If you had to teach one thing you learnt this year (that would improve one’s quality of life) what would that be?
The art of planning and management. Around the beginning of this year, on a really excited note, I made a few educational videos for YouTube. The first one was explaining what political science was, the second about “functions” as in Math, one on a “Sandwich Theorem” and another that I couldn’t complete, about the proof of this beautiful identity, lim┬(x→0)⁡〖sinx/x〗=1. One thing I realized after I had made these videos was that every time, I had worked without a good full-fledged script, with just some hazy idea as if I would make a trending sensation with one spontaneous shot. Fast forward six months, and I had to make a 77-second video for a competition, talking about my passion. This time, I started with a script and it was many times better (and I also won a prize for that!).

During the lockdown, I participated in one educational daily Zoom classes, and occasionally I got some topic to talk on. Initially my preparation was thin and research meagre. But with time, this same idea got resounded.

How did you have fun differently in 2020?
Binge watching YouTube. I loved exploring new content and watching many great videos, sometimes many at a time.

What things did you stop caring about in 2020?
Playing (like a child). This and the last can be marked as the years when I stopped playing with the feeling that I was still a child. I became more inclined towards work and more conscious than ever of my goals. And as I also turned 18 this year, coming of age, I officially shed “childhood”.

The bare-minimum questions:

When have you felt proud of yourself in 2020? What were you doing?
At my result of class XI. There was a brief function organized in one of school auditoriums, and although I had secured the fourth place in my class, I was called with honor on stage, and our coordinator mentioned me in special words. That was something that made me feel proud.

What new habits did you create in 2020? Which ones would you want to keep?
- The habit of learning and taking notes from new stuff. Like I did with notes from books, my Gyan Golak and the notebook I call L&F (Learnings & Findings)
- Blogging
- Video journaling
- Leaving good footprints time to time (like Hava diyan baatan)
- Collecting stories (this blog)
- Learning new skills (like video-editing)
- Watching YouTube for recreation

I’d like to carry forward all of them.

What new thing did you spend a lot of time on in 2020?
Learning things. But also on the anime, Death Note (and it was really, really great).

What did you rediscover pleasure in 2020?
Studying, as of late. And writing.

          The Punjab Agricultural University “Kisaan Mela” – or a Farmer Fair – is organized twice in every year, and the mela is as interesting and fun for a curious visitant as it is for a kisaan. Hopping around the big festival – really one of its kind – you are expected to catch sights of tractors, combines, some other exciting farm machinery, in addition to food- and books-stalls.

          In 2019’s second of such melas, I was there at a books-stall for some volunteer work, and it was my second time there. Before I came back home, I was sure to catch a curious experience, giving a first-hand go-through of some lesson I had gathered years ago from a book.

          I got posted at a small stall in an otherwise busy way. In front of us was a tent pitched by some sort of veterinary doctors, beside some fertilizer- and manure-experts. At our place, customers were sporadic, but a much as usual.

          While gazing around the surroundings and remarking farmer stuff I was completely unfamiliar with, I noticed a man pacing towards our stall in some hurry. I sat up, alert, and when he stopped on the other side of the table that featured books, I stood up out of politeness. The man had in his hands some stuff he had bought – packets, cans and little plastic bottles. I took note of the fact that he had either failed or forgotten to get a carry bag from anywhere.

          I found it awkward, momentarily, when he looked me in the face instead of at the books unlike a general customer. And in hurried words, he asked if he could get a carry bag. That was the only thing he ever spoke.

          I blinked, and then quickly pulled a bag out and gave it to him. Damn, I thought as he was putting his things into that bag, missed a customer. For once, I felt the pain in the fact that I was giving him a bag for free and he hadn’t even given a look the books.

          ‘Uncle ji, kitaaban vi dekh lo…’ I asked almost reflexly. Please also see these books. Just asked.

          He tented his eyebrows and stared at me for a second. And then all of a sudden, I heard a ‘Hmm,’ and he was picking book after book and inspecting. He seemed to have liked a book with a light brown cover, and he handed it to me. I realized with a shudder what he was asking for, and pulled out another bag and pushed the book into its mouth. He stared at another book, as if with suspicion, and handed it to me. Book after book after book – and he had given me books worth several hundred rupees (even when they were at discounted prices), and he was a man who had come to just ask for a carry bag!

          He didn’t utter a word, and gestured when he thought he had bought enough. I spoke to him the amount, he handed me the money and in the very same hurry with which he had come, went away and vanished somewhere into the crowd.

          And I was left marveling. Yes, sure, I remembered the line from Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture: “Sometimes, all you have to do is ask.”

           The past Saturday, I made out my eighteen revolutions around the sun. That is, I just turned into an adult. Being an adolescent before that, I had always looked forward to this moment – a day that would gift me all the privileges of someone who has come of age.

           However, the most remarkable thing about that day was something else: another gift I got on this occasion.

           When I was in seventh grade, I had got a copy of The Alchemist, by the renowned spiritual author, Paulo Coelho. Just like all those who read this masterpiece of literature and storytelling, I was left mesmerized by the story of the shepherd boy who dreams of finding a treasure in the pyramids of Egypt and just with this dream in mind, and with the counsels of an “alchemist”, reaches the terminus, only to find that his treasure lies at the place where he had dreamed about it! The book and its beautiful story carries this cherished message that one can find his treasure at his doorstep.

           So, by the bye, I basked in the story, and in the years to come, delighted in reading the unparalleled book multiple times.

           Before long, I also read off many other books by the same spectacular author, Manual of the Warrior of Light and Winner Stands Alone among others. Every idea of these books resonated with me, and as years passed by, I loved the author more and more.

           Returning to the present, I recollect the day it was my birthday. Akin to every morning, I picked up the newspaper, leaved through the sheets, skimming through headlines and pictures, and around the middle of it, I recalled it was a Saturday and there would be a page devoted to books and reviews.

           The surprise lay right at this very page.

           When I reached the middle, the right-hand-side page, like any other Saturday, featured many books … with one book occupying most of the middle. I read the title, “The way of the bow”, which was followed by an excerpt from the respective book. In the middle of the bottom stood a little picture of a book with a pleasant green cover. It read: The Archer, Paulo Coelho.

           Joy knowing no bounds, I jumped from my seat and clapped hands to my mouth.

           Excerpt from a new book by the author who was one of my favorites, and that too on my birthday! This surely was like a piece from heaven.

           I fondly read the excerpt, really loved it, and saved a clipping of it in a folder of things that gave me happiness – for certainly it was something that had made my birthday memorable.

           Whether this was a coincidence or part of a bigger plan, who knows. What I know, for sure, is that this memory is going to go far with me as one of my most memorable days in life, and whenever I am going to have a backlash of this day, I am going to giggle and beam with my best smile.