Now I can dispense college-related advice I might say things like ..

•  Never take the canteen for granted. Sometimes, you may disagree with its choices and leave, but once you realise that the KFC down the road is just too high maintainance, you’ll go running back.
• Teachers have favourites, no matter what they tell you. The sooner you accept this, the better. Then its up to you if you want to be one of those elite few, or the ones sniggering at the elite few (who, by the way, still want to be part of the elite few).
• Assignments never have a fixed due date, no matter how dire the first warning. There will always be another “last date” – especially when you’ve worked your ass off to get your assignment done on time.
• No matter how smart you think you are for deciding to start on an assignment early, it will never happen. You will always put it off, till the night before.
• On a related note – the one time you decide not to do an assignment? Yeah, that one’s going to be considered for internal assessment.
• You will always be told “your batch is one of the best I’ve taught” when you approach graduation.
• Someone will always be missing in your class photo, despite having planned the date five gazillion days in advance.
• Someone will always slack off in a group project. And then might even try to take credit for “work they did”.
• Everyone bitches about everyone.
• If someone says : “OHMYGOD! I am going to fail! I didn’t study AT ALL. I watched tv all day, and then fell asleep! Help me!” it actually means “OHMYGOD! I am going to get distinction and make you want to kill yourself for feeling bad for me and giving me your essay points when in reality I started studying while I was still in the auto on the way home from the previous exam HAHA SUCKER!”
• If a teacher understandingly says : “If you’re here just for attendance, you can leave. I will give you attendance” DON’T FALL FOR IT.  You’re not going to get attendance if you leave. Probably for the whole semester.
•  There will be resident complainers. The kind that probably went “I’ll tell to Miss” when they were in school. Unfortunately, this kind never grew up and will still continue to believe that going to the teacher and “letting them know” something will somehow give them eternal glory.
• Seniors are scary. Treat them with the respect they deserve, and they will in turn help you out later. I’ve learnt this first-hand! Their tips are invaluable and they are mostly ALWAYS RIGHT.
• Don’t plagiarise. You WILL get caught. And everybody WILL find out.

I was a film maker. I agonized over the story, the casting, the music, the editing. I spent a couple of evenings hiding in the editing room with my group, huddled up in front of the Mac as we fixed last minute glitches. There was even an evening where one nice member of the support staff let us stay on, on the condition that we needed to keep all the lights off as it was way past gate-shutting time. I sat on location with my shot-breakdown and screenplay, changing dialogues and re-changing them. I yelled and screamed when things didn’t make sense. The night before screening day, I didn’t sleep, I spent the night wondering what reactions we’d get. I cried when I watched my film being screened in front of a full auditorium. I felt pride when I heard the praises, and took deep breaths to calm myself down when I listened to the critics.

I was an editor. I read, and re-read. Sentences were snipped off, probably written with so much passion, but they were eliminated. New words were nudged in, my words mixing with their words. I hoped the writers wouldn’t kill me. Whole paragraphs were relocated, until everything made sense. Spell check was ruthlessly enforced. My editors sense constantly fought with my writer’s conscience. How much to change, how much to interfere, always an uphill task but when I was done, it always seemed to be the best I could do. Holding a copy of the final product is the best feeling in the world!

I was a radio show producer. Sat in the studio for hours, all other sounds blocked out. Planned out segments, ads, PSA’s and what songs to put in where. Watched my RJ try to sound as unartificial as possible, and smiled when she got it right Battled with Pro-Tools, tracks, time limits and sound effects.

I was a graphic designer. I battled with making the tools work in Gimp as efficiently as they did in the tutorials. I cloned, and cloned, and cloned, and cloned some more. I looked for the perfect bases, the perfect brushes and the PERFECT font. I put my work up for criticism, and smiled when people said ‘Oh! So pretty!’. I went to the printers, hoping there weren’t any mistakes that would get magnified, and nearly cried out with joy when I saw our beautiful film poster and invitations ready!

I was an intern. My first day at work, full of apprehensions. Would I be the girl who makes the coffee? I can’t make coffee! Would they notice me at all? What if I screwed up? Then, the friends that I made. The nice ones who helped me out, the mean ones who sniggered as an attempt to cover up the fact that I seemed to doing a better job than them. There were people who invited me to sit with them at lunch, gave me advice on how to deal with the boss, the work and life in general. There were other interns, some who thought they knew everything and fell flat, others who smiled nervously and soon became “my work buddies”. Learning to deal with office politics and policies.

I was the author of a research paper. Reading up on methodology and pouring over literature of previous studies. Studying subjects, preferences, attitudes. Creating sample groups, analyzing data and working out tables and charts and explanations. Formatting the paper into MLA style. Printing it out an hour before submission deadline, racing to college bleary-eyed and sleep deprived but OH SO PROUD.

I was a speaker. I slaved over my slides, obsessed over making them pretty but not flimsy. I stood in front of an audience and made eye contact. I talked, asked questions, hoped people would laugh when I needed them to (and they did). Applause is such a wonderful thing.

I was an actor. I put on a costume, got on stage and played Su Li from Mind Your Language. Like most actors love to say, in my case acting really DID happen by accident. Make-up, green room chatter, the nerves that hit you just before you walk on stage. Did I mention applause is a wonderful thing?

I was a writer. I wrote articles, business proposals, invitations, press releases, creative briefs, poetry, flash fiction, short stories, features, news reports, television news scripts, screenplays, exams, tests, formal letters, editorials, essays and notes.

And through all of this – I was me! And that’s the best thing of all!

[vimeo 20782984 w=400 h=265]

Aattinkutti (Lamb) from Geetanjali Chitnis on Vimeo.

Aattinkutti (Lamb) – a short film made by a group from the Communicative Studies Graduating Batch of 2011, Mount Carmel College (Bangalore).

Starring:

Daphne Jacob
Sony K Philip
Amith Sebastian
Geeth Jason Vaz

Directed by : Shruti Nayar
Art Director : Nandini Pasbola
Director of Photography : Nikhita Venugopal
Edited by : Meera Sankar
Production Designer : Geetanjali Chitnis

Music Credits : Avial & Umebayashi Shigeru

However, the short time we spent in Trivandrum was awesome fun! It really is a lovely little place. The weather was quite pleasant during that time of the year. I didn’t do any sight seeing, but we did manage to visit the Shanghumugham beach for a little while which was nice. I also didn’t get to eat as much sea food as I wanted since meals were eaten at the nearest restaurant to the theatre(s), and there wasn’t much time to linger since most of the places we ate in were crowded and always had people waiting to grab our table before we had even finished our food :p

A lot of people were quite thrilled when they found out at that 13 girls had travelled all the way from Bangalore to attend the festival! The best part of the trip for me was when the waiter at a restaurant I was at recognized me from my picture in the paper (that had been taken the day before by photographers and television reporters who INSISTED on interviewing us ‘to find out about how we felt attending the festival’ before we had even gotten a copy of the schedule!). He excitedly said something to me in Malayalam (I thought he was just being polite – the hospitality we saw was really heartwarming), ran off and came back with the paper, pointing me out in the photo and then pointed at me! Here is a TwitPic of the picture in the paper

So on the whole, had tonnes of fun. The festival was really, really well organized. Right from the ID cards, to the online/sms balcony reservation system, to the beautifully detailed festival handbook. The theaters were really quite magnificent!

Here is the list of movies I managed to see at IFFK/2010 :

• Tutto a posto e niente in ordine (1974) (Italy)
• Angst essen Seele auf (1974) (Germany)
• Carmen (1983) (Spain)
• Kelin (The Daughter-In-Law)(2009) (Kazakhstan) – This one was one of my favourites
• Dia Naranja (2010) {Competition Film} (Venezuela/Colombia/Argentina)
• Metropolis @ Kolkata (2010) (India)
• Lotfan Mozahem Nashavid (2010) (Iran) [Opening Film] – Another one of my favourites
• T.D Dasan Std VI (India)
• Was du nicht siehst (2009) (Germany)
• Vino (2010) {Competition Film} (Argentina)
• Somewhere (2010) (USA)

Usually this is the point where I burst into an angst filled poem that never manages to be read by the intended recipient. I can’t very well go up to someone and say here, I wrote you this and proceed to watch as their face contorts into a question mark, can I? What would YOU do if some crazy girl wrote a hate poem about you huh? And no, it is NOT flattering/romantic/cute.

I remember once not-so-long-ago a freaky-yet-potentionally-harmless-boy told me that he named a character after me in his story. I didn’t wait to find out what “she” was like, or what happened to “her”. I kind of.. fled. The fact is, it’s disturbing to think about the way someone else sees you.

But it’s more disturbing to see yourself as you, right?  Who is you, anyway? Isn’t that frightening? Are you the girl who listens to a certain type of music? (I’ve got Spice Girls’ “Viva Forever” playing right now, don’t judge me!) Or are you the girl who treats herself to the glass of ice tea from the stall near the college gate everyday? But all these conceptions of “me-ness” are mine, they aren’t yours. This one little trait you actually might find adorable, but then unless I reveal it to you, you’d never know and your entire perception of “me-ness” and your subsequent judgment (I know, Spice Girls, I know) might rest on this little missing piece of “me-ness” that you haven’t encountered.

And then your way of seeing ME is totally not fair.

But then I would be one of those people with a desk filled with stacks of post-it’s. The pen stands (yes, for there will be many) will be full of highlighters of every conceivable colour, correction pens that actually DO WORK (as opposed to the ones that give up half through when you’re trying to obliterate the word ‘orgasm’ when you really meant to write ‘organism’), and gel pens (gel, not ball point or fountain although I’d love to use a fountain pen except I write super fast and you know, that’s not conducive. A fountain pen must never be abused like that) in red, green and black. Not blue, I hate blue pens for some strange reason. Black seems more classy, don’t you think? And oh, my desk would probably be wooden since I don’t see myself sitting behind a cold, character-less metal one.

That wouldn’t do at all.

I haven’t missed you, although I’d love to say that I thought about you everyday.

The start to 2010 was totally kick ass, if I may say so. I went to Mangalore, attended the most romantic + fun wedding EVER, and generally had the time of my life. Also, I got to wear a pretty purple dress, which of course is a highlight!

Then, I came home to a brand new shiny silver 8 GB iPod 5G Nano which I have christened Zora. She now finds a permanent place in my pocket. I have discovered that life is so much more fun when it’s got its own soundtrack. Plus, I get to NOT hear all the sooperdooper kannada hits some men seem to think is ”flattering” to sing when a girl walks past them on the road.

All this has managed to distract me from the fact that I turn *shudder* thatdreadedage this year.

I also know that this is a bit random, but some teachers just KILL my love for poetry with their ‘listen-to-me-I-am-going-to-tell-you-the-meaning-of-this-poem’ attitude. Poetry needs to be discovered, woman. It’s not fair that you get to THRUST your ‘understanding’ of it on anybody just because you want to feel like you deserve that pay cheque at the end of the month.

As part of our end semester practical for our Print paper in college, we had to divide the class into three groups and each bring out an issue of a newspaper which has traditionally been called ‘The Fine Print’, and has 8 pages.

For starters, it was like we were thrown into the deep end. We had to find sponsors, decide what articles to write, decide who played what role, find a printer, negotiate a deal – and we had barely a month and a half to do this. We also knew that we had end semester exams looming ahead of us, and so we were resolved to finish a majority of the work before then.

And so, we began. Each group consisted of 10 people, and we decided to start off by looking at who to target the paper at. Almost all of us agreed that we’d want to target the under 25 crowd, consisting of college kids, young professionals who are just starting out. We steered clear of targeting just the college crowd, because that would be a limiting factor when it came to distribution later on. Then came the matter of who would write what, and what other roles had to played. People volunteered to be editors, to be in charge of layout and design. We all wanted to write, so everybody played that role.

The next step was to plan out what pages we wanted to include. Based on this, my group came up with the following :

• The Front Page
• Reviews
• In the City
• Life
• Fitness and Games
• Campus
• Fun Page
• Back Page

Let me just say here, that there were a LOT of changes before we finally decided on which pages we wanted. There were some amazing article ideas that had to be scrapped because we felt that they didn’t ‘fit’ on any page! Anyway, after deciding what articles would go on what page, the writing began.

I was one of three editors, and though I might have lost my mind at a couple of points, my team kept me on track! All of us were adamant that we wanted this paper to stay interesting at all points, and I think we managed that The people who handled the layout and getting of sponsors did an excellent job and at the end of the day, I think we pretty much kicked ass!

We aim to distribute the paper in the city once we find restaurants/shops/people who wouldn’t mind keeping some copies for people to pick up, so once we find those, I will update this post with more information.

Also on behalf of the team I’d like to thank our sponsors : Paul and Menzel Design Studio, Koshy’s, Emerald Isle Hotel and Resort, Party Mania Store.

I like brevity, when it comes to writing. Personally, I think that a lot more could be said with shorter pieces, instead of those that ran into pages and pages of nothingness. I remember an incident where I represented school in an another schools inter-school Creative Writing competition. There were two entrants from each school, and the other guy from mine was.. well.. a bit over confident when it came to his writing. My story was about 3 sides long, and his ran into 8 or 9. I will never forget that look on his face  when he saw how short my story was. Anyway, I came second. And he… didn’t.

The other day in college, we explored Flash Fiction, and I LOVED it! My favourite piece would be Hemingway’s six word flash fiction story :

For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn

The story is sad, yes, but I love it more for the fact that it shows how the speaker/person/character who put up the sign is attempting to overcome such a difficult thing. Every time I read it, a new wave of awe develops.

Nice article on Flash Fiction here

Of who, I don’t know. Myself maybe. I’m tired, so tired every moment. And before you say “It’s because you don’t eat breakfast” no, not that kind of tired. I find myself running from class to class, lecture to lecture, womenwomenwomenwomenwomenwomen all around. My legs just carry me around without me knowing where I am going, just that I have to be someplace. Like I’m on auto-pilot.

Exactly a month ago, I started college. And I just realized that I was probably holding my breath this whole time wondering if someone was going to stop me and say ‘ok time to get back to real life now’ . And then whoosh I would find myself back at school, back in the corridors, back with my school friends and back with the familiar faces all around me.

Do I still want that? Familiar has a new meaning now. Familiar is now brown and cream. Familiar now is the college song, the canteen, the sloping driveways, the notice boards, the three flights of stairs I have to walk to psychology class. Familiar is the wooden benches, the comfort of the studio. Familiar now is ma’am.

I looked at a picture today, and I miss it all. I miss knowing I’d find a seat on the bus. I miss knowing that the bus would arrive on time. I miss knowing that I didn’t have keep track of which stop, that I could sit wherever I pleased. I miss knowing attendance would be taken only twice a day, and not six times. I miss being able to walk into the library any time I wanted to, and borrow anything I liked.

But I’m not holding my breath anymore. Faces are blurry. Schedules are fuzzy. Voices are faint.

I’m in the grey space. The ‘adjusting period’. There’s an explanation to everything.