Aditi Unplugged

22 August 2026, around 7 p.m., I was sitting in my hostel room, a tiara on my head, looking into the mirror. Was I happy? Yes. Was I happy because of the tiara? Also yes. But was I happy just because of the tiara? No. It was more than that. When the whole Freshers' Week thing had begun, I had absolutely no interest in participating. I was more excited about all the tasks and pending work I would finally get done once the week ended, especially since half the batch was going home for Rakhi. I had already planned to glue myself to a library chair. As I wasn't going home, that seemed like the obvious choice. Although, if not the library, what is my favourite place on this campus? I am yet to figure that one out. Coming back to the tiara, I was awarded the Miss Freshers title that evening. But more than the title, I was happy because of what it represented. The acceptance. The validation. The belief it gave me about something I hadn't realised I was questioning. Usually, peopl...

  IIM THE DREAM WHAT IF YOU DONT WANT THAT ?

Why would it suddenly rain now? The first thought, the mangos are gonna get ruined, the next thought, why now? Suddenly, we start digging into the reasons and reading geography and weather articles. Suddenly, the easterlies and westerlies from the 9 th std textbook sound important again, suddenly the hot currents and cold currents seem interesting, suddenly the Arabian Sea and the Mediterranean seem like your long-forgotten relatives. You are there to meet them bcoz something unfamiliar has occurred, something out of context, something unexpected….. Now it would be quite boring to connect this directly to life, but still, I would. Why? Because I like to! Why hail in April is what we question when there are uncertainties in our lives. These are nothing but the externalities we never thought would come to meet us on our way to a beautiful, awaited summer. You were preparing to buy a new suncoat, but now you had to pull out the umbrella from the top shelf. Life gives us certain tasks...

  It was a rainy day, rather windy, I would say… a thunderstorm or something… I could listen to that fast wind blowing through my door and the window, my hair was running far away from my face like that in a typical Bollywood movie, I was enjoying it, until I started feeling cold and the wind brought with it those invisible dust particles which troubled my eyelashes… I got up to close the window, the plan was to come back in, sit there, complete my book but as soon as I reached to get the window, I saw that the trees infront were bending more than I do in my yoga sessions, initially it looked trenchant, but not much later I realised it was concerning. I went out, the rain was yet to start, and I parked my scooty away from the tree. As soon as I came in, it started pouring. Heavily. Lashing. How arduous for the clouds… I was sitting in my chair watching the rain through the door, my slippers were soaking wet, and I did not go out to pick them because this rain was pretty just fr...

Last month, I moved back to my home after spending 3 whole years in a hostel. At first, it felt like hell. All the freedoms are gone in seconds! A few things hit me so hard that I took a lot of time to recover. But after all these days, I can now also see the bright side of this decision. It's difficult to adjust to the same place you called yours after that period of time when it was just a Holiday home and nothing was like it was before.  It was a Transition. Bcoz the freedom I am talking about is not just physical. It's mental freedom, the decision-making stuff, the choosing stuff, the doing this thing at that time stuff, and the not doing stuff! Indeed my most fucked sleep cycle is fixed and I am SOOO Happy about it. A hostelite just dreams about sleeping at 10pm, but that never happens.... That particular habit of watching reels before sleeping is gone! It's vanished! I was like omg... I have discovered new things about my own life! That was something fantastic.  Not...

When you open Spotify, play a song, and then the next song is played according to their algorithm, it is sometimes a treat, and sometimes it happens to be extremely annoying. You are like, brooo, that was not today's vibe, that doesn't suit the mood at all! Spotify just knows how you feel usually and plays that, but today you don't wanna listen to that same song which you were maybe dancing to yesterday… How surprising it is... Your playlist defines you, as they say... I would like to deny that today. Bcoz I am not that same person when I've completed my targets, I am not that same person in the morning when I don't really have a mood to study, neither am I the same person who wants to stare at the sun till it goes down and it's so dark that mosquitos will have you for dinner, nor am I the same person as nobody loves me, and offcourse not the same as I can do it with a broken heart, mostly it also cannot be like I'm unstoppable ( although I wish it was). S...