Holi 2012

On 8th and 10th March in my apartment complex we celebrated Holi. On 8th of March we had a bonfire. I took a few pictures and a video. The bonfire lasted for at least an hour. On the 10th of March we played Holi. We took pichkaris, water, and colour and played. We had a blast. I played for about 1 hour. Then I started to shiver so I came back home. Here are a few pictures.

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Plan A, Plan B. And Plan C?

I wrote this in May 2026 and then left it sitting in my drafts for six weeks. Partly because it feels more personal than what I usually put online. Partly because writing honestly about uncertainty is uncomfortable when most of us are busy performing certainty. And partly because I wasn’t entirely sure I believed all of it yet. I’m still not sure. But perhaps that’s the point. So, here goes. ----- May 2026 Two years ago, I moved back to India. I hadn't planned on it. In fact, if you'd told me in 2020, when I packed my bags and left Bangalore for France, that I'd be back in four years, I'd have laughed it off as a failure of imagination. The plan had always been to stay abroad and build a career in Europe. The universe, well, had other plans. Four years abroad had been, by most measures, a good run. Two years in France at Sciences Po, a well-paid summer internship in Paris, the youngest funded researcher on a research project between Princeton, Columbi...

My story

I have typed a story. Here you can read my story: The Boy Who Lied And Other Stories. Once upon a time there lived a boy named Arjun. Arjun was not very intelligent. His mother sent him for tuitions. He used to go for Maths, English, Science, Hindi and Kannada tuitions. He did not like studies but loved sports. He sometimes lied and told his friends that if he did a sum wrong in his tuition class he had to stay back and write it 100 times. But this was not true. Everybody used to believe him. He went to school the next day. In school his first period was maths. In maths his teacher taught them multiplication. He was not listening to his teacher. He was busy fiddling with his new ink-pen. His teacher did not know that he was fiddling with his ink-pen. Then, his teacher asked him to do a sum on the board he came near the board and stared at the teacher. The teacher again asked him to do the sum. Then the teacher asked why he did not listen? He told his teacher that she did not explai...

The Great Omani Coastal Route

Route 15 : Muscat-Nizwa The parents, seemingly forever, had been planning a trip to Oman. Why Oman? Well, that’s a question I asked myself too. My dad, in the 90s, spent close to a decade in the UAE but barring a work trip, had never visited Oman. Fast forward to the 21 st century, countless Oman Air flights from India to Europe later, he found himself stranded in Muscat. A ‘technical difficulty’ they said. He visited the Sultan Qaboos Mosque but didn’t get to see much more – it was only a 24-hour layover. However, the constant propaganda he was subjected to via the in-flight entertainment, and the cabin crew he made conversation with, convinced him that the country has a lot to offer. A friend from the UAE, who spoke highly of Oman, apparently also played a role. The parents had their mind set on Oman. The stars aligned and clubbing together a bunch of bank holidays in India, they decided on visiting in April. Unfortunately, or fortunately (the jury is still out), ...

iOS 7 Update for Apple Devices

There is an OS update for iPads, iPhones and iPods (only for some generations). In this update there are many changes. The button on the right side of your iPads and iPhones now can be used to either, lock screen rotation, mute, pause or play your music. Lock Screen: In the older version to unlock the phones/tablet we had to swipe at the bottom part at the screen. Now we can swipe anywhere on the screen. As you can see in the picture, I have circled something at the bottom. If we swipe upwards we get many shortcuts. We can pause, play, change music tracks, increase/decrease volume, put the tablet/phone into airplane mode, Turn On/Off Wifi/Bluetooth/Do Not Disturb Option and mute our device.We can also view the current time in different time zones. The keypad that we see when we unlock the phone is also different.Changing the brightness is also an option.Here is a picture of this shortcut panel and the unlock iPad keypad. Control center Different Keypad in lock screen...

Why I am not writing my remaining ISC 2020 Exam, and you probably shouldn't too

Updates as of last editing this blog: The Supreme Court has asked CBSE to consider scrapping exams. CISCE has issued a press release making exams optional. The petitioner in the Bombay HC, represented by Adv. Arvind Tiwari raised concerns about the transparency of the formula based marking process. They have stressed on the need to be fair and transparent. The methodology to assess one's marks will be finalised, hopefully by Saturday (21st June, 2020), and shared with schools on Saturday. The same will be heard in court on Monday (23rd June, 2020). A communication regarding the extension of dates will be sent to all Principals today. ------------------ It's been almost 3 months. 3 long months since the Council for Indian Secondary Education (CISCE) abruptly postponed all remaining ICSE and ISC exams indefinitely. Barely 3 hours before the commencement of my last ever school exam, CISCE saw it fit to postpone our exams indefinitely and provided no clarity ...

A three episode podcast on the Right to Information Act - an introduction and two anecdotal experiences

I have been noticing a new trend of podcasting which seems to be gaining a lot of traction. In this day and age when people's patience and ability to read long texts is slowly diminishing, podcasts are unarguably a brilliant way to disseminate information. I recorded myself without a pre-written script. Further, please ignore the minimal amounts of ambient noise. This is an amateur attempt at making a podcast and has been made with entry-level recording tools (read: basic earphones with mic). This 3 part series deals with the history and personal anecdotal experiences of filing an RTI under the RTI Act, 2005. Part 1 deals with the history and introduction. Part 2 is with respect to an RTI filed on the expenses incurred on the MPLADS by P.C Mohan, MP from Bengaluru South. Part 3 is an RTI filed on the legality of the Aadhaar card as date of birth (DOB) proof in the Regional Transport Offices (RTOs) of Karnataka. Please note that you will be redirected to a third party we...

Life during the COVID-19 lockdown

The past three weeks have impacted people around India in different ways. The migrant labourers and daily wage workers have unarguably been affected the worst. It has been an interesting three weeks in which the concept of privilege was spoken about vastly in the media. Even though the salaried middle class is also affected, their lives have been phenomenally better than, for example, those they employ to clean their houses or wash their dishes. It is at times such as these that I realise how lucky a majority of my friends and I are. While most of the country is suffering (suffering in the real sense of not being able to afford and procure three square meals a day and NOT because a shop ran out of imported cheese) in lockdown, my parents could work from home, without intruding into each other’s personal space and could carry out some, if not most of their work from the comfort of their house, unlike the majority of the country. I have been reading articles about the shortfalls of in...

Sanjith Rao

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