Notes on change

I have been planning on starting a substack since a long time but hadn't written anything longform that was good enough to be posted here. Well, I am now going to just compile Instagram captions that I used to call thought dumps into a monolith of a post that pretty much documents my fear of imminent change before graduation, the actual change and the grief associated with it (though the actual dealing with change wale part mei I was too involved in dealing with change to even writing about it lmao)

So, the first post. For long, I had thought of accompanying my Instagram posts with such thought dumps and with this one, I finally made the leap.

January 17, 2023

New years bring with them a romanticized expectation of some major epiphany - a drastic change - a philosophical makeover - but the clock strikes midnight only to lead to an anti climatic thought of "Okay, so now what?" - the years work nicely as markers for documentation - that's what they are though, right? Like I can look back and club the collection of all experiences I've had in the year and maybe ascribe a specific theme to them. For example, 2020 was just one big blur of "what the-", 2021 brought an influx of new people in life while 2022 brought with it with the thought that maybe I shouldn't romanticize everything, that we are guests in everyone's lives, that the idea of "forever" is improbable yet something I shall always hope and fight for and if anything we should try being tenants rather than tourists in the lives of other people. 2023 shall be the year I graduate. I messaged a friend on 1st January saying "2023, graduate honge bhai iss saal" and he replied saying "Saal ke pehle din aise scary baatein nahi krte". It IS scary though. Academics brought with itself a boring yet comfortable linearity that shall vanish with graduation. By the end of this year, I shall be in a corporate job in maybe Hyderabad or Bangalore - and all I can think of is "Damn, so fast?" - but logistics around such major changes have had a tendency to figure themselves out until now and I hope this change shall be no different. Inshallah, the logistics shall figure themselves out.
Thought dump over. Until next time.
To the new year, romanticized moments that amount to technically nothing, and photo dumps that shall now be accompanied with such (hopefully?) cute thought dumps.

The next thought dump accompanied a post with photos from a Goa trip with my friends. Coming back from the trip, it was just Gupta and me making the journey from Delhi to Roorkee. Somewhere in Delhi metro, one of us turns to the other and says, “Isn’t this the last time we make this journey to Roorkee as students?” - and then, our depressed asses made our way to Kashmiri Gate and from there, the bus ride to Roorkee in silence, pondering on change and grieving over a time that hadn’t even passed yet.

March 12, 2023

Here goes another thought dump, let's see how long I can keep this up. If my last thought dump had an overarching yet unsaid theme, it would be an unnecessary romanticization of life. And one thing that lets me further this romantic view of life, it's the scary yet fortunate frequency with which coincidences take place to create stories that you are sure would become something of a core memory for you. A few days back, I wondered what train of thought I'd dump in my next Instagram post - and then yesterday - like lightning on a starry night, I had this thought out of nowhere:

Of how life shall be in the future and how strange it feels that I shall be a stranger to my current self then. Surrounded by people who are strangers too. I hope I recognise some faces if I ever get the chance to peer in the future - mom, dad, a few other friends. But still it feels trippy that a lot of people that shall surround me in my future - I am yet to meet them. They are strangers still. We are strangers to the future, and if not hopeful we can at least be curious about it (read this line somewhere, not mine).

And speaking of coincidences, how wonderful it is that you go out for a walk to clear out your mind, headphones over your ears, desi hip-hop blaring through it, only for someone to call you and say, "statue." and then, hip-hop is no longer needed because you end up talking to this person for hours at end and by the end of it, when both of you begrudgingly bid each other goodbye because lectures don't wait for anyone and eight hours of sleep is still a necessity in spite of all the evolution that human beings have gone through - you have this thought out of nowhere: this person, that you thought was potentially a new addition in your life, has finally arrived and is here to stay.

And since we are on the topic of people arriving and are shamelessly seguing from one topic to another, it sometimes does scare me that people are arriving so late. How unbearably sad it is that I'm discovering someone in my final year and yet, it fills me with hope that people shall keep coming, there will always be more to the world that I haven't experienced yet.

There are times when during the initial part of a trip, I have this sudden realization that "Damn, this is actually happening." For example, I'd be sitting in the plane to Goa and just as the pilot announces the landing, it dawns on me that this is actually happening - Somehow, on autopilot, I agreed to a trip, helped with the planning, paid for the tickets and now, in just some more time, I'll be in Goa. Campus Life, I feel, also has been something like that. Like I spent these four years on autopilot and now I'm like "Damn, just two months to go." I mean, damn. Just two effing months to go and then, done. And I know I mentioned this in my last writing too but I guess I have actually started processing it just now. Two months seems like a very short period and I am definitely scared but like I said, I'll try to be a little more curious about the future if nothing else - for its infinite beauty lies in the fact that no one knows anything about it.

The next two thought dumps are centered on two campus groups that I was part of but also, a celebration of all the people I met and experiences I had as a part of it.

April 21, 2023

There are times when I wonder, as an alum, what would be the events that I'd be happy to revisit campus for and attending the following years' Eunoia would definitely be one of them. This event was clearly a step up from the last one, with performances on so many varied topics and styles. I mean, I pretty much danced on stage while Vansh recited a ChatGPT generated poem. And then there's Ashish's piece where he sat down on stage mid-performance and was one with which I so related with, Aadi's piece that won Eunoia for us way before the actual event and so many more pieces so brilliant yet written and rehearsed in less than a week.

Completing a piece one day before the event and then convincing the group members to let me perform it shall remain one of the highlights of this year's Eunoia for me.
Like always, the train of thought comes to the point that this was the last Eunoia I attended as a student - and brings with it a little bit of regret that maybe, just maybe I could have been more active in my previous years. For even in the last 1.5 years that I've been pretty active in Kshitij, I've found so many people who I like and at least a few that might just stay for a long time.

This year's Eunoia was fun. Might be the last one I attend as a student but if the future allows it, surely not the last one I attend.

To poems, to Kshitij, and to the people I found as a part of it. This might be the beginning of the end of my campus life but raasta bada lamba hai. :)

April 24, 2023

Institutions, what are they if not a group of people working towards a similar goal. And so, one thing that I've said a lot of times which doesn't really make sense and yet makes sense at the same is this line ki "The group doesn't exist" - basically all that the group is, is the people in it and so - rather than working for the systems and structures in place - it would me much more fruitful to work for the growth/fun of your peers and you. A lot of redundancies in a lot of places would be solved if people would just involve just a little bit of philosophy in their lives and ask the question, "What's the damn point of this?" while upholding a tradition that they might not even know the origin of. Origin stories soon become legends and much sooner useless if not held to scrutiny on a regular basis.

Labs gave me knowledge, exposure, opportunities, experiences and most importantly, people. I still remember the recruitment week in my first year when most people on my floor had gotten the interview call and I hadn't. And then, just after a lecture - I called back on a missed call - and then on another - and I had interviews to both IMG and Labs. I sometimes wonder how differently things would have panned out had labs not happened and am pretty convinced I'd be a very different person without it. A lot of events in and around Labs have shaped my opinions on a lot of things. Labs gave me some people who I'm sure are going to stay for the long run. And as I'm close to signing off from Labs, I do feel grateful for the ride - all of it with the good and the bad, kabhi book likhunga toh bahut inspiration mil gayi iske karan.

The next one was after convocation - long after convocation - convocation was poignant, I had graduated, and yet, there we were in college, all of us, one last time - to get our degrees. To get the courage to actually process and write about this took some time and finally I came up with this thought dump.

September 23, 2023

So how do you finally do a photo dump about your convocation. First you find a day where you are feeling relatively a little better about the massive change that took place post your graduation that has had you reeling from it for the last few months. You then start writing a meta piece about how you are writing a caption for the photo dump - when to start writing it and stuff. You then start with a question like - Is it really that bad? Change?

But then you quickly agree to this rhetorical question because human experience is heavily subjective and it's a well established fact that you don't really deal well with it. Writing about it does make you feel better though. You are sitting in an auto, maybe going to a biryani place to meet your parents straight from office - they have come to Hyderabad to meet you. They know you are not particularly happy here. They know you are not particularly happy these days. They say you'll adjust eventually and it's this eventuality on which you're holding on. You have recently graduated and shit scared of the fact ki happiness peaked in college but the fact remains ki most of the world deals with this change eventually and so eventually things might actually fit into place. Things shall never be the same. But different doesn't necessarily mean bad, right? You conclude your thought dump at this (maybe forced) optimistic point and go on to search for photos to include in the dump. Different hopefully doesn't mean bad.

Now, the last thought dump in this collection was one I posted a few days ago - finally having settled in Hyderabad, and accepted the massive change after graduation.

29 February, 2023

Places, are weird. You don't like them. You want to leave them as soon as possible. You count days until you can move to the place you yearn for. And then, before you know it - something clicks, and everything's alright. And you begrudgingly accept that if you ever leave this place too, the one that you seemed to be hating so much, passive aggressively posting stories with 👍👍👍 emojis - you're going to miss it a little.

Places, are weird. You go to places and before you know it, they hold a part of you. You leave a part of yourself in all places you visit and still, places give you a lot more to take along for your journeys around the sun.

Places, are like people. Anthromorphized Hyderabad must have had a hard time scaling my walls, so high that I myself never knew of their existence, their mossy stoned walls replacing the skies. Diya once said that my walls are too high and I disagreed - for I believed I was pretty much an open book, everyone knew everything about me. Turns out my definition of walls was wrong in itself. Turns out, my walls are indeed high but khair, a lot of people and even Hyderabad has now scaled these walls - and inside those walls, we'll be having a barbeque hehe.

The last few months were an exploration and a challenge to both my ideals and philosophies. Had a long situationship with existentialism, went over to nihilism's place a few times and on the darkest of nights, even flirted with theism once. It's easy to roll the boulder up the hill when Sisyphus is already happy but if Sisyphus ain't enjoying it, it's very easy for him to just wonder why push the boulder up everytime instead of just giving up and resting against the boulder at the bottom of the hill (or maybe deluding yourself into believing all of this is bigger than just you and the boulder - it's not). But I guess the idea is to look at it as a sport. Find fellow boulder pushers and enjoy little breaks between the pushing of the boulders. Maybe these paths diverge at times and it's okay. They have their own boulders to push and your boulder is only your responsibility. To quote a new friend, "We keep rolling."

To new places, people and peace.

My thoughts on change are also documented in my Campus Memoir, do read it if you get the time it is one of my favorite pieces out of all that I’ve put out -http://watchout.iitr.ac.in/2023/06/kambli-memoir

Lemme know what you think of everything, drop a hi on @kambli.text on Instagram hehe.

To new places, people and peace.

If you read till the end, follow kr dijiye hehe. And yes, planning on posting a lot more long form content on here - so, stick around!