Adrenaline.

adrenaline

əˈdrɛn(ə)lɪn/

One of the few words, I had trouble pronouncing as a child. I called it Ardenalin, if that even makes sense.

Adrenaline, the feeling of being high (not that I would know), the rush of wind against your face and above all sense of bliss.

Under usual circumstances, normal people (emphasis on normal here) derive the above mentioned adrenaline from physical activities like Paragliding, Para sailing, Zip lining and any other such activities. A numerous number of people in my life have mentioned how thrilling these activities are, time and again. Every time they said something along these lines, I just leaned back and smirked my usual way, like I knew exactly what they were talking about. Except for the small fact that, I didn’t actually know what they were talking about.

Being a couch potato and an overall lazy person, adrenaline rushes came to me in a different form. I had long given up on ever being athletic or even having the guts to try my luck at them. Hence I found my adrenaline rush in other forms. I should warn you here, I did NOT find it at the bottom of a bottle or in drugs, I found it in the most innocent of activities.

I found my adrenaline rush in the pages of numerous books.

I think it started with Harry Potter. I started the series a tad bit late, at the age of 10. But that did not stop me from finishing the then six series book within a week. I experienced a fast gust of wind and the sensation of flying. I felt as though the universe's secrets had been revealed to me.

It did not stop there.  My innocent tryst with adrenaline went on to a lifetime of reading and re-reading (when bored) and hasn’t stopped until now. There were times when I had to lessen the pace of my reading and warn myself to go slow and not inhale them all at once.

But this has been my only constant source of Adrenaline. Others come and go. There was the time I decided to climb on the highest tower I could find (turns out, I am afraid of heights), the time I decided to be rebellious to a teacher (that was a disaster) and finally the time I tried to be nice to everyone. (People gave me weird looks and started questioning my sanity).


What was your source of Adrenaline Rush?

I Have Been Someone Else for Way Too Long

I think this post is an Identity Crisis.

All I ever wanted to be called was by name. Albeit,my name never made much sense to me,I still would have been like to be called by it rather than the vastly expressive pronouns people used.

 It first started when I entered First Grade. They instantly assign a number to you and for the rest of the year thats all you were to be known as. This process continues till you finish schooling on varying levels of intensity.

Each day of school they have particular activities. But your turn at the activity does not come until your roll number does. Henceforth,everything you do in an academic year is determined by your roll number. And frankly its a little putting off because everyone strives that at least once they are recognized by their name

Personally,far more than a roll number I was known as Poornima's younger sister. It didn't hurt that much during the initial years. But when I hit the stage where I felt the urge to carve out my own identity,it became impossible to break out of this mold.

Most teachers in the 5 schools I attended, had high expectations of me,mainly because my sister did extremely well in her eleven years of schooling. To an extent, I too tried to achieve this. But after a point and multiple failures later,it became taxing. Pretty soon I stopped trying to be what others wanted me to be and tried to find my identity.

What I am trying to say here is probably this: Do not ever try to mold yourself to a stereotype or to expectations. Be what you want to be. Experiment if you are unsure. Venture out of your comfort zone,find your path and above all stick to it irrespective of what anyone around you thinks about it. This does not have to be specific age group. You can be old,frail,young,adolescent and still be unsure of who you are. What matters the most is you being true to yourself.

This was kind of a rant and it really helped me get things off my chest. I hope this an eye opener for those who need it and an inspiration for those who are on this path themselves.
 -Vaishali Ramesh

Promise to Return

Promise to Return 

When the sun goes down and the fires light

I will come and lay down by your side

We can talk in whispers all through the night

While we gaze into each other's eyes

  I can't promise to be here when you wake

from this daze, but you'll feel my love 

lingering and I hope you'll know deep in 

your heart that we'll meet again 

when the crickets come singing...

                              - Sanika Saxena

Email us at : vaishali.ramesh235@gmail.com

Feedback appreciated! 

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The Modern Joan of Arc

She is inspiring. She is passionate about her cause.She is level headed and has a very calm persona.She is a huge inspiration.

 While I was working out Math equations,she was working out solutions to change the world.  While I complained about eating green vegetables,she spoke up for her rights. While I fought with boys my age,she fought to save her life.

While I always knew about her,I never bothered to dig deeper and find out more. On a lazy Saturday afternoon,I stumbled across her interviews and needless to say I was hooked for the next three hours,just watching her talk,hearing her inspiring words and in awe of her immense courage.

She has strong views and is passionate about her fight for girls rights to education. She has risen like a phoenix from the ashes (comparison to Fawkes)  and has surged ahead to empower women all over the world.

Watching her interviews was an experience by itself. I found her to be so humble and lively despite the adversities she faced. She is so strong and has few qualms. She is forgiving and moreover benevolent. (Did I just use that word in a normal sentence?) She holds no grudge against her attackers and calmly states "If a Talib were to shoot me again,I would look him in the eye and say ' I am only fighting for my right to education. I am fighting so that your children too can be educated. Thats all I had to say,now do what you want".

Initially,I was stunned like the rest of the world and then gradually came to realize the immense amount of courage this girl had to stand up to someone most people fear. I was mesmerized and transfixed. The next few hours was spent looking her up on the internet,watching multiple Youtube interviews and just being inspired by her. Finally I just shut everything down and opened her book "I am Malala" and I have not put it down since. (cue re reading )

Malala Yusufzai is the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. She is a Pakistani activist fighting for womens rights and girls education.She is my age and has achieved far more than I could possibly imagine.Watching her was overwhelming and it enforced me to do my bit for the world.

I would truly recommend every one of our readers to read her book "I am Malala". It is insightful and gives us a whole different viewpoint of life in Pakistan.

Malala Yusufzai interviews to watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjGL6YY6oMs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rNhZu3ttIU

 

 Feedback is really appreciated and if you would like to recommend more personalities to be inspired by,please feel free to do so.

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Be-Spectacled.

Four eyes. Half blind. Vision impaired.
These are a few of the words I would use to describe myself. Yes, I Vaishali, am a proud owner of multiple pairs of glasses and in a variety of colours. (Insert fake enthusiasm)

For those of you who have heard these words before it should come as no shock to you that I experience frequent headaches.
We spectacled folks,tend to have these mind numbing migraines where we swing from being as quiet as a mouse to being as angry as a giant. These migraines tend to usually signify an increase in our eye power (Although in my case,its due to an annoying bunch of friends)
And who are the most important people in our lives,whom we decide to grace with these mood swings?:Yes, dear reader, our mothers (Don't even try denying it)


The most important skill of a person who wears spectacles,is the skill of deception. Deceiving the above mentioned mothers that either we don't have a headache or that the headache signifies something other than an increase in our eye power,is a task in itself.

I got my first pair of glasses when I was a teeny tiny thing of seven. so I think its pretty obvious,that I would have become a master of deception over the course of ten years.

So here is a list of excuses for those dreadful migraines that seem to render you useless.


1. Maa,this is what happens when I study too much.
Say this even though like me,you have not studied much. But you have to know how to sell this lie. I would suggest practising your poker face in the mirror first.

2.Headache? Huh whats that? How do you even spell that?
Either act completely dumb or pretend to have short term memory loss. In my experience,the latter works wonders (including an actual hit to the head)

3.I'm in the G0 phase.
This may actually help in proving the first excuse. Reference to the resting phase of cells during cell division will back up your first excuse and will also let you rest in peace.

4.Shh...don't tell anyone,but I am devoloping superpowers.
Hold your head in your hands and wail loudly. (look at videos of Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and when Mom comes into your room flustered, give her an evil grin and say "I will spare you,Muggle"

5.  I think my eyesight is improving!
I can see you clearer now,Mother! wait,are those age lines? tsk tsk.

6. I think my hearing is deteriorating along with my sight.
What? I can't hear you! did you say French fries are hot or French guys are hot? Also Maa,do you really want to drag me to an ENT specialist along with a visit to the Ophthalmologist?

7. I think my brain is growing!
What other sane explanation do you have for these migraines, Maa? It's obvious that I am so intelligent and my brain needs more space to store important information

 Most of these excuses have been tried and tested. But do give us feedback on how all of them work for you.
Oh,and sorry for the delay in posting. Blame it all on my unhealthy obsession with Candy Crush. I do hope all those death threats will stop though.

-Vaishali Ramesh

Note from Vaishali's mother: Despite all the silly excuses Vaishali gives me, her spectacles are  changed once a quarter.

Word of the day:
Incorrigible: meaning a person or behavior that is not able to change. (synonym for Vaishali)

Quote of the day:
Life's most persistent and urgent question is,what are you doing for others? -Martin Luther King.

Gender Policing Handcuffed.

We are proud to present,our next guest writer, the cheerful, charismatic and intellectual Tanvi Jadhav!

Gender policing is the imposition or enforcement of normative gender expressions on an individual who is perceived as not adequately performing, through appearance or behavior, the sex that was assigned to them at birth (see gender performativity). Gender policing serves to devalue or delegitimize expressions that deviate from normative conceptions of gender, thus reinforcing the gender binary.
Wait! What on Earth was that complex definition you ask? Don't you worry people I shall explain that with easy examples. 

Gender policing is when a relative says "You have to cook the food,you are the girl of the house" or when the neighbour says " Son,can you come help me with the car? You are like the son I never had". Simple everyday sentences uttered by people in passing too can be classified as Gender Policing. So basically gender policing is devaluing those actions or behaviour of a person that do not neatly conform with our expectations of what is gender appropriate.

In the past,I have heard many people passing  nasty comments on ones behaviour,attitude,dressing sense with respect to their gender. I believe judging people with respect to their gender is a big  drawback of our society. This is what the internet in technical terms calls Gender Policing. 

I think  Gender Policing  is affecting our society badly as it sets gender as an influential marker and this happens to be like  an inconsequential choice has been made for us based on our Gender and how society expects us to act.

                

I strongly feel that gender policing can be stopped only if the members of the society that is if all of us change our attitude pertaining to certain things like , if we believe that it is absolutely fine if a guy likes pink or a girl loves to play football and most importantly if we stop punishing a man or woman for not acting true to their gender or rather not acting according to the expectations of society.

-Tanvi Jadhav

Its a Geeky Story

Ahem, ahem. Ladies and gentlemen put your hands together for the geekiest, nerdiest, smartest girl in the room (drum roll please) Poornima Ramesh aka. Vaishali's sister!  We are glad that she readily agreed to guest write for Prolix this week. Without further ado, let's see what this wonderful person has to say.

A few weeks ago, Vaishali wrote a post about how hard it is being a Humanities student. Well, it's not a bed of roses for the Science ones either. Everyone expects you to be nerdy, boring and wear spectacles all the time. Despite that, being a science geek has definite advantages. So here's my list of why I love science:

1) You have really great excuses:

If you get in trouble with your parents or if you're in a situation that you'd rather avoid, science provides you with the most amazing escape routes. For example, let's say you've broken the TV set by throwing your remote control at it (because that's what you do every time HBO has the gall to run one of the Twilight movies). And your mother is spitting fire at you. This is what you should say: “According to the Third Law of Thermodynamics, every system in the universe prefers to be in a state of disorder or increased entropy. So you see, mom, I didn't really do anything wrong. The TV wanted to be broken!” And voila! Problem solved!

2) You can be an annoying-people-repellant:

If you're in the company of someone who is just plain irritating or if you have a low socialization threshold, then spouting scientific jargon is an awesome way to get rid of them. Here's a demo: So did you hear about the new breakthrough in evolutionary theory? It seems that the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium was just an alternative to the Red Queen hypothesis and basically, all population curves ultimately tend to settle into stable Gaussians even though they can go through Poisson, binomial and Boltzmann distributions....are you zoned out or have you left the room? Yeah, so you get the idea.

3) Movies and advertisements become hilarious (or woefully depressing, depending on your point-of-view):

Did you know that Surf Excel has vibrating molecules? What's so funny about that, you ask? Well, this company is marketing their product based on something that's true about...let's see....pretty much every single thing in the entire universe. And have you seen that movie where Rajnikanth swallows a speeding bullet and spits it out in two pieces, each of which then kill a bad guy? That little scene breaks so many laws of physics and biology – the relatavistic laws, Newton's laws, Stoke's law, physiological constraints....I don't think there are enough fingers attached to the entire Indian population to count them.

4) You get to act like, Einstein, Feynman, Curie, Heisenberg, etc were all your best friends:

For example:

You know that Darwin didn't really come up with the theory of evolution on his own right? He sat on it for 12 years before Wallace told him it was right. <shaking my head in exasperation> Poor guy!

And Scrodinger's really macabre. I mean, the guy used dead cats to explain his theory. Dead cats! What the hell!

See?

5) Everybody treats you like you're a genius (if you ignore the fact that they also expect other..(ahem!)....not-so-positive things)

Well, obviously, if you're a science geek, you've had to go through tons and tons of books (each the size of 10 Lord of the Rings books). And if you're an Indian teenager, then you've also solved close to a billion calculus problems and worked out gazillion reaction mechanisms for IIT-JEE or BITSAT or whatever random combination of the English alphabet that you can think of. If you thought Dr. Doofenschmirtz was cool, multiply that by 100 and you get the average science geek!

Hopefully, all of you are now thinking about making a career change to science. Or at least, you agree with what Bill Gates has to say about geeks. Thank you Vaishali and Sanika for letting me write for your blog. And Nikita, I hope I've followed your rules closely enough.