A couple of cousins just had their board exam results in Gujarat. And one of them, a school topper has taken a tumble. Not that she has failed, but a mediocre result in a decisive school year can leave you in a lurch. She is a smart girl and her bright future definitely does not depend on just one result. But there is no way to console her right now.

This is making me a bit nostalgic. I swayed between too serious and too careless in my early school years, but I always had my eyes on the future. I’m living a version of that future right now. My plans have changed along with changing reality but I wonder how much of it all depended on how I performed in school. Almost everyone my age that I communicate with no longer thinks of mark sheets.

We all have stories of our school days. While reminiscing on social network, all one does is tag pals in old school pictures. But no one remembers each other’s mark sheets. And still there was a time when that mark sheet decided the course of our lives.

Education system is changing too fast in India and it takes an effort to stay up to date. The pressure and competition is increasing but is the too distracted generation keeping up with the transition? People do boast about how advanced their kids are about using gadgets, but do they have another level? If yes, what and where is it? It definitely doesn’t seem to be just in the mark sheets.

Eventually it is all mangled somewhere between understanding, curiosity, researching and cramming. I wish I could be a school student now with all the resources and development. But I also feel a bit thankful that I am out of it all before it all got so complicated.

Once again this is a second rambling post in two days. I’m neither questioning the education system nor am I lamenting it all getting complicated. All I have on my mind is: This feels like the best time to be a student and the worst time too.

‘The Iron Lady’, a mediocre biopic with superlative acting, at least left one strong impression in my mind. Thatcher tells a fan who wants to be like her something to this effect: In our times, it was about doing something, now it is all about being someone. We generally associate such sentiments with people who are growing old or are already old. But has the way young people envision their future or cultivate ambition really changed?

Since I saw the movie two months back, whenever I read news, words kept popping out from articles in reference to the thought of ‘being someone’ and ‘doing something’.

The thing is, ‘being someone’ is highly emphasized in pop culture today. The next Rowling, the next Tendulkar, the next Instagram. Everyone and everything promising is labelled ‘the next fill in the blank’ for the world.

This whole jargon of media has perhaps now followed us as it rests in our pockets with our mobile devices. It has taken over the language in which people dream, shape up their ambitions. I somehow feel it could take the individuality out of the next generation that heavily relies on pasting quotes without giving credits. But there is no need to be that cynical just as yet.

After all ‘doing something’ and ‘being someone’ may not be the same thing but these concepts aren’t too contradictory either. The subtle difference between doing something and being someone may not be lost on everyone as both these things are simply stepping stones in achieving worldly success. The problem lies in the dreams of being someone without actually going through the toil of doing something.

Writing this and thinking aloud is giving me a sense of ‘doing something’ but virtual ramblings may not be that substantial if they aren’t backed by real work.

Don’t get me started on how much Germans love their Beer fests. We spent first two years just circling the festival area, eating chocolate fruits and took an occasional roller coaster. The ride really began when we found some like minded friends and we entered ‘the tent’. Imagine a few thousand people standing and dancing on the benches, with a mass in one hand and the other hand swaying to some live music with the rest of their bodies. The music they play is a mix of German folk and English rock. Everyone is unbelievably well behaved considering most of them are nearly out of their senses.

Last night while coming back from the Spring festival (April version of the Oktoberfest), we took a train back home at about 11 PM. As Stuttgart is not Munich, it sleeps early on most nights. But looked like everyone was out last night to let their hair down and their spirits up. I got to sit next to a cheerful old woman with fresh lilacs with green leaves in her hands. She smiled at us, offered to move just in case our group wanted to sit together and merrily watched us jabber away in 65% English, 15 % Hindi and 20 % German. When she got off the train at Weinsteige, she wished us good night and even after going out waved at us from outside. After nearly 10 hours of memorable time spent at the fest, all I can think of is that old lady with lilacs in her hands. Was she going home? Was she visiting someone? She definitely seemed Deutsch. I have stopped thinking about how am I perceived as an odd woman out in this strange country, but I still wonder what she thought of us. Who were the lilacs for? Probably a beautiful, ancestral vase. Or for a family member, a friend may be a date.

For some reason, I’m still thinking about her. But what was she thinking about? She has definitely seen many festivals in her lifetime and been in our shoes a few decades ago. Did we make her nostalgic? We all have back stories in our lives. The old lady with lilacs definitely has one. Probably I am never going to find her back story, but somehow she has almost become a part of my back story.

There are times when you watch the movie first and read the reviews later. I did that for Agent Vinod and realized that all the major reviewers have taken the movie too seriously.

I had no expectations from the movie, but it had some really good sparks. There is a very strict, conventional story arc in any spy movie. Eventually all Jack Bauers of the world save a specific city, country or sometimes mankind from something really fatal. Sriram Raghavan has Ek Hasina Thi and Johnny Gaddar in his past that does him credit. But when Saif Ali Khan is producing the movie, Raghavan may not have had all the creative liberty, no matter what they talk about in publicity interviews.

Everyone and their uncles have gone overboard by comparing Agent Vinod with Bond and Bourne movies. But this RAW spy doesn’t claim to be original at all. His character works well and with a li’l more thrilling story it would be good fun to watch him in a sequel.

Along with Raghavan’s retro homages to crime novels, old Hindi thrillers and of course those spy movies, there are flashes of Guy Ritchie influence here and some Tarantino there. It is a collage that works for someone who appreciates the genre and doesn’t have the expectations set too high.

I expected some mushy romantic scenes when I heard the Rabata song for the first time given the relationship of the producer and the heroine of Agent Vinod, but that one single long shot song sequence is very refreshing.

We watched the movie sitting with the crowd that included a big bunch of Indians along with people from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Turkey, other Middle Eastern countries and some German fans of Bollywood. Wonder what was going on in their minds.

Very few people need a reason to eat a piece of cake. I am not one of them. However, today I had one. Reason or not, I’ve easy access to delicious cakes and pies these days in Degerloch.

Often in the afternoons when I’m done with my work, I glance out of my window and there it is, lite up in sunlight these days, decorated with daisies for the Spring. It is a bakery. For some reason I thought of referring the bakery as ‘she’. Indeed she has been more of a friend since a year and a half now. I go down to her and ask for a ‘kuchen’. Generally it is ‘Johannisbeerekuchen’ I ask for, but I never realized it is seasonal thing.  I also ask for Kirschkuchen, Apftelkuchen or a simple jam doughnut – a Berliner they call it here.

It is a quintessential German family run place and the youngest woman behind the counter seems to be in her 20s. Once she was surprised that I ordered a piece of pie with liquor in it. I obviously have South Asian skin colour. She almost warned me about the sherry, associating a stereo-type with me. It had been six months since I had been going there. These women behind the counter are a judgmental crowd. They raise eyebrows when I buy a Brioche. I could avoid the place. But as long as the pie tasted good, it didn’t matter.

There are bouts when I eat ‘healthy’ food. I hadn’t been there in a while. Today, I was mourning some bad news. The news wasn’t so bad, but bad enough to eat a piece to feel good. Who knew I was about to get some smile on the side of my pie today! When I walked in there, the girl cheered up. She told me they had Johannisbeerekuchen. I deserved my piece of pie, a pick-me-up. But she remembered I loved Johannisbeere. She knew that part of me. I was no longer a stranger to her. So what if she didn’t know my name. She didn’t know what was bugging me. But she had still made me forget all my worries. I am no longer a stranger here.