Rehna Tu

When times get hectic, one rarely gets to think about, well may be not happier, but less hectic and more languid and idyllic times. In fact, one shouldn't be indulging in such sighing and dreaming anyway. Yet, like I mentioned before, all it takes is one song to trigger your memories.

Radio One in Bangalore, for all its flaws, used to play Rehna Tu from Delhi 6 very regularly. I recently listened to it and suddenly found myself missing traffic jams on Mysore Road (when the song would invariably play and ease my tension), Grissy, discussing the intricacies of Rahman's music and music in general with Vivek, Aishu, Bhavi, Shore, Asma, Gupta, Amber and hell, several other lovely people who let music and its moods dictate their lives more often than not. I missed the rush of sitting next to someone you barely knew in class and having a long winded discussion with him/ her about life, love, relationships and random philosophies feeling wonderfully refreshed later on. I missed the randomness and closeness that life at law school made one accustomed to. I missed sleepy 5th year evenings in Bangalore, Chetta Maggi and that Nora Roberts book which I freely admit I have read several times and really like. I even missed Radio One's 'Maximum Music, maximum choice' and Indigo's terrible yet catchy music. After some contemplation on where life had taken me, I pulled myself out of my reverie and pushed off to the library to study.

Rehna Tu is a lovely song which moves between the sad, romantic and other worldly. Its mellow pace contrasts beautifully with the anguish in Rahman's voice. And the Kamas (I think) bit at the end adds yet another layer of contrast and complexity, ending the song on this haunting and wistful note - you can't but sigh after listening to the song. Like all Rahman's songs, it is incredibly layered and complex and yet simple in its soulful message (as opposed to those monstrosities he created for Slumdog and Raavan). At any rate, the song seems to have become inextricably linked with my last few months in Bangalore, its mildness somehow suiting the mild pace and weather of the city.

I am not sure how to conclude this post now. The 'me' in law school would have sighed over the song for hours together while the 'me' in IIM rapidly shuts out these external influences and concentrates on the task at hand. In several ways, it is a very good development. And in some other ways, it is a little sad. I hope at the end of my two years here, while emerging as a smarter and stronger person (with quant skills!), I will be able to retain that appreciation and love for these things that have so moved me in the past. And well, I've already spent too my time over this entry - the library beckons!

Rehna tu, hai jaisa tu....

Flying

Written on 16th September:

I am sitting in the duty free area of Mumbai's interntional airport on my first alone-alone international trip. Cool no? Just recently, when I landed at the Bangalore airport, as I hurried to the baggage claim area with a delighted smile on my face, I caught a glimpse of the immigration counters and suddenly longed to go abroad. Not that domestic travel isn't stimulating - but every now and then you get that desire to go somewhere truly far away, with a completely different culture. (actually you can ge that in India. Ok ok, I'm a wannabe firang) And that wish actually came true. Of course its only to Singapore. You don't have the satisfaction of flying at least 8 hours and seeing full-full phoren people..but still you go through immigration and end up at duty free, so you kinda get a feel of the thing.

The que for the the shuttle to the international terminal in the swanky new Mumbai airport is very very long. I stood in it for at least 45 minutes and at one point attempted to get an auto to go to the terminal. The airport guards seemed to have prepared for such an eventuality though and prevented me from doing so. However, I wouldn't miss the shuttle ride in the night for anything. If you love planes, like I do, you will love this ride. The domestic and international terminals are sort of opposite each other and the shuttle skirts the runway while taking you to the international terminal. You see a sea of lights in every colour possible..blue, red, yellow, green...an expanse of black dotted with pinpoints of light. It is quite an amazing sight. And of course you get to see planes taking off and landing. In the dark, the wing to wing lighting of the plane actually makes it look like a disc shaped object - very UFO like. It was quite a surreal experience. The best part was seeing Boeing 747s and Airbus 340s in their hangars. You realise how big the place is when you see it parked in a plane shaped building, where you get to admire its awesome wingspan and marvel at how such a massive thing gets off the group. A note to my engineer friends - science is rather cool at times!

Right now, I am drinking beer at watching an incredibly bad movie at one the numerous bars in this airport. I have finished my first term at IIM A :)

This is what I wrote at the airport when I was rather high on two cans of draught beer. I ended up spending a lovely 4 days in Singapore and have come back to what promises to be an insane 3 months. Sigh, the too-short pleasures of a holiday.

Faff

Faff is the only constant thing. and I have moved from one faffy profession to the next. Not that these professions don't have anything to them. Faff is after all grounded in some facts. At least some. What is faff, some of you may ask? (given my recently expanded readership). Well:

Faff is the ability to talk obliquely and verbosely about a particular topic or point of contention so as to make the reader/ listener believe that the the writer/ speaker has thought about the above-mentioned topic or point of contention for a considerable amount of time and has formed coherent views on the matter; when in reality, the writer/ speaker is merely improvising by employing large words and considerable rhetoric to state her or his case.

In fact that is faff. Another example: "The current project will act in a timely fashion to increase our bottomline through top-line growth achieved by vertical intergration employed in a strategic manner". I will soon be issuing statements like this.

Faff is an awesome word.

When we first came into law school, 5 years seemed to be a tiny period compared to school - a mere 10 minutes if school was an hour. During the course of law school, through tough periods, projects, fights, sliming sessions etc etc 5 years suddenly seemed too long. We wanted to get out, get away, get somewhere. In the last trimester, with those 5 years coming to an end, it suddenly seemed like law school was too short again. Like 5 years of excellent fun just whizzed past without us even realising it; and us failing to appreciate it entirely while we were going through it.
Now at the end however, one overwhelming feeling remains - that 5 years are enough.

The theme's getting repetitive I know. Don't worry, this is the last one. Well, may be.

A cat, a cooler and a juicer

I walked down 80 feet road, Indiranagar yesterday (after being told by the bank that I was still a minor as per their records and that they did not recognise my signature for withdrawals from my account) and it was a walk down memory lane. There was Sugandha Gift Gallery where we used to buy birthday gifts (when we spent a 100 bucks on them). And Chung's Pavillion where several birthday treats were given. There was the turning into New Thippasandra (nothing new and swanky about it) and the Bakery where we used to go to eat after school. Nearly every street in Indiranagar and Airport Road itself is full of forgotten good times - Coffee Days, Karthik Sweets, Kanti Sweets, Corner Houses, Baristas, Kaati Zones, Bombay Houses, Daily Breads, Casa Picolas, Shanti Sagars - scenes from a life in Bangalore without Law School.

Yet, while I used to think that Law School had spoiled Bangalore for me in several ways (primarily because many people who came down didn't like it and told me things like 'Oh, you should definitely go to Casa Picola'. I mean, really!), I realise now that it has made Bangalore all the more real for me. Pubs, discs, out of the way hamlets, tiny teashops, street food carts, shady bars - all these are very much a part of Bangalore and but for Law School, I would have never discovered them(or discovered much later).

How can I leave a city so seeped in memories..which has defined me so completely and has left an indelible mark on me? And on which I have left my own mark? Yet, I feel no real sadness on leaving - more a sense of completion. Like I know my time here is done, and I am ok with not coming back for a while (at least till the metro construction is completed). And as I start life on my own finally, with the things mentioned in the title, I am satisfied knowing that I have got all I can from this city and can leave it knowing I can still come back to it and feel loved.

In the past one week, I have slept for a total of 10 to 12 hours. My legs and head ache. I have been drunk continuously for 5 nights, stayed up till 5 in the morning on two occassions. I have lost my voice, I don't think its ever coming back! I have sung for 8 hours straight, have danced without stopping for nearly for 6 hours till 4.30 in the morning, have driven nearly 60 kilometers in one day and have just about managed to eat one small meal a day. Right now I feel like I will never recover from the exhausted state I am in. Because this is Univ Week and it has been the best week I have ever had.

5 years ago I went for my first driving class.
Today I drove my sister in my car to her first driving class.

Time flies...

Yet, I when switch Star World, The Bold and the Beautiful is still running.

'Shuttling' through life

Don't worry, this is not another post on walks.

It was another one of those nights where I couldn't sleep, due to a combination of an uneasy mind and an overly lethargic yesterday (yesterday? It just feels like one long today) Hence, at around 6:15, I decided I was fighting a losing battle and chose to use my wakefulness constructively by going for a morning walk. Now this is a very big deal in law school (though I hear Hegde does it with ashtonishing regularity). Waking up in time for a walk is quite unheard of, as is the general inclination to drag oneself out of bed, wear tracks and shoes and go trundling about outside. It is however a lovely experience. I have managed 3 such walks in the pretty BU area (in the morning that is), including this one.

As I have mentioned before, summer mornings will always be special for me. Summer mornings were extremely important to my weight loss program, and I have already blogged about that here. This time however, watching ever eager parents rush their groggy kids to various summer camps in SAI, I was reminded of an earlier set of summer mornings which meant 'the badminton training camp'. This camp was quite a torture. Handpicked favourites of Murali Sir (yes I was one :P) were made to come to Indiranagar Club at 6 in the morning for what can only be described as a rather cruel way to fully wake you up.

First, we had to run around the entire club complex 5 times or so. I was always invariably out of shape when it came to these rounds and would pull up last, huffing and puffing. We then plunged into a series of warm up exercises. This would be followed by either shadow practice (an excruiciating specialised form of badminton traning which involves taking seemingly impossible leaps from one extreme end of the court to the other to improve your agility) or dodge ball (to train reflexes). The latter was always a lot of fun, but the former was quite terrible. Finally came the dreaded skipping. Ideally you were supposed to skip for 1000 counts (I kid you not). Then, mercifully were the stretches. This entire process took one hour and geared you up for your proper round of coaching later in the day.

These mornings were also about Rohan Castelino. He was what made the mornings worth it. First of all, he had an incredibly exotic name. Secondly, he was very good looking. And thirdly, he was a beautiful badminton player. He moved with natural grace and fluidity across the court, his leaps to smash the shuttle defied gravity - or at least they seemed to then. I remember when Murali Sir partnered him with me in one doubles game. I could barely hold the racket and blushed everytime he complimented a shot of mine. Badminton players have a certain arrogance and assuredness about themselves and Rohan Castelino epitomised this. He was the shining star of badminton in Karnataka at that point. I have no idea where he is now (and I hope he never reads this!) but he is possibly my ealiest real crush, even before I really knew proper crush was.

Badminton and me thus go back a long way and one of my biggest regrets is that I have not continued playing it regularly in college. Oh well, after I start work, or possibly in my new dry dwelling, I will start pursuing it once again. Coming back to today, after the walk, where I explored a fair bit of BU, my ipod appropriately playing Awaara Bhavre from Sapney, I went and saw the pups. They were in a psychotic mood and managed to undo my laces. They also tried and failed to tear my tracks (not for nothing are they Adidas), unlike Anwesha's lucky pajamas.

I went back and even had breakfast..complete with papaya and the morning paper! And now I am all showered and ready to...sleep! Nah not really, but sleep will come soon. A lovely morning though, I should do this more often. I might even try to sneak into the SAI badminton court and watch the Indian team training (like Aishu and I did once, after Spiritus). Until next time!