The Oddest School in the World (No, not Hogwarts)

This was brought on by a friend's blog post.

Apparently, working people sleep whenever they can. I saw this in my father, see it in my sister, and see it every day in the cab I take to and from work. The first two-three days I was taken aback at the lack of conversation among colleagues, now I understand. I sleep for most of the hour too. Except for two minutes in the evening when I unfailingly awaken every day. It happens on a stretch of road known as the Benito Juarez Marg. The road that has my old school, sitting by its side. (This probably explains my love for K3G, but that’s not important here.)

The funny thing is, I didn’t particularly like my school while I was in it. Or even now. I don’t really miss it or anything, but every time I think of it, I remember some oddity that makes me smile.

For example, this ritual we had of ‘cleaning duty’. Every day a ‘cleaning duty monitor’ (one of the most influential members of the class), would designate four people to broom the class-room after school. It was supposed to be a character building exercise. We thought the school was too cheap to hire help. Or was allowing us to explore alternative career options, a very popular opinion, given the quality of some of the teachers.

To be fair, we had some excellent teachers. But they were almost always hamstrung by the lack of time. Brought on by the range of extra-curricular activities-so important for character building-that the school encouraged. Activities included an Africa Week, an annual celebration of our friendship with the continent. Through the week, we would write (essay, poetry competitions), talk (assemblies), draw (poster making competitions) on topics around the theme. Then on the last day, there would be a proper cultural programme with song and dance (the same one every time). African dignitaries would be guests. For all the wonderful education that the students were receiving, they weren’t shy of poking fun at the clothes and the girths, and sadly, the complexions, that our guests sported. 

We weren’t limited to Africa though. There was a Palestine Club, with 15 year old members dedicated to the cause. So what if they were foggy about what the cause exactly was. And then there was the, even broader in scope, International Evening. The Evening featured a ballet of some sort, but my abiding memory is that of a handful of foreign students dancing to “Heal the World”, while the Indian kids stood around with candles in their hands.

 The only function that the students (local and international) really looked forward to, was School Birthday. The closest equivalent, if you went to a sane school would be Founders’ Day. From what I hear, the latter is a stiff formal function attended by Very Important People with a proclivity for long speeches. In some, prizes are given out and the proud history of the school recited. There might be a sombre lunch or an off day for the students in the more generous schools. We on the other hand, had a School Birthday Party- complete with its very own birthday ditty, and a cake cutting ceremony. Some of the kids, who had their birthdays in the same week (or who could convincingly lie about it being so) would go up on stage to help the matronly Founder Principal do the honours. They would also get a bite of the cake on stage, which they claimed was much nicer than the one all of us got in class, later.

In junior school, the main event was the fancy dress competition.  Which was always painful, mostly due to my unimaginative parents.  But also in part due the over-ambitious mothers and zealous elder sisters some of the other kids in the class had. Once I remember, I had a huge bruise on my cheek after falling down from the swing. My parents still made me a fairy. Because that would involve dressing me up in the lone frilly frock I had, and handing me a magic wand my father had fashioned out of a twig and aluminium foil, a couple of School Birthdays back. The same year, the boy next to me in the queue came dressed as a witch. In third standard, the fattest boy in class came dressed as a woman, wearing a green spaghetti top, a black skirt and chandelier earrings (clearly, parents were less squeamish, back in the 90s). I went dressed as a fairy, in case you were wondering. 

No chance of a win, year after year, after year. May be they did manage to build character after all.

The 25 Step Guide to Getting Your Passport

1)    Register yourself on the website passportindia.gov.in. Download the e-form required to make a fresh application, and skim through it to see the details required. It looks easy enough. So close the form and procrastinate.

2)      Get prodded at work to expedite the process. Rush to complete the form the same day, upload it where it needs to be uploaded.

3)      An appointment with your nearest Passport Seva Kendra (PSK) needs to be scheduled. Make an online payment of the passport fee. Encounter a glitch in the process and panic.

4)      The glitch gets resolved. Relax.

5)      Relax some more as no appointments are available.

6)      Log in the next day, five minutes after the time at which the appointment booking for your PSK starts. All appointments have been taken already.

7)      Next time you try, log in half an hour before the appointment booking starts. Practice the process twice, so that you can be really quick. Succeed at booking appointment, finally. It’s in two days.

8)      Look at the ‘Document Advisor’ link at the website.

i)        Realise that your parents have no idea as to where your birth certificate is, necessary for everyone born after 1989. Begin frantic search.

ii)       Scour the neighbourhood for notaries who can help prepare an affidavit for you, attesting to your address and identity. 9 times out of ten, they also double up as passport touts.

iii)     Rack your brains about Government servants you know, who can vouch for your good moral character, deemed a necessity for those applying under the Tatkal Scheme. The government servant needs to be at least a rank of Undersecretary to the government. Conclude that the only person you know (of), that high up is Umbridge.

iv)     Get your misconceptions corrected. Undersecretary is not that high up.

v)      Appreciate your tardiness in not consulting the Advisor before taking an appointment.

9)      Organise your documents the morning of your appointment. Notice that your father’s name on the character certificate (issued by the government servant), is written incorrectly. Panic.

10)   Rush to the office of the government servant, in the opposite corner of the city. Reach before the peon has unlocked the cabin and the secretary has arrived at her desk.

11)   Hover over the secretary’s computer getting the changes made. Silently will the government servant to hurry up and sign. Shoot down his offers of tea, and make your way to the PSK, again to the other end of the city.

12)   Mentally abuse the driver for following traffic rules.

13)   Reach the PSK 15 minutes late, then pray while in the queue of people waiting to be told whether they have the required documents. Notice people being sent back. Pray more fervently.

14)   Reach the top of the queue after a 45 minute wait. The guy at the counter will ask for a ton of things, none of which were mentioned on the website. Thank God for giving you the sense to carry all the documents (really, all) you accumulated since you were born.

15)   Get approved. Enter the waiting area to await your turn with the passport officers.

16)   Wait.

17)   Wait some more.

18)   Meet the first guy in the process. He will scan your fingerprints, check your details and snark about you being late, conveniently forgetting the three hours you have waited subsequently for the process to begin.

19)   Wait again. Meet the second guy. He will ask to see some of your originals again. As you dive into your folder to extricate them, he will grow impatient, and tell you to let it be. Move to the final stage.

20)   Notice people being sent back even in the third stage, about six hours into the start of the process. You will be too exhausted to worry, just wait your turn.

21)   The guy at the third stage will notice something amiss in your documents. Examine them minutely to find a way out while he threatens to send you back. Succeed at convincing him.

22)   Leave the PSK with a receipt.

23)   Two days later, get a visit from the post-man. He will have your passport. And will want a ‘dakshina’ from you to hand it over. Be humble, do not remind him that he is just doing his job, not granting you a personal favour. Pay up.

24)   Behold your passport.

Update:
25) A few days later, you will get a visit from the neighbourhood policeman, as part of the verification process. He will be nice enough, filling up a form, stapling photocopies of your documents together (again not bothering with the originals), refusing offers of tea and water. Then before leaving, he will glance sideways, averting eye contact, and ask with a smile "Kuch denge nahi?"
What can I say, when in India, always pay up.

Everything You Really Need to Know about the Delhi School of Economics

There’s a lot to hate about the Delhi School of Economics.

Delhi School of Economics Campus

Its course content in the first year- mostly revolving around mathematics.

Teachers who appear inaccessible.

The huge class size.

The (initial) daily struggle to get good seats.

Some of the teaching assistants.

The weekends. When followed by a mid-term.

The exams themselves, especially when the professors play tricks. (Beware when the teacher announces something as ‘not important from the exam-point-of-view’. That is exactly what will be tested in the form of a question worth 35 marks).

The pressure, the lack of time to really absorb what you’re learning.

But thankfully, there’s also a lot to love.

The Good Professors- God knows that every institution, however great, has its share of mediocre faculty. This is true for D-School as well. However, the brilliance of some of them in the classroom will startle you. There are professors who can explain the most convoluted concepts with the most ridiculous examples (so imperfect capital mobility becomes akin to taking coins out of your torn pocket slowly). There are others who will revel in students questioning assumptions and explanations, will go back and think through those objections, then physically search for students in the corridors, to clarify the concepts again. A few professors will discuss things in class that appear more advanced than the (considerably difficult) texts. And then yet others who understand your life is difficult anyway, without “wasting valuable hard-disk space” memorising things.

The Very Efficient Photocopy Shop (till some kill-joys entered the fray)- Prem Bhaiya knows more than you do. Period.  Your life’s going to be much easier if you curtail the habit of arguing with him about readings. And bear with it when he incredulously asks, “Padoge kab??”, when you want to buy LADW after the math mid-sem is over. He means well.

The Ratan Tata Library-is certainly well stocked. But as with everything in DSE, it’s the people who make it as good as it is. There are catalogues of course, but don’t bother with those if you want a text-book. The two elderly gentle men at the desk have an encyclopaedic memory of every book that has passed their hands. And they will take it as a personal insult if you can’t locate a book that is less-asked for (as every non-text-book is likely to be). On the flip side, they issue books for a very short time. If you are a regular though, you only get gently chided for being late.

The Infrastructure- the Lecture Theatre is fantastic. The loos have been recently beautified (and get users from as far as Ramjas). The air-conditioning in the CDE will put an end to your constant whining about how hot/ cold it is in Delhi. The speed of the computers could be better. But the staff certainly couldn’t be (especially now that I have realised their shared dislike of a certain faculty member).

The D-school canteen- According to some students the quality of the food is unsatisfactory. Ignore them, they are stupid. The food’s fine (though unholy rumours abound about the source of the meat in the mutton dosas). The ambience is better. The service, if nothing else, is entertaining.

Ask Baba how much you need to pay. He confidently says, “Pachasi (eighty five)”

“Kaise, Baba? (How come)”, you ask.

“Arre, pachas hi (fifty only).”

JP Tea Stall and its Iced Tea- I have already waxed eloquent about it before. And I have nothing new to add. Unless you want to know I choked up just a little, while having my last glass there.

The peer group- there are 180 students in a batch. It’s very unlikely you won’t find friends here.

Though very lucky to find the friends I did-

·         A Bong who shares my enthusiasm for films and music (though her tastes are more evolved than mine will ever be). Also an authority on photography (in our group, anyway).

·         A Bong enthusiast who thinks she speaks better Bangla that I do (she most certainly does not) and whose studious look belies her chatterbox self, as well as her appreciation of Prakash Raj

·         A smartass with an enviable collection of ‘videos’ and a brain that can solve problem sets from courses she did not have

·         A freakishly quick reader, who frequently uses words like ‘syapa’ (though in her defence, D school provides for many occasions for such words to be used). Also thinks that the world is divided into good people and rapists.

·         An introvert who can be incredibly fun to be with when she opens up. Also, what notes‼

·         An eternal optimist, who maintains ‘sab ho jayega’, when I assail her with my whining. Likes JP iced tea, so didn’t take long for me to really like her.

Besides the 180 are going to include people from your college, most of whom share a similar work ethic and a passion for discussing Singham. Their reassurances of also not knowing any linear algebra, helps as well. As do other people you find (even if it’s a little late in the course to know them very well) to talk to due to courses you have in common, during lunch hours or when you are killing time at JP.

Overall, even though it's not something you ever believe yourself to be capable of feeling during the two years at DSE, you are going to miss the place only a few days into your hard-earned holidays.

Travelpost: 10 Things about Kolkata, from an Outsider's Perspective

Wikipedia enumerates the following steps to be followed in the process of doing research

·         Identification of research problem

·         Literature review

·         Specifying the purpose of research

·         Determine specific research questions or hypotheses

·         Data collection

·         Analyzing and interpreting the data

·         Reporting and evaluating research

Since I don't think I have the right orientation for this kind of work anyway (I am after all quoting Wikipedia), I will dispense with any pretence at a scientific enquiry. The following are my (sometimes biased) observations about Kolkata, formed through a lifetime of summer holidays I have spent here.

v  Kolkata is only a different type of hot. While Delhi’s heat will announce itself to you, with its nasty sun and the infamous loo, Kolkata’s will sneak up from behind and take you by surprise. The sweet wind that appears to be blowing outside, when you are at home will conspire to stand still as soon as you step out, and reduce you to a sweaty mess, in the first ten steps you take.

v  Getting work done here, especially in the first attempt, is a near impossibility. This would normally be fine, except when you are working according to Delhi deadlines.

v  One of the reasons for the above is the interminable lunch hour(s) that shops here follow. Long enough, to ensure that the worst administration departments of the best Delhi University colleges are a distant second.

           Last week I needed to use the cyber cafe here for a few printouts. Admittedly, I reached the market at 3:30, and was justly informed that I would have to wait for the shop to open. At 4, I spied the owner entering the market, a man I had known since I was 10 (having overheard him planning a ganja party over the phone, but I digress). When I limped after him to ask when he would open, he waved me away, saying ‘later’.

 I went again to the cafe at 4:25, thinking it was sufficiently ‘later’. He had the shop open and most of the computers on too. I smiled. He grunted and said ‘Come at 4:30’.

I showed him my watch, pleading there were only 5 minutes for that.

He turned around now facing me properly for the first time. He seemed to hesitate first, then something in my eager, pleading face helped him make up his mind. Taking a deep breath, he leaned forward and said, “4:30 means 5.”

An important life lesson learnt.

v  People are unnaturally chatty here. Especially in comparison to Delhi, where even the Metro keeps reminding you to not befriend any strangers (lest you get drugged and raped/ drugged and looted/ not drugged but still sweet-talked into parting with all your money etc.).

The chattiness can sometimes be nice, when you receive a nugget of absolutely irrelevant information. When it takes the form of unsolicited advice, then it can be a little infuriating.

v  Kolkata is second to known, when it comes to political awareness among its citizens. Domestic help/ guardsmen/ vendors etc. take en-masse leave during election season to go back to their native villages to cast their vote. A few years back, my three year old cousin examined my fingernails and disappointedly surmised that I hadn’t voted.

v  Children are very precocious here. Okay no, children are precocious everywhere.

v  Kolkata kids (students) are very hard working. At the tender age of nine when their Delhi counterparts don’t know what an essay is, these kids are mugging up dozens of them every week. When a Delhi kid has difficulty pronouncing participle , the Kolkata kid is far past the stage where he/she wrote the participles of 10 verbs every day. The Kolkata kid, as soon as he/ she enters class eight, is reminded of the impending Board examinations. Life outside school ceases in class 9. That’s when they start going for two tuitions for every subject. And if you have a cousin in Kolkata who is in tenth standard, the same year as you, then besides all the studying/mugging/ tuition-taking, he/she will also make life very miserable for you.

v  People (adults) have a lot of time on their hands. Markets, have dedicated spaces here, where people congregate to chat, have tea, while away their afternoons/ evenings. In fact no time is sacrosanct.

Today, at 12:15 pm, I saw two youngish-men, dressed in formals, at the neighbourhood park, SWINGING. Yes, on those contraptions designed for kids-which they no longer need, given how busy they are, studying or just being precocious.

Mind you, these were bhodrolok, not the unemployed youth who loll about in Delhi’s Central Park.

v  Scatological humour is big here. This is tied in to the general pre-occupation about one’s digestive systems and food.

v  Food’s everywhere here. And relatively cheap.

“My servant hasn’t come today”, Mira mashi wailed on the phone.

“Domestic help.” I could see Asha mashi’s eyebrows twitch as she mentally corrected her sister.

“I will have to cook, clean all on my own, that too on a Sunday…”

Asha mashi rolled her eyes, then looked apologetically at me. I pretended I hadn’t seen her disinterest, getting up to drink water from the bottle kept at her bedside table.

Mashi , my mother’s first cousin, was my local guardian in Delhi. To my misfortune, she was also a senior Professor in the Department I had chosen to do my PhD. Luckily though, I had avoided her being my Supervisor as well (though I did not realise the lucky part until I spoke to Sourav, her graduate student/personal indentured labourer).

As a kid, I loved her. She had a large, pretty home, and had the fanciest delicacies served, when we visited her. That would usually be enough as a mark of character. But I also loved the way she dressed-cotton kurtas and lots of big, ethnic jewellery. Her salt and pepper hair, cut extremely short gave her gravity, as well as warmth. Also as little as I like to admit my absolute lack of depth, I loved the way she spoke English. It was fluent, but most importantly free of the embarrassingly heavy Bengali accent that saddled my parents’ diction.

What led to my grown up self not particularly liking her, was what has historically been responsible for drawing a wedge in even the most tightly knit of families: close contact.

It is difficult to avoid that, given that we spend the better part of the day in the same building. But I make sure that every visit I make to her place is punctuated by a gap of at least three months. This time it hadn’t been so bad. She had just discovered blogging. So we talked about that.

“It’s really lovely, isn’t it?, she said.

“ It really allows me to interact with people from all walks of life -other academics, enlightened journalists, social workers. No other forum provides such a democratic space for free discussions and debate. And it’s becoming quite a necessity in the increasingly censored non-virtual world, no?”

I agreed absent-mindedly as I stared at her blog counter. The number of hits she had gotten in two weeks had exceeded the number I had managed in over ten months.

Her first post had been an impassioned argument against a rabid communal leader, emerging as the Prime Ministerial candidate of a right-wing party. That had received a rousing reception from the readers. Her latest post was a chilling account of how the film industry and a best-selling author were conspiring to turn popular opinion in the leader’s favour.  The first few comments awaiting moderation, showed that there were others who agreed with the view.

“The dumbed down easy version of history that the film offered will be lapped up by the ignorant and consumerist masses of the country”, a journalist from an Eminent Newspaper wrote.

I didn’t take kindly to being called ignorant. And my stipend didn’t allow me to be consumerist. So I felt happy seeing an Indian Warrior, defending my ilk. Unfortunately, his argument, that I speed-read while Asha mashi was busy tuning her sister out, was less than convincing.

 “how can you pseudos ignore 59 innocents killed in the train…your arguments are not only dishonest, but downright treacherous. You people should just go to China. They will shoot you in the head there if you write such things and you would bloody well deserve that…”, he had written.

It never got published.

                                                                       ***

Monday morning, a mail from mashi sat in my inbox. It had her recent academic paper in the attachment. She invited everyone from the Department to give feedback. Apparently an anonymous referee had said the paper made sweeping generalisations, and that certain sections were devoid of research. The same day, Sourav had his research methodology torn apart. I deleted the mail in solidarity with him. Plus I was already being compelled to do the same kind of work for my Supervisor, Prof Abhimanyu. I was certainly not going to voluntarily do more.

Actually I don’t know what I hate more. The pointless vacillations that Mashi’s papers are, or the equally useless, complicated mathematical edifices that my professor constructs. Of course, he gets more respect in the Department, as in the profession in general. Some of the older professors practically dote on him, their star ex-student, who went on to get a PhD from Harvard, but returned after years of teaching there, to give back to his alma-mater.

“It’s an exciting time for India, isn’t it?, he said when I asked him what made him come back.

I would like him more, I think were it not for his budding friendship with Asha mashi. More sources of close contact, I rued, when I saw them having tea from the coffee-house. Apparently, they had bonded since the last Departmental meeting (which Sourav had attended by virtue of being a TA).

Some of the professors had wanted to drop Mashi’s subject. In a department dominated by Game theorists and Econometricians, it was seen as soft.  The matronly Head of the Department had offered her the chance to teach economic history instead. Mashi had been shocked. Nobel prize winning economists had been in the vanguard of her subject. Economic history was the preserve of historians, she had argued. Abhimanyu had backed her up then. He and Prof Qureshi. The three of them had been inseparable since. And not just on campus. I once spotted them at Habitat, where I had gone to meet a friend. I deduced they were there for a Sufi Music Recital. Prof Qureshi was nowhere around though.                                                                               
                                                                                           ***

In the afternoon, Prof Abhimanyu called me to his office to discuss my dissertation. I had asked for an appointment two weeks back and he could finally accommodate me. He looked busy when I entered, evidently going through the document I had sent him. He found a fault in my work, and tilted the computer screen in my direction, so that I could explain myself. My stuttering was interrupted by his intercom ringing. The HOD wanted to see him. He told me to think while I waited for him to come back. I obediently decided to google my way through the problem. Apparently the Professor was going through a blog before I had entered. The post was by an Indian Warrior. The post revealed how the mainstream media’s coverage was biased towards the ruling pseudo secular party. How it was mechanically spreading canards about the only alternative, a dynamic leader, slowly emerging as the most viable candidate to lead the country into a new, bright future. A half written, yet-unsubmitted comment by a TruePatriot47 sat in the comment form.

“You have nailed it!  The youth want development. Which he CAN deliver. And which these sickular commies refuse to acknowledge”, the message said.

Random Observations Aboard (and about) the Delhi Metro

1) The Metro signage is a sight for sore eyes to a woman in Delhi, especially at the end of a frantic, solitary walk through desolate roads on a dark, wintry evening.

2) Women can be vicious. And I am not just talking about the pushing and shoving to get inside and out. Last week I heard a middle aged woman call a college student besharam for holding hands with her boyfriend. The woman’s friend concurred. According to her boys can’t help fall in love. “Aur phir ladkiyan bolti hai rape ho gaya, rape ho gaya”.

3) People listening to music forget they are in a public place and start singing along. Loudly.

4) An advertisement in the Coach exhorts people to join the Navy- calling it a profession with honour. It also helpfully has a picture of a war zone, promising potential recruits a video-game like experience. Their words.

Happy Janamashtami

The Composition period was a weekly fixture for about six years of my school life. They were meant to encourage creative writing among young students in both English and Hindi, but often their purpose was defeated, due to the lazy selection of topics. The year (especially in the Junior classes) invariably started with “Myself”, a pedantic account of who we were (age, class, physical description, parental occupations) and our interests (with studying being a most ubiquitous hobby). As the year progressed the teacher asked us to write on “Rainy Day” and “I wish I were...”.  And then, there was always the Indian calendar, crammed with festivals and national holidays to fall back on. However, I am quite sure Janmashtami never came up in all of those six years. Pity, since it was always my favourite festival (okay no, but it did come right behind Holi).

The fun started the night before, where we (a gaggle of ten 10-12 year old girls) would get together to strategise about our jhanki- a static representation of the scene of Lord Krishna’s kidnapping by his evil uncle.  And his subsequent rescue by someone else. I am still a little sketchy on the details to be honest. The meeting would involve taking stock of all the toys we could get to decorate the scene, besides the indispensable baby Krishna and his Uncle. People would volunteer to get earthen dolls, generally hand-painted to look like men and women from the Indian countryside, though sometimes an American Barbie would also make her presence felt. I am certain one year, someone said that they had a miniature version of a hand-pump that we could use.  We agreed. Mostly though, we tried to be historically accurate (more than some younger children, at any rate, who were not even shy of placing a car or two in the background). There were other bells and whistles too-if an old shoebox were available, we would fashion out a cradle (a reliable crowd puller) out of that.

The meeting was also important, in order to zero in on the best spot for our jhanki, among the ones available, in the colony’s courtyard. To prevent the favoured spot from being usurped by the other groups (especially our arch rivals-the boys in the same age group) we would solemnly promise to assemble at the crack of dawn, which at least some people claimed they took literally. I of course would saunter in a good 3 hours after everybody had set to work, and then immediately find fault with the way the mountain in the backdrop had been constructed. That would invite dirty looks from the others, and in some years, righteous angry words, or worse, the silent treatment. Of course, my tardiness would be forgiven and forgotten as soon as someone picked up a fight with the rival groups. These generally started with a Rohit making an uncomplimentary remark about our work. Padma would retaliate with a ruder assessment of theirs. Rohit would have disappeared by then. Arjun, who lacked the mental agility to come up with an adequately insulting repartee, would resort to mocking her Telugu accent. That was enough to open the floodgates of personal insults and sometimes even physical fights.

The evenings required sprucing up for the Puja, mainly conducted by one or two of those people in the group who knew a few devotional songs. The less spiritually inclined amongst us would stand at the back and mumble the words through, mind strongly focussed on the wonderful prasad that Akanksha’s mother would rustle up every year. That, and the afore-mentioned cradle were extremely important to bring in the crowds, as well as their donations.  My favourite bit, then, was when we counted all the money, inflated it by a certain amount and then made public to the rest of the groups. Since this creative accounting was quite popular among everybody, it didn’t matter much in deciding who the ‘winner’ was. There was a lot of preening involved if we won, but even if we didn’t, it never mattered. We distributed it amongst ourselves (with the exception of one year, I am regularly reminded), and then spent in on ice creams, while recounting the fun we had had during the day. I would promise at the end of the night that I would be the first person down, the next year. Someone would let out a disbelieving snort and raucous laughter would resume.

I spent most of Saturday morning in self-pity. The beginning of the semester, after a three-month break, is never a happy occasion. It is altogether unbearable when marred by feeling about the general pointlessness of life, a feeling that even a 8^th or 9^th (I have lost count) re-viewing of Sherlock’s first episode couldn’t alleviate. Priyanka seemed to be in a similar mood. She was reading Poverty and the Un-British Rule in India, but I could see her heart was not in it. Twice, she put the book down and sighed audibly. I looked questioningly at her the second time, but she simply shook her head. I removed my headphones and paused the video, and waited. She would come around to whining eventually, I knew. This wasn’t a first.

“This is never going to end”, she said finally, staring at the book with infinite sadness in her eyes.

“It will. You want to discuss what you just read? That might help...” I offered.

“I haven’t been reading anything”, she replied.

I pointed out that it could hardly be the case, since she had been glued to the book for the past two days. That seemed to touch a soft spot.

“I haven’t been reading. I have been just staring at the words. Nothing seems to register”, she said with a strain in her voice.

“I am sure some of it has,” I tried to reason with her. “If nothing else, it will at least ease the second reading”, I said reassuringly.

That proved to be the last straw. Without warning, tears started pouring out of her eyes. I would say she was sobbing, but the more appropriate word would be wailing.

“I can’t read it again”, she spluttered through her tears.

“Don’t, don’t read it if you don’t like it”, I said worriedly. Then got up to move closer to her, and hesitatingly laid my hand on her shoulder. That seemed to only increase the sound of the wailing.

“I don’t want to read it ever again.”

“Don’t. I am sure it’s irrelevant. They will never ask you about all this.”

“I don’t want to read anything ever again. I hate all of it. ALL OF IT” she said, notching up the sound levels, just a bit more.

 “Listen, you study all the time. Just take a break, I am sure you will be fine”, I said, picking up the book from the floor and closing it.

“Why do I have to read any of this anyway?” she bemoaned.”What good will it ever do, if I am to become an administrator? Will I refer to books about the colonial period to solve the problems of the people under my administration? Will wading through middle school physics help them? Or writing interminable essays in impeccable English?”

“No but...”

 “I am not doing it anymore”, she said, with the same suddenness with which she had started crying. She wiped her tears. “I am not doing it anymore’, she repeated, this time her voice steadier.

 “Yeah, just let’s relax. Start preparing again from tomorrow”, I said encouragingly. That is how all her whining sessions ended. Not in tears generally, but with her taking a break, then getting back to studying vigorously, immediately after. With the firm determination to make up for any time lost.

“No. I am moving back home. I have gone through this torture once and I wasn’t good enough”.

I opened my mouth to object, to remind her that most didn’t do well in the first attempt. But she pre-empted me.

“Don’t worry. It’s a good thing it took me only a year to realise I am not good enough. At least I know I will find something that I AM good at. Most people go through their life, wallowing in mediocrity, just because they are afraid to leave the security of the path others have eked out for them.”

I momentarily wondered why she thought interminable essays in fancy English was not her forte. Then, opened my mouth to object again but she interrupted me.

“Get me my phone. I need to talk to my parents”, she said.

She took the first train home today. At 6 in the morning. It’s probably only a temporary breach in her resolve. She will be back before late, back to the grind, same as the others. I have already started looking for a new roommate though.

As the scooter dangerously swerved towards my rickshaw, I closed my eyes and gripped the hand- rail ever so tightly. After five seconds and feeling no impact, I peered at the lane in front again.  Realising I was safe until the next maniac decided to ram into us, I bravely used my free hand to pry out my phone from my pocket. The digital clock on the screen showed that there were five minutes to go for my appointment. I looked at the labyrinth of traffic, interspersed with pedestrians and stray animals, crammed into that tiny by-lane of the Walled City again. The view unceremoniously informed me that I was going to be late.

 I looked upwards at the sky and thanked God for the pleasant weather. Then wondered at the incessant romanticisation of Old Delhi, especially, but not exclusively by Bolly-wood. The food is good, granted. But inadequate compensation for the congestion, the noise and occasionally, the foul stench one has to endure to get in sniffing distance of the same. Recent newspaper coverage again, is hardly a winning advertisement for its famous secularism. Then why do writers and lyricists wax eloquent about the magic of the place?  Why do sons of the soil (ranging from film stars to political leaders) yearn for a visit to what they still call home, and tourists tout it as a must-see, even as they have to brave the heat and the heckling at every step? At that moment, I failed to understand the charm.

I was ruminating thus, when it seemed like the source of this particular jam had been resolved, and the rickshaw stirred out of its stupor to start inching forward again. The two children in the rickshaw in front of mine cheered. Then one of them pointed at something on the other end of the road. Their mother, seated next to them, also leaned forward. I faithfully followed the child’s finger to see what he had seen. It looked like an old brown bag lying unclaimed next to a sleeping dog. On second glance however, I realised that what I thought was a bag, were the crumbled robes on the body of an emaciated old beggar. His face wasn’t visible- he had his head on his knees, and his curly grey hair were covered in a skull-cap of the same colour as his clothes. A begging bowl at his side, gave him up.

It seemed that the woman had seen the beggar before, for she quickly fished out a twenty-rupee note from her purse. I inwardly sighed, preparing myself for another delay while she got off and made her way through the melee to give out the alms. Instead, she let the rickshaw continue in its stride, while passing on the note to a man on a scooter next to her rickshaw. He accepted it but stared back at her in incomprehension. She indicated the old man. He nodded, and further passed on the money to another rickshaw-wallah, one going in the opposite direction. The rickshaw-wallah swiftly leaned over and passed on the note to the beggar. All of this happened in under a minute. The woman in the rickshaw had gone on ahead, without a backward glance. The beggar lifted his head and looked around to spot his benefactor as the rickshawallah pointed in the general direction. He saw me in stead, then smiled revealing a set of crooked, yellowing teeth. I smiled back. And understood.

 To compensate for all the time that she was ‘wasting’, Priyanka read the Hindu during the metro ride to Nehru Place while I shamelessly listened on to the conversation that two of my co passengers were having. She impatiently cackled at her watch when I wasted two minutes haggling with the auto wala outside the station. I ignored her.

I would not have recognised the building had I not been so sure of its location. The old structure appeared to have been pulled down and rebuilt completely, for not only was it taller than what I remembered, but also more modern and welcoming- a simple paint job could never have managed that. The chambers were still in the basement but the furnishing indicated that the doctor had prospered since I last saw him. He was inside, seeing patients in his office. He still seemed to spend as much time with each patient, as he did back in the day, and after every patient left, a pre recorded female voice asked the next patient to be ready to see the doctor.

Anticipating a long wait, Priyanka sighed loudly and flopped into a sofa, picking up an India Today from the pile of magazines on the coffee table placed in front. I craned my neck to watch a news channel that the receptionist was gawking at, on a television set perched on the wall. On mute.

After about an hour, when the disoriented female voice prompted, he pointed in our direction to tell us that the Doctor was ready to see us.

He looked the same as he had the last time I saw him. And he had the same genial smile, when he greeted me- as he had when I was ten. His hair looked much darker than before though. And more unnatural. But I managed to peel my eyes off his mane, to smile and introduce him to my friend. He checked her for around 10 minutes while continuously asking after the well-being of the rest of my family, and about what each one was doing, since his last consultation with them. For the three minutes in between that he didn’t, he was talking on the phone, with another patient, asking the person on the other end to come in with a chest X ray.

To Priyanka, he went on to prescribe a variation of the medication I had suggested to her, previously. I think our disappointment showed on our faces. So he enquired whether we always had a good breakfast before leaving for work. Priyanka replied that we seldom had the time.

“That is what is wrong”, he proclaimed, happily. “Here take a look at this”, he ordered, shoving pieces of glossy colourful paper in our hands.

A closer examination showed that the paper had DIET PLAN as the heading. Below, it listed all the essential micronutrients that the human body needed, and exactly what each of them did for the body. A table also enumerated the foods that were rich sources. I was quite sure I had seen that before in a fifth standard science lesson.

“What subject do you study?” the doctor asked Priyanka. She did not think that General Studies counted, so kept her silence. I helpfully said that I studied economics. He smiled then went on to lecture us about the role of carbohydrates and fats in our diets using banking terminology. My fifth standard teacher had been less patronising.  I nodded at regular intervals while Priyanka just looked around helplessly.

He let us go after thirty minutes, but not before adding a bunch of anti-oxidants to the prescription.  He also talked a little about the company that manufactured them, after express instructions from doctors and health care specialists like him. When Priyanka looked worried, he assured us that they were easily available. Heck, even his clinic stocked up on them- the receptionist would give them to us if we asked.

We asked. The pills were priced at 950 bucks a leaf. Both of us together did not have enough cash to cover that and the consultation fees.

“Anti-oxidants are fine, but I could just take tomorrow off?” She suggested. I concurred with her.

PS: After paying up the consultation fee, I had just enough money to buy us a chicken roll each, from Dadur Dokan in Market 2. Priyanka said she felt better even as she ate it.