latenightshenanigans

  "But this is just an old magazine!"     Waking up on a Monday morning at 5 sounds excruciatingly painful. No matter what the reason is behind committing such an abhorrent act! Waking up at 5 on a Monday morning to catch a flight at 9, that is a different story altogether!   This was the dreaded Monday of 10th of August, 2020. "Could have slept a little longer" was my first thought after clearing the security checks at the airport. The time was 7:30 am - to avoid any last-minute hiccups I had arrived ages early for the scheduled departure of my flight from Calcutta, my home forever, to Bangalore - the city I had been calling home for the last couple of years. And much like how relationships end on a final 'we need to talk', I was headed for one decisive rendezvous with Namma Bengaluru. And ultimate it was!   "We need to think about vacating the flat now" - that group call with my flatmates a fortnight ago was an uncomfortable experience. All three...

  This article is based on the game Chinese Whispers, or Telephone as it is known in North America, and not the horrendous disease going around.   It’s a late Sunday night back in the third semester of college. My body was just about done coping with the after-effects of weekend shenanigans. Monday was knocking hard on the door, along with the sessional tests about which I was well-informed. I mean they do detail that kind of stuff on the academic calendar you know? Yet, I chose to pay heed to the better judgement of studying one night before the exam, rather than the God-promised alternative of preparing the whole week. Or was it weeks? My memory is a little blurred about the details.   So began the one night stand, complete with a lot of procrastination and late-night group texts for clarifications. The syllabus, practice problems, teachers' notes were all gone in the wind now. At that point of time in the dead of the night, the only warriors who were still standing tal...

I love cycling. I have been riding bikes ever since I was three. As a toddler, you start off with tricycles, then move on to bigger bikes with small support wheels attached to keep the bike steady till you are able to balance it on your own. But ever since I started watching Disney cartoons, I was fascinated with unicycles!   Watching my favourite character pedal down the streets on a unicycle, hands-free, taking turns with a flick of the hips, all of that while making it look cool on-screen certainly did a number on me while growing up. It was dangerous of course. There was nothing to fall back on, terribly tough to balance the ensemble, and no way to stop without getting off the bike. That is probably why we don’t see unicycles a lot nowadays. People always want something to provide them with stability. A Plan B for breathing space in case Plan A fails. The rear wheel provided peace of mind whereas the front wheel allowed to pick the direction.   The same relationship e...

I wrote an article a couple of weeks ago, Timeout. This in a way is its continuation. Our lives are made up of moments - some in which we are engrossed, and others that make us stop, think, and wonder. It is the latter that I want to touch upon. Ever spent time waiting at the traffic signal and thinking about really random things? That is because it is not much you can do at that time! You certainly can't use your phone to get back to your pending social media commitments. In today's age where we keep our friends close, our enemies closer, and our phones the closest, that moment is probably one of the few instances that we get when our brain really gets time to not merely assimilate but ponder. With the threat of Coronavirus looming large, this right now is that moment when you have the time to think. To wonder where you are headed. To finish your sentence slowly, and not rush into them. But look at what we are up to! With work from home days galore, we are straining our eyes a...

During early July of the previous year, I noticed a change in myself. I was lethargic most of the times and my appetite had gone down considerably. So much, there were meals I took just for the sake of filling up the belly. Those were the first symptoms, the ones we usually ignore.   July-September was a crazy time at the work front. The client had set tough deadlines. Not to say they were not achievable, there is nothing that a 70-odd hour work week cannot accomplish. I bided the time. "This too shall pass". It did not. The work did reduce over time, but even today I rarely get the chance to ride back home at 7 O' clock and complain about the terrific evening traffic of Bengaluru. I haven't seen much of it, to be honest. Late-nighters do have their perks. In all of this conundrum, I forgot to do something very crucial to my welfare - take timeouts.   I will be honest, I love the job. Not only the pay package or the office itself. Those things are only as good as the ...