Are you a fan of The Office? The original British one, or the American take? Chances are, even if you haven’t watched the series, you’ve come across memes and screengrabs from various hilarious moments on the show.
“I have been able to do what I really like – travel” – Nikita Mehta
September 12, 2022 in Culture, Remote, StoriesOn one of less awkward weekly catch-up calls, Bees and Kablers got together to play a game Mary had devised. The game involved answering a bunch of questions from “What was your worst date?” to “What’s the silliest thing you believed as a child?”.
I take the word “friend” very seriously. To me, a friend is someone I can be wholly myself with, ugly parts included. They have to get me, and I have to get them. With a friend, I won’t have to think of what to say next – it’ll come automatically. I count myself lucky for having multiple people in my life who fit this criterion. In school, college and university, I made a bunch of friends who continue to be immovable parts of my life today.
If somebody asked me what I dislike most about myself, I’d have the answer ready at the tip of my tongue. My inability to concentrate, I’d say, fuelled by my addiction to my phone. Countless therapists have tried to help me with this over the years (“make a routine”, “take breaks”, “try the pomodoro technique” etc. etc. – they might as well have been shouting into the void), to no avail. I continue to struggle with a short attention span, and find myself craving distraction in the form of Friends clips on YouTube or food reels on Instagram (sigh).
I’ll just put it out there – brand strategy and content marketing are not my thing. I have a BA and an MA in English Literature, and then I did another Master’s in Media Arts from a bunch of European universities in an Erasmus Mundus programme. I’d hoped the second one would give me some ‘practical’ skills that would help me land a job, but I mostly ended up learning about more abstract stuff and realising that while I appreciate and enjoy art, studying it makes me want to cry (which I did every single day while writing my thesis). My mother recently pointed out that ultimately it’s my English degrees that are helping me work as a writer (my mother is always right – except for that weird vaccine sceptic phase she once went through – thank God it’s over).
One of the most widely taught approaches to writing an article or essay (popularised by English teachers across the Indian subcontinent) is to begin with a quote from a famous author. Let’s say I was writing about Spring festivals, I’d be scoring an extra point for crowning my essay with Shelley’s iconic line: “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”. Our teachers taught us that using quotes sets the tone for our writing, legitimises it, and also shows how much we know about the subject.