Nescience

It is only when I open Google Photos & it reminds of what I was doing this time last year, I realise how much time has passed. The summer has come & gone and the rain is back, and with it the promise of more.  Looking at Google photos of what happened before is a mixed bag - it is what I imagine a bag of Bertie Bott's every flavoured beans would taste like. Some pictures bring back memories - clambering on the rocks near the sea, so close you can taste the salt on your tongue; clammy air and the faint sound of drunk second years in the background as you look up at the stars in the amphi; the cold air and the turbulence as the Himalayas shine below; the smell of chakli and chiwada in the air and glow of earthen lamps.  Some pictures tease you about how much has changed since. It is all about missed opportunities and roads you took. I like seeing those too - they are the ones that remind me that the reality of today is better than the dream of yesterday. I think of all t...

I am a part of a tribe. In this post MBA-catalytic world, where the reality has finally smacked all of us in our faces and shown us how empty we actually are, my tribe flourishes. We wear expensive clothes because we can afford it. We drink at pricey pubs and long for the days when all we could afford was old monk with a twist of lime. We brunch and reminisce about the tapri wali chai. We take cabs from Andheri to Chembur because comfort is important and in that hellhole of a ride, we make power-fucking-point presentations. We live in dreams and the reality keeps killing us. We all think we are special. Even our dreams are the same. We long to quit our jobs and pick up a backpack and travel across the world. Find answers to the emptiness inside. Yawn. All conversations are the same. 'Bro, how is your job?' 'It's shit dude, what about yours?' 'It sucks.' 'Yeah, tell me about it.' Why is everything so meaningless? So repetitive? If ...

This June, I completed four years in Mumbai. Bombay. I was astounded - it couldn't be, I told myself. It couldn't be that I had been away from home, from Pune, for four years and I could still be this...restful. I no longer haunt the tree-lined bylanes of Fergusson College road, no longer sit on the steps of the cake shop drinking pathetic coffee spewed by an angry machine, and I no longer beat the dhol when the skies darken and the cries of Ganapati Bappa Morya echo through the streets. I don't write as much anymore, and I don't read as much I used to. I don't dream that wildly nor do I make tall statements that have no basis in reality other than  my fervent desire to make them come true. I am not that person anymore.  I am a Bombay person now. I carry an umbrella everywhere, I have m indicator on my phone, and I time my life not by hours, but by minutes. I stay in a rented flat with walls that are white and clean, and the only hint of my ...

I am now a part of those who are gainfully employed. I have joined the ranks of the 9 am to 6 p crowd. I am now one of those women wearing inappropriate footwear in Mumbai rains and expensive jackets that serve vanity more than utility. I am now one of those women who talk about the targets for the year and clip clop around the office in dangerous heels. I am one of those women who lug a laptop bag everywhere and give presentations in slick meeting rooms. I am all that and hope to be more. This transition to corporate did not feel like a shock - four fieldworks have ensured that. Rather it feels like slipping into old shoes that I had stopped wearing (why these shoe metaphors today, I wonder).  But that does not mean I do not miss TISS campus. I crave the green lattice on damp roads, the steel tables and the smell of hot tea in the DM canteen, the rain drenched amphitheater, and the smell of cold rain on hot soil.  But in the past weeks, I have sat thro...

Have you met Gudetama yet? He's the lazy egg. Say hello. He probably won't say anything back, he's lazy that way so I totally understand. He spends his time being fried, boiled, cut and made to suffer other indignities, but he always prevails and returns to spread the noble message of indolence. He clutches to a strip of bacon as a blanket, is always tired and his past-time is lying tiredly. I totally get him. I love him. Thank you, Mohita for the introduction. You may now call yourself the duenna of matchmaking business.

Struggle is eternal. Don't roll you eyes. Don't scoff at me. If my twenty-three years (yes that many now) on this planet have taught me anything, it is that struggle is eternal. The knowledge for the struggle of existence is innate. For Darwin, struggle for existence was the basis of natural selection. The war of nature is a reality. I prey on you, you prey on him, he preys on her. This is not a lesson in pronouns; it's the truth. Juxtaposed on theory of literature, this finds four forms: A. Character versus Character Ex. Pooja versus Sonakshi (bwhahahahahah) B. Character versus Society Ex. Pooja versus Middle class Morality (I am a heroine don't you know!) C. Character versus Nature Ex. Pooja versus Mumbai Rains (especially when she wears inappropriately expensive footwear to fieldwork) D.Character versus Self Ex. Pooja versus her pet demons. There you go.

A bead of sweat rolls down my forehead, even as the AC is running at full blast. My legs throb with a dull pain - I have been standing for four hours now. A lady in red approaches me - she sees me smile, she sees the glint in my eyes, and she tries to side step me, but it's too late, I'm already in the fray. "Hello, good afternoon! Would you like to taste Lipton Ice Tea?" She gives in. After a small spiel, and a five minute discussion about Mumbai weather, she is on her way with two packs of Lipton Ice Tea in her cart, and I am closer to my goal of the day. This is Modern Trade Blitzkrieg, and like me, there are several interns, and managers in the market, working side by side with the field forces that drive the monolith that is HUL.  I am almost at the end of my two month stint in Hindustan Unilever. My days might seem to follow the same set pattern - hurried breakfast at the 'Wadala Sheraton' (an affectionate, slightly derisive nickname fo...

March drives me crazy. I've written about it before. ( http://thesilkenthreadofnescience.blogspot.in/2012/03/march-madness.html) And yet the specter of March continues to haunt me. How can it not, though? The sky above makes me want to be a cloud, and the soft wind of the night brings with it a pleasurable chill. But here am I, reading one research paper after another, waiting for the exams. Curse of the student life strikes again. Another March gone. I still feel that restlessness in my soul, the hunger that very few things in the world can quench. As this month will recede into the next, I'll be looking forward to something else. My internship. Maybe March is just a harbinger. That's why it brings out that madness in us. It's everywhere - in the water, in the air. Say, can't you just smell the anticipation?

There are days like these. There are days when life is passing you by. Things are happening to you. You are the froth on a raging wave, helpless and tiny, and nothing you can do will change your course. The only thing you do is persevere. Life is passing you by. You are the sidekick now. A sidetrack, a comic relief in you own sitcom, you don't know where the star is, and hollow disembodied laughter follows your every action. You peer into the darkness. To no avail. Days like these, when time passes you by. You are waiting. Still waiting. But the darkness is closing. You are Valdimir and Estragon that's why you are waiting.  But don't you know? He's never coming. 

Mumbai baffles me. A lot has been written about it. Songs have been sung, films have been made, stories have been told. For me, Mumbai has not quite been the city of dreams. But it has given me something else - hope. I came to Mumbai in June 2015, with a heavy suitcase containing all my material posessions, and a heart heavy with dread and anticipation. My love for this city blows hot and cold, but it's not that fiery obsession that would consume my soul - that honour is reserved solely for my beloved Pune. My self is torn between these two places, which are for all accounts as dissimilar as chalk and cheese, but are similar only in my regard for them. One is my 'janmabhoomi'. The other, in all probability shall become my 'karmabhoomi',  In a few days, this year will end. This year, that turned my life upside down. This year which closed some chapters in my life, and started some new ones. This year taught me that dawn comes after the darkest hour, that the...

The last session of Arbhaat Short Film Club was nothing short of memorable. As I prepared to leave the house, I began thinking of all the films I had seen, some that I had missed, and a few that I wish I had missed. We are all familiar with death. For many years, I existed in a happy bubble where death only called upon others and loss was unknown. It was just a fact of life - something I knew I would have to deal with eventually, but sometime in the distant future. It all changed, as things inevitably do. Death was no longer impersonal, and it never receded into the background again. If I could describe Rajesh S. Jala's documentary, 'Children of Pyre', in one world, it would be 'unsettling'. Many movies force us to face our own mortality - the good ones allow us to come to terms with it in one way or the other. 'Children of Pyre' tears down those blinkers by focusing on the life of seven children who work at the Manikarnika Ghat, in Varanasi. Loc...

Having missed the last two sessions of Arbhaat, I was quite eager to head over to NFAI last Thursday. The theme was 'Sound and music'. I have begun to love the first Thursday of every month. It is a much welcome break from the monotony, and to some extent, decides what I will be immersed in the rest of the month. In almost every session I have been struck by some of the films that are screened - so poignant, so simple yet of such breathtaking complexity, films that tell the truth and the films that lie almost lovingly.  I do not claim a deeper understanding of this visual medium - indeed, it is words that I string around myself - but over the past year, I have come to realize the advantages and shortcomings of both the media. I cannot ever forget Telephone, a film by Shabnam Chopra, which had been screened at the 9th session. Based on a short story by Gabriel García Márquez, the film was a psychological thriller which held me spellbound and terrified me to my very core. When...

The 8th session of Arbhaat Short film club took place on the 7th. The theme was 'Gender' . Even though I had received the programme note beforehand, I had not had the time to go through it. So when I turned up at NFAI, I had my own preconceived notions about what type of films might be screened. Gender - the very word evokes a dichotomy - male and female, man and woman. I was expecting something on these very lines - gender discrimination, female foeticide or violence on women, maybe. I had even wondered about the gender roles in India, juxtaposed against that in the rest of the world. But the films were entirely different, and delightfully so. Instead of taking on these issues, which nonetheless important, the films touched a different range of issues altogether, which, though concerned intimately with the theme of gender, are hardly at the forefront of discussions on it. But before, a short film on the life of Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar was shown. It was a go...

  My Doodle recipe is a part of Easy Doodle Recipe contest at BlogAdda.com in association with TastyKhana.com

I had so much fun drawing the first doodle, that I finally succumbed to the urge and made this. My Doodle recipe is a part of Easy Doodle Recipe contest at BlogAdda.com in association with TastyKhana.com

Aaditee taught me how to make cake in a cup. Here is the recipe: My Doodle recipe is a part of Easy Doodle Recipe contest at BlogAdda.com in association with TastyKhana.com

After a lukewarm 6th screening, I was looking forward to the 6th screening, hoping that the theme would be more cohesive this time. Though there was no single theme this time, the films themselves were quite good. Some of my favourites: Beyond the window Israel, 2011 Chen Shumowitz One of my favourite films so far. Yoni and Shira, two young girls, are seen kissing through the window of the family home by Yoni's mother. She is quite upset, but her turmoil is nothing compared to Yoni and Shira's trepidation. Yoni is reluctant to go home, because she is sure that her mother is going to berate her, possibly beat her. Yoni is not sure of how her mother will react, but she is sure that her mother is going to be very angry. This drives a wedge of sort between the two girls. But when Yoni does go home, her mother does not refer to the incident at all. In a tenuous silence, she serves Yoni dinner, and the two women sit side by side, their brittle smiles identical, making an eff...

On the fourth screening of Arbhaat, the theme was Rebel. Instead of putting in the program as I usually do, I will stick to the films I loved the most. Vitthal India, 2009 Director: Vinoo Choliparambil Length: 24 minutes Vitthal is angry. His grandfather has passed away, and being the eldest grandson, he has been forced to shave his head. His anger is the focal point of the film. The reactions, those of Vitthal and the rest of the characters, stem from this rage. A delightful film that will first leave you numb, then sympathetic, but angry. You want to admonish Vitthal for his thoughtlessness, but you know that he is suffering. You want to protect him from the world, but you know that it would be wrong. You want to wrap him up in cotton wool and expose him to harsh realities of the world. This conflict regarding the main character drives the movie effectively. We have been Vitthal - petulant, hurting, sad and lonely, even in the crowds.

Arbhaat Short Film club had its third screening on 27th June. I was initially hesitant to go - the sky was leaden, overcast and torrential downpour seemed imminent. The weather, however cooperated and I found myself in the NFAI auditorium at 6:30. The theme of this session was 'cityscapes'. I have often thought that cities have personalities . First was a set of 3 movies, black and white and shot in the years, 1956, 1958 and 1959 respectively. Warsaw '56 Poland, 1956 Director: Jerzy Bossak, Jaroslaw Brzozowski Length: 7 minutes I loved this film. Truly. There is a poignancy in the narration and the images of the film that I cannot forget. After the bombing in Warsaw, Poland, buildings are still in ruins. But people continue to inhabit these dangerous places, making it their own. A mother is happy because her child cannot yet walk - a small topple can be dangerous here. The building has precipices, treacherous ledges. The women resort to tying their children to ...

My summer has not been uneventful. I have been reading books, which is like living decades in a few hours and I have been interning at a new start-up The Wander Girls . I am a content intern, so I basically write travelogues and stuff. What I like about The Wander Girls is that - a)The name - pretty self explanatory. Girls that wander. Hah. b)It is a women-only travel based company. They arrange trips and mixers for women. This is a part of the tourism industry that is not much developed. Women need escape from their lives every now and then. They have to get out of that kitchen and leave the washing in the machine. They shouldn't need to worry if the milk boils over or the dog pees in the middle of the drawing room. They needn't hear the litany of work related and study-related problems from their husbands and children. They need to escape from their surly bosses who are grumpy every single day for no reason. And The Wander Girls provide this opportunity. Here is to The W...