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A Rant for No One to Read

Workplace trauma is quite a thing. And very often, it leads to a complete derailment of one’s career or confidence to say the least. We are a generation marred with severe stress, COVID19, worst pollution and whatnot. Along with that, the topping of a toxic work environment can potentially make one’s life just hollow.  I have been meaning to write about this for a while now. The fact that I had to take a break for years to even get started about documenting it says a lot about the impact a bad workplace can have on you and the shame, that accompanies, makes it even harder for us to admit.  There is humiliation, and then there is shame. And third, there is anger for the humiliation that you enabled and the shame to admit it in public. I have passed through all of it. Of course, the last stage is acceptance, but trust me when I say this, acceptance isn’t the end of it.  Under-confidence and anxiety are some of the most used words in our vocabulary set. Yet, when I am asked why I sound hy

Nostalgia, Life and Growing Up

One of the greatest fears one can have is to be a stranger to someone or a place, that was once very close to you. Often in our lives, we cross paths with so many places and people, that for a period they become an integral part of our lives. While some remain with us forever, others are as good as strangers.   We often walk into places knowing it’s temporary, yet when we move out, pain engulfs us knowing that things will never be the same again.   One of the biggest fallacies in our 20s is that we often claim a space, area or city to be our own. As a university student, your life revolves around the campus and everything in and around the campus becomes the comfort zone that we reside in. Every second person is a familiar face, and your sense of belonging is rooted around them. But just in a matter of few years, everything changes, and the most known place of yours becomes as good as the new city which you moved in, completely unknown. (This of course is not true for everyone)   I

A Note To My Abandoned Blog!

I have been writing for over a decade now. In 2012, I started a blog and went on to garner a lakh page views by 2015. Social media wasn’t as big then as to what it is now, the internet wasn’t a necessity, but rather an accessory and attention span surely was more than what we have today. So I believe I can get a little pat on my back for what I achieved.   Come 2016, my blog reached the 200k mark, and then like the abandoned Paper Factory in Jagiroad, Assam, I abandoned my blog. I did write a couple of pieces up until 2021, but that was probably the flickering flame of a dying lamp.   So, did I stop writing after 2016? Hell no, in fact, I have been writing an unimaginable volume of work. From academic papers, news stories, features for magazines, websites, academic papers, dissertations, press releases, scripts, concept notes and my favourite pass time, emails, I have been churning out words after words .  But what I absolutely stopped doing is, writing for myself. Personal writing a

My Love Story with Football

I have been engrossed with football for a while now. From it being my favorite game in my childhood to working with India’s first ever FIFA tournament, the it’s been an exhilarating ride. I have covered Indian Football, researched about Indian football and ultimately worked with Indian football. . But let’s start with ground zero. This post is about my love for football. Everyone has a story as to how they fell in love with the game and this is my story. Football is particularly a favorite pass time in Assam, the place I come from.  I wouldn’t necessarily say that Assam is a football crazy land. But back in the days, Bordoloi Trophy was one of India’s foremost football tournament, and the residents of the state flocked in numbers to witness national and international giants locking horns with each other. The fandom for the game in Assam, might be relatively less than its neighboring North Eastern states. But there is a deep rooted connect within the Assamese soc

TVF's Panchayat and the Un-Extra Ordinary Times that we Live in | A Review

The best bit of TVF’s latest creation Panchayat is that there is nothing extraordinary about its storyline or storytelling. Yet the series comes across as something extremely special, soothing, calming and as a breath of fresh air in these un-extra ordinary times that we live in. For a lot of us, we are stuck in this one in a millionth pandemic situation, with our chaotic metropolitan lives coming to an abrupt halt. From a time, where we would be fighting for space in our personal lives, we are now stuck in a morass where emptiness is irking us out. Living with uncertainties and constant feelings of helplessness makes us question the very core of our existence, as human race, as competitive individuals and even as the smartest being on the planet. But cutting short to Panchayat, the Jitendra Kumar, Neena Gupta and Raghubir Yadav led cast has managed to deliver as masterpiece simply because whatever is narrated in the series is very real. As mentioned before, the st

Simmba: Not the usual review that you read!

So, I happen to watch Simmba today, and this isn’t exactly the review that you would love to read. To begin with the usual disclaimer, spoilers ahead, but if you have watched the trailer, you can pretty much guess the movie. But just to put context to this post, the movie revolves around a heinous rape case, that changes a corrupt, self-centric police official into a messiah of humanity. Absolutely nothing wrong with the movie. Rohit Shetty, Karan Johar, Ranveer Singh and the new heartthrob of the town, Sarah Ali Khan combined together to give us a two and a half hour long entertaining blockbuster, which also very emphatically deals with the rape culture, which stands in as a blot within our society. An entertainer (read: flying cars, highly animated dialogues and physics-defying fight sequences) with a message, I think that’s the guru mantra for success these days. Also, since I could not resist, Sarah’s role in the movie is very similar to LK Adwani’s role in the

Waving your identity at the Cricket Ground – Are we over imposing our Assamese Identity

Nationalism and sports have very deep rooted connect. In fact, considering what Virat Kohil said some time back, hyper nationalism and sports now seem to go hand in hand. If we look at Benedict Anderson’s work, ‘Imagined Communities’, a sports team help us shape our identity, it gives a reason to be associated with something that represents us. Teams like Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and Mohammedan Sporting Club had a significant contribution in shaping our nationalistic identity, and in our struggle for freedom; precisely what Anderson talked about. All of these clubs were formed out of regional, linguistic or religious identities. So when, Mohun Bagan defeated East Yorkshire Regiment in 1911, their followers saw it as a victory of Indians over the oppressive British rulers and thus making a serious contribution to the ongoing nationalistic struggle. But what is it now? How has the dynamics changed between nationalism, hyper nationalism and sports? With the significant com