Day 11

Day 11
Yesterday Akshay told me not to go to the office with the intention of making me discover the city. He took me to the apartment he is going to move into where I met his friend Chez. She has a very fun, distinctively thoughtful way of speaking. Akshay did this thing called the “Rickshaw Run” where he traveled all across the country in a rickshaw; this comes up in conversation about twice a day. Chez was one of the members of his group.
Akshay’s new apartment is in a white building with blue lining in a middle class neighborhood. It has a naked staircase, which, truth be told, is quite intimidating to the more neurotic elements of my brain. I was taking photographs. I don’t know what it is about me but whenever a little kid comes by, I must take a photograph. But I’ve never successful, because they are always too far away, or there is not enough light, or they’re zooming past in an auto rickshaw. Which is a shame. Because I firmly believe that Indian babies are some of the cutest babies in existence. Maybe it’s the outfits that they wear, or the fact that they’re on motorcycles with their parents.
Akshay had made a list of places for me to go; numbers I could call if I was lost; and things I should tell the rickshaw driver. So he left me on Church Street and I went into a bookstore called Blossoms. Within 10 minutes, Akshay was back. “I freaked out,” he said, “I’ll take the afternoon off.” We went to the bookstore, where we walked around and Akshay suggested books to me, and shamed my lack of literary prowess. The fact is, I just don’t get to reading all the books that people “should” read. Things like Salman Rushidie and all of these Indian writers I’ve never heard of because I haven’t lived here and no one writes about them in India. I wanted to buy this book called Quirkology but Akshay said “one book at a time” and proceeded to buy me 2 books.
We sat in Koshy’s for a few hours, discussing life and what I want to do with it. I think Akshay gave me the soundest admissions advice of any; that is to know what I want to do and pursue it with sincerity, while ignoring things that don’t matter like GPAs and test scores. If my aim is true, he thinks, I will get where I need to go without the need for over-stressing.
After a few hours of discussion, Divya joined us. We went to the park and sat for a bit, before deciding to go out to meet one of Akshay’s friends, Deepika, at this restaurant no one in our party had been to before called the Ugly Duckling. We discussed our perspectives of the name in the rickshaw.
The Ugly Duckling is on the fifth floor of an office building and was completely empty when we entered it. After walking of 5 flights of wide marble stairs, we were not surprised at its vacancy. It was a swanky restaurant, with a kind of new-age feel, it reminded me of Noodles & Company. Deepika is a journalist with a nose ring. I wouldn’t mind having a nose ring. Over dinner, the music that was playing changed three times. The first music was pathetically disco with remixes of songs that were popular last year. Next, it was pathetically 80s with Video Killed the Radiostar and Madonna and that “Wake me up before you go-go” song and the Bangles. After that it was 90s, with Lou Bega’s “Mambo #5”. While I enjoyed singing to all the songs, the rest of the dinner party gagged and tried desperately to plug their ears. Only when we were eating dessert (Chocolate Mousse), did they play something palatable by most, which was some kind of alt mix featuring Michael Buble (bubble?) and Josh Groban. I felt happy the whole time, because I knew all of the words to most of the songs.
That night I went to bed really late. I started to type up a resume and write an admissions essay, which I’m now done with. I woke up ridiculously late the today, which was interesting but rather uneventful as I went to AirTel twice, and unsuccessfully activated my phone (because I hadn’t paid for it). In the evening, we went to Koshy’s and had dinner with a crew of eight people, which eventually became six. A lot of interesting characters were there, many of whom had never met; Scott, Chez, Chez’s friend Selena, Akshay, Me, Samrat, Samrat’s friend whose name I don’t remember now (I actually do, but I wasn’t clear on it, so I don’t want to make a stupid mistake) , and this guy Abhijit who translates to Kannada for the story for WIRED. At first, the table was ridiculously crowded, and discussion was mildly sparse. After Chez and Selena left, the discussions were shared over the table about numerous topics as Indian politics, American politics, drugs, childhood experiences, fake news stories, freelancing and what is considered fat. It was a diverse group, making way for oddly frank discussions.