Today was the last day of B1 French, feels very surreal. This picture encapsulates a portion of what 2020 was i.e. the red notebook which contains all my music theory, French book and workbook, the jaw-dropping book written by Dan Brown through which sitting at home, I have travelled the whole of Florence, Italy and Japanese Proverb book that I stole? or just refuse to give back to my friend.
I am just realising the enormous change just a year can bring, it is almost as if I wasted the rest 24 years of my life. There is so much to do, so little time.
Dans un peu mots- C’est incroyable pour moi. Je n’ai jamais pense que je pourrais parler dans une langue étrangère mais.. lol
2020 has been an awful year for not just the entire humanity but even for animals. People lost their lives, businesses and had their career growth impeded massively! Corona virus is one of the most pathetic things which happened to people globally in a long-long time, however just like any two sides of a coin, I tried looking at the side towards the light.
I, along with the entire human race was jailed inside my home with a lot of uncertainty, although unlike a lot of people, I secretly liked it. I realised that not needing to rush to Court every morning had made my mornings a lot peaceful which in return made my entire day a lot more calmer.
In April, with little to no-work at hand, I was forced to just sit with myself and comprehend who I was outside of being an Advocate, who am I, if I am not prepping my files? caught up in road rage at 9:30 every weekday? or driving back home thinking about my matters the next day? What books do I read apart from CPC & CrPC? The massive need for doing something led me cut my own bangs, and not just any, but french bangs- the trickiest of them all and as fate would have it, they looked awful and consequentially I looked hideous, lucky we were in a lockdown!
2020 was also a year which forced us to re-think what we have been doing in our lives, I spoke to my friends a lot more than I did in months! I was video-calling one friend or the other almost every night and there were even nights when I spoke to three friends consecutively for at least an hour. Now that would have been an un-imaginable thought before March 2020 for me. I grew a lot closer to a lot of my friends, I re-connected to a lot of them and definitely realised the importance of family. Times like these, one really appreciates the little things.
I do not remember much of this day but I am certain that this is the moment, I have been heavily mocked at and I am unable to comprehend the massive insult!
Weeks later, still clueless, I realised I was caught in the body of a 20 year old someone, who, my 15 year old self wouldn’t approve of! And so I went down the memory lane, to my first room, the one I shared with my sister, back home. I went back to those nights of High School when I couldn’t wait to get out of school because it was so boring, I thought of all things I wanted to do, I was sure that I’d be a multi-lingual adult, one who could play a few instruments and make amazing cocktails.
Well, on the positive side, I do make cocktails but not the fancy ones, the basic ones only for now. I wasn’t quite happy with the kind of human I was turning out to be despite weeks of convincing myself how litigation is a 24/7 hr job and to squeeze out time to complete my sleep cycle in itself is an achievement.
In May, upon much insistence of my family & K, I finally started this blog and I am absolutely thankful to them for this, although I still don’t know where any of this is leading. In addition to this, I also undertook to complete 100kms of running in a month. As intimidating as I thought it was, I was able to complete it and it felt exhilarating!
After some eight odd weeks of performing various acts each evening, directed by our circus master, PM Narendra Modi, I injured my left knee permanently while running. So now every evening, I stood in my balcony, hitting the steel thali with a steel spoon with a poker face, looking into the sky hoping to find some answers for my slowly creeping existential-crisis.
In July, after a week of being bed-ridden, I realised that as much as I love litigation, I am a person beyond it as well and I need to have other skills apart from researching, drafting and arguing. Coming back to the thoughts of my 15 year old self, I vowed to learn a new language and a new instrument. Of course none of them happened simultaneously, but by the end of July, I had begun, both, my French as well as my guitar lessons. Alors, je parle en Francais maintenant et joue de la guitare. C’est incroyable, non?
Starting August, I tried my hand at some free-lancing along with my job and although I was well aware that just like any industry, ours also thrives on exploitation of the juniors but to what level, is something I got privy to. I had absolutely no plans of doing any sort of free-lancing until a few years but then, 2020 has been quite unpredictable for everyone.
By Sept & November, Google Photos begun showing me the massive amount of fun I had in 2019, going to the grand Dusshera celebrations at Ramlila ground, Navratra celebrations at Green Park, food festivals at the Indian Islamic Centre, Zomaland, and Concerts but like most of the global population, I cooked a lot of my favourite food, from Focaccia and Kerela Vegetable Stew to Japanese Miso Soups & Sushi. Mumma ventured into Thai & Lebanese cuisine so naturally I have coconut curry and hummus grilled in all my cells by now.
By the end, in October I accidentally made an amazing Korean pickle that I had been crushing on for over a year and spilled it on my laptop. In my entire life of 2.5 decades, I had never been as heartbroken as I was that day- 19.10.2020. If this were the 70s, I would have draped a white sari and broken my bangles in Nehru Place when my beloved laptop was declared dead. This may sound like an over-exaggeration but I am very attached to my gadgets, so sue me! I put a lot of thought in buying my gadgets and although I am not a gadget freak but I like them. So, by the end of the year I was quite devastated with my inability to climb a flight of stairs, coping with the loss of my laptop, Smacky (S-Mac-Ky) and of course, the uncertainity in general
But with Christmas tying the festive red ribbon on the entire year, in retrospect, it wasn’t so bad after all. I even managed to squeeze in a little trip with friends to Rajasthan, so as sad as this pandemic was and still is, I am glad I could squeeze out something good to remember this year by and not trying one, but two new things this year!
Over the past few days leading up to today i.e. 01.07.2020, I convinced myself to finally learn guitar from a tutor. The past two months have been quite a learning phase for me where I got acquainted with the basics of guitar and I am sure that, those learnings will help me get a head start.
I have a demo class tomorrow and I will mostly commence from tomorrow, I am going to have eight classes over the span of this month. I think it is an understatement to say ‘I am very excited’, I may be jumping to conclusions too soon but I want to be able to ace the exams and get certified from the Trinity School of London, although only hardcore musicians who take music as their career are able to do that but well.. I don’t see the point of doing something and not being certified for it, what does an uncertified skill really mean?! I know I don’t have to perform in concerts but for me, it is like a mental check, to have acquired a skill completely.
Apart from learning how to play Guitar, I am also going to be taking up French lessons for which, again I am too damn excited. I have gotten ahead of myself and learnt the French pronunciations of the alphabets, or now as I’d like to call it, l’alphabet, months = mois and numbers up to 1-12. You get the level of excitement, don’t you? Again, to be certified in French takes years and out of six levels, the last two are the hardest. My teacher herself has only cracked the first four and well, that is what I need for my TEF exams. Although I should mention that I am not learning French only to score marks in TEF but because as a kid, I always wanted to be multi-lingual, I dropped that dream few years back thinking I was being too unrealistic but I feel, it really isn’t. Little by little I am sure I’ll be able to do it, although one thing that does worry me is my vocabulary, I don’t think the course can teach me vocabulary and fluency. I wish I had some French friends to talk to. N’importe qui? J’ai bison de vous.
Apart from these two new skills, I am planning to incorporate some Yoga, Push Ups, Pull- Ups and substitute running to brisk walking. I have finally started to get my knees back and I am going to be ultra careful with them this time. I did Push-ups and Pull-ups very erratically in June so I have thought of doing them everyday from tomorrow on.
If I am able to do these things, I think my July will be far more productive than all previous six months combined. It will be a dream to have completed all these things, everyday for a month. Although I do think that to be even intermediate at these things, I need to do all of these things for a minimum of three months before I can judge my progress I.e. July, August & Sept ..oof I don’t think Lockdown is gonna extend till Sept. Do you? 🤔
Two days back while running I felt a funny ache in my left knee, I remember it faintly from a few times in the past decade. It is the pain I get when my left knee cap twists. I regretted running almost instantly. Yesterday being a Sunday, I thought I’d skip running since my knee isn’t very well and the last time I went to see the Orthopaedic he suggested I do VMO muscle strengthening exercise since that muscle is causing all this drama. And so I did, wearing a knee cap felt like a cute hug to my knee so I kept wearing it the entire day, I slept with the hope that I’ll wake up pain-free ready to run.
To my surprise, I have a hard time even walking today and all of this pain has made me realise that I have a weak knee and I may not be able to run, ever. I am pissed, very pissed. I am 24, this isn’t supposed to happen right now, I want to run. Running is the only thing I have been doing since I was a kid, I love challenging myself to higher speeds, longer time and a dripping wet t-shirt. The doctor has asked me to get some tests done but I am unable to do that because the situation of Coronavirus is terrible in Delhi and going to a hospital is almost like inviting COVID-19.
I have been running for almost two months now and I have a brilliant stamina and endurance, how am I supposed to just sit back? Let my stamina crash? Not run 5kms everyday? My entire day revolved around running and now I am sitting with a knee cap, looking at pictures of people running. I miss it, the feeling like my face is on fire and just being so exhausted. I miss being exhausted, exhausted to the point that I go in coma as soon as I hit the pillow. What about my June 100K Challenge now?
What if I am unable to run, ever? This is the worst, 2020 is the worst!
It is a very hectic Wednesday today, ‘It is a..” because it’s only 5:46 and there’s still some of it left. On May 5, 2020 I took up the following projects:
Meditation
Learn the Code of Civil Procedure
Run 100kms this month
Catch up with my online Terrorism course, and
Learn Guitar
Although I failed terribly in meditation, I completed a big chunk of CPC and even though there is still left a lot to do, I am happy with how far I have come. As far as running is concerned, I completed my 79th Km today and I have 20kms to do in the next four days. Terrorism.. well this might just be the most neglected goal. I could only do it the first few days.
Lastly but by no means the least, guitar.. well, I am not ready to be in a band yet but I can talk strings. I borrowed this guitar from a friend to see if the want to learn the guitar is a momentarily obsession or something I may actually want to learn, I think it is too soon to tell but I like it, despite crying about my fingers.
I have gained weight but reduced a little bit in size. There is no specific theme to this post. I have been meaning to put it here, the things I have been doing and it may sound weird but I am a little proud. Proud of nothing specific but just being able to commit and actually see it through. I lack self-discipline big time and this is the furthest I have come in a long, long time. I feel very content.
Oh and without having it in my list, I cooked a few new things and learnt WordPress, more about the food on the next one.
If I were as powerful as Elon Musk, I’d drop a confetti bomb on the world right now. Yas gurl!
After ramming my brains for over 3 hours I came up with this username, Where are my endorphins’, doesn’t seem like it is a work of art, does it? I challenge you to try to figure out a decent username for WordPress. I tried almost every eerie combination of nouns, verbs until I landed on this and almost immediately regretted the same, but well most of my Sunday is gone and I do not intend on making my Sunday night worse by not having completed anything substantial today.
My purpose for this blog is to bring to life a gazillion thoughts, stories and questions that cross my mind. My friends and family have been pushing me to do something like this for quite a while and well, why not?! Although I doubt I will be able to maintain this blog once quarantine is over, but I won’t know until I do it.
In a nutshell, this is a millennial, journaling.
PS: I have no clue about WordPress and I can almost see myself in future cringing over how badly this post is edited, but there’s only so much you could, T. Its alright!
Memes & Mimosas 