This 31st January marked the one-year anniversary of one of my favourite professor’s retirement. One year ago Dr. Renu Kishore Ma’am had retired from the department of Psychology, Daulat Ram College, marking the end of an era. She had served the department for close to four decades, and greatly influenced its culture- a department known…
PhD Diary: #1
It’s difficult to believe that we are just one month into 2019. So much has happened that it’s already a drag. For me, professionally, this is going to be, and already is, the most challenging year yet. I have until the end of this year to submit my thesis, and it doesn’t help that I…
Book Review: What we talk about when we talk about love
To quote Kafka, “a book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us”. That is exactly what I look for when I read fiction, to be moved, to be touched. If a book can’t do that for me, it’s not for me, no matter how good it is in every other sense. This…
Manikarnika movie review
I finally got around to watching Manikarnika, and was pleasantly surprised. I had seen and read reviews over the weekend claiming that it was a flat, jingoistic film stoking nationalism and reducing the British characters to caricatures. I had gone in knowing that Kangana’s acting has been stellar in the movie, and had told myself…
If only love were enough
If love could really defeat all, we would win wars everyday. Or maybe there would be no wars to fight. We would be the happiest people on the planet. We would drown in so much love, nothing would be able to touch us. You wouldn’t need to save me everyday; I wouldn’t need to save…
In no mood to try
Some days are more difficult than others. The familiar sensation of something keeping you rooted to the bed is back. The numbing is back. It’s like there are these thick, invisible ropes that have securely fastened themselves around your body to make sure you don’t manage to slip away from the despair. There’s despair in…
The seemingly friendly aunty
I went on my terrace a couple of days ago to hang wet clothes to dry in the sun. A friendly aunty asked me to put my clothes on her wire since that way they would be in the sun for longer. I happily complied. Such acts of kindness are so rare to come by…
Prisoner’s Dilemma
The other day we did a simulation of the Prisoner’s Dilemma in my Intergroup Relations class. For those who don’t know, this is a classic example of using game theory in order to understand competition and cooperation. Every time I have used this exercise in class, students have had a great experience, and it’s one…
Musings on anxiety
The last few days have been hectic to say the least. I have slipped back into the ever-so-familiar arms of perfectionism and anxiety every now and then like a bad habit. There have been numerous failed attempts to make concrete progress on certain fronts (writing my PhD thesis… that’s going to come up again and…
Book Review: A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees
My second pick from the Penguin Little Black Classics is this collection of musings on life by Japanese monk Yoshida Kenko. It captured my attention and made me smile right from the first page: There are plenty of gems on books, leisure and life in general. There’s an easy elegance to the musings, and a…
A Rain of Moments 