Author: Tejas Rao

I have finally acquired new pieces of footwear to wriggle my toes in. There’s new music I find daily, and my reading’s back up to pace. Things in Gujjuland finally feel normal again.

A large part of why I haven’t been able to write as much is because I’ve been running around for something or the other – even hopping cities in the process, since September started. It’s all been quite lovely, but sometimes how tired you are gets to you. Writing ended up falling out of my priority list, which sucks. But eh. Guess I’m human and can’t do everything I want to all the time.

I feel like University has started to become this singular quest to figure out what you like the most. As a first or a second year, you have the luxury of time – in terms of the Committees you join, for example. This is largely because no Committee will entrust you with significant portions of work in your first year. But also because you’re given a lot of scope for mistakes – you’re new to the general University atmosphere, and probably not as good with managing your time.

But that changes in the third year. Suddenly, expectations are automatically higher. That you’ll use your time judiciously, but also be able to devote all your time and energy to everything you sign up for. It’s strange. Sometimes when faculty ask me why I missed a meeting or something, I’m very tempted to say that I was addressing a more pressing matter – for example another Committee’s, far more important piece of work. That’s likely to offend them, so I don’t say it, and instead create mental cariacatures of them in my head.

To make memes out of. Nothing else.

It’s rather frustrating. I find that I can no longer simply sign up for everything I’m interested in. That I actually have to adopt a more cautious approach in figuring out what I want to do. Evaluate whether something will be worth the time, but even if it is, whether it will be worth the emotional investment.

Why?

Because work here is rarely not an emotional investment. I’m attached to the smallest, strangest things. Gulab jamun tasting nice at an event is a good example. I take personal offence if someone didn’t like it.

(especially when I did.)

(but that frustration may be misdirected. maybe I’m upset at my lowering jamun standards.)

Whatever.

Basically I now have to think more about things. And I don’t want to.

But the alternative is never getting to sleep.

The struggle is real.

 

For the last couple of months, I’ve been on this massive exploration trip where I discover new things about Asian cultures: from food to television, media, music, clothing. I’ve just been reading a lot more than I ever have about Asian nations, and that made me realize a couple of things.

As children growing up in India, we’re exposed to several components of this culture: several YouTube videos with K-pop music, arcade games, several anime shows (such as Pokemon), and yet, as we grow older, our exposure to these significantly reduces. Most DTH operators, for example, largely broadcast English medium shows created in the USA. It took a while for them to recognize the shift that began where people started appreciating British pop culture a whole lot more, yet, that phase between 11-18 years old, when you’re moving away toward Star World type channels, is where, for me atleast, I ended up losing my connect to the East.

I’m slowly finding that again – and it’s wonderful. We’re so ignorant of cultures so close to our own. Bangladeshi Rap, for example is something I came across and was blown away by. Pakistani music has appealed to me for a while – Coke Studio makes appreciating that far easier. But there’s so much I miss out on while living in my bubble of loving Western shows.

If anyone has book suggestions on Eastern cultural phenomenon, please let me know.

Isn’t it strange,
That the Earth spins,
The Sun shines,
and we have a Moon that reflects,
But humans can possess and express emotions that make
Them feel like the Earth has started to spin in the wrong direction,
Or that the Sun will not come out any longer,
Or, worse,
That the Moon will no longer reflect the light in their lives on a dark day.

What we also have, however,
Is cloud cover, which,
Offers the comfort of shade and shields from harsh rays,
Forms rain that kisses parched lands,
And the knowledge that we don’t control any of these phenomena.

Thankfully humans also possess the rationality,
To understand that didactic logic dictates that therefore,
The Earth will continue to spin and orbit,
The Sun shall rise, and set,
And the Moon will reflect the light that shines in your eyes, and your eyes only.

Tomorrow, as it did today.

I’m back.

More when I have less work.

Flying back to a city I’m most comfortable in evokes memories of the first time I landed there. Atleast in my memory, I instantly recall being wheeled by a porter, because I decided to sit on top of my suitcases – a big, grey Delsey, as the Unaccompanied Minor staff allocated to me struggled to keep up with our pace, holding all documentation. I remember searching the crowd for my grandparents’ eyes, my grandmother’s eagerness, and my grandfather’s excitedness. An entire summer here, I remember thinking. Pure bliss. Only to be presented with incessant rain and unpleasant tomato juice.

Year after year, for 6 years, similar scenes play out from the B-roll that is my brain.

Each time, I recount, vividly getting into the Cream White Omni my grandfather owned and being wheeled away to the Basaveshwaranagar house. The smell of ripening yelaki bananas and Parle-G biscuits surrounds me, with the tantrum I threw – expecting a more lavish spread for my arrival. What strikes me was how uncomfortable I first was with the taste of the water – and how my grandmother packaged water in plastic Bisleri bottles, to ensure I felt protected by the RO my spoilt body was used to.

I can place the first phone calls made to home, announcing my safe arrival. What I imagine is my parents heaving a sigh of relief, considering their package had reached its’ intended destination. I can’t particularly relate to what they must’ve thought when their 5-year-old, fresh from kindergarten graduation asked to fly alone to India. But I’m so grateful for that experience. So many memories of mine involve aeroplanes.

Including puking every single time I had to leave Bengaluru. Every. Single. Time.

I never learnt. My relatives would all turn up with food I loved eating to my grandparents’ place. And I used to eat it year after year. Only to awaken and vomit it all out – either at home before leaving, or en route to the airport. Once I even puked after clearing Check-in, just before Security. I remember using the telephones in the old HAL airport to call up my grandfather and aunt and tell them I was fine.

Flying into, and out of Bengaluru has a lot of emotion connected to it. It’s the city that shaped me as a person.

As I go back for the third time this semester, all I want is to pause and remember that feeling of each wheel hitting the tarmac. I want to pause time when I hear the announcement that we’ve landed in Kempegowda International Airport. I’d like to take that extra second to smell the air from the staircase to that bus that shuttles you to the terminal.

I’m not as homesick anymore, largely because I’ve adopted my room as my home.

But God, the thought of getting rejected by an auto driver after saying “Jayanagara hogthira?” is quite beautiful.

 

 

 

This is just a thank you note.

Thanks to the parents for funding impulsive book buys, and for purchasing my first books – spending hours with me at Magrudy’s and BooksPlus when I didn’t know whether to buy a new Secret Seven or a Famous Five.

To my aunt & uncle, for purchasing me a Kindle, which reduced the economic strain I put on my parents with my reading.

To my grandparents, for weaving me a set of stories each night as I fell asleep on your cots during summer vacations. To my maternal grandfather in specific, for teaching me that storytelling was an art of holding your audience’s imagination in captivity, before setting it free to a faraway land of dreams. To my father, for printing out every story.

To my old school friends, who teased me for having round-framed spectacles and keeping my nose firmly between the pages of a book.

To my University friends, for allowing me to embrace this identity.

To acquaintances, for making it easier to start up any conversation by bringing in a specific frame of reference – a story.

To authors, bloggers, writers, storytellers, and creative personnel worldwide: for breaking the shackles of society to articulate your right to speech and to express in its purest, most enjoyable form.

To librarians, for doing a thankless, selfless task.

To Math: because without a numerically defined goal, I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate the beauty of a sequence of letters.

To 3000, Prememe, #1 Dost, MovieMaker, and everyone who recommended titles and loaned me copies for me to ravage.

To that one week in February that drove me crazy enough to come to my room daily after classes and not get up from my bed till I was done with an entire novel.

To 52. A uniquely imperfect challenge.

A list of books I read is available upon request. Additionally, I’ll only be writing a reflective piece about this at the end of the year. There’s much that’s happened that’s shaped the books I’ve read, and the books I’ve read have shaped me greatly.

Ciao.

 

Violet eyes seek
Colours I can only dream of:
I recognize purple.

 

I am but certain that of everything I’ve typed on this blog, this is the most abstract I’ve gotten with colour. Haven’t been sleeping too well for the past week, owing to examinations, so a lot of my thoughts are merely sketches I’ve doodled and musings I’ve written up while listening to some music. There’s a new form of fear I’ve started to encounter with my writing – the fear of not ideating a concept fully. Something that grows every time I see my drafts counter ticking.

When people listen to what I have to say,
I feel:
Bliss, in the knowledge that someone hears my voice –
Without me calling.

I feel like:
A tomato in a pressure cooker,
Whose whistles have long gone,
Whose steam has run dry –
going soft.

With passing days of conversation,
I am an onion,
Peeling away layer,
After layer,
Showing true colours that have
been shoved inside to
prevent tears.

Listen:
For,
You will see that even a coconut,
Once peeled,
Offers the sweetest milk,
And that,
Iceberg lettuce can
sometimes go stale.

Listen:
For,
It is only once you pull layers,
Far away from the skin –
You can truly gauge what
lies within.

Can’t believe it’s been 5/6 days since I last wrote – it felt shorter in my head, I swear. Anyway, I’m back. I guess.

A quick update on what I’ve been upto in the last week. Been writing memorials for my intra-moot rounds at University, precisely what I was doing when I started blogging  – first in 2015 September, and then in 2017 January. I don’t think there’s much that comes close to the thrill of submitting something you put a lot of effort into. Specifically with memorials, that feeling for me is incomparable. It almost feels like a part of me is in every word I’ve typed out, every comma I’ve placed, and every iteration of every single sentence I’ve run through with my teammates.

It’s mindblowing.

Intras also provide this wonderful time to stay awake all night with batchmates to figure out novel arguments – sometimes even at 4AM, and then celebrate by taking a break to discuss music. Offlate I’ve found myself listening to a lot of music I used to listen to back in Grade 6 & Grade 7. Discussing the impact those songs had on me, and comparing that with the stories other people have – the first time people heard “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”, for example, is a wonderful way to break the ice and connect.

It’s one of the beautiful parts of living in a hostel, I think.

What am I upto for the next couple of days?

Napping.

Also trying to wake up slightly early to get to the library, because A/C + books. Most conducive environment for learning and getting things done. Getting to see some of my favourite people over the course of this week, which is something I’ve been looking forward to for a while.

Maybe I’ll get some of my projects/exam studying done as well.

Tomorrow there is dosa for breakfast, so as always, I’ll leave you with something to look forward to!

(a blogpost about dosa is cooking, methinks)