The Artist

  It is very important to prepare properly for your exams but it is equally important to take proper care of your body. Stay hydrated . One of the issues this generation has is that we forget to drink water. We barely notice until the last minute. So please stay hydrated . The summer sun is merciless. While studying, it is important to take frequent breaks. In order to have this luxury of frequent breaks one must not cram. Studying overnight is detrimental to the body and your mind doesn’t process information effectively. You would perform poorly. Trust me when I say that studying in the morning is way better than cramming. You might not be able to cover a lot but whatever you cover, you’ll remember it well. I usually go by 3:4 rule when I study. I spend forty-five minutes studying and take a fifteen minute break to refresh my mind. During this time, I usually listen to music. It is also better if you write down what you have studied. I study the material once or twice, m...

  The Mahabharat is the longest poem in the world. It would take months to read it. However, reading it can expand your mind. Unlike Ramayana, Mahabharata is an epic consisting characters who are morally grey. On the surface, it might seem to be a typical war between good and evil. This is how mainstream media has portrayed it, which is a great disservice to the epic. Our people are so comfortable with binary lenses that they want nothing more than Duryodhana’s evil laugh and Yudhisthira’s righteousness. It assuages them and enforces their black and white worldview. If one were to read the text, they would find themselves facing a conundrum: Whose side should I take? Each and every character had their own justification for what they did. Of course, their actions were evil but what made them do it? It is easy to judge Kunti for what she did to Karna, but she herself had little choice. For starters, she was given a power at an age where she couldn’t take things seriously. She ...

  Let’s face it, we all grow up. What used to bring us happiness as children may not do so anymore. We become stoic, mature and disciplined. That’s completely normal and it is a part of growing up. But how many of us are happy with the way we used to be when we were kids? Not many. Most of us would look back and think about ourselves as ‘cringy’ I am no exception. Why are we being so hard on ourselves? Yes, our child version may not have been ‘cool’ but they were free. As children we lived in the moment. We wouldn’t burden our mind with anything. If we see chocolates, we would want it. If we fight with our friends, we would forget about it and play with them again. Anything can be our toy and we found happiness in little things. The mind of a child lives only in the present. The mind of an adult lives everywhere except for the present. The problem with adulthood is that, we have lost that ability. We look back at the past with the rose-coloured lenses of nostalgia and mourn...

  Teaching is hard and I have always known this. Teaching requires patience and a deep understanding of the subject. I teach English as a private tutor. It was a job I was hesitant to accept because I was not very confident about my teaching skills. There is a reason people like me struggle to teach. We have an instinctual understanding of what we teach rather than a deep understanding of it. If I look at a sentence, I will instinctually know whether it is grammatically correct or not. This is because I learnt English through a practical medium: books, movies, series, YouTube etc., If I was asked to explain why a sentence is wrong then it would take me some time to break it down and understand why it is wrong. This is because of the lack of exposure I have in theory, that is, grammatical rules. In stark contrast to this, I am well-grounded in Japanese grammar – until the intermediate level – and I can explain why the sentence is wrong even though my vocabulary is limited in...

  Prince Zuko is the antagonist in ‘Avatar: the Last Airbender’ He was introduced in season one and acted as a foil to the protagonist, Aang. Zuko was introduced as a character who is obsessed with honour. He doesn’t respect his crew and was quite rude to his uncle. Zuko was also a minor comic relief. At first glance, he appears to be a stereotypical villain who gets beaten up by the good guys. He is a stubborn, hot-headed character who adamantly chases Aang. He is an advocate for colonialism. In contrast to him, Aang is an energetic child who is respectful to people and treats all lives equally. He is a peace loving monk who is merciful even towards his enemies. However, in the episode ‘The Storm’, Zuko’s backstory was narrated by his uncle. Zuko gets banished by his father, at the age of thirteen, when he attempted to save young soldiers from being used as cannon fodder. In that same episode, Aang’s backstory was also revealed. Aang ran away from his monastery because of th...

  After watching the play ‘Banquo’s Last Laugh’ at Selaiyur Hall, my friends and I collected our ‘Mnemosyne’ T-shirts. Suddenly, we decided to have our lunch at Burgerman. It was a wonderful day to say the least. What I loved about Burgerman was that we can play games while having our food. We gave our order and while it was being prepared, we played Jenga blocks. There were seven of us so the blocks collapsed quickly. We decided to put a twist to the game and added a rule. Every time we remove a block from the edges, we need to answer a question truthfully. If we remove a block from the middle, without collapsing the tower, then we don’t have to answer a question. Some of us managed to remove the middle part and some of us answered the questions. The answers we gave to the questions were hilarious and we had a good laugh. All of us had burgers and we loved it. I am not a fan of burgers but Burgerman was really good. It tasted heavenly. I loved the meat. We also ordered a v...

  What is woobification?   The term ‘woobification’ comes from the noun ‘woobie’. A ‘woobie’ is a fictional character who is written to peddle sympathy from the reader. A woobie is a tragic character with no agency. They face misfortune after misfortune and are so helpless that they can do nothing but suffer. There are characters with tragic backstories but the key difference is that those characters overcome their suffering and achieve some sort of a reconciliation. A woobie, on the other hand, goes through no such change. This character is written to be coddled by the readers. Their whole personality is just their suffering. Woobification usually happens in fanfiction. So why do we Woobify morally grey characters? Art is a mirror of life but it is true that morality is skewered in art. Characters whom we love in art may not be very palatable to us in real life. A lot of people fail to realize this: It is completely alright to love character in art while condemning ...