Category: Blog

To me, aside from all the things you learn, professionally, at an internship, a key component of what makes an internship more enjoyable is the kind of people you meet and get to interact with. Coming into this break, I had had amazing co-interns at every single place I interned earlier. Individuals who were fun to hang out with at the workplace and outside of it. But here, I was a little skeptical. Aside from the interns from my University, and my flatmate, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Given the competitive nature of everyone at Law school, and some of the horror stories I had heard from others, I went into the internship with a mix of trepidation and excitement.

Everything faded away on day one.

I dined with fine gentlemen every single day of my internship. Considering we didn’t get to see each other during the rest of the day, that 30 minutes, and a WhatsApp group we had created, were the only interaction we had. And it was beautiful. We talked about such random things that we didn’t really get to know each other through the month. In fact, it was only on the last day of my internship that I realized one of them and I had an overlapping set of school friends because we were from the same city.

Which I think is pretty cool. The commonality of experience can give people so much to talk about apart from themselves, and so much to share.

Ultimately, though, what really bonded us is three loves: (1) cheap food, (2) pizza, (3) brownies. On the last day of our internship we headed out for a wild night of debauchery – eating 4 pizzas, having unlimited Coca Cola, and getting free food. Aside from tasting some extremely good Theobroma brownies – which I have craved every day since.

And we’ve kept in touch through the second internship month as well.

This extends to where I’m interning right now. My first week here was a blur because I was moving internships while submitting a memorial for my moot. Also, I was definitely under the assumption that I’d fit right in – given everything I had learnt from my previous internship. That assumption was flawed – because I didn’t account for the fact that I had to prove myself again and earn the rest of an entirely new set of colleagues. Having a co-intern who taught me the ways of the team, introduced me to hot chocolate, gossiped, and included me in a running gag really, really helped out.

So yup. Brand new friends all round, and a lot of fun. That’s been a highlight of the past month as well.

I’ve previously spoken about how much I enjoy reading and everything. But what sucked was that over the course of the internship season – aside from not being able to find time to do the things I really wanted to do, like writing every single day, I ended up being out of the loop with my reading.

To the extent that the last book I read remains the book I finished just before my exams started at University – which I read so I could finish off my reading challenge for the year. It’s strange, I sort of knew this would happen when internship season rolled around, but I didn’t realize how disappointed I would be with myself when it actually happened.

And I guess it’s okay that I’m not reading books during this short time of heavy stress and massive changes to my schedule and lifestyle – but that’s the exact attitude which made me stop reading books back in the 10th Grade for a while, which I hated and had to work so hard to overcome once I came to University.

What sucks – and this is what I’m most ashamed of, was that I was unable to keep up with the news properly.

I think my levels of general awareness hit lows in the last month – where I was finding out about things post-facto, but a whole 24 hours later. I’d be 24 hours late to news that wasn’t gossip.

That frustrated me.

Which means that it’s something I’m going to work even harder on the next time I get this busy – which hopefully shouldn’t be for a while.

It wasn’t just the fact that I was late to news. It was also that it started to feel like my day-to-day happenings were a day later than everyone else’s day-to-day happenings. Which was pretty bad for me.

Basics of World History [excuse for language]:

Looking good while going to work is spectacularly underrated and underappreciated.

I understand this now because I know how much effort it takes to put in effort into personal grooming and just looking presentable, and wow. It’s pretty commendable that people are able to do that even while living adult worker-bee lives with horrible hours. And managing everything life-related alongside that.

Especially when you’re going to work, man.

It’s pretty easy for males, because our formals are really straightforward. But still.

Shaving and grooming, having polished shoes, clean socks. Having pressed shirts and trousers. Having a set of trousers and a shirt which actually match each other. Having suitable ties. Wearing a nice belt.

And not repeating outfits too often – so that people don’t think you wear the same clothes everyday.

Pretty darn commendable.

Also, just generally. How do people always look better in formals than they do in regular clothes?

And finally, to close out another intriguing, thought-provoking, post: how crucial is it to own a pair of amazing brown formal shoes?

Oh yeah, also. I’ve observed and honestly concur with the trend that owning a pair of jet black laced shoes is honestly the greatest fashion trend. It goes with literally every outfit, looks classy, and can be extremely comfortable.

Look at me, I’m a fashionista now.

 

Meeting old friends can rekindle the strangest of things in your heart. All of this is sparked by the fact that I met an old friend of mine – whom I had last heard from in 2015. Some context: Buddy and I grew up in the same building complex, and spent time with each other every single day for 6 years. Buddy moved to Bangalore – then Bombay – then US – then Bombay. I moved to Bangalore and then Ahmedabad. Buddy and I lost touch because we only had each other’s e-mail IDs (and I had his institutional ID – which he lost after graduation).

Reached out to Buddy over social media and fixed time and place of meeting. Starbucks.

I reached Starbucks an hour earlier because they had free WiFi and I wanted to sit there and finish off some work – so I was there well in advance. I could only concentrate for about 40 minutes though. As it got closer and closer to our scheduled meeting time, I started to think about what it would be like to meet him after so long – especially because even when we met between 2011 and 2015 – it was fleeting. We never sat face to face and had conversations for hours the way we used to as children.

And all I could think about was, what if he’s changed? What do I say and do then? Will something I say today upset him? Have I changed a lot from when he’s last seen me? I mean, I’m sure I have – but will he still be comfortable with who I’ve become?

A lot of overanalyzing and peeing later, I saw him. And that set off a lot of nostalgia. Him and I running with our other friends – we were a group of six, running down slopes and across the parking lot. And as we met – all I could think about was how different our lives might have turned out if all six of us had stayed in that building instead of moving out for various reasons.

I was still nervous though – and started off conversation with something we shared a lot of love for back in the day: cricket. As we eased into conversation, we had to order stuff, and we went up and ordered Hot Chocolates. The same exact drink. And that’s when I knew things hadn’t really changed in all these years.

It’s weird, and super emo/sentu. But read this.

My biggest childhood memory is cricket. I was CRAZY about the sport. I’d spend every moment watching cricket highlights or playing cricket and thinking about the game. I even watched Ten Cricket shows and wrote to Cyrus Broacha for some contest for cricket trivia.

Buddy was spectacularly gifted at the sport – and a role model in terms of his fitness and ability/flair for the game. We used to spend hours in his house playing test matches – and they’d go on forever. It’s how I improved at the sport a fair amount. That, and breaking the chandeliers in his house with his bat. Till today I will maintain that it wasn’t my fault. Buddy bowled a very fast ball so I hit out instinctively.

In any case, because of how much time I spent in his house, I’d often be over at his place in the evening and sometimes even at night. I’ve eaten countless dinners at his house. But more crucially, I’ve had a lot of Bournvita with him  – in front of the TV watching cartoons, as a break from our test matches.

And while we were sworn enemies as we played those games, we were such pals while drinking that Bournvita. His mum used to tell the house-help not to make my Bournvita as hot as Buddy’s because I could never handle hot drinks.

When we ordered our Hot Chocolate Buddy told the server to mix in some cold milk into mine – so as to reduce the overall temperate of my Hot Chocolate.

That’s when I knew nothing had changed.

Meeting Buddy has been a highlight of my Bombay trip – because it showed me the value of childhood friendships. And it reminded me that those 6 years of my life – the ones I’ve tried saying I no longer identify with – because they’re in a city that now feels foreign to me, are still a part of my fabric, my DNA. They’re a part of my definition of “home”. As is Buddy – the friend who broke my first milk tooth for me.

 

So I got an entire weekend off in Bombay – in my third week of my first internship here.

That was supremely conflicting for me. On one hand I was thrilled, because, wow, finally. On the other hand, my brain was like, woah, no work? What now?

The answer was fairly simple. Sleep. The thing I had been desiring to do for so long, but had been unable to do on a consistent basis.

So of course I did the exact opposite.

That weekend, I woke up at 6AM to go play football (wow, who am I?), and then stayed up till 2AM working on moot stuff. Then the next day I went out a fair amount to explore Bombay – something that was on my list, and then went out for dinner and some partying with friends. Which was also pretty amazing.

But I accomplished very little of my sleep goal.

That actually repeated itself the next weekend I was free as well, because, at first, I thought – great, I can sleep again.

But,

Guess what. My brain went into overdrive about how I’d regret things if I didn’t do them when I was in Bombay. So I went all out and was social and met friends and people I hadn’t ever met before for the first time.

By the way, when you’re meeting people for the first time, I think it’s helpful to go over some of your best jokes – just to prepare in advance. Having a sense of humour makes it easier to break the ice with people.

On one hand I’m quite pleased with the fact that I got to do a Bombay darshan and meet so many people. Yet, somehow, on the other hand, I actually really want to sleep.

And here I am, writing blogposts in the middle of the night on a weekend.

Why am I like this, guys?

It makes a world of difference when you’re surrounded by people who you like working with – because you don’t mind staying back in the office late. Also, professional differences become so much easier to sort out, because you respect each other a lot on a personal level. When you’re working with people who are difficult for you to work with, I think you become a tougher person to work with yourself.

These wise words have occurred to me after watching the greatest cartoon of all time about teamwork:

They’re actually also a direct result of the amazing people I’ve had the opportunity of working with for the last two months or so. Everyone has been a delight – especially because they’ve also taken time out of their schedules to gossip with me.

Considering it was celebrity wedding season, this was the biggest highlight and the greatest thing that could have happened, because we spent a good 20 minutes each day critiquing the weddings and the updates that had come in.

It was a great life.

It’s really nice to come home to someone who is awake.

For a large part of my internship I came home to a pitch black house with 4 of my flatmates passed out – all in different stages of their sleep cycle, as evidenced by their various positions on their designated sleeping areas. One would be in a half-twist, one would only be covering half his body with his blanket, one would have gone to the belly flop sleeping position, and one would be hugging a pillow. It was extremely amusing.

I’d always have to open the door using an extra set of keys we left outside the house (psst: it was on the hinge of our very unlocked door), and enter after. I’d go to the kitchen, draw the curtains – so as to not interrupt my flatmates, and change. Ultimately, I’d set up camp there and work for a few hours on my moot submission. It was a great time for me.

But, on some days, I’d come home to one of my flatmates playing FIFA on their mobiles.

It made me happy to know that someone else was also awake. We’d say Goodnight to each other before he slept – but I had someone to talk to two minutes atleast – before that happened. Which was very comforting.

More importantly, I would find out whether our toilet had enough water to sustain an entire poop cycle of mine (if I really had to go), or whether I should just brave it out till the morning.

I’m kidding, it was never that bad. We did, however, manually fill up the flushing tank in our toilet with extra water we had collected so that we could poop. At times. This other time my room flooded.

More on that in another post.

I am typing these words one letter at a time because one hand is busy itching all parts of my leg violently. Mosquitoes have attacked Fort Tejas, and things are not pleasant at the moment. Time for S.W.A.T. forces to takeover.

I’ve always viewed winter break as a great time to detach yourself from most things University / School related. This didn’t happen much at school, or, maybe not as noticeably. Considering everyday after 4 I was at home and away from the school atmosphere – it was easy enough to detach yourself from stuff you did for school and do things you wanted to do.

On a residential campus that changes – because even if you’re done with classes, if you want to do something University related, you’re going to end up being busy all day doing stuff that is intertwined with University life and things you study there. It’s rare to get the level of detachment during the semester.

Hence, semester breaks. Deductive reasoning, much wow. (is that right? I’m not even sure.)

Anyway. I used to think this in my first year.

Soon that changed. A lot of this is because of who I am as a person – in terms of how much I enjoy trying new-new things and taking up work. But work spills over to winter, and I found myself carrying work that was happening during the semester into the winter break.

I thought it would be manageable only. Till the internship hours hit me.

After that it just became a situation where I was doing expectation and time management – which has honestly been the greatest learning over the last two months.

Expectation management doesn’t mean you underperform or compromise on quality of work. It just means you’re honest about the kind of effort you’ll be able to put in to work that is assigned to you. It means that you’re able to tell the people you’re working with exactly what the limitations of working with you are – which helps them plan better.

This aids you in your own time management.

And it stops making you feel like things are out of your control.

It’s great for the mind, body, heart, and soul. It also has a great effect on your stomach because you can take time to eat a hearty meal instead of trying to work through a meal because you need to keep up with deadlines.

The other pretty great learning for me has been that it’s important to surround yourself with people who trust you with this entire task of expectation and time management. That once you commit to undertake work, they trust you enough to actually execute it – and don’t pester you every two seconds about it.

That helps the stability too.

Damn. So much gyaan I have gained. And given. Chee.

Most people enter University and find their sleep cycle turned on its head. I’m one of them. It’s not something I exclaim about, but it’s something I’ve found works for me. I’m slow in the mornings – so I stay up later at night to finish off everything that I want to. It’s just the way I function. It isn’t universal and I don’t impose it on people when I’m working on teams. Working on teams tends to need compromise from everyone to ensure you’re overlapping in terms of the time you’re working on an active project – just to efficiently discuss things which are open items/still active.

Oh my God, I just used the phrase “open items” in a blog post. I’m talking like a Corporate lawyer now. What has happened to me?

Sigh.

Basically. My sleep cycle sucks. It’s my own fault. I work a certain way and I prioritize things in a particular manner. The compromise I make – and I’m comfortable making for now, is sleep.

Few people understand that, few don’t.

And it’s lovely and fine and dandy when it’s self-inflicted.

However. On principle, it starts to affect me a little when it isn’t necessarily self-inflicted and the late nights arise from things outside your sphere of control. It isn’t rage as much as it creates a lot of doubt about why I’m undertaking what I’m undertaking – and whether it’s something I’m happy doing.

That’s what happened over the last month. The answer was largely yes – because I ended work every single day with a lot of satisfaction about what I had managed during the day, and being happy with the kind of work I was given.

But working late nights for such a prolonged period can change you. It changes how you view your day – and your construction of how many hours you have each day – which begins to stretch as you go along.

It begins to affect your eating habits. The kind of food you eat starts to become the answer to “what’s convenient” rather than the answer to “what do I want to eat”.

It affects your lifestyle at home.

Essentially, my conclusion of things is that it’s a domino effect. Here’s how. You let one thing out of your control affect something personal – in this case, client expectations/work, affecting the number of hours you spend in the office. That factor makes its way into everything else and starts to put small small decisions of yours out of your control.

I say all this now. But trust me – I loved staying back those late nights. Solely because the kind of work I got was mind-blowing and the people I was working with were amazing. Made me very happy to stay in the office for as long as they wanted me to.

Corporate culture has flooded into my veins.

For the most part, I’ve grown up feeling like I couldn’t fit into corporate culture. I haven’t really seen the thrill in dressing up in a formal set of clothes daily and going to sit at a desk and work from 9 to 5 – or beyond. Even job descriptions at firms sounded extremely cumbersome to me, and never fascinated me.

As I grew older I understood that corporate culture was a lot more than a 9 to 5 job and a fat paycheck. There’s an entire lifestyle associated with it. It’s not something that I think you can accurately capture by experiencing it at just one firm, but I think it broadly includes being a workaholic. And prioritizing hours over efficiency.

That’s definitely true in India, especially at places where overtime is compensated, and there are no caps on working hours on a given day. It probably hits its peak in the service industry, where clients and upper management get to dictate timelines which filter down to worker bees.

This isn’t a chiding of corporate culture. Corporate culture will continue to exist irrespective of what my opinion is. All I wonder sometimes is whether we can effectuate any change as a generation on the way that it’s viewed in India. Insofar as we can make a change in the fabric of this corporate culture to permeate it with ideas of the way we prioritize certain things – like a healthier work/life balance, for one. Or returning home at a more reasonable hour. Or encouraging holidays. And more decentralization of decision-making power, perhaps.

It’s going to need a lot of work – but it’s something we need to examine a little closer. The one thing I do know, however, is that Indians work extremely hard. It feels like everyone within the corporate structure is tuned to working with a goal – whether short-term or long-term, and whether client-driven or otherwise. There’s a definite purpose about it all.

It’s also extremely Darwinian, I think. The market will spit you out if you aren’t able to keep up.

What’s crucial to recognize under these circumstances is that the fact that you don’t fit into corporate culture isn’t a failure on your part. It’s just a case of the allocation of your resources perhaps being better served elsewhere.

What I meant by the corporate culture flooding my veins is that I’m beginning to get a feeling that this entire mental wall that I had created about the culture sort of broke down. I can see the allure of fulfilling client expectations now.

Which is the wildest thing in the world for someone who definitely wants to do things for himself. I’m intrigued to see how the two intersect in a few years.

Hello! Good morning! Welcome! (Try to read this in three different Robin Williams’ exclamation tones – and you’ll understand the dramatic effect better.)

If you didn’t quite understand what I meant, don’t worry. I’m just trying to create dramatic effect and a build-up for (a) the flurry of activity that is going to consume this blog for the next few hours, and (b) your inbox – which, if you follow this blog, is going to end up receiving a lot of e-mails. My deepest sympathies, but warmest of regards. I fully intended the spam to come.

Speaking of spam, Gmail is doing some really wild things for me these days. My inbox is pretty much full – which is scary, because I live everyday on edge. I never know when I’ll stop receiving emails because the cup runneth over (literally). That’s one thing I need to fix. But more importantly, someone I sent e-mails to definitely marked my e-mail as spam. Because my e-mails reach people’s spam inboxes super frequently. It’s now become a running joke. Which is pretty unfunny, if you ask me. It’s something I am rallying the troops to try to correct.

I received my first piece of fanmail earlier in November – and because of how crazy things have been since then, I have been unable to respond. To said sender: I am very sorry – I am responding soon. Please check your spam for a reply – in case it isn’t available in your inbox directly.

What else, what else. Oh, yes. I’m 4 days away from going home. What you’re going to read henceforth is a vivid recounting/renarration of everything that I’ve been through emotionally for the last one month or more.

Good luck getting through everything! I’m so happy to be back here. Missed you folk.