Annual Letter to the Students

Prague, 02.05.2019

"We all have our times machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories...And those that carry us forward, are dreams." - H.G. Wells

Dear Students,

As the calendar changes, I hope that with mirth and laughter you let your old wrinkles come to the year 2020! Like every year, I retain my habit of writing to you my dear students, this annual letter about charming nostalgia, tender resolutions, vacillating hopes and formidable plans. Most people in the world have their weird own ways to celebrate: some drink and dance, some sleep in that cozy blanket, some visit the temple, some travel to scenic locations. I humbly write to you all!

Charming Nostalgia

Austrian Alps, 27.04.2019 

"The future is only an indifferent void no one cares about, but the past is filled with life, and its countenance is irritating, repellent, wounding, to the point that we want to destroy or repaint it. We want to be the masters of the future only for the power to change the past." - Milan Kundera

So many books, so little time! We managed to cover few books this year. Borges was special with his book Labyrinth, what a head spinner the book was! Most of you complained about difficult time you had submitting the assignments on this labyrinth of a book. How convenient, no one came over with flattery of how easy the assignments of others books (Camus, Ishiguro, Calvino) were. Also, I totally endorse your complains of taking the bestseller book Ikigai in such a senior class as yours but I hope you will pardon me for the idea was to introduce the Japanese culture to you. Next year we will delve deeper in the aesthetically maddening culture of Japan. Hope you have all submitted your last assignments for the year on the documentary"Jiro dreams of Sushi".

Travel wise, the year would have been definitely better for you. We managed some funds and traveled to Europe, a continent whose classical literature and films we were most familiar with. Prague was as charming as in the books of Kafka, Kundera or Hrabal. And those blue skies, white mountains and majestic landscapes of the Austrian Alps and the charming pebble streets of Bratislava, I think all of these were soulfully humbling.

Always remember what Pessoa says, life is what we make of it. Travel is the traveler. What we see isn't what we see but what we are!

Tender resolutions, Vacillating hopes and Formidable Plans

"To be great, be whole;
Exclude nothing, exaggerate nothing that is not you.
Be whole in everything. Put all you are
Into the smallest thing you do.
So, in each lake, the moon shines with splendor
Because it blooms up above."
                           - Fernando Pessoa

Now looking forward to 2020, we will intend to read more, travel more and listen more. We have more poetry coming in your syllabus next year, also we have applied for funds for the trips to Nepal and Turkey. The trip to village in the Rann of Kutch area has been sanctioned. The idea of this trip would also involve stargazing, apart from the village hikes and soaking up the stillness of the salt desert.

This year's course also teaches you how to simplify your eating experience. There is no love sincerer than love of food.  Apart from the food course, there are some really good chapters this time like how to spend money. Earning money is easier than spending money and very few know how to spend money and not be enslaved by our consumption. Also we will be back to few chapters on music appreciation this year. There is another chapter on how to master technology, chaos and lower your worryability (Yes, Calvino!). In the books section, we will take on further books by Marcel Proust, Nabokov, Italo Calvino, and Bruno Schulz.

Some of you will also be volunteering to be mentors to the new joinees and will accompany them to various trips. Show them how to see beauty and help them "mature" into childhood.

I will not detail this year's course further and steal any further thunder of it. Hope you have a great year ahead and enjoy the little things. For in the dew of little things, does the heart find its morning and is refreshed!

Happy New Year!

-Yours.