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Delhi monsoon

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August and September happen to be the most unpredictable of months in terms of weather. On some days it rains heavily, on others it can be ridiculously hot and humid. How to manage the heat, humidity, rain, and still look good?

 

  • Choose the right fabric – The best way to look good during unpredictable weather is dressing for comfort. Dressing for comfort, however, does not translate into looking drab. Wear breathable fabrics like cotton and linen, and skip the polyester blends that cling to your skin because of the humidity.
  • Opt for ponytails and buns over open hair – Frizzy and damp are not exactly the best hair looks to go for. Skip the open hair during the month of August, and instead opt for a low bun, the way Meghan Markle does, or make a cheerleader ponytail for a clean look.

    Feature Image Credits  - Chatelaine
    Feature Image Credits – Chatelaine
  • Prefer midi skirts over minis – this may sound like an unconventional choice, especially since mini-skirts are the seemingly obvious choice during the hotter months. However, the rainy weather means that the outdoor seating in your college and Nescafe huts can be damp at times, which can make mini-skirts the wrong choice. Add to that, midis are back in style, are roomy, comfortable, and allow you to channel your inner Audrey Hepburn!

    Feature Image Credits - Wear Them Girl At
    Feature Image Credits – Wear Them Girl At
  • Wear pastel colours – Pastels colours do the job of brightening up your look on the gloomy days and soothing your eyes on the sunny ones. With fall just around the corner, the gentle and earthy tones of peach, orange, and blue reflect the seasonal mood accurately while giving you just the right rush of colour, without making you look like a box of crayons.
  • Skip the loud jewellery – chokers, which might irritate the sensitive skin around your neck, along with chunky bracelets and earrings, should be avoided at all costs. If you are a jewellery enthusiast, minimalistic jewellery in metallic tones should be your choice.
  • Forgo jeans, embrace sundresses and wrap dresses – Jeans are a recipe for discomfort. Pair a gingham dress with comfortable espadrilles and transition from morning to evening hassle free. Wrap dresses are also a cute and comfortable August choice.

    Feature Image Credits - E online
    Feature Image Credits – E online

The current weather can be unforgiving at times but that should not dampen your sense of style. Wear minimal makeup, keep your hair tied and secure, wear roomy and adorable choices like midis and sundresses, and move around college in comfort and style. The weather should never be an excuse to dress shabbily!
Feature Image Credits: Chatelaine

 

 

 

Sit back, relax, and grab a hot cup of chai because monsoon season is here.

Monsoons are the perfect time to enjoy some of life’s guilty pleasures. The season is perfect for some chai-pakora action, enjoyed best in a cozy Jaipuri blanket, whilst romantically glancing out the patterned windows. The rainy season has been associated with romance, fertility, and indulgence since time immemorial. The earth replenishes and reproduces new life onto the planet, making everything better. Our dadis and nanis are notorious for stuffing the bellies of little children with pakoras of all kinds, even if the occasion is simply a light drizzle. However, since Pakoras are a privilege for college kids away from home, here are the best ways to enjoy a rainy day when away from home.

Chai/Coffee

The romance of dancing raindrops is best enjoyed with an accompaniment of masala chai and Marie. Affordable and delicious, it quenches your thirst and soothes your throat, while going splendidly with the weather.
In case you’re feeling generous or just happen to be a millennial who needs coffee to survive, chai can be substituted with coffee. Another rainy day buddy, you can choose your roast, be it light, medium, or dark. Take the day off, and enjoy your nice hot cuppa.

A Good Book

What does chai and coffee go best with? A good old book, of course!  After you’re done dunking your biscuits in your beverage, you still need a companion for the remaining tea, and there no better buddy than a book. The older the book, the better, so you can dig your nose into it and experience the woody goodness of its pages. Romance is a genre best suited to the weather, along with a comfy chair to sink into when lost in the world of literature.
Ruskin Bond’s short story collections get a special mention, as they can transport you to the quaintest rainy hills, complete with a touch of childhood nostalgia.

Music
If you’re not much of reader, fret not, there is plenty to do to get you into the mood for the rains. Plug in your earphones, or blast your speakers with some of the best melancholic musicians out there. Coke Studio is especially recommended to go with the weather. The acoustic songs of the past and present are the best company at times like these. Bon Iver, Rex Orange County, Vance Joy, and the Wallows are just some of the brilliant bands and musicians to suit the mood. Turn up the volume, and switch on the fairy lights for best results.

Be Creative

The rains can be extremely inspirational for all the artists, writers, and musicians out there to create something beautiful. A poem, a song, a painting, nature in all its glory can offer much to be written, sung, or drawn about. If nothing else, you could even turn to the poets and artists of the Romantic era to seek guidance from, on how to appreciate the beauty of nature. While being productive and creative is not a compulsion, the monsoon sure does offer a lot to swoon after in terms of inspiration.

Monsoons are the rebirth of the earth and the replenishment of the tired, dusty cities. They offer a second chance at life to the animate as well as the inanimate.

Feature Image: Mindy Waneger

Meher Gill

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The rainy season is here. This season is also a busy time for the University of Delhi, and a lot of students who aspire to seek admission. High humidity levels and overflowing potholes aside, what is so enamouring about this season to DU students?

Monsoon has struck late in Delhi, but as always, the season has brought the city alive with the much needed rain beating the heat. It also happens to be the time of admissions with cut-offs coming out and students wandering across different colleges to seek admission. However, it is just not about the admissions and the freshers. There’s a bit more between this season and the university.
June and July are the go-to months where students seek internships for at least a month or two. Startups, corporates, government organizations, NGOs and other institutes have a plethora of students reaching out to them for internships. The first years are a bit more relaxed taking them but it’s a must for those who have completed their second year. Moreover, it becomes ever so important for students who want to further go into corporates and audit firms.
And the best part of monsoon- it’s holiday time for us! Yes, not for the entire seasons, but this is probably one of the best seasons to head out on treks, and head out on long rides. And this is exactly what the university students do too. Heading out to remote locations or trips- both domestic and international-are a common phenomenon. And why not, who wouldn’t enjoy sipping a cup of coffee from a hotel balcony or being at the top of a hill dancing in the rain?
Holidays also means that outstations can finally head home after an eventful and equally tiresome semester. They miss ghar ka khaana beyond imagination and you bet, dal chaawal has never tasted this delicious ever.

For outstation students, the rainy season is slightly more on the problematic side. Puddles of muddy water and heaps of dirt pile up on the streets, and walking through them is a nightmare. Being Indians, we are jugaadu, and finding out those dry spaces and skipping past those puddles is like an add-on skill we all were born with. But you realize your clothes are a mess by the time you’re home. And for outstation students, it’s a pain because they need to wash it all by themselves!
In a few days, the university will re-open and there will be a lot of commotion. Bright new faces lurking around the campus exploring their dream university, the new second-years meeting their friends and looking forward to doing new things, while most of the final year students will be running around wearing a tie and carrying a file for placements. But at the end of it all, be it new students or old, the canteen will be full and so will the roadside stalls with everyone sipping tea and enjoying munchies looking at the rain. Once again, students will be on a run to find shelter, drying their clothes, and heading out for long walks of drives through the breezy wind. New romances will bloom beneath the cloudy skies, and lifelong friendship pacts will be made in the midst of dewy leaves.

This season, as always, will bring a ton of new things with itself. New faces, new energy, new tasks, new accomplishments, new friends, and most importantly, new memories. Because in all the simple little things that students do and experience within this season, it becomes so special to us. Giving us all a fresh start.
Karan Singhania
[email protected]

Delhi has been experiencing a lot of rain lately. For some people, it has only brought inconvenience along with it. Yet there are others who have no qualms about getting drenched in the rain, getting their footwear dirty, or their clothes wet. They are the rain lovers!

Rain, no matter how unwelcome it may seem to some, is very dear to many. It is beautiful to see the sky pouring down the purest of drops to change the harshest temperatures.  The rain lovers have unique and sometimes inexplicable reasons for loving rain. Whenever it rains, they have oodles of ideas to make the most of it.
Following are some of the things rain lovers do when it rains. Those who would want to join their league, can try the following:

1. Enjoy the scenes

Some people love rain, but only from a distance. If you are apprehensive of getting too excited in the rain, appreciate it from a distance. Take charge of a window, a safe corner outside your residence, or even an umbrella with a comfortable pair of shoes will help you a lot. Once you are ready, behold the beauty!

Enjoy the scenes

2. Abandon the umbrella

“What’s in an umbrella?”
Most of those who cherish rains are too bold for umbrellas. You will watch them walking calmly right next to a bunch of people trying to fit under the limited available umbrellas. Rain is not harmful for them. They love to feel it touch them. Being anti-umbrella is being pro nature and definitely, pro rain.
If you wish to enjoy rains, don’t wait outside your classrooms or in the foyers for the rains to stop. Take that leap of love, walk boldly and slowly in the rain and feel one with nature.
Disclaimer: Figure out a way to protect your books in this process.

Abandon the Umbrella

3. A thinking mind and a sheet of paper

For some reason, rain makes you delve deep into everything. It makes you imagine and think about beautiful concepts and emotions. Rain is a stimulant for a lot of stories. Grab yourself a sheet of paper and pour down your thoughts while the sky is pouring along.

Thinking mind

4. Food and rain

Rain can be absolutely irrelevant without food. A lot of people take to thadi (small tea shops) and enjoy looking at people with their hot cup of chai. Some take to cooking hot parathas, or pakoday. A hot cup of coffee is too obvious to mention.

Food and Rain

5. Plan an event!

There are people for whom rain is an event. A celebration!
They would curse you if you don’t tell them it was raining. Abandoning sleep won’t be an issue, neither is a good hairstyle! They would rush out when they hear the noise of the rain falling. They will take the most prominent space in some lawn, a terrace or even crazier- a road, and feel it!
Next time you want to enjoy the rain, just step out fearlessly. Stay right there and you will find good and deep feelings rekindling.

kids-paying-water

6. Some ideas borrowed from recent scenes and encounters

Go out with your significant other and take a long walk. Pair it up with some good music and you are good to go. Don’t forget to hold hands, because the rain just seeps in and both of you end up sharing the drops.

Play loud music on the terrace of your house, flat or PG and call friends over. Then start dancing. It gets that simple.

Generous friends will volunteer to click you some #RainGoals pictures too. Try being a bit dramatic, if you fail, don’t worry. The rain has got your back.

Choose to ride a cycle, or a bike or scooty to feel the rain and wind on your face.

Write a new song, or sing along to one.

Tee hee!

Featured image credits: Shiwani Mundiya

Tooba Towfiq

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