I’ve returned to Cambridge after two months away, which is the longest duration I’ve spent away from the city since I moved here about a year and a half ago. Previous best: two weeks, achieved in November 2021. That feels surreal, especially given that when I was in Gandhinagar, I’d routinely spend two months away for holidays between terms, and in Bengaluru, I’d spend four months away for term. Aside from work, it is the pandemic that has led to these circumstances, and it was only natural that I had several apprehensions about leaving. This town is tiny, and it is filled with quietude. Being at home, anywhere, is as far away from this as possible. There is always someone to meet, or something to do, and it was only on my last day in town that we sat as a family and did nothing. It was in the full knowledge that I was departing for foreign lands that my parents and I spent all day in each other’s vicinity, not doing anything meaningful or memorable. Except, every moment of that day, Saturday, felt filled with a gravitas beyond compare. Amid breaks from my laptop I caught my dad staring at me in wonderment, and I found myself reciprocating that gaze. In the silence that filled those moments, I sensed – and he confirmed this later that evening – he would miss me. I will miss them too.
I am filled with emotion being back. This is where I feel my life is, despite my non-attachment to places. This is where my friends are, several of whom have messaged, whom I’m waiting to meet. This is where all the knowledge I seek appears to sit, and the ease of finding any book I desire is not something I take for granted. Despite everything feeling familiar, it has been long enough away for me to step away and ask, is this how it’s always been?
That is something I feel thankful for. It feels like I have on a new pair of glasses (I literally do), and all I hope for over the next few months is that these lenses help me change the bits and pieces I didn’t quite enjoy in the last stint here. First step: piano. The rest will fall into place.
How do you say Goodbye to that which you do not know, and that which you will not get to know? Do you say Hello? If the loss is communal, why is it then that the loss feels personal? Is it because I have lost the opportunity to discover your ways? I can’t explain why it is that I feel the way I am feeling, so I wrote a letter.
Dear Cindies,
As with most of my knowledge about the University of Cambridge, and Cambridge culture in general, my first brush with you was in one of Jake Wright’s vlogs. I remember watching vlogs in Grade 12 and learning about Revs, Life, Spoon’s, and you – and for whatever reason, my brain didn’t let go of that information. Not then, when I elected to apply to Oxford, and nor when I was applying to study here as a postgraduate student. It’s why coming here felt surreal. I was suddenly in places I recognized from YouTube videos and short films, from folklore and history, and that felt wonderful.
Cindies, the first and only question I had for you was, what are you? I couldn’t find you anywhere on the map (as with Life), and it was then I realized that you were steeped in time, left stuck in an era where you were not Ballare, but Cinderella Rockerfella’s. Boy, what I would do to see you in that avatar. Or any avatar really. As I discovered during my undergraduate study, I am not a very club-party type of person. However, as I learned as a school student I am very much a human being that enjoys music, and loves meeting new people. It hurts, deeply, to learn that you were a place that facilitated both, whether through the smoking area, the lack of washroom access, or on the dance floor. That shared, lived experience appears to have united this city. I will now get none of it, and that, dear Cindies, makes me very sad.
After arriving in Cambridge, I threw myself into Cambridge magazines and facebook pages. The Tab had this lovely quiz on which Cambridge night-out I was, and despite knowing I was likely a night out at Market Square eating from Trailer of Life, or waiting in the Pret queue, I learned I was Wednesday Cindies. You may infer from that what you would like, but this result was meaningless to me till I discovered this wonderful Wednesday Cindies playlist on Spotify.
That discovery has led to a lot of self-reflection and inquiry. The Tab’s quiz was not necessarily designed with the scientific process in mind, but truly, this time, it felt like they got me right, spot on. At my core, I am a nostalgic human being that looks at History with rose-tinted glasses. On Wednesdays, you appear to have been an embodiment of that, which makes your closure even harder to bear.
If you’ve reached this far, you’re likely asking: but Tejas, you’ve been here seven weeks, why didn’t you visit for a socially-distanced evening earlier? I do not have an answer that does not sound like an excuse, but put simply, you were not at the top of my Things to explore in Cambridge list. That is a shocking answer, and you may be quickly drawn into resentment, but I urge you to read on, for Cindies, you were on the list. You were just slotted away for when I felt I had settled in sufficiently to accept that the work wouldn’t get done anyway so a night out would be of zero-harm. As a postgraduate fresher, but a fresher nonetheless, I have not settled in to this level as yet. Consequently, I reserved you for mid-way through Lent. Far enough for me to feel at home, close enough for me to smell you – whatever your smells are.
For a place that seems to adore its legacy, from the limited information we the public have been given, Cambridge appears to be ripping a piece of that legacy’s soul away from itself. This may be symbolic of several things: capitalism, a rift between town-and-gown (to quote the 1900’s), and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on local business and the hospitality industry at large. This conscious uncoupling, whatever the circumstances, feels rough. It is personal, insofar as I will not get to experience you, but more so because as a student of the University, I felt attached to your existence. Knowing you were there felt like sufficient evidence of the statement Cambridge has an active nightlife. Knowing you are gone means I cannot claim that sentiment anymore, despite the existence of other clubs.
We may find another place, another room to blare out the Wednesday Cindies playlist. I may listen to it alone sitting in my room wearing pyjamas. Even with strobe lights however, these places will never replicate the atmosphere of that corner in the Grand Arcade (or Lionyard, pick your poison).
With this, and with the knowledge that people have Camfessed they would transfer if you shut, I say goodbye. Having written all of this, I am still uncertain whether I am saying goodbye to the ground upon which you were built, or to the people that made you who you were. Thus, I personify you, and say goodbye to the spirit I felt destined to meet and feel robbed of completely.
Thank you for existing, Cindies, and for making me feel more strongly about my desire to cherish more of the Things to explore in Cambridge list I built while waiting to relocate here.
Somebody else will miss you. Unfortunately, I just missed out.
The Saturday has come to a close. Would you believe me if I told you I slept for 11 hours again last night? Whether or not you believe me is immaterial, for my sleep-tracker says I slept 11 hours, and it appears as though, sleep-cycle wise, I am the healthiest I have been in years. There is a consistency, I am not over-stretching myself, and I sleep when my body demands it. It feels glorious.
Today was when media outlets began to project Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to be the next occupants of the White House. This is truly a small step for America, and I’m curious to see how the international order, that has become so used to searching within for leadership, responds to America’s attempt to lead the world again. What I most grateful for though is that climate change is now certifiably, real.
In the morning I completed a run, spoke to family, and got around to reading. I’m currently wading through my Jurisprudence reading list, where we’re reading Lon Fuller’s The Morality of Law. I have to admit that thus far, the subject is sailing over my head, but I am learning new things each week, and I am looking forward to my December break, where I hope to spend some more time with the texts we’re reading and the commentaries, and really formulate some opinions on the text grounded within it’s internal logic. I’m looking forward to reading Hart again. For a start though, I have begun to appreciate why jurisprudentialists and philosophers ask themselves What is Law? – because at the moment, I find existing answers slightly unsatisfactory. Atleast the ones I am exposed to.
The afternoon saw some ice coffee from The Locker, a time-lapse, and a lovely walk along Midsummer Common with an undergraduate third-year whom I will be working with through this academic year. I’ve met quite a few undergraduates and doctoral students here since I’ve arrived, people who are outside the Law department and program, and people within, and every person I’ve met has amazed me with their story. Sometimes I’m left wondering if I could just spend every minute here, instead of studying, meeting new people and understanding their journeys – what they find fascinating and what excites them, what got them here and what they’re going to give back. It feels like these are things to hold onto in reserve particularly when you’re uncertain about your motivations being here, if that ever occurs.
In the evening we celebrated the projections with some take-out, and now I’m back to reading more Jurisprudence. I’m taking breaks to watch clips from The Office because Biden is from Scranton, and that is amusing me to no end.
In the morning I had a workshop for International Environmental Law, followed by a lot of free-time to read before an evening full of adventure. We hosted our first event for the International Law Society, which was delightful. Although attendance was a fraction of the number of individuals that joined our facebook group, it was really good to see that those who did attend were rather excited at the prospect of what the group had to offer – and more importantly, they came with a bunch of ideas. Hopefully we can use that to build something successful and sustainable in the Lent Term and beyond. After that I had my first team meeting for the moot that I’m participating in. It’s a joy to be mooting again, quite a thrill to be working with some new people. I’m eager to see how things go.
I think the excitement exhausted me because I slept 11 hours, and woke up this morning to get going on my reading for the next week. Lockdown means that I’m not going to get my sports quota in any time soon, so some time around the afternoon I walked along the river to clear my head and do some photography. Back at home and I cooked myself some risotto and came back up to do more work. Having spoken to my parents, it’s now been about 4 hours since the risotto business was done, and I’ve done nothing, so my goal for today is to now churn out the newsletter and then seriously, get cracking on some work for the rest of the day.
Tomorrow I’m hoping to get a run in just as the sun rises or thereabouts. Let’s see how that ambition fares.
Another week of interactive sessions down, and I feel Week 5 coming at me faster than I did yesterday. This morning was fairly slow, which was nice: allowed me to get into my reading and follow the US elections just to see the kind of stuff happening there. In the afternoon I had my interactive session, where we focused on environmental regulations in the maritime environment (for which I have a workshop tomorrow morning).
That led to the highlight of my day. I spent my afternoon preparing paneer tikka masala for my hostel neighbour from GNLU, and then went out to meet another friend for coffee. We realized that owing to conflicting schedules, the International Law kids tend to rarely get the opportunity to speak to the Corporate Law part of our cohort, and we were meeting after nearly a month. A nice long walk around the city centre later, we parted ways and I went off to do my last erg session for the month (and the Term, in all likelihood).
This evening, I was with a different senior from the Boat Club, who really knuckled down technique on the erg, getting us to focus on separation and building out the back-stop and the catch, and each part of the stroke. I had a ton of fun, and genuinely felt my strokes in parts of my lower back I did not know I had. The other reason it was enjoyable was because this senior made me laugh a bit – he pointed out to my knees at one point and told me to complete the arms before moving my legs. Essentially by not separating, I was ending up in this weird position where my arms would invariably come into contact with my knees. On the stroke itself, my knees were getting slightly wobbly. Through that exchange, I was reminded of the countless times I was told about my knock-knees in school. Most races, the knock-knees would make my parents worry I’d trip over. I giggled.
The night was just a delight. In GNLU, every Wednesday was paneer & ice-cream night – and we were able to recreate that tonight, together, which brought a little bit of Koba into Cambridgeshire. The lockdown means it’s difficult for us to recreate this again before Term ends, but we’re going to try – and I’m hoping to try out some other things I learned during the lockdown in India. It’s always more fun cooking for a crowd.
You know how I keep referencing Week Five Blues and saying that I’m not going to let it get to me? This evening, after a rather tiring day, I spent some time on the phone with my parents theorizing why Week Five Blues exist? What brings them on? What sparks them? What makes it an affliction that unites the entirety of the University’s population? I haven’t experienced them yet, and I hope I don’t feel disappointed next week, but my working theory is as follows. It’s the realization that you’ve done so much already (and remember so little of it), but that you’ve got halfway left to go before the end of Term, which is a fair amount of work to come. Alternatively, it’s the realization that you’re behind on work, and that consequently, you have to make a choice about whether to catch-up to work from last week, or begin afresh from the subsequent week – letting go of past readings & starting anew. In either case, it means that time away from Full-Term is still going to be loaded with reading and reflection, and perhaps that causes some amount of being blue. I shall overcome. We, as a community, shall overcome.
Today, though, was quite something. Woke up by 7, did some reading – and had an interactive session for the International Human Rights Law course. Today we were discussing human rights bodies. My interaction with this subject has largely been through the lens of moot courts, or reading papers I found interesting, and although taught at University, I had never considered the subtleties within treaties, and linguistic differences in output that these bodies produce. It was a really nice way to feel awake, and at one point, I legitimately felt like the neurons in my brain were absorbing information and snapping into life.
After that, as I’ve recently been appointed as a General Editor for the Cambridge International Law Journal, I was given some training for my role. That was rather enjoyable. I’ve loved editing because it feels like you have the opportunity to play a small part in somebody’s writing process. It’s a position of tremendous responsibility, and where feedback is given, it’s an excellent exercise on how to write critique that is legitimately helpful to the author.
Then I had a workshop for International Human Rights Law, on forced labour conditions and the International Labour Organization. Before that I cooked & did some preparation for a fun evening dinner I have planned tomorrow. Coming back though – workshops, on the LLM, are essentially small-group teaching where the faculty:student ratio of 1:13 is respected and adhered to. It was interesting because there was nowhere to hide at all. I can only imagine how the undergraduates feel during supervisions.
All of this listening made me crave a power nap, so I gave my body what it asked for, spoke to the parents, took a quick walk – and then had a 7pm Jurisprudence interactive session. Why 7pm? Well, yesterday I had a conflicting Global Governance workshop, and the Professor was kind enough to accommodate the conflict by offering an online session tonight, which was fantastic. Just 5 of us going through legal abstractions – yes, Jurisprudence is still going over my head.
All of this, and it felt like it was time to give thanks for everything this place is allowing me to live out, and remember everything I have to give back to the community. That closed out what has felt like a forever Tuesday.
Today’s been an intriguing day. Having slept for 8 hours, I woke up, completed some reviews of submissions I was reading – and got to my reading lists once more. We’re at Week 4 now. Week Five Blues are close-by, it appears. As of yesterday, we’ve learned that we’re going to be on National Lockdown from Thursday. However, this seems to be a rather soft lockdown – with Universities and Retail that’s Essential continuing to be open. Restaurants are going to remain open for takeaways. The decentralized nature of decision-making at Cambridge means we’re awaiting instructions from College and the Faculty of Law on the implications of the lockdown on decisions that had been communicated to us earlier in the year – particularly on in-person teaching. For me, as an off-site student, something that I’m waiting to understand is if I will still be able to visit St Edmund’s – and to what extent I can interact with my College.
I knew this was likely before I signed up to study this year, so I felt adequately prepared for this, and I am still feeling that way. I will continue to study and make the most of what this place has to offer. If I feel like it gets to me though, I will reach out for any help I need.
I had class in the afternoon, followed by a Graduate Workshop. Where we have classes that have more than 13 students signed up to study a given subject on the LLM, we get workshops that accommodate only 13 people twice a semester. That’s really helpful, and is the small-group teaching that allows for broader discussions about subjects we’re clearly passionate about. Today’s agenda: common spaces, something I adore with every fibre of my being.
Having received a notification about a book that I had to return, in the evening I cycled to Sidgwick, returned the book to the Faculty, cycled to College, and came home. Now I’ve spent an hour watching YouTube videos – so I’m going to spend the rest of the evening preparing for my 9AM tomorrow.
Thursday means no interactive sessions, but also marks the beginning of a long-weekend filled with sport, reading, socializing, and sleep.
Truth be told most of my morning passed by in writing a couple of things, after which I went and played tennis. I had a horrid game, losing the only set we played 0:6, and winning a handful of points from unforced errors my friend made. Slowly I’m hoping to gain back some confidence, particularly on my backhand, where I seem to have lost any semblance of technique. I’m a left-handed player with a two-handed backhand (occassionally one, for the flair). The technique for both, as it was taught to me, is quite different, particularly in terms of how far my left foot crosses over to generate power. Owing to a lack of practice, I don’t seem to be able to gauge the distance to the ball on my backhand side, and then I get confused between wanting to play two-handed or one-handed, as a result of which my left foot is completely out of position. Hopefully I can work on that next week. It was good fun though, particularly because we played just after it rained, and got to experience changeable weather conditions at its finest.
The evening brought with it a wonderfully enlightening conversation with a Geographer whose works I’ve admired for a long time. It feels very nice to have this access to information, and hopefully I can do something in the short and long-run that improves that access, making it available to more people. For a start though, I’ve discovered that writing good e-mails really work. In a single conversation, I learned about the bounds of a subject and how to toe time with rigour, and he really spent time answering my queries about his work, his approach to the subaltern and what inspired him to write what he wrote – and what he currently researches. He listened to my ideas patiently, asking questions of me grounded in his own work, and I left the conversation with more to think about, which is always comforting.
Last night I had a wonderful discovery – where I found out you can use a laptop as a second-screen, and Windows 10 has built-in a wonderful projection feature. Now we’ve got that going in the room, so the eyes are less strained, and I have no excuses not to be reading and taking notes simultaneously. The pleasure of learning new technology skills is truly a kick unlike many others. Genuinely, I felt like I was hackerman.
While I tell you about how I’ve scheduled-in time for sleep, it’s equally important that I acknowledge that sometimes all schedules go for a toss. That tends to happen when you realize that there’s something you haven’t penciled in that you have left to do, or that you want to do. Yesterday after my lecture, I realized I hadn’t met my hostel neighbour from college for a week or so. I haven’t met some of my other newfound friends here for a similar period, but we’re catching up on the weekend – which I’m happy about. With this guy though, it’s slightly different. We’ve known each other for five years, but not just known. We were in the same class and spent final year sitting next to each other there, and as a result of being hostel neighbours, we bumped into each other in the washroom atleast once every day, in addition to meeting once daily usually late in the evening just as he was about to go to sleep – when my days in college used to start.
So it was weird realizing that we hadn’t met, and that it hadn’t occurred to either of us that such a long time had passed between meeting each other. Clearing out what we had for the evening, we had dinner, caught up – and owing to the fact that we have no overlapping subjects with each other, tried to gauge what the others’ challenges were. We went for a walk, set-up some IT infrastructure, got some shopping done – and when I returned home, I realized I don’t feel homesick because I often carry pieces of home with me wherever I go. In small ways, for example I’ve had the same alarm clock for the past 12 years of my life, and I’ve carried that everyone.
In Cambridge it appears as though that has happened in a large way: both of us seem to have carried people.
Like most other Indian kids born around the late 1990’s and 2000, my love affair with hockey begins at the meeting point of Chak De India!, a coach, and my friends. In late-2006 and early-2007, I was cricket-mad. I’d been following cricket religiously for close to 5 years by that point, and playing it seriously, with leather-ball coaching for half a year. The net sessions were grueling but extremely enjoyable. I’d play with friends at school and loved it, and I’d play at a friend’s house, in his room, for hours on-end. More about that is here. However, I was never one to shy away from new sports. My parents encouraged it, my school encouraged it even more. So it was that turf was laid out in school [with rubber], a hockey coach was brought in, alongwith 25-30 fluorescent yellow sticks, and we began to be trained in this crazy sport.
It was insane.
We had Games periods, and all of our Games periods, as a collective Grade 4 class, ended up going in training with Stallone sir. I found his name pretty amusing at the time, because he reminded me of Sylvester Stallone and I was just off a Rocky phase, but there he was, teaching us the absolute fundamentals. How to pass a ball along the ground, how to trap a ball, and how to push the ball into the net. As one of the only left-handed people in class trying to play the sport, he had a unique challenge with me, and I remember him vividly trying to explain me to how to turn my body around so I ended up behind the ball on the correct [right-handed] side to trap it more accurately. I never ended up successfully doing it, and my passing was pretty woeful because I had no power at all in my right-hand, but he persevered with me. In our Games periods, he’d split us up into mixed teams and make us all play these mini matches, which we thoroughly enjoyed.
We slowly began to develop individually and collectively. We learned the rules and regulations: not to use the back of the stick, to ensure the ball didn’t hit our feet, and to try our hardest not to commit fouls by aggresively tackling and making people fall by hitting them with the stick. The sticks at school were pretty small, so they were very fun to play with, and he taught us to take more powerful shots, swinging hard at the ball. While everyone learned that skill right-handed, the first thing he taught me was the reverse-hit, because that came to me more naturally. So it was that the left-hander in me felt consoled and tended to, and learned there was a sport that was right-hand dominant that reserved a special kind of shot for us, and a nice little cross-pass technique too. Stallone sir was really good at coaching and motivating kids – and I think we were all so enthused by this new sport that we took to his coaching gleefully.
I ended up dividing my time between hockey and cricket. Cricket was still the more serious sport at home and at school, with school team trainings, weekend net sessions and practices, and games with friends, but hockey ended up becoming the sport that brought out more joy. My friends and I started to play within enclosed air-conditioned spaces in the ground floor of our apartment complex. They were all physically more fit than I was, and I remember being so impressed at how they ran with the ball, and the ball just seemed to go with them as they sprinted everywhere. On the other hand I’d really struggle with it: I’d either take a first touch too hard and lose control of the ball altogether because I couldn’t keep up, or I’d end up in a slow jog and someone would tackle me.
Hockey was super fun at school because Stallone sir mixed the boys and the girls together. It was one of those sports we all learned together, so at the start, I don’t think he saw any reason to split us off. As a result, playing together provided the kind of interaction for us we had never had before. The girls used to play basketball (I hardly remember any guys playing basketball), and the boys used to play football and cricket. Everyone did athletics and swimming when required, but hockey was the first sport that brought us all together in Games period, and not just summer camp. It broke down a lot of the cootie barriers we had.
Then Chak De India! was released. Damn, what a movie. There are parts of it I now find strange, and disagree with, but it was remarkable to me that there was this hockey, and this sports accomplishment in my home country I had no clue about. The tactics they showed in the movie, the physicality of the sport, it all appealed to me and I knew I was in love with it immediately. I spent a week convincing my mother I needed a stick to play with – using the convenient excuse that I was left-handed and so would benefit from a different type of stick (all a bahana – I’m sure she saw straight through it), but we went to Lulu and we bought a 60 Dhs. Karson hockey stick, which I carried with me to school everyday to play with.
Then came the tournament. We were invited to Cambridge International School in Abu Dhabi for a 7-a-side mixed indoor tournament, and we were so excited, I think Stallone sir basically took half our class to the tournament. I look at the photos we have, I’m so glad for facebook, and I can see all of my close school friends from that time in the photographs. We all bought shin-pads to play with, and everyone had their own sticks by this time. It was an absolute blast. I don’t think we did well at all – in fact, I can remember only one goal from the entire tournament (that my friend scored), but we enjoyed ourselves so much! By this time, hockey-wise, Stallone sir really was encouraging us to have fun. Outside of game-time, when I remember him being quite strict, he was teaching us how to scoop, how to juggle the ball (which one of the Keegans picked up very well).
My uncle, who really enjoyed pampering me – asked me what I wanted for his last birthday we’d spend together in Dubai. I wanted a Slazenger hockey stick. So we drove down to GoSport, in Dubai Festival City, on a weekday evening, and went through everything on offer in the shop, and picked up a fibreglass Slazenger hockey stick. I used that for the rest of the year, making sure I didn’t play with it indoor, only when I was on a field – out of worry that it’d be scratched.
And then I relocated to India. When I first visited Indus International School, where I was set to enroll, I saw how many sports facilities they had, and I was very intrigued by the fact that they didn’t have junior hockey. As an international school with boarding facilities and such a vast expanse of land, it felt easy to demarcate one area for junior hockey-playing. Seniors apparently played, but not very seriously. When I asked the admissions officer about this, she seriously remarked to me that I could make a reasonable request that junior hockey be offered at school. You see, there’s no real difference between junior hockey and senior hockey except field dimensions and maybe more rigorous coaching because we’re trying to learn the sport. At that time of course, I had no idea, and I was grateful that somebody might listen to what I had to say.
So it was that in July 2008 (I still have the e-mail), a month after I relocated, I wrote up a statement of purpose and sent it into the admissions office. This was my introductory paragraph:
Hockey is a very popular sport and is the national sport of India. I like hockey a lot and am looking to achieve a lot in it. I want to represent Indus International School in Inter-School tournaments and after I become big want to play international hockey for India. It challenges all players mentally as well as physically. e.g.- If you are in the opponent’s ‘D’ and your player is covered by your opponent, you need to think to either pass to him or shoot the ball from whatever distance you’re in from the goal. That’s how it challenges the players mentally.
I look back now amused, but at that time, I was very impressed. So impressed, that I used Comic Sans MS:
I’m not kidding.
My parents were quite impressed with how serious I was about this, and most of the school was too. I remember meeting the CEO of the School as well as my Principal, which at my young age felt rather cool. My friends back in Dubai gave me a fair amount of encouragement – especially my best friend, who kept updating me with how Stallone sir had really taken hockey at school to new heights, with proper teams practicing and playing regularly. I can’t quite tell how much of a role my SOP had with things, but I got approval and stayed back every Tuesday to play hockey at school.
In my complex, my tennis coach, who was custodian of the colony (as President of the Welfare Association), and someone I called Uncle because he was my mother’s friend – doubled up as a hockey companion. I dribbled around against him in front of his house a couple of times, with both of us deciding not to play there any more because of the un-evenness of the surface. We moved to the children’s park once, but then I think my enthusiasm faded slightly, especially with opportunities coming up to play in school.
It was just me in Grade 6, but Bhowmik sir at school really made time for me every single Tuesday. He spent time with me largely on my fitness and stamina, and in the cricket nets, set up dribbling exercises for me. We worked on my scoop shot even more. As exams rolled around, I stopped staying back on Tuesdays, but Bhowmik sir reeled me back in. I ended up playing a few cricket games for school in the U-10 category (because I had a year on me at the time), but hockey was really what kept me going in Grade 6 as I adjusted to this new school.
Grade 7 rolled around, and a couple of new people joined school. One from South Africa, and one from Germany. A few other people from our class joined in with us – because they had played hockey before as well. A senior hockey coach joined as well, and suddenly from one, we became quite a few of us who cared about the sport. The footballers joined in with us too – and we began to play during sports sessions where we were free to pick a sport (I played badminton in the other period). It was then that it became apparent to me how much physical fitness I still lacked, so I focused on doing some basic things as best as I could, but I was not really much of a match for the footballers – who could generate a ton of power in their legs to support some very hard hits. We once played a game of regular hockey players against the footballers and lost some 0:5 in school, and I remember feeling rather humiliated. I continued to stay back on Tuesdays, and worked with Bhowmik sir and the hockey coach (whose name I cannot recall at all unfortunately) – which led to a rather sudden inclusion in the Under-17 Hockey Team to play a Rotary tournament.
This was a massive highlight – really. I wrote an e-mail to my dad when it happened, asking for hockey shin-guards (because my old ones were not good enough for outdoor tournaments) with ankle support, and hockey stockings – and on his next trip to India, I had a pair of white colour Adidas shin-guards I was very happy with. I just looked through our chats, and I don’t know why I got frustrated with him when he asked me very reasonable questions about the shin-guards. He just asked for specifics: what size, what colour, where to buy them, and my responses reek of an irritation I can’t quite fathom. Sorry for that, Appa.
One of my friends in Grade 7 gifted me a new blue Rakshak hockey stick – which held a lot of sentimental value, because as an Indian brand, it reminded me of the Vijayanti stick in Chak De India!, and also was a stick the Indian hockey team used. I took that and the Slazenger to the tournament, where I came on as a second-half substitute in two group-stage matches, and confuddled my rather-senior, big, teammates by playing reverse-stick half the time. They yelled at me, I remember, which scared me because I was 4’8 or something at the time, puny, and these were 5’9-6’2 monsters. As a day scholar, I wasn’t close to any seniors – the boarders appeared to develop a bond, so I remember spending the bus ride back to school with the German 7th Grader who was also included on the team to his surprise.
The rest of the year was pretty uneventful. I played hockey with two or three people in Sports Hour: one v. two. When I moved to Inventure Academy, I tried asking around about hockey – and the school’s CEO had played and was interested, but my own interest seemed to be dipping. I stopped playing hockey altogether, switching over to basketball and tennis more seriously, developing those to a good, social level. Hockey became the sport I used to let out frustration from time-to-time, going onto the terrace of our house with a stick and a ball and whacking it against the wall. Truly though, I must’ve done this 4 times in the remaining 5 years I spent in Bangalore.
My love for hockey didn’t ever die though. I watched highlights of several matches, and watched a lot of the FIH games that happened if they coincided with dinner. I was really happy when the Hockey India League was founded, following those games with a sadness that there was no South Indian team. My sadness was underscored by the fact that Karnataka, and Coorg especially, was the cradle of Indian hockey – with legends like Len Aiyappa and M.P. Ganesh hailing from the region.
Having not played at high school, nor at undergraduate University, when I applied abroad, on 20 September 2019, I made this declaration that I’d play hockey wherever I went next. Cambridge has a lovely hockey tradition, and through Fresher’s Fair, I was able to sign-up and although St Edmund’s didn’t have a team, able to find two mixed college teams to play with.
I got myself the equipment, including a mouth-guard for the first time in my life (my canines are so grateful), and turned up to play for Selwyn/Trinity Hall on the weekend. To my teammates, during practice, I tried making it apparent to them that I had not played for ages, and I had last played on mud, not on turf. I don’t think I prepared them enough for how much I really needed their help to improve. Initially they stuck me up-top, which I now regret, because within 10 minutes I was so tired of making runs that I just dropped back and played defence the rest of the game, hardly moving out of my own D. It was 7-a-side half-pitch, and for the life of me I can’t imagine what playing full games will look like.
I made a bunch of mistakes, slipped up a couple of times and fell onto the turf, brazing my knee, we lost 1:7, but I was playing hockey again – after ten years. I was beaming when I came home. This year is probably going to be a long year in terms of improving in hockey, and I’m going to try to play in the lower College leagues to get up to Selwyn’s level if I can, something more relaxed to improve my skills first – but I was so very happy. My parents saw it, as did a couple of friends, and truly, I am so grateful to them both for supporting my desire to play the sport the first time by buying me the gear, and now, again, by buying bits of gear.
It’s crazy to think how many people help you to get here. People like Stallone sir who first taught me how to pick up the stick, to Bhowmik sir, who really had no obligation to stay back with me and play hockey with me for two years – to people I had never met in my life who answered my queries about Cambridge hockey over e-mail very politely and were okay with me joining in their weekend game having not played for so long.
One day I hope to hit a drag flick again and have enough confidence to play the entire game right-handed. That is likely to take a very long time.
Today was my first day of lectures. And yes – I’m finally right with it this time, it’s the first week of Michaelmas!
I got up rather early this morning, having had a late night. All of this was self-inflicted because as with other LLMs, we’ve all been very confused about when which interactive session is taking place, and I thought I had one class tomorrow that was today. That + an e-mail meant lots of reading this morning to catch up and be ready for the session. I was grateful to be able to finish in the knick of time, allowing me to catch-up with my best friend before heading to my first interactive session.
I say heading, but my first one of the week was online – so the only preparation I had to do was just check up my audio and clean-up the background a little. I should explain a little more about interactive sessions. Traditionally on the LLM program, teaching happens through a lecture in-person, per subject, each week. We study 4 modules, and so, it follows that you attend 4 lectures a week. Owing to COVID, the faculty has had to adapt, and thus, to ensure we get the benefit of some interaction with faculty, each subject now has a pre-recorded lecture component, and a live interactive component per week. The live component can happen either online, or in-person – depending on the interactive principles the Faculty of Law has laid out. It’s a rather well thought out solution that seems to be working okay for the time being. I’m grateful for how much they’ve communicated to us as they’ve made decisions. There’s a low level of consultation and no consultative process – as this was decided before we came to the University, but it’s been communicated in a timely way, which prepares us per week. As a consequence, to prepare for these interactive sessions, you need to do reading and watch the lectures for them. Then you can go in saying you’ve done the work – but you’ll always leave the interactive session realizing you missed something. At least, I’m prepared to: I’m prepared to leave the session learning more – and finding out fresh perspective my eyes may not have captured.
Today’s were lovely. Global Governance took place online, and the convening lecturer broke the ice quite nicely, allowing for introductions and commenting on our experiences before jumping into asking us questions and moderating a fruitful discussion about the week’s readings. That ended and I immediately had to rush off to the Faculty, about 2 miles away, to reach my Jurisprudence class on time. I say rush off, by which I mean rush down the stairs so I could cycle as slowly as I desired to reach there. I cycle rather slowly, just to be as careful as possible here. Today was the first time I got to enter the Lecture Theatre at the Faculty, and it’s so stunning. It’s just a nice pit-style ampitheater, with the lecturer at the bottom – but with social-distancing and a small crowd spanning the room, it was a geometrical sight to behold. While the Faculty’s building was only constructed in the 1990’s, it’s still incredible to think about the kind of people who have studied – and taught here.
A quick coffee meeting with my batchmates later, I headed back home, spoke to my parents while cooking dinner, and now I’m on my way to do more reading. I have a 9AM online interactive session tomorrow – one I’m really looking forward to, but there’s a 93-page document I have to get through before that. Should be a lovely night and early morning.
Today was the most wholesome food day I have had since I have come to the UK. Although I’ve been the recipient of various care packages containing food, and home-cooked food at that (which I am incredibly grateful for), I can’t help but explain to you how much I have missed cooking. For five out of the six months since this pandemic began to be considered seriously, I was alone at home in Bangalore cooking for myself. In my last month in India, I cooked only once. My chikkamma did all the cooking, and I just did all the eating. During lockdown days, the kitchen became a happy place. For a lot of people, the pandemic was the chance to develop a skill, like cooking. My mother taught me the fundamentals of cooking earlier, so the pandemic was the chance to build upon those fundamentals. Honestly, living alone, it was also an opportunity to experiment. To dream of things and then eat them by learning how to make them (like chili), or try out how much my stomach could take before it reovolted (peanut milk – which along with other things has made me convert to veganism pretty much).
This morning, my housemate and I went grocery shopping. We spent two hours there, and then cycled home with a lot of groceries. Our original plan was to make idli-sambhar and share it with everyone in the house – the family hosting us too, but owing to a lack of batter availability in Cambridge and a lack of planning to soak things to make batter, we switched over to making chole with chappatis. What a brilliant, inspired decision that turned out to be. We spent an hour in the kitchen together talking about our own kitchens at home, and I kneaded the chappatis and made a bunch of them while he made the channa. I have atta now so I can make as many round rotis as my stomach pleases. I feel whole, just like the wheat in the atta. We dined like kings with orange juice on the side – and had waffles with Nutella for dessert.
I spoke to family after that and then headed out to meet some Indians from the postgraduate offer-holder group at Fitzbillies, which celebrated its centenary last week. I had the Chelsea Bun, which a friend described as being a cuckoo version of the Cinnabon. Truly though, it was exactly like the Cinnabon with raisins and a lot of sticky toffee. Very sweet and yum.
A cycle ride later and I returned home to gobi, chole and the realization that tomorrow is the start of interactive sessions, which means a night of reading to ensure I’m actually able to follow what happens.
All of this while remembering somewhere in the middle that the Cambridge Majlis was hosting a debate abou the Partition of India that I had to attend because of how politically charged it was, and realizing that there were so many fresher’s events and first-week meetings happening tonight at the same time that I’m definitely not going to be able to actually attend all the events from all the mailing lists I’ve signed up to. Need to pick and choose – oh, what I would do for more time here in this place.
Tejas Rao 