Category: Blog

It’s difficult for me to pinpoint exactly when the word podcast entered my vernacular. It’s been around in my brain for a while and in my first year I helped to edit one for a while, because I knew how to edit audio. I didn’t listen to too many before 2020. I got into them in January, and kept finding podcasts I liked, following along to a few during my first three months because I was on a real running spree, and because of things in my personal life, boy oh boy did I miss conversation. I love conversation, and I love stories – and I found that podcasts felt like both.

I know that podcasts became a trend this year. Everyone at home began to start one, and almost everybody I know has started listening to podcasts this year. I’m very wary of trends usually, because I dislike being peer pressured into anything; I like to think that most things I’m suggested by my friends, I do out of a personal desire to do or abstain from the thing. So I monitored, and this podcast thing just kept growing. Through the entire year, as webinars grew in number, the number of new podcasts I saw on Spotify, and recommended to me by friends or social media kept increasing. I was blown away.

Personally, for me, three things have happened with podcasts this year.

First, in a time where human contact was limited, and at home, I got to hear other humans very less, I was given company by podcasts. I’m aware about how lonely this makes me sound, but, it’s true. I’m not going to deny that my circumstances made me feel alone on some days. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs clearly explains that we need belonging and love. Virtually, I felt both so much. My parents showered so much love on me, my friends caught up with me and my family gave me company and support. I never felt lonely as a result, but the house felt alone on some days. What I learned early on, when the pandemic started, was that I was at ease when I heard noise. I was very comfortable working with music or shows playing in the background. These mediums don’t really speak to you though. What podcasts do is that they make you feel like you’re actually having a conversation with someone, or that you’re witnessing a conversation, in the same room as another set of human beings. It’s that physical proximity I definitely missed this year, and podcasts felt like a wonderful way to experience that – and more often than not, learn new stuff. The same was true of audiobooks, and very soon I found myself listening to these more than music (how?)

Second, podcasts made me appreciate human stories more. I’ve always been grateful for people and for this planet. Although we have science and the vocabulary to explain things, when I step back and thing about how much must take place for a human to experience life on this planet, I can’t help but feel a sense of awe. Which is part of the reason I blog. This is my life’s story. My life’s experiences on the internet. The pandemic has taken away so much. There were so many stories untold. Humans of New York introduced us to the range of human stories we ignore in our day to day lives; and the other Humans of… projects that spun off from it introduced us to more of the same. I became intrigued most by conversational podcasts, which introduced me to people and stories I wouldn’t otherwise have the chance to ever experience, or hear about. If I was someone obsessed with chronicling my life’s stories, I wonder why I didn’t stop and hear what other’s life stories were. I mean, I’m being harsh on myself, I definitely do listen to what people say and what they’re communicating, but I think about it now and I don’t think I really listened to learn. I’d always listen to respond or to react. Never just to hear about someone else’s life. As a result I think I missed out. I’m not going to get that back, but I know that podcasts have made me value human stories more, and listen more closely to the human stories in my everyday conversations and life. I’ll be searching for them. All these podcasts that came up this year made it clear to me that people had stories they wanted to share. All they needed was a platform. Blogs and podcasts, as media, are super democratic (as of now). I’m glad people feel courageous enough to share their stories. I’m grateful to be able to listen to them.

Third, I started a podcast. I jumped into the trend. My mother and I started a podcast called Tuesdays with Mummy. Out every Tuesday, the podcast is just conversation I have with her on the different subjects we’re traversing in our lives. I’m influenced by Mitch Albom and Tuesdays with Morrie. I love my parents and I’m extremely grateful for them. I also think they’re oceans of stories because they’ve lived so much longer than I have, and I want to hold on to them forever. I’m an auditory person, and I’ve heard my parents’ voices for the longest time in my life, since I’ve been born – from the lullabies they sang to me as I slept, to their rage when they yelled at me for something stupid I did, to their words of encouragement as I picked myself back up when I fell. I love their voices, and I never want to forget it. Recording auditory memories I can listen to felt like the perfect cure. The only reason I run it with my mum is because she’s free-er at the moment, but we feature my dad so much, I’m very pleased. There’s so much stuff I speak to my parents about, but there’s also so much we don’t speak about, and I’m so eager to pick their brains each week on the podcast, because I know my mum speaks to my dad about stuff too, to get ready for the podcast. I love that. People listen – which I find strange, but it’s just a reflection of how curious people are about human stories. The feedback we’ve received has been positive, but also very constructive. I’m grateful to have such an open relationship with my parents, which allows me to record this podcast and share her stories, and portions of my own in a new way.

So where’s the recalibration? It’s implicit in everything I’ve said above. Prior to 2020, I think I was willing to claim that I was okay without human contact or friendships, that I’d survive just fine, because of the hobbies my parents have made sure I’ve developed and my general interests in figuring out where I am, or living peacefully. I don’t think that’s true anymore. At minimum, I need podcasts and human stories. I wouldn’t want to live alone on a desert island forever; or anything of that sort. I genuinely love human beings and their potential and their stories. That’s what I’ve recalibrated to.

In a way, podcasts and podcasters are my friends now. They’re with me from when I wake up to when I sleep. When I walk, when I run. When I’m not meeting people, I’m usually listening to a podcast, an audiobook, or music, depending on my mood. Good headphones are a clear priority (if you’re gifting me hehe!). I’m very grateful for the company, and I’m in awe of human stories. There’s an adventure I’m going to embark on in 2021, to continue to stay curious about human beings I meet and learn from them. 2020’s set me on the way.

In my childhood, I was never deprived of the entertainment that videogames can offer. However, given the number of hours my peers spent on videogames after school hours, my parents found two ways to combat me from doing the same. First, they purchased my a Playstation Portable really early on, as soon as it came out. Second, we only purchased games once a year, and I was allowed to buy two. Third, the PSP was hidden away from me during school-time, and I had access to it only during holidays – of any kind. Finally, I was not allowed an upgrade. So no PS2, PS3, or anything else. That kept me away from playing with my friends and playing for hours beyond what I was allotted. I was never really good with videogames that were competitive, enjoying storylines a lot more. Some time around Grade 9 I was allowed to trade-in my PSP for a PS3, but it came at a time when I couldn’t really enjoy it, so I moved on from it pretty quickly. That didn’t mean I stopped enjoying videogames. I’d still play when I went to my friends’ houses. Even when I didn’t have my PSP as a kid, I’d be able to play Runescape for a couple of hours with my friends each week, and when I visited their houses, their PS2 was fair game.

As a consequence, I think my relationship with videogames was less personal and more community-based. I also don’t think I developed a particular attachment for them; but I did follow along to all of the conversation surrounding them because of my interest in technology and the way my friends described games.

I rediscovered videogames at the end of last year. When I went back to University, I decided that it was something I’d continue to do, to switch off from anything related to making applications or doing University work. Videogames found a place on my OneNote, highlighting my commitment to being entertained by them. Then COVID-19 struck. I relocated home. For the first week, I didn’t play too much at all. I was very focused on figuring out to live alone at home, how to operate stuff, and what all the precautions advised by the Government meant for me.

At some point in the second week, I think I realized I was freer than I had ever been, and at some point, the amount of information around the pandemic meant I needed a switch-off. My school friends, who realized I was in Bengaluru now, reached out and added me to a gaming group. 2020 has been a strange year, and for a large part of it, despite having a community around me, and my parents and family a video-call away, I know I was physically quite alone. This was a deliberate decision, but there were some days where I wondered why there was so much quiet around me. Although we played every day, it was those days that made me most grateful for my school friends and videogames. My house was filled with a cacophony of sound that made me feel like I was in school again. Even when I wasn’t playing I could just watch the others play, or chat with them on our discord server while they gamed away.

So that’s the first thing that’s changed. I’ve recalibrated my view toward videogames and toward friendships I established in school.

Let’s talk about videogames first. Even though I enjoyed them, I’d rationalize how I didn’t experience them myself so much by thinking about how I was spending my time in a better way, insofar as I was always doing something I would have been doing anyway instead of playing videogames. In that position however, I wasn’t ever in a position where I could consider the value of videogames in a fair, objective way. My decision was based entirely on my limited experience and exposure to limited games, and how I emotionally felt – that it was better to be outside playing sports or such, or studying. Through the pandemic though, I changed that. My parents really couldn’t say anything because I did need a switch-off.

So, here’s a couple of things I now recognize about videogames.

Videogames improve your fine motor skills. I read several scientific papers, and it definitely appears that there’s a positive correlation between playing videogames and motor skills. They also improve your cognitive abilities in terms of being able to process novel pieces of information and adapt quickly. This, I think is particularly true of action and first-person games.

Videogames improve your communication skills, particularly where you play team games. You learn how to say things quickly – in shorthand.

Videogames allow you to experience things that you wouldn’t ordinarily get to experience. I played a lot of F1 2020, Football Manager, FIFA 2020. None of these things: being a racing driver, a football manager, or a football player are things that I see myself being able to do in real life. I do not possess the skill-set or the financial backing. I possess the passion, and the desire to learn, which I can put into effect in videogames, and derive joy out of. Flight Simulator also, for example, allows you to satisfy the aviation geek inside you. I can’t replace that.

Finally, they are fun. That’s been the biggest, biggest change in my perspective toward videogames. I still am terrible at videogames, but even when I lose, I find myself having more fun than so many other things I do with my time. Therefore, when it comes to making decisions about how to spend my time – if I’m trying to decide how to have the most fun with a block of time, there are times now where I would genuinely choose videogames, and be very comfortable with that.

I learned that I’m somebody who enjoys sports games – and arcade games, the most, followed closely by story-line based games and role-playing games. Which is why Runescape is still a favourite. First-person action and shooting games I will play for my friends. I will always be terrible at them. I don’t have the patience to spend hours improving my skill.

What I also witnessed this year that deserves conversation is how videogames became a place where fans of a particular sport were brought closer to real-life players. F1 drivers were playing F1 2020 and struggling in places, which was hilarious for us. Real-life football players started playing FIFA more because they had some more time off.

Now I’d like to talk about my high school friends. I loved them at school. After school I know I struggled with our relationship. We weren’t in touch as much, and initially I didn’t understand how or why we went from talking to each other for eight hours a day to less than eight hours across months. I don’t think I was mentally ready for that. It took me a while to recognize how busy we had all become, and then it took me a lot longer to accept that there were times we’d be in the same city and be unable to see each other. At some point, I began to ask myself if as individuals, we were likely to be friends if we had not gone to school together.

My answer was, I don’t know. I can’t say, because so much of our friendship stems out of the circumstances in which we were introduced. It is difficult to displace that an look at our relationship.

However, what I do know is the reality of things. We were introduced under a very specific set of circumstances. All of us ended up at the same school. We shared five years together. I wouldn’t replace those five years with any other set of people I know in my life; nor would I replace this set of people with any other combination of people.

Acknowledging that, what I’ve learned is that our lives and our circumstances are going to change throughout life, but the fact that we went to school together is not something that any of us are going to be able to escape. Our friendship is therefore not conditional or predicated on anything else in our lives, because any condition to our friendship has already been fulfilled. We’ve shared the experience that we were meant to share with each other. We got to spend five years together, which is a substantial period of time in any of our lives – right now, it’s close to 1/5th of mine. We became close in those five years. That’s not going to change irrespective of anything that happens in our lives.

What that led me to realize is that the relationship we shared then is one that’s trapped in time. None of us can erase that. So if we’re in touch or not in touch, we’re all school classmates at minimum. We’re people who’ve seen each other at our most childish. That cannot change. What’s clear to me, therefore, is that unless circumstances change in our individual relationships significantly, we’re going to stay friends for our lifetime. I’m so pleased to be able to cherish that, acknowledge that, and accept that, finally.

That’s allowed me to let go of a lot of the hurt I felt when I visited Bangalore and wasn’t able to meet too many of them. That’s allowed me to let go of the momentary joys I used to feel when I’d get a message from them out of the blue; especially because I was in a different city. It allows me to be more at peace with our relationship – and just appreciate it, instead of doing anything else.

It’s been beautiful.

The best thing it did was that it pushed me to reach out to as many of my school classmates as I could, to say hello. To enquire, honestly, how they were. The thing the pandemic made clear to me is that I shouldn’t be waiting for anyone else. If I want to speak to someone, I’m going to reach out to them and ask if we can chat.

My school friends responded to mothers’ request to be in this insane birthday video she made for me this year. I got to spend time and see several of them before I moved to the UK (one of them came home in the last week before I left); and I still chat with them frequently because this group now exists.

I will appreciate and cherish all of this. I will cherish each one of them. By extension, I’m going to cherish and appreciate every single relationship I develop henceforth. My perspective on the smaller stuff has changed. Having the opportunity to know another individual in any capacity is a blessing because it’s an opportunity to see the world through a different pair of eyes. That’s something I’m so grateful for, and something I have only my school friends to thank for.

Writing this blog, in general, is equal parts comforting and frustrating. Writing this set of blogposts is the same. Since 2015, the blog has been a huge part of my life. There’s daily narratives and internal monologues interspersed with attempts at writing fiction and social commentary. At the end of every year, however, there has been reflection, and with it, the opportunity to review an entire year thematically and examine what the year that has gone by has been.

It feels insufficient to capture 2020 through ten posts. I push on because this blog is my personal tapestry, and stories deserve to be woven in. This year, for me, has been all about recalibrating. Not resetting, mind you. Just the art of remarking what the standard is. The next ten days on this blog will recognize that in different spheres of my life. Today is about providing the broader outline for those posts.

In writing this series of posts, I recognize that my voice and my experiences are ones of privilege insofar I have had the opportunity to recalibrate. The impact of the pandemic has been disproportionate not exclusively because of nature, but equally because of inconsiderate human intervention. The pandemic is not over, but my aspiration remains that when we figure out a solution, to contain the spread and to cure, as a human species, we are more empathetic individuals and a more empathetic society.

It is easy to forget how much has transpired since January 1, 2020 given the dominant role that SARS-CoV-2 has played. Everything else appears to be sidelined, with January, February and March (Q1) pretty much being sidelined to the smallest part of this year’s history textbook. Telling this year’s story fairly however, in each of our personal histories, I think, deserves an acknowledgment of those three months in equal measure. So that’s where I will start.

The beginning of the year saw me return to University for my final semester of being an undergraduate law student. Having made various applications for postgraduate education, I returned knowing that I had given myself the best opportunity to continue my legal studies, but I wasn’t sure where I would be after June. I was determined at that time to enjoy every last minute on campus, with the people who were my closest friends. Little did I know I would make new ones. In my final semester at University, I met someone I can safely call one of my best friends from Gujarat. The dominant narrative that played out in my head is, how do I use this remaining time well? How do I take as much away from the experience as I can? Having spent four years giving, it only felt fair to think about that one question. I explored and started taking piano lessons and meeting friends in the city more frequently. I ran in different parts of the twin cities and ate at new places, and slowly but surely began to tick things off the bucket list that had built up over four years.

I was on a flight to Bengaluru, my home, three days after receiving a conditional offer from the University of Cambridge. My mother, one day prior, had flown out from Mumbai to Dubai. Originally our intention was for me to stay in Gandhinagar itself, but that was unviable. Getting to Dubai was ruled out because I had forgotten to carry my passport, at the start of the academic semester, from Bengaluru. In January, my mother and I had flown to Bengaluru together, and she kept my passport. I just forgot to take it from her, and in so doing, ended up treading the path that led to six months staying in my house, alone before relocating countres.

When it quickly became apparent I was in Bengaluru for the long haul, I began to think about several things. Suddenly I had 24 hours to myself. No University commitments, no social life commitments. No commitments at all. 24 hours*7 days for an unforeseeable number of weeks. After four and a half years of things eating away at any routine I tried setting for myself, this was heavenly.

The next six months is when the recalibration happened. In deciding where my time went, in deciding how each of the 24 hours got spent, what I found myself doing was slowly and certainly answering how I wanted to use my life. The opportunity and privilege to do this shines through in that I was able to make that decision, every hour, consistently, devoid of external pressures that others face. This doesn’t diminish my own challenges, but it certainly provides some perspective about how we magnify or amplify our lifes’ own challenges internally.

I’m an optimistic person who likes putting silver linings on things, but the pandemic shouldn’t be perceived that way, so I won’t be putting a positive spin on it at all. It remains a devastating, brutal part of our lives. In the next ten posts, I hope to outline in what ways spending six months alone at home has impacted the way I think about things, ranging from the personal to the professional. At the end of it, as always, will be a post investigating what these changes mean for me in 2021.

If you choose to follow along, then I hope you enjoy it.

As always, I remain grateful.