Today, my time as the Secretary of the Debating Society at my University came to an end. I had a stint of a little more than one year, supported by one of my closest friends and two regular readers of this blog. It’s been the wildest ride. I didn’t really anticipate any of what the role would give me when I found out that I had been elected (rather unexpectedly), because honestly, I wasn’t in the country, or in a network zone (I was in the jungle in Kenya) when the elections happened. But I have, honestly, learnt a lot in the last one year: about myself and the way I conduct myself. Moreover, I have learnt where I stand on how to cultivate cultures in spaces. I’m grateful the people I worked with gave me the space and helped me execute what ideas I came up with. I also realize, after typing all this that we came up with more ideas as a collective than I did as an individual, and we all ended up trying to execute these to the best of our ability. Irrespective of whether they worked or not, a new batch of kids seem to care about the activity, which I think is nice.
After elections concluded, I unwinded for the rest of the day by reading, binge-watching FRIENDS, and then watching two movies back-to-back. The second movie I watched was Spotlight, a movie I’ve watched before only on flights. I watched it once on an Emirates flight from Bangalore to Dubai, and then on an Etihad flight from Abu Dhabi to Washington. I know this is an extremely privileged statement.
But watching the movie on my laptop made me realize how related to those flights my memory of the movie had been. All I could think about while watching it this time around was what I experienced on the flight when I was watching the movie for the first and second time. I remember going to pee at a specific time in the movie. I remember my food being served at a particular time. I remember a passenger announcement disrupting one of the most gripping scenes in the movie.
Spotlight is ridiculously good. I’d recommend.
I also found this reading list: https://www.bustle.com/articles/141339-if-you-hope-spotlight-wins-best-picture-here-are-11-books-youll-be-obsessed-with
Tejas Rao 