Vidha

I finally did something with my Sunday!  Couldn’t sleep all night so stayed up watching this pretty decent movie called ‘Le Grand Voyage’ and then went sight seeing early morning with my mum!

I was still up when my mum woke up and seeing that I wasn’t going to get any sleep for a while, we decided to take advantage of this time and do something we’ve been planning for a while. I’ve mentioned in a previous post about how I’ve always wanted to explore Delhi a bit more but I’ve never gotten around to doing it. Well today I did! Everyone’s seen the Red Fort, Qutub Minar and the other famous ones but the lesser known ones tend to go unnoticed even though they are just as interesting. I must have passed the Tughlaqabad Fort a hundred times, but I never really noticed it really. Mum had taken some Australian guests there recently so we decided we’d go there and explore it properly today.

It was 7 AM so there was no one else around when we arrived other than a few monkeys. Now one thing I forgot to mention was that the reason Mum was excited about going was that she’s recently discovered photography and fancies herself to be the next Prahlad Kakkar (he’s a photographer right? If not, think of any other famous photographer) To cut a long story short, I bought her a new Nokia phone sometime back with a pretty decent camera and since then she takes that thing everywhere she goes and takes photos of everything under the sun. Really. She’s managed to learn to use Flickr and some new Adobe photosharing thing and is planning to start a photoblog (Though sending a simple e-mail she needs us to do coz she ’can’t figure it out’ or so she says. I say its laziness, plain and simple.) So she wanted to take pictures, I wanted to explore. We were feeling pretty good about ourselves, fancying ourselves as adventuresses and all when we saw some monkeys outside the fort and mum decided to take some close up photos. We inched our way towards this one monkey and mum just began to take some photos when he decided he didn’t want to model for us anymore. He bared his teeth and starts to move threateningly towards us, making sounds that only be described as growling. I screamed, Mum decided it was a good photo opportunity. I had to push her out of there before he got some of his monkey friends to beat up the intruding tourists.

Anyway, we decided to begin with the mausoleum across the street so that the monkey would have time to get over his little hissy fit. It was pretty interesting. This old guide who happened to be there despite the unearthly hour showed us around and though I don’t know how much he really knew about the place and how much he was making up, it was still a pretty interesting visit. What I found amusing yet sad though was when he took us to this small grave that was set apart from the others and said it belonged to Ghias Ud Din Tughlaq’s dog. They’d always assumed it belonged to a child and thats what the guides had been telling all the tourists for years but recently they’d read in a tourist book that a foreigner had got with her, that it was really the grave of a dog. So basically the guides at the fort needed a tourist book to tell them about the fort, and there was little or no real research involved. Its sad how we have these amazing pieces of history everywhere in India but there is such little concern for them that foreigners have to come and tell us about their origin.

Anyway, after that we went back to the fort itself, with another guide this time. Kept a sharp lookout for the monkeys but according to the guide they’d retired to the nearing forest area by then coz of the heat. So mum was able to take as many photos as she wanted without disturbing the animals there who were really not very friendly. She must have chased countless parrots and monkeys but they all refused to pose properly for a good picture. Anyway, the fort itself was quite interesting. A lot of excavation is still going on and apparently the government is doing it in phases. Everytime they have some money to spare they resume the work, and when the money runs out, they stop mid way till some more comes in. Sad really. What was worse was that they are using pinkish cement to strengthen the existing structures and as a result the original colour of many of the buildings seems to have changed. I bet another 100 years later, people will think the fort was originally pink and have a perfectly good explanation about why it was built so. Like the the Tughlaks were very friendly with the Rajasthani kings and ordered it specially from Jaipur or something. Sheesh!

Anyway, it was a pretty good trip and well worth missing out on some sleep. The poor guide was being extremely nice to us coz he assumed that we were tourists from somewhere else and mum let him believe it. But when mum was taking some photos somewhere, he asked me where we were from, and I couldn’t make up anything at the spot so after some ‘hmm, kya, umm’ I said Delhi. He wasn’t as friendly after that which was not really fair! We should’ve put on a french accent, bet he would’ve thought us important then!

Anyway, gonna be doing this a lot more. I’ve been reading the City of Djinns and I want to visit every single place Dalyrymple talks about (except the eunuchs place actually). I should’ve been a historian or an archaeologist. If only you could get a bit more money out of it Would’ve been so much fun! I’ll probably do something like that once I’ve become a millionaire and retired by the age of 30. Till then these short trips and reading up will have to do I suppose! 

 Mum’s version 

I feel glum. Glum. I haven’t ever used that word before. Never seemed expressive enough. But today it describes exactly how I feel.

To make my glumness go away, I decided to read some blogs. Figured it’d take my mind off my own life. Didn’t help. Only made it worse. I stumbled upon this blog by a girl who seemed like someone I’d like in real life if I met her. You know how you sometimes see people that you know instantly that you’d like even though you’ve never spoken to them? Kindred souls. (Funny, everything I’ve been thinking recently seems to be connected to the Anne series. I blame Nidhi. She reminded me of them. I’m going to re-read them as soon as I finish The City of Djinns which is what I’m on right now ) She seemed like one.

But she seems to have been in a car accident recently. I have this weird fear of being in one. Well, anyone who has ever driven with me knows it isn’t weird. I’m not exactly a good driver. But still I do my best to be careful. See, I think if you read to much, you start imagining your life as a book. And in books, every time an accident happens the characters are always doing something totally innocuous like going out for a pleasant lunch, or going to pick up their kids from school or something, and all of a sudden something happens that changes their life forever. So basically I’ll be driving to work, and I’ll be thinking ‘Ok this is where that bit comes where something happens that’s gonna change my life- “She was just driving along the same road she drove along every morning, when all at once … “‘ etc etc. Something being an accident of course. Don’t get me wrong. I really like driving. It makes me feel very independent. But there’s always that voice running in my head. And reading about her experience is making it seem more real. It could happen to anyone, anytime.

Ugh. This really isn’t helping. I should stop reading. Now.

23 kids. Bad. 23 kids at the zoo. Even worse. Me with 23 kids at the zoo? Terrifying. But it happened. And I’ve lived to tell the tale. Surprisingly. (I’ve had a very boring day so I’m the mood for drama right now. Be warned)

Yesterday, we took the kids from Pankhudi to the zoo. 23 kids. 7 volunteers. Recipe for disaster you’d think right? But we actually pulled it off. I was so sure we’d lose a kid or two somewhere. Or at least misplace one. But we left with 23 and came back with 23. It was actually a lot of fun! Me and kids normally do not go together. I’m usually terrified of them. When I was younger, and people with kids would come over, I’d normally spend the evening in my bathroom so I wouldn’t have to come out and meet them. I used to have an emergency book and a walkman stashed away in my sock drawer for times like these. Seriously. I’ve become older now and too mature for such things. Now I just take the car and stay away the whole evening. There’s just something about them that scares me. I haven’t quite figured out what. I never know what to say to them. What are you meant to talk to them about? The weather?! I’ve tried that, it does not work. I’ve asked people that and they just look at me like I’m evil and then tell me to play with them. Play? Play?! I don’t do that. I never did when I was a kid, and I’m not going to do it now.

Anyway, I’m really off the subject here. I’ve even forgotten what my original point was. So we took the kids to the zoo. It was quite cool. They were so well behaved it was amazing. I’ve never seen them behave that well during class! In fact they got us thrown out of this small mandir we used to teach them in because they used to be so noisy. But it was like they’d been invaded by the body snatchers or something. They walked in line when they needed to. The older kids looked after the younger ones. They did not stick their hands inside the animals’ cages as I’d also been scared they might do. Of course, this one kid did manage to break her shoes as soon as we entered. But then it was expected of her. She’s one of this kids you can’t help liking (even when you aren’t a gushy cootchie coo-er of kids) but you want to shake her at least once every so often. She comes to study with extreme enthusiasm, but she refuses to learn anything new. I’ve been doing the numbers from 1-5 with her for the past 3 months now. Seriously. And I have the sneaking suspicion (you could call it paranoia) that she knows her numbers but just wants to see me tear my hair out just to see what I’d look like if I was totally bald. She’s about 5 and she can talk. Maybe that’s why I don’t mind her most of the time. You just have to sit there and listen till she’s done. Or till someone else has told her to shut up and get back to work. (I never have the heart to tell her to stop. She makes up such good stories.) So she breaks her shoes and then walks barefeet for a bit till she decides the sun is too hot and her feet are burning. So then we persuade this other kid who is wearing socks to take them off and give them to her. So everyone waits for 10 minutes while the exchange happens. 5 minutes later she’s decided she isn’t so hot after all and the socks aren’t comfortable. Another 10 minute halt till the other kid puts his socks back on and she’s back to being barefeet. Half an hour later her feet are burning again. This time another kid offers her his slippers which she wears for about 10 minutes. And it went on like that till we went home. Slipper exchanges aside, it was good.  

So yea, basically my point is we were exhausted by the end of it, and all we wanted to do was come home and fall straight into bed, but it was a good experience. They had fun. We had fun. No one got lost. No one cried or hurt themselves. The animals came out of it fine. A good time was had by all.   

Other than that, life’s kinda ho hum right now. Nothing exciting happening. Our frantic search for developers at SearchMyCampus aside. We’re getting all these really good projects that we want to work on but we need developers first. There are no good software developers left. In the world. Everyone who is somewhat available and requirement-matching, costs an arm and a leg. No really. If I could just learn PHP and MySQL and something called Ruby on Rails (which sounds really cool and makes me think of trains for some reason but is really just another techie term), I’d be richer than the queen. I read somewhere that India needs like 4 lakhs chartered accountants, but right now we have only 1.4 lakhs. Or was it crores? Millions? Ok I’m bad at remembering figures. But anyway, I bet if there are like 1.4 lakhs software developers we probably need 20 lakhs right now. Everyone’s looking for them! I really should’ve gone in for software engineering. Now I’m too old and my brain’s too rusty. I’ve been noticing actually that there is probably 1 female software developer for every 10 male developers. I can’t figure out why that it is. I think its been scientifically proved that women are smarter than men. It doesn’t require physical work so even us poor weak females can manage it. I don’t get it. Anyway, I’ve looked at a hundred resumes in the past few weeks. I can actually write one in my sleep now. No kidding. I dreamt about resumes last night. But no luck. If anyone reading this is a developer or knows one, call me now!

Speaking of women actually, I was quite proud of myself today. I was waiting to submit my form for a CA entrance exam in a very long queue and we’d neared the end when these 2 bozos think they’re too cool to wait so they decide to start their own mini line on the side. Next to the counter. They thought we didn’t notice that they were inching closer to the teeny tiny window slowly so that they’d get in next. I wasn’t going to have any of that! I told them off! Yup, me (I think the sun was doing things to my head. I wouldn’t have bothered normally) I got such a kick out of it. I should do it more often. These 2 guys behind me had been muttering about them but they didn’t have the guts to say anything. You should have seen the look of awe they gave me when I was done. It was so comical I wanted to laugh. But I was being the stern young woman then so I figured I wouldn’t spoil it.

Oh well, this is way too long already. I’m still trying to figure out what the point of this blog is. I’ve heard all these famous bloggers say that you need to have a common theme running through your blog to make it interesting. I’m kinda lacking that in my life right now, so it ain’t happening in my blog for sure. I don’t know why I blog or who I do it for. I just keep hoping it’ll hit me one day all of a sudden and I’ll have all the answers. I hope that about a lot of stuff. It better happen soon. Now would be good. Really.  

I met some old friends from university tonight. It was nice. Brought back memories. I’ve been thinking of college and Manchester quite a bit recently. All I could think of tonight was getting on a plane, getting to Manchester and then from there just taking a train to anywhere and just travelling! That’s something I miss a lot. Trains. Travelling. Most places in England are quite similar really, but still there is that little bit that’s always unique. I did that a while I was in college. Travel I mean. Anytime I thought life was getting slow, I’d just get on a train to anywhere and take the day off to explore.

I remember the first time I did it. I was in a really boring lecture and I was just thinking what a waste of time it was sitting there, not bothering to listen to the professor and making cartoon strips on my handouts. So I decided to get out of there. Went to the nearest computer cluster, checked the map, saw that Liverpool was the nearest city to Manchester, so I figured I’d go there. I loved the city. It seemed a lot bigger (though Manchester is actually bigger in terms of size and I think population) and far more cultured than Manchester (it’s meant to become Europe’s most cultured city this year I think) and it had far less people than London so you could really enjoy it without being shoved or trampled. I went to an art gallery, a museum, a public library, a Beatles museum, walked along the docks, tried out Spanish cuisine for the first time, just walked along the streets singing along with my iPod. It was brilliant. I felt so liberated. My friends called wondering where I was, and they all thought I was mad for going off alone. Almost everyone said I should’ve asked them to come along, and they would’ve. But well those kinda plans never seem to work out so I’m glad I didn’t!

I loved the museums and stuff coz in Delhi though I have so many people to go with, everyone’s seriously into art or whatever so they spend hours in front of each painting which bores me. My friends in Manchester were the opposite (I dragged one to an art gallery in Manchester and he spent the whole time playing with the Macbook they had for the catalogue) so I never really went. In the art gallery here, I looked only at the stuff that interested me. I loved reading about the story behind paintings and sculptures more than actually looking at them. It was good. I didn’t have to stay for 2 hours just to prove I was ‘cultured’. I stayed for half an hour, enjoyed every bit of it, then went on to the next thing. It was a pretty great day.

Of course, that didn’t always work out very well either. Once, I was in Manchester for the summer doing an internship, and since all my friends had gone home I used to be all alone over the weekends so I’d go travelling. I decided I should see an English village, coz I’d heard so much about how beautiful and quaint they were. I checked some out online and picked one that seemed to be straight out of an Enid Blyton book. I wasn’t quite sure how to get there, so I took a train to the nearest town and figured I’d find my way to the village once I got there. But the problem was, I’d kind of forgotten it was a Sunday and half of Great Britain seems to be closed then so getting to the village was gonna be tricky. Half the people had never even heard of it, so that didn’t make it any easier.

Finally I found a cabbie who knew it, and said he’ll take me. The journey took forever and my eyes were glued to the fare meter the whole time. It was going surprisingly fast and before I knew it, I owed the man more than 30 pounds. I was pretty freaked. I figured I’d better really enjoy the place if I’m paying that much just for a one way cab. He asked where I wanted get off once we got there, and I had no clue, so I just told him to drop me anywhere he felt like. He gave me a strange look, told me to call him when I was done coz you couldn’t get a cab in the village, and drove off. I was standing in the middle of this narrow lane and as far as I could see there didn’t seem to be anyone in the entire freaking village. It had narrow winding lanes just like in the books. Cats sunning themselves. Beautiful flowers. Cows. Hens. Dogs. No people. It was bizarre. I walked a bit further and to the village church. That’s when it occured to me. It was a Sunday morning so everyone was at church. The entire village. 2 years in Manchester and I’d never seen anyone go to church and here this entire village was deserted coz it was Sunday. Bit relieved at not being stuck in some weird time dimension as I’d started to imagine, I decided to take the grand tour. Took me all of 5 minutes to realize that was it. There were some picturesque houses, farmyard animals, one village pub, one grocery shop and one little shop selling curios that looked about 100 years old. Oh ya and the church of course. I’d fondly imagined myself getting excited about all of these when I read about it online, but turns out I’m somewhat of a philistine. They didn’t do anything for me and watching a butterfly sit on the same flower for 5 minutes got old real fast no matter how pretty it was. Took some half hearted photos to prove I’d been there. Walked around the graveyard in the church reading the tombstones of the people, which was actually interesting. I’d always wanted to do that after reading Anne of Windy Willows when I was a kid. But after that I was bored. The cab driver wouldn’t even have reached the town yet, so I couldn’t call him to pick me up. Especially since the 30 pounds was still weighing heavily on my chest. Went to the village pub. Ordered some horrible pub food which was served by some very nice people. Actually that is true about every pub in Great Britain I think. Awful pub food, extremely friendly staff. That’s probably why people spend half their waking hours there.That and the booze of course :). 

Anyway, back to the day at the village. Sat there and read a book I was smart enough to carry with me while I ate those awful potatoes with the friendly woman behind the bar beaming at me. Oh ya, when I told her I was vegetarian, she said they weren’t serving anything vegetarian that day but she had potatoes left over from 2 days ago that she’d heat up specially for me. She wouldn’t take no for an answer so I had to take them and force them down my throat everytime she looked in my direction. Anyway to cut a long story short (bit late for that actually) I finally called the cab guy to pick me up. Told him I’d gone to visit a friend from university who lived there and I’d had a lovely time (I’m pretty good at making up fibs though people don’t always believe that looking at me). Paid another 30 pounds for the ride back to the town and then walked around there for a bit hoping to salvage whatever was left of that trip. Seemed like the Gods were really not pleased with me that day. The town was extremely seedy with absolutely nothing of interest to see. Ended up waiting at the little box they called a station for an hour till I could get the next train back. All said and done, it was an experience. 

So coming back to my original point. I had a lot of such experiences. A trip to Doncaster which I chose to visit because the name sounded interesting proved to be almost as bad, though I had company for that one which helped. But I miss that. I have big plans of taking a few months off and visiting all these countries that I’ve never been to, but sometimes I’m afraid they’ll just be plans and nothing more. Guess its a good thing I did all I could in my 3 years of college.

I am so tired right now that my brain hurts. I can actually feel exactly where my brain is in my head, and it hurts. I’ve been thinking, maybe thats why. I try to avoid thinking too much. I don’t like obsessing over things. My thought process tends to run along the lines of ‘What if we could somehow extract the memories of trees on the roadside and view it as a video. We’d be able to see so many decades of history with the real characters instead of having it enacted by people wearing socks on their head. (Wait that didn’t come out right. I was referring to the characters from Krishna, Ramayana, Chanakya etc, who used to play the role of brahmins. I’ve always found that extremely weird. The guy from Krishna? You could almost see his hair through the sock!). That would be so cool.’ People find that bizarre, but to me thats normal. 

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about a lot of things. Working with SearchMyCampus for instance. My life has changed so much since I joined it. I was the last person you’d imagine working for a start up. I’ve always been fairly conservative and you’d imagine me going in for a boring accounting job. Which is something I also do actually. Well, finance not accounting. But the rest of the time I do this and I really enjoy it. Ever since I finished university I was scared I would be drawn into the rat race and lose any individuality I had left. I’d follow the traditional route like I have been doing all through school and college, and become one of those people who aren’t happy, just content. For a while that did happen, but then quite by accident I decided to work here for a few hours every week just to get some variety in my life. Well, its almost 6 months later, and I work here quite a bit more than a few hours a week. My mum read a piece of news that said thieves used GPS navigation devices to track where lived people since they’d use the device to go there most often. I’d just bought myself one coz I have a horrible sense of direction (nothing to do with my being a girl I might add. I just don’t have the required chip in my brain!) so she was afraid that could happen to me. My sister told her not to worry coz any thief that did get hold of mine would just follow it to the SearchMyCampus office since I spent most of my time there anyway. That or Costa. Bit cheeky I thought but well somewhat true.

I think what I love about working with a start up is the level of passion that is involved. In most places you find people who are just working because they need the money. They do what is expected of them from 9-5 and then get out of the office without a second thought about what they did. I was reading a blog written by someone managing a start up and he said he wished he could be like that. Work for a limited period, and then not think about it again till the next day. Unfortunately that wasn’t him, and I’m finding it isn’t for me either. I need to be passionate about what I do. I need to enjoy the 8-10 hours I work and I need to work with people who enjoy it just as much as I do.

It isn’t always easy. There is always a lot of uncertainty involved; so many great ideas have died out even before they started and there isn’t always a reason for that. Patience is something you need a lot of. There is plenty of work to be done and results aren’t always immediately visible. Relatives think you’re mad for not working for a big investment bank like so and so’s daughter is doing. And the money isn’t always good, at least not in the beginning so some kind of financial backing is a must! But then there’s the job satisfaction. There’s the immense amount of learning involved, not only about one particular area of work, but everything needed to establish a business. Even in just 5 months, I’ve developed so many skills that I never thought I could. Of course me being me, it has also brought to light a lot of insecurities that I never knew I had, but guess that just gives me a chance to get over them.

I think what I really like is how you learn as a team. There’s no one person who has all the answers. Everyone’s learning. And more often than not, the ideas that start ups seem to be based on are relatively new anyway, so a lot of exploration and learning is involved.

The number of new ideas that are developing in India is just amazing. Just yesterday I came across this website called Sadakmap.com that creates maps which individuals or groups can edit to add locations and related information. You have communities based on maps. For instance, I joined a group called Indian Startups where you add the location of your start up to a map along with some basic information about it so it is easy for other people to locate you in case what they’re interested in is a start up. I thought that was quite cool and has a lot of potential for becoming very useful.

One idea gives birth to another which leads to another and so on. The creation of start ups leads to the need for ventures like Proto.in which serves the needs of these start ups by promoting them and offering them links to other people or companies to exchange ideas and resources. This ensures that more of such companies can survive the initial rough stages before they can establish themselves. The innovation doesn’t end here. Start ups require low cost means of advertising with leads to innovation in marketing such as the use of blogs, social networking websites etc. And it goes on.

Another thing I really like about working in this kind of a venture is the open exchange of ideas and information involved. People realize that you can’t really hide your ideas from the world, coz otherwise someone else will just think of it before you can act on it. It makes more sense to share it and get some help in creating value out of it. Unlike most other industries ( couldn’t think of a better word) people from start ups tend to be quite open about discussing their ideas and collaborating even with their competitors to achieve common goals. Makes a lot of sense to me! 

All in all it’s a good way of life. You meet all sorts of interesting people, you learn new stuff, you get to use terms like ‘funding’ and ‘VCs’, and Linked In becomes more important than Hotmail. I’ve even gotten over the urge to run back to university immediately so guess something’s going right somewhere. Maybe I will be able to stay Vidha after all instead of becoming 1 among thousands of other people all chasing money, stuck in meaningless jobs. Hmm. Thats a nice thought.   

P.S: Today, I went to this chinese restaurant for lunch coz I needed some alone time, and the waiter brought me a little live goldfish swimming in a bowl to keep me company while I had my food and caught up on some work! I thought that was a bit bizarre but sweet. None of the other tables had those so I don’t know where he got it from and maybe I don’t want to know. Oh and the only other person in the restaurant was Shiney Ahuja. I’m not a big fan or anything just thought it was worth a mention!

• We think working from 3 PM to 6 AM makes a lot more sense than working from 9-5.
• We think Web 2.0 can save the world.
• We have all at one time or another imagined our lives as a series of code.
• We’ve managed to convert the most uptight financial executives into techie geeks.
• We promise we will never ask you to wear a suit to work.
• Red Bull is our best friend
• We work out of a basement and have learnt to live with bugs and rodents of all kinds (We’re kidding! Come back!)

We need other brilliant (read crazy) people like us to join SearchMyCampus.com

SearchMyCampus.com is an online classifieds portal for college students in India. We’re convinced that it can change the life of students everywhere and we’re looking for other people who feel the same way. 

If you’re a developer with a little bit of experience and technical know-how, and you think you can take this website to places we haven’t even begun to think of, we need you! Mail me at vidhaj@searchmycampus.com for more details.

I did something I swore I’d never do. I turned 22. How does it feel you ask? Old. Sure physically it ain’t that different from 21 (actually the 3 cakes I had in one day might disagree), but in my head it feels like I’m entering new territory. Feels as though I really have to get serious now, and thinking about university and dreaming of being a student again just won’t do. Scary! Course, I did have a pretty great birthday so thats something I can’t complain about. Met a lot of old friends, got a surprise gift from someone umm special, had a pretty crazy night out after a very long time. Good memories!

The weekend was pretty interesting too. Went to Mumbai for a little mini break and got to attend BarCamp Mumbai! It was pretty great. Until 6 months I didn’t know what a start up was and I wouldn’t have believed anyone who would’ve told me such things were so big in India. My main reason for wanting to go to the event was their BlogCamp. I’ve been going through a LOT of blogs recently, and I’m just beginning to realize the immense potential they hold to change mass media as we know it. But I found myself just as interested in sessions about social media marketing, technology, start ups etc.! Me! I have always thought of myself as being rather technologically challenged (learning to use Bluetooth on my phone was a very big deal for me), and finding myself interested in software and websites was a strange feeling! I was also quite proud of myself; I went up and spoke to quite a few people there about SearchMyCampus, and most of them were interested in listening to what I had to say! That does not happen very often in the life of Vidha Jain. The people there were pretty cool really. Everyone was fairly young, very passionate about their work, and quite unique. I’m definitely going for the one in Delhi in May!

SearchMyCampus has been pretty crazy this week. We’re desperately in need of developers so if anyone’s interested gimme a shout. I’ve created profiles for myself on LinkedIn, Techtribe and even Twitter just so I can meet more start-uppy people, lets hope I get some results! We had an article published about us in the Education Times last week, and Sundar, a blogger from NITT published an interview about us on his blog, which is pretty cool. We also had some guys from this new channel-Newsx interview us last week, but we never got to see it on air so I’ve no idea how that went! Other than that we’re just gearing up for fresher admissions so things have been hectic.

I got a lot of books for my birthday this year which I always love. I’ve started this one called Things I Want My Daughters to know by Elizabeth Noble. My mum gave it to me (along with this book called Feminism in India which I love her for :d ) and its been alright so far. Not very well written, poor use of language and grammar, and not the most original story, but its interesting enough. I’ll read anything pretty much, and coz this book is set in the UK, I get silly thrills everytime they talk about shops I know or places I’ve visited. Silly I know, but I miss the UK! 

I really should update more often, there’s too much to catch up on in one post otherwise. I haven’t even begun on the slum clean up drive that we’re planning with Pankhudi in May, that I’m really excited about but we’ll leave that for a later post. Incidentally, I’ve been getting to know some of the volunteers from other chapters lately, and they’re all pretty fun! Oh well, gotta go update the team blog now. Catch ya later!  

I’ve become the Holi Scrooge I used to be so excited about festivals earlier, and now I can’t wait for them to be over so life can come back to normal. I don’t like it. I wanna be 12 again when Holi was like the 2nd most fun day in the year (after my birthday of course. No one gives you Holi presents!). I used to look forward to it for months! Once when I was about 10 or something, it was really cold and all my friends were sick so we weren’t allowed to play outside. My sister and I just played by ourselves with hot water and colours and we had a blast. (That sounds a bit sad, but it wasn’t really. Honest!)

Even during university actually, it was so good! We used to go to this temple that let us play Holi in their courtyard. Everyone from university plus a lot of the local Indian families used to be there. Not just Indians in fact, there were always lots of Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, even English people and it was so much fun. It’d be freezing cold so everyone would be wearing jackets (well at least I always did anyway) and we’d have a bonfire in the corner where people would be warming their blue hands. Someone would get loud music and people would be dancing and throwing colour and water balloons at each other. We’d all buy these plastic water pistols that they’d specially order from India but they’d almost never work. It was brilliant.

The best part would be when it was time to go home because once the excitement was over, the cold would really begin to set in. Everyone would be dripping with water, coloured from head to toe, and everyone on the street would stare. We’d beg bus drivers to let us on their bus. Once, this driver refused to let us on coz apparently his ‘other’ passengers wouldn’t like it. These English people we didn’t know who’d got on already argued with him saying that it wasn’t fair of him to refuse anyone and when he wouldn’t agree, they got off in protest. That felt so good, and it made me wonder if I’d ever do that for someone else. Somehow I didn’t think so. Anyway, the next bus wasn’t due for half an hour, and we were just beginning to lose all sensation in our arms and legs when this Indian cab driver agreed to drop us home. That was pretty nice of him coz while we could’ve just stood in the bus and not messed anything up, the cab would definitely get dirty if we sat in it, but the driver didn’t mind. He dropped us right home and didn’t say a word about the mess. Really reaffirms your faith in humanity I tell you.

Oh and the year before that, we decided to walk home part of the way, and we were just standing around posing for a million photos, screaming, laughing, being Indian, when this scruffy looking English guy comes along and starts talking to us about Holi and Hinduism and Indian culture in general. We’re really impressed that he knows so much about Indians when he goes- ‘Seeing that it’s your festival and all, be kind to a fella and give me some money to buy a ticket to London.’ Yup, he figured he’d chat us up for a bit rather than ask us for the money directly. Just goes to show India ain’t the only place where the beggars are smart. (Actually I take that back. He was trying to get money out of students. Indian students. Not the brightest idea.)

Anyway, all this reminiscing has made me feel even worse so I’ll go find someone to take out my lousy mood on. Or I could just go to sleep and try not to wake up till after Holi’s over. I really don’t like festivals. Or birthdays. Or Mondays.

 P.S: I just realized that I didn’t mention that I studied at the University of Manchester, hence the stories about English people and cab drivers and buses.

Something was brewing. Nobby stroked the blackened edges of the cauldron lovingly as the liquid inside bubbled. He could almost see his own reflection staring back at him. They were coming, and he would be ready. Only a little while longer now.

P.S: SearchMyCampus. Advertise now! Thank you, please come again 

The old house was deathly silent. Nothing could be heard but the ceaseless ‘drip drip drip’ of a leaking tap. Nobby shivered with impatience. He was waiting. He could sense change. Suddenly he rubbed his bony hands in glee and cackled. They were coming. He could hear them. They were coming, the new semester was going to begin and they were all his. ‘Freshers!’ he screeched. Poor stupid, naive freshers!They would be ALL his.

P.S: SearchMyCampus.com really needs people to advertise on our site so if anyone’s interested, mail me and I’ll tell you why its the best idea for you to do so!