“The last time they met this early in a draw was their very first encounter back in 2004, in the third round of the Miami Masters, when a then-17-year-old upstart Rafael Nadal — sleeveless and self-assured — introduced his matador’s mentality to top-ranked Roger Federer.”
Last weekend, I was enjoying a lazy, leisurely Sunday when I realised, with a jolt of surprise, the significance of the date. July 31st. After having kept a mental note of it for months, by the time it actually rolled around, it had caught me unawares. A quick glance at my phone told me it was 8:25pm, and I wondered if it was too late. A Google search for the number and phone call to Midland later, I was on my way to Aurobindo Market. more “The Harry Potter generation”
I was walking past the dining table in a hurry yesterday when the words printed on the shopping bag of a bookstore caught my eye: “you can’t buy happiness, but you can buy books. And that’s kind of the same thing”. It stopped me in my tracks momentarily, and I smiled as I read the words that were so simply yet well put, words that resonate perfectly with the way I feel about reading.
Books have been a constant presence in my life, from the age of 5 when my father started taking me on my weekly trips to the Gymkhana library. I would fight with him to stake claim on the maximum number of the limited books we could borrow on the library card for myself, and spend the next week devouring them, anxious to return to the library to borrow more. Growing up with that passion for reading, I have never been able to understand why so many people don’t read. I’ve always felt sorry for and a little baffled by them, that they are missing out on something amazing (not so differently from how I feel about vegetarians). I wonder – what do they do when they are waiting at a doctor’s office, or aboard a train, or sitting with a steaming cup of coffee on a sunny winter day? more “For the love of books”
As temperatures climb higher and higher, inching towards that dreaded 46 degrees, I’ve found no better way to beat the heat than to plunge into a swimming pool. Even if the pool in question is the Delhi Gymkhana Club’s sub-20 meter covered swimming pool, beloved home to frolicking children and the backstroke-fond elderly alike.
I’ve grown up swimming, thrown into that very pool when I was maybe 6 or 7 years old. I remember starting in the kiddie pool, swimming my ‘lengths’ very seriously with my mother dutifully cheering from the sidelines, before I finally graduated to the pool I swim in today. I initially learnt by watching the others around me. It was only much later that I enrolled in swim lessons to refine my stroke, delivered by Ashok Sir, Gymkhana Club’s lifeguard by day and swim coach by night (or rather, lifeguard by morning and swim coach by afternoon). Under his tutelage, where everyone at swim coaching was a ‘baby’ or a ‘baba’, my love for swimming grew. He inadvertently encouraged me into competitive swimming by pushing me to participate in Gymkhana’s annual swimming gala – an activity and interest that eventually morphed into my desire to join the school swim team. more “My swim journey”
Facebook tells me that, four years ago today, I graduated from Vassar. To commemorate that, here’s pretty much the first thing I ever wrote, when I first discovered my love for writing (outside of the multitude of papers written at Vassar). Written around a year after I graduated, this, too, was inspired by something I saw on Facebook.
The schedule for Senior Week 2013 at Vassar has just been released, and Facebook is flooded with statuses lamenting that graduation is nearly here. It is only when I read these that it hits me – it has been nearly a year since I graduated. I got so caught up in moving back home, getting a job, adjusting to life after college that time flew. I lived without realizing it, without noticing how much time has gone by, without it clicking in my head that I have been at this for a year. I can no longer say that I just graduated from Vassar; I lost the right to say that a few months back. Soon, I will no longer even be able to say that I recently graduated from Vassar; in a few weeks’ time, that right will belong to another set of students. more “Graduation”
Written this past summer
My brother leaves Delhi to return to college tonight, and this evening, my very talkative, carefree, chilled out brother sat quietly in the living room with the rest of us. He wouldn’t tell us what was bothering him, or even that anything was, but seeing him like that took me back to the four years that I spent shuttling back and forth between Delhi and America. I still remember the feeling I would get in the pit of stomach for those few hours leading up to my departure. It wasn’t an indicator of disliking college, but merely an indicator of how much I liked Delhi, and how much I disliked the upheaval of leaving it. And today, for the first time, I saw it in my brother. more “Delhi”
The nicest time of year to be in Delhi is finally upon us. With that in mind, here’s something I wrote around the same time last year.
I got my first taste of this year’s festive season walking out of Vasant Vihar’s Basant Lok market a few weeks back, right around Dussehra time. The market, despite being well past its glory days of TGIF and Priya Cinema, was adorned with strings of brightly coloured lights, waiting to be lit up as soon as evening fell.
There’s something about October and November in Delhi. There’s excitement and festivities and lights in the air (and on people’s houses). It’s not just the weeks of card parties and colourful, new clothes leading up to Diwali, but also the start of the wedding season. It’s not just one Diwali mela after another, full of chaat, jalebi and shopping, but also the sudden turn of weather, when Delhi’s relentless heat becomes more forgiving after all those months, and people want to be outdoors again. It’s the time of year when my brother, in small town North Carolina, and countless other Delhiites in various parts of the world, miss Delhi the most. more “October Breeze”