid structures placed to confine them within the shackles of their own imagination.

Here, you’re independent. Quite literally, independent. Everything you do is in your hands, not accounting for luck, the ways of the world, amongst other things.

Embrace that.

Last evening, as I returned from the Gujarat High Court with a batchmate, I conversed with him about his experiences living in Junagadh, which is South of Ahmedabad. I stay with a roommate from Rangia, in Assam, which is a minimum of 52.8km away from Guwahati – perhaps the place you’ve learnt about for CLAT.

Every week, I think, I go through this insane moment of reflection, often very late at night, where I realize that I’m left with a week lesser at this place.

When you meet the cynics, try recognizing the optimist that resides within each of us.

I don’t think that’ll ever leave.

And apart from all this abstract stuff I’m writing, genuinely enjoy yourself here.

Do things that make you happy. It keeps you going along.

P.S.: Please say hello. I don’t know who you guys are and you’re going to be my neighbours for the next 3 years I am here. I will make attempts to speak to you as well. Thank you.

 

Over the last weekend, I set out on a citytrotting expedition back to Bengaluru. Less than 5 days after my semester began, I decided I had had enough of Gujarat, quit, packed a suitcase with my toiletries, and left campus for my mother’s rasam.

You know that’s not true. In reality, what I did leave Gujarat for, was for a surprise birthday party, among other things. The perk of going back was that I got to see my parents again, and I got to eat rasam three times. Or was it twice? No, three times. I missed an opportunity to dine outside, and eat ice-cream, but all in all, a very fulfilling two days was spent at Kannamangala. (The most happening place in Bengaluru)

The surprise party itself was grand, and my aunt pulled it off spectacularly. With my uber-cool aunt and mother, sometimes I wonder whether I missed out on those genes. Other times I chuckle and remind myself I am the coolest of us three (a claim that is undeniably untrue).

Also, I got to meet Arnab Goswami at the airport, which was pretty cool. I was wearing an orange shirt, so in my head I was thinking of all the BJP funding jokes I could think of in under a minute, but, irrespective of your views on the man, he’s done a lot of good journalism. Some bad, but a fair bit of good. And Republic is free to air, which means atleast people get some information for little/no paisas. Had a very enjoyable conversation with him, and while taking a photograph, my inability to keep my hand steady showed. It was rather embarrassing. But I got a nice photo anyway.

Upon take-off, however, as I read Ashlee Vance’s book on Elon Musk (read, read!) and moved to reading Asimov’s Foundation series, I got to see Bengaluru from the air. It’s perhaps the only time I’ve got to see the length of the city. I’m usually asleep on flights, and very rarely have I flown out at a time where light is everpresent. What struck me was a disastrous thought about all the mistakes we’ve made as a species on Planet Earth.

At the cost of progress, we’ve messed up repeatedly. Think of land allotment and land acquistion, or building industries along riverbeds and lakes. Look at the state of public schooling, racial biases, resource crunches, all of which we’ve created for ourselves as a species. There are several more issues, but the worst thought was how pathetic we are at getting cities right.

I think it’s an art – a fine-balance between the rigidity that Boey Kim Cheng describes in this poem (Gandhinagar), and the utter chaos that is a city like Bengaluru. It’s rare to find something that’s bang in the middle. I love namma ooru, but, it’s universally agreed that urbanization messed up the city in more ways than one (though I live in the ubanized part of the city, that didn’t exist 15 years ago).

Then I thought about something.

What would our species look like trying to build society on another planet, right down from scratch? What sort of economic system would we have? What sort of allocations would we prescribe? What sort of governance would exist, should we get to Mars?

I have no answers to these questions, mere counterfactuals.

And that’s a disturbing thought. I mean, is humanity worth saving?

At that very moment, I received, in my hands, a basil pesto mayonnaise tomato cheese sandwich.

Humanity is worth saving after all.

 

What’s up?

Offlate, I’ve recognized that in an attempt to prolong conversation with an individual that I’m enjoying conversation with, I ask “What’s Up?”, or variants thereof, which extend to “What’re You Upto?”, or “What’re You Doing?”

While only a part of this is because I legitimately am interested in what people are doing, because it provides an ample opening to gauge what hobbies individuals have, often, I ask this question to escape the monotonous route conversations have died off into, in an attempt to resuscitate them, or to provide a segue to some more interesting conversation.

Recently, someone I was chatting with asked me,  “How was your day?”

A question I’ve only heard from my parents before.

And in an instant, a rush of things I had done in the last 8/12 hours passed through my head. I found it so thoughtful and concerning that an individual was interested in how I had spent my day, and whether I had actually enjoyed it, or, how everything I had done made me feel.

I was buzzing, and my hands typed out things rapidly.

Till I took a breather from my phone and picked up a book, kicking back on my bed to read, and realized.

That “How was your day?” was just a macro version of “What’s Up?”. Because “What’s Up?” refers to a singular moment or minute, while “How was your day?” refers to 8/12 hours, or a longer period of time.

This confused me greatly.

Apologies for the June posts, I know I wrote far less frequently than I did in May. Maybe I can make up for everything in July.

Here’s a start.