Final Submission Woes

Hello, readers!

Hope you are doing well.

My college has essentially stopped its functions since a few days on account of the coronavirus. So has a larger part of the world lest they get infected. However, I have stopped working ahead of the curve. I have a big submission coming up. By “big”, I mean big—'you’ve to work on it for two whole semesters’-big. I had not started working five days before the deadline, which was (again, on account of the pandemic) pushed forward, much to my pleasure dismay. I was struggling with motivation earlier, and I am still struggling with motivation now.

Sitting home during the quarantine is more of a pain than usual—of course, my usual being lazing around all day at the hostel, unsupervised and with full connectivity to the rest of the world via high-speed internet. As of now, I neither have the privacy nor the internet speed. Add to that a sprinkle of chores.

As the reader, I think you will be having one of two reactions: 1) you will sympathise with me or 2) you will call me a lazy bum. My question to myself is why I relate to both these reactions. I took it jokingly when I read the “what-to-do”s for the quarantine. “Can’t go outside? Go inside.” I do not remember where I read it. It suggested introspection. Hmm. Regular readers of this blog might know that I’m used to introspecting when I’m down in the dumps. It’s not very pleasant, and I try to stay away from peering my mind, usually. My current predicament, however, is a chronic lack of motivation. Whenever I try and look back, all I see are the dumps above me. All those times when I decided “this is rock bottom; I can’t fall further” jeer at me. It is hell. It is me.

It’s not that I’m a NEET. I do have online lectures (though only twice a week), for which I do diligently read up. I look forward to these lectures. The submission I’ve to do is, by far, the most boring project I’ve attempted [and the rest of this paragraph will be a rant]. First of all, we were not allowed to choose the topics—something which our seniors and batchmates (in other courses) were allowed to do—leading to an undeniable feeling of unfairness. Second, the guide I’m assigned to is very chill; too chill, I would say. And not entirely either! He is absolutely not chill in his evaluations! It’s difficult to gauge what is expected and what to expect. The situation is very upsetting, to begin with. Given a choice, which I reiterate I wasn’t, I wouldn’t even have entered this situation.

Unfortunately, this semester, we also had psychology courses. That means that I can now chuck that whole rant into the ‘external locus of control’ basket. It conclusively indicates that I’m just whining, I mean, the rest of my classmates do not seem to be as troubled. I wonder whether if it’s because they don’t care about all of this as much [and cue the rationalisation]. Since they wouldn’t have started with wanting to have the best submission ever with everything perfect, they’re doing it casually—as they would do any other tedious task. I, on the other hand, have to overcome the looming hurdles of unfairness and a not-very-good student-guide relationship. Since the whole thing has already been spoilt due to factors outside my control, I can’t help it. Is there some way I can disassociate my name from all this? This is not what I wanted to happen [and a subsequent fall into frustration and self-pity].

This is the course of thought every time I think of starting work. Just five days are left. I’m not sure how to approach it now. I am scared, admittedly because of my own inactions, fuelled by my mind.

Is it too difficult to understand that I hate myself?

Musings from My Travel - I

Jotting down my thoughts as they are shaped by the surroundings is something typical of me, readers might guess from the titles of some posts from the past. Today, I'm travelling from my college to my home.

I packed my bags before sleeping. After being chilled by the Joker during the night followed by a refreshingly warm breakfast in the hostel mess—the last one for the few foreseeable weeks—I set off in a cab. As ideas to write bubbled up, I needed to download the Blogger app. The reason I'm temporarily moving and the reason my college is temporarily closed are ironically promotes by Play Store as Plague Inc.—the coronavirus.

Driving (well, I am not driving, but you get the point) past some flags, I wonder how and when we start attributing meaning far beyond the confines of the polygonal woven fabrics. The fabric dotting the mouths of the crowds also speak, though they're more like the voices inside your head. Is this person sick? Are their relatives sick? Does their excursion take them to tightly packed spaces like the public transport? Or have they been simply scared into using a mask? Thinking about this is futile.

I believe a large part of overthinking in the negative sense is actually just off-target routine critical thinking. Coffee might've had a role to play but "Not today!" I'd say as I just now realise I forgot to drink coffee. Damn. That was the only item in my school-time morning routine which had survived hostel life.

Digressing a bit from my travels, let's take this discussion to the internet. I've been reading an introductory guide to industry 4.0 named Future Tense which is about 250 pages big and has received recognition from several big names. Here, thinking of what to do right now with regards to that situation is a bit difficult since you need to think in terms of the present, the past and the future. The fourth industrial revolution—Industry 4.0 or I4—has already begun in the last decade. Presently, we see applications of I4 technologies unknowingly and thus often take things for granted. The textbooks don't really cover anything of this yet; as someone who did not choose computer science in junior college, I find it a bit hard to grasp concepts in programming. We are taught about the interactions of atoms and we predict how molecules behave, and I feel it is that knowledge of the very basics that is lacking. They did add a course on 'Information Communication Technology' about 6 years ago though.

In the so-to-say no-man's-land between two neighbouring cities, we still get good internet connectivity and proper roads, road signs and all. It certainly is good. Is it possible to do without some of these 'features'?—Absolutely. So, what we've got is good enough?—Seems so. I think these two answers to these questions sow the seed of complacency, as the asker often forgets the next two questions—Is this system competitive? What would be even better? In any case, complacency is not good. This is especially true when we are living during a multidimensional revolution—evolving technologies, evolving societies and evolving individual mindsets.

Coming back to the pandemic, I've taken to Twitter for news. I've also realised that I really use Twitter when I want to follow some news topic and certain artists—I'm basically what you would call a lurker. I don't tweet, comment or retweet. I was thinking of changing that. Just thinking. Would it be a good idea to post interesting excerpts from your daily life? Then again, there's the aspect of how much to reveal. I don't know how some people do it. I don't understand.

In that respect, I'd say the trend where I'm from is about 5 years behind the trend in the U.S. (as is discussed online). I'm talking about the generational stereotypes. For someone like me born just shy of the this millennium, I would classify myself as having a millenial mindset but having electronic tools which are half a generation behind. Due to globalisation, the latest generation here is turning out to be more Gen-Z like, but their parents will be boomer-like, rather than millenial-like. It would be fun to see how it unfolds. As many anime protagonists and antagonists alike have stated, humans are interesting and so are their ways and methods.

I'll end this post here. My travel is half done, and I feel continuing this post would make it discouragingly long. You'll see the next update in a few days if I write more today.

Fictional Discontinuity?

Probably one more repost from my Medium coming up. I'll shift onto "real" updates after that. Stay tuned!

----------------------------------------------------------------

“Ha ha ha! That’s what you get for following the rules so closely!” rung Kushieda Minori’s voice in my head as I came to a halt at the big traffic crossing. It’s then that I realised the magnitude of influence fictional (sniff, ;( sniff) characters have had on my life. Thus began the search to retrace my habits back to their sources.

People around me must have noticed me say, “Ha!” every now and then. I need to thank (?) Wodehouse for that. The weird appeal of the bitter caffeine kick — a good day to you too, Mr. Holmes. Justifying my awkward posture in my uncomfortable chair while staring intently at the screen is arguably the favourite character from the best-rated anime. Whether it’s looking to take the brunt for the betterment of the society as a whole while not forsaking your principles, to having no principles to forsake, the one realisation I have come to is that I consume a lot of anime and manga.

There are some masterpieces which truly move me in the ‘conventional' right direction too — films like The Wind Rises by Ghibli Studios. The one thing I do not see replicated is the surroundings of these characters — my reality is far too different from their reality. In their reality, they get work done. And I type away about my failed attempts at reshaping my reality to fit my wanted reality.

There was a time when I tried to continuously imagine myself as an anime protagonist in a slice of life setting. Unfortunately, I found no story development. There are no antagonists. The supporting characters are protagonists of their own unignored tales which I find distasteful and difficult to interact with. Don’t misunderstand, it’s my taste buds that are off. It’s like I’m a ghoul in Tokyo, munching away with disgust at a café with only coffee as the saviour.

“If I consume fiction and am so affected by it, why don’t I read about real awesome people?” Marie Curie is one really awesome person. But still, I had to compare and contrast our situations and surroundings. Wouldn’t it have been nice if I were born into their time or their neighbourhood? Mr Curie’s letters felt really close to what I really believe. Why don’t I find any colleagues or friends with whom I can collaborate, discuss, argue and grow as freely as the examples set before me? Needless to say, anything short of that now seems like a compromise.

The mind is a dangerous place. With more ease than straightening out certain pieces of logic and symbols, it can twist and disfigure absolutely anything. It’s like constructing a wall to protect me — the issue is that this wall is too unscalable and I have no Titan to open it up, for better or for worse.

I understand the emotions of the ninja from the Hidden Leaf, of Light, of Erwin Smith, of everyone, yet, they’re lost in the mysterious labyrinth of the mind to never surface. I want to build my own reality. Barehanded, I want to dig the grave for the mismanagement in my mind.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I do not edit my work more than correcting typos. Delivering it raw preserves authenticity, I tell myself. Even if there may be diamonds in the rough, I’m no geologist. Reading back, the right thing to do is to provide references to whatever I’m alluding to in my rant. They are at the bottom of this post, in the order they appear.

Maybe it is the very fact that I relate too much with the worlds of imagination — or to put it differently, the fact that I cannot relate with myself — that causes this mismatch and the break in mental continuity. I don’t know. The real questions are “Do I care enough?” and “Why should I care?”.

Also, sorry for the slightly misleading image. I am not a fan of ‘Is it still Marvel?’ and am a chronic procrastinator when it comes to reading books, but the image is a good fit anyway.

The works I cited directly or indirectly were: Toradora, The Code of the Woosters, Sherlock Holmes (of course), Death Note, Oregairu, Durarara!!, The Wind Rises, Tokyo Ghoul, Madame Curie: A Biography, Attack on Titan, Naruto, and Harry Potter. (PS: Just IMDb or Wikipedia links)

A Journey of Tongues and Ink

Hi, readers! I'm continuing to cross-post my Medium articles here for a while. I will be moving for further studies later, and my posts then would probably be a comparison of facilities, environments, atmospheres, ideologies, philosophies and so on—at least, that's what I'm planning.

Enjoy this article!

____________________________________

I have always been proud of the linguistic diversity in India and the fact that I have had moderate success in exploring this field, and expanding further.

It’s intuitively obvious that learning new languages is good for you — I mean, why would it ever be bad or neutral? Today, many apps promoting foreign language learning are available, and with the internet, it has made it very easy to explore the world of words. Still, it surprises me when people know only one language (This perspective will be clearer later). I know the words ‘bilingual’, ‘trilingual’, ‘multilingual’ and ‘polyglot’, but have never heard others like ‘unilingual’ in practice. This article tells the tale of how I got introduced to languages and scripts.

Marathi (I) and English (II)
I’m from Pune — probably the best place if you want anything to do with anything Marathi, being the capital of the Maratha empire. Of course, Marathi is my mother tongue. That said, I’m not very good at it myself, or I feel so because I’m surrounded by much better users. The other reason is that I studied through the English medium since I was about 2 years old. Not surprisingly, English is my ‘strongest’ language today.

Hindi (III)
Just hearing cartoons, documentaries, news and other TV programs, I developed a good sense of Hindi grammar. Hindi is used as a lingua franca in India, i.e. a bridge language which more or less everyone knows. I have just 3 years of formal education in it and I’m fluent. It’s probably the language I use most after English in my environment where I deal with people all over the country.

Urdu (IV)
Hindi and Urdu (1), I concur, are basically the same language with the same grammar. The pronunciations are slightly different due to the scripts used (Devanagari and Nastaʿlīq, respectively) and the vocabulary slightly different, where Hindi markedly draws more from Sanskrit. I felt not being able to read Urdu was an annoyance, and I took it upon myself to learn the ‘mysterious’ right-to-left code. Today, my most beautiful writing (appearance-wise) is probably in Urdu.

Sanskrit (V)
I had 3 years of formal education in Sanskrit because it was a ‘scoring’ subject (I bagged full marks in it). Hindi, Marathi and essentially all Indian languages are derivatives of Sanskrit. The logical structure of Sanskrit where it retains all 8 declensional cases really intrigued me. It has helped me learn other languages which have followed from Proto-Indo-European.

German (VI)
A relative of a family friend tutored some kids (including me) in German. German, having confusing gendered nouns, annoyed me, in spite of Marathi sharing this feature; the issue was the genders weren’t the same! e.g. A chair is feminine in Marathi while it is masculine in German. Later, I studied German for 2 years in college and even have a basic certification. German has retained four of those declensional cases and knowing Sanskrit had streamlined my mind to tackle this part of grammar which students often struggle with.

Gujarati (VII) and Kannada (VIII)
I live in Maharashtra. When India won its independence in 1947 and was subdivided into administrative states based on the languages spoken, the province of Bombay included the present-day bordering states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. Marathi and Gujarathi are written in very similar scripts and are moderately intelligible. It was on a vacation to Gujarat that I first picked up on it. Similarly, Karnataka, where Kannada is prevalent, borders Maharashtra to the south. On another vacation, I deciphered the script from the gantries and roadsigns in a mere 5 days — it’s basically a decoding problem. However, now I know that it was simple for me since the languages on the Indian subcontinent are abugidas.

Bengali (IX), Assamese (X) and Tamil (XI)
To those geographically confused, let me clarify these are through interactions on vacations as well. My father knows Bengali and it was he who introduced me to its script, when in Bengal. I deduced the rest of Assamese. Note: Do not call Assamese and Bengali the same thing — they’re not. For instance, Assamese ‘s’ is pronounced like ‘h’ and it has a ‘w’ sound which Bengali lacks. I learnt the Tamil script through yet another vacation down south, though I must admit I don’t remember a lot of it. I have visited Kerala but never got the hang of Malayalam though…

Japanese (XII)
Acquiring a new phone, an independent internet connection and some freedom, I started watching anime and reading manga. People underestimate how much there is to learn (esp. vocabulary) when you actually listen to the Japanese audio with the help of the subtitles. However, that’s nowhere close to what studying Japanese is. Assisted by apps and YouTube, I have clambered to the point where I’m confident I could find my way back if I was dropped somewhere in Japan. My interest in Japanese doesn’t stop with anime and manga; it is a very different culture from mine and it’s fascinating.

Mandarin (XIII), Korean (XIV), Arabic (XV), Dutch (XVI), French (XVII), Polish (XVIII), Spanish (XIX), Swedish (XX) and Russian (XXI)
That brings us to the present. Armed with the app, I went crazy and spread myself too thin, trudging through every exercise as I struggle not to confuse languages with each other. The Chinese pictorial characters are especially confusing since the apps don’t try to ‘build up’ from the ground level. Why Chinese?-Because China is India’s neighbour. Why Korean?-Because an acquaintance mentioned they watch K-drama, and I’m interested in the simplicity of Hangul. Why Arabic?-’cause why not? Dutch?-I already know English and German; Dutch is spoken between those two (geographically). Should be easy, right? I am also dabbling in the classy French, Polish (from Marie Curie who is a great inspiration), Spanish (purportedly the coolest), Swedish (of the Nobel committee) and Russian (because one of my friends is there).

Is it not surprising how people can live their lives not being exposed to more languages? In the meantime, I also did a course in linguistics to study the “what”, “how” and “why” of languages — another proud achievement. It’s great I’ve found such an interesting hobby.

---

Note: This is just an account of how I got introduced to various languages and scripts. For most of them, I can read the script fine but don’t understand the meanings. I’m proficient in just a handful of languages. Also, Roman numerals are cool. Again, this post is raw, as in, unedited. It’s the first draft, so to say.

If you’re interested:
1. Langfocus (2016). “Hindustani: Hindi and Urdu — A Single Language?”. YouTube