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Rohan Sankhla

November 3rd, 2015

Just stop and ask: a series of firsts

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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Rohan Sankhla

November 3rd, 2015

Just stop and ask: a series of firsts

0 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Being a fresher is exactly what the cliché tumblr posts had warned us about. The anxiety. The fear. The peer pressure. Oh and yeah, of course, the pressure to conform and become someone else entirely. If you’ve reached this blog, you probably know what I’m talking about. I think the way people react to these relentless conditions is what speaks the most about their personalities –at least more than that “hi, I’m blah blah from blah blah” script that we all had rehursed for freshers. Naturally, I had to do the most random, obscure and ridiculous things one could come up with to live up to this theory. When I look back, I think it was these ludicrous things that I had done which had finally made me feel at home, here in London.

It starts with this tendency I have to jump straight into a long queue whenever I see one -especially when I’m lost. I think I do it because it gives me the false sense of reassurance of knowing what’s going on as opposed to being completely lost. Funny thing is that I often don’t know what it is that I am queuing for. In the first few days of freshers, I spent an hour at a lecture for postgraduate’s parliamentary internship, another 2-3 for a management consultancy talk meant for third years and, not to forget, half a day because I got off at the wrong tube station, after queuing in the wrong line.

The tube was especially brutal. Queuing a little to the left meant getting stomped upon. However, at the end of that line at least I found bliss. It was when I heard Recuerdos de la Alhambra being played by a street performer on the footpath of that remote tube station I was lost at –three full zones away from my destination. To me, an amateur classical music fan, it is the most calming tune ever (listen to it here) especially in the middle of all that commotion. I was so impressed that after listening on for an hour or so, I took the biggest coins I had in my wallet and left it there for him. Only later did I realize, that they were mere 2 pence coins. WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME LONDON. WHY?

Well, I guess in a sort of cosmic-karmic way, London made it up to me later. One evening when I was on my way back from LSE, I found the millennium bridge to be filled by a sea of lit candles. This time I decided to something different. Instead of just simply queuing and figuring out what was going on at the end of it all, I decided to stop and ask; ask what’s happening; ask who’s doing it; ask why its happening. It turned out to be one of 150 simultaneous demonstrations occurring all across the globe to send a message directly to the United Nations. (Check it out).  I was amazed.

Despite these small pockets of bliss and excitement, none of them actually made it as my ‘London moment’. That came to me, instead, at 2 am in the morning, while I was out getting some air, trying to escape the freshers craziness. I saw an old bearded man laughing out aloud hysterically for no apparent reason as he stood beside the fence of a garden. Before I judged him too soon, learning from past experiences, I decided to stop and ask him what’s so funny. He simply directed me towards the garden with the smile of a 2 year old. It was a fox, trotting about the lawns of the Tate Modern at 2 am in the morning in the centre of London. I didn’t believe it at first, but when it jumped, I recognized its trot and it sure as hell was amusing. Find out more about urban foxes on the BBC.

I stayed until sunrise chatting with the elderly gentleman. We spoke of foxes in the wild, books on foxes, foxy ladies, and other obscure fox related things. At the end, we both said to each other “goodbye Mr Fox” and went our own ways.

What I learned from all this is that amidst busy, confusing and overwhelming times like freshers instead of following the flock and just going with the flow, it’s good to pause and take a moment’s worth of fresh air. We’re all new here. We all don’t know what’s going on. Then why don’t we just stop and ask?

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Rohan Sankhla

Posted In: London life

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