Vidhyakshaya Kannan

My love for Chennai stems from the multitude of experiences I've had in this city. Third main road, where I've lived for a significant fraction of my life. The apartment complex, where we'd chase each other down playing tag or ride our bicycles at breakneck speeds. Pushpa Ice House, where  appa  would buy me bottles of cold  goli  soda. Metro, the shoe shop Keerthana and I used to frequent to look at the Siddharth Malhotra cutout. Adyar Stationery, where my parents swear I've spent a small fraction of their wealth. Kamal Stores, where I bought notebooks in bulk, each one filled with math problems by the year's end.  Padmanabhaswamy  temple on a chilly  Margazhi  morning, the warm pongal that nearly puts me to sleep, andthe  perumaal  idol, the only witness to my good days and bad. Pondy Bazaar, where Shreya and I roam the streets and buy silver  jhumkhas . GRT, the jewelry store where the  achari  will give me a withering ...

As a young girl, I always envisioned the day of my high school graduation to be a somewhat grand, honorary ceremony. I had grown up imagining an electric atmosphere, a massive auditorium packed with thousands of people, giving the valedictorian speech, a flurry of colour and movement as caps are thrown into the air, graduates cheering and shouting as they revel in the freedom of the moment – something along the lines of what graduation was like in Hollywood movies.  The actual event was a much more humble affair.  As I walked down the familiar street, on the path I’d taken all those years to school, it was almost as though nothing had changed: the pookaramma’s veined and knotted hands moved swiftly as she expertly strung together strands of jasmine, there was the little pillayar kovil , deserted in the afternoon sun, except for one or two particularly determined devotees, Kumaran Stores was overflowing with a sea of schoolchildren in green and white buying themselves drinks....

About a year ago, I had to move into college. It was frustrating on so many different levels: I felt like I was blindly stumbling into this new phase of my life, I had an insane amount of shopping left to do and about three or four days to actually do it, my parents were moving to a different house, my sister was neck deep in midterms and struggling to focus amidst the chaos. All my high school things, stacks and stacks of unfinished problem sets, notebooks in which I attempted to solve the aforementioned problem sets, question papers and answer sheets, report cards, post its with test schedules and important formulae, were all stashed away in a cardboard box and slipped into my grandparents' loft, where they are likely to collect dust for many years. I remember making endless college themed Pinterest boards and saving a number of posts with titles like "Packing for college: the only guide you'll ever need" or "The complete college packing list," but when I ...

It's incredibly overwhelming, terrifying almost, that I'm a rising sophomore, through with my first year of college. It's unsettling, as though something just isn't right, like someone was writing a book and chose to leave out significant chunks of the story for the reader to imagine what could have been.  At eighteen years old, I can count my lifetimes' worth of achievements off my fingers. No, I am not the founder of three different tech startups, and no, I do not run an NGO that impacts thousands of lives, but I have finally succeeded in making a drinkable filter coffee, after multiple failed attempts. Of course it doesn't even mildly compare to the one  appa makes, but at least it's a start. I am likely to invite controversy when I say this, but the trick is to eliminate the use of the coffee press altogether, and instead, pour hot water directly into the filter, close it, and wait for the decoction to emerge. Using the coffee press results in a muddy l...

Life after high school is strange. The work I'm required to do now is voluntary, small and consistent, unlike the substantial amount of forced cramming that I've had to do in the past. I wake up feeling energised and motivated, actually looking forward to the rest of the day. My filter coffee has been replaced with healthier alternatives, like orange juice or lemonade. I watch a film or listen to music before making everyone a snack, or read about college.  The quality of my life has exponentially improved, without me actively trying to improve it. In the evenings I go for walks with my friend, mostly to loose all the extra pounds that I've put on, and we talk about all sorts of things.  I feel like this is the beginning of the end: a majority of my classmates are going to a different college or different city and I doubt whether we'll see each other again. My friends, surprisingly, have a different, more optimistic take: they say it's the beginning of a new start, ...

My junior year in high school isn't starting off the way I expected it to. And I think it's that way for all of us. I'd just like to take a moment and thank every one of you for making my ninth and tenth grade smooth, and, well, enjoyable.  In June of 2018, I walked into class 9A and felt like a nobody. I remember bringing a book with me, (A Sidney Sheldon novel, I'm unable to recollect which one, though) because I didn't want to awkwardly sit at my desk without anybody to talk to. I buried my face beneath that book for days. Or perhaps weeks. I don't remember. My two best friends and I had only one class together, language, and I assumed that the next two years would be a nightmare. But it didn't turn out that way, thankfully. I had the best classmates, and I think that's quite an understatement.  Honestly, I didn't think I'd make it this far. I never dared to imagine that I'd make so many friends. Or at least, have such reliable and friendl...

Being a board student in India is a huge deal, and there are quite a few reasons as to why. Preparation starts months in advance, and in this post, I'm going to talk about how it went for me, plus I'll include a few dos and don'ts and maybe even study tips. I started prepping for my boards in April 2019, which is when people ideally start. Some schools do start earlier; I know a few that started teaching the tenth grade syllabus in January. Trust me, April is fine, and I'll explain why in a few minutes. I had fun prepping from the very beginning; I watched loads of concept videos for science from Khan Academy, plus did a good amount of maths beforehand. And the whole process, believe it or not, was very enjoyable.  I started off with Physics, and I did loads of it. FIITJEE classes came in handy; they covered much of the syllabus beforehand and exposed us to a variety of problems. April and May were supposed to be my summer vacation, but I spent a good amount of...