Category: 2018

Today I received a massive “care package” from home, filled with some of the snacks I love, prepared by some of the people I love the most. I don’t think much has made me happier this semester.

I’ve been missing home food a lot. The mess food has become a little too repetitive and poor in quality for me to handle, so my desire to either eat South Indian food, or food that I like eating, like Italian, or Mexican, or even just fast food, has gone up by leaps and bounds. More than I ever thought it would.

That “care package” was something I devoured over 2 days. And each time I ate something contained within that brown carton, I remembered some part of my childhood.  A pooja here, a small episode there.

A very vivid memory, for example, is my grandfather making his coconut burfi. It’s one of my favourite preparations of his. Over summer (Western summers), I used to be in India, for the monsoon season. Regular readers of this blog would now be used to my complaints about the rain, but my grandfather kept me entertained every single summer. Apart from the books I would read, and the TV I would watch, and all the holiday homework I would not do, my grandfather found projects to keep me occupied every summer day. Whether this was painting, or pencil sketching, or even stitching a tote bag, my grandfather taught me a lot over the summers.

Very unconsciously, I think another big thing that happened over summers was that my grandfather broke down the “gendered” stereotype of household chores. He was pretty active in the housework – and my grandmother and grandfather both cooked me meals I loved, and both helped set up things in the house. I quite enjoyed it.

They insisted, for example, that I drink milk before sleeping sometimes – because that’s what they were used to. I don’t think I’ll forget that.

Or the unreasonable fear of the dark I used to have in their house. My goodness. I had to literally run through the corridor to make it to their room before the lights went out, because I couldn’t see anything in the pitch dark black of their room.

Anyway, this post was about food. I remember 2 minute Maggi taking way too long to cook in their house, and how I used to sit atop the countertop and watch the heat waves waft over into the patio.

I remember my grandfather preparing coconut barfi on that countertop as well, and it sticking to the plate. I remember being so excited and surprised that a coconut could be grated, but more importantly that there was a machine that would do the activity.

If a singular piece of food can make my mind wander to so many different places, just imagine all the places I wanted to be when I ate all the food in the brown carton sent from home.

Yet I am in Gujarat.

It’s becoming tougher and tougher to attend 5 hours of class these days. My seniors told me this would happen to me in fourth year, but I was optimistic that I’d power through it, and show enthusiasm while attending every single class throughout 5 years of law school. I feel like mathematically that is extremely difficult. It’s 60 different papers – and it is quite likely that there will be subjects that people enjoy and subjects that people do not enjoy. That’s true of me as well, because I’m only human.

Powering through the classes I don’t like has been the biggest challenge – largely because sitting in that class, I find it difficult to pay attention, and I also begin to think about the other things I could be doing in that time.

I don’t like this.

I’ve got only 3 weeks left in the semester before exams, but I think I’m going to try to be more proactive in classes in terms of trying to pay attention. And when I fail, I’m not going to think negatively about everything else I could be doing with my time. I want to value each class the way I did in first year again, and while I know reaching the same levels of enthusiasm is unlikely, the least I can do is attempt to get there.

To do this, I feel like the other thing that can help me is background reading. Maybe classes aren’t engaging enough for me anymore, and maybe I’m genuinely not interested in the subjects that we’re studying. That doesn’t mean I need to stop taking effort to try being interested. Reading has always provided a lot of comfort for me – in terms of taking me to a different headspace, and making me feel emotions that the real world sometimes cannot.

I’m going to try pretty hard for the next three weeks. I’ll tell you how it goes.

It’s been one full year since I embarked on a journey which brought me to an empty campus in Gandhinagar, took me to Delhi numerous times, made me see Chennai, and then ultimately gave me the opportunity to visit the United States of America and eat New York slice pizza.

I’m uncertain how to feel about it. One year passed by really quickly, and when I was working on the problem, I don’t think I realized how much of my time it was actually taking up. Since I’ve been (relatively) free from the start of this semester, it’s provided a lot of time for me to contemplate about how I can spend my time in different ways. It’s also given me time to think about the kind of activities I want to prioritize.

The problem, is, however, that when you lose track of how much time you invested in one project, sometimes it becomes difficult to estimate how much time you have to “work” in a particular day, and how much time you really need to take for yourself. I’ve made that error in judgement numerous times over this semester, and the corrective mechanism has led to me sleeping in class to catch up on some personal time.

But, anyway, coming back to the journey of a lifetime.

The reason I’m uncertain how to feel about it is because I look back on it with so much fondness and happiness, that I sometimes wonder whether there will be another activity in the future that will give me so much joy. I know I can’t look into the long-term future, but I think last year was something I enjoyed so much, that I’m going to strive to find that kind of happiness in everything I do.

That could end up very negatively, I feel – because I’ll end up continuously comparing how happy I am at any given point of time to that very high standard. To avoid that, I think I’m going to be more conscious and more grateful for the small things I do on a regular basis that bring me happiness.

To another year of madness, that the 2019 mooting season will bring me.

 

Sometimes I wonder how people get excited about change and experiencing new things. I mean, I’m like that too. But I wonder how it happens. What excites our brains about new experiences that routine is unable to fulfill? What void in our lives does change actually end up filling? And why is it that some people are excited about it, and some people are scared?

This abstraction comes from the fact that I am doing two internships in an unfamiliar city, and I do not yet have a place to stay in said city. But I will figure it out.

Personally, I think I get excited by new experiences mostly when they involve food and books, and travel. Being able to experience the vibe a new place gives off, or the possibility of having an adventure is something that I cherish.

But I’m also one of these people who likes having these adventures planned out. Which is a little contradictory, but eh. What can I do? That’s just who I am.

The one thing I enjoy a lot is developing small traditions with my closest friends – things we do without fail within the sphere of our friendship, which helps us stay in touch with each other. A lot of my friends are friends I have shared experiences with in the past, like school, or an internship, but are people I have been unable to meet on a regular basis since I moved to University. As a consequence of this, small traditions help me reconnect with them instantly, more than anything else.

A couple of them include discussing new pieces of poetry once a week, meeting up at a sandwich shop and eating sandwiches like it’s nobody’s business, meeting up for coffee late at night, eating pizza – every single time we meet. It’s delightful.

The dude I meet for pizza is someone I find really good company – not only because we share similar outlooks toward things like pop culture, but also because of how much he teaches me each time we meet. Every single time I interact with him, over pizza, I learn so much about how his life has changed since we did that one internship in Bangalore together, and it reminds me that it can take just one common thread to make friends.

The other thing I love about traditions like these is that they ensure that some life experiences repeat themselves frequently. If I wasn’t meeting my friend, I feel like it’s unlikely that I will go out for pizza as often. It’s also unlikely that I will visit that sandwich shop, or the coffee shop. Because these are not experiences I enjoy having alone.

The same thing can be said of Taco Bell, which I have adopted as one of my homes in Bangalore. I go there so frequently when I am in town, but I only visit the joint with a few people I hold very dear to me.

I wouldn’t trade those memories for more memories of eating Taco Bell. And that says a lot.

 

One of the best things to happen this semester is that I’ve rediscovered how much I enjoy cartoons. I found a couple of good ones that Cartoon Network now runs, and I’ve begun to watch them pretty regularly – to take my mind off college-related things, and to take me back to my childhood.

Some of these cartoons serve as wonderful social commentaries. But even those that don’t are so wildly entertaining and so well animated, that you can’t help but enjoy them. You fall in love with the characters, their back stories, and every single thing about them. You become invested in their world.

Cartoons take me back to a simpler time. Where the only things I really had to worry about were: what has my mother packed for lunch today? Will I be trading my lunch for a piece of Kyle’s Nutella sandwich?

That’s one of the reasons I’m enjoying them so much.

The other reason is that I am a child at heart and everything about cartoons is amazing. The plots are rarely sequential, so you can get through them without having watched previous episodes. There are tons of clips on the internet, and you can keep finding other similar cartoons to fall in love with.

I’m currently binging We Bare Bears.

I made a very conscious decision not to type out anything for the last 12 days or so. Sorry for the inactivity, especially if you’re a regular reader who missed the blog updates. But I was going through a rough patch where I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to say, or what was going on in my head.

A lot of that came from a workload I found increasingly difficult to balance. And I think recognizing that it can be a struggle, sometimes, is important.

I’m back though – so you’re now going to get 12 blogposts at one go. Your e-mail inbox will be spammed, but I’m going to take you through what the last 12 days have been like for me.

Fun, no?

Someone recently told me that the art of learning how to live a happy life was learning not to crib about things. Not to crib about the cold water you have to bathe in, bot crib about the size of your room. Essentially, learn how not to complain about the privileges that society has given you – because privilege is never earned, but some abstract social construct that is now received.

I find this proposition arguable.

I literally wrote half this blogpost about how I was going to attempt to follow this philosophy for a bit and see where it took me. But I’ve quickly deleted it because I think that complaining and having a vent for feelings is essential.

Cribbing and acting like a baby about things or being over-dramatic can be sometimes extra. And that’s perhaps where I’ll draw the line.

 

Recently been reading around the flak that Nike has received for putting Colin Kapernick in an advertisement.

For the uninitiated:

https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/9/7/17831334/nike-colin-kaepernick-ad

I think it’s important to pause time a little to appreciate everything the Supreme Court as an institution has decided to write down a few days ago.

I’ve been holding off on typing out a blogpost which summarized all of my thoughts and feelings – outside of legalese, until I read the judgement – because I felt it would be unfair for me to do so. Don’t ask me why, my brain is a little weird and elects to do things like this. Multiple naps later, I have accomplished my objective and hence can be objective (hey? but also not really.) about everything that’s happened.

Here is some context. In India, there was a Law – that is Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. The Law criminalized “carnal intercourse against the order of nature”. This was enforced against individuals who are not heterosexuals – thereby criminalizing all homosexual activity in India (at minimum). The (at minimum) is important to understand because there was little to no clarity about what was meant by the “order of nature” – and there are multiple questions about whether the Court, or the State gets to decide what the “order of nature” is, by means of Law.

Anyway. The other important thing to understand about India is that our social fabric is complicated, to say the least. I wouldn’t want to generalize and call it regressive, but there are enough and more people within Indian society who are far too nosy, do not understand the concept of personal autonomy and choice, and generally make it difficult to find “identity”.

There have been attempts to get this Section struck down in the past. The Indian legal system assesses all Laws according to the Constitution – which establishes basic norms for Laws to follow and says things like “Laws should not violate fundamental rights”. The act of “striking down” by the Court is effectively a ruling that says that a particular Law is contrary to the principles within the Constitution. This is the simplest way of explaining things.

Only one attempt was successful. And the joy of that attempt was far too short-lived. The Indian Court system works on a system of appeals and a Court hierarchy. The High Court said S. 377 was unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court said it was fine. And so the legislation continued.

That was until a few days ago.

What took place a few days ago was the culmination of the efforts of far too many people, and the correction of a social injustice that has been taking place for far too long. If you want to assess the impact a Court decision can make to an individual’s life – without it being something tangible, like the value of inheritance, or the conferring of a property right, you should assess the impact this case will have on an entire generation of people.

My roommate asked me how long I thought this decision would take to actually come into effect. And I couldn’t give him an answer. Because while it’s an excellent step – it’s merely the beginning of a lot of change yet to come.

Our world is heteronormative. We’ve normalized heterosexuality, nay, glorified it, to the extent that people have been shocked by preferences that are different. This behaviour of ours, while unhealthy, has led to a situation where people are uncomfortable with a public acceptance of who they are – and this concept applies to things  beyond sexuality as well.

But for the confines of this post, if we were to restrict ourselves to a discussion on sexuality.

It’s so strange to think that two people who love each other deeply could never publicly display their affection with the same comfort that two others do – especially if they want to.

It’s odd, for me, to think that people have to hide what they’ve known about themselves – and face severe bullying for revealing to people who they really are.

It’s surprising that the Law played complicit to this. And it’s terrible that this is a remnant of our colonial past.

For everything we’ve done as a free country, you can think of this case as another positive step toward freedom – one of prejudices. I believe one of the judges have stated that we owe the LGBTQIA community (and you can add letters to that abbreviation), because of the prejudice they have faced. I think that we owe them an apology, but also more than an apology, a lot of corrective behaviour.

I’m not entirely sure how that’s going to play out.

I need to explain. I’m socially privileged because I’m a boy who is heterosexual. By socially privileged, I mean that the level of discrimination and generally “icky” social things I have to combat on a daily basis are far lower than different groups of individuals. That “privilege” needs to go. I shouldn’t be in a position where I’m treated in a superior manner to another person because of my “identity”.

That’s just odd.

And I’m happy the Court said 493 pages of things that are in places far too verbose, but for the large part, ought to be said.

School is a weird place. We crack “gay” jokes very often, I think. And label things like shirts as being “gay”, or people are being “gay” because they act a certain way. I think stereotyping is generally an art that little kids are masters of, and a terribly politically incorrect art that has somehow descended into humour on the playground, or worse, in the locker room. We’ve all been complicit in this at some point or another. That’s one of those things that might change with generations to come. And I’m hopeful that it does. I’m also sorry I played a part in attaching a negative connotation to the phrase “gay” – because it doesn’t have a negative connotation at all.

Today’s an excellent day to watch Nanette, by Hannah Gadsby.

It’s  also an excellent day to think about how screwed up the first 20 years of your existence have been if your own country arbitrarily and artificially created 2 classes of people within the same species.

And be reminded by Twitter that we still have caste as a problem.

 

I think days which are extremely routine are starting to become some of the most enjoyable.

Last evening I played Basketball – my annual appearance on the Basketball Court during inter-batch tournaments/intra-murals, if you will. I’ve not played basketball properly since I left home – and I think it’s largely because I’ve not found the time to go play with people. It’s terrible.

I’ve never been an ardent basketball fan – although I really enjoy watching highlight reels. I don’t feel like my love for the game has diminished over my time at University, and that’s largely thanks to my batchmates who text & ask me to play these intramurals. I’d be far too lazy to commit to them otherwise.

This is one of those things I love about where I study. Matches start late in the evening and go on till early morning – and there’s this buzz around all the game venues – all Courts and the field are packed with people cheering on their friends or playing themselves. There’s very little care for sleep cycles or social groups. People begin supporting their batch more than anything else – and start supporting people they see playing well & having fun. There’s  a ton of sledging, but I think that adds to all the excitement.

But that’s never something I’ve understood.

I think our school took basketball as a very chill sport. Therefore even though we loved and we were passionate about it and all, we never really “trained” or “practiced”, nor did we get aggressive in school about the match. None of us who played exclusively at school had that mentality.

Here, I’m unable to understand how people put their aggressiveness on the Court aside when they chill off the Court.

It’s pretty amazing.

The joy of discovering new music from old artists is incomparable. When I first discovered Labrinth, I found Earthquake, and then slowly discovered his story – how he signed on to Syco. I remember the first thing that struck me about him was that his appearance reminded me of Stromae, and I’m not entirely sure why. Song-wise, Earthquake was ground-breaking because it had vocals and electronic music by the same person.

But I don’t think I recognized the power of Labrinth’s vocals. I didn’t understand that till I joined University and was shown the song “Jealous” by a senior of mine. His vocal range amazed me earlier, and it still does. I had been caught up listening to relatively less “vocal” songs of his, things like Xpress Yourself, which reminded me of this old Red Nokia one of our friends owned.

I discovered Sia, as did the rest of the world, when David Guetta decided to make her the star of his music, and used her repeatedly for chart-topping singles. Ultimately I saw her breakout to fame with Chandelier, a song I felt described all my emotions – because I legitimately think of doing crazy things like that from time to time. But also, because teenagers think they can relate to every emotion from every song.

Diplo is someone’s who I’ve understood is like Pharrell. He’s well-known for some pieces of music, but it’s pretty certain that you’ll find him on the credits of tracks you like. He’s also extremely diverse – in terms of the projects he undertakes and the creative liberties he has with those projects. Take Jack U for example. The first time I heard “Where R U Now”, was on my way to Pondicherry with some of my best friends, and it was so off, to hear Justin Bieber on an electronic record. But my ears felt fuzzy and warm after listening to the song so, so often – it basically spent 6 days on loop.

Everyone was shook.

Seeing the new LSD alias they’ve assumed amuses and excites me. Audio, Genius, and Thunderclouds have all been really, really groovy records. And I cannot wait to see what they come up with next.