Hold on.

(A poem ,a song? I don't know , what I just wrote down. But , I wrote it with all my heart - at least the tiny broken pieces left of it )

P.s - all pics taken from google only. 

HOLD ON

Hey you!

This moment ain’t permanent.

Embrace it.

I know it ain’t a new gospel

Or something.

But it is true.

There will come an international relations paper

Which gives you the feeling

That you aced it.

Embrace it.

Because it ain’t permanent bro.

This moment when you

Open your contracts question paper

Well prepared with all the

Expected questions of the

Last 5 years.

And life/god/nature/paper setter

Decides to ask that 20 mark question

Which has never been asked in the past

12 years.

Remember!

This also ain’t permanent bro.

Don’t embrace this godforsaken moment

Try shrinking it away by

Not giving it enough importance

Don’t repress it though ,

You might get cancer.

But that is because

Everything causes cancer nowadays.

Please hold on to that moment

When your lady love

Walks down the aisle

Clothed head to toe in white

And love , full of life.

Because

You might lose your best friend in a

Helicopter crash

And your lady love loses her left leg

And blames you

And you end up having to leave her

Since you forget when you laughed last .

Thank you Shonda Rhimes

You have taught me

That this moment ain’t permanent.

Damn you T.V shows.

If that isn't enough,

You are one moment in the 6^th grade

Declaring you’ll all be besties for life

And the next moment

You are walking down the same streets

5 years later ,

With not even 1 bestie in sight

Separated by change in schools , colleges,cities

Not

Your dramatic fights , jealousy or treachery

Just

Life simply moving on

With or without you.

Time makes us forget , not care any more

Just move on to

Another set of unrelated events

to be embroiled in &

Which we strive to find meaning in.

We will never learn

To cope with all the broken hearts

And badly meandered relationships

The least we could try

Is to

Hold on to this moment

This beautiful one which you

Hope to recall

When a lorry is coming out of nowhere

To take your life

That safe moment

When your dad holds your hands in his

So casually yet so reassuringly.

That crazy moment when

You jumped off the seat

Watching a very funny movie with your friends.

Or quite simply

The ones after a very good meal.

Because brace yourself babies,

Life is just behind that curb

Waiting to bulldoze this

One moment

With a million messy ones

Hold on.

An electrifying experience

I’m sharing my first internship experience for the #MyInternTheory activity at BlogAdda in association with Intern Theory.

It has been a long time since I wrote anything of substance in this space and I have myself to blame for not updating you’ll about the progress in my law life. Even when I do write , I hardly write on the central things of my life. So I’m dedicating this post to this barely mentioned aspect of my life.

MY FIRST INTERNSHIP 

Sometimes , it is very easy for some people to get disillusioned very easily. When you are studying a weirdly structured 5 year law course , it is very very easy to forget that you are indeed ‘studying’ to become a ‘lawyer’.  

In my college , the semester in itself is a chilling carnival of laziness ( at least to ones like me) – what with only 3 hours of actual lectures a day and stuff-  Hence , it is the internship / holiday time when we make hay in sunshine. After blowing off the first semester holidays on grounds of ignorance and lethargy , I was forced to do some productive activity in the summer of 2014. Even for me, 8 weeks was too long a time to do nothing.

Ok. Since, there is a small chance that some future law aspirants might read this  I’m gonna go stepwise and elucidate briefly on the details of the wonderful journey that was my summer internship.

Where did I apply?

Citizen Consumer and Civic action Group ( CAG) , Chennai. It is a NGO working on consumer , environmental and other civic issues like electricity which impacts all the citizens.

How did I apply?

I came to know of the NGO through my mother’s acquaintance and decided to give it a shot by sending my resume to recruiting head. She is a very friendly person, who immediately gave me guidance.

How long did it last?

This great learning curve lasted for a period of 6 weeks. I compensated for the holidays I took with another week :P

Working hours – 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM

What did I exactly do in a consumer & civic action forum?

This content is very exciting and varied. So I’m gonna make this the body of my post!

I was of the notion that CAG will involve consumer cases only and I didn’t even know what that meant exactly.

Clad in Formal white linen shirt and black pants , sweating due to the normal Chennai heat and not a very normal sense of apprehension , I approached the office. My ‘boss’ saroja ma’am immediately put me at ease with her friendliness and professional approach.

My 1st day of internship.

My very first task was to read the entire Consumer protection act , which is a pretty heavy law book. I think the purpose of the activity is to get an understanding of what consumer law is and moreover learning to be or at least acting unfazed in the face of gigantic books.

My very first Consumer complaint was on medical negligence suit charged on a doctor and I had to draft the formal complaint letter requesting the opposing part to co operate with us on settling the dispute. I drafted responses for few more such cases making ma’am note that my luck favored medical negligence. All the exposure to grey’s anatomy and house did come in handy :P

According to me, the most crucial thing I learnt in my CAG internship was about electricity. Tamil Nadu being very vulnerable in this sector and eccentric in its supply and distribution has made every consumer worried and somewhat conversant with its issues.

For starters I feel every resident of Tamil Nadu must know that the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board or the TNEB like we like to call it is actually divided into the TANTRANSCO and the TANGEDCO ,former for transmission and the latter for generation and distribution. The TNERC – electricity regulatory commission is the law making body though.

When tara ma'am first found me :P

All this sounded like pig latin to me until tara ma’am walked in. She is the head of the place and visits us weekly. I was a bit sluggish after the lunch break on my first week and I was scared stiff when she actually invited me to sit in on the TNERC meeting. This was the first meeting I ever attended and I was quite happy to just observe it. However, they wanted my views on the topic and even asked me to make a draft on the regulations to be amended or something like that. I was simply awestruck at the jargon in the beginning.

It took me a week to realize that I was working on the Tamil Nadu Electricity act and that the TNERC was proposing some amendments to the existing distribution code and that every consumer and interested party could send in their reservations and comments after notice of the intention to amend and the actual draft amendments are announced.

We talk about transparency but do we really pay interest when something is being shown and is asked to be done by us? I think not.

The amendments were on the power provided to water supply or motor pumpsets for agricultural consumers and being a city bred girl who has never visited a village properly , it was quite difficult for me to envisage the impacts the amendment could actually create on the farmers.

I learnt to compare distribution codes of Karnataka and Andhra which are quite elaborate on this topic and also ones of Gujarat and Punjab.

This entirely different task assigned to me, which seemed tougher than mandarin Chinese in the beginning, made me believe that I could learn things which I thought I was most incapable to learn.

I also got the chance to edit a bit of EmpowerTN , a journal on electricity and take minutes of TEGI – the Tamil Nadu Electricity Governance Initiative , a wonderful conference discussing all aspects of electricity problems in India today by several experts and organizations.

After TEGI/ with my co intern / last day :( 

While the consumer complaints I drafted was expected and the Ecommerce research I undertook on 20 Indian e-commerce companies ( Flipkart ,amazon , snapdeal included) using 58 criterions of consumer policy was more exhaustive but easier to comprehend and relate for me ;

 Electricity really brought me to life – it involved a lot of technical looking codes , scared me to death , I even failed to put proper work on some occasions! I’ve read many quotes which say stuff like do what scare you the most and didn’t think much of it. But once you are forced to do the unexpected , step outside that comfort zone – win or lose , you gain experience. Experience which makes you bold enough to try again and not make the same mistake twice.

And that is what I thank CAG for.

 For letting me play with electricity.

Thank you

Samyuktha Semi Jayaprakash

My Mojojojo

A post to renew my mojo. 
A catchy song to capture the Indian youth :P 
Enjoy. 

A semi song production. 

Mojojojo Mojojojo

You want jalebi kya?

You’re the bun to my jam

Meredith to my yang

Sherlock to my Watson

Mojojo mojojo

You watch powerpuff girls kya?

Mojojojo Mojojojo

Teach me Hindi na

House to my Wilson

Sirius to my son

Brooke to my Peyton

Gilchrist to the great Mathew Hayden

Teach me Please dudeee.

Mojojojo Mojojojo

There is gravy on your shirt

Your eyes are red

Mojojojooooo

You’re my bestie da

So

Arre please don’t do weed yaar

But Mojo jojo

Let’s first take a selfie :P

After August 15th

We have all studied history at primary levels at least.

Oh no. You don't get to yawn and leave today. Today is the day I have decided to write - after 3 months- So , Please read me out . 
Everybody seems to hate history and me being an exception to this rule, hates the current state of affairs very much. So much, that I started questioning some haters why they hate the topic so much. One of the standard responses is that why should we care about something which happened so long back? England is not ruling us anymore and we're even beating them in cricket now :P
While I can go on an on about how past experiences are invaluable to current scenarios , how history tends to repeat itself and how the mere fact that the area I was born in or the wooden table I am using is so soaked in history that I often can't help but get intoxicated with the romanticism of it all or how there are so many different civilizations which had so much in common and difference , I am not going to.
In this post we're going to address the problem of modern history. Modern history? That word sounds very oxymoronish to be true.

One of the major problem with our education system of history in India is that there seems to be a total disconnect from what we study and what we see today.  While it is pretty cool that Mahatma Gandhi walked miles to collect salt from the British and that we stunk of socialism in the independence era , nothing seems to correlate with what we see today.
The freedom fighting politicians of the yore seem to be substituted by blatantly corrupt ones of today. While we read about socialism and Nehru everywhere , we hear more about FDI in retail and the far reaching tentacles of globalization and capitalism.
Indian history to us Indians seems to end with August 15 , 1947  when India achieved independence. The very few who elect political science for high school or college degree learn a ridiculously more amount about our country.

We're stuck in that moment

Isn't it time to acknowledge that what happened for the 68 years afterwards to be also included as history? Not an entire subject , that would be asking too much. But at least 2-3 chapters covering important topics like the Kashmir issue , language reorganization , 1991 liberalization reforms which certainly changed the history of the country.
If pundits are unwilling to label it as history then it is about time that we give importance to political science as a social science. I was literally flabbergasted when a very well learned friend of mine, who studies architecture currently, told me that she didn't know Pakistan and Bangladesh were the same country before 1970's . :O
And it gets worse. When i told others about her ignorance , I found more from unexpected quarters.
This problem rises in significance when we take the rate of change happening around us into consideration. Every decade sounds like a different era and with the rate of growth of population and science and technology being equally precariously scary , it is time we read history according to modern contexts.
India has stepped into a new era or believes it has stepped into a new era by electing Narendra Modi into power. This is the first time a non congress alliance has got such a huge mandate and we can be pretty sure that the lawmakers would want to 'rewrite' history soon enough. Citizens must be offered an unbiased version of the riots , partition and violence which has been plaguing the country.

Things to be added in a social science textbook :

1. Partition - No point acting like it never happened. While independence was a huge victory , the partition was quite the opposite. The fact that Mahatma Gandhi never celebrated the independence is conveniently ignored. Some light on this hasty yet historic blunder would remove some prejudice we carry about our Pakistani neighbors. Both sides suffered . Sick of all the pakistani hate posts. Half the people don't know why/who/how we got separated but carry the hate though :/ 
2. Kashmir - Before yelling that article 370 is unconstitutional Indians must be taught ( unbiased ly ) how  really Kashmir was created. While demanding that Kashmir be ours is truly patriotic , learning what exactly happened before harping ill informed propagandized news is truly more worthwhile and patriotic . 

   

   Too beautiful to suffer :(

3. Hindi - There surely must be a lesson on the reorganization of states according to languages , the tensions and unity it created. The language politics , the true current status of hindi - the official and not the national language of India. 

A crash course on this would really enlighten many of us on current issues . Unlike science , every person can have an opinion on social science topics and well informed chapters on current historic problems would at least brighten us enough to not sound like illiterate buffoons on social media . 

Thanking you for the patience if you did read me out

Samyuktha (Semi) Jayaprakash 

Let's make Wishes outta Airplanes ~

 If there was  ever a magazine on making mind-castles like the milk-woman , I would star in its cover with a huge pot of milk! If only there was a machine that would translate thought into action – I would use it to make more blog posts. Such lameness .. Much wow. I am too idealistic to live in this 21^st century.

I wanna chill in the 14^th century with all the renaissance men of Rome. A world where thinking was a legit job. But then I would have to be a man to express my thoughts and lets face it .Sexistly speaking , a man’s mind is too boring. I wanna be a woman of the 21^st century chilling in the summer of England  living amidst  an intellectual atmosphere of 14^th century with my iPad and selfie manufacturing cell phones.  *fake sighs dramatically*

What has Pune done to me? :/

If you didn't get the obvious hint already. This gonna be a disjointed rambling with a risky disregard for grammar and love for randomness.” Oh no , not again!” you might scream. But you see , I hardly post stuff in this space and Yajur yaja Jayaprakash – the creature claiming to be my sibling – is blogging and the remote possibility that he will become more popular than me, urges me to write. However , the aforementioned urge is not passionate or intrinsically motivating enough for me to explore new dimensions of my writing.

It is the holidays after all!

is the middle of my middle name like chandler would say xD

Hardly feels like one though. That’s what happens when you have college for only 3 hours – you get used to laziness,in even more than usual amounts. Also , the fact that I have a cool internship in citizen consumer and civil action group makes it a working holiday. Trust me , medical negligence is awesome fun , still the heart pines for endless sleep and jobless mediocrity.

A kid used to doing nothing all the time finds it difficult to cope in a world where she is perceived to be productive and busy and IS in fact productive and busy.

Talking about perceptions , sociology has ruined life for me. All of us do everything for social approval. Just open Facebook! People  doing the craziest shizz to get a few likes. (y) When I share a link of this post , there will be 10-20 guys who would reply that they liked my post -_- Read it or leave it , children. Appreciate my work , read it , give me feedback Don’t like it.

And then there are those who are affected by selfitis – the disease of taking too many selfies. Seriously , I don’t know what is so great about selfies , being an addict myself. I think human beings just want to keep falling for something , keep getting addicted , over involved in anything and everything and then crash and burn.

I know we’re all gonna die someday. Maybe tomorrow , may be day after tomorrow or maybe 76 years after that. Point is , I have lost the point while quoting statistics.

even marx likes selfies

Actually the point really is that we’re all moving in a reckless pace.Not talking about athleticism here ( you see i'm a cbse physical education topper but i have never ran in my life - even when a dog chased me )Reading inferno by Dan Brown gives you only the demographic dimension of that. Technologically , culturally, politically , economically , socially ,  we’re just motoring along in a freakish pace. It is not ‘progress’ necessarily. There is so much generation gap between all ages ,that it scares.My grandparents and even my parents seem to be from the paleolithic era to me and I AM ancient to the creature claiming to my sibling! :O

The pace scares me.

And excites me.

We get to see so many changes in a span of few years. Writing history is surely gonna be a monumental task for the future generations .

CRY CRYCRY

Chuck all the philosophy. Have you watched grey’s anatomy? It has captured my heart like a boyfriend never will. In a span of a decade the characters in that hospital have died in a bus accident , shooting ,helicopter crash , car accident , power outage , broken LVAT wires etc. Setting aside the fact that it is heavy exaggerated , we must realize that viewers need THAT much drama to keep them hooked.

Attention spans are worse than poor. Maybe that is why I am jumping topics like the kid who jumps trains in subway surfers. Why do we get bored so easily? :O

I’ll surely die of boredom ( and religion) in 14^th century Rome. I need the adrenaline rush of 21^st century.  Maybe the future will be a mix of all the factors I keep dreaming of.

#wishfulthinking 

and wait. Lemme take a selfie ^_^