Tag: Blog

Villages Within Villages

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There’s something about planning to meet your best friend that makes you realize how much has changed, and simultaneously, how little has changed. Today, while figuring out when to meet my best friend and his fiancée who are in town, I found myself naturally suggesting that we meet first as just the three of us, and then later with our parents. It wasn’t a calculated thought – it just felt right. Because while we’re very much adults now, making our own plans and living our own lives, there’s this wonderful thing that happens when we’re all together with our parents: we get to choose to be kids again. Not because we have to, but because we want to. Because there’s joy in watching our parents beam at our achievements while still fussing over whether we’re eating enough.

When he mentioned that it would have been nice to meet multiple times but we know that both of our schedules are tight, I found myself nodding with a smile. Five years ago, that comment from any one of my friends might have sparked anxiety in me, a fear that friendships could slip away in the spaces between meetings. But today, it felt natural. Our friendship has weathered enough time and distance to know that it doesn’t depend on frequency of meetings. It depends on something much more fundamental – the knowledge that we’re there for each other, growing alongside each other, even when we’re apart.

I’ve been watching my friends step into new chapters lately. Ones becoming twos, twos becoming threes. There’s something profoundly beautiful about seeing friends embrace roles I’ve only known from the outside – partners, parents, different kinds of professionals than they started as. I love how they navigate these new waters, sometimes turning to other friends who understand these experiences better than I can. A friend who just became a parent might need advice I can’t give, but I can still be there – maybe not with solutions, but with presence, with support, with a willingness to learn about this new dimension of their life. I’ve also learned that quite frequently, people aren’t looking for solutions, just a pair of ears and a warm smile.

They say it takes a village to raise a child, and I’m starting to see how that wisdom extends to all of life’s big changes. We’re all part of each other’s support systems, showing up how we can, when we can. Sometimes that means late-night calls about career decisions, sometimes it means holding a friend’s baby while they grab a shower, sometimes it’s just sending a message saying “I saw this and thought of you.”

What’s beautiful is watching our circles expand. Every wedding I attend, every baby I meet, every partner who joins our group – they’re not dividing the existing love and attention, they’re adding their own layers to it. Our friendships aren’t getting diluted; they’re getting richer, more complex, more interesting. I’m loving how friendship evolves. How it finds new rhythms, new patterns, new ways of showing up. How some friends who I used to meet every day are now people I see twice a year but pick up exactly where we left off. How others who were once acquaintances have become central parts of my life. How we all flow in and out of each other’s important moments, creating this intricate web of care and connection.

When I see my best friend soon, I know we’ll talk about his upcoming wedding, about work, about life. We’ll share space with his fiancée, who brings her own warmth to our friendship. And later, when we’re all sitting with our parents, we’ll probably fall into old patterns – sharing glances over inside jokes, getting gently teased about childhood mishaps, being reminded to eat more. Not because we haven’t grown up, but because we have – enough to know that growing up doesn’t mean leaving behind the joy of sometimes being someone’s child.

That’s the gift of these evolving friendships – they give us space to be everything we are, everything we’re becoming, and everything we’ve been, all at once.

Shall we dance?

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Shall we dance, my friends?

Shall we play that agonizing game of waiting to take to the dance floor when the music is playing in the background? Shall we pretend we don’t hear the melody calling us, even as our feet begin to tap unconsciously against the floor? Shall we feign indifference to the rhythm that’s been there all along – that persistent beat of words waiting to spill onto the page?

Seven months is a long time to stand at the edge of the dance floor. Seven months of the music playing, of thoughts collecting like dust in the corners of my mind, of stories waiting to be told. But here we are again, you and I, circling each other in this familiar space.

You might expect a New Year’s resolution at this point. A grand declaration of “I will write more” or “I will post every week” – the kind of precise choreography we convince ourselves we need. But I’ve been thinking about something different: guiding principles rather than rigid resolutions. It’s like choosing to learn the fundamentals of movement rather than memorizing specific dance steps. These principles aren’t waiting for the clock to strike midnight or for a new calendar to hang on the wall – they’re about approaching each day with intention, about recognizing that growth and change don’t adhere to our arbitrary timelines.

This is, admittedly, a grand experiment I’m conducting with myself. The hypothesis is simple: that principles which guide us daily will serve us better than resolutions that often feel like deadlines looming in the distance. That instead of waiting for the perfect moment to change, we acknowledge that change is a constant dance we’re already engaged in.

I’ve noticed something fascinating about writing – it’s less like a skill you master once and more like a muscle that needs constant exercise. In the months when I’m regularly putting words to page, something magical happens. It’s not just the blog posts that flow more easily; every form of written communication becomes more fluid, more precise. My emails carry a certain rhythm, my text messages find their own poetic tempo. Even my thoughts seem to arrange themselves more coherently, as if the very act of regular writing tunes the orchestra of my mind. This year, as part of my guiding principles, I want to honor this connection. To acknowledge that each word written, whether in a lengthy blog post or a quick message, is part of the same dance – each step making the next one more natural, more graceful.

There’s a certain vulnerability in returning to this space after so long. It’s like stepping onto a brightly lit stage after months in the wings, squinting slightly at the familiar-yet-foreign feeling of exposure. But perhaps that’s exactly what makes it meaningful. The willingness to be seen, to share the stumbles along with the graceful moves, to invite others into this dance of words and thoughts and half-formed ideas.

So shall we dance this dance of trying to write again? I can’t promise perfect rhythm or flawless steps. I can’t even promise I’ll keep writing – though that’s the hope, the intention, the principle I’m embracing. All I know is that the music is playing, has been playing all along, and I’m finally stepping back onto the floor.

The only way to dance, after all, is to keep dancing. And this time, I’m choosing to hear the music in every word, every message, every thought that finds its way to expression. It’s all part of the same beautiful choreography, this daily practice of putting words into the world.

Inklings

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The weekend saw the clocks go forward, our first sunny day marking the start of Spring, and the start of Global Poetry Writing Month. I raced through Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the coffee gets cold and its sequels. A fulsome review will follow, but I haven’t been able to stop recommending the books for their warmth and their exploration of a very difficult question. Each book’s opening pages ask you If you could go back, who would you want to meet? A truly fantastic way to foreshadow what follows, but you carry the blanket nostalgia all through your time with the books. I have existed in that state since, yearning, over the past few days for parts of my pasts, and accepting, slowly, that these pasts are not my present parts.

This is how I am coping.

This afternoon, I purchased Before the coffee gets cold for a dear friend and wrote a short note in the front of the book. I have, over the past two years, essentially moved to living entirely digitally. I mostly take handwritten notes on my iPad nowadays, so getting to witness the shapeliness of my crooked (read, beautiful) cursive on paper once more was joyful. Yet a tinge of something unfamiliar wafted over me. The writing wasn’t slanting, I could draw ruled lines between my letters. The discomfort came from it being a strange experience from a faraway time. A heavy pen, the ink spilling, the worry of the words not quite flowing. The familiar, long-forgotten beast.

Why don’t I write anymore? Ah, that gnawing thought. I examined my short three-sentence note, dated, and grinned. My brain drew the connecting line, squealing with joy – my lack of writing by hand seems to be manifesting in terms of reduced verbose creativity. I do not want to generalise, but I have noticed that living digitally has changed the confidence with which I spill words out onto the page. If you have followed this blog for long enough, you know that I do not enjoy editing. This blog has been the one space I edit nothing at all. I sit, and whatever flows, flows. However it meanders, it meanders. Yet the ease of the backspace has meant all I do nowadays is edit. I have starter trouble more frequently. I have written about this.

So of course I spent the evening cleaning out my pens and filling ink. I write mainly with fountain pens. I dabbled with the odd gel and ballpoint pens, but nothing stuck around for long enough. Some pens refused to write. I spent an hour cleaning them out. They all write now. They’re in front of me as I type: one from Grade 5, one from Grade 7, one from Grade 10, two from first-year of University, and two graduation gifts.

I’m going to keep a notebook with me through the day. I don’t know how I will use it, but I’d like to set it out when I take my laptop/iPad out wherever I am. Apparently there’s something called a commonplace notebook. I need to read more. For now, I am not a thought, but an inkling once more.

The Epic Struggle of My Five-Month Procrastination Odyssey: Navigating the Abyss of Inertia, Quixotic Dreams, and the Perils of Measuring Success

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Hello there, fellow beings of the internet. It has been an eternity since I last graced your screens with my words, and it feels like I’ve been trying to launch a rocket to Mars using a slingshot made of spaghetti. You see, for the past five months, I’ve been in what you might call a “forced sabbatical” from the world of writing. But today, armed with my quill (read: keyboard) and a cup of tea, I’m here to regale you on a journey through the epic saga of my battle with the infamous Instant Gratification Monkey. This may be the shortest epic you read.

In the immortal words of the master procrastinator himself, Mark Twain, “Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.” Well, Mr. Twain, I’ve taken your advice to heart, and here I am, not tomorrow, not the day after tomorrow, but somewhere in the foggy realm of the indefinite future, finally putting fingers to keyboard. I am almost positive that you have heard this story before. I am certain I have told you this story before. Anybody crunching the numbers on my blog posts would find that at least three posts each annual year devote themselves to the creative struggle of procrastination, and how I feel limited by what remains in my head, unspilt out onto the page. Despite my desire not to start a new habit by etching over these fault lines once more, I find that honing in on my procrastination is a great place to begin once over. It is but acceptance that allows us to truly master our own fates.

Picture this: I’ve been on a quest to start writing, and it’s been as successful as trying to teach a penguin to breakdance or, even better, trying to teach a brick wall to recite Shakespearean sonnets. It’s not that I’ve forgotten how to write; it’s just that I’ve somehow become the commander of the S.S. Procrastination, cruising through the sea of distractions in the most comfortable pyjamas. As I sit here, staring at my blank screen, I can’t help but channel the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln, who once said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

Well, Abe, my buddy, I’ve spent the last five months meticulously sharpening my axe, but now, it’s time to take a mighty swing at the vast forest of unwritten words.

The tension, my digital compadres, is thicker than the plot of a mystery novel. It’s like trying to ride a unicycle while juggling flaming bowling balls and singing operatic arias. I want to write, sure, but I also want to write a book. I want to craft a blog post, yes, but I also want to craft witty social media updates! Alas, the baggage of ambition! And then there’s the matter of measuring success. Ernest Hemingway famously declared, “There is no friend as loyal as a book.” I aspire to that loyalty, and I have previously declared I write for no one but myself. Sometimes, however, I catch myself wondering, what if my book only has a few readers? What if my blog post gets lost in the vast ocean of the internet, like a message in a bottle tossed into the sea? Alas, the baggage of self-doubt!

Both unfashionable travel companions if you ask me. I spoke to my mother recently about how perhaps ambition was my hamartia, not the white lies or anything else. Perhaps, I said to her, it is my ambition that makes me procrastinate, because I know what I do now will not live up to what I wish it to be, or make it out to be in my head. This blog post is clearly not the book I want to write, and maybe I’m holding onto an image of what I once thought within the realms of possibility. As all mothers are, she was dismissive of my doubts and misgivings, suggesting I pivot quickly to labelling my ambition with passion. In casting my mind’s eye back to my carefree, creative childhood, where everything was allowed (within reason), she reminded me I’ve been passionate through my life. About different things, but passion has been a constant. Suddenly everything made sense again.

The arbitrary yardsticks I see myself setting emerge out of wanting to seem ambitious, not merely passionate. Why write a book, why not retain command over the blogosphere, this most democratic space?

As I type these closing words, I can’t help but recall the timeless words of William Shakespeare: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Well, dear reader, it’s time for my encore performance. Let the words flow, let the laughter ring, and let the writing begin anew! And you know what? I’ve realized that reading and writing, like a pair of old friends, have been waiting patiently for me to reunite with them. So, here’s to the resumption of both reading and writing, for they are the twin stars that guide my literary voyage, and together, we shall set sail on this grand adventure once more.

Kannada Academy: Week 2

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Although it was only my third class, my teacher feels more familiar. There is a pattern that he has managed to establish for our classes. It’ll commence with a short reading test, where I will struggle with some words, and then move toward fresh things.

Yesterday’s class started off with:

“ನದಿ – ನದ”ದ ನೆಲೆ
ನಾಲೆ ಅಲ್ಲಿ – ನದಿ ಎಲ್ಲಿ?
ನೀಲಿ ನೂಲು 
ನವೀನ ನೂತನ ದಿನ
ಲೀಲಾಲೋಲ ಲಲಿತ ಲತಾಂಗಿ
ನಾನು ನಾವು ನೀನು ನೀವು 
ದೀನ ನಾನು – ದಾನಿ ನೀನು
ದೇವ ದೇವತೆ
ದೆವ್ವವೋ – ದೇವರೋ?
My test

While I was able to identify the words with his help, especially on this one: ಲೀಲಾಲೋಲ ಲಲಿತ ಲತಾಂಗಿ, I realised I am really struggling with letters that repeat in the same sentence. I will overcome. There’s a real logic to the way we are moving forward in letter-identification at the minute. I’m learning the twelve forms of the same consonant together: the consonant itself, the consonant with a glottal stop, all of the short vowels, and the long vowels. If I write these out, surely they’ll imprint in my brain. Hopefully that will make future tests easier.

The pop culture references also continue. Today, I was introduced to ಆವು ಈವಿನ ನಾವು ನೀವಿge ಆನು ತಾನದ ತನನನ – da. ra. Bendre

While we embarked on a conversation about the Jnanpith Awards, I learned that it was not possible to decipher the deep meaning of Kannada poetry on the first listen – so another helpful explainer was provided to me. This is arguably the best part of class.

While I struggled with reading out tanana, I was reminded to say the word as if I would say it while speaking (which makes complete sense, since I know how to speak the language to some fluency). That’s inspiring some confidence in this journey.

Then I learned a lot of consonants. I had to cancel today’s class, but I already have an assignment waiting for me on WhatsApp. Next week should be super fun too, I’m looking forward to it.

15 May 2022

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I celebrated my birthday this morning with a group of close friends. If you are reading this as quickly as I’m typing them out, you will note that I did not celebrate too much on the day. I was keen to explore something different from the parties I had been to, and thought of visiting a board game cafe that recently opened up. It worked a treat. Not only was it economical, it gave me an opportunity to assess how competitive some of my closest friends here are (very!), and produced some moments of deal-making (we played Monopoly) that will live long in my memory. I’m hopeful of visiting again – and hopefully for longer – where I can explore more board games. We chose to play Monopoly since everyone was familiar with the rules, so we really got value for our time.

When I was reading Law as an undergraduate student, especially closer to our final year, several friends and batchmates gathered in the night-mess area to play cards and board games. I enjoyed them too, but back then prioritised a different set of things that meant I never really went out to play board games with them. I wish I had done that a little more. I noticed nobody used their phones while our game of Monopoly was on. While video games have become a principal source of my entertainment since the pandemic started, the simple joy of a boardgame is incomparable. My best guess is that it evokes nostalgia – even when you play a new boardgame. The market is also massive, there’s so many new ones I haven’t heard of I really need to get around to.

The afternoon chunk was spent on phone calls and FIFA. Writing and research has used up the evening. I will therefore go to bed very content with the weekend, and looking forward to next week.

14 May 2022

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It was a lot of people’s birthdays today, so my morning went in conveying happy wishes to people. That reminded me I had to reply to wishes posted on my Facebook wall, a number that decreases steadily year-on-year (this is commentary both on Facebook as a medium, and the number of people I am in-touch with via Facebook).

This afternoon a friend and I listened to the spiritual journey of a doctor. The past two years have been really exciting in that respect. There’s always a ton to learn from people’s stories – and the diverse ways in which people in the world confront similar situations and grow from them always leave me with things to reflect about. After a quick dinner, I had Kannada class (more on that will be in a separate post), and I slept almost immediately after.

Earlier this week I made comments about how the longer summer nights in Cambridge were beautiful to look at. That’s still very true, except I must add, I am sleeping a lot more these days. The late evening appears to hit me harder.

13 May 2022

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In the vlog I am watching at the minute, Casey turns to the camera and says that his days are super consistent – which caused concerns for him about the sustainability of his daily vlogging endeavour. Yet he pulled it off. My days are very inconsistent. They throw up surprises. Although I spend some time writing e-mails, e-mail writing takes place during a chunk of my day, with meetings & active research taking place throughout the rest. Hopefully that means the blogging isn’t unsustainable. I have broader concerns about the blog as a medium. As my own attention span declines and I become more of an auditory learner who enjoys listening to podcasts/videos as I write/work, I find that I read blogs a lot lesser – and frequently not at one go. Since the newsletter will incorporate all the visuals and audio, I’m hoping the blog can continue as a text-only space. I will continue to keep at this because I find joy in daily storytelling.

This morning was an uninterrupted work-session. The afternoon brought a few meetings, including with a faculty member I enjoy checking-in with once a Term. My biggest takeaway from today’s meeting is that I need to avoid running before walking. I love multitasking and being a multitasker, but this past year I have overstretched myself far too much. It is not just taking on too many projects and being unable to deliver high-quality work on all of them (one or two have suffered). It’s also the continuous feeling of looking to the next thing at all times rather than being able to enjoy the present task without worry/fear of what was to come. I do not think I will stop multitasking (insofar as I will have videos on while writing for example), but I do think I will live/work a little closer to the moment. All of this emerged in a specific context. I said I needed to think about the post-doc while doing my PhD research, which is when I received this advise. I do need to do a good PhD for anything to happen after that. I need to remind myself of that continuously. With all projects. It is only if I execute one project to a high-level of diligence that the next-project will come. It always comes. I can’t let standards drop now.

I was able to video-call my family from the centre of Cambridge, near the market, and speak with them with King’s Parade in the background. When the sun’s shining, it’s idyllic. From there, I went with Kannadiga friends for a dinner filled with dosa and good conversation about Karnataka politics and cinema. These are two subjects I know very little about, but I have become more interested in since I moved to the UK. Alongside my efforts to learn Kannada, which I am documenting under the “Projects” section of this website, I am really hoping to learn a lot more about the history of the State and its current circumstances. This crowd really helps with that.

A sweet chai (quite literally) later, I was back home to respond to messages, watch Friends, and crash.

12 May 2022

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It took a while for me to decide on the appropriate nomenclature for this edition of daily blogs. I’ve done the numbers (X/365) in 2017 and (X/181) in 2018. I’ve spelt out the post number (Three Hundred and Sixty Five) in 2019. In 2020 and 2021, I wrote blogposts that had titles that were descriptive of the text. I think henceforth unless I’m writing a clearly descriptive post/breaking away from the posting convention, I will likely title essays with the date. That should ideally make them easier to search for as well.

Today was another good day. Our event went off smoothly and I was able to enjoy a nice dinner with colleagues from the event right after. While work tires me, executing events to a good standard satisfies me. It was also nice to walk home at 10PM and be caught in the twilight. Late nights in the Cambridge twilight make for marvellous viewing.

Twenty-Four

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It has been two years since I wrote anything on my birthday – or around my birthday. When I wrote more frequently, I’d add a snippet about what the day presented and what I hoped it would mean for the year to come. I skipped reflecting on my twenty-third birthday and as the Earth traveled around the Sun twice-over, it feels appropriate to think about what’s changed.

In the two days that have passed since I started down with this piece, I’ve experienced procrastination and writer’s block. As I sit to write this piece, I’m watching Casey Neistat’s vlogs in the background. A betting person would argue nothing has really changed at all. In the piece from 2020, I say this

I want to be more mindful of everything I do, and everything that happens around me. I want to wake up each day feeling nothing but gratitude. Not stressed, or worried about exams, or upcoming deadlines – just immense gratitude in my heart for everything. I’d like to make gratitude and mindfulness the two central pillars around which I live my life. I’m not an ungrateful person, but I’d like to increase how much I prioritize looking for the thing to be grateful for. I’d like for it to be second-nature to me, so while I experience sways in emotions and in circumstances, I’m always centered around this.

Me, Reflections on 21.

I do not think I’ve attained this. I’ve instead come to the realisation that being mindful of things and feeling this gratitude is a journey that you embark on consciously – and like all journeys/habits – it is one that takes repetition till it becomes subconscious. With my work, and with the goals I set myself personally, I still wake up feels very stressed/worried about deadlines & exams. However, because of how I’ve changed around my night-time routines, I go to sleep each night acknowledging the way the day has panned out. That makes me less stressed in a sense.

So this day feels as good as any to reflect on where I’d like to be in a year. First, I’d love to write daily again – that hasn’t happened for two years either. A friend of mine commented that maybe this means the time for writing has gone, and it’s passed me by. I don’t think so. Writing never came to me easy, nor did it ever happen unless I made time for it. I’ll be doing that. Second, I’d love to re-evaluate where I am on this journey of mindfulness and gratitude. That is all.

Today was a really happy day. I woke up very unsure of what the day would look like. We are preparing for an event tomorrow, which demands flexibility of us all. I accepted that early on and scrapped the idea of making plans. Instead, I messaged a close circle of friends to request them to drop me a text if they were free. Several did, which I was happy about, and we managed to get lunch together. One of them brought pastries and sweets along, which allowed an impromptu pastry-cutting celebration too. I ended the night printing at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. No space feels better suited to wind down another year.

Kannada Academy: Weekend 1

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I have waxed eloquent on this blog about my desire to learn the Kannada script before. My ambition in the past two years has remained unchanged. The unfortunate part is that I have done nothing about it. That is not entirely true. I have tried. My mother and my chikkamma taught me the script briefly in 2019 winter. There was a brief window where I could write out the script from memory, but could not read anything. Since then I’ve been start-stop with the copywriting books. One of my second cousins tries to motivate me, but I lose this pretty fast. It hurts when you can’t really read anything. Since I’ve come to Cambridge though, my sense of identity has heightened. While this is a bit of a joke now at home (I’ve watched more Kannada films in the UK than I have in India), the Cambridge University Kannada Society, and colleagues here make me really want to learn everything I can about the language and the people.

Realising that my attempts (modest ones) were not going to get me anywhere, in March, I started hunting around for teachers. It was around this time I saw the Kannada Academy website. With my current income, I live a relatively frugal life. Ambitions I have are added onto my ever-expanding bucket-list, and become goals I save toward. I knew I had a pay day in the week after I first noticed the website, and so, I saved it to Pocket, and set a phone reminder to return the weekend after. So I did and sent through the fees – explaining clearly what my ambitions were with the course, and being fully aware that the course outlines seemed to teach the spoken Kannada before the script, knowing I needed help with the script predominantly.

It took just one nudge, but fifteen days later, when I was about to ask for a refund, someone from their team got through to me. We exchanged a brief call over WhatsApp, and I was set up for classes this weekend. These classes took place yesterday and today over Google Classroom.

What a joy they have been. Easily the best two hours of my weekend. I do not say this lightly, it has been a particularly wonderful weekend: some golf was played, friends were met, excellent food was consumed. I have been unable to contain the smile on my face while being taught these concepts.

Here is what I have learned so far: the five main sounding vowels (this has a corresponding Kannada word I am forgetting now), and five consonants with their forms (short vowels & long vowels both + the glottal stop).

While this may sound dry, the Kannada script is so unique to my eyes (although I’ve seen it before), that the shapes becoming familiar to me has been a very fun process. Today at the start of class, my teacher asked me to read some words aloud (they mostly had no meaning), but the heart suddenly gaining the knowledge and appreciation that the brain could recognise the script – phenomenal.

The last bit that I think deserves commendation and is noteworthy is that my teacher is a pop-culture machine. Several of my colleagues here have a deep appreciation for Kannada pop-culture. I’ve heard lots of new songs and stories of the film industry from them. My teacher is adding to this growing knowledge, and I’ve now got a new Spotify playlist where I am documenting the different songs he tells me about. My notes jot down where the references come up. I will share that maybe when it’s populated.

Now onto keeping this momentum by practicing through the week. I am motivated now by the external accountability these classes present, but equally by the absolute fear of embarrassment. My teacher’s very kind: in some struggles today, he laughed along and commented, “that’s what learning is all about!”

I tend to agree, but not putting in the practice to learn, and having to go over things again in class – that’s where the real embarrassment lies.