Syzygy

  I can only critique theories, analyse, break down the existing—the concept of not this, not this. I will be the third speaker in a debate. I can either analyse my own case or break the case of the opponent, but I can never build my own case. Even my affirmative is based on my belief in the negative. For example, I don’t like communism; I just hate capitalism. I don’t like China; it’s the hate of the USA. I don’t believe—I just don’t believe, and the rest.

  My income tax teacher is amazing, but I need to talk about her in detail. She teaches a subject called Income Tax and, believe me, there is nothing more boring, clerical, and extremely baseless, just rules, than Income Tax. I also have a subject called Public Administration. It’s such a nuanced, interesting, theoretical topic, but the teacher is so bad that you are constantly looking at the watch, trying to sustain and survive that one hour with her. With my income tax teacher, I really don’t know when the class starts and ends. She is a magician, able to take something so boring and teach it almost magically. I don’t think it’s human; it’s a miracle. Never in our class have we ever changed the time, but also, the concept of when the class starts and ends just does not exist. It passes so quickly that we never know when it’s ending. Why I am talking about her is because her amazingness has changed my life for the better. Not only have I realised that when I used to, and still...

  Coolness Coolness is one of my most interesting traits, a trait which I keep or hold tightly within myself, and I always try to verbalise it. Whenever I have an experience, I use it as a means to verbalise this feeling. I take these experiences to abstraction and make coherent sentences to explain this feeling, which I have in me at all times, to others. I want to give a very weird example of the reason for my complete indifference most of the time, and it’s going to be an interesting journey, starting off with something I heard. We will talk about absurdism, one aspect of it only, where Albert talks about how we don’t want to face this absurd world and hence we like to theorise everything. All our experiences, we try to lead them to abstraction and build theories to make sense of them. But we take it to the extreme, so extreme that the abstract theory supersedes our actual reality and lived experience. Hence, it is the theory which validates our experiences, rather than it b...

  My mom showed me a photo from when I started college two years ago, and I clearly remembered how, at the time it was clicked, I didn’t like it at all. I thought I looked weird, the dress looked weird, and the photo itself just felt bad to me. But when I saw it today, the dress looked so pretty on me, and I was so much slimmer back then.  Now, I’ve gained weight mostly because I’ve spent a long time at home. I’m currently overweight and honestly struggling with it a bit. I’m trying to return to a healthier lifestyle, but I’m still very conscious of how I look these days. This has been a struggle for as long as I can remember, but it feels even stronger now because I’m aware that I used to be more in shape.  Seeing that old photo made me think will the photos I dislike now also look completely different to me a few years from now? Will I realise how silly it was to hate them? Even the dress I disliked back then looks beautiful to me now. At that time, I preferred more mod...

I wanted to bring something back to Delhi when I was in Rajasthan. As I roamed around the markets, I realised that nothing there felt uniquely “Rajasthani.” Everything available could’ve easily been ordered or found in Delhi at the same price. I kept thinking about how this lack of seasonality probably came from mass production and capitalism in general. Then I stopped at this one place it had these beautiful bags displayed right at the entrance, and from there, I could see a temple inside. It clearly wasn’t a regular retail shop. Most likely, they manufactured things there and sold them in bulk to other places. No one greeted us or tried to catch our attention, which was very unlike other shops where sellers were constantly trying to make a sale. A man was sleeping there, not caring about anything. On the side, some craftsmen were making the products that were also kept for sale. The moment I saw that, even though the shop looked expensive, I was determined to find something within my...