Category: 2018

Sometimes I forget how easy it is to get lost in a project, insofar as you begin to lose sight of other elements of your personality. I forgot about how much I loved technology news, and literally kept up with updates only over the holidays. Recently, though I found this Vlog I really like that does tech reviews and unboxings and all the kind of geeky stuff I used to spend my time watching in school and discussing with friends. That made me happy, and has seen me go back to following random tech bloggers on twitter.

Reclaiming my lost identity appears to be a work-in-progress.

Wow, one-hundred pieces of writing for this year. Not something I thought I’d get to, considering how late in the year I started off. And, considering my laziness – this is quite the feat. Pat, pat, Tejas, pat, pat.

I finished this new food documentary (I love watching these) called Somebody Feed Phil – where Philip Rosenthal travels around the world and tastes food that is local/well-reknown, but represents some local tastes. Philip Rosenthal is the co-creator and show-runner of a sit-com I enjoyed with my mother – Everybody Loves Raymond, so I knew I was in for a treat. I think the show is phenomenal in terms of its direction – it literally makes you want to eat everything it showcases, but also, its choice of location – every city picked is delightful, and covers some far-ranging cuisines. My favourite of these has to be its coverage of the Temple in New York, which I think is a testament to how excellent Indian food can be.

My only grouse though is Phil’s limited reactions. He literally says everything is “wow” or “fantastic”, or he comes up with a tune that expresses the whirring emotions in his head. None of this enables me to understand more about the food that he is eating. Which is honestly all I was watching the show for. I wish that he was more expressive about it – doing some comparative of what a particular food item tasted like, to make the show more relatable, is all.

Anyway. Another show is done, and I’ve basically got another massive set of restaurants I’d like to visit someday. Not sure what I’d eat there exactly, but that’s a dilemma I will resolve once I am seated at the restaurant itself.

In other news I am now one teaching day away from completing my seventh semester of Law school. Much excitment.

 

Yesterday my batch (well, atleast most of us), got together to take a photograph for our Recruitment Brochure. Firms and other people who seek to give us employment at the end of our 5 years will get to see this photograph of 180-odd individuals in black blazers and a white shirt and it will signal to them that we are worthy of being employed, or something. I believe that’s what the logic is.

That photograph is not something I would have missed for the world. We’ve spent 3.5 years at this University now, and with 1.5 years left (which is barely anything, to be frank), the way interpersonal relationships have developed across the batch have been quite the sight to see. The unity for some causes, the debates and polar approaches for others, it’s been quite a wild ride. This photograph just felt like it captured that.

An occupational hazard of being a Lawyer or a Law student is having attire that is remarkably monochrome. When I was a kid, I remember recounting to my mother how desperate I was to be in a workspace that allowed me to wear light pastel colours which weren’t drab. Yet, here I am.

Anyway, the photograph itself also stamped a sense of “wow, we’ve become old” in my head. That wasn’t a feeling I was prepared for at all. I remember my fourth years very vividly, one of them had even come back to campus recently and I got to spend some time with him, and I remember my fifth years, and I now realize that for a whole set of kids who come into college – my batchmates, my peers, we’re now those people.

I don’t think much prepares you for that.

Universities, and all educational spaces, I feel, sometimes understate the impact that the crowd that you’re around can have on you.

That gave me a lot to think about, in terms of what I learnt from my seniors that I want this University to continue to celebrate and cherish, irrespective of the manner in which the culture changes here.

And I’m grateful that I have 1.5 years left to put that into effect.

One of my friends has now departed for the foreignland. All this reminds me of is this extremely iconic poem called Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa T.S., which I think is a literary/cultural masterpiece. I could read this poem for days.

When we were at school, we had this choice between doing an international education board, and doing the Indian Certificate for Secondary Education, and then moving on to the Indian School Certificate. Several of us took the decision to study the international board assuming that it would prepare us better for an education outside of India, which is what a lot of us targeted in the build-up to senior secondary.

That didn’t really end up happening, and for a multiplicity of reasons, I think only 5 of my classmates (of 20) ended up going abroad immediately. For a long time this led to a large amount of chiding from several individuals and school authorities – who couldn’t understand why we spent so long studying a foreign board before deciding to stay back in India. For a lot of them, it felt like we were “settling”, and not reaching or fulfilling our full potential. It was an argument that got personal at the time, but devoid of all emotion now, I’m pretty free to say that (1) I will never regret the education I was exposed to, and I think all education systems have their own sets of merits and demerits in terms of the kind of quality of education they impart, (2) a large amount of your education is not dependent on your syllabus, but takes place through faculty and peers, and (3) I don’t think any of us “settled” for India. We all took different reasoning and made active choices that led to us selecting India as where we would complete one phase of our education.

In any case, I think most of us looked for opportunities to get us out of the country’s education system as fast as possible, and this means, that following a phase of undergraduate education, several of my friends have actually gone abroad, which is where this post began.

Considering I’ve still got two years of University left, that brings a smile to my face. It’s always great to see people you studied with everyday doing well for themselves.

It’s also got me thinking about the changing nature of friendships and how grateful I am for technology. I know I will still call Bangalore home, but the way I experience the city now, in terms of having fewer friends there than before, and not having my immediate family (my mother & father, there’s no offense to the rest of my family), there, is a little distant and definitely distinct from the way I experienced the city as a schoolkid.

There are several things I used to do that I haven’t done in forever now. I haven’t visited this complex my friend stayed at in 4 years, because he no longer stays there. I haven’t eaten at this dhaba my friend and I really like in 4 years, because he’s no longer in the city for me to share that experience with.

That makes me a little nostalgic. However, I think it’s important that I’m just grateful for those memories, which I definitely am.

Also, I might be the biggest brute for saying this, but wow I’m thinking about that dhaba a lot now, and I’m really looking forward to getting to Bangalore at some point and eating there.

The lassi is mindblowing.

Anyway, I wanted this post to encapsulate the several things that change when your friend moves timezones.

But I’ll be honest, not much changes.

I still get ugly photos of my friends. And we still game with each other from time to time. We get on call and insult each other, because that’s the only way we know to show affection.

Not much has changed. I’m looking forward to see where my friendships go next, because weird as it may be, while I’m still in University, the age group that I’m in, my generation’s effectively hitting “adulthood”. That’s one of those changes that you can’t ignore in terms of its impact on your lifestyle.

Ah, well.

All I’m thinking about at the moment is what my next two months looks like. I’m not particularly pleased about the fact that my brain appears to be living two months ahead of the present. It means I’m spending more time calculating things and speculating about future behaviour than just enjoying the fact that I’m still in college.

It’s not that I’m not excited about going to Bombay. I’m pretty excited and quite eager – I’ll be living with my friends for two months, working, and in a city I’ve always wanted to explore more – especially after my visit there in March 2017.

It’s just that my brain is on auto-pilot about the end of the year (which is almost here!), and not entirely committed to my present. I’m not too pleased about that.

Especially considering that I have several things I should be doing at the moment – none of which involve this blog, or the next two months of internship work.

I should probably get cracking on those.

I’ve recently rediscovered a game from my childhood on this website called Miniclip.com, and it’s taking up way more time of mine than it should.

When I was younger, Miniclip was that guilty pleasure you never admitted to anyone, but you knew everyone enjoyed playing anyway. You can’t really describe what the website looked like all those years ago – it didn’t have a membership or a login system, so you weren’t even playing for points. You were just playing.

In an era that MMORPG’s and playing RuneScape or ClubPenguin, or AdventureQuest dominated most of why my generation utilized the internet, Miniclip guaranteed you hours of entertainment when you weren’t playing with your friends. It was something you could play alone. Where you determined what made you happiest.

Miniclip was a safe haven. It’s probably why I still enjoy gaming there so much.

 

I did absolutely nothing on a Saturday. I was in bed till 1pm, and woke up at 2 only because I had a Group Discussion scheduled some time in the afternoon.

Safe to say, a lot of my friends were concerned by this uncharacteristic behaviour.

Don’t worry, I’m fine. I just really needed the sleepytimes.

Exam results came today and after 3 years, I think I’ve learnt how to accept exam results without too much frustration. That makes me bit-parts happy and bit-parts angry. I’m happy because I think it means that I will now be able to take less pressure and take more comfort from the fact that I do my best every time I study. And I can admit to myself when I could have prepared for an exam better without it continuously itching my brain cells and my morality.

I’m a little angry about it because it means that I’ve grown to discredit my examination system so much that I don’t view it as an accurate representation of, well. Anything.

And that makes me frustrated not because the examination pattern is terrible, but because this means that for 3 weeks, at minimum, in every semester, every single student within this University I reside in, is under a lot of stress – and a lot of it isn’t self-induced. A lot of it is atmospheric.

It lingers.

You’re watching a TV show during examinations, and there’s this air that can strike you at any time of “Oh, you’re not finishing portions in time.”

I don’t quite like that.

But exam results being announced is a useful opportunity to use this blog to explain to people that exam results do not define who you are as a person – and college exam results don’t say everything about you. Your capacity to express yourself is far bigger than a sequence of numbers that have an upper limit of a hundred, and a letter that stretches as far as “O” but not for “Outstanding”.

You’re more than these things. Just remember that if you get results that you aren’t happy with.

 

This is my 300th post on this blog.

That’s, well. Nice to know. I think of these things as “wow, I’ve been writing”, and then I realize, “wow, there’s so much more left to write”.

For example,

Today I had the strangest experience of my life. The hostel has always been a crazy, unexplainable experience, and those of you who have read this blog for long will be aware of my struggles with cold water. (till I got used to it and could no longer complain).

Today, however, I found myself in a stall that had a fully functioning hot water tap, but no cold water.

And the cold water tap dispensed hot water too?

I don’t understand how our pipes work. But something weird is definitely up.

Thanks for sticking around for 299 previous observations about random things like this. Hopefully there’ll be many more. In Law school, and beyond.

One thing though, irrespective of the number of posts I write, is that I will continue to eat curd rice and vehemently defend it’s purity.

 

What amused me the most today was the fact that the usage of mobile applications can get such wild reactions based on the crowd that you use these applications in. So, for example, when you’re waiting for a faculty member to come in & you’re seated in their cabin – sure, you can check WhatsApp. But maybe looking at Instagram and Snapchat is not such an excellent idea.

I feel like I found this amusing for several reasons:

1. I imagined what it would be like to open up a Snap that one of my friends sent me & have my faculty peer over my shoulder to see what this snap was. They’d be extremely confused – because most of my Snapchats I exchange with friends are broadly us making ugly faces at each other with the comment “Ugly”. It’s excellent motivation and support.
2. I imagined adults using photo filters and participating in Snap challenges.

Okay, so maybe just two.

They were amusing nonetheless.

 

A friend today observed that my blog is the most irregular daily blog she has seen. I’m not surprised. I can barely go two days continuously writing. That is going to change. I will prove myself wrong. We’ve still got pretty much 3 months left in the year (wowie, that’s been quick!), which means I’ve got 90 solid days to write my feelings and observations. It also means you’ll be visiting this blog 90 times. That’s amusing to me.

An old classmate shared with me some news today – we found out that our old head chef from school was quitting to set up his own restaurant. I was pretty elated – that man was the sweetest person in the kitchen. At the same time, though, a few stark realities became clear. This change of guard marks another territory in my school that I will no longer be able to identify with. Additionally, damn, was I privileged to attend a school that had a head chef. That had a dining hall (I can’t remember what we called it, to be honest).

School meals were an integral part of my life. I never carried lunch from home – the only thing I packed was snacks. My snacks were not the most exciting. More often that not (every single day), I carried an Apple with some salt and some chaat masala on it. While everyone traded their snacks with each other, my apples went ungrabbed. So I ate them alone. Sometimes grudgingly, but most of the time attempting to make light of the whole situation and sell a piece of apple to someone based on nutritional value.

My biggest fear carrying those apples was that my box would open up and that apple juice would leak into my bag – leaving this horrible stench (my schoolbag had a long tenure and saw plenty others), but more irritatingly, leaving a stain. Why? Salt makes apples sweat.  This is a fact.

Anyway. After snacks, I think we looked forward to lunch because it was respite. We had 45 minutes – and we’d eat in maybe 15 or 20 minutes at most, and much faster once we were in senior secondary, and end up playing on the football field or the basketball court. The coaches would invariably tell us we couldn’t have access to sports equipment during lunch – we’d put up a fight, and ultimately the balance of things would be restored, with us playing and the coaches joining in, sometimes.

The beauty of our dining hall was that people pretty much knew where to sit the minute they walked in – there was this faculty area where you’d see your teachers sharing food and gossip, your middle school area with really, really loud kids, rushing to finish up and go play table tennis, and then the calmer half of senior secondary, which largely just involved a lot of shoving and laughter.

People in school didn’t cut line also. Even when there was ice-cream, or biryani. Or paneer.

I had paneer for 5 years at school once every week, and not once was I tired of it. It took me 3 years to get tired of paneer at college.

Me. Being tired of paneer.

You must surely be able to comprehend what this says about the quality of meals in my school dining hall and my college mess.

I remember this head chef supervising ice-cream distribution and ensuring nobody got a second scoop – just to make sure that everyone had atleast one. But after you became pals with him, you could get extra scoops at the end. Even people who weren’t on the Meal Plan ended up getting scoops.

I didn’t go to the dining hall daily in 12th Grade, because this overwhelming laziness swept me and my friends, and we ended up doing a potluck thing and sharing everything that people had got from home. I probably went there 4 days out of 5, and this head chef would always be there, with his moustache, his chef whites, and his smile.

You wouldn’t be unhappy eating food at the dining hall, and I’m really excited to hear more about this new restaurant he’s opening up, because I’m sure you won’t be unhappy eating there either.

Will happen, happening, happened.

I’m struck by how lyrically emotional this is. I think you might be too. Let me know if you are.

Today, in conversation, someone used the word fascinating to describe one of their batchmates. I hadn’t heard the word fascinating in so long that I chuckled to myself.

When was the last time someone called another person fascinating?

Or something that had taken place fascinating?

To me, fascinating seems to have that air of superiority about it. If I was to create a GIF or a YouTube clip for it, it would be an old English man wearing a tweed jacket puffing out from his cigar looking at the first ever train or something and sighing, “fascinating”.

But my friend, he made it sound so endearing.

That’s when I realized I had forgotten about the word in it’s entirety. I use “interesting” a lot, to describe events and things and people. But not “fascinating”.

This took my brain somewhere else, and I’ve spent the last half an hour thinking about the other words in the dictionary I’ve forgotten because of how much I have ended up repeating words (such that they’ve gotten stuck in my head), and because of how infrequently others use these words.

And now I want to eat a dictionary.