Travel on Basil Labib

Meditations from the Beach: Solo Trip To Vizag

gs454236@gmail.com (Basil Labib) — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 18:51:12 +0530

Couple weeks back, I was working at the exhall which has become like a second home to me, the ambient noise of people who stay away and don’t disturb (mostly), coffee at an arm’s reach, and the hope of occassionally glimpsing my crush¹. You get it? Anyways, I was sitting all locked-in, mentally prepared for a deep dive into another one of my rabbit holes when I was disrupted by a senior who loves to chat. I allow him that indulgence since our conversations are stimulating and englightening some times. You should always have a friend to discuss politics with, I think. But this time, we didn’t. Life was getting monotonous so out of curiosity, I just asked him “What can I do as a hobby?” By then, I was joined by a junior and we all sat around that uncomfortable table at CCD.

“have sex”, he said. I sighed. You see, my senior friend is running a little…dry. The kind of friends I have sometimes makes me question myself but then my junior said “Travel”. Not bad, I thought. Not bad for a second (more feasible) option at all. Chatting about tech and the sorry state of India’s investment culture, we ended up at the balcony of Bharti after jumping through a window to get there. I left the building after having booked my flights to Vizag. It would be a week long trip, I will not be taking a leave and I will pretty much plan things as we go along. My flight was on Saturday. I got busy with work for the rest of the week.

Day 1 - Adrenaline high

My flight was at 5 am and I didn’t want to wake up at 3 so I decided to sleep at the airport lounge. I had good portions of protein and fibres from the lounge food and then took to a corner reading some blogpost on my laptop. I had packed Amartya Sen’s Argumentative Indian and Sun Tzu’s classic Art of War with me. I saw people walking in and out, some of them hurried, some of them sleepy, some with whining kids, some with hopes and aspirations. The general song of humanity, you know. I wondered about my own state. How was I feeling? I didn’t know. It seemed like the part which hoped and dreamt was numbed down by the bitter realities as they stood. It would have been great to have a partner on this trip, I wondered. I immediately shrugged off these thoughts - this was it, I am used to it. Everything was going to be fine. Who was I kidding? I could already see nights of writhing and crying. Anyways, we’ll get to it in due time. I have a flight to catch.

I was hoping the trip would give me some clarity and clear out the city fog that seemed to be looming over my mind lately². Sure enough, I was getting in the headspace, reading Sen, and typing notes ferociously on my notepad. Thoughts were flowing without much effort, there were some spectacular clouds in the air and I was liking it all. A girl was seated in the middle seat and she was tossing her head around in sleep. I found it both a bit cute and distracting. I asked if she wanted coffee or if she would like to rest her head on my shoulder to sleep better. She refused both. Later I found out she was doing her MBA from IIMV. She asked about my reason of visit and I simply said vacation. Workcation to be precise but anyways. She was a typical Delhi girl; I wondered how Indigo managed to mess this up :P

I also experimented with this filter since I could not afford an actual digicam ;-; Hibiscus tea in frame

The moisture-laden coastal air hit me but I was on an adrenaline high, booked an Uber and dropped my stuff at the Zostel in Srirampura. The beach was 1.4km away, I set my Fit3 to walking activity and started. It was terribly hot and not the scorching Delhi kind of hot, it was the sweltering, uncomfortable coastal kind of hot. Some of my friends saw my story and rebuked me saying why I went now. I reassured them this wasn’t the worst decision I have taken in my life. I don’t know what I was thinking but I decided to run along the beach road. After pulling an all-nighter, weary from the flight and without any food in my stomach. Yeah. Sue me. I went back to the Zostel, took a bath and planned my day. My junior decided to show up and show me around. I was mentally making notes of things to stock up on - electrolytes, water bottle, power bank. I blinkit-ed all of it that night, got a leaky water bottle, complained to blinkit customer care and they were incompetent little fucks. I also bought a notebook and pencil.

Aesthetic much?

Around 12:30 pm, I had food. Loaded up on carb and protein at a cafe but slightly expensive. I got some fancy hibiscus tea and it was worth it. I synced with my friend here and we went to Rushikonda beach and got drenched trying to click an aesthetic photo. Bought new clothes and it was super cheap (I don’t know living in Delhi conditions people poorly), drank lots of coconut water for 20 rupees a piece (?!). It was around 3pm and God sent clouds so everything was good again. The wind was incredibly delicious. I booked my weekday stay at the Sai Priya resort - slightly expensive but I thought better than a hostel setup especially for work. However, they didn’t have a workspace and I can’t work from bed. We went up to the Thotlakonda monastery by trekking - it was getting dark. Tumbling down the hill and realising of running and racing with another person. I felt like a child for a moment. My fitness band said I burned around 500 kcal so yay I guess.

We explored various random spots. My friend said he knew a spot and then took me to literal heaven. The juxtaposition of the blue of the ocean with the yellow of the sand with the brown of the rugged rocks with the green of the hill and the white of the clouds. It was magnificent.

Vizag, Abstract, Jun 2026

My friend effortlessly engaged the locals and we got dirt cheap local commute - at one point, literally hanging from the back of a shared auto. Bumping head on the ceiling when passing over a bumper. Had to tilt my head just to see because my eyes were obstructed by the tarpoline of the auto’s top. Rickshaw wale bhaiya had zero chills, he was zooming past palm trees after palm trees as the cool air made things better. Great experience. Locals were so nice and wanted to help you out without taking advantage. Again, my mind wandered to Delhi folks and the a priori conditioning that people are always unruly and loud and disobedient and selfish.

From atop Thotlakonda hill

I slept at 9pm that day for like eight hours.

Day 2 - Meditation and Solitude

I packed some basics and went out for a run on the beach road. They had cordoned off traffic for the stretch and there were people - locals, athletes, vendors – blending into a cacophonic mess. I stretched and ran a 2k, then had some coconut water, called home, and sat down to meditate. No plans, just sitting and I realised how much I missed it. I took out my notebook and made some quick sketches. I don’t remember the last time I had time to sketch. Sorry if this is getting grim, I also thought what the hell was I doing.

Funnily, I looked around sitting at my shade of coconut trees and found people hunched over their phones. I wondered how I have spent thousands just for a few hours of not looking at screens. What world have we created? People don’t value what they have and keep running for things they don’t need. I was reminded of the following verse from the Quran: “Surely, humanity is in grave loss” (103:2).

I had some millet dosa at a local tiffin shop and went out for a solo sight seeing. I went to all the museums, the inside of a submarine and other aircrafts. Vizag is a naval base, apparently so you can also spot multiple frigates on the sea horizon. I was annoyed by a lack of fibre/protein food options, just had some egg bhurji and plain roti at a local shop and my stomach groaned in disagreement. I passed by an officer’s mess and I envied their lives a bit - sure maybe for their exclusivity but also for their discipline. I envy their discipline and structure in life.

I trekked up to Kailasgiri hill and thought it would be quiet but forgot to factor in the fact that it was Sunday. I was surrounded by so many people and yet I was all alone with no one to disturb me. I spent some time relaxing and some time meditating. The trek back was much easier, they have proper stairs cut out.

My friend had given me some food places to try so I booked a Rapido from the Zostel. I have never paid 34 rupees for 3km for a bike ride. It felt strange. The blast of freezing air from the AC and the context switch from the sweltering 43 degree heat made me turn from sweating like a pig to a frozen popsicle in minutes. Vizag people are built different. The place was called Subayya Gari hotel. I looked around, it was white, sterile with warm overhead lights. There were a few families quietly eating at various corners. There was no menu, no spoons on the table. Because there was just one item on the menu. Everything.

Tablespread

The person spread a large banana leaf in front of me and started putting items and rattling off in Telugu about the food with utmost dedicated. I just obediently nodded like a good boy and waited for him to finish serving. I thought it was basic manners. I had one of the most sumptuous meals that night - I forgot everything about my diet and asked for a second serving of all the rices. I decided to walk the 2km back to the Zostel.

I went to bed around 9:30pm. Enough adventure I thought to myself, it would be Monday the next day.

Day 3, 4, and 5 - A Cog in the Machine

Well, I just hanged around the resort at Sai Priya. I went out for morning runs along the beach in the sand and went for swimming at the pool at 5pm. I would get meals at the hotel inside the resort and work the rest of the day from my room. The saddest part was that the hotel folks didn’t bother to make a single person serving size, all their portion sizes were for two people so I always had to ask them to pack food which I would have the next day in the morning. Do these people think that a person cannot enjoy himself alone?

The Thinker (But Funnier)

My friend was supposed to come back on Day 6 and we would take a train to the Araku valley, hold for a night and then go to his place for another night. However, his family didn’t allow so I had to cut short my trip by two days. I checked out of the hotel, attended some important meetings from the hotel lobby. I also saw a couple sitting hunched in front of their laptops just like me and I smiled. Blessed are those who have company. It’s the highest blessing.

The resort apparently has a stretch of private beach…

..and who am I to complain?

I took my luggage, booked a cab and headed to the airport. My flight was at 11:40 at night, I had the whole day. I had to submit my thesis so I worked at it the whole day at the airport then bought an overpriced coffee from the food stalls. Once again, the solitude of the airport was allowing me to concentrate and I fired up my word processor to complete that blogpost I had on my mind for a long time. I secretly hoped to be seated next to a cute girl on the way back to perhaps lighten the mood or to have a chat with. The flight was 50% empty and both the other seats were empty as well.

Early fisher catches the fish?

“Well, that’s that”, I thought and stretched my legs like a sleepy cat. I tried concentrating on Amartya Sen but just stayed out of the window at nothing, letting my mind wander into a slumber only to be jolted really hard by turbulence. I couldn’t sleep after that and my mind was on alert. There was a lot of turbulence on that flight (apparently it rained in Delhi and it was very cloudy). I tried looking out the window but all I saw was the red flashlights on the wings diffusing into the clouds. I saw vast tracts of light dots zooming on the roads forming a complex network of veins and arteries. The city was alive.

City Veins

I landed around 1am, took a cab and by 2am I found myself standing in front of my hostel room, all items right where I left them.

Thanks for reading this far, you are still here! Let me know of places I should go next!

Footnotes

She has left the campus now, though.
I am writing this from an apartment, and I have all “amentities” but I hate it. I honestly just hate it, all this comfort is making my bones weak and my soul hollow. I want to live like how our ancestors used to live. Not have the supply chain of industry and intricate capitalistic mechanisms provide all food, clothing, tools I could possible imagine served right on my table. I want the freedom, Idk of wandering around? Riding horses? Fishing?

Bonjour Monsieur: Paris '2026

gs454236@gmail.com (Basil Labib) — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 14:13:27 +0530

I feel that my lack of attention to this blog cannot be compensated by me trying to apologise for it. But what can I say, man? Life happens. And I must say, I have been busy.

In this blogpost, I wish to record my experiences of my first European trip to Paris, the birthplace of art , style, and human finesse - not to mention, of revolution , liberty, and a number of incredible breads and other delicacies.

Paris ‘2026

The prelude

This trip was a company retreat and thus was very kindly all-paid. Deliberations began in December of last year when I was first told of the retreat. As everyone was busy with the India AI Impact Summit, visa and other related processes continued to get delayed, eventually we booked the flights via Air France (one of the worst flight experiences I have had but more on this later), I submitted my visa application on the French visa website and booked a slot for my visa appointment via VFS website for Thursday (Jan 29th).

The one-day trip to Mumbai

The premium lounge service was a life-saver as I went to the Mumbai VFS office for appointment - yes, a one day trip to Mumbai from Delhi and missed one of my course tests.¹ I set out very early around 4am and reached Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla Complex around 9am. As I had lounge service, I was ushered in ahead of my appointment time and they printed all my docs without any extra charge. The process was a breeze except for a minor hiccup where I had filled my application with Delhi as my place of submission. I just refilled a new application and we were all set. My flight back was around 8pm so I went to Juhu beach, basked in the lovely sun (Delhi people don’t see the sun in the month of January), and soaked my feet in lukewarm oceanwater. I felt healed. I grabbed some delicious noodles at China Gate and set out for the airport. The best part? The visa was processed the next day and I received it on the morning of Saturday. It was crazy.

The preparation

The rest of February went in a flash with a fine balancing act of work and study. The India AI summit was from 16th to 20th, the retreat was from 24th Feb to Mar 1st, and my mid-term exams were sandwiched between these two on 21st and 22nd. Phew.

I studied as much as I could, bombed one exam and did fairly decent in another. My supervisor had very kindly agreed to allow me to send in a recording for my mid-term masters project on the condition that I submit a week before the presentation date (27th Feb)…which I never did. I submitted on Feb 27th while in Paris at 1am CET but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

The summit had left me drained as I had anticipated with more than 350K people and 500 events - it’s kinda hard not to be overwhelmed by Indian things - all scale and grand - the big fat Indian AI summit. Results? Well, that’s the topic for another post. All I was looking for was a place to wind down a bit.

Day 1 - The arrival (24th)

Our Air France flights were scheduled for 1:30 am on the 24th so I reached the IGI T3 airport around 6pm on 23rd. I got off the wrong foot with VA over some shortcomings on my part but I just tried to avoid any unnecessary scuffle. Do also note that I was fasting since Ramadan had started and I was on average in a sour mood so to speak. We were supposed to be four people on the flight - VA (who flew from his hometown to Delhi that evening), JJ (who also flew from his hometown that evening), SSY (who was supposed to fly from Hyd), and me. SSY’s flight from Hyd to Del got delayed due to weather and he had to miss the Air France flight. He had to book a different Air India flight and he arrived in Paris 12 hours late (SSY’s trip was unfortunately marred with bad lucks).

sad trumpet noises

In any case, we cleared immigration, security, and onboarded the flight. SSY’s seat was auctioned by the airline to a French lady for 5000 EUR or similar. I was in the middle seat with another Indian guy to the window. The French girl in the safety video commericial was kinda cute. The flight was for nine hours and a bit of a pain - the food was okay-ish, the seats not very comfortable, but it was night and I tried to sleep for most part of the trip. I scrolled their entertainment system and sadly didn’t find much options. I just put on some Charles Aznavour music and dozed off to sleep to the melody of this French guy rolling a lot of his vowels. The occasional announcements in French were going over my head but my inner linguist was jumping with joy because he had fodder for the next week to assimilate. I started mapping French to English and no surprises, it was semantically almost identical. I wager that if I spend 6 months in France, I would be able to understand and speak French. I started watching Lanthimos’ new movie Bugonia during the last hour or so of the flight.

We landed on time around 6:30 am CET, took a Uber (for 90 EUR!) to our BnB in the Auteuil area on Rue de la Fontaine (Rue means street). I picked up a free French airline magazine along the way. That was around 30km and a 90 mins ride. We checked into the BnB and SS (one of the other members from London) was already there and he headed to IASEAI conference. Me and the India delegation relaxed a bit and went straight to a Carrefour hypermarket. These are basically places to find literally everything like Tesco in London. There were other options too like Monop, Monoprix, and other local vendors. It felt like you could just roam around and buy the whole world haha! We got a lot of packaged food, yoghurt, vegan milk, spreads, breads, and necessary groceries. The bill was a modest 150 EUR and we carried everything back to base camp. A walk of 15 mins with the Parisian sun ushering in hope and casting away the sad drudgery of Delhi. The obvious thing to note were the architecture, of course. Just looking at the harmony of these buildings gave one a kind of inner peace. Truly, Parisian knew what value art holds in the daily mundane. I made a mental note of looking up Haussman who was appointed by the king to make Paris look pretty.

An assortment of baked products, the smell was lovely! Carrefour Auteuil

Rest of day 1 went in having some food, relaxing, going for a walk around the neighbourhood (I could use my cellular data for maps thanks to my Airtel international plan), and doing some basic work.

One qualm that I often have with Europe is, of course, the lack of a water spray in the washrooms. This basically meant that I had to wipe my ass and pretent everything was okay for the next six days. Abominable!

Even roadside cafe menus were undecipherable on day 1 so google translate was a big help. By day 5, I was able to make sense of things written. It almost felt like primitive code breaking.

The first walk

The sun rose late around 7:45 am and set later than the tropics. Combined with my jet lag, I felt a bit disoriented. I called folks back at home and they were 4.5 hours ahead of me - I showed them the view outside my room. While on my evening walk, I passed through a church, a hospital, and went to Parc Sainte-Perine, I saw Parisian grannies and grandpas relaxing on park benches, reading books while basking in the temperate sun. Paris realises the image of the stories we were told as kids - the post independence education that I was given that still reeked of the colonial undertones and inadvertently borrowed elements from our colonial overload’s culture. In India, such realisation of dreams is an impossibility due to the sheer numbers and the hawkish distribution of wealth and resources. I quietly observed kids playing in the park, their milky white skin, and golden brown hair being tousled by the Parisian breeze as they played football. Not a single building facade had a blemish - how can you expect such people who take such delicate care of their buildings to not take care of themselves? The soft cold breeze kissing my face competed with the sun’s sweet rays sometimes.

On Why We Take Pictures (and explaining the sales of cameras)

While we were on a bridge over the Seine (Port Mirabeau), I was trying to make sense of why people take pictures. Almost every human action can be traced to human insecurity just like in this case as well. At the bridge, we were not sure of what we were supposed to do and so in order to save our faces from embarrasment, we took out our phone and started clicking pictures. The invention of the camera was to fill our meangingless lives with an activity - something we can point to and say, “Oh, this is what I was doing”. The phone enables our lazy minds to feel accomplished - that’s all.

VA was coordinating with SSY throughout who reached quite late at night. Leaving the comforts of Swiggy and Zomato back home, here I scrolled through Uber Eats and tried to make sense of the menu items via translate.

Road signs, Paris

VA, JJ, and me went for another walk to a shopping mall (Beaugrenelle ) on the other bank of the Seine to buy jackets for me and VA as mine was too worn out. I scrolled through Uniqlo, Nike, Levi’s, H&M, and others. The Northface one which I liked was 310 EUR so I calmly put it back. We just had some microwaved leftover from the afternoon meal and went to bed. There was Bolt and Lime for commute as well and funny sounding payment apps like Zuplee and Upplee. I remembered I had Bumble installed, I quickly installed Hinge and setup a profile. I swiped for a bit with absolutely zero expectations partly because I was in Paris only for 5 days. It was the usual French crowd - coiffeurs (hair stylist), etudiants (students), and bakers. It was definitely a notch above the average Delhi crowd.

I slept very early around 10:30 or 11pm.

Day 2 - The migration (25th)

I woke up at 5 am and it was pitch dark! The sunrise was in about 3 hours! I scrolled through Hinge and saw a reply from a girl from Brest. I liked how girls were more forthcoming than those in India who play pathetic mindgames. I really appreciate this quality as I don’t have to second guess what their intentions are. Although, the match didn’t go anywhere, it still felt nice. I tried to make the least amount of noise as I was aware that the walls are really thin in the West.

The beauty!

I went for a long walk around 8am and covered more than 2kms. I just loved walking around. That’s when I saw the Eiffel tower from the west bank of the river along Boulevard Exelman. No matter what you do, I felt that this city amplified everything. It can bring out your inner philosopher, your inner arist, or your inner scientist. It can make a man’s heart resolute and curios again - something that cities should do. Maybe I am romanticising Paris too much but whatever. It’s worth it.

As I passed by half-opened bakeries (la boulangerie) selling all kinds of lovely breads - buttery croissants, pain au chocolat, pain aux raisins, the sweet smell of freshly baked bread at these locally run Parisian bakery felt like a siren ushering you towards it. I was a bit late as VA had already woken up and called me twice to get back so I abandoned my plan to walk to Eiffel tower (that was a 30 mins walk according to Google maps). I got a bit lost at the cross-roads which still felt a bit confusing. I ended up at the same shopping mall as last night and hurried back to the BnB.

Our new abode at Rue de Croulabarbe

And then it started. The noises. Drilling and hammering and construction. It got so bad that we had to abandon the BnB and VA found another one on Rue de la Croulabarbe. We packed out stuff and just headed out in the Uber. I already had a heavy headache but the cab ride through the city made my headache kinda vanish. I saw lazy Parisians roaming the streets at 4pm(!), sipping coffee, smoking cigarettes in stylish clothes sitting on chairs outside cafe, drudgery in their eyes and no hope - the quintessential Parisian just as I have seen in Godard’s and Truffaut’s movies. The city that cures? Maybe.

An unpleasant experience

Although the cab ride cured, the cab driver was very unwelcoming - he was throwing our stuff around and talking haughtily - perhaps because of our colour. That’s when I got the first proper taste of the people of this city. Ironically, he wasn’t a native Parisian but an immigrant himself, I would hope natives would be more welcoming; I tried to justify his poor behaviour by trying to blame my fellow countrymen who might not have been on the best of their behaviour. But in any case, I felt horrible and my day was ruined. A similar slumber felt across the group. We just checked into the BnB which was more spacious and airy than the previous one. As a tiny shock to me, this BnB opened directly into the streets like there was literally just one quarter inch of steel between me and the wild west. I imagined it was a parking garage that the owner had repurposed into a residential suite. I shared my room with SSY. There was fancy wallpapers on the wall, pretty books on the shelves, and quirky painting hanging in the kitchen. I just hoped I could sleep in peace.

After wrapping up some work, me and the gang went out to find another Carrefour nearby (haha). We found one in Saint Marcel in the Gobelins area. VA bought some hot chocolate and a croissant from an artisanal boulangarie and the first bite of that inconspicous looking, cold piece of bread was enough to send me to a buttery delight - something about how these people make croissants, man. It was 100x better than what they dupe us back at home with. The neighbourhood felt way, way more like Europe - there were occassional Indian faces unlike London where every second face was non-Caucasian.

One thing I couldn’t help noticing was young people’s obsession with running. You can see them running literally everywhere. I really appreciate this - it has given me fresh impetus to take a deeper look at my own health. Health and taking care of oneself is not a very Indian thing. And in that gutter hole, you sort of forget what you are. And what you can do. You know, a sad environment kills curiosity and art and innovation. Sorry I got a bit cynical there.

We picked up some salads and bread from Carrefour and went to a McDonald’s. I had a McCrispy without bacon with fries and a very bad cherry flavoured coke which almost felt like medicine. That was our dinner. The walk back was 5 mins and I went to bed early as usual.

Day 3 - A sour experience (26th)

I woke up around 5 am and tried to complete some pending work and then dozed off again at 7am. I woke up again at 8am and saw the house was awake so I didn’t go back to sleep again. VA and JJ were supposed to head out to IASEAI conference yesterday but couldn’t due to the noise and unplanned BnB switching. They head out today leaving me, SSY, and SS at the BnB working.

Oh, did I tell you that there was construction work going outside the new BnB as well lol. They were building a new road just outside but the noise was much bearable and they finished before lunch. Day 3 was spent wholly inside the BnB in front of the laptop as I got reprimanded for wandering off for long the other day. SS went out for a “bit of movement” around 1pm, changed into running clothes and came back in an hour. He then changed and went away. And in India, there’s dumbnuts like Narayan Murthy screaming 70 hours work week lol. VA and SS came back earlier than expected, they didn’t get access to the venue and the receptionist was also being racist. It was unfortunate.

I had started making primitive relations between words and loved how the French fearlessly string their vowels like there’s no tomorrow. Auteuil for example.

A scrumptious meeting!

Another unfortunate experience

The most unnerving experience for me, however, was the instance of blatant racism at Carrefour St Marcel. I was standing near the self check-out counters as SSY was getting the stuff billed when one of the coloured attendees exclaimed “Paaji, Chal, Chal” (literally, hey man, move, move!) in a tone that was more akin to herding sheep than a polite request to move. Honestly, I was too shocked to process what just perpetuated for a moment. I just looked at VA who gave me a knowing forlorn look - a look which expressed indifference and familiarity with such repeated abuses. I tried to justify the poor man’s behaviour by imagining the average Indian that he may have had to interact with and who might not have the eloquence of speech in a tongue familiar to him. And yet, somehow this empathethic garb could not veil the harm it had done. I was deeply moved by the experience and talked to my parents after it.

I had some of the packed croissants from Carrefour and even though, it was cold and packed - these were some of the most flaky, buttery goodness I have had. I can only imagine the heavenly taste of a freshly baked batch of croissants. SS ordered some vegan Japanese soup and fried sushis. Although the sushis were alright, the soup was beyond horrible. I just smiled and somehow endured through it. VA, however, is more outspoken and just blatantly expressed what he thought about the food.

Responsibilities from a past life

And inspite of these travesties of life, I was also conscious of my mid-term thesis presentation deadline and another assignment deadline. I quickly prototyped a system using Claude Code for my programming assignment and gave it a cursory read. I knew that the instructor was least bothered about the course so I also felt disinterested in putting in the effort given the tradeoffs. It was 10 pm already and I resolved to make the slides in the next two hours; God knows that making slides is the most agonising experience that man has ever had to endure. And yet I started, only for SS to propose that we play Exploding Kittens - a card game I had never played. My polite resistance felt to deaf ears as VA and others prodded me to participate. I conceded. It was a fun game and would become a daily post-dinner ritual at the retreat. I made some of my cherished memories during these games. It was, after all, a long time since I played such games - any game in fact.

When we were done, I looked at the clock and it was midnight. I groaned. I opened my laptop and opened Google slides only to find there was no Wifi! And then started another 40 minutes of debugging the Wifi and in the process completely dissipating the motivation I had collected for the final act. Great, I thought. In any case, I made some quick slides, recorded my video and submitted the presentation at some time past 1 am. I opened the door out of curiosity and found two figures embracing or sharing a smoke at a distance. The cold breeze froze my face. I shut the door and went to bed.

Day 4 - The meeting on a rainy day (27th)

I woke up around 8 am as expected and took a slow start. I called parents in the morning and listened to dad reciting Surah Baqarah and felt the most ease and warmth. I chronicled my incident from last night to my mother. In all the chaos, talking to parents is the best thing in the world - it felt like the only bit of grounding in an increasingly topsy-turvy world.

I made some fancy breakfast from all the groceries - toasted sourdough bread with hummus, guac, and choco spread, strawberries, some roasted nuts, and leftover sushis. I was getting fancy. I took a sip of the almond milk and was instantly reminded of the lice-killing concoction that my grandma used to apply to old wooden furniture. It was beyond horrible.

Colourful breakfast!

I was also getting sore throat and noticed other people also coughing or with runny noses - it’s pretty easy to figure these things when the walls are so thin. JJ was clearly unwell. I did some gargling with hot water and regularly started taking green tea.

The trauma of last night had not weared away and I obstinately looked at myself in the mirror while brushing my teeth and tried to find what was so different about me. For the first time, I noticed things about myself that I didn’t like.

I opened the door to take a peek only to be surprised by the soaked streets. It had rained! No wonder it was colder than usual. I imagined how Paris must look radianting her passion all soaked in the rain.

SS ordered (a lot of) vegan Thai food and it was honestly so flavourful and scrumptious. If there’s one thing I have updated my beliefs on, it’s the fact that vegan food can be delicious too! The rest of the day was pretty unhappening and slow. We (all six of us) had a long meeting (and I mean really long) and then snuck out for some pain au chocolat and hot chocolate at a local artisanal pattiserie - the owner, also a Parisian, noticed SS and asked about our origins in turn. He guessed Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi - the usual. After learning that we were Indians, he seemed to grow more amenable and friendly. He shared his experience of being in the French colony in Pondicherry and Punjab. It was funny noticing a Frenchman pronouncing the word “Punjab” and the word “Shukriya”. I felt a bit easy around him. It is not wise for me to generalise that singular unfortunate experience to all Parisians but traumas are traumas. In any case, the drizzle-ridden walk to the bakery and the hot chocolate and the pain au chocolat was the perfect snack. Someone I ended up at Carrefour St Marcel once again, SS wanted to grab some protein bars.

The gang ended up playing Exploding Kittens again and I won a round after drawing an extremely lucky set of cards. Around 11 pm, I felt hungry and heated the left over food from Lunch with a bunch of everything - a smorgasbord, really! I also called my dad and showed him what I was cooking - it was around 4 am in India - Sehri time. He didn’t say anything but he was clearly beaming. He never said much. I went to bed buzzing with excitement for the next day was supposed to be all about exploring the city.

Looks like a plate of worms but it’s all vegan!

Day 5 - The outing (28th)

I woke up relatively early and was feeling easier. I had some green tea and went for a quick 10 mins walk at the adjacent park. This was supposed to be the last day so I was more liberal with my use of the cellular data pack. I video called my parents and showed them a Parisian park which was just opposite our BnB near some govt office. People walking their dogs, grannies sitting in the sun, young folks jogging. In my parent’s happiness, I found my contentment. I guess this is what love is.

The boat ride on the Seine

We took a cab to Pont Neuf which is basically this island in the middle of the Seine with a park and a jetty. SS and RH had walked to a metro and reached quicker as they wanted to “get some steps in”. The city center was a delightful to just be in - the weather was lovely with equal parts sun tingling on my face and occassional cool breezes drifting off the Seine. We just got onto the boat and the boat tour started with this 20-something French guy who could speak fluent French, English, Spanish, and Italian (!) Gauging by his almost instantaneous switch between English and French, I imagined he must be a student and was doing a part-time gig to earn some money. While we slowly drifted from the Orsay museum to the Lourve, and then to the French Parliament, and to the Eiffel tower, his tiny tidbits and trivia kept the audience engaged - such as the bricks for the Concorde bridge were taken from the Bastille or that the craved faces below the Neuf bridge were of the dissenters who believed the architect couldn’t make such a bridge and of his almost 50 mistresses with devil horns - the kind of poetic eloquence I liked. I looked around and around 50% of them seemed like French people - mostly 35+ or 40+ uncles and aunties who had nothing better to do. There were very few college students on the ride which might be explained by the fact that Paris is an expensive city to plan a college trip with friends.

A Parisian bookstore

The vegan lunch

I took some videos of young people jogging along the Seine with the backdrop of the Eiffel. It was a serene experience. In precisely one hour, the tour concluded at 1pm and we headed to the Notre Dame and clicked a few pictures. Then, JJ and SS found a vegan restaurant and we got a sumptous meal. The owner was an emaciated French man in his 40s who wore a Tshirt with a large imprint of the word ‘Om’ - he told us that he had been to Nepal and the whole meditation escapade. Then, he probably figured killing animals is cruel so he opened a vegan restaurant in Paris - I respect such people who take action rather than just speculate. It doesn’t matter what your sphere of influence is but it is the effort that matters and the conviction to stand by what you think is just and right.

A failed exploration at the museum

I, of course, called parents again as we were strolling through the city and showed them lovely bridges, various wares on display at various shops, and a flea market in full swing. After lunch, we went to the the Carnavalet museum which chronicled the history of the city. It was fun but I wasn’t in the mood and got bored. VA was not a musuem person so we got out and went out into the streets in the lovely weather. I wanted to shop so we went to a Uniqlo and then to this huge, almost stadium-sized mall (Later I learnt, it was actually a train station - Les Halles). We didn’t find anything worth buying but we grabbed some coffee at a McDonalds and then started back to the BnB. The sun had already set and Paris, that shrewd maiden, revealed a different axis of her beauty, covered in the garb of the night. No doubt, it’s a beautiful city.

The menu at a typical Parisian cafe. It is not very hard to understand.

Whilst ideas of beauty and truth and justice were going through my head, news started pouring in of a war between Israel-US-Iran. Gradually all Middle East airspaces were shut down and I felt that we might have to stay for a day or two more in Paris. I was indifferent to the idea as mid-sem break had kicked in. Unfortunately for SSY, his plans were greatly upended and he spent most of his time firefighting through it. As the night progresses, me and VA got more confident that our flight would be undisturbed as it was a direct flight to Delhi. Our flight was at 10:35 am so I’ll have to get up early. We played Exploding Kittens for the last time, of course.

As I starting descending into the abyss of sleep, sweet french girls saying french words in their sweet french voices starting playng in my mind, “au revoir”, “haa oui”, “bonjour monsieur”, and so on.

Day 6 - The departure (1st)

There was nothing much to say about Paris anymore. It was a pretty standard, get an Uber to get to the airport, buy some souvenirs keychains, fridge magents at a Relay store, VA bought some perfumes, I bought a Ratatouille stuffed toy wink wink. I wanted to buy a T-shirt but things were pricey here (50 EUR for a T-shirt when 20 would have made sense). I grabbed a falafel salad and some vegan pea soup from a Pret. The ride back was pretty standard. I exchanged seats from my aisle to the middle seat with a (really) tall French woman. The Air France food was horrible as expected. The seats were a bit better. I spent most of my time listening to the Qu’ran on my phone and then watched The War of Rohirrim. I tried to sleep but couldn’t. After 8 hours, we landed in New Delhi. SSY had taken a direct flight back to Bangalore. It was 11:30 pm, VA had booked a hotel at a nearby Radisson. We shared a cab and I went to my hostel. I called my parents around 1 am (who were awake for me!) and then crashed into bed.

Conclusion

Thanks for hanging out uptil this point. I am quite out of writing practise but I wanted to get this trip on paper and not procrastinate it to oblivion like I did my last London trip :’)

I think my worldview didn’t go through a significant change except for a stronger preference for a first world city to be my eventual abode. I’ll refrain from making any more comments in this matter and save the conclusion turning (potentially) vitriolic. As they say, Au revoir!

Image rights

Please be nice and ask me for permission before using any of the above pictures.

Footnotes

Please also be mindful that all of this is going on during my full-term university work as well as company work. I know, crazy.

A Spiritual Reconnect: Trip to Ajmer and Udaipur

gs454236@gmail.com (Basil Labib) — Sun, 23 Nov 2025 13:00:33 +0530

Udaipur ‘25

The last time I went on a trip was in October of last year. After five refreshing days in Kashmir, I decided I wanted more of that beautiful valley and those beautiful people and promised to go back in March of this year. Unfortunately, I got sunk deep in work and never got that opportunity. On top of that, the punishing and demanding challenges of work, study, responsibilities, and life in general made it seem as if the walls of stress and torture were closing in on me. So when my mother expressed her wish to travel to Ajmer, I immediately booked my parents tickets to Delhi.

This is my 5 day travelogue from Delhi to Ajmer and Udaipur undertaken during the first week of October during Dussehra holidays and just after Rendezvous ‘25.

PS: I only took postable pictures of Udaipur, sorry! Also, be nice and ask me before using any of these pictures, thank you :)

Day 0 (30th Sep): In the heat of the moment

Architecture. Udaipur ‘25

The toll of the last few days will surely wear me down, I thought as I settled myself into my sleeper berth on the AC bus bound for Ajmer. It was around 11 in the night and we had just boarded from Munirka. My parents were in the adjacent compartment. I took out my newly bought phone and started setting it up - in the rush of the fest, I had dropped my last phone and shattered it into a useless mess.

The new phone had glyphs and I spent some time playing around with it. After thanking the advisory professors for the tech success of the fest on the hastily setup Whatsapp, I could feel the weariness grow in my bones so I pulled my blanket and tried to sleep. I knew I had to wake up early and get us to hotels in Ajmer - the bus was supposed to reach around 7am.

Day 1 (1st Oct): The adrenaline wears off

Wall Painting. Udaipur ‘25

Through the Lanes of The City. Udaipur ‘25

I woke up around 6 am due to my father’s cajoling and got down from the bus before I could process what was happening. It turns out the driver had left us around 20km away from Ajmer and 2km away from the nearest town called Kishangarh. I was awake by then. I tried to get us Uber intercity but I was aware the attempt was futile and desperate. My mother was standing in the middle of the road. We somehow got onto another bus and reached Ajmer alright. The driver charged us a reasonable 200 rupees. It seemed like a pre-arranged agreement between these drivers. I was shocked because I had booked my tickets through GoIbibo precisely to not be a victim of such tricks. I figured that a complaint email was due but first I needed a bed to crash. The adrenaline build was wearing off and I could feel my muscles all cramped and aching.

We got a hotel around 200m from the Dargah Shareef after considerable hotel hopping. It cost us 2K INR per night since I insisted on a road facing window. The room was on the third floor and secluded enough from the clamor of the streets below. It had an elevator as well for my parents. Being conscious of my parent’s comfort became a recurring theme during this trip and I hope I was able to deliver reasonably.

I slept till afternoon, went out to have lunch and then visited the Dargah in my kurta and pyjamas. I saw huge 100kg+ metal containers on top of a 10ft tall bonfire used for cooking food for the poor. People were donating food and money. The place was swamped with khadims literally meaning “servant” or “attendant”. These supposed descendants of the saint would take you inside the mausoleum sanctum and help you to amplify your prayers to the saint. They, of course, charged a fee. We made sure to stay clear of them.

The rest of the day was restful and quiet as I spent some quality time with my parents at the Adhai Din Ka Jhopra (“The Two and a Half Days Hut”), one of the oldest mosques in India and the cacophonic streets of Ajmer - my most cherished time, always. We put off going to the Taragarh hills to the next day due to fatigue. We had some Mughlai spice and fat heavy dinner at a restaurant after some googling.

Day 2 (2nd Oct): A day of reawakening faith

Roadship Shop 1. Udaipur ‘25

Roadship Shop 2. Udaipur ‘25

Roadship Shop 3. Udaipur ‘25

Day 2 started slow but I had a good sleep so I was rejuvenated. Plans for the day were to explore other things in Ajmer and prepare to leave for Udaipur the next day. I still hadn’t booked any hotels or transport and was pretty much rawdogging it (very unlike me).

We went on a cramped tempo to Taragarh hill, a 30 mins ride costing us around 200 INR for 3 people. The city of Ajmer felt like lego bricks from atop the hill. After averting our share of khadims ushering us to know about the history of the dargah on the hilltop, we went to the inner sanctum and I was honestly blown away by the grandeur and meticule of the architectural design. Millions of tiny mirrors bouncing the warm golden brown light around, giving a playful yet royal feel to the place and on top of that, the cry of khadim, almost intimidating, the background murmuring of prayers and the silent teardrop rolling off the cheeks of the faithful standing in a corner. It was impossible not to feel faith stir up within my soul.

Uber service is highly unreliable in small towns as I soon discovered. We somehow made it to Anasagar Lake and I spent some time meditating, noting, and accounting for the expenses. My parents went for a boat ride on the lake. My mother wanted to visit the Dargah once again and I obliged. Local transport on the auto was dirt cheap.

I could hear the qawwals before I could see them as we entered the inner courtyard. The sanctum was closed but we stood on the sides - some kind of possession seemed to be underway. The qawwals were singing a qawwali (literally “wise utterance” or “saying”) - overgrowth of hair, veining hands masterfully playing the harmonium while their voice continued to hit notes higher and higher. Their entourage assisted with rhythmic hand claps and supporting vocals and accents. Everyone was dressed in white kurta and colorful overcoats just like Nehru used to wear.

Just then, a man emerged from the inner sanctum with a broom and he started mildly hitting the head of people standing in the crowd ahead of us. People started rushing to him as I stood staring. My mother nudged me signaling me to move forward. I resisted as I looked at such things with contempt but she told me “for my sake”. It was a command now. I stepped forward but the man was gone. I turned to my mother and signalled “Tough luck”. She said “Just keep standing”. As if by miracle, another man emerged from the courtyard and landed his broom right and square on my head. I turned and saw tears in my mother’s eyes.

I looked around and found a lot of infants and children running around the sanctum. I inferred they may have been the mannat kids - a personal vow or request for prayer one makes to the saint. I closed my eyes and made a short prayer myself. There were much less crowds at this hour of the late evening and it added to the spiritual surrealism of my second visit.

Roadside Shop 4. Udaipur ‘25

Cloud Painting. Udaipur ‘25

We left after mother shopped for some memoirs for relatives and friends at home. We went to a shopping mall and roamed around a bit. We had food from the food court and I enjoyed Hyderabadi biryani and savoured the heavenly concoction as my nose relished the aromatic jugaalbandi (“interplay” / “medley”) of the spices.

Day 3 (3rd Oct): The city of lakes and palaces

Paintings for sale. Udaipur ‘25

I had already arranged for transport and booked us hotels in Udaipur. Transport was through a privately booked cab through the receptionist at our Ajmer hotel. The transport cost was 4K which was reasonable given it was a point-to-point drop with very minor inconvenience.

Our driver was a Gujarati late-20s guy who chewed tobacco. He was well-spoken and educated. Our conversations dwindled into his enterprising nature and how he owns a fleet of 20 such cabs and runs these intercity services. He told us how he wants to be “closer to the roots” and that’s why he drives the cab himself once a month or so - to understand “customer grievances”. After a 6 hour journey, we reached around 1pm at our hotel and checked in.

We immediately set out to the City Palace after a hearty thali lunch at a nearby restaurant. The city immediately struck me as more lively and prosperous than Ajmer. The air was more lively and youthful. There were also swamps of tourists - both Indian and foreigners. I was in the city of lakes!

Personally, I was feeling numb and don’t have much recollection. The instinct to ensure safety and comfort had kicked in and I could only see myself planning and researching. I watched everything with a sense of detachment. And then, it rained. Cats and dogs.

We somehow managed to get out of City Palace and make it back to the hotel, tired and weary. My father didn’t feel like eating so I went out with my mother. In that tiny cove far away from other people, even father, I found myself growing vulnerable and I spoke my heart out. About a lot of things that were bugging my mind. My mother, ever so patient and understanding - probably, the only person who understands me - listened to me attentively. It felt so good being heard after so long.

Sarees for Sale. Udaipur ‘25

Banks of the Pichola Lake. Udaipur ‘25

Day 4 (4th Oct): Exploring the city

Bagore Ki Haveli ft. Bovine. Udaipur ‘25

We had a quick breakfast at a cheap hotel (there were so many options!) and booked a reasonable auto for a city-wide tour. We started out with Aravali Vatika (a normie garden) and went for a boat ride on the Fateh Sagar Lake and then to some random arcade place and then to some other monument and then to a traditional Rajasthani show. We finished off at the Bagore Ki Haveli but found that the tickets were sold out to my dismay. It was drizzling and the contoured, congested lanes and bylanes of the city center, dotting with hawkers and shops selling a gazillion enameled and dyed accessories and garments looked a bit too beautiful and annoying at the same time. I wasn’t meant to give up. We rushed to the second venue and caught the same show. The rain had stopped and we walked back to the hotel. Udaipur is a small city.

We had food at Bawarchi, serving a variety of cuisines. I wanted to have their thali but unfortunately they only served on a per person basis which I felt would be too wasteful. We settled for an a la carte menu. I really enjoyed exploring Udaipur’s food offerings!

At the hotel, I booked our bus tickets back to Delhi using FlixBus after being annoyed by the GoIbibo service and was careful and wary. It cost me a bit more but the trip quality and service was worth it.

Pigeons 1. Udaipur ‘25

Pigeons 2. Udaipur ‘25

Day 5 (5th Oct): Wandering Body and Wandering Mind

Inner Sanctum 1. Udaipur ‘25

Inner Sanctum 2. Udaipur ‘25

Our bus was in the evening and we had the whole day. I had no particular plan and so got more carefree and relaxed. Aimlessly wandering around the city was the plan. As I was relatively more relaxed, I found the mental bandwidth to click a few pictures. We went to Navlakha Mahal, a palace turned into a tourist attraction, and saw a short film on the history of Maharana Pratap Singh and Emperor Akbar. The film leaned towards an anti-Mughal sentiment which was understandable. We roamed around the city through its lanes and streets, along the banks of the Pichola Lake, aided by my handy Google maps. Dad had some tea, mom did some window shopping. We stumbled into the Muslim-majority area along the banks of the lake and dad was a bit shocked. I could see sense the change in the clealiness of the area. We went to get some comfort food and then to a random mall where we rested. It was almost time so we went back to our hotel, collected our baggage and went to the bus stop. After some initial hiccups at the designated stop zone, we onboarded and started out. The bus stopped around midnight at a dhaba and we had some parantha and got snacks for my parents. The ride back was comfortable and restful.

Few cool things I saw at the Bagore museum

Puppet Room. Udaipur ‘25

Wall Painting. Udaipur ‘25

Panna Dhai. She sacrificed her son to save the prince. Udaipur ‘25

Hadi Rani. She chopped her head to motivate her husband to go to war. Udaipur ‘25

Day 6 (6th Oct): All good things end

At around 7 am, we reached Dhaula Kuan metro station. We were in Delhi. The campus was around 2km away and I got an auto after a futile Uber search. I had breakfast at my hostel and checked mom and dad at a nearby hotel. Alas, it was back to drudgery and the monotonicity of assignments and deadlines.

Tree By the Lake. Udaipur ‘25

Reflections

I won’t kid myself or patronise myself by just admitting the truth - I find it extremely tiring to plan out trips especially when there are dependents. However, it is an incredible experience and an amazing learning opportunity.

Human songs and dance is such an incredible and potent form of human expression. I love my country. My advice to you, my dear readers, will be to travel. Travel a lot across this magnificent land where the east and the west and the north and the south bear no semblance but all are united through the idea of India. It’s a beautiful idea that just seems to work.

Can’t wait to know more of my motherland.

Lakescape. Udaipur ‘25

A Trip To The Paradise On Earth: Part 2

gs454236@gmail.com (Basil Labib) — Sat, 26 Oct 2024 22:44:01 +0100

This is the second part of my travelogue to Kashmir. You may read the first part here .

Day 5 - A day of many songs and many silences

Route for the intracity tour within Srinagar

I went for my usual walk around 7:30 am. It was still relatively cold, and most of the city was still asleep. It was mutually decided the night before that we would take a break from long trips and explore the city itself. That was the plan.

I put on “Hum Dekhenge” by Iqbal Bano on loop - that incredibly potent protest song by Faiz. It would be a day of rumination and slowing down. I was growing somewhat uneasy owing to the uncertain nature of the trip and how the subsequent days would unfold, but I was consciously pushing myself to embrace this perspective.

I booked a cab on OnCabs, and the matching was almost instantaneous. I think the driver sensed that I was a tourist (due to the 3 stops at major tourist attractions on the cab route) and called me. He tried negotiating the flat 2500 INR rate for an intracity tourist cab, but I refused. I asked him to take us to Shankaracharya Temple and bring us back, and he quoted 600, which was too much. I asked him to take us to Nishat Garden. The whole information asymmetry for tourists was beginning to blow my neck and I hated it.

I paid the driver around 300, and we got off at Nishat Garden. Luckily, we were earlier than the usual tourist crowd and avoided the nuisance. I sat down to sketch a view of the Dal Lake from one of the fountains but was interrupted by a gardener who brought me a flower. I thought that was it, but he kept standing, and then he told me that he wanted baksheesh, which meant he wanted money. I got a bit annoyed. I couldn’t focus on the sketch, so I moved on. The garden or Bagh was a masterclass in Mughal architecture - I loved the striking symmetry and can only imagine this place coming to life in the spring.

I shifted my location to sketch a Chinaar tree but was again interrupted by an uncle who told me that her wife was an IITD alum (I was wearing my university t-shirt). So much for solitude, I thought. I gave up and spent some time just walking around.

There’s a shikaara jetty just outside Nishat Garden, and we found ourselves at the jetty. I went straight to a hotel and ordered food. It was 11 am, and I didn’t want to miss out on my breakfast, so me and fam had a brunch of amazing daal, vegetables, chapati, and rice. Me and Dad went out to talk to the shikaara owner for a ride while my mom and sis disappeared into one of the clothes shops lining the courtyard.

The shikaara ride on the Dal Lake

Shikaara all primed and decked up

The shikaara owners have organised themselves into a union, so it was futile to try to negotiate. They were trying to sell me their longest trip of 2 hours from Nishat Garden to Hazratbal Shrine. I rejected the idea as 1) my folks won’t be able to sit in a shikaara for 2 hours with an aching tailbone - I had seen enough of that for the past two days and 2) I wanted to explore the city on foot and not sit in a stupid boat. I agreed to a 30-minute tour to the Mughal gate, and they charged me a reasonbale 700 INR. The shikaara driver was sweet-mouthed - a quality that I imagine would be beneficial in his line of work - and he talked to us with candour and poignance about the state of shikaara drivers and his own experiences. The water was filled with wild weeds and unblossomed lotus plants. My mother was frozen with fright while my sister was angry at something. Overall, it was a pleasant shikaara ride and I got one more thing off my list to brag about to my friends.

Dal Lake from the shikaara. Picture by my sister

In sooth I know not why I am so sad

My mind kept harking back to the experiences of the previous day, and somewhere deep in my heart, I could feel unrest as if someone had come into an ordered room and made a mess. I think I was afraid of missing out. The hard part was figuring out what I was missing out on. I realised I could try to convince my heart of anything, but it would always want what it wanted. Standing there in one of the most beautiful places on the planet and feeling lonely wasn’t exactly my idea of vacationing. Watching people loving and being loved wasn’t boding well with me either. As Jaun Elia once said,

Kya taqalluf karen ye kehne mein
Jo khush hai, hum unse jalte hai

Why should I hesitate to admit that
I am jealous of those who are happy.

Shopping and Shalimar

My mother and sister bought some clothes from one of the shops. I discovered that Kashmiris have been welcomed as traders in West Bengal but not so much in other parts of India, such as UP or the western states. This explained the apparent softening behaviour of Kashmiris whenever I admitted that I was from Kolkata.

The cloth shop at the Nishat Bagh jetty

I checked maps and found that Shalimar Garden was 3 km away from Nishat Garden - a commute that would require transport. My Dad asked a CRPF personnel for directions, and we discovered the public transport - a Travera model - which stuffed 10 people + 1 driver in a 8-seater. The fare was dirt cheap - like 25 rupees per head and was ideal for the commute. We would rely on Travera rides for the rest of the day, and maybe the sore arm due to being squeezed with 3 other people in a 3-seater was worth it due to the cost saving. I’ll leave a tradeoff for you to decide if you ever find yourself in Srinagar.

We headed to Shalimar Garden on the Tavera, and I spent my time sketching a Chinar tree (finally) despite all the tourist distractions around. The garden was very unhappening as it was autumn, and most of the leaves were slowly transitioning from green to yellow. There were very few blossoming flowers, and the shades were dominated by ochres and dull greens.

Chinaar at Shalimar Bagh, Srinagar, October 2024

And now my road splits into two

The Friday hustle bustle near Hazratbal Shrine

Now, we had a choice to go south to Chashma Shahi and Pari Mahal (the other two of the four Mughal Gardens) or Hazratbal Shrine. We decided to go to the shrine as everyone was tired of gardens. We took another Tavera and headed out to one of the most happening and crowded marketplaces in the region. It was too crowded to even walk, and yet somehow, there was a flushing economy right here - vendors selling all kinds of wares - boiled black kidney beans (rajma) to Dastarkhaan (eating table cloths). Mother brought some succulent and sweet Kashmiri apples and walnuts. I was still disturbed, but I tried to make peace with myself. I could not point out what was making me sad. Everyone was super tired, so we took another Tavera straight to Lal Chowk, where I was squeezed between college students and ended up with a sore arm.

The Kashmiri feast - Wazwan

I had planned for an elaborate Kashmiri Wazwan dinner and looked up some places online. We settled on Mughal Durbar, around 1.3 km from our residency. We left the hotel around 7 pm and walked all the way. They had traditional floor seating arrangements with elaborate raised eating tables. The food was top-notch - the usual Kofta and Gustaba - flavourful and rich in protein. Then, there was Rogan Josh, Tabak Maash (roasted mutton ribs), a mutton curry, lots of flavoured rice (pulao), and steamed rice. The only thing lacking was some tandoori naan - my only qualm with the Kashmiri cuisine.

As it happened, my mother and sister were happy to have seen the Wazwan but contributed little to finishing it. Father and I got down to the business, but I performed poorly myself. While eating, we were joined by a couple and her little daughter, who was exceedingly cute - beyond what I have ever seen and what words could describe. I got distracted from eating. At around 9 pm, we headed out and went straight to our hotels to relax and sleep. The next day would be a trip to Pahalgam, the final stop on our tourist trinity. I was also aware that this trip was about to end as the stream of Slack and Whatsapp messages started growing in urgency and frequency.

In the mean time, I enjoyed the “Hum Dekhenge” with my family and discussed the meaning. My Urdu had improved greatly, just reading the billboards and signboards across the city. I listened to a bunch of other songs - This Must Be The Place by Talking Heads, Haal-e-Dil by Faridkot, Bulla ki Jaana by Rabbi Shergill, and Heer by Junoon. This was, of course, apart from the incredibly apt songs - Kashmir by The Yellow Diary and Kashmir by Led Zeppelin.

To sit with elders of the gentle race
This world has seldom seen
They talk of days for which they sit and wait
All will be revealed

Talk in song from tongues of lilting grace
Sounds caress my ear
And not a word I heard could I relate
The story was quite clear
~Kashmir, 1975

Day 6 - Hunger for scaling and the circles are disturbed

Jhelum river in the morning

Unlike the other days, I didn’t sleep soundly. Slightly fatigued and mildly annoyed, I went for my usual walk and tried to cheer up by listening to the downloaded songs. I had a funny dream of people running in hazmat suits and with Geiger counters². This time I went to the other side of the Jhelum river and returned from the market side, essentially completing a loop. I saw many signboards urging people not to pollute the river and within two minutes, I saw a 40-something auntie drop two polythene bags full of waste into Jhelum and walk away.

Route from Srinagar to Pahalgam

The traffic jam en route to Pahalgam on NH44

Family took some time to get ready and we were somewhat late reaching Pahalgam. I had understood that negotiations didn’t work as they had fixed rates and any forced negotiation will lead to poor service and behaviour as I observed on our trip to Gulmarg. Mr. Ahmad was standing outside when we arrived, and he asked us not to enter while he bring the car. Apparently, there was a queue-based driver allocation but he skipped the line. Smart move.

I sensed a marked decrease in enthusiasm within the family. It was apparent, that everyone was tired of traveling. The only reassurance was that our flights were booked for the next day.

A cuter traffic jam!

Saffron shopping

We started out slightly late and our driver stopped at Leithpora along NH44, a place known for Saffron cultivation. That’s when I had my first taste of kahwa with real saffron and chopped almonds - it was warm and sweet and extremely refreshing. We brought some saffron and dry fruits. I was impressed by the modernisation of the business as the person explained how they have taken the business online with an e-comm website and complete social media presence. This was the manifestation of from India, for the world.

Along the way, I noticed certain things that Mr Ahmad did. For instance, saying that you’re a “guest of a high court judge” makes for a speedy pass through the highways. Moreover, it was clear that he was intimately familiar with the routes as he took us through remote villages on off-beat shortcuts that made for a speedy journey to Pahalgam with minimal traffic jams. Even then, we got some traffic on the highway as some election commission machinery was being moved, given that the state elections had just concluded.

I suspect that the people in Kashmir have probably mistaken the Canadian flag as a representation of the maple leaf? I am really interested to know what a Canadian thinks about how one can find the Canadian flag literally anywhere even on tractor exhaust pipes.

Conversations were free-flowing in the cab when Mr. Ahmad exclaimed that I should be married in Kashmir, and everyone laughed. I was momentarily cringed but gradually found the idea not repulsive. And yet I could see that the driver didn’t mean what he said - he was a sycophant after all.

The trek to “Mini Switzerland”

Once we arrived in Pahalgam, I was again swamped by pony owners and tourists - almost all of them Bengali uncles and aunties. One of the owner quoted 6000 per person for the pony ride and I almost laughed. Basically, this was the usual peak season fare. I was stupefied. I was also very hungry so I might have come down too strongly on the poor guy. Mr. Ahmad took us to a restaurant and I first had a good, filling meal. Back to my senses, I decided that I would climb to the top on feet and I won’t need a guide - I could just follow the horse dung. But then, I didn’t want my fam to just sit at the base. I agreed to get three ponies after negotiating for 2000 each. This was still a rip-off but meh. I would trek all the way.

Me, at mini Switzerland. Lowkey this was my state throughout the trip, travelling is tiring!

It was barely an hour’s trek LOL. Before I knew it, I was already at “mini Switzerland” - yeah, right, they named the place after a foreign country only to highlight our infatuation and subordination with European countries. I asked the guide to allow my sister to trek for some time, but he refused. That’s when I got pissed. The so-called “mini Switzerland” was basically a picnic spot with zumba, ziplining, a bunch of food counters and a lot of people just sitting and chilling. Once again, there was a group of school kids and I wondered if they also had ponies. We inquired from the group in-charge and he told us that they had just climbed on their feet. They would be 15 to 20-year-old girls in salwar kameez and school shoes. I was impressed.

The trip back to Srinagar

Way to Srinagar. Love the way the sunlight is playing hide and seek through the trees

The trek back and the ride back to Srinagar was a quiet affair partly because I was pissed and tired. Thus, I invest most of my time in thinking. An idle mind is truly a wild monkey. I wondered about the J&K economy and its increasing reliance on India for food and grains (I read a few pages of Colonising Kashmir by Hafsa Kanjwal). I got worried about the calls for an “Israel-like” model in Kashmir by far-right Hindutva goons. I wondered what would happen to these beautiful and hospitable people. I was concerned about birth rates and mortality rates. I wanted to know what the Gini index and the wealth distribution among the population and what was the GDP per capita of the people of J&K. All of a sudden I wanted to know everything about Kashmir and I wanted to tell it to others but I knew that what I sought demanded a lifetime (or at least a PhD). I was constrained by the limitations of being human, and it bothered me. My heart grew heavy and I didn’t know whether it was still my sadness or the sadness of others that I carried without any reason.

Another picture en route to Srinagar

I was interrupted in the middle of my meditations by the driver with the familiar question - “Sir, aap kal kahan jayenge?” (Sir, where will you go tomorrow?). You can sense that he knew exactly when and how to ask that question, having practised it multiple times. I got annoyed again. It reminded me that they were here to make money off me, and that question had an ulterior motive behind it.

Somewhere nearer to Srinagar, I caught the eyes of a girl sitting at the back of a Tavera in front of me. The Tavera maintained its position in front of our cab for over 5-10 minutes giving me ample time to catch her in glances and then avert my eyes when she glanced at me. Yes, we were flirting! And then, Mr Ahmad decided to hit the accelerator and my brief moment of excitement vanished.

The state of the dogs in Srinagar was truly appalling. Somebody needs to look into this!

By the time, we reached Srinagar, my moral dilemma was getting the better of me - I didn’t want it to ruin my holiday but there it was - the elephant in the room - waiting to be addressed. I started thinking and overthinking about a gazillion things and ideas and experiences and concluded that my actions and thoughts are in constant dissonance and contradiction. My heart sank and I couldn’t breath. I had to take deep, forced breaths, which might have sounded like wheezing to a person sitting beside me - luckily there wasn’t. I’ll spare you the details of my conscience hangover but it was getting ugly. I was a bit sick so that wasn’t helping either. I had to talk to someone and dumped it all on my sister who was surprisingly much more accessible than she had ever been. This trip wasn’t that bad after all.

We took an auto to the Punjabi dhaba place and had food. My sister wanted to eat chicken so I took her to KFC at the City Mall after that - it was already 9 and all the shops were closed. The mall looked like the site map for a Last of Us campaign. The cashier was incredibly incompetent - he was unresponsive, distracted, and gave me the wrong bill. I was almost laughing. Anyhow, both of us had some delicious chicken and then we retreated back to our hotel. The next day would be a lot of travelling. I checked in everyone and slept early.

Makkah market at Lal Chowk, Srinagar

Day 7 - Cooldown and return

Served by the person who sat at the reception. This was such a kind gesture, loved it!

Sunday was lazier than usual. I was getting tired of the morning walks and lowkey craved Delhi. I just rotted in bed for sometime and started drafting parts of this blog. The room was a mess and mom and sis had started packing their stuff. Our flight was at 5 pm but I wanted to be before time as this was my first time flying with my family so I decided to leave for the airport at 1 pm. I still had around four hours so me and mother went out for a walk around the Jhelum marketplace. But before that, the receptionist came in with tea and girda (baked bread) with butter. It was the sweetest of gestures, one that would consolidate the image of the Kashmiris as being A-class in khair-maqdam (hospitality). This would be the only meal for the day as I would skip lunch in haste and fail to reach campus before dinner. But it was enough, and I was happy.

Books!

I booked a cab via OnCabs and headed out for the airport which was like 30 minutes away. It showed 350 on the app but the guy demanded 500. I complied. There were a bunch of security but the journey was a breeze without any hiccups. The Srinagar airport was small and cute and my only qualm with them were that they were addressing Muslim passengers as “shriman” and “shrimati”. Maybe it doesn’t hurt being a bit more empathetic and thoughtful? Sister wanted to have nachos and made me pay for it :/ but it’s alright, she’s my sister after all. The flight took an hour and we landed at IGI airport. It took us two days to reach Srinagar from Delhi, more money, and so much hassle but only an hour on the way back.

Conclusion

And that’s it! If you’re reading this, then thanks for sitting around! It takes exceptional patience to go through my incoherent mess of a memory dump. Was it all worth it? Yes, definitely! But what made it extra special was not the place but the people - I think that is, always, priceless.

NOTE: All images are the copyright of the author (that is, me). If you wish to use any image, please write to me for permission here

Footnotes

1: I would later find out this is done in border / sensitive areas as post-paid sims are easier to track. 2: Dream-readers, wanna try to interpret this?

A Trip To The Paradise On Earth: Part 1

gs454236@gmail.com (Basil Labib) — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 20:05:44 +0100

This travelogue and the next one narrates my experiences of spending a week in Kashmir with my family. As always, I have tried to combine my personal ruminations with more useful information if you’re a fellow traveller.

Disclaimer: This post might contains expletives.

On the trek path to Thajivas Glacier, Sonamarg. October 2024

Day 0 (Sunday) - Leaving Delhi

After a punishing mid-semester, the onslaught of RDV was setting a lighter and more exciting tone for campus peeps. Being a part of RDV for the past three years, one gains the wisdom that it isn’t much of a big deal for final year students if they are not in the organising team. Basically, I didn’t give a fuck about the fact that it was RDV time on campus. My weekend was spent in the library studying. However, I was looking forward to the Qawwali night slated for Sunday evening. I was also looking forward to catching a train just after that which will take me to Jammu and then to the magical land of Kashmir.

The Qawwali programme, performed by Nizami Bandhu , ended around 8:15 pm and I headed straight to my hostel for dinner. I reached my room at 9 pm and started packing up. I backtracked the metro schedule and decided that leaving at 9:30 would give me a good enough margin. This meant I had 30 mins to pack up for the week-long trip. No big deal.

Metro took 40-ish minutes (longer because I missed the Magenta line metro towards Botanical Garden by a minute or so and had to wait for 8 minutes). Family had already arrived at the station and we got ourselves booking into the AC waiting room on the first floor of NDLS railway station. Our train was at 5:30 in the morning and it was around 11pm. The plan was to spend the night at the station (Don’t ask me why; my brilliant dad comes up with these schemes).

This time I took care to get out of Gate 4 and not Gate 3 which reads “Ajmeri Gate” but apparently goes out of the station.

My sister was kinda unwell so I gave her hoodie (the one I brought from London for her). She popped in a paracetamol (which I brought for her as well) and she dozed off.

I was anxious because the BlueDot application deadline was in 17 hours, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to submit it if I got on the train (the journey was around 10 hours) and then we had to reach a hotel in Jammu. So, I had to submit the application before I got on the train which gave me 6 hours. I took out my laptop and started typing. I wrote answers to two questions before my brain stopped making sense of words, and I knew that I had to sleep.

23:46

Overrun by guilt and some concern, I set an alarm for 3 am and dozed off to Jharkhand tourism advert mixed with railway announcement noises mixing gently into my ears.

I woke up at 4 am. My dad had silenced the alarm :/

I took out my laptop and started typing drowsily. It was around 5. We left the waiting room otherwise, they would have charged for another hour. I was sitting on the platform and typing when my laptop went dead (great, I thought). I finished up the form and submitted it on my phone. I must say it wasn’t the best of my efforts given how fatigued I was from the day before - had to meet a couple of friends, and took a BSP meeting, went to the Qawwali night, turned in an assignment, and travelled to the station.

Day 1 (Monday) - The train journey from Delhi to Jammu

The train started around 20 minutes late, and I headed straight for the bed on the upper berth. I slept till 11 am. I forced myself to sleep more, but the constant chattering noises and vendor peddling originating from below compelled me not to. The next hour was bed rotting max as I kept dozing off and waking up as my body shuddered in sync with the metal box enclosing it cruising north.

My brilliant dad didn’t order food when he could, and I had sworn never to order from IRCTC.

At around 4 pm, all our networks vanished. I thought it might be a temporary glitch. Pre-paid sims are blocked after Pathankot.¹ I felt a bit constrained. An unnamed silence fell over the group, it felt like our freedom was being constrained.

Fritters with achaar and veggies near Jalandhar station

On top of that, they decided to divert our train from Ludhiana to a station after Jalandhar, which meant that we would arrive at Jammu 4 hours late at 7 pm. Our train was sitting in the middle of nowhere in the wilderness. Everyone would be in the dark unless we get a new SIM card.

A loud whistle, and a sudden jolt, and we started rolling again. My day was spent in staring out the window or going back to sleep. Dad was constantly in touch with a native Kashmiri person who guided us for travel and accommodation.

19:07

We reached Jammu and headed to a telecom shop to get a post-paid SIM card. Navigating the next 7 days would be tricky, I thought, as we brought one SIM only for a pack of 4. The rest of the day (or whatever was left of it) was pretty boring as we checked into a lodge off the main road near the bus stand and had dinner at a cheap hotel.

Our nighthold on the first floor (with the flag sticking out) in Jammu

The food was my first sampling of Kashmiri cuisine, and it was sumptuous and flavourful. I had koftas which were huge (around 3 inches in diameter) and roasted chicken along with thick-grained hard rice. I would soon discover that naan and rotis are not popular in Kashmir.

As I walked through the lanes, drivers were swarming around us like hungry bees to nectar. I looked at their faces and imagined a hard life filled with struggle and trying to make ends meet. I could smell the poverty in the air. It reminded me of my city.

Dad talked to a guy on call who quoted 38K + taxes for a 5-day trip. I spent the time till midnight reading up on Vargis Khan’s blogs and planning for the next day. Uncertainty loomed large, but I was excited. Perhaps, I was a bit anxious too because I had led three other people for this holiday. This was the first time I was being directly responsible for my family. I would have to prioritise comfort over cost and find the right balance.

Every family has a bit of…contention and disagreements. I think family trips help bring people who, although living in the same physical space, grow mentally more distant as they accumulate personal experiences - a dangerous state of affairs. This was my motivation for this trip. I think I have been partly successful but we’re getting ahead of ourselves here.

PS: My dad snored so loudly in bed LMAO, I couldn’t sleep. I opened my laptop and started typing.

Day 2 (Tuesday) - NH44

Woke up around 6 am to Dad moving around the chair across the room noisily. I can sleep in bright daylight but I need pin drop silence to sleep. It dawned on me that the next few days are gonna be about cooperation - a term which gradually loses its significance as people start to live alone and apart from one another. But I was pissed then so I scolded Dad to go back to sleep and slept till 7.

The gurudwara at Jammu

One of the best times to explore the geography of a locality is during the morning before the shops open up. So, I freshened up, put on my shoes, and went out to explore the streets of Jammu. There was a gurudwara in the distance and I could hear hymns blaring out of speakers in a language which I couldn’t understand. I came back to find my Dad having tea and rapturously chatting with the owner of a tea shop beneath our hotel. This would become a common pattern and something I would begin to admire as it would allow us to find out about cheap options for commute and food quite effortlessly - a form of “herd mind” that even google doesn’t have access to.

Me and Dad went out to get a cab from the stand to take us to Srinagar. It was around 250 km away and the driver charged us a reasonable 5500 INR for a 7-seater car although we were four. There were also cheaper option of a small reserved cab for 3500 and a shared cab (“service gaddi”) for 900 per person and buses for as low as 200. We paid for the lodge who cared us a reasonable 600 INR for an air-conditioned room which also had a CRT television which reminded me of the TV we owned a very, very long time ago.

Delicious aloo parantha at a vegetarian dhaba in Jammu

We had breakfast at a vegetarian dhaba - aloo paranthe and naan - hot and dripping with butter which reminded me of comforting times of Delhi. I had a little altercation with father regarding a personal matter and I felt a bit hurt. We managed to make it a public spectacle and I could feel people staring at us. After tea, we started out of Jammu at around 10 am. The driver told us that it would take us around 5 hours to reach Srinagar if we are lucky and it usually takes 6 hours. We reached Srinagar around 4pm with a 45 mins stop for lunch at a dhaba after the Banihal tunnel on the NH44 route from Jammu to Srinagar.

Ah, the mountains - that wonderful source of healing which I craved for so long!

The day was spent on the road watching towns and trees go cruising by. Road fatigue is a very real thing. Out of boredom, I estimated the length of one of the two tunnels to be between 8-10km based on the speed and time taken to cross it. That tunnel was 9km long. I inquired the driver about the Mughal road route to Srinagar that went through Shopian as I had read on VK’s blog and he replied that due to bad condition and longer time, that route is seldom preferred by drivers. I made a mental note to travel from Jammu to Srinagar via the Mughal road.

Along the way, I saw the construction work for a railway line between Jammu and Srinagar and thought that would be cool to have a direct line from Delhi to Srinagar.

The funny lunch

The lunch was a funny affair as the serving person forgot to get us “naan” - I thought they were making naan (as is usually done in the north). It turned out to be cold and pre-baked bread with a sprinkling of sesame - the kind that peddlers used to sell back at my naani’s place for 5 rupees. I had it with kofta (meatball) again - maybe I was getting fond of meatballs.

Kashmiri dhaba on the way to Srinagar

I remember dozing off just before Srinagar after lunch as the strong winds blew my hair strands apart. The chill in the air increased as we entered Srinagar, and it felt so good on my face. It reminded me of London. That’s when I saw armed forces casually strolling the streets with AK-47 rifles hanging from their shoulders and, naturally, got a bit scared.

Settling down in Srinagar

We went to a hotel on Court Road and negotiated a deal for the night. Dad and I transferred the luggage into the room, and I started with my sister to explore the neighbourhood. That’s when I got a call from my Dad telling me to come quickly as we had to vacate the room. I got confused but hastened to the hotel. It turns out that the receptionist was now demanding more money and Mom and Dad were waiting for us at the reception with all our luggage. The funny thing is that there were two or three more people who were showing us their rooms but as we had agreed on this deal before, we stuck to it even though the room was a little mid. As destiny would have it, we got checked into another room which was far better, better furnished and more clean, with a helpful receptionist.

It wasn’t troubling, except for the unnecessary hassle of carrying stuff around. This left an initial impression of Kashmiris being cunning and self-interested, just like Delhites, who are known to be unruly and crafty. However, I would soon debunk this experience with many more where the counter-impression outshone this minute inconvenience.

It was around 5 pm and we were all settled for good. My parents decided to stay in the hotel and relax - probably tired from the journey but I was buzzing with excitement. After my first excursion to the bridge market in the west, I crossed to the other side and had mutton kebab from a street-side food stall for 50, I started again for a second walk towards the east.

The Jhelum river at dusk

It was getting close to sunset and at around 6 pm, the sound of azaan sobered the movement and the chattering. Lal Chowk is a marketplace with a nice court that was recently constructed. There were Kashmiris and non-Kashmiris sitting on benches and gossiping, kids running around or skating, women with covered head shopping in pairs of two or negotiating a deal. I had candied fruit slice at a dry fruit shop at Makkah market which was a beehive of clothes and other accessories.

Having fun in the market hustle-bustle - A halwai shop

I had some non-academic conversations with my sister which I’ll leave out of this blog but suffice it to say that that conversation would not have happened in an ordinary setting. I think Srinagar’s vibe at night had uplifted everyone’s mood after two days of traveling and everyone had got more chatty.

We also booked our flight tickets to New Delhi for the 13th after collectively deciding that 2 days of travel would be too hectic, and I had classes from Monday. This would be the first flying experience for my father, mother, and sister.

I looked up a few places and somehow, Kashmiri cuisine had won my heart, so I went to a cheap Kashmiri restaurant. The food was incredibly flavourful - gustaba was a thick, spiced yoghurt-based gravy with finely minced mutton meatballs served with thick-grained rice, minced spinach salan and onion and radish pickle made with vinegar and a bunch of condiments. My only pet peeve was that they had no “naan”. The person who served us was younger than me, but it didn’t seem so because he was as tall as me. My father has a habit of…how should I put it…energetically interacting with the locals, and that’s how I got to know that one of them was named Aadil from the word A’dl which means one who delivers justice.

Dinner at a local hotel - rice with gustaba (minched mutton meatballs served in a yoghurt-based gravy), spinach salaan, and vinegar-based onion pickle

We walked to our hotel, which was a 3-4 minute affair, and relaxed. I started to plan for the next day. Sister and mom were a bit ill.

Day 3 (Wednesday) - Gulmarg

The route from Srinagar to Gulmarg

I woke up at 6 to silence my alarm and went back to the warmth of my blanket. My parents and sister slept on the bed and I got my mattress on the floor. I got up at 7 am.

View from our hotel room, early morning, Srinagar

I freshened up and went to the tourist taxi stand at Lal Chowk. Once again, due to the commanding presence of my father and his lively demeanour, all the drivers surrounded us, and we had a nice little chat. We negotiated a ride to Gulmarg for 2300, which, I think, was decent. Later on, I would realise my mistake as it was a small cab. If you’re more than two people, than I would suggest taking a larger cab (like an Innova). Our driver was a seventy-two year old Kashmiri dadaji who was as sharp and witty as ever. We started out of Srinagar at 8:47 am and reached Gulmarg at around 10:30 am, with a stop at Tangmarg for breakfast. Gulmarg is around 50 km from Srinagar.

Masala Dosa at Tangmarg. On the way to Gulmarg

The breakfast was masala dosa and aloo paratha - my sister exclaimed that it was one of the best paratha she had - which makes sense since this was her first time eating “northern” paranthas. The dosa was okay but nowhere near the perfection that I had at BLR. Food was reasonably priced for hilly areas.

A Chinaar tree at Tangmarg

Most of the journey to Gulmarg involved a failed attempt at meditating while cruising through the asphalt as my father kept interjecting with the most random of questions addressed to the driver. I gave up after some time and was contended with letting the cold breeze blow my hair. The driver smiled softly and answered all of the questions with patience. I mentally noted their accent, which would become a subconscious exercise whenever a Kashmiri would be speaking - for instance, triple zero is “troo-ple zero” or six is “see-kas”.

As I got out of the cab at Gulmarg, I was swarmed by a gang of shepherds (called gujjars). The place was a cacophony of tourists, mostly Bengali uncles and aunties, Kashmiri shepherds, and horse dung. I walked to some distance for some quiet and was adamantly followed by one guy who was certain to take me to the top on his pony. I think these people have grown accustomed to the art of acquiring customers - if people really want to learn about customer acquisition cost then it is from these people. Sure enough, after some nudging, we negotiated a deal of four ponies for 1600 INR.

The waterfall at Gulmarg. Totally worth the climb.

We left for the waterfall at 11 am. Most of the people were lining up for the cable car ride. It was the first time mounting and riding a pony - for all four of us. Most of the climb was hard. It looked pretty hard, and I could only imagine the poor pony’s struggle to climb with me on its back. I felt pity for the animal. We reached the top at 1:10 pm (2 hours!) with a short break in between. What was at the top? A waterfall! I don’t think it was the top, but I noticed my parents were weary, so I didn’t insist on going any further. After the Kheerganga trek, my body yearned to go on another adventure. I thought this was it. The water was ice cold, and I went almost to the top of the waterfall. Dark clouds had gathered, and it was drizzling. The guy advised us to start descending, and we started for the base at around 2 pm and reached the base at 3:08 without any breaks. My parents were tired as fuck, and I had started to get weary too and develop some discomfort sitting on the uncomfortably-made seat.

Me, resting for all the hardwork done by my pony :P

The driver didn’t take us to the Maharaja’s Palace or the golf course and headed straight back to Srinagar. We repaid him by not traveling with him to Sonamarg and Pahalgam. He also didn’t allow me to connect my phone to the car’s music system on the pretext that it wasn’t working. It’s hard to tell when people are lying.

The journey back was faster and less memorable except for stopping for 2 minutes at an apple farm and being asked for 20 rupees to see the farm which we refused partly because all of us were tired and because why would you ask for money to show us a garden?!

I went for a walk around the neighbourhood in Srinagar, specifically to the riverfront boulevard on the other bank of Jhelum as I failed to do so for the morning walk. It was too dark so I left. I had some snacks - mutton kebab which they serve on the iron skewer with refined flour roti served with green chutneys and chicken seekh kebabs which wasn’t exactly what I would call hygienic - at the night market on the Jhelum bridge. My sister just made faces while the person at the kebab counter showed me how to hold the metal skewer with one hand, break the roti with another, slide a piece from the skewer, and have the kebab.

Day 4 (Thursday) - Sonamarg

Route from Srinagar to Sonamarg

I woke up around 7 am and went for my customary walk while everyone else got ready. It was interesting to see people naturally fall into a habit during the morning. After my meditative walk when I mostly listened to a few downloaded songs (since I didn’t have an internet connection), me and Dad started to look for a cab and ended up on the other bank of river Jhelum near the hospital. After a long and arduous negotiation primarily led by my father, to which I was merely privy, we couldn’t make a deal and left after Dad finished the cup of tea offered to us by the leader of the cab drivers at the stand. One thing which you must realise about my father is that he is a performer and he loves to yap - a quality which was on full display this time as not just the drivers but also native passers-by stopped to listen to this man from outside Kashmir in a blazer talking with passion and energy - something which I would believe lacks in the lazy, cold Kashmiri morning.

Srinagar in the morning

As it was already 9 am and we had planned to go to Sonamarg, which was twice as far as Gulmarg, we headed straight to the taxi stand at Lal Chowk and, without any delay arranged for an Innova at a somewhat pricy cost of 4000 INR. I allowed myself this indulgence as I was traveling with family, and the road was long. It turned out to be a good decision.

We left Srinagar for Sonamarg at 09:27 am, and after being slowed down by the hustle-bustle of a city waking up - hawkers peddling their wares, parents dropping off their children to school, and tourists, just like us, started for their destinations - we found the road comforting and stretching out into the horizon. Our driver, Mr. Ahmad, was a dark and short man who didn’t look like a native Kashmiri but whose father was from Jammu and whose mother was from Kashmir. He was very cooperative and doubled as our guide, helpfully pointing out interesting locales within the city and without. I later discovered that he was also a sycophant - a quality that pays well to inculcate, especially for people in the tourism industry. I connected my phone to the car’s music system and put together a Sufi/Qawwali playlist which helped me calm down.

The travel to Sonamarg was around three hours long, with a 45-minute break for breakfast. Although I was surrounded by the best valleys and wilderness, my heart, somehow, was not at peace. The fact that I couldn’t find the reason only aggravated my misery. The three hours were mostly spent in contemplation, occasionally broken by a random question or remark by my father from the backseat.

As soon as I reached the base, I was (once again) swarmed by locals trying to sell us pony rides. It was funny how everyone was so broken after the Gulmarg trip that I dropped the idea of another pony ride for the family. I was interested in trekking to Thajiwas Glacier, as I had read in Vargis Khan’s blog. It was supposed to be a 3 km trek which was nothing compared to the 12 km trek to Kheerganga back in December. To be plain, I was desperate to forget about the cage that withheld me, and somehow I believed that tiring myself out would lead to that escape.

I knew the trek could be completed without a guide (I only had to follow horse/pony dung and their foot patterns on the ground - no doubt, a more adventurous experience), but I agreed nevertheless. This was a good decision as the guide was only a year older than me, and we had a lot of interesting conversations - certainly a welcome change from the rather depressing, lonely walk.

My guide was a native, bearded Kashmiri who was shorter than me. He would later tell me that he was twenty-two. Although I couldn’t understand much of the Kashmiri, I was attentive enough to figure out when my guide was signaling to his fellows, and I could notice the shift to cordiality when they found out I was a Muslim. My guide was (unwarrantedly) skeptical about me finishing the trek - I think that is how they sell their pony rides. In any case, we spotted budul (pine) and bhoojh patra (paper tree), and edible black cherry trees. Funnily, our conversation shifted to the guide confided in me, his love life and it was interesting to note how people are not that much different anywhere - they all have the same set of needs, the same set of instincts. In contrast, I found myself quite lacking.

Paper tree on the way to Thajivas

Pine on the way to Thajivas, helpfully pointed out by my guide

The trek to Thajivas was the most scenic and soothing for me. The guide also directed a short reel for me haha. I was more interested in understanding the Kashmiri youth’s mindset towards politics and education - you know, given it’s a sensitive zone. However, my guide was more interested in sending snaps to his girlfriend, so I let him be. Life truly has a funny way of throwing us back to the things that we are trying to run away from, I guess.

I remember walking to a cliff and only managing to utter, “Wow.” When Shah Jahan exclaimed that this was the only paradise on Earth, I was sure he wasn’t kidding.

“Gar firdaus, ruhe zamin ast, hamin asto, hamin asto, hamin ast” (If there is ever a heaven on earth, it’s here, it’s here, it’s here)
~Shah Jahan

I joked that the crows were cawing with a capital K. On the way down, we found a lot of tourists at the pony checkpoint, and the guide offered his prayers at a mosque (essentially a 400 sq ft room) while I waited amidst (mostly) Bengali and Delhi newlyweds or couples. WTF life. I suspect it was the season for school trips, and I found students from local schools camping around - groups of minor girls eyeing me and giggling was not something I enjoyed in a foreign state. I tried dipping my feet in the water stream, but it was dead cold. My foot went numb in one second and ached badly. I enjoyed the Maggi that my guide offered, and we had one each. 10/10 for hospitality. Then, we started for the base.

Tourist base on the descent from the glacier

Pahadon waali maggi! ft. my guide in the background

By this time, my guide was really invested in the conversation with his bandi (girlfriend) on Snapchat, so the descent mostly became walking in silence. He told me that the marriageable age in Kashmir is around 19/20 for both boys and girls. He also told me that his girlfriend is going to be related to him and then we had a discussion on whether he prefers to marry a relative or not. His arguments were, surprisingly, against marrying a relative as he pointed out that it’s less probable that one would incite unrest by invoking the past sexual experiences of their partner - which I think makes sense.

We reached the base at 1600 hours and, to my surprise, found that my parents and sister had taken off to the Zoji La pass, so I was left alone and had to wait. I paid my guide 1500, and it occurred to me that he should be paying me as I was his therapist during the trek, patiently listening to everything he obviously wanted to tell to someone who could understand - indeed, that’s what we most yearn for, right? Someone who understands us. They came around 16:30, and we started for Srinagar. I was utterly convinced that Kashmir was the place for healing. I already started planning how to spend my winter in Kashmir meditating. Amidst Sufi songs and Qawwalis, I allowed myself to transiently fall into sleep. I remarked how tourism might be destroying the people’s will to self-improve - it is a bad thing to be excessively blessed as it turns one complacent. I also found his overwhelming urge to study Kashmiri history. We came at a juncture and saw a mosque to my left and a temple to my right, and I exclaimed, “Yes, my India.”

My parents sneaked into the blanket and went to sleep almost immediately. I went out for my evening stroll to Lal Chowk. It was post the maghrib azaan which indicated sunset. The square was lit with golden light and there was a cacophony flux of tourists and natives. I observed the native Kashmiris and felt adoration and pity at the same time. I fleetingly glanced at the Kashmiri women and was dumbstruck - if men go to war for them, then perhaps even war is justified. Anyway, I forced myself to not stare otherwise, it might be considered bad manners. I looked at their produce, the richly colored fruits on display, the flavourful dry fruits on sale, and felt pity for a land that had the potential to be prosperous, finding itself at the crossroads of greed and jealousy and suffering for none of its faults. It reminded me of Palestine and the (para)phrase The bride is beautiful, but she is already married to another man. I sighed. It was all too distressing.

An assortment of marinated meat kebabs displayed openly. When it comes to hygiene, noone can compete with Indians!

Trying the mutton kebabs from a roadside shack shop

My father started making grunting noises and took support to stand up. It was due to the pony ride the day before. I googled a nearby dhaba and visited a Punjabi place at Lal Chowk to minimise traveling. My mother also had mild cold symptoms. My sister was already two days deep in her cold - I found myself traveling with suboptimal fellow travelers. We had dal makhani and laccha parantha at the Punjabi place. It was good, but I already had some snack kebabs from roadside stalls. My mother’s eyes lit up when she excitedly described how the cab ascended in circles to the pass (”gol gol gol karke upar legaya”)and I swear to God, at that moment, I knew that the trip was a success.

Most of the vendors happily accepted UPI payments - especially hotels and restaurants. It was occasion but still significant to run into a person asking for only cash. The bank ATMs around Lal Chowk - Union and PNB were quite disappointing in their sub-par quality of service. J&K bank was a cutie pie, though.

At the hotel’s reception, I saw a Sikh in his 25s chatting with the receptionist. My father and I went in, and we had an impromptu boy’s adda session. That’s how I learned about their local cab service - OnCabs. It would prove to be a saviour in the coming days. We explored quite a bit of local transport, partly to learn more about them and drive down costs. India would make for a linguist’s wildest fantasy come true - the range of phonetic variation one observes across the land is insane - I still wonder how Satra becomes Sa-taa-ra and whether that’s a travesty or a melody.

I went to bed with two thoughts: How can one ever be unhappy in his paradise? And how to be the best version of myself?

Reaching the end

Thank you for reading till the end! I hope to cover the rest of the trip in a second part to this blogpost.

NOTE: All images are the copyright of the author (that is, me). If you wish to use any image, please write to me for permission here

London Diaries! Part 1

gs454236@gmail.com (Basil Labib) — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 06:39:49 +0000

This is the second time I’m trying to write this post. It shouldn’t be this hard to write a travelogue, right? RIGHT?! But it is.

Some part of that blame goes to all the rich and many, many experiences that I have had on this trip. Each of them fought for space in this post, and inadvertently, I had to let go of some. In any case, what follows is my travelogue for my trip to London from 16th August to 27th August 2024 - reproduced to the best of my abilities.

Me, marginally happy: August 2024

The summer

This trip was part of the summer fellowship I was doing in AI safety. Most of the fellowship happened in July but a large chunk of it spilled into August. This meant missing out on a month of university (!)¹ Of course, I had to manage my attendance, assignments, and keep up with the course work whilst working full time for the fellowship and managing logistics for the trip - such as Visa, etc. To be fair, though, a large chunk of the logistics was handled by JJ, our fellowship manager so kudos to him. Unlike the first time , I was joined by three other fellows - Green, Silver, and Scarlet.

Day 0 (16th August)

All of us flew from Bangalore to Mumbai on a domestic flight and then another to Heathrow. Why? Don’t ask me. It was some optimisation that JJ had done to save costs. Anyhow, the funny thing was that we had to make a terminal change from T1 to T2 at Mumbai. And even more funny was the fact that our BLR-BOM flight got delayed by 2 hours which left us with a very short window to check-in, clear immigration and security to catch the Air India flight to Heathrow. We left our residence in BLR at around 3:30 AM (!) and flew from BLR at around 8:30 AM. Thankfully, the transit was a breeze and I found myself at the threshold of immigration in no time. Our org compensated by giving us free reign on the company card (this is an important inventory item for broke college students like me :’)) so I got myself a sandwich and hot chocolate from Starbucks.

The flight itself was very unhappening in that sense. I had planned to binge on movies or something, but instead, I was just too tired, so I slept. The food was meh but it was Air India - what else was I expecting? Moreover, I had an aisle seat allocated but they changed it to a middle seat so F U Air India. But none of it mattered because I was buzzing with excitement for what laid ahead at the end of that flight. Green was super focused and was studying for some exam and also preparing for a career fair organised at LISA where a bunch of AI safety orgs would be participating. For reference, see below:

Ultimate stalking tool ;)

We landed at Heathrow around 7 PM BST. Clearing immigration was a joyful experience this time because I wasn’t alone and didn’t have to talk to myself to keep me company. I’m pretty sure some highly contemptible/controversial subjects were discussed while standing in the queue which could have potentially gotten me and Green kicked out of the UK :P

The familiar smell of the UK hit me as I descended the escalator - the freshly baked donuts, the royalty (the floor cleaner?), and the scent of Englishmen - all combined in an alien and foreign smell. I exclaimed to myself, “Yeah, we’re back again,” as my olfactory memories were tingled.

I quickly realised that my phone is stupid and it cannot handle 5G bandwidths which meant that the UK sim was useless for me. I got the Airtel international plan last time and it was shit so I was extremely wary to use that but given I had no option left, I had to buy that and surprisingly, it worked like a charm! After spending a good 2-3 hours running around the airport with our luggage, we finally found our way to the cab station and found yourselves being escorted by a South Asian driver. Unaware of how things work in the UK, we thought this was a perfectly safe thing to do - as it turned out, it wasn’t! We were promptly cornered by police-officers who told us what really happened - the driver was illegally trying to get a ride. We had a nice chat with the lady police-officer who was very kind and helped us find the actual cab station while JJ had to fill a witness form for the police-officer’s documentation purposes. Basically, more delay.

We finally took an Uber at 23:14 in a suave electric Mini Cooper, I think, and drove all the way to Edmonton where we were staying. I remember mentally noting the incredible weather and how it was a blessing since the last time I was here - right in the middle of the cold, bitter winter. I remember hitting the bed and not even looking at the clock.

Shoreditch - 1

Day 1 (17th Aug)

I woke up early the next day thanks to the lovely sunlight pouring in through the window. It was a modest room with two beds but I had it all to myself. ^_^

We started out for LISA around 8am as Maps showed it was almost an hour of travel from Edmonton. We took the Overground from Silver Street and went south towards Liverpool (the last station on that line). I couldn’t help but notice the stares I got on the tube because I was different! My brain was hyperactive and I was taking notes of small things like the fact that it costs 3.6 GBP to travel from SS to Liverpool. For some reason, I thought this would be a grand addition to my blog so here we are.

Shoreditch - 2 The Graffiti walls

Shoreditch - 3 The Graffiti buildings

We also met Seb at a roadside food place near Shoreditch, who was also managing the program while having our breakfast and it was a bit awkward turning around to talk to him while also munching on my fries :P I would soon discover that this neighbourhood had incredible graffiti and colourful wall arts everywhere.

The food - this represents pretty much what how the next 10 days’ diet would look like for, at the end of which I would be positively craving for naan and butter chicken

Jodie at the LISA reception was super helpful and got us all settled in, I wrapped up some work and prepared for chatting with the orgs at the career fair. I also invalidated a perception I had formed the last time I was in the UK - that people here value human life way more than in India and it is embodied through the fact that people were more close-knit and were more keen to know about you than in India. This also meant that it was good manners to greet someone with a gentle “Hello” and a smiling face. As an introvert, it was incredibly hard to go out of my way and reach out to another person but I tried my best to grow this limb. I’ll rant about manners later at full length.

Met a bunch of amazing folks at the fair. Moreover, I was impressed by Green’s incredible focus as she spent more than 6 hours preparing for what I dismissed as “talking to people.” Now, that’s a person with a purpose.

We broke for lunch, and it was raw tuna which was horrible!

Tuna fish lunch

We went to Barbican centre which was this social gathering / movie theatre / cafe centre with a view. It was around 7pm and the streets were all empty and the sun was still up in the sky. That’s when it dawned on me - “We were really in the temperates.”

Shoreditch - 4 The evening dusk

Me and Scarlet ordered food from Popeye’s on Uber eats and I called it a day. We planned a bit in the living room which I called the “mahasabha” (the name stuck) for the next day. We decided to explore the city.

Day 2 (18th Aug)

I woke up early and called my folks (this became a constant for everyday) and went out for a walk around the neighbourhood. I was also recording these long-ass video logs which I won’t be sharing with anyone - these were mostly about my personal thoughts and impressions of objects and experiences.

Edmonton - 1 The morning sun

Anyhow, we started out quite late around noon and had a brunch at a nearby McDonalds. Then, we started out for the British museum. Suffice it to say, it was a moving experience notwithstanding the fact that half of those objects were stolen but oh well. I explored the museum with Green and realised what else does a person really need apart from a fellow museum enthusiast to discuss ideas with. I have been to a lot of museum along and trust me, it’s not a very nice experience.

Trafalgar Square

We walked all the way to Trafalgar Square and the Westminster area. I remembered visiting the Square on the last morning back in December and it was really so much more of an experience with people in it! We went to a congested TESCO and shopped for food items - milk, fruits, bread - that kind of a thing. We walked along the Thames and giggled and gossiped about a myriad of things - I think friends make life much easier. But I think the true highlight of the evening was taking a work call with Big Ben in the background ;-; (I felt like Hrithik Roshan in ZNMD)

Day 3 (19th Aug)

Arriving at Liverpool street station, I realised how beauty it really was - with the Victorian-Gothic architecture nesting a modern tech-savvy station catering to hundreds of travellers - each in their own world. The first day of the week started strong with a lot of work, a lot of briefings and a few workshops/sessions planned by our org. My talk was planned on Tuesday so I was both a bit nervous and a bit too excited. For the first time in two months, my call with my mentor happened at the same 10am BST! The food was alright, it was some cool rice and beans. The squad decided to not explore a lot so we just went for a walk around the neighbourhood.

Shoreditch - 5 More painted walls!

A typical English pub ^_^

Day 4 (20th Aug)

Well, surprisingly, I don’t remember much of what happened on Tuesday apart from my talk and the fact that I was super busy. The org had planned our schedule and it was made to maximise our engagement with other folks. We met A who was working with another lab and he gave an impromptu talk on his paper on prompt attribution. It was so cool to see so many low-hanging fruits in the AI safety field. Tuesdays are also “lightning talk” days at LISA which meant that anyone can present for 5 mins at lunch. We also presented our work which was more like a pitch followed by my talk at the Jupiter conference room for 15 mins. I remember buzzing with excitement and remarking to myself that I could do one of these talks every week! Food was much better, I think, it was something Indian - like butter chicken.

Lunch and dinner were reserved for informal social networking - “what are you working on?” that kind of thing. I would push myself to talk to other people and listen to what they had to say. I would soon find myself looking forward to food time as a lot of other orgs were also working from LISA, and it was a nice chance to network with these smart folks.

Day 5 (21st Aug)

By Wednesday, I had pretty much settled into the workflow for LISA. Today was Green’s talk on simulation they had run with LLM agents to understand the flow of information in the political context. I didn’t have many complain about food. I gradually got to know almost everyone at the office (unlike the forced way, which was initially endorsed by JJ). I came to the realisation that very few people were doing foundational work - the kind of work that, if successful, would change the course of AGI. But most others were doing basic stuff only. The normal distribution of expertise and talent once again? Maybe.

Green gave me a spontaneous session on Kannada on the overground. I also bought a body wash for myself at Boots. Green and Scarlet insisted on making strawberry and chocolate (cause why not?), but I didn’t like it very much.

Strawberry and chocolate - a culinary experiment

Day 6 (22nd Aug)

I woke up to be greeted by an overcast and gloomy day with lots of drizzling and wetness (but that’s just London always, right?). JJ was down with flu so we took a cab to the office instead of the overground. My mentor finally came to LISA (he was away for some other stuff) and me and Silver got to meet him for the first time. We also planned a number of group co-working sessions and it got extremely tiring by the end of day. Our org was not helping as we had to attend a few more session and other workshops. Our team decided to continue working on the paper after the fellowship ends (Spoiler alert: Our paper is currently under review!).

I was also fortunate to attend a talk by Stanislav Fort, who is a researcher at GDM, and he delivered a tight and fast-paced talk on his latest paper. Here’s the paper if you’re interested. I would also be attending another talk later by Mary Phuong who works on model evals at GDM. Both were extremely enriching experiences.

I went out with my mentor for a 1:1 talk and got treated to mocha at a local English pub/cafe. Both Thursday and Friday were super super busy as we wrapped up our work at the LISA office. We were all busy fostering new collaborations and bouncing new research ideas for the sake of it. It was super fun.

Most of the weekdays we didn’t go out after work although I was totally in for it. It’s not much fun to go out alone. But what was even more confusing was when Green spontaneously started crying and I honestly got extremely confused. What the hell is wrong with how girls are made? She was perfectly fine a moment ago and all of a sudden, it felt like she would drown the world with her tears. I concluded I couldn’t ever understand women and went to bed.

Day 7 (23rd Aug)

Friday was all about wrapping up. I couldn’t help but notice how people were punctual to the minute and that helped everything work like clockwork. We got a lovely and sweet farewell from the LISA staff with a cake and got on a call with the managing director of the program. There was a bunch of other formalities like feedback form and so on. I also happen to meet Fazl Barez whose papers I have studied with much interest. It was a stardom moments of sorts.

We had a final concluding lunch planned with our mentors on Saturday so we decided to give them gifts and went to Boots yet again! For my mentor, we got a “How to Be British” booklet and a thank you card (which I didn’t write anything into because I went to Tate Modern on Saturday morning (more on this later!) and completely forgot about it :/ - kinda embarrassing ;-; but my mentor is cool enough to understand).

It’s a capitalist world after all…

This would be my final visit to LISA and Green took some polaroids on the camera she had brought with her. I was impressed by how organised she was in general; with her clothes, her accessories, her thoughts, etc. - a quality I can only wish to embody as a grown adult male.

Conclusion

I’ll stop here because I fear this post is getting too long. This post mainly focuses on my experience at the work office. The second part will focus on the exploration and the fun part of my trip to London.

Footnotes

1: I know, it sounds crazy. However, one thing that university has taught me is to consider what seems crazy and face it head-on.

Stories from the Underground: Part 2

gs454236@gmail.com (Basil Labib) — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 20:50:05 +0000

As promised, this is part 2 of Stories from the Underground , my travelogue on the GCP workshop at Oxford and beyond.

Disclaimer: This post might contains expletives.

Day 3 (21st December)

I woke up and stretched like a cat on my double bed. Having a room for two all for myself was a welcome change from long hours of sitting and waiting around at airports. I glanced at my clock, 6ish. Perfect, I thought. Wrapped up some BSP work, made one of those instant hot chocolate thingie and went for my walk — a considerably longer one because the workshop was over and we were scheduled to depart for Oxford at 10. Video called my folks. I forced myself to take unchartered paths through the woods. It was fascinating to observe a biome so biologically different from one back in the tropics – mosses and lichens were aplenty and so were ferns and temperate-ish flora. The wetness had turned the dirt into mud and my shoes were making squishy noises all along the way.

I also decided to take a hot bath which did wonders to my skin (I have dry skin ;-;) and have a sumptuous breakfast - avocado on bread (bland with a bit of salt, very British), yoghurt, and lots of fruits! Alive and kicking, I knew that today was a long day of travelling around and so was the day next and the next. As A would later remark, our adventure began now.

In all the hush-hush, I was unable to explore the manor itself! So, I went for a walk by the lake and dipped my hand in the chill water. And it was so windy! Oof. Then, I realised it was always windy out here and that was really discomforting. The general coldness was still bearable. But the winds made amazing wave patterns on the water surface and they interfered with other wavefronts and created really cool patterns.

As scheduled and not a minute later, all were onboard the bus that would take us from Bicester back to the Ox. I wanted to sit with someone I would have to make an active effort to converse with. Somehow, I ended up sitting next to Beck, a masters student of human rights and politics at LSE and we had an engaging conversation about “hard questions”; on the merits and demerits of power-sharing systems, democracy in general. Then, we gravitated to British and Indian politics and I had am embarassing time explaining the current right-wing Hindutva politics prevailing in the country and its attack on cultural diversity. shrug.

We reached Oxford around 10:30 and said our final goodbyes. I had officially completed GCP.

Alight and adieu!, 21st December, 2023

The journey to Bath

Osney Arms was a self check-in guest house which was 10 mins walk from the station as per maps. Me and A decided to put our stuff and then decide where to go next. From now onwards, I was pretty much under the aegis of A for money, wisdom, and common sense :P

Self check-in means there was no one at home. I mean, literally no one! The host had shared instructions on how to get the house key which was stored inside a passcode protected safe outside the door. Locating the backdoor and opening the door made me feel like a detective and I thought, “apt only” hehe. Meanwhile, A called the host multiple times because that human-to-human contact is such an integral part of our lifestyle and finding its complete absence here was sort of unsettling (more on this later).

Anyway, we got access to our room and relaxed a bit. By the way, I was simultaneously trying to publish the latest BSP report on the Inter IIT Cultural Meet fiasco . The team had put in a lot of effort and I was happy how it had turned out. Coordinating a project across different timezone was a welcome experience as an editor. Meanwhile, A asked me to look up places to go. Initial plan: Let’s fly to Edinburgh. Flights were around £150 so we dropped it without much debate. Then we considered beach on the West Coast via Bath and Stonehedge. Seemed like an ambitious plan given the time of the day but we quickly booked tickets for Bath on the Great Western Railways mobile app. Incredible app service and user experience once again. The indecisiveness to plan our trip on the go and the ensuing rush was embarassing for 20 year old college kids.

We didn’t exactly go to the station afterwards. The indecisiveness to decide on an outfit was more embarassing for A, I guess, who ironically wanted to get my opinion on it. It was like asking a stone age man to choose the outfit for a WS banker. I tried my best not to disappoint him or myself. I think I did fairly good and learnt much.

Most of the way and most of the trip from now, I kept blabbering and noting random facts. I was glad that A didn’t get too much pissed and he was patient with my company. I was super excited to be criticising the English in their land walking right beside them in a language they don’t understand about how they looted and plundered us and polluted our culture.

Strolling through Bath

The train journey to Bath was a quiet experience partly due to the incredibly well-designed transport system. Trains were punctual to the minute and although we were racing at 80 miles per hour, I didn’t feel a thing inside. £20 a ride. I had conveniently forgotten my charging cables back at Oxford and had 10% charge. Fuck. Will have to click all pictures in A’s phone. Which is when I realised, I am terrible at clicking pictures too ;-;

We reached Bath alright, around 80 miles from Oxford around 2pm. The sun and the clouds were involved in some elaborate wrestling match which could easily be romanticised. We entered a McDonalds because we were hungry. We got out after ~30 minutes because S, the other senior back at home had some coupons that we redeemed but it meant spoofing his account on A’s phone basically. And the instructions to do that were transmitted manually. Over call. I just stood there watching people place their orders, wait for their order, and take their order. I marvelled at the average waiting time which I estimated to be ~5 minutes. Anyways, we got our stuff (I had a meal and chicken nuggets) and started walking towards the Roman Bath on York Street which was supposedly the place where the Romans bathed. I mean, no shit.

Me and A lazed around a lot. We clicked pictures at the Roman Bath and crossed the Pulteney bridge over River Avon (as maps conveniently told us). There were shoped lined up selling a variety of objects and artifacts. Everyone seemed so merry and private. Oh, also, the BBQ sauce had red wine vinegar. The taste of the wine felt strange – it was like iron or kerosene. Roadside performers were singing the best songs of the season, children were running around the city block, people were shopping and talking. I stood there and savoured the gentle humming of humanity.

We roamed into Henrietta Park on the other side of the bank where the restroom funnily devoured A’s 20p without providing access to the restroom! When it finally did open after taking card, it felt like a nuclear stronghold with the worst maintained restroom in the world. I checked my phone, still no internet. Fucking Airtel. I should have just gotten a UK sim for 10 days. Anyways, it was getting dark and we decided to walk back to the city centre. I could make out the green, white, and red of the Palestinian flag. A gruntled at the sight of those and I asked does he support Israel and he said yes. Then, I asked why and he shrugged and said he didn’t know, perhaps because that was India’s stance. Funny how quick we are at forming opinions about things we don’t know about.

English Pubs (and where to find them)

A wanted to try out an English pub so we started walking towards the Raven (Google maps is such a blessing). After a fair bit of walking through some shady bylanes we entered the Raven and it was a cozy little inn choked full of people. Their noises and murmurs formed one general sound. I could spot family reunions, friend group catch-ups, and courtships. It made me wonder how simple and yet complex human desires are – to just not be alone.

But since it was bustling with people, we decided to head over to The Grape (which by the way was also bustling with people). Finally, we decided to take the train back to Oxford and we took a 6:30pm GWR, I guess. There was an interchange at Didcot Parkway. The station names had an unfamiliar harmonious ring to it. It was fun trying to remember them in my head.

In search of our experience at an English pub, we surely landed up at one back at Oxford. The town was basically closed! It was maybe 9 or 10pm. I wanted to have a good dinner and I ordered chicken schnitzel, which is basically a meat patty served with mayo and fries. It was amazing! Not to say, I was terribly hungry. A ordered a beer and offered me which I politely declined. I have been asked too many times why I don’t drink and I seem to have forgotten the real reason. Perhaps, it was because I wanted to have a moral high ground? Or perhaps, I am too afraid to let go of something I have held onto for so long now? Or perhaps, I just have no clue what I’m doing? In any case, I don’t drink. I haven’t had a drop of alcohol. So be it.

Food and music

Food was amazing. They had some concert thing going on the upper levels. I reckoned most of these people were college students or professors. A had ordered some veg bowl which had a lot of greens and legumes. After we finished (and A failed to finish his beer), we headed back to our room. That is, after we roamed around for no reason. The strong gushes of wind made me uncomfortable. Other than that, the weather was perfect¹.

I slept at around midnight, I guess.

Day 4 (22nd December)

Morning in Oxford was lazier than at Bicester. I woke up later at around 7:30 or 8 and decided to head over to have breakfast after quickly freshening up. Here is me trying out some aesthetic photography :P

Outside the window, 22nd December, 2023

After much deliberation, we decided to tour Oxford itself for the first half and then head over to London after lunch. The host conveniently agreed to keep our stuff so that was sorted. It was a self-help breakfast buffet system and the kitchen was desolate except for two hungry souls hehe. I had a sumptous breakfast with bread, cheese, and jam. Orange juice was okay but very refreshing. Typical (modern) English breakfast, I thought. Well-stocked, we headed over to our first stop, Oxford Unviersity itself (and yes, this time I didn’t forget my powerbank or the cable!)

Christ Church is one of the oldest and grandest colleges which boasts of an illustrious alumni base – as I would soon learn through my audio guide who kept feeding me interesting nuggets of information in his soothing baritone voice throughout the next 30 mins or so of self-guided tour. College was in session so study areas were restricted but got to go to most of the quads (which are basically courtyards) and the cathedral was amazing. As I stepped into the cathedral, a sense of humbleness and respect gripped me as I realised I’m entering a region of sacredness. It fascinated me to realise how intertwined education and religion was, back in those days. Coincidentally, the pipe organ started playing and most people started humming or bobbing internally. Incredibly detailed artwork on stained glasses telling mythical stories of the Christian faith. I stood in awe studying the sunrays filtering through the coloured glasses as the organ music filled the air.

Oh, we also saw the Great Hall which inspired the Hogwarts dining hall in the HP franchise. The walls were adorned with people who graduated from Christ Church and went on to do lofty things. I peered at the dates; some of them dated back to the 1700s. Holy shit.

After around 30 minutes, I stepped out of the college and waited for A to finish talking to someone on the phone. I popped into a souvenir shop and scanned through the array of…stuff, all of it so English! Bags and cups and keychains and everything else! I stepped out and we headed towards Ashmolean Museum (on my insistence). After 15 minutes at the museum, I realised that A wasn’t interested in the quietness of the museum. So, after resting a bit (and finally catching up with folks over museum WiFi), we again started briskly walking through the streets of Oxford which were crowded than usual for the festive season. We tried to climb up the Carfax tower but it was closed at 3 :/ Oh, by the way, we also picked up hoodies and other souvenirs from a sourvenir shop. I went to a HP souvenir shop and gosh, it was so beautiful. Perfect place to buy a gift for a Potterhead cousin. I’m more of a Tolkien fan, though. I think we had food at another McDonalds and just crashed into a shopping mall for fun. I was simultaneously learning of the existence of so many brands.

Oxford was exciting and fun in its own quiet way. But I looked forward to London. It’s one of those cities like Kolkata or Delhi that left a scar after you are gone, not a memory. And the time had finally come to head over to London. We went back to our humble abode at Osney Arms and colected our stuff repeating the same key-acquiring rite of passage. I took one final look around. I marvelled at how I had stayed in this house overnight without a host. It was a massive departure from the Indian host-guest philosophy where human contact is essential and encouraged. I saw stickers and banners everywhere. An instructioned world where people are too busy to talk to one another. But don’t mistake this “contactless” world for a unmannered one. In my experience, English people were immensely helpful and mannered overall. Anyways…

Once again, we hoped on another GWR to London. We will be deboarding at Paddington (yes, the same station in the movie !) and then head over to our BnB at Soho (kudos to my lovely seniors to take care of all the grudge work ^_^). Oxford to London was approximately an hour of travel. I did some BSP work as the train cruised through the beautiful countryside leaving one farm after another. The sun when it appeared, made beautiful patterns on the lakes and ponds and streams. I wondered how quiet life here would be like. And I mentally prepared myself for the chaos that was London.

No surprises but London didn’t disappoint. It was so full of people, walking, running, brustling, bubbling with energy, talking, shouting, buying, selling – that’s what I thought when I stepped out of the Piccadilly Underground but I’m getting ahead of myself here. I arrived at Paddington and studied the London Underground for the first time. I thought the Delhi metro was complex but this was a totally different beast². I got myself one of those one time tokens when I should have just made my Oyster right away so a little fuck up from my side there. Anyways, we got onto the Underground alright and headed to Piccadilly on the Bakerloo line. The train stopped at Baker Street and the inner kid in me leapt with joy. The Underground was…old. It felt old and used. The carriages were old and made rattling noise in transit. The seats were of velvet cushion but the colour had faded. But nothing seemed non-functional. They charged me £7 for that 20 minutes ride ;-;

Hmm, something’s fishy

I was too tired to argue or use my brain. The shadow of London towered heavy and high over me. I am not ashamed to say but I was quite intimidated by the city whose tales I have read in books. I mean, this is the capital of the country that ruled almost the entire world at its zenith. This is the city that was home to visionaries and leaders. All I wanted was to check-in to my room.

Piccadilly, yay!

Maps shown that the apartment was 2 mins from Piccadilly. We started walking and quickly realised what had happened. Soho and the West End is the theatre hub of London. At the same time, it also houses a number of strip clubs and other services. I looked at A and laughed. Our BnB had a very high chance of being a brothel in the past. I walked past shops and people selling and buying all kinds of commodities. I waited for A who had gone to find the key. Two women started staring at me. I got extremely uncomfortable. Thankfully, A came back shortly and directed me and the stuff to a sandwiched wooden door between two large shops. We tried to open the door for 2 minutes slightly embarassed because it was a lively street. It opened and we walked in. The apartment was small, waayyy small than the Oxford thingie. It had a washing machine, microwave, basin, etc. It had copies of Vogue, Doir, and Fifty Shades. And a hard-bound copy of some Playboy-like magazine. It was dark outside so peering out the window didn’t help much. The apartment had all the characteristics of being a brothel. It checked out , we were officially staying in a brothel for two days. I tried to appreciate the poetry of life but all I could manage was a giggle.

All warm and comfy and having eaten the breads that I got from Osney’s kitchen, we set out to explore the Big Smoke⁴. It was festive season and past 7pm so we decided to just walk the stretch of Regent Street which was decked up in beautiful lights. And there were so many people of all cultures and nations. Brands and shops spewed lights of all kinds on commuters who were talking to each other and laughing and clicking pictures. A had to keep up with the outpourings of my heart and pretty sure, some of it didn’t make much sense.

Regent Street all decked for the festive season

I saw the black London cabbie and remembered that BBC episode starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. I saw the red double decker buses which were touring people. I walked through the theatres which had colourful posters of musicals and dramas with a “Now Showing” tag. I watched street performers singing Indian songs, was it “Chammak Challo” from Ra One? I saw rickshaws playing loud music and touring people for fun. I saw halal shops selling hotdogs. I saw McDonalds at every corner. I walked past the dirt and piss and cigarette butts. London really seemed to be the city which didn’t care what happened to me in you. She danced to her own tune.

We finally decided to call it a day and due to some reason, had to head over to Subway. The person at the counter was highly uncooperative, talked rudely, and I had a very bad experience overall. We headed back to room because I had to sort out my TFL travel. It was funny because after setting up everything for contactless payment on my GPay, I realised that NFC is not supported on my phone. Bummer. I laughed it off and went to bed. I’ll have to buy a physical Oyster at the station.

Day 5 (23rd December)

Day started late and somewhat lazily in London. I knew this was going to be another day of touring an alien city. I also realised that this would be my penultimate morning in the UK (hopefully). I freshened up and went for a walk around 8am. The city was sleepy. Hygiene workers were cleaning the dirty streets, spoilt by spilt drinks and burnt ashes. The billboards still glowed like nymphs at sea, alluring passerbys to enjoy theatre. Everything was just the way I had left it in the morning, only brighter. I tried to make sense of my geospatial location (Historically, I’m pretty bad at it) and tried to navigate to new street corners. Well, I almost got lost. But somehow found my way back to that tiny black door on Brewer Street.

Me and A grabbed breakfast at a street corner McDonalds. It was a humble McEgg with cappucino and hash browns. Our location enabled us access to all major places by walking. We came up with an ambitious and tight plan and kickstarted it by visiting the Buckingham Palace (cause why not?). We walked through St. James Park, through meadows and ducks lazily floating on the water. The sky was overcast and there was no sign of the sun. I think it ocassionally drizzled too. The winds were punishing and made me grimace every time it crashed into my chest. We walked into BP and oh God, it was a magnificent sight to behold sans the tourists, of course! The change of guard ceremony was not planned on Saturday but the days before and after. Bummer. The “go inside BP” tours are planned for spring generally. Another bummer.

I got some of my personal favourite pictures clicked here and around :)

Tower Bridge

I could have stayed all day just sitting there and observing people – the general humming of humanity but we had plans. So, we headed to Westminster and onwards to see the Thames (after all) all aided by the maps app which instructed us to head east. The Westminster area gave the impression of a “business place”. Very few people on the road. Tall skyscrapers that hid their internals through miles of glass. So, this is where capitalism proliferates, I wondered.

The Westminster Abbey was one magnificent sight to behold. This is where the new king of the UK was crowned back in 2022. I noticed that I was getting better at clicking pictures. Few people requested me to click their pictures and I abided. We popped into the Westminster station and popped out of Tower Hill on the District Line. We walked to the Tower of London and saw tours underway. I didn’t feel like going inside (or more like, spending money to go inside) so we just admired its beauty from the outside. I took a turn and finally saw Thames. It was…well, it was a river. I had actually seen it before in Oxford but it was only a stream there. There were shops lining the banks selling all kinds of products and food. People were chattering and walking around. The sun was up and beautiful. The London Eye was in the distance. The skyscrapers blocked most of the sky. We walked along the banks of the Thames and crossed it at the Tower Bridge. I devised a plan to head over to Borough Market to grab food which was…urhmm not one of my greatest plans. A’s phone was about to die and I had to remember the map. It was a loooong walk along the other bank of the Thames but we had to persist. We bought some fries and nuggets along the way and devoured it.

Pretty and delicious

Borough Market was a totally different ballgame. Highly recommend to anyone craving for trying out esoteric food in London. It was a totally vibe-y place. All kinds of shops selling all kinds of food items - wines, cheese, oysters, meats, all for sale and trying out. BM seemed like an enclosure right in the middle of the bustling city. An anomalous piece of space and time disjoint from the work city. It was so crowded with people that I wasn’t walking; I was pushed! I would later draw parallels with New Market and Zakaria Street back home when telling about it to my folks which I think is a fair comparison.

I had a humble piece of garlic bread. A had some kind of fruit pie. I almost vomitted walking past some of the meat shops. It seemed like people were running to their own tune, our eyes would meet, hold for a moment, and then break, and in that moment, we would have socially judged each other. Marvellous how human society has evolved. Anyways, we headed out of the market at around 4 and stopped at a cafe for A had to charge his phone (immediately) and we needed to take some rest and get warm.

This is what I mean when I talk about graffiti

We found a place and A ordered some bean rice (which was horrible, by the way). We took our seats and somehow, my silly brain came to the conclusion that the Underground would be closed on the 24th. I got…a bit scared. No, I internally panicked. I tried to call my folks and friends who lived in London. It would be a major pain in the ass to book a cab only for myself to Heathrow because they are shit expensive. It also dawned on me that I would be leaving Heathrow the next day – in less than 24 hours. I also had a concert to catch tonight (more on this later) and one of my very close friends was calling me to his place. I was suddenly required to process a large amount of information.

Well, my panicking was ill-founded as the Underground was working fine on the 24th, atleast the Picadilly (blue) line was, which I quickly verified from a personnel at the station. Talking to that person I realised how I have managed to survive my trip with minimal conversational interaction with Britishers. Hmm. A was making some last minute changes to his plan. He would be leaving for India after two more days and effectively spend Christmas with a friend (I would later discover that it snowed on the 25th * cries *) but I had other commitments at Inter IIT from the 26th. I had to refuse to visit my friend who lived in East Ham and was kinda out of route from Stratford which is the location of the ABBA Voyage concert and where we presented headed.

The Underground was a bliss, followed by a quick change to DLR. The TFL metro app was superbly designed. Loved the minimalist, no-BS design approach. I spotted poetry on the train. Perhaps, the most English thing ever?

Poems on the Underground, 23rd December, 2023

I felt a tinge of anxiety regarding reaching the airport on time the next day but for then, it was all taken care of apparently so I decided to enjoy the concert. My transition from serious to not-serious (and vice-versa) happens extremely quickly which maybe a good thing. I immediately got into the groove as tunes of Waterloo flowed into my ears from a distance. I recharged my oyster through the app just for safety and paid with my debit card (!). Yeah, big deal. The ticket was bought by a senior without permission from A or me so it was an extremely sweet gesture on their part. If you’re reading this, (I know you won’t) a big thank you! ^_^

The atmosphere inside the arena was electrifying. People were chattering with friends and family, running around from counter to counter, getting drunk, and in general, buzzing with excitement. A got himself some boozed coffee drink and we headed for the dance floor. They told us not to record and other do’s and don’ts. The show started right on time (!), something I was still getting used to and which I absolutely admired. With the first stroke of light show, four avatars appeared on stage and it took sometime to internalise the fact that the stage was actually empty! I looked around to see people craning their necks to get a glimpse of the AI avatars on stage. My brain told me that this would be the future of entertainment. How crazy to believe that we were clapping and cheering at something that didn’t exist. Clapping at imaginative fiction felt like coming full circle.

Cheering at apparitions

It’s surprising how incredibly dark ABBA songs actually are, inspite of the infectious hook and catchy tunes. One could only wonder how difficult it must have been for the two couples to churn out hit after hit while battling personal issues and turning them into disco music.

No more carefree laughter
Silence ever after
Walking through an empty house, tears in my eyes
Here is where the story ends, this is goodbye.
~Knowing Me, Knowing You, ABBA, 1976

I think I missed some songs in the set - Fernando, S.O.S. among the famous ones and also heard some new songs which I hadn’t before. Other people were clearly more learned in the ABBA lore than two Indians who were brought up in a privileged upbringing which glorified Western culture.

We spent some more time at the Soho city centre, just standing and taking it all in and decided not to walk to Trafalgar Square as A was too tired and I didn’t have map support on my practically useless phone. I realised how and why people sacrifice things. Atleast one possible causation vector for it.

I went to sleep at midnight. The next day would be a lot of travelling; 7980 km to be precise.

They built a movable complex for this concert

Day 6 (24th December)

The view outside our room greeted us with sewage pipework. It looked like a Spiderman neighbourhood in the light with steam and smoke billowing out of chimneys and red brick lining the walls. I woke up very early and tried to go through some of the Dior and Vogue copies that lined the bookshelf. My flight was at 1pm so I decided to leave for Heathrow at 9am just to be safe. Another gross overestimated because as I would learn, the LHR security check is a breeze.

Chinatown

Anyways, I had over an hour so I decided to take another walk. This time I downloaded a local map on my phone and aimed to go to Trafalgar Square. It was a 10 minutes walk. As usual, London felt sleepy. I walked past the blingy lights of the West End theatres, past their vibrant posters and into the city centre, I walked past the Chinatown which was decorated with Chinese lanterns and lined with so many restaurants but it was all closed. I walked past a building where supposedly Newton lived from 1710. Cool. I took a turn and there it was – Trafalgar Square in all its glory. Well, it was a city square.

Much recently, I noticed that Aditya Chopra opens DDLJ at Trafalgar with Amrish Puri feeding the pigeons and battling his conscious and justifying his decision to leave his country. I stood there for a few minutes and like any Indian, clicked few pictures. The gallery loomed in the background and the tower stood at the center, accompanied by the fountain thingie. I checked my watch and it was time to leave. The return was far less adventurous especially after I took a wrong turn and ended at a dead-end after trying to be “exploratory”. I peered into one of the bylanes and caught two people making out.

I packed my bag for one final time, hugged, and thanked A and descended the stairs of my Brewer Street abode one last time. The Indian stores selling English merch were just opening up. I popped into the Picadilly Underground and took the blue line.

Talking head

A number of thoughts flowed through my head during my last few hours in London. I reminded myself of the harmonious English accent and tried to repeat the sounds in my head again and again – smool, touak, wauuter, and so on. If you listen carefully, the English also have variations in how they pronounce words and it can be used to place them in exact locations of the country. I was reminded of Prof. Higgins :

I can place any man within six miles. I can place him within two miles in London. Sometimes within two streets.
~Prof. Higgins

I was reminded of standing at the sidewalk in Oxford expecting the car to go but the car stood for me to cross first! Only for both of us to keep standing and that’s how I got my first middle finger (I didn’t see it, A told me about it) I was amazed at this first-class treatment of pedestrians to be honest, something which was once again alien to me. Vehicles here don’t really care when if they run you down so it was, the least of say, a welcome change.

I turned my attention to all the messages I had received from friends and family. Never had my Instagram been this active and buzzing. I replied to all.

My mind turned to the faces I have seen the last seven days. Sheer endurance of people baffled me. I remembered homeless guys sitting outside in the cold and I also peered at people chatting inside expensive restaurants. The human condition is truly peculiar. It’s funny how under the hood, the entire trip has been about judging people. Oh, I just caught a couple kissing on the station.

I wondered about my photography skills; I came a noob and I go back being able to capture decent human pictures. I have truly grown.

My mind turned to the things that couldn’t be such as the trip to St. Pancras’ to see the 9 3/4 platform or 221B Baker Street. But that’s fine I guess. Human desire is never satisfied.

The flight back

I spent my time at the airport watching the new Abhishek Upamanyu standup which was an absolute riot. I was laughing so hard the whole time. It reminded me of home and helped me combat airport loneliness. Thank you, Abhishekji! I remember my LHR-DXB flight getting delayed by an hour and I remember the DXB-CCU flight being delayed by Emirates to accommodate us as we rushed through security. I remember bingeing on a documentary on the album designer group Hipgnosis and Hitchcock’s classic The Birds (fantastic watch, by the way; perhaps my favourite Hitchcock). I remember starting Celine Song’s Past Lives but dozing off due to fatigue. Watched it later and it’s such an endearing storytelling. Emirates’ hospitality was, once again, amazing.

The End³

You might have expected me to tell you stories of valour and conquests – of fucking around in the middle of the night, making out with some random girl in a pub, or pissing on a police car to get arrested or just get into some trouble. But it was nothing like that. I was the most disciplined boy in the UK. Mom and Dad must be proud. But I wonder why.

Dubai at night. Emirates is such a cutiepie, they delayed the DBX-CCU flight for us

This is Part 2 of the two-part travelogue on my GCP experience and beyond. Read Part 1 here .

Footnotes

1: As I am writing this sitting in Delhi with temperatures around 14-15, I can only imagine that Delhi cold has a much harsher vibe to it. It feels like 4 or 5 here.

2: Gradually, I learnt to tame the beast. Now, I’m cool with it. I’ve heard Tokyo underground is even more complex. Hmmmm.

3: This post turned out to be around 6K words, that’s twice the size of Part 1!

4: TIL that this is London’s nickname.

Stories from the Underground: Part 1

gs454236@gmail.com (Basil Labib) — Wed, 03 Jan 2024 09:50:02 +0000

Disclaimer: This post might contain expletives.

Prologue

I am waiting at the airport bound to New Delhi right now on NYE. It’s been around 10 days since I came back from my first international trip and subsequently go on to represent my institute at Inter IIT Cultural Meet at IIT Kharagpur. I have classes from 8 am tomorrow morning. When did my life got so fast?

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
~Leisure, William Henry Davies

As I sit here pondering and attempting to start this post for the umpteenth time, I heave a lot of sighs because this story is so rich in experiences and wisdom and things to be talked about. I sit here wondering how I can squeeze a book’s worth of content in this blog post.

I could very well have titled this post, “How to survive in a foreign country without money ft. oodles of luck”. But I’m getting way ahead of myself. To start this story, we must go back. Way back to June of 2023.

June of 2023

I was aimlessly hanging out at CCD back in campus when this senior walks in and he goes like, “Hey Basil, have you applied for GCP camp?” I’m like, “Huh, what camp?” And he goes, “Oh, nevermind. Open your laptop, let’s fill out your application. It’s past deadline but they’ll consider.” Half an hour-ish later, I hit the Submit button and so it began.

I was pretty sure I would atleast be shortlisted for the interview stage. GCP is a very low hanging fruit given how much invested I am in EA (went to EAGxIndia back in Jan, involved with the community since then). Anyway, in popped the interview email and after missing the scheduled time (In my defense, it was 1 AM in the morning and I was sleepy!), I rescheduled. I felt that the interview went very nicely - [Wrena][2] was lovely to talk to and very enthusiastic and kind. After a couple of days, another email popped in. I was in. I rushed through Visa applications and prayed for it to come through. Surprisingly, these trips are a lot of logistical work. I get why people opt for assistants and agents. Managing everything on my own forced me to come up with better accounting methods. For sake of brevity, I’ll just write the golden equation here and won’t care to explain (probably in a footnote later),

$$ \sum Expenses = \sum Working Expenses + \sum Liabilities - \sum Assets $$

There I was armed and equipped to fly to UK on 17th July. Only the Visa didn’t come through. And I had to postpone it to the next camp which was in December. Bummer.

Halfway around the world

After an especially excruciating semester, the air grew cold and the trees lost their greens. GCP sent the confirmation email and I sorted out the logistics once again and booked flights once again. During September, I completed the BlueDot AI alignment 101 course at the AISCF camp at my uni. A bunch of my college friends also got in but eventually only one final year senior could make it. I would be flying from home (Kolkata) to Heathrow via Dubai on the 17th.

I was giddy and to be honest, a little scared. I guess that’s normal. I wasn’t just flying to another country, I was flying to another continent, halfway around the world for the first time, all alone. Besides, I was already reeling from the aftermath of two trips – one to Bengaluru for ETHIndia and an unplanned one to Kasol and a trek to Kheerganga. I was at home for barely 5 days and there I was at the threshold of the airport at 2AM saying my goodbyes to my folks.

Apart from the absurdly over-anticipated time to clear airport security, the flight was a breeze. I had already planned to wait overnight at Heathrow for my senior, let’s call him A, so my adventure began with a lot of…sitting and waiting. Emirates made sure to make my 12 hour-ish journey as smooth as possible. The dessert which was some kind of cake was served on a way too sour sauce.² Rest was A-okay. I binged Men in Black (1997) and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) and in the diffused state of babies crying, murmurs of the cabin, and occassional g-force heavy jolts, I kept falling into and out of sleep.³

I landed at Dubai and started drafting Hacking Wordle Blitz . Surrounded by rich Hijab clad Arabian mothers running around with their spoilt kids and with the man-made apparition of the Burj Khalifa in the distance, I was buzzing with excitement to complete the draft. In that sense, the layover was very productive. I slapped shut my laptop with a decent first draft and went through a final Covid test. Just seven more hours and I would be in the land of the greats. The land of the people whose stories I have read in books and marvelled at. I mean, the remnants of the culture that these people who ruled over us for over 200 years, imposed on us.

Day -1 (17th December)

I wasn’t tired as much as I was processing all the experiences⁴. After landing at Heathrow at around 8pm, I headed towards immigration and after staying quiet for almost 12 hours with only the voices in my head, I was confronted by the immigration officer who started asking me all these questions - “Why are you here?”, “Who is funding your stay?”, “Do you have family or kin in the UK?” etc. “Huh?” I thought. It took me sometime to orient myself but soon, he was satisfied with my answers and appeared much less intimidating. “Have a good stay, sir!” he said in the melodious British accent as I stepped towards the baggage belt. I had officially crossed the UK border.

The first thing I noticed (like any responsible traveller) were the signs. And their design. Ripped from complexity, they were the simplest, cleanest fonts I had seen in a while. A no-nonsense font. It felt related to Helvetica. I wasn’t too wrong . I instantly liked it.

I settled down and immediately realised I was in big trouble. All the sockets were rectangular pinned! My laptop had 20% charge. Fuck. Luckily, I had a power bank so I could atleast communicate…Fuck. I didn’t have an international plan. Perhaps I can buy one. Fuck, I don’t have a credit card⁵.

All I could do was wait. I craned my neck to peer outside whenever the doors opened and was greeted by a bitter cold gush of wind. I saw people’s faces lighting up to see their loved ones, elders rushing to the gates to hug their kids and grandkids. The festive spirits were high. Slowly, night fell and the inflow of people decreased till it dropped to zero. The airport was shutting down. I turned around and saw a few faces trying to fight the cold or the sleep or both. Sigh.

The night at Heathrow

The night was long hours of silence since I had to conserve power. The Heathrow Wifi was a life-saver. Soon I realised, UK has extremely good public Wifi service – even buses and bus stops! I took a stroll around 3 AM and stepped out to use the restroom. My legs seemed to both draw me towards the door and repel me from it. I stepped outside and stood for a moment. Wide-eyed, I tried to take it all in. The busy airport staff and the surrounding buildings, their slender design, the dark blue hue, the overcast sky, the misty air, and wet ground. I stepped back in and felt like I had just performed an EVA. Haha.

I realised how I have only ever travelled alone by air. I didn’t know what to make of it. Blessed? Deprived? Delighted? Angry? I popped in my airpod and kept falling in and out of sleep. Soon enough, the inflow started again. The shops opened up, lightening up the place with their colorful aura.

Day 0

I realised I had no information regarding A’s flight details and I wouldn’t know since he would be in flight. Sigh. All I could do was wait and pray for him to reach out first. And soon enough, around 8:30ish, A calls and we decide to meet up at the gate…

…only to realise we were at different terminals! I took the Inter-terminal Expressway that runs free of cost and went to T5 where we had our first rendezvous. I was relieved, to say the least, to see another human who I can talk to. I started blabbering like a fool. He saw that I was happy and needed to talk so he let me have my moment. Then, we decided to head over to Oxford via a direct bus in lieu of 3 interchanging train ride. We priortised comfort since fatigue was gripping both of us. £27 for the bus ride to Oxford.

The disastrous breakfast

After arriving at Oxford, we headed for some breakfast. I wanted to try out the traditional English breakfast but since I don’t eat pork, I asked the person to not include bacon. She serves the plate and there was…bacon. Ugh. Shared the scarbbled eggs with A and had some beans which smelt very very weird and yucky. Worst food experience ever. £15 for this nuisance. I implicitly swore to stick to McDonald’s only. Video called my folks.

Rendezvous

We had to reach The Ox statue just outside the station by 1:30pm. But somehow, Maps got confused and took a whole bunch of us to some other Ox which led into a backyard! Anyway, we assembled at the Ox somehow and oh my god, so many people! It was fun to talk to people though. I was a bit hesitant with my accent and volume at first but I quickly improvised. A whole bunch of interesting people it seemed. Undergraduates, Postgraduates, and PhDs studying CS, Econ, Philosophy, Anthropology, Political Science and so on. From Durham, LSE, ETH Zurich, Norway, Germany, Ghana, and of course, India. We left Oxford at 1:28pm for Bicester, the site of our workshop where we’ll be boarding at Middle Aston House , a legacy-rich manor right at the heart of the Oxfordshire countryside.

I had a fun conversation with Micha, a Masters student in AI at a German college. The TL;DR - technical higher education is cheaper in Germany than elsewhere. After 20 minutes, I checked Maps (By the way, I’m using and will be using A’s iPhone for the most of the trip because Airtel international data roaming is beyond miserable) and saw 2 mins to Bicester. Ah, finally.

…Only to notice that we have turned around and heading away from Bicester? They had missed a few people at the pickup point so we were heading back to get them. Another 40 minutes. I mostly sat in silence since I was too tired to talk. It was past 3 in the afternoon. There was no sun. I enjoyed the house, their architecture and their colour - each so distinct and refreshing. The fictional English countryside just got real.

We reached Middle Aston and holy smokes! It was an incredible place. I had a feeling that the next few days would be awesome (Spoiler alert: They were ;)) I quickly dropped off my bags at my assigned room and assembled for the welcome session. People had already started talking and socialising just like in a typical EA conference and I felt a bit awkward. That’s when my phone rings and it’s a call from Ms. Palki’s assistant. I was plunged back to reality for a moment as I recalled my ties and responsibilities from back home. The ghosts of my past?⁶ Anyway, that was a negative response. Fuck.

Middle Aston House, view by the lake, 21st December, 2023

Kickstart

The session started right away and there was no food break! I felt lucky to have had that breakfast at Oxford. Wrena was talking about scout mindset and asking questions and things like that. Scout mindset I thought. yes! Food! Rest! I thought. I was fighting to stay awake! But I was trying very hard to hold my ground. They had interactive session with other participants and I got to know Chris, a medical practitioner who was involved with the EA community for a very long time. I could see his charisma and extrovertedness shine through and his effort to make the other person feel comfortable in the conversation.

I crashed into bed after food and didn’t even look at the clock. I don’t remember what I had for food but it was all vegan and ample and delicious. It was probably lasagna.

Day 1 (19th December)

After an estimated eight hours of sleep, I felt rejuvenated and much healthier. Surprisingly, I woke up early around 6 and it was still dark outside. I stayed in my room, coordinated an article we were publishing on the Inter IIT Cultural fiasco for BSP, and video called my folks. It was afternoon in India anyways.

The Bicester countryside, 19th December 2023

At around 7:30, I decided to go for a walk along the countryside and it was an incredible experience! There were large swatches of green meadows stretching as far as the eyes could see. In the distance, small houses billowed smoke that vanished into the grayish blue sky. I could make out fern and moss-infested stones and flora alien to the tropical climate. It seemed like all of nature has conspired to inspire man to do great things in this land.

After the walk which lasted exactly 15 minutes, I went down for a quick guided meditation session with Chris in the common room. I had previously done this in the Jaipur conference and knew what to expect. We were joined by Cass (a highly energetic and lovely student studying pyscho and philo at Oxford) and Hugh (a first year undergraduate studying philo). I’m yet to evaluate if this is useful for me personally but it was fun regardless.

The day begins

Day 1 was biorisk day and I was especially looking forward to getting more pointers to start exploring concretely or make up my mind if I should be starting at all. In that regard, there were two very helpful speakers Sofya and Ryan who helped us orient and hand-hold the uninitiated. My overall impression from the session were that 1) biorisk is a real issue 2) we ain’t doing even a fraction of what is required to mitigate it! I realised that most problems seem to originate from lethargic bureaucracy and/or poor governance policies rather than technological advancements but maybe I can be corrected! Even during lunch, I resorted to talking less and listening more because that’s what I prefer to do! The lunch was delicious enough but forgettable (!) I’m not sure what I was having for food basically but I knew it was elible and it was vegan and it was delicious so I resorted to not contest it too much. We were then paired to go on individual timed 1-on-1s which is a great way to get to know other people and get them to know you, something which I like about EA programmes!

It rains a lot in UK! Not “rain” rain as in a tropical downpour like here in India but more of a friendly drizzle. Amazingly, it got dark at 4pm which surprised the shit out of me. By 6pm, shops were closed and by 8pm, everyone was packed up and cosy (except us, of course, we were all college students :P) Also, I noticed that I was considerably tired throughout the day and had to constantly hit the bed. Weird.

The night

I ended up talking about misaligned agents in organisations especially in EA with Ieva, another person with wonderful insights and wonderful eloquence. Basically what I was trying to get to was the principal-agent problem but the bell for dinner rang (not quite literally!) and I shared my dinner table with Maathias, Amritanshu, and Emmanuel where we discussed and contrasted the political systems of Ghana, Germany, and India! My takeaway? Sustainable and equitable power-sharing systems is another topic I feel deeply excited to learn and talk about. Then we went on a night walk after dinner and I looked up at the sky and all worries faded away…

I could see Orion with my naked eye! The inner astronomer in me leapt with joy, it was a sight I would never forget (although Orion is like the most recognisable constellation). All those days of preparing for INAO built up for a strong nostalgic jolt. I just looked at the sky that entire walk, I think.

I came back to my room and A and I decided to book rooms after the workshop ends. After a long talk with S (a very very helpful senior), we got a room at Oxford and another at Soho, London for very discounted prices. In the process, I learnt that hotel rooms are thin after the neighbouring person came knocking and requesting us to tone it down as he was trying to sleep. Oopsie. Oh, and yes, in a rather hilarious episode, we almost booked hotels at London ;)

Day 2 (20th December)

Although I woke up at 6ish, I felt a lot more tired. I went for the usual morning walk and meditation where we were joined by Yusuf, one of the other organisers. I was getting mentally adept at calculating IST. Hmmm.

I was getting used to the apricot yoghurt. Hmmm.

It was AI risk day and once again, we were brief at 0930 sharp at the meeting room, followed by guest speaker lectures. The conversations were not directly druitful but they were fruitful in a different way. Then I realised that one of the speakers was a co-author for one of the papers included in the AI Safety fundamentals 101 course! I was getting used to the (vegan) English cuisine in general. Hmmm. Dinner was interesting too because I ended up at one of the guest speaker’s table with Wrena and Ieva from before and I basically asked the question: Are the frameworks and safety systems that we are building invariant across AI technological progress? If not, then how can we do that?

Somehow in all the happening, we managed to click a group photo so here it is :)

An avenue for “hard” conversations

One interesting activity they did was something called lightning talks when everyone got in a circle and anyone can share anything they wanted by stepping forward. It could be a personal reflection, public rant, a resolution, an observation, a complaint, anything. In my first LT, I called out for a co-founder. Someone remarked how efficient and well-planned these workshops were and for good reason. I was amazed at how much ground I had covered in just 2 days! In my last lightning talk, I decided to throw away the list of things I had prepared to talk about and pointed out how the last three days have been an avenue for me to structure my own thoughts and beliefs, to engage in deeply intellectual conversations, and to learn to assimilate and profess new thoughts.

Then, I somehow found myself talking to August, a recent masters graduate from the Norwegian Uni of Life Sciences, about systems and beliefs and politics. It turned into an exciting dialogue when you really start to resonate with the other person on almost all fundamental beliefs. I don’t know how the 2 hours went away to be honest! My takeaway? Spending time appreciating nature would be nice.

Finally, almost everyone ended up at the socialisation room (the same place where I and Chris meditated) and we ended up like an angry beehive buzzing through the quiet Oxford countryside! I explained a multi-variable calculus topic to Timothee from France. And then, talked about community-building with Anette from Sweden! Then, I decided to call it a day and retired to bed.

That’s it for Part 1

Phew, it’s already 3.5k words! Thank you, dearest reader, for sticking around! Will continue the adventure in a part 2 (hopefully)!

Part 2 is here . Enjoy!

Footnotes

1: Pretty sure, this is a very standard result found in all accounting textbooks. But to derive it out of thin air with intuition was a fun mental exercise.

2: What? I take my food very seriously.

3: That is, when I was not busy staring outside via onboard cameras or browsing through their excellent collection of songs.

4: In hindsight, the last day of the year is the best time to recall all the adventures and fun I have had. Now that I look back, I have certainly grown and flourished and observed and cherished.

5: Okay, this wasn’t that big of a deal because I had international debit card but didn’t realise till the last day that I can use it to pay.

6: I’ll stop being dramatic, hehe.

Escapade Into Uttarakhand: A travelogue

gs454236@gmail.com (Basil Labib) — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 13:12:55 +0530

Introduction

This travelogue was created based on my journal entries on a daily(ish) basis. I volunteered as a teacher at a remote village in Uttarakhand and helped high school kids prepare for competitive exams (JEE/NEET) for two weeks. This travelogue is presented almost in its entirety with few redacts that I deemed too personal.

Day 1 (30/31 May)

I got onto an almost full Traveller van in front of Satpura¹ amidst torrential rain and found myself greeted with unknown (and somewhat hostile) faces. I got into a corner and crumpled myself somehow into that little space. And we rolled around 7:30pm. After sometime I realised, to my horror, that I wanted to puke. It was then that it dawned on me that perhaps I’m also one of those people who cannot stand travelling in cars although I was surprised because it had never happened before (also maybe because I have never been on a trip like this). Anyhow, because of a sheer stroke of good luck, someone shifted and I got a window seat and I got better because of the cool Delhi air.

Got off for a dhaba dinner at midnight and then bobbed and slept and somehow made it through the night only to wake up at 5am to a sight that turned me stone cold. There were freaking mountains! And cold and clouds and the van was swirling through these snakey roads that weren’t really roads but strips of lands clinging onto rocks for their dear lives! Trust me when I say, all my sleep went away. I was alert and awake. And praying. Meanwhile, I noticed a turned over truck and secretly let out a gulp. I noticed that the driver was talking on the phone to someone and finally started to say my last prayers. Everytime the van approached a turn I had to hold my breath. It was terrifying (and feels funny now). The drop in air pressure had conveniently left me light-headed with funny things happening to my eardrums. And while I was cruising through and praying for my dear life, I realised how I don’t want to sit in that metal box but get out and reach out for the mountains, and dip my feet in that freezing turquoise water, and take a deep breath in that low-pressure air. Ah.

We arrived at 10am, tired and sleep-deprived, at a government school at Narayanbagar-Chamoli, Uttarakhand. Adjusted and got around the place. There’s a river nearby. Met friends who are here for the last slot (they left today). Dozed off, fatigue I guess. Chilly weather. Perhaps 20-21. Just perfect. There’s an oscillatory weather variation from sunny to overcast to rain here. Breathtaking mountain views.

Night fell. Had dinner. And sat down to teach kids. And boy oh boy, as I was teaching them I realised that I am learning hindi. A myriad terms and a myriad variations. And perhaps you are well aware of my love for linguistics and languages in general. Someone told me it’s already 10pm and then I realised how quickly the two hours went by. Someone later complimented my teaching (Not the first time, perhaps I should consider this as a serious profession?). The girl who I was teaching told me that I should take physics (it was informal today so I taught physics just for kicks) and I coyly laughed telling her that I am supposed to teach English. Good day, I guess. Very good day, in fact.

Day 2 (1 Jun)

I slept late because surprisingly, A² texted and informed me of her latest breakup. That dwindled into an unplanned hour long video call till 2am where every single bone of my body was screaming for sleep. Anyway, I woke up later than others at 8am which is early by hostel standards anyways. Perhaps, its the amazing climate and aura of this place. Only city life destroys the last remnants of sanity in humanity.

I took an unplanned chemistry class for 9th because the person who was supposed to had some predicaments so I conceded. We went for a walk around the place and found myself at the river and I saw the most breathtaking views of gigantic mountains and turquoise blue water bravely cutting through rocks. Air so clean (oh nvm, I think I have already raved about all this) and I saw step farming and crossed a bridge. I took videos of my feet dipping in river water as cold as ice.

Personal hygiene seems to be suffering I guess because I am lazy always and there doesn’t seem to be much impetus in terms of infrastructure here either. Anyways.

Me and A will probably get back together.

Day 3 & 4 (2 & 3 Jun)

A and I will probably not get back together. Somebody has to make me believe in the existence of love once again. To make me believe that it is easy for two people to meet and start liking each other just like that. But I think that would require a miracle in its own right.

Realisations are a funny thing. Like the first time I realised that my music is only mine to keep and nobody else gives a fuck about the music I like. I am setting this biology question paper for these village kids in these hilly areas where the general aspiration is to get into the army (for boys) and to become a teacher or a nurse (for a girl), and these are questions about Darwinism and Mendel’s laws and excuse me for wondering but I really do wonder what good is any of it for these kids? And isn’t mine own endeavour or whatever you want to call this little thing that I am doing here (and supposed to do for 15 days), isn’t this supposed to be my unconscious way of coping with the fact that I am more “privileged” than these poor souls and somewhere deep down I know that I am responsible for their conditions? And once I ask this question, all acts of kindness becomes tainted by my selfish perversion. There is no absolute kindness. We are just bundles of contradictions.

Anyways, I hark back to the days when I learnt about Mendel and genetics and I remember how excited I was, to being able to understand a hidden law of nature, a law that pervades one of our deepest pillars of civilisation. Yeah, maybe I am a Romantic. But what do these kids care? Their incentive is to get passing mark in an exam and get the hell done with it and get on with life, not a life of 9-5 and AC and weekly nightclubs but a life of real struggle and pain and sacifice. And it breaks my heart. It really does.

Some worldly update:

Went to a stream nearby with water so clear I could see the waterbed. It was so unreal. I had rainbow trout for lunch today. It had a distinctive taste, perhaps what really fresh tastes like. I am freaking tired and exhausted and fatigued and everything in between. I had to coax myself to sit down to write this even. I studied 10th genetics in pure hardcore hindi myself with all the terms etc and delivered a 3 hour lecture on it. Then took a 45 mins English class. Attended a BSP³ meet. Finally took a 1 hour doubt session on IUPAC nomenclature for organic compounds. And just finished setting a biology question paper for 10th graders. But surprisingly I am fine mentally. IIT has conditioned me to be tough for sure. And I love this.

Day 5 (4 Jun)

If everybody turned into a nihilist one day and realised that all their efforts must go in vain and there is no real good that will ever come out of it, then the world would be unlivable. Yes, this is irrational but we must allow irrationality in our deepest fundamental belief system. We must toil in the face of defeat knowing very well that none of it matters. Perhaps that is the beauty of it.

Yesterday, an eleventh grade girl stood up and answered “What is my aim in life?”, a question I had posed as part of a writing task. And she answered that she wanted to be an engineer and crack JEE. And I was overcome by a strong sense of irony and guilt. Is it ever possible for a girl living here in this alcove to ever experience the cutthroat competition that exists “out there”? Such guileless honesty was commendable yet vacuous. Is it ever possible for this girl to really crack JEE? Is she aware of the kind of sacrifices JEE requires? Who will provide her with the resources? Is it just one of the many pipe dreams that dot the miserable and sad Indian landscape? Most likely.

When you are free, interesting thoughts come to the head. I was wondering what these kids think about us. Carefree days with unbounded playing and accountability. One day this uncle comes and imposes 4 hours of study followed by a 3hr weekly test. I wonder if this is how Indians felt when the East India Company came to India started interfering in economic and political activities. A little far-fetched come to think of it now but fun thought anyway.

BSP had a full team meet planned on Sunday at 4pm. But the gang here decided to go to the river to bath and boy oh boy, it was SO fun. I basically ditched the full team meet to go dipping (clothed) in the river lol. But I am not to be blamed. I HATE online meets. Anyways, let’s talk about the fun part. The water so freezing I had never felt before. I was literally trembling. It was amazing.

I finished watching Death Proof, a Tarantino, in installments, albeit. Kick ass movie. Weaker than his other works but still very tastefully Tarantino. As I have maintained that Tarantino movies are “delicious”. This was all the bit the same.

Day 6 (Jun 5)

My laptop battery kinda went bust (I think I already told you) and now I have to stay connected to power just to operate my laptop which means I am extremely paranoid to work on anything important on the laptop now thanks to the frequent power cuts here (I am writing this blog on my iPad). I guess it’s all part of the hill side village experience. That day I went to the bathroom all mentally prepred to have a long and relaxing bath only to find no water in the bathroom. I was lucky to have the hindsight to check for water before applying soap. Otherwise it would have been a sure disaster.

I woke up today morning and saw these kids who start arriving around 7:30 for class starts at 8, touching my feet out of respect. It was an extremely sweet gesture.

Rawat sir arrived and with him arrived a ray of hope. He teaches biology to 10,11 and 12. He had to take leave for the weekend and I had to fill in for him which was a thoroughly new experience and involved learning 10th biology in pure hindi and teaching it to kids. I feel better that I don’t have to do it now.

We went out on an unplanned trek through the mountains and I took my iPad. A totally enthralling experience with me literally clinging onto rocks for dear life. I sketched the view from high a top the hill too. Hehe.

I was wondering if it is rational to love just one person throughout one’s life. You know if they are far away, then to sworn into modesty, and keep a picture in your breast pocket which you hold to bed at night and silently endure the pain of not being together and to imagine the conversations you would have if they would be there right at that moment through the night whilst the other person has long forgotten you (and being practical and rational) moved on and started “loving” someone else. Does it really make any sense?

I started reading Lord of the Rings finally. I kinda like the book.

Day 7 (Jun 6)

Fairly normal but tiresome day somehow. I watched Drive movie - the one starring Ryan Gosling and its soooo good. The gut to leave behind the girl and the money (obviously metaphors of things you achieved in your life) and just walk away in the end is unbelievable. Moreover, BSP inception meet was so fun! I slept early.

Day 8 (Jun 7)

The head of the coaching program here is a 60 something professor names J. P. Dabral. Possibly a graduate of IIT Delhi himself, this project is his brainchild. Now, Mr. Dabral cuts a picture of authority and sheer intimidation. But underneath he is a humanitarian figure who has seen many days of adventure (that is obvious from the various stories and anecdotes he relishes to share with us) and holds a high degree of ideal for himself. When I talk to him (which is rarely so but I’m warming up to the idea) I can sense years of wisdom in that calm voice that replies and a certain unnamed satisfaction and contentment that is evident of a happening life. That day he told us about how he served as a assistant to a photographer for a Bollywood film! The other day he told us about the time he had the urge to learn bee-keeping and enrolled in a course for the same. Stay tuned for more information about Dabral sir!

As you may know, we (8 boys and 3 girls from IITD) are staying in the head school of this village which is one of the many in this block, the district has 9 such blocks. And starting 10am or so, human voices can be heard from the adjoining room which remains locked and a banner reads “Virtual Classroom”. The aforementioned Dabral sir educates us about this curious phenomenon with the knowledge that this is supposed to be how kids would be learning in the village. The Virtual Classroom is equipped with gadgets and computers, etc. But due to incorrigible management there is a teacher but no students, What a shitshow is the Indian administration and education system.

I went on a walk with few fellow volunteers and had the sweetest and darkest sugarcane juice followed by a feet dip in the river. Walked through beautiful and grand paths that cut through rocks and tall trees that bowed to the whims of the wind. The silhouette of the hilltop trees seem to be alive and swaying like hordes of men cloaked in black and on a procession of death or something. I heard this story of a 23 year old girl from Lucknow who has been saying in this part of the world for two months. Everybody wants to get away. Every place has their culture. A peculiar thing I noticed here is complete shutdown of markets and shops by 8pm simply because it gets dark beyond bearability so its basically impossible to get any productive work done after that.

I don’t really know how to put this but this idea doesn’t seem to leave my head so I have to put it in some form. I have noticed how each generation of people come up and exclaim “Oh lord, this is the end. The world hasn’t been more fucked up. Culture is declining, kids don’t respect their elders, climate change is killing the planet, and so on and on” and yet, and yet civilisation seems to exist just fine. Why is that? It is because when people pop up on the scene and by this phrase I mean get conscious and aware enough to ask meaningful questions after acquiring knowledge they fail to acknowledge the existence of a long line of ancestors and their history and their thoughts. For example, for me the world started to exist in 2003. Anything before that is simply a word of faith; mere collection of words or pixels. The limitation of the human brain combined with the explosion of information forces most of us to ever only process only a certain section of history - the part that is most relevant to that individual’s survival (an engineer might get away without knowing anything about geopolitics). And this is what creates a gaping information crisis with each generation looking at certain superficial indicators - country’s GDP, unemployment ratio, sex ratio etc and jumping to conclusions. What is really problematic is when we ask the question - how to track these indicators and a civilisation’s health across ages? Is there ever any objective way to truly measure this? Sure, we can (and do) measure it by reading history books but that’s very troublesome for a number of reasons. Sadly, I think it is impossible. You may ask - why is it important to ask this question. Well, otherwise how will we ever know if civilisation is actually failing? And I think that is an important thing to keep track of.

The analogy of streetlamps. Each individual is a streetlamp and the area illuminated by it is the area od understanding of that lamp. It may be possible that two lamps illuminate the same area in which case these individuals agree with each other but for the most part, each lamps is only ever capable of illuminating a fraction of the entire area that can be illuminated. The responsibility of the journalist is to illuminate as large an area as possible.

Day 12 (Jun 11)

You might have notices my negligence in regularity and slip into frivolous carelessness. Well I never boasted of myself as a good blogger :D. Anyhow, not much of interest has been happening or anything that I haven’t already talked about. Or I have been waiting to accumulate more thoughts. Or maybe all this conjecturisation is bullshit and I have been pure lazy. I’ll leave it to you to choose.

But today, my dear friend, I washed my clothes. With my own hands. I know. BIG DEAL. Part of the exposing myself to new experiences narrative. Learnt it from another volunteer, Amrita at the camp. Surprisingly, it is a very tiresome procedure. Extremely.

As this camp draws to an end, an unfound happiness seems to be springing from within my heart; a happiness rooted in satisfaction and the realisation of the end of a long and painstaking wait to see A again. I cannot believe that we will be together once again and I could listen to her IRL and not via those frustrated video calls.

Today was my 3rd day at an inland spring here at Narayan Bagar. I think I have talked about the spring/lake thing before. The water so clean I can see the riverbed. Also, little ill today because of that I guess.

I was wondering how serendipitous this vacation has really been for me - from barely making up my mind to filling up the form to almost giving up and walking out of the interview because I was intimidated by all the Hindi teaching idea to actually teaching biology in Hindi to kids - this vacation has been a vacation of many firsts and a much needed getaway and therapy that I needed. The best things in life happen not by coercion but on their own?

I wish I could stay here longer you know for another fortnight but unfortunately I have MCP101 back at campus. Might be better than rotting back in Kolkata but all’s well, all’s well.

I read the first two chapters of the Gita in English and it opens at a very dramatic moment where Arjuna is having a moral crisis standing between the two armies ready to shred each other to pieces. Krishna is standing by as a counsel and by answering Arjuna’s questions is actually teaching us moral philosophy. But somehow, just somehow all these religious scriptures seem to fall into the same pattern. You must abstain from X but it will not tell why. You must do Y but it will leave the mind-numbing problem of doing Y to the poor reader. It will mention itself as great and market itself as a text that if understood would lavish the reader with superior intellect but it will never tell us how to do that. And I find that especially funny (and disconcerting about religious texts) that it treats its readers as buffons. The way to escape from the clutches of desire is to not have any desire to begin with. But what life would that be - plain and bland and without purpose if it is devoid of desire? Krishna never tells us how to manage our desires if we have them but to simply not have them. I don’t necessarily agree with this hard-conservative approach to life. It is ascetic and careless to the point of stupidity. Also, I notice how the Gita begins on an extremely charged and violent premise where Krishna is literally instigating Arjuna to become manly and fight and shed blood and yet people only seem to notice Jihad. Silly people.

LOTR progress: Frodo has encountered Barrow-wight and got rescued by Tom Bombadillo on his way to Rivendall.

Jun 13 (Day 14)

The other day I looked up at the stars and luckily it wasn’t cloudy and I saw a hemisphere of embedded jewels in the cosmic bowl. It was a maginificent image. So many stars and such beauty!

My long (and unkempt) hair seems to be quite a hit here among the students and other volunteers. I have noticed the topic discussed multiple times in different conversations. People here seem to be more driven by physical apperances, the mark of a superficial mindset.

Another thing I have noticed is the curiosity around my name and the innate human need to understand or as Elizier puts it, to “rationalise” the unknown or unfamiliar. To this end, I have heard people rationalise my name as another name for Tulsi (especially those with a Hindu persuasion) while Christians are content with some priest like St. Basil. And so we roll, not to mention, all the attention I get around me.

I have been asked this question on multiple occassions and here too, “Where are you from?”, “What are you?” People can give simple answers like Bengali or Punjabi or Marwadi. But I am at a loss of words when I am to answer this question. And I have pondered a lot. I am not a Hindu Bengali, I am definitely not a Muslim Bengali. I am not Bihari anymore (my granddad was born in Kolkata) but some generation did migrate from Bihar. So who am I? This need to identify with a group is not something I deeply care about. I believe in making my own identity.

Jun 14 (Day 15)

Today was Harsh sir’s birthday. He is a computer science graduate currently working in Gurgaon. Party was on him. Crazy good hogya. Moreover, got cake and stuff up here in the mountains and did a cake cutting proper. Fun. I also noticed how I have been spared a lot of the financial burden by virtue of me being the youngest in the group. This is a peculiar tendency of humans to sympthasise with the youngest of the lot. Financials as in party expenses, small things. That day I heard Manish sir talk about how he was asked to pay for the extra parathe he was taking.

I have been taking class 11th chemistry for a week now and it has been super super tiring.

experiencing a different bond with the students - beginning to understsand how teachers feel - you know that feeling when you have given a piece of yourself effectively to someone else. its the other side of the student-teacher dynamics. fun fun stuff.

bad dreams - apple pencil getting destroyed.

Jun 17 (Day 18)

Today was a hectic day. It was my official last day on the teaching volunteer programme at Narayan-Bagar. Morning was marked by the weekly exam followed by checking answers. A last trip to the river stream and a bath there. One of my students in class 12, Neha, drew a sketch of me on my iPad. It touched my heart. I also brought clothes for mom and sister which took me an hour since I had to video call and stuff. Got myself a pahadi cap too. Always been a family guy. Many farewells and a few teary eyes and some more heart-touching moments such as kids touching my feet out of respect. Oh my god.

Did I tell you about me learning about the Mahabharata from a hindu spiritual guy who also volunteered? I have sketches of it also. Fun stuff.

Jun 18 (Day 19)

Travelled all day. Got delayed at a few places due to traffic jam but reached campus in one piece and crashed to bed after a video call with A. The journey took almost 15 hours. It’s supposed to be 10 hours.

That’s it I guess. Hell of an adventure.

Footnotes

1: Satpura is the name of one of the eleven boys hostel at IIT Delhi.
2: Removing name for obvious reasons.
3: BSP stands for Board for Student Publications, the official student-run media body of IIT Delhi, where I’m a Chief Editor.

Life update: Me and A broke up.

BUIDL: Hitching a ride on the web3 wagon

gs454236@gmail.com (Basil Labib) — Sun, 11 Dec 2022 09:28:14 +0530

ETHIndia 2022’ @Whitefield, BLR

Infinite Garden: a diverse ecosystem of individuals and organizations that build and grow alongside ethereum.

The Ethereum ecosystem, particularly the scaling L2 solutions are witnessing dramatic progress in terms of breakthroughs and innovation. The Infinite Garden is the phrase used to refer to the truly decentralized techno-haven where interaction between online entities are transparent and uncensored. Free from censorship, state control, fraud, and malicious agents, powered by the ecosystem of applications built on blockchains - in short, an information utopia. Personally, the idea seems enticing and inviting. But transitioning from web2 to web3 is a long way and the vision I outlined, although the shared vision of the people on the frontier of this revolution, is still a long, long way into the future.

I was fortunate to be part of the IITD contingent to ETHIndia 22’ hackathon conducted in Whitefield, Bengaluru from Dec 2nd to Dec 4th. In this post, I’ll try to examine the state of web3 in India, note my observations and experiences while interacting with people in the web3 space.

The Glass Fortress

First, let’s talk about obvious logistical differences between BLR and DEL. Bengaluru is blessed to have a moderate climate and very little pollution (something Delhites can pray for ;-;), especially owing to the number of natural parks and foliage that form an integral part of the city. I went on solo tripping around the city on 5th and 6th after the hackathon and was fortunate to explore Cubbon Park, a sprawling park right in the city center which also houses the Karnataka High Court, the State Library, and couple of other administrative institutions. Not to sound insensitive but Kannada names are so difficult to remember! I know it’s just about getting used to them but that’s the first impression. Funny I guess.

Bengaluru has been dubbed the “Silicon Valley” of India and the IT capital of the country. I think the second moniker fits the city more but the first nickname is catching fast. BLR is the city where the tech talent of the country resides. But note that most of these people are not building stuff for themselves but for others. India’s tech talent is mostly locked up in glass fortresses doing outsourced work for foreign MNCs. But as I said, this is changing fast and the young Bengaluru is home to some really cool experiments and ideas - all Made In India. For students like us, I think it is our responsibility to work on realising the first nickname rather than the second.

My impression of Bengaluru is perhaps conditioned because I had a argubly tiny observation period but for now it stands as this: A positive feedback loop between aggregation of tech talent of the country and money being poured by capitalism hungry VCs. Yes, it all looks pristine and shiny from the outside but to make that internal shift and change requires a collective effort that is still lacking. I used to believe there are pockets of innovation in India like the IITs but I’m saddened to realise (once I got into one) that the reality is quite different from what I perceived it to be.

But I don’t feel disheartened. There are pockets of extreme innovation and real value making in Bengaluru too. Like in any distribution, there would be a very small percentage of really good developers and dreamers and visionaries. I think they are out there. Polygon is a beautiful example of the same. The rest are simply trying to hitch a ride on the web3 wagon lest they find it long gone. After all, it’s the next “big thing”, right?

ETHIndia 2022

ETHIndia was my first offline hackathon experience and it has set a very high bar with which to compare future hackathons by. It was an amazing and energizing atmosphere with around 2000 hackers typing away at their keyboards and banging their heads on the tables 24X7. With atmost six hours of sleep in 36 hours (a personal best), my team comprising of sophomores, juniors, and seniors were able to conjure a decentralized content creator platform. The process was fraught with many blockers as it was our first web3 development experience. Given our expertise level, I’m very proud of what we pulled off. Here are the repos (frontend and contract ) if anyone is interested :P

I had a lighthearted conversation with Ashish, my friend and fellow teammate, about how we should be ditching corporate jobs for creating an open space office with bean bags and infinite food counters. I would personally like that :D

Solo tripping through the Garden City: A story in pictures

I am a planned traveller (or maybe I’m just discovering myself). In any case, I poured over Bengaluru travel guides, tweet feeds, and notion pages to chalk out the perfect two day solo vacation plan around Bengaluru. The results are quite impressive as I was able to pack in so much of the BLR experience in such a short time. Also, “Pete” means downtown in Kannada.

PS: I’m a big foodie too! Enjoy!

The (partial) team @ETHIndia 22'!

Glen’s Bakehouse; to satiate one’s sweet tooth :D

Church Street, perfect for partying and having a nightlife.

Bisi bele bath @Rameshwaram Cafe.

State Library at Cubbon Park; books <3

Ice cream @ Corner House is a must-try; just heavenly stuff.

Breakfast @ MTR. Try their Rava Idli, according to popular legend, they invented it.

Want more pictures? (Click me)

The ❇️ Rava Idli ❇️; so good I ended up having two of ’em :P

…presenting Death by Chocolate; a sinful, delectable, and evil ice cream mix; argh just too good :P

Upma @Rameshwaram Cafe

Dosa @Rameshwaram; like obviously

Vadas!

More Dosa :P (Man, am I gonna miss these in Delhi ;-;)

Idli!

Hehe :O

wink, wink

Champaca Bookstore and Cafe, an independent, woman-run cafe with an engaging atmosphere.

My team! From left, Ashish, Shivam, me, Anirudh, and Kavya

Bengaluru, the garden city!

Here are the guides if anyone needs:

DevFolio City Guide (Notion)
Ek Baar Banta Hai (Notion)
Twitter feed (Twitter)

Rant: I was still unable to visit a few places I had on my list such as HAL museum, Commercial St. and try out food at Meghana and Nagarjuna. Until next time :)

Marginal notes

My last entry was six months ago during endsem break of the last semester. I tried to write in between but you can imagine the kind of engagement and commitments that sophomore year at college demands. The Bengaluru trip was a happy incident and I’m glad I took the call. I observed and learnt many things.

On a personal level as a developer, the hackathon gave me perspective. It made me humbled and grounded. It was a revelationary experience to interact with people in the industry and to be aware of that body of brilliant developers and changemakers outside the confines of IITD.

Keep an eye for this space. I intend to write more in the break hopefully.

Thanks for tuning in, :)