Wannabe Watson

Because, I needed a place to rant, record and reflect on my thoughts.

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Yeh Dilli hai mere yaar

So, five years in the city of my dreams and now I am here, back home. With beautiful memories to recollect. I spent five years of my undergrad around NCR of Delhi. Never thought I would end up falling in love with it. But there I was on my last day in the city, peeping through the window on my flight to catch one last glimpse of the city that had accepted me with warm hugs and open arms. The flight took off and I just could not hold my emotions back. I was weeping and sobbing like a baby. Tears kept flowing like a waterfall over my cheeks as I craned and strained my neck trying to make out all the different places which carried parts of my heart, from among the city lights.

Next few hours were heavy. I closed my eyes, trying to sleep through it. But I really wanted to only cry and let all my feelings out. But no matter how many tears I shed, nothing could help me wash away the heaviness I felt in my heart, saying goodbye to a city that I had grown to love so dearly. I had of course promised myself that I would return, but now I knew that no matter where I would end up in life and no matter how many times, I did return to Delhi, no place would ever be the city that dilli became for me when I was 20 and was still trying to figure out the world and myself. The city carried my heart and my soul. I think, up until the plane took off, the reality of the fact that I was leaving a dear place behind had really not set in. I was still somehow under some belief that I would receive some last-minute mail or message telling me that I had to cancel my travel and stay back. I was hoping and wishing on that call, but it never came and when the flight took off is when i was finally face to face with reality. This was it. I really had left. No coming back. I wished and hoped and longed even in those last moments that something would happen and I would get to return to my dear city, back to my college, my hostel and room, my friends. It was a sinking feeling knowing that it would not happen. I had spent that previous few days weeks and months explaining to everyone I spoke to about how much I was going to miss this city and yet, no words could fully capture what I felt when I actually saw the last glimpse of the city. This was where I had learnt life.

I actually have so much to say and talk about Delhi. But there are two things that I specifically want to start with which somehow answer the question of why Delhi and what is it about the city that made it so special for me. So firstly, I think it was the unique perspective I had towards the city. For most parts of the 5 years I spent there, I never actually lived in Delhi. I was living in my hostel, on my college campus, which was located about 45 minutes away from Delhi n Sonipat. So my perspective towards delhi was never fully that of an insider. I was one with one eye inside the city and one eye out. As students, we would visit the city either on weekends or whenever we had any work and in that way we were both citizens and tourists at the same time. Secondly, as someone from South India and who had spent all her life there, Delhi was new in more ways than just being the city that I got to live in during my college days. Everytime you mention Delhi to someone, the first thing that they talk about is the pollution and the lack of safety. Both these are very real concerns in Delhi. The pollution was definitely deadly in the harshest sense of the word. But on the safety part, due to various factors, very well against the grain. I was really extremely lucky and privileged that of the five years I spent there, not once did I ever encounter any scary incident. I know a lot of it has to do with the fact that as an outsider to the city, I always was hyperconscious of the fact that I did not have a home there and hence was always super vigilant about my surroundings and my interactions. Part of it also ofcourse was also attributable to the privileges that studying in a sonipat university gives you. But yes, despite all these, the bottom line was that of the five years, I (almost) never found myself in an unlucky position, in contrast to my hometowns where I regularly felt harassed, molested and touched and felt inappropriately. I will talk about this in more detail in another blog perhaps, but this experience played a ig role in the way I viewed Delhi. In them most ironic twists of life, Delhi was very much a safe space for me during the time that I spent there. And it set a standard for what I would want to expect from an Indian city.

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2 weeks into third year of law school and it has suddenly dawned on me that my life is in shambles, my career at stake and i have a huge ass loan on my head that i have to repay. God please save me i can't with this. manifesting good academic life for the next two years I am done done done with all this stupidnessss cryingashdjdikekdkd help

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god i'm done with all the bad things in life. Please send some good things my way aahheaksskjahskasjalsj

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Saving our sarva janaangada shaantiya thoTa

sarva janaangada shaantiya toTa

rasikara kangaLa seLeyuva noTa

hindu kraistha mussalmaana

paarasika jainar udyana

(A tranquil garden belonging to all communities

Forever enticing the epicurean's eyes

Hindu, Christian, Muslim

Parsi, and Jain- a park where truly everyone prospers)

"With our heads held high and Shoulders straight, lets us all stand up and sing the state anthem" the comperer would announce and all of us, on cue, would stand in our school assembly, reciting these very same lines threaded together by the Raashtrakavi, in the same tune, with the same intonation, every Saturday, for years on end without ever bothering about what they meant.

It never really occurred to us to ask the meaning of these complex words because we never felt the need to do so. We knew what the naadageethe signified and what values it stood for. We knew what legacy the Rashtrakavi was entreating upon us to cherish and carry forward and we knew that we didn’t have to know the meaning of these lines to be able to understand and imbibe in ourselves the principles that we wanted our state to reflect.

But today... today we are standing at another time, called upon to gather at another assembly under the school of our state's destiny- and now it is more important than ever for us to once again recite these lines, renew our vows and ask ourselves- What does Karnataka mean to us? What were the ideals that we were guided by when we all chose to unite under the colours of red and yellow, where have we reached and What plans, thoughts and ideas do we have for the future of our beloved Karunaadu?

Growing up as tiny tots running around and chasing butterfly dreams in this garden of secularity, the one thought that all our minds were imbued and indoctrinated with was – Indina Makkale Naalina Prajegalu. Today’s children are tomorrow’s citizens. We would be told, in classrooms and lecture halls and seminars by teachers, leaders and elders that the destiny of our state was a gift that would be bequeathed to us at the opportune time.

And that time has now arrived. Tomorrow, for the very first time in our lives, we will be called upon to decide for ourselves what Karnataka we wish to live grow and prosper in. A weighted responsibility no doubt. And tomorrow, when we once again, filter into long queues and assemble outside government schools to exercise our franchise and decide the destiny of our state, we should take a moment and ponder upon whether the Karnataka that has been thrust upon us, a Karnataka which has been cast under the shadow of communalism, which sits and shivers under the Damocles sword of corruption and which fears the erasure of it’s language culture and community, is truly the same Karnataka singing about whose glory our hearts would swell in pride.

We were taught to embrace everyone with open arms, and today we are being made to turn against our own sisters and brothers. We were told to be honest, upright and law-abiding citizens, but today we are being made to hang our heads in shame to offer under the table commissions. We grew up being nourished by the milk of the matronly Nandini and today she faces the threat of our infidelity.

Along with all these changes, there has also been another monumental change. Nenneya makkaLu have today become naadina prajegaLu. The Karnataka of today may be a vastly different place than the Karnataka of our childhood but now we have been entrusted with the responsibility of and vested with the power to develop, design and reimagine this garden of ours. It is now in our hands to decide which seeds to sow and which weeds to plough.

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Finding Serenity in the City

On the 3rd of December, 2016, our beloved Supreme Leader was quoted saying “Hum toh fakeer aadmi hai ji, jhola leke chal padenge’ at an election rally in Moradabad. Now I really don’t know what the context of this quote was but six years later, in 2022, I decided that I was done toiling in my little small town and packed off all the dearest of my belongings into a metaphorical ‘jhola’ and left for Delhi... Well, not exactly Delhi... Sonipat. But I prefer saying Delhi because, let’s be honest, saying that I am studying in Delhi sounds a looooootttttt more cooler than saying that I’m studying in a University across Narela road in Jagdishpur Village of Sonipat District. And alsooo, Sonipat is in NCR (or atleast I’d like to believe that it is) so yeh sab chalta hai.

Anyway, for people like me from small towns, going to Delhi is almost like a dream come true. You grow up hearing about the place, reading about it in newspapers and magazines and sitting in the dingy room of your house in your small town, you feel like going to Delhi is the panacea that will resolve all your problems. And I, like millions of others in this country, bought into this story and packed my bags and left for Delhi with a glint in my eyes and hopes in my heart. It was only when I got off that Rajdhani Express and stepped onto the platform at Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station that I realized that this Delhi is much like any other average city... I mean, don’t get me wrong, Dilli hai badi khoobsurat but it was miles miles afar from the Delhi of my imaginations. This Delhi was beautiful, romantic and fashionable, modern and everything which my small town was not but it was also a city that eschewed silence, serenity, calmness, and compassion and pretty much everything else that my small town was. 

So when in the middle of the semester, I found myself stuck in the middle of this big city which I neither belonged to nor related to, I felt like I had been stuck in the middle of a big whirlpool. I felt deracinated and dispossessed.  I had left my culture, my people, my home, my parents and everything behind and only carried my heart to this one new place and now the very same heart bled profusely at the thought of having to live there for the next few years. My early days in Delhi drained me of all my life and energy as I knew not, the people here and understood not, the language or culture of these big burly North Indians, who very aptly fit every stereotype of North India that I had ever been fed. 

And on one such thoroughly tiresome and deeply distressing days, I decided that I had had enough of this place and was almost on the verge of a break down, when I received a message on my WhatsApp. It was from a friend from my college who had gone back to her home that week for the mid-semester Dasara break. “Heyy, I’ve seen you’ve been missing home a lot! I don’t mean to overstep or anything but would you like any sweets or anything else that could make it a ‘lil better?  I am at home and I could probably get it. I’ll be coming back to campus tomorrow” it read. And even before I could finish reading the message, a big wide smile, wider than Delhi’s roads, had unfurled on my face and my eyes, were dripping with tears like river Yamuna which quietly makes its way through the heart of the city. Rithvika, for that was the name of this dear friend, that day, to me, almost seemed like an incarnation of that holy river- quietly bringing in all the world’s joy into the life of a parched soul. Today, it’s her birthday and through this post, I want to let her and the hundreds of other thoughtful and caring people like her who knowingly or unknowingly augur joy and happiness into other people’s lives know, how valuable their presence is in for us. So my dearest friend Rithvika, thank you for that sweet message and for the sweeter snacks, hope you have a wonderful and successful year ahead. That day, in the midst of this noisy, bustling city, you became a source of serenity, silence, calmness, compassion and everything else that I missed about home. You, became home. 

Have a happy birthdayyyy <3 ilysmm

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Grammar of Anarchy in Modern India

“...it is quite possible in a country like India – where democracy from its long disuse must be regarded as something quite new – there is danger of democracy giving place to dictatorship. It is quite possible for this newborn democracy to retain its form but give place to dictatorship in fact.” These lines are excerpted from Dr Ambedkar’s famous speech “The Grammar of Anarchy”, delivered on November 25th 1949, the eve of the adoption of the Indian Constitution. In this address, Babasaheb defined the difference between a real democracy and a facile one and laid down certain principles that he expected the future generations to adhere to, if they wished for the Indian constitutional democracy to coincide in form and in fact.

It was indeed amid much pomp and publicity that in 2015, the 125th birth anniversary of Dr Ambedkar, the current government decided to attest the tag of National Constitution Day to November 26th. It was just one of the many ways in which governments, over the years, have tried to appropriate the idea of Ambedkar for their vested interests without giving any thought to his ideals. Seen in this context, it becomes important to analyse whether today’s democratic India has lived up to the expectations of the architect of its constitution.

The first principle that Ambedkar mentioned in his speech was that in a real democracy, progress should be brought about only through constitutional methods. He sought an end to methods of Non-Cooperation and Civil Disobedience which, unless restricted, could paralyze development and saw protests as a symbol of facile democracies. Today’s India is far from realising that goal. We are a country that protests at the drop of a hat. However, more often than not, these protests, far from stifling development, have been used to coerce those in power to take the right step. Be it the 2011 anti-corruption dharnas pushing for passage of appropriate legislations or the CAA-NRC protests or the more recent anti-farm law sit-ins appealing for retraction of unpopular legislations, agitations against the ruling dispensations have been the guiding light of our democracy, seeking adherence to the constitution. So does this mean Ambedkar was wrong in his assessment of protests? No. In his speech, Babasaheb, while advocating for an end to unconstitutional protests, specifically spelled out that when there is no possibility of achieving change through constitutional means, resorting to unconstitutional methods was the only way forward. When constitutionally elected governments show apathy towards the needs or worse, go against the wishes of the very people who put them in power and constitutionally established courts and politically established opposition also leave people in the lurch, the only recourse left for the people is to mobilise and swerve those in power in the right direction. Thus, the very fact that today mass mobilisations and protests are needed to exhort governments to do what they’re elected to do, points towards the disuse and misuse of constitutional machinery.

His second prescription of eschewing the deification of leaders, is perhaps also the most pertinent advice in contemporary times. Today we have downgraded ourselves into a nation of hero-worshipping fanatics, divinizing our political leaders to the point where we fail to accept that they can ever err and ignore them when they actually do so. Living in times when being anti-Modi is routinely equated to being anti-India, Babasaheb’s warning that in politics Bhakti is a sure road to eventual dictatorship rings truer than ever.

Finally, Ambedkar in his speech, recommends us to evolve into a social democracy i.e., we mustn’t be content with the mere political sanction of liberty, equality and fraternity, but should strive to make these ideals, a way of life. Acknowledging the chasm between ‘constitutional guarantees’ and ‘social realities’, Babasaheb had famously remarked that India would, on January 26th 1950, enter into a life of contradictions where political equality would stand in contrast with socioeconomic inequalities. In calling for a social democracy, it was this gap that he sought to bridge. However, it is the sad reality of our times that, even in this aspect we have failed him. 70 more 26th Januarys have passed since that observation was made and still, we find ourselves stuck in the same quagmire. Obdurate lines of caste, class and religious inequalities have been redrawn by politically motivated leaders who find benefit in refusing to let these lines fade; Sectarian affiliations continue to override national unity, crumpling up the ideal of fraternity. And liberty, attacked by both state and non-state actors, has become a mere chimaera.

Thus, our country’s current socio-political standing is far from what the creator of our constitution had hoped it would be. It’s indeed impossible for a country as vast and diverse as ours to embody an ideal democracy, but that shouldn’t mean that we retrograde into becoming a facile democracy. Superficially celebrating the Constitution Day or Mahaparinirvan Diwas will only amount to lip service unless we reinstate adherence to these principles which add life into the soul of India’s democracy, principles prescribed by the father of the constitution himself and principles which will otherwise end up being mere quixotic embellishments for a bleak reality.

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I'm no more under your wing and yet i wist for the warmth of your feathers

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The Sound of Familiarity

I was sitting in the Global Reading Room in our university and working on my history assignment. sitting, there plying at my keyboard, taking down notes, underlining important points and highlighting keywords when my mind randomly starts buzzing with the tune of some long-forgotten music. At first, it is a faint hum of the tune and then it became more and more pronounced. Taaanaanna na na na na... 

and then it grew louder and louder and then so loud that it is no longer in my head, it has forced itself out of the shackles of my mind and is now resonating out of my laptop. the faint, intangible hum has wriggled out of my body and is now a song. like a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon. and it now presents itself before me, the butterfly of the song, flashing the wings of its ostentatiously beautiful lyrics on the faded screen of my laptop.

"Akkare Maathadi Pooje Maadi Anthovne Maadevaaaa... Ughe! Ughe! Elu Male Myaleli Kunthanavva...."

What is the name of the song? ...what is it? is it elu male myaleli...? no, it doesn't seem like it. must be hange kuniro hinge kuniro? And i glance at my screen, scenes from a film keep changing in quick succession. the image of a distinctively strong man of dusky complexion, ruffled hair, and stern expressions is constant in all photos. Shivanna. and then like the apricity of the morning sun, enveloping the body in a blanket of warmth, my mind is embraced tightly with memories from a past, long lost and forgotten. they hug me. and i scramble to hug them back, it is a long, tight embrace. 

"Beta zara is taraf aajao" 

"en akka? - uh haan didi-"

And like a tree recoiling at the strike of lightning, i crack back into consciousness. I move aside to let the didi sweep the carpet underneath and i am pulled out of my lucid dream and yanked back into reality. I glance out of the window and I see the flagpole- the silken flag majestically fluttering away. Elu male myaleli is still resonating from the laptop as i continue to stare at the flag. for once, this feels like my flag. my flag, my country, i belong here. This place, this college, the people, the trees, the building are all mine. it is my college and this is me. 

[blahblahblaw18]

What Remains

...

...

...

...

What happens when the fire in the ammunition is extinguished,

What happens when the brown green yellow patterns of fabric

cease to camouflage burly men

and are merely relegated to keeping bruised bodies warm?

What happens once the Kalashnikov chokes and the guns are laid to rest?

What happens after the throat goes sore and the war cry dies down?

What happens when the tufts of grass that can't discern the difference

Between oxygen and carbon dioxide wilt away at the scent of smoke

What happens after the soil, saturated by the blood of men

Says, no more! And the sun drowns into the horizon in shame

not wanting to shine glory onto a gory land anymore?

What remains is the harsh winter wind making every body

strewn across the dammed land, dead or alive, shiver all the same

Shiver at humanity's inhumane yearnings

Shiver at the sin that has been committed by the sons of the land

What remains is the memory of a loving family left behind

A love that is now long lost, and tears left unshed

That is all that remains after the fire is extinguished

yours,

IL

Written on 21/09/2021

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The Battle of Belonging

"Howmuchever I did not want to belong in Mysuru, it was still my own. It was and will forever be a part of me, mine. I can only escape from it geographically, but it will forever and till eternity, remain in my heart, as an indelible, inescapable part of my identity and personality."

Caveat: The following blog piece is a deeply personal and reflective essay. Read only if you have the mental capacity to handle the trauma dumping.

NRIs have this thing called ABCD, it stands for American-born confused Desi. This pithy phrase very succinctly captures the confusion and the identity crisis that they experience, being a vibrant cultural minority in a foreign land.

I am not an NRI. Nor am I in foreign lands. and yet, I am going through a somewhat similar experience. This feeling of not belonging here and not wanting to belong there. The constant conflict in the mind. The two different worlds which you know will never meet - like the two shores of the sea. The eviscerating feeling of not knowing who I am, where my heart lies, what I identify as, how I should react to situations and events... constantly trying to reconcile the two ends of the spectrum. The two feelings, the two yous, the two behaviours, the difference, the split, conflict, confusion. Who am i? Who is prerana?

Am I the silent, serious, career-oriented, driven, focused, straight-talking Prerana who always rebelled against her parents, teachers, friends and family, who always tried to push the boundaries and who was very sagacious and calm and mature and wanted to reach for the stars and leave mysuru behind, escape from the small-minded people and their parochial thoughts and outdated ideas... or should I qualify those attributes with a "supposedly" or "assumed"? Supposedly small-minded people; assumed parochial thoughts and outdated ideas. Supposed and assumed by me. The girl who always looked at the skies hoping to escape into the calm familiarity of its darkness, looking for a stairway out of the small town. Grasping for opportunities...

Or am I the Prerna who is excited to learn new things, the empathetic listener, always down for a chat, available for a call, hugging people, trying to belong, wanting to belong? Trying to firmly establish herself on the ground, to grasp at the grass trying to find her footing, the one who is accepting of every new culture, tradition and way of life, the one who is trying to wiggle in rather than escape out? trying to be here, now. embracing, condoning and accepting this place for what it is- warts, wounds, wonders and all. jostling in with the people and accepting and celebrating them for who they are, their thoughts, ideas, small-mindedness, and narrow thinking?

I hated that place because of what it is, and now I am trying to fall in love with this place despite what it is. And yet, I seem to have forgotten to realise that, in the heart of hearts, overarchingly, both mysuru and Jindal are the same. They may be different cultures, but the small-minded ideas remain, the narrow thoughts and othering of what doesn't fit in with the established norm remains.

That was a community-oriented life and I struggled to create a space for myself. This is an individual-oriented space and I am fighting to create a community of my own. But why?

I grew up in Mysuru, a mysuru that was in the perpetual shadow of the Bengaluru. Every single holiday I would get, we would catch the first train to Bengaluru. leaving mysuru and its lethargy and laziness behind. The joy of seeing the suburban Bengaluru slums from the window of my train seat, which heralded the arrival in the city, a city which I since forever wanted to make my own. And a city I always looked at with glinting eyes and gaping mouth. The city which had my heart, my love, my life.

The yearning for that big city, that cosmopolitan culture, that melting pot of ideas, cultures, traditions, that urban, chic, jet black and grey ad white world with tall towers and big cars and traffic-jammed streets. the endless opportunities. the vibrant nightlife. the food, the street, the big corporate hubs, the cafes buzzing with people; forever, the breweries and the sense of not being judged for sipping a drink or wearing a torn jean or hanging out with English-speaking boys.

The peacock from mysuru zoo wisting to dance under the pale blue-grey hues and occasional showers of the Bengaluru sky.

I was never happy in mysuru. Never satisfied with the city. Never got myself to like it. Those ceremonial debates about mysuru v. Bengaluru, I always took the side of Bengaluru. Not that mysuru didn't have opportunities or wasn't modern or anything... But i tried to steer clear of the modern mysuru. Tried to stay put and ply my game on the path out of the city. Like I didn't want to get distracted or enticed by whatever little wonders mysuru had to offer.

Now, I have come to Jindal. Achieved what I wanted. Reached where I thought I wanted to. Escaped, finally and successfully. And after a long drawn, draining and desiccating fight no less. That rebel in me has won the final fight. The ultimate rebellion. I wanted to leave, but they held me back, they pulled me back, they tied and tethered me back but I broke free, suffered through bruises, and endured their glare, stare and spit. Roared, screamed, and unleashed myself. and now I have left. That fight has now reached its conclusion. There's no reason to feel restless. That goal that always lingered around and directed my every step and action has been fulfilled. Years of penance, struggle, and rebellion have finally borne fruit. I have reached where I wanted to. I have done it ma. I have gotten my way. I have won against you, appa, those aunties and uncles who constantly questioned me, those people from college who tried to pull me down. I have won the battle against all of you guys... I have stayed put, my obstinacy and stubbornness have reached their end now. I got what I wanted. This is what I had prayed, starved, begged, kicked, fought and screamed for. This is it. The cosmopolitan, urban lifestyle is finally mine. Mine to live.

But.

But there is still a battle to be fought. yet another one. another fight to fight. my mind tells me to live another day. Fight this one last battle and we will see what happens tomorrow. One more fight, one more struggle, one more battle, one more. But this is a different battle. If my first fight was a Tapasya to escape, to not settle, to not remain, to leave and get out of the suffocation. This is a fight to belong. to feel like I belong, to fit in, to forget about the sky and hold on to the ground. to touch the grass, and the mud and make it my own. the battle of belonging. To settle down. to remain even if it means suffocating myself. to keep my mind open and to take in every new idea, every new experience, new feeling and culture and tradition and people. But if this is what I wanted all my life and this is what I fought for all my life, why am I continuing to fight even after having gotten what I have wanted? what is it that I seek? Why is there another struggle? I wanted this, right? More than want, I yearned for this. And now that I have it, why does the restlessness remain?

What do I do about this constant conflictual state of mind? That's a futile question to ask, to be fair to myself. Conflict, much like change is a constant. There is no escaping from conflict. sometimes it is the external conflict, sometimes it is the inner conflict. but conflict remains. And when there is none, the mind makes one. The mind is a very weird thing. It does not want to settle. It does not want to be satisfied. It wants more and more and more and better and higher. There is always a battle to be fought. Live another day, sleep another night - quite literally these days.

Then, what is the problem? if I am aware of this peculiarity of the mind, if I have always been fighting fights and waging wars, internal as well as external, shouldn't I have gotten used to them by now? Shouldn't I have gotten adjusted to the hustle now? What is it that is making me take a step back and pause to reassess everything?

I always thought of leaving mysuru as the first step to independence and freedom. Leave mysuru first and then leave India next. Explore the world, wear down those peripatetic feet, and satiate that ever-hungry mind. So having escaped mysuru, I should have, by now, embarked on my next fight. the fight for emancipation from the manacles that fate imposed on me when it made me an Indian. all of this, I had mapped out and planned out in my mind. But in my eagerness, I failed to anticipate the intermediate level. Between the fight for escaping from mysuru, where I had been born and the fight to escape into the larger world, where i wanted to live, there was this one intermediate level. I left mysuru and reached Delhi, reached Jindal. Now, I have to leave Jindal and reach new york? London? sydney? tokyo? or just the road leading up to the Supreme Court of India? But before I commence on that journey, there is one more goal to achieve. And that is to make Delhi and Jindal mine and my own. to belong here, to fight to be one among these people, to embrace them and their culture. Because, if I do not make this my own, what will I fight against when I begin my battle to move out of India? I have to first own this before I can rebel. i have to first be here before I can leave from here. I failed to anticipate that belonging here could be an entire battle in itself. But it should not be a battle... I shouldn't have to fight for anything that is already, rightfully, mine... do I? I should not have to fight to belong here. Nor should I have had to fight to leave from there. But it is what it is. The battle of belonging. and I have to make peace with it.

yours,

I.L.

[blahblahblaw18]

New Era

Okay, So I have decided that this blog needs a revamp. I am now in Jindal and this is, if not the law school that I wanted to be in, still a massive massive upgrade. This past year has been full of twists and turns, some new and exciting others bleak and depressing. But overarchingly, it has been an era of change.

In the week that passed by, there were barely any classes held First there was the Diwali break and then there was the self-declared mental health break. I was feeling extremely overwhelmed with work, and at one point I felt like I would physically collapse. So last Thursday, when in the middle of the night I found myself recording reassuring phrases and sentences, it immediately rang sirens in my head. I was like "Shit! What am I doing?! What has become of me?? I am having to record reassuring words and play them to feel mentally better. This is no way to function!" And I knew I had some reworking to do. So the following few days have just been me trying to recalibrate and recuperate mentally and emotionally. I reached out to seek therapy and that helped a lot.

But the one thing that I realised was that whatever mental health crisis I was going through was not new. In fact, it was the same old story of overworking myself under pressure, overburdening myself and then snapping. So I was basically committing the same mistakes all over again, going around the same corner and repeating the same errors of judgement. I thought long and hard about it and decided that I needed to change my lifestyle and way of functioning.

And therefore, I am officially restarting this blog again. Albeit, in an all-new avatar. I hate using hackneyed phrases like these just as much as you, I assume, would be hating reading them, but just bear with me. Because, in this new and refurbished blog, I intended to once again, pour out all my feeling and thoughts and seek reflection and reassessment of my actions. However, the blog posts you will be seeing will be more in the stream-of-consciousness style and hence will not include me putting too much effort into correcting the grammar or the sentence structuring. Not that these will be completely ignored, but just that they wouldn't be my primary priority. My aim and intention in writing these blog posts will be to chronicle the events of my week, vent and remove from my system all the unnecessary information that I consume on a daily basis as well as my thoughts and opinions on them so that not only will the be committed from my system but the entire process of recording these events and the little lessons i learn from them be the guiding manual for me in my journey out of this capitalistic college.

One additional change that I will be bringing about is finally turning this blog into a non-anonymous piece. I feel like I have as a person and as a writer now reached a stage where I can write without giving much thought to what people who will be reading this will think of me. The main reason I had kept this anonymous was, I was afraid of my parents reading it and confronting me about things. Basically, I didn't like the idea of them knowing so much about what goes on in my mind and hence the conscious decision of not to reveal this to them.

The issue with blogging about one's life, and that too blogging so publically and regularly is that you have to gain an understanding of how much information you want to put out o record and what information you want to put out on record. I am thinking that maybe instead of this being a dear diary, I should probably make this a blog about the little stories and incidents that I have encountered in my life and as a part of law school. This way, I will not only get to record my thoughts and the events in my life, But I will also get to exercise my brain and keep on record these little events that one so often tends to forget with the passing of time.

Obviously, this is not going to be perfect in any sense whatsoever because perfecting is a myth. But I will try to take in all your comments and opinions about my style of writing in a positive stride and try to incorporate constructive criticism into my writing habits. But comments about the events I record or about the people in those events or the way I reacted to these events, will all be ignored outright and straight. Because that is not for me to worry or ponder over. Sure you may make those comments, but I will not be engaging with them in any form or manner. Now I realise that I may be a fool to even think that people living in this decade of instant gratification would even read my blog. But I really don't give a flying flamingo about how many readers this blog has or what the readers think of me or anything. Cause that isn't my shit to handle. Anyway, I am feeling very sleepy so I am going to go and leave this here for now.

[blahblahblaw18]

Reemergence

I never knew recovering from depression could also be an entire phase. It has been a tough few weeks and I do not know if I should blame myself for prostrating before the calamity or if I should laud myself for braving through it. I could have stood up and fought against it but I would have risked being killed by it. Somehow I seem to be nearing the end of the storm, the light seems to be within reach now... at this point, I can only wait here and pray that I have the strength to survive till this ordeal is finally over and that this ray of light does not turn out to be the eye of the storm.

As I reflect on what I could have done better, I realise the one thing that could have hastened the process of recovery and revival, would have been self-reflection. The past few months fled like clouds against a blue sky, and I stood and watched them with bated breath. I should have been more pensive, I should have tried to make out the different shapes in the clouds - the hawk, the cake, the knife, the birds, the unicorn - should have alighted one of these and seen where it would take me. Instead, I stood there, stood there like an obelisk barely even processing what was happening. Just standing there and eyeing everything and weathering under the storm. 

But now I am struggling. Struggling to break out of the trap. The stone is cracking and I am pushing myself out. I will emerge out of this stone trap. I will break free from this callousness and once again, I will find my ground, touch the grass, and feel the air, the sun and the rain. But even as I leave this stone, and break a trap that had also been my shelter, I will carry with me lessons in stoicism that kept me calm in the face of the calamity.

I survived, now I revive and soon I will resurrect. 

[blahblahblaw18]

Indian society needs to realise that times change and people change according to the situation. The changes in human behaviour in response to their changing circumstances are a part of the natural course of life and development. Those who remain stoical in the face of socio-cultural changes around them will never be able to achieve anything. They will remain stuck in the quick-sand of time until it slowly devours them. The right-minded individual will change and adapt herself according to the needs and demands of the changing circumstances and that is a mark of prudence. So essentially, it makes no sense to use phrases like "Oh you have changed a lot". Of course, I have changed! What were you expecting me to do? just remain there while the rest of the world progressed? No thank you. I'd rather adapt and move on, and embrace newer experiences and events even if it means running a risk of letting go of things I currently hold dear to myself in addition to a risk of failure. Because a failure that teaches me new lessons is always a superior experience to that of stagnancy, which is essentially no experience at all. A comfort zone, comfortable and secure as it may be, can also end up being a very dangerous thing that could essentially paralyse one's growth and development.

[blahblahblaw18]

Loneliness

(Where I live, 11th and 12th grades are referred to as college)

Have you ever related to a character on TV so much that you feel like you are living through them? I recently started watching The Office and fell in love with the one character, no points for guessing who. Michael Gary Scott. I love him for all the reasons that any ordinary office watcher might love him, he's silly, funny, goofy and caring but also at the same time very real (at least in the first few seasons) because of his flaws. But I, more than just love him. I relate to him. So many things he does involve situations that I can easily imagine finding myself in. But, by far, the most relatable aspect of Michael is his loneliness and his constant craving for attention.

Loneliness is... feeling like you are alone even when you are amidst a lot of people. Because you don't feel connected to them or you just don't know or share a relationship with them. I feel like a lot of people are lonely at some point in their life. But going through loneliness is a completely different thing. I see it as chronic suffering. When I was in school, I used to feel lonely sometimes. Like, when my friends weren't present that day in school. But loneliness, as a much deeper and eviscerating feeling, actually hit me when I had to leave school. Not during Summer or Winter Holidays but when I left school forever, never to return.

For the first time, I felt completely unmoored in life. For 12 long years, my school had been the home that even my own home wasn't, my friends had been the family that I had identified with and related to more than my own family. My teachers were no different from my parents. Just as caring, just as toxic. I had been to so many places in those 12 years, but I still did not know of a world beyond school gates. That is where I grew up and lived and matured more than anyplace else.

And naturally, when I had to bid goodbye to those homely classrooms, matronly staff, those trees under whose shade my shadow grew longer every year, the cosy pink walls and the inner gardens away from all the hullabaloo of the city and even the stinky toilets and gloomy labs, it was nothing short of traumatic. I hated it. And to rub salt over wounds, I was, against my likings, admitted to a college that none of my friends joined. It was completely different from the environment I had been used to till then. The students, the teachers, everything felt so different and unrelatable. My mother was the Principal in my college. She was right there the whole time. Someone who is my actual family was there with me the entire time and still, the place didn't feel like home. It didn't feel like my college. It remained, right from the first day till the very last, 'my mother's college that I also happened to go to'. The teachers were friendly, never scolded me. The students were courteous. But it all felt so fake and affected and I felt so suffocated.

Whenever I went to school, it never - not for one day or for one minute - felt like I was going to attend school, it always felt like I was going there to hang out with my friends, albeit, in front of a blackboard. Every day I'd wake up and look forward to school. But when I was in college, I would only wake up, every single day, and try to find reasons to not attend it. I hated it. It felt like there was nothing at all to be excited about anymore. I felt lonely and probably would have even slipped into depression if it hadn't been for table tennis.

That was in 11th. 12th was a completely different experience for me. I made friends but never felt comfortable with them. They didn't feel like family, they were just friends. Not even the best types. However, I was, for most of 12th, completely occupied with my preparations for CLAT. I was so immersed in it that I barely found time to even feel lonely, let alone go through loneliness. No doubt there were times when I felt like it would have been so much easier had my school friends been by my side, but I would quickly swerve my focus back to my studies. It was all eat-study-sleep. And I slowly got used to this new way of life.

And then the pandemic happened.

To be continued.

[blahblahblaw18]

"If you cannot be both it is better to be feared than loved but avoid being hated at all costs"

-Niccolo Machiavelli

[blahblahblaw18]

Questions for those who’ve lost their parents/ family/ near and dear ones early in life…

Do you start missing those people less and less as you grow older? Does having spent more years on earth without them, than with them, make them seem more distant and less significant in your life? As you grow older and experience newer events in life without their presence, which would've otherwise been a constant, do you ever catch yourself thinking about them, wondering if things would've been different if they hadn't left, the sombre party that life is, so early? Do you ever find yourself in a situation where your present, in their absence, seems pointless and you feel like you want to escape back to the past? Does your past beckon you? Do those days you spent crying over, wailing about, mourning and missing them, ever start feeling like they were a phase? New and many people enter your life, other people... people who never knew you before and who you never knew before and through them, you meet people who never knew the people who, until they passed away, were a part of your past. You start seeing some of these people more than the others and before you blink away that last teardrop from the corner of your eye, as you catch a fleeting glimpse of the people you've lost being returned to you in the form of the people you've gained, you realise that these new people who have taken over the responsibility of your happiness, your sorrows and your life have now occupied that chasm in your heart that, not many years ago, sitting in front of the lifeless body of the one, the only one, that you'd known to love, and grieving their passing away, you thought would never be filled. Do these people then, while helping you forget the blues of the past also dethrone those whose leaving had led you to those dark, blue, depressing times? Do you ever again look at yourself in the mirror and wonder how you, who had believed all those years ago, that there was no life without that one person who left you without preparing you for life in their absence, managed to live through it all? How often do you reminisce the memories of those around whom your life, until not many years ago, seemed to revolve and in whose presence your day would start and end? Do these memories fade away after a certain period of time? Do you feel guilty for moving on? Does one ever even get over death?

25.04.21

IL

[blahblahblaw18]

THE GOVERNMENT MUST TACKLE THE VIRUS FIRST IF IT WANTS TO SUCCESFULLY TACKLE THE ELECTIONS

It’s mid-summer, unseasonal rains lash parts of the country. But even the cool summer rains that otherwise bring a sense of tranquility and calm upon a scorched land are unable to douse the fire that has set the country ablaze. There is uncertainty everywhere, anxiety, replete in the air. Hospitals are inundated with cases of a virus whose unfatigued run; nothing seems to be able to screech to a halt.

It’s well past a year since the new term of coronavirus was introduced into the world’s lexicon and yet, the situation since, particularly in India, has only worsened with seemingly no end in sight. Numerous vaccines have been added into the armory (some without sufficient trials, for the extreme nature of the exigency demands so), more and more doctors deployed on COVID duty, as the country’s tenuous healthcare infrastructure is being stretched beyond its capacity in a desperate bid to prevail over, what seems like an invincible opponent, but to no avail.

People have been rendered helpless against the resurgence of a reinvigorated virus. The country- economically, mentally and physically drained by this elaborate and never-ending ordeal seems to have lost both the appetite and the ability to go into another lockdown, even as the scars from a previous draconian shutdown of the country are yet to heal. Students are unmoored about their academic future, laborers are anxious about the possibility of yet another lockdown, workers fear their livelihood being snatched away, parents are worried for the safety of their kids, the elderly worry if they’ll ever live to see the end of this curse that has befallen the entire humanity.

Somewhere a person puts out a cry for help on social media, begging for plasma donors. Yet another Instagram page is created to amplify the voices beseeching for an urgent requirement of a hospital bed, an oxygen cylinder whose supply there is a perpetual shortage of. One hospital is a witness to blatant theft of vaccine vials. Images of burial grounds lit up by funeral pyres, of hospitals assigning two people to a bed, of dead bodies being transported in garbage vans go viral over the internet.

Amidst all these efforts by the citizens to conquer the coronavirus, sits an inconsiderate government, unaffected by the problems that plague the very citizens it is supposed to protect, playing tunes of disharmony and divisive politics on its fiddle as Rome burns. A veil of religious and sectoral intolerance has been cast over the eyes of the common people to blind them from the truth of the people in power turning a blind eye towards their woes. Reaching target electoral numbers has become more important than reining in the coronavirus case numbers. Rallies upon rallies are held, hordes of people summoned, all in an effort to gaslight them into believing that everything in the country is hale and hearty, all thanks to the salvaging efforts of their respective parties in power. But not far away from the ‘maidaans’ where these rallies are held, where politically hued cries are blared out through loud speakers for everyone to hear, are hospitals, morgues and burial grounds echoing with the cries of those whose lives have been upended by an invisible enemy, but these troubled voices touch upon tone deaf ears. Neither the state nor the central government seems to give two hoots about the exponentially rising coronavirus cases. Sloppy, half hearted measures are being rolled in the name of coronavirus restrictions. And even these ill-timed and badly thought-out rules and regulations are enforced to the detriment of the general public and to the advantage of those wielding power. The double standards are glaringly visible in the instructions mandating even lone car drivers to wear masks while on road, while political rallies, road shows and religious congregations are allowed to take place unfettered and in full swing.

Those in power, however, seem to have forgotten that the public never forgets. Each and every citizen is living their worst nightmare in this trial of the century and every single instance of political inaction, apathy, and passivity during these turbulent times will be kept in mind and be accounted for. For, the power ultimately resides, not in the muscles of the rulers, but on the forefingers of the common people. yours,

I.L

Written on- Some day in March/ May 2021 ig. Basically, during the last few days of the second wave of covid.

References:

https://weather.com/en-IN/india/news/news/2021-04-15-kerala-tamil-nadu-in-for-heavy-rains-thunderstorms-from-april-15-17

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-reports-more-than-200000-new-covid-19-cases-first-time-2021-04-15/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.timesofindia.com/india/covid-19-indias-total-tally-crosses-1-56-crore-cases-more-than-2000-deaths-in-24-hours/amp_articleshow/82173838.cms

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/govt-to-waive-india-bridging-study-rule-to-allow-foreign-approved-vaccines-for-emergency-use-at-home-238551

https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/india-s-gdp-to-contract-8-in-fiscal-year-2021-says-ficci-survey-121012600607_1.html#:~:text=%C2%ABBack-,India's%20GDP%20to%20contract%208%25%20in,year%202021%2C%20says%20FICCI%20Survey&text=India's%20gross%20domestic%20product%20(GDP,of%20FICCI's%20Economic%20Outlook%20Survey.

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/320-doses-of-covaxin-stolen-from-jaipur-hospital-fir-lodged-7273936/

https://scroll.in/video/992354/watch-tin-walls-being-set-up-to-cover-view-of-lucknow-cremation-site-for-covid-19-victims

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lQ3eT5868U

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.indiatoday.in/amp/coronavirus-outbreak/story/chhattisgarh-health-workers-ferry-covid-dead-cremation-garbage-vans-1791156-2021-04-15

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/all-bengal-rallies-flouting-covid-19-norms-101618425712682.html

https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/karnataka/2021/apr/10/no-logic-behindnight-curfew-says-dks-2288171.html

https://www.livemint.com/news/india/mask-mandatory-even-if-a-person-is-driving-alone-says-delhi-high-court-11617773185976.html

https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2021/apr/14/political-rallies-religious-gatherings-super-spreaders-of-covid-19-national-technical-advisory-gro-2289965.html

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/super-spreader-erupts-devout-hindus-throng-indian-festival-2021-04-14/