Life Updates - 2020 (Part 2 of 2)

You can read part 1 here.

What I have learnt over the last two years

Privilege:

The concept of privilege that is realizing the benefits you unknowingly has has changed me. It is a topic I have often referred to recently on my blogs. It has made me more aware of myself and shaped my political ideology. You can read about it here, an article that is a copy-paste of one of my essays that I submitted during the Ashoka University application process.

Time management - Work/ Life Balance

A vast majority of people I know/ knew lacked either time management or having a work/life balance.

Concerning time management, people do not realise the amount of time they have. Friends and classmates (and even a member on the Sciences Po interview panel) have been surprised about how much time I have (to spend time with them or engage in a particular activity), considering my extra-curriculars, (recreational) sports, academics, voluntary work schedule etc. Although I often do not reply to that statement and just brush it off, in my head, I am always reminded that we all have the same 24 hours in a day, but if we changed our mentality a bit, we could use it more efficiently. Here, I must admit that even I am not the most efficient in utilising my time, but I am confident that I do it to a better extent than some people because I do not feel overburdened by the amount of things I do, but often do many different things.

Often due to upcoming exams, people stop all social engagements. I have never quite understood why.
If your exam is for 3 hours in the morning, in most cases, one does not study at least for a couple of hours after. Fitting in a quick lunch with a friend (even though you have your next exam right around the corner), is possible without effectively 'wasting time' as the time would have anyway been 'wasted' doing nothing. For some of you reading this, it may seem obvious, and you may be following it. However, that is not the case with many people I know and thought I should write about this. I have never quite understood why people impose a lockdown on themselves and even the thought of going out for a couple of hours seems daunting and a ridiculous thought.

Most people try and compartmentalize their lives into three parts. One for recreation. One for daily work. One for work that requires high amounts of focus, for a limited period (for example - exams).

Many people I know will engage with just one compartment at any given point of time. If they have a high-focus engagement, recreation and daily work are ignored. Similarly, when they engage with only 'recreation', the other two compartments are ignored or neglected.

Rather than trying to find a sufficient balance and effectively juggling all three aspects, people often try to focus on just one, and in my opinion, end up being unhappy or do not have enough time on their hands because, at any given moment in life, they are only focussing on one aspect, and not living life to their fullest by having a combination of all three. Think about it. Would you prefer partying and having fun for five days continuously and then slogging it out for the rest of the year or would you make time for yourself over the year more frequently and enjoy life by having a small breather from time to time? Your opinion may differ, but I prefer the short breathers every week that you get at the end of a Monday-Friday workweek. Even though many people believe that living for the weekend is not a good thing, I think it's the best compromise. We have to make, in our limited capacities, an end goal in the short run and the long run. Calling the weekend your short-run goal is okay. It gives you something to look forward to and motivates you to put in your best during the week and for the lack of a better phrase, 'chill out' on the weekend.

Patience

Cliched, isn't it?

You can ask my parents. I am not the most patient of people, so I have made a conscious effort of working towards it. Although Government offices always put my patience to the test and having made four visits to the passport office, for the issue of two passports in the last 6 months (and apart from only occasionally and briefly losing my cool while there), I can quite confidently say that I have become a slightly more patient person :)

Jokes aside, being patient has ensued betterment multifold. Right from waiting for colleges to respond to driving in stressful Bangalore traffic, my patience has been tested time and again. Therefore, I have developed a foolproof way that in most cases, won't stress me out; the following thought:

"Stress is never going to help me advance or do whatever I am doing faster or better. It only causes irrationality and a lack of clear thought that I ever so need because clear thought can help me overcome whatever is causing stress."

Although this sounds like something that any self-appointed preacher would talk about, I realised that by actually implementing these ideas, I could see a visible change in myself and therefore decided to write about it.

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Visiting the Kasturinagar (KA-03) RTO - a tumultuous but manageable experience to get a Learner's/ Driver's License without an agent/ driving school

Ask anyone, and I can guarantee that they will have a story (and in most cases, many stories) about their trip, or rather, numerous trips to the RTO for something as simple as getting a Learner's License (LL) or a Driver's License (DL). In this blog, I hope to make your life a tad bit easier by guiding you through the entire process, which may seem easy at first but is full of (overcome able) challenges if you know what you are doing. I turned 18 in January this year, and besides cutting a cake, I worked on my LL application online. I challenged myself to complete the entire LL to DL process by myself and without the help of an agent or a driving school, unlike what the majority do. The lengthy application process and multiple visits to the RTO, impressed upon me why most people decided to pay a little extra to get an agent to do it for them. Still, I was determined not to pay a single rupee more than the official cost. I succeeded. Do note that this answer is concerning the K

Living life out of a suitcase

December 2022 As I sit on my fourteenth flight for the year, with two more scheduled before the curtains are drawn on 2022 (god bless my carbon footprint), laptop open, a glass of wine and a blank word document, I begin to ponder over my journey over the last few months. Penning it down and (at the risk of sounding philosophical) ‘reflecting’ on this journey seems imperative. --- May 2022 After two wonderful years of ups and downs in Le Havre (thank you, COVID-19!), I said my good-byes, packed my bags and was on the train to Paris. But that was not my final destination – for now at least. After spending two nights at a friend’s, dropping my baggage off at a relative’s, catching the French Open and a round of golf in the middle, and a train to Beauvais (an hour north of Paris), I was on a flight to Barcelona. Checked in to my hostel, met my friend, went for 3 days of the Barcelona Formula 1 Grand Prix together, watched a Redbull 1-2 finish, celebrated with beer, sangria and tapas,

The Great Omani Coastal Route

Route 15 : Muscat-Nizwa The parents, seemingly forever, had been planning a trip to Oman. Why Oman? Well, that’s a question I asked myself too. My dad, in the 90s, spent close to a decade in the UAE but barring a work trip, had never visited Oman. Fast forward to the 21 st century, countless Oman Air flights from India to Europe later, he found himself stranded in Muscat. A ‘technical difficulty’ they said. He visited the Sultan Qaboos Mosque but didn’t get to see much more – it was only a 24-hour layover. However, the constant propaganda he was subjected to via the in-flight entertainment, and the cabin crew he made conversation with, convinced him that the country has a lot to offer. A friend from the UAE, who spoke highly of Oman, apparently also played a role. The parents had their mind set on Oman. The stars aligned and clubbing together a bunch of bank holidays in India, they decided on visiting in April. Unfortunately, or fortunately (the jury is still out), their son, liv

Kicking off a 'political career' in an idea-based, grassroots level political party

Despite having been following politics for the longest time, and now studying it full time, I never joined a political party. When people used to ask me "who do you support?", my answer was standard, "no one". Luckily for me, ever since turning 18 and being eligible to vote, there hasn't been an election in which I'd be forced to cast my vote and tell people that I have made a definitive choice about a particular political party. At a time when politics has become ever so polarising and dirty, I couldn't be happier to associate myself with the BNP. It was in February 2020 that I was introduced to the Bengaluru NavaNiramana Party. I found their vision, leadership and ideas incredibly refreshing. Though I was aware of their launch/ kickoff meeting that took place in Freedom Park in early 2020, due to a friend's TEDx talk taking place simultaneously, I could not attend. Then, between Board Exams and the lockdown that took us all by surprise, I forgot ab

Beating the winter blues - Morocco

After having spent just over two months in England, with short trips to America’s east coast on work and Paris for Diwali, I was itching to travel somewhere new – somewhere I hadn’t been before. I found myself in one of the study rooms at university, unable to focus on my readings. Winter was setting in. The days were getting shorter, London was getting greyer, and the sun had gone into hibernation. An important question was running in my mind – one that would determine how I would overcome the impending winter blues – what will I do during the Christmas break? A typical international student’s response would be simple – book a return ticket to your home country. However, as a seasoned international student, my response had to be different, right? With a not-so-powerful passport in hand, I grappled with my options. Limited by choices of visa-regime friendly choices, I first laid out a bunch of criteria for an anti-winter blues holiday of choice. I wanted three things - the sun, w

iOS 7 Update for Apple Devices

There is an OS update for iPads, iPhones and iPods (only for some generations). In this update there are many changes. The button on the right side of your iPads and iPhones now can be used to either, lock screen rotation, mute, pause or play your music. Lock Screen: In the older version to unlock the phones/tablet we had to swipe at the bottom part at the screen. Now we can swipe anywhere on the screen. As you can see in the picture, I have circled something at the bottom. If we swipe upwards we get many shortcuts. We can pause, play, change music tracks, increase/decrease volume, put the tablet/phone into airplane mode, Turn On/Off Wifi/Bluetooth/Do Not Disturb Option and mute our device.We can also view the current time in different time zones. The keypad that we see when we unlock the phone is also different.Changing the brightness is also an option.Here is a picture of this shortcut panel and the unlock iPad keypad. Control center Different Keypad in lock screen

IMS (Inventory Management System)

About a year ago my father wrote a software for me where I could type and keep track of what books I have. What I I did first was, I gave every book that I had a code. Then I write the code number of the book on the book. After doing that I open the software and type the book name, author, publisher, what condition the book is in (good,bad,average) and if it is with me or with my friends. I did that for all my books and then set them according to their codes in my bookshelf. Whenever I need to search for a book I just need to type the code number, author of the book, publisher of the book or the name of the book. A few months ago my father uploaded this data on a server. Now if I make a new entry on my desktop I can upload it to the server, then download on to another computer and get the latest copy of the data. After entering the information of all these books I realised that I have over 200 books. We run this software on AutoCAD. We can also run it on Bricscad. I will soon try to u

Sanjith Rao

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