Month: February 2020

Yesterday, in class, we received word that one of the faculty members who was teaching us had been appointed as an Additional Public Prosecutor. We were overjoyed. As with any good news my class is greeted with, we began to use it as an excuse to get a free period – which we managed. Today, we went one better: hounding the faculty sufficiently to get some celebratory chocolates. He very kindly obliged, something I take to be a sign od how well he could relate to our class, but also his own joy he wanted us to share in. Either way, we got chocolates today. Free chocolates, which we consumed in class. The usual suspects of such fun followed: people trying to get their hands on a second piece, some exchanges, laughter – and another free period, with a little bit of educational engagement.

This was the last period of the day, and walking back to my room with the sweet taste of success in my mouth, I wondered how many times I had enjoyed free chocolate thanks to someone else’s good fortune, or whatever reason they had to celebrate. Birthdays, promotions, they’ve all led to me consuming chocolate in some form or the other: cakes, toffees and the like. In primary school, we used to go around delivering chocolate to all the other classes in our Grade on our birthdays, and we were allowed to take one friend with us to roam around. Being that friend for someone was a great privilege reserved for your true “best friend” – because it meant a valid excuse to miss at least one period of studying. If you were truly smart, you’d both meet in the morning and conspire about which class you wanted to miss for the day. No teacher would ever deny you the opportunity to celebrate your birthday – so you were pretty much given a free pass to walk around the school with your chocolate. I used to go up to some senior classes my teachers used to teach to share in my joy with them too, and distribute some to my friends as well. Good fun.

It did, however, bring back memories of this one birthday where I definitely overdosed on the amount of chocolate I consumed. The day before my birthday, my parents used to take me to Lulu to figure out which chocolate we were going to distribute. We’d always try mixing it up – they never let me take the same chocolate two years in a row. For my birthday in Grade 4, we bought Toblerones – three whole boxes of those huge bars for every single person in class, and then some. I returned home with a whole box left, and even after giving out some chocolates in the building, there were several chocolates leftover. I loved chocolate as a child, but I had recently had cavities filled, so my parents made it abundantly clear that I was not to consume these chocolates quickly.

You see, when you’re a naive child, you think you can get away with eating these chocolates. At least, I thought so. I had good reason to believe this. First, there were enough Toblerone bars that it looked like there were a fair number left even when you subtracted some bars. Second, my parents didn’t count how many Toblerone bars there were. Third, I wouldn’t be throwing the wrapper in the dustbin directly – I’d be taking it straight to the bigger garbage chute we had in the apartment complex. All of this meant a happy Tejas without evidence that I had eaten the chocolates at all. Alas, this was not to be. My greed got the better of me rather quickly and I consumed too many Toblerone chocolate bars. There were only 4 left the next day, and I tried scattering them around the box so it looked like there were more left but I couldn’t do anything to reverse the damage. I didn’t have the money to replace the bars, nor could I hide the entire box from my parents and blame anybody else.

My parents found out that evening when they returned, and I got a good firing from both of them. I smiled cheekily, and I remember thinking to myself: they’ll never catch me again. I didn’t think I wouldn’t be greedy again – just that I wouldn’t get caught. Maturity is a gem though, and honestly, the memory of overconsuming Toblerone bars meant I didn’t eat a full big bar till very, very recently – when my mother purchased one for me in Dubai Airport on our way back to India.

I returned to my room this afternoon craving a big Toblerone bar, but also wondering what it would be like to OD on chocolate again – till I fell asleep to chocolate filled-dreams.

That is an experiment for another day.

I was fortunate and privileged enough to travel with one of my University faculty today – to a common destination. While the economics of having a free journey to and from where I needed to be was extremely comforting, it was enjoyable to be in the company of a junior of mine and someone I shared a rapport with even outside of the classroom. While we traveled the 35km one-way distance we were navigating, I spent some time day-dreaming about all the times I’ve had the good fortune to be in the custody of people from my educational institution whom I trust.

Our school had these two school cars: two Innovas, which carried out a ton of official business – transporting dignitaries to and from functions, transporting school officials to other schools and business meetings. Sometimes, in the case of emergencies, those cars transported injured individuals to clinics or hospitals where the treatment facility on campus was inadequate to deal with the nature of the injury. [I’ll get to my own harrowing experience in a bit – this is foreshadowing].

We were a tiny school. Everybody knew everybody – especially when you were in middle and senior school. Our administrative and support staff were so phenomenally large-hearted and kind, that they ensured you were happy to walk into school each morning. They’d carry out conversations about the school at the end of the corridor we walked past while going from where the buses parked to our classrooms, and ever so often, they’d take breaks from conversation to comment on students generally, or make conversation with us. It was one of my favourite parts of the day in school. I turned off the music on my phone and pulled my headphones off as we clambered off the bus, just to hear what they had to say. I’d get a “Good Morning Mr. Rao”, every single day, with some fun remarks attached to it, including the observation that I had bought new headphones, or that my shirt was a brighter shade of orange than it usually was. It was just – fun.

Building that rapport was entrenched in the fabric and culture of my school. I was in the minority Kannadiga population on the senior side of our school – as a consequence of which my equation with several individuals, especially the multitalented staffers who helped keep the place running, doing every odd job imaginable, was just different. I developed several relationships with people on campus I’d do anything to help out if I could, just because of how easy they made our lives during our time there. I visited school with a friend of mine last June, and we met one of our friends there – he literally stopped his work and came to help speed up an administrative process that had kept us waiting for over an hour (the creation of an alumni ID card). It got done in 5 minutes.

A large part of building this rapport – and sustaining it, came from the fact that school – especially when you were on the senior side, and you were deemed responsible enough to represent the crest you wore on your chest (or you were on Student Council) ended up sending you on official business to other schools. A large part of this was inviting people for things – it’s pretty much the only kind of official business I remember doing. This involved going on a day trip. A collection of students, one of these incredible support staffers acting as our guide + driver, since we had no transport, and a packed lunch to sustain through the day.

I did one of these trips alone in Grade 11. Oh, it was far out – a day trip where I wasn’t sure whether I’d return to campus before buses left. I must’ve visited 7 schools that day, all to invite them for this production we were putting up. I remember visiting these schools and meeting their heads of department, introducing myself, and going through the rigmarole with great clarity, the tone of my voice and all that. But, what I remember more vividly is the car ride: to the far ends of the city and in-between, and eating from that lunchbox that had been so kindly packed for me. One of our incredible multi-staffers was with me, and Sir very kindly played out some kick-ass Kannada music through the car ride, and ensured my energy levels didn’t dip once. It remains a fond memory.

The other time I was in the car was when I had to be taken to the clinic because I had cut my lip open and needed stitches. Blood was everywhere. It was grotesque, and I couldn’t look at myself because I could see my teeth through where there should have been lip. While the numbness prevented me from feeling much pain, I’m sure they recognized I was in deep pain – because all I can recall from the entire journey to the clinic is Sir sitting in the driver’s seat telling me they’d stitch me back up in no time.

I’m so grateful to have met these people on “official business”, and the highlight of my life as I’ve grown to become a senior in the educational spaces I’ve held is this rapport I’ve built with individuals who started off as being faculty, or support staff, or playing a role in my life that is outside of the kind of relationship I now share with them. That change – it means so much. Realizing and recognizing this in my final semester is something I’m holding onto dearly, because I’m hopeful that this rapport is not one that I lose even when I leave campus.

Earlier this week, a friend and I were trying to figure out how to move closer to the ideal day: the day you have in mind at the start that doesn’t quite get completed. That conversation sparked off another conversation about motivations, and today, on a Sunday where I felt a wee-bit lazy around the afternoon, I needed a reminder about it myself. Its safe to say, that’s good enough reason for me to make this blog post a little motivational – something to read when I’m struggling with motivation, or generally trying to figure out whether an endeavour of mine will yield results.

I began to run a little more seriously this year. Again, I’m three years late to the party. Most of the things I’ve been trying out in my life are things I’ve been trying to make a habit of for three years, but things I’ve struggled to do on the daily. An advantage of having time on my hands as I prepare to catapult myself into the real world is the fact that I’ve got the opportunity to diligently and religiously put myself into the habit of formulating these habits. As part of this running gig, I decided to employ the Nike Run Club application on my smartphone a little more. I had used it previously, but never really exploited the full functionality that the application possesses. Over winter, when I met with a friend, he told me about the guided runs on the app – which I began to use once I got back to campus.

On one of those guided runs, there’s this entire 3-minute stretch where the Coach, Coach Cory, talks about looking for the little victories even when you think that what you’re doing is going terribly. He explains that running is one of those things that is a continual process – and so, seeing results is not something you can expect instantaneously. Just because you ran once, doesn’t mean running tomorrow is easier. You need to go through that entire process of starting a run and putting in the hard yards all over again. That means some days will be good days – where you find runs easy, and you’re able to go long, but some days will be bad days – shorter runs, tougher runs. On those off days, Cory basically says that it’s important to find those little victories: the fact that you got a run in – no matter how long, or how short, how slow, or how fast, is a victory. Thinking about it in that manner, and tuning your mind to think about it in that way changes the way your brain perceives the activity. It stops looking at the event of the day – in this illustration, the run, as a failure, but begins to look at it as a success.

Throughout this semester, and arguably something I want to do throughout my life, is to ensure that I search for those little victories. This doesn’t mean that I’m scared to admit my own failings, or be realistic about when things go awry. I’d just like to be in a position where I continually acknowledge that small, tiny silver lining, or that victory in something I’ve done, irrespective of how badly it’s turned out.

I was struggling a little today because I couldn’t identify where the hours in my weekend had passed by. I started off the weekend with this massive to-do list, and I seem to be ending the weekend with the same number of things broadly left there – which was horrible. Breaking it down though, I found those small things I used my time in, which gave me some solace.

Gotta look for those little victories a little more.

One of the things I wanted to get better on in 2020 is my ability to articulate my views on pieces of media: movies, television shows, and books. Even if they aren’t necessarily in the form of reviews, this appears to be a form of writing I struggle with. The more I thought about it last evening, I recognized that perhaps a large part of that stems from the kind of pressure I put on myself: because I treat it as writing that is distinct from my ordinary writing or blogging. Naturally, the solution to that, I felt, was to make it a part of the blog. That’s the context to Tejas’ topical take for today. Welcome to my story. I’m glad to have you here.

Bojack Horseman premiered in 2014. Netflix launched in India in January 2016. In the interim, I ran through Grade 12 and joined University, and was introduced to a lot of websites that allowed me to access pirated content that I enjoyed for quite some time. I only heard of Bojack Horseman in 2017, and people told me it was a good show – one worth spending time on. I was quite lazy though. As with everything else, I had several other pieces of media I wanted to get through and I prioritized though ahead of the show. I also couldn’t find an excellent print of BoJack on all the sites I frequented, and at some point, I gave up.

In December 2017, I spent one month on campus with 4 friends and several puppies working on a competition I was devoted to at the time. I couldn’t work on it all day, and I decided to indulge in Netflix that month. They had a one-month trial period, which I activated the day I came to an empty campus, and I binge-watched shows and movies like it was nobody’s business throughout the month. All to keep myself sane and to give me some time away from thinking about work. I cooked macaroni in my kettle, made a bunch of noodles, ordered several snacks – and every evening/night, I’d get cozy under my comforter, and binge-watch shows till I felt like sleeping.

The first show I took up was BoJack Horseman. I remember watching the first season and being super-confused. I hated the protagonist, and everything cheerful ended up going awry almost instantaneously. Every single character had traits I enjoyed, but also traits I detested, which irritated me because I could not point to a favourite character or personality, nor could I point to what the show was moving toward. What kept me going at that point was the plot progression, and how the reviews raved about the show. I stuck with it in the hope that it would grow on me.

The second season was when it actually did. There was so much plot progression, and the grey-ness of the characters who had been introduced already was explored so much more that I began to enjoy it. I recognized that this was a show that was fully revealing the layers to their characters, and while the puns and the anthropomorphism was enjoyable, these were things that helped reflect how grey the human species in itself is. The plot itself took quite a few twists and turns in the second season that I did not anticipate, so I opened up my mind to the show – deciding to expect nothing except entertainment.

Season three was the beginning of when I started to be floored by the show. It reflected human society in so many ways, and the producers and directors began to experiment with the format of each episode. So I latched on for the ride, and decided I’d follow along for every single season that came henceforth.

Each time a new season released, I binged it on the night of its launch. I binged through it knowing that I wouldn’t relive that experience of watching those episodes for the first time again, but that I’d be better off for having watched them. Each time I watched a fresh episode, I found myself more educated than I was previously. This was especially true across the final three seasons, when it opened up my brain to the kind of spectrum that mental health sees. It got me to begin reading about mental health more generally. To become more conscious about the things I said and did in a lot of ways that unbeknownst to me, might be impacting people. It got me to reflect.

Watching the “Free Churro” episode last year changed a lot of things for me. It was effective in its acknowledgment of grief and the process of being confused about why you grieve over someone you dislike, or have only unpleasant memories of. It gave me a sense of gratitude for several things I needed to be more grateful for at that point in my life. On a broader level, I had begun to develop a lot of affection for this deeply problematic character who was struggling to get his act together – and I cried when he spoke about his mother, who clearly meant so much to him.

Which is why I loved the beginning and middle of the final season. BoJack begun to take responsibility for himself, and genuinely followed through on it, unlike his half-assed attempts from before. I watched that season and that part at a point where in my life, I had genuinely messed up, and I was trying my best to piece things together. Really trying to understand them, to prevent them from happening again – to act responsibly, to the standard that I held myself to as a person. It was disappointing to relate to behaviour and people who I classified in my head as problematic, but I was super conflicted about how I had love for this person. How was it that I could appreciate someone who kept spiraling?

It was probably just the attempts to take responsibility. To push himself to be better – and despite failing, on multiple occasions, and being worse, just trying again. It was also the supporting characters who tried to get him to do better as a human being.

The last part of the last season, therefore, confused me more than ever. He took responsibility in private, but chose not to in public – and then self-destructed, by taking responsibility in public(?) if you could call it that. It left me conflicted.

The last episode, though, gave me some closure. It was a great last episode. I found BoJack at a good time in my life, and he helped through a not-so-great time in my life, and I am holding on to the thing that BoJack taught me: that you can, and you should, be better every single day.

If an animated show has left me with that, there’s not much more I can ask for.