Cogito Ergo Sum

"Kahin pe pahunchne ke liye kahin se nikalna bahut zaroori hota hai!" This line from a modern Bollywood classic, Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani, has of late become a cliché in the world of Social Media. But, clichés exist for a reason, don't they?  Having lived in as many as 4 different cities in my life, I have always had this latent identity crisis within that revealed itself with passing time. When I moved to the land of an unknown language, Chandigarh, at the age of 7, I used to tell everyone that I am from Karnataka. When I moved back, I was the kid who moved from Chandigarh, a Hindi speaking Kannadiga! When I moved to Bangalore for my college, I was from Shimoga but when I moved to Boston in the Fall of 2018, I was from Bangalore! The icing on the cake was when I was visiting a relative in Maryland, USA and when someone over there asked me where I was from, my go to was, "I am from Boston!"  It often takes a person that one pull of the trigger to understand someth...

A few nights ago, I got a notification from the Times of India app on my phone that the lead singer of the rock band Linkin Park had committed suicide. Amidst the preparations for my lab exams that were to take place the next day, it was quite difficult to assimilate the fact the very person whose voice had once introduced me to a new dimension of music, was no more. It was probably in 8 th or 9 th grade that I first listened to Linkin Park. A close friend of mine had been incessantly suggesting me to listen to Numb on YouTube and when I finally paid heed to his words, I was not disappointed. I am one of those kids who had been brought up listening to the melodies of Kishore Kumar and Mukesh. At that point, listening to a rock band seemed like a terrible idea. But, once I’d heard it while reading the lyrics, there was no going back. They were etched on my heart and soul for eternity. The songs that followed were equally good, equally mesmerizing and equally captiva...

As the popular band Green Day puts it, It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right! I hope you had the time of your life!   Our trip to the Scotland of the Indian subcontinent, Kodagu, was something similar. It was full of unexpected encounters. While some were good, the others were disappointing. On the whole, the entire plan was another addition to the innumerable memories we have from our previous tours. Deciding the place and the dates turned out to be a major challenge in itself, keeping everyone's comfort zone in mind. With a few compromises here and there, the second weekend of July was set as the D-days. Locking the destination turned out to be a hurdle bigger than we'd imagined because most people were apprehensive about the rains. Letting nature decide our fates, we set off to Coorg on the decided dates. Off We Go! The journey to the destination started from three different places. While 3 people started off from Bengaluru,...

The government of the state of Delhi recently implemented a new rule, that was run on a trial basis for the first 15 days of the month of January. This particular experiment has been criticised as well as commended by various sections of the society. Here's my analysis of the  Odd-Even Rule for the vehicles that was introduced to reduce the levels of pollution that have increased alarmingly in the past few years. According to the WHO survey in 2010, the Particulate Matter levels in Delhi were 286 and 153 for PM(10) and PM(2.5) respectively. The levels were 22 and 16 in London around the same time, according to the survey reports. When the same survey was conducted in December 2014 and January 2015, the PM(2.5) levels were found to be 225, whereas in Beijing it was 95. A major step had to be taken to reduce these pollution levels. During the last week of December 2015, the Odd Even rule for the vehicles of Delhi was suggested in the parliament. According to the rule, the veh...

2015 ended on a happy note because most university exams ended by the last week of December. 2016 had to be given a flamboyant start. The plans and discussions for this had begun way back in November and by the time the first day of January had arrived, a conclusion was finally arrived at. The Wanderlusts of the 2014 batch of Sri Aurobindo PU College, Shimoga had ticked off Doodhsagar from their bucket list of places to travel to. The next destination decided was Tadiandmol, the highest peak in the Coorg district of Karnataka. Standing at 1,750m above the sea level, this particular peak was a major attraction because even though it stood that tall, the walk to the top was supposed to be an easy one, at least according to what we all read on the internet! So, it was decided that Tadiandmol was going to be the next place where we would go, we would see and we would conquer! On the chilly night of the first of January, 14 of them left the Shimoga Bus Stand in a hired Tempo Traveller ...

The third week of December brought a gush of cold winds with it. The second floor of the hostel felt like a freezer and the ground floor seemed like a warmer place to be! So, 10 of us were huddled up in our classmates' room on the ground floor, talking random stuff and discussing on every possible topic in the world! It was then that the topic of New Year celebrations came up. Thanks to our University, most of the people were destined to spend New Year's eve writing the last examination of the semester and spend New Year on the train/flight home. Only the students from Mechanical Engineering department were a little relieved as our exams ended a couple of days earlier. We had an unnecessary gap of around 6 days between 2 subjects. Someone came up with an idea of going on a short trip during one of these days. After finishing the most excruciating exam of the course, we were all geared up to trek to the top of Skandagiri Hill, a hill famous for its Sunrise Point and also fo...

29/11, 2015 That's 3 days since the 7th anniversary of 26/11/2008. Those 60 hours in Mumbai that shook the whole country. The iconic Taj Hotel, the elegant Oberoi and the Nariman Point which were the major places under siege by the terrorists, were handled by the NSG, Mumbai Police and the Indian army. They came to India with an aim of killing over 2000 people and were successful in killing around 170 innocents. The country faced loss not just in terms of buildings death of civilians, it also witnessed the deaths of many brave and valiant officers of all departments of defense. I am not writing this article here to mention any statistics or numbers. I am writing this article to introspect, judge and understand our position. Today, we stand here. 8 years since the dreadful incident. How far have we come, as a society, as a country? Do we stand in a position where we can say that no country dare attack and kill the innocent, hardworking citizens of this country? I am not here to ...

The beginning of July marked the end of the torturous exams of engineering students. Vacations started and we were home for a month. Family, friends, old hangout spots and unlimited fun! Though my parents have moved to Mysore, my home is still in Shimoga! So, after finishing my exams and spending a few days with Mom and Dad, I landed in Shimoga. Everyone has friends, but none can match the friends from school. They've seen us grow up, they've grown up with us. People know me for what I am, but friends from school know why I am for what I am! I too have one set of such friends and this time, they planned something awesome to spend the holidays. A trip to a famous falls, a falls that had attracted many tourists in the recent past, thanks to the shooting of a superstar starring Bollywood flick, the Dudhsagar falls. The falls is on the border of Karnataka and Goa and has only one route, the Indian Railways. But, we had different plans. We decided to walk all the way, a distance o...

As the clock strikes 12, I get up from my table, yawning and suppress the overwhelming desire to get back to bed and doze off. But I definitely am not in a position to do that, all thanks to my old habit of procrastination. Having postponed writing my record to the the next week for 7 weeks in a row, I have landed myself in a do or die situation. Tonight's the deadline to finish it or I end up losing a big chunk of my marks in the finals. After writing for quite some time, I get up and decide to take a walk up on the hostel terrace. The cool breeze and the silence force me to think of what I have been through over the past week. In a duration of one week, I had spent an awesome evening with friends watching a live cricket match at the stadium. I had spent 2 sleepless nights writing my physics record, only to find out that I had repeated some experiments and had skipped the ones I had to actually write. And, I had deleted my best friend's name from my phone's contact list....

School.. You enter it with moist eyes and leave with the same. On the first day you are scared of the fact that you are going to stay away from the warmth of Mom and Dad. On the last, it is the fusillade of memories that you carry with you and the fact that you will never come back to that place again. X too has a bag of such memories from the last day of his schooling. His school had played a major role in shaping X. The library, the playground, the friendly teachers, the infinite number of opportunities and the list goes on! It was quite difficult for him to let go of all this and move on. After all, school days are the Golden Days of life, aren't they! Here, I'd like to particularly like to present the last day of his school life, the last working day. He'll cherish this day forever and ever. The boards were nearing and atmosphere was tense! The portions were long done and revisions were going on. Each passing day only brought all of them closer to what was dreade...

Every student wishes to have a teacher who is less of a teacher and more of a friend. Such teachers don't teach you the syllabus but they teach you the Art of Living. X was lucky to have one such teacher as his teacher. Not for one or two but 5 long years. She was his Social science teacher in the 6th grade and was pretty interested in listening to his stories about his experiences in the other end of the country. X being a talk-to-everyone kind of guy, had a lot to share and a lot to express. He had a lot to tell and she had the patience to listen to... What else was needed? Even though he shared a special bond with her, she was never partial with him. She never gave him the edge and made sure he got whatever he deserved. Neither over, nor under. She made sure he thrived if he underperformed and didn't let him feel complacent if he was the best of the lot. The tab was kept and the growth was under check. X and his Mom often had arguments and the depression made him obnoxi...

Deepawali is the festival of lights that is celebrated across the country with great enthusiasm. It marks the return of Lord Rama to his kingdom of Ayodhya and also the end of the vicious devil, Narakasura. 'Deepa's are lit in all homes and with growing years, several other lighting equipment have come into use. Kids love this festival as it involves the bursting of crackers, loud and colourful, adults rejoice meeting their friends and relatives and ultimately, everyone enjoys Deepawali. Like all kids, X too was pretty fond of Deepawali. The excitement of bursting the crackers with his friends, the gift sharing with friends and family, the long holidays from school... and the list goes on! Today, as he looks back, he has a million memories regarding the festival. Even though the memories were there in the corner of his mind, he never bothered to think about them until his good friend P, told him about her recollections of memories regarding Deepawali and that made him reme...

It was in the March of 2007 that X and his parents returned to Shimoga,their hometown, where X spent the most important part of his life, Teenage. The day X returned home, was the league stage match between Sri Lanka and India in the 2007 Cricket World Cup that India lost, confirming their exit from the World Cup. Still in the hangover of his life at The City Beautiful, it took time for X to absorb the fact that he had to get fluent with his Kannada, speech and writing. It was time for him to shift gears and realise the fact that life was going to getting tougher. He was apprehensive about it. He was scared of what was to come. Even though he was familiar with the language, he was hesitant, he was to go to a place that was new to him. The situation was same but the circumstances were different. He was older and wiser but so was the place. He was to make new friends for the second time in his life and no one was there to help him out this time, like his Mom had, the last time.It was ...

A country with a billion people and a majority of the population is youth. It's not easy to survive the competition, unless you are competitive enough. As Charles Darwin's theory says, the toughest survives. X is one such student. Born to a set of loving parents, X had been a smart kid in his school. His grades had always been high and his teachers and parents were pretty proud of him. Even though he was passionate about sports, he never really was into any of the games as his physique did not complement with his attitude. Nevertheless, he was the spark of his parents' lives and they tried their best to keep up his dreams. His father being a Bank employee, the family of 3 had been to different cities of the country depending on the location of his father's posting. A small town in the Davangere district, then to a little bigger town in Karnataka again. His family relocated to Chandigarh for a span of 4 years where X had trouble adapting to the people, language and th...

I have been meaning to start an online journal of my own that I could present to the world. I am not an extraordinary boy. I'm just another guy, right next to your door. I had dreams of achieving something big and failed. Tried and failed. I have seen expectations rise and later the sadness in the eyes of the ones I have loved all my life. It's very hard to digest the fact that you are the sole reason of happiness, sadness and the sole purpose of living. I know that feeling too. Yes, I am not an innocent teenager either. I have had my share of fun with my friends, contributes to the mischievous plans and later blasted as well! Yes, I am a Regular Indian Teenager whom you will find all across the country. A commoner, nothing special. A face, lost in the crowd!