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If Teleportation Was Real

“The Portal Room” A Short Story by a Student In Germany Who Just Wanted to Hug His Maa Without Spending 400 Euros, and 12 Hours Chapter One: The Portal Room It had been raining all day in Gießen. Not the kind of rain that brings kids to the balcony or makes your mother yell from the kitchen, “andar aa jao, bimaar ho jaoge!” (“Come inside, you’ll fall sick!”). This rain was foreign. Cold. Grey. Silent. The kind that made homesickness louder, made your heart feel like a waterlogged suitcase. Arpit sat at his desk, staring at the open laptop. The cursor blinked at him, like a ticking clock, but the words wouldn’t come. His eyes wandered to the window. He imagined what his parents might be doing in Delhi. Maybe Maa was making chai. Maybe Papa was watching the news. Maybe the house didn’t even feel complete without him anymore. His phone pinged. A message from his sister in Düsseldorf. Didi: “You okay? Missed your call. Also, Maa said, ‘Bas ek baar uski shakal dekh loon toh theek ho jaaye.’...
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What does living in Germany mean for me?

 I pondered over this question.  The comfort of home is big. Staying at home released stress. I am sleeping deeper. My body is rested. Too rested, often. Is this healthy? Today is the seventh day, I came last week. Seven nights and seven days has passed. I am loosing touch with my core in the noise of everyday.  I realised last night, spending time, all the time with parents isn't required.  Both need a break, them, me. Personal space is required.  The end of one week requires plan for the next week, consider it a ritual and a weekly cycle.  Taking stock of what happened. How it happened. What didn't happen. What can happen next week, the to dos.  There are thoughts that come to my head, how to spend the second week at Giessen 1. Don't think about doing anything.  2. Be mindful about your approach to what you don't want to do. 2.1 You might not want to create a engaged week.  2.2 You might not want to engage too much, too less is also not wan...
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From the Ashes, I Rise: A Song of Self-Belief

  The world feels vibrant around me. The sand, cool and wet, squishes between my toes, a familiar sensation that grounds me. This feeling of everything being within reach, a dance of the senses – it's happened before. Yet, there's a flicker within, an enigmatic energy pushing me forward. It's the spirit of a conqueror, a lone wolf on a path less traveled. The destination hasn't been easy to find. It's certainly not the one I initially envisioned, but it makes a deeper kind of sense. Every day, this fire inside me ignites, demanding attention. It's like coaxing stubborn embers into a roaring fire, using every ounce of my strength. Each cough from exertion only fuels the resolve to keep going, to become more than I ever thought possible. The truth is, I don't have to do this alone. This journey, this membership in a destiny I've only begun to grasp, requires me to embrace it fully, to push harder with each passing day. There will be doubts, whispers questi...
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Demons and Dungeons : A Framework to Learn In Teams

I have been called many things in my life. Team player is not one of them. It is not as if I have worked in many teams, or many teams have chosen me to work with them. I am the kid who was left out from the group formation as a kid in middle-school standard. Imagine the isolation. Recently, Aparna Piramal Raje, who is also my professor, quoted : Dare to stand alone,  Dare to make yourself grow, Dare to find your purpose, Dare to make it known.  Imagine, I have been doing it since I was a kid. The presence of a group can seem less fortunate sometimes than presence of lone Sysiphious warrior. Although now, it is difficult in a hyper-globalized world. I am learning the art of group management and negotiation, treading Moore's law every second. Since years, when I started volunteering. In the past few months I have been found fortunate opportunity with Anant Fellowship. I am a part of team with four more people. We have frequent conversations on Google meet. We have weekly interac...
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Glasshouse of My Dreams

I am a human being. I need to prove it day and night. As a human being I have to caricature the values of the people around me. To be human is to be a part of a tribe. A tribe with norms and positions with a role. I did not choose a lot of things in life. My mother, my father, my brother, my sister. Even my wife wasn’t chosen by me. I am a passive person true to Shakespearean quote, “ we are but actors in a play, acting the roles”. I have thought sometimes, who is the playright ? My mother told me it was the god who made the stage, wrote the script and directed us all. As long as we did good to our loved ones, played by the rules of the society and did good karma I will one day get off the stage and sit peacefully at the end of my life.  I had accepted all of it with humility. It is a hereditary trait in my tribe. My ilk and kith rely on the buttons that are programmed since ages. To listen and do no evil. Yes sir, no sir, jee huzoor, hanji maalik, in my mouth rings all these monik...
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The palimpsest of my past

How important is your culture to yourself? You never arrive at this conclusion, until temporal lens allows a retrospection of your past. What do you count as a culture? Is it intangible or tangible? Is it in the marble stones that have turned soft like the cheeks of your beloved? The coarse closet cheeks aren’t irritable anymore. The disgust towards my beloved is alien as if it never was. Now that the dark peppery beddings of white coffee mug have changed, does it rest asleep across the town? What is her identity in new built environment beside the jamb?  Would the color green and carmine, remind of what you left behind and make you cry. The love, they tell is in the eyes of the beholder. How wrong that woman is who observed the naked emotion but not the nudity behind. The mind’s own eyes leers in the past and yearn for that home. It is not the daytime but nights that turn harder. More than the path where foot found their feet, crumbled and learnt to rise again. What is the rel...
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Higher Educational Institutions of our Past and the Future

When Institutions that are trying to break free from the past. They also re-enforce the same value system to claim legitimacy in their present. What are the consequences?  ‘Why are students given deadlines in classrooms when choosing disciplines for attending a classroom? I was given a list of subjects to choose from, and among them I had to choose a few within a stipulated time. Luckily enough I got all which I chose. After a month, I requested to be added in the classroom. Having missed the deadline, I felt shame when I didn't receive the answer to my request on first go for many days. At first, I thought I made a mistake. After I pressed the button second time, I received a reply. It gave me a world of knowledge to ask some new questions. This also got me thinking the same question I asked in my undergraduate college. Unable to skip streams after first year of education, I was told to start afresh in the application process and waste a year. I'm investigating the mind of ins...
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Connections

Can you quantify happiness?  Ok, I see your predicament. When were you happy last time? Called a friend? Had a lush dinner? Slept after a long time? Don't say Netflix binge is your favorite. (Not judging) Fine, you can lie that you gym and jog.  Mine is appreciation after I write an article. Mind you, it is not the only pleasure I am guilty of. Among many it is at the top of my list I can assure you. You know, it is not easy for policy student to write. Boring briefs, and white paper drafts ... yuck.  They do add flavor to the power corridors making changes in their own style. I like to play with the emotion as you read my piece.  Recently I wrote an article about Electronic City in Bangalore. Oh yes, I finally got a chance to do it. It is not easy to fire up the grill and cook a tikka as you desire. I fleshed out that baby drawing from my experiences of dirtiest underbellies of that city. The unsaid, ignored, cornered talk ... relax, it was just taboo that w...
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Sustainable before Midnight

Human Species have caused damage to the Earth. This is believed by many scientists. It is an untruth and a myth for many believers just like many scientists believe in the opposite. Did we ever wonder why the two sides don't agree with each other?  One, the calculation of damage by climate change is hard to quantify. Which damage to give more priority? Damage to the rain forests or the tearing apart of glaciers? Fire in the forests or the smoke from coal plants? The calculation is difficult in quantitative terms. Garbage heaps are measured in tons. When the air pollution is charted in ratios of millions. Do you care about the marine life? Or do you use PET in the Himalayas?  Humans like complexity. Their brains do not.  If we break down history of the cosmos (yes from the Big Bang!). I hate to break the news (don't mind please) but, humans have existed for a few seconds in the entire time since the beginning of time itself. Maybe the picture of the clock would help you. D...
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Deliberate Boredom

 A lot of people in the 21st century forget. The way to happiness is to excel at that which is boring. That what excites the senses, is not the presence of happiness in the beginning of the task. Instead an accomplishment of a task by the time you have spent your last breath.  Brain works in mysterious ways.   Begin with the most boring task that life provides you, finish it.  Takeway: Deliberate lowering of dopamine is the key to a happy life.  
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