Insights, Friendships and Mean Girls!

Hey everyone! If you've been following Maith's Musings for some time now, you would definitely have picked up that I love writing- poems, ramblings, or stories. One forum that really helped me sharpen my craft was the newsletter column at my old school, which allowed students to publish their pieces which would then be sent to parents bimonthly. I had made it a goal to have at least one of my writings in every newsletter as a way to consistently publish, and it was always a joy to see it in print! 

In high school, my school gave us the opportunity to be at the backend of the newsletter, in charge of editing, publishing, and creating new columns, and of course, I jumped at the opportunity when I saw that there was a new column that was being created- Insights. Insights is an independent student-run journalism committee that publishes interviews of inspiring people in the form of short write-ups. 

Coincidently, my dear friend Nik had also applied to join Insights, and as fate would have it, we both got in! We are both writing enthusiasts, who had no clue about journalism, but just applied for the fun of it! 

Our first assignment was to interview the student leadership at my school, to understand what it takes to become the prefect or the house captain. We were bubbling with joy and we decided to be absolute professionals and approached the very sweet vice-prefect with a pen, notebook, and voice recorder, and had a long and fruitful conversation with her near the auditorium. We really enjoyed talking to her, and it was all we could talk about for weeks! There was something so scintillating about hearing about someone's journey and feeling their aura! And, we made an epic team! 

We decided to go full out on our interviews and craft them with blood, sweat, and tears, to make them as fun and inspiring as possible! We wanted to step out of our comfort zones and make an actual difference in the column, to attract as many readers as possible. We wanted to interview extraordinary people. 

Around this time, the movie- Spin had come out which featured the first ever South Asian lead in a Disney movie and it was a pretty good film as well! We were casually looking up the actress- Avantika Vandanapu, and we stumbled upon her personal website which had her email. A lightbulb turned on. "Hmm, she would make a good interview for insights, right Nik?" 

All it took was a simple email, and within no time, we were freaking out on a Zoom call when we saw the message asking us to admit Avantika Vandanapu to the meeting! We ended up having an amazing time talking to her and learning about her amazing journey in Hollywood and Tollywood! She was so affable and kind-hearted, it didn't feel like we were talking to someone we had only seen in movies before! There is something so golden about her, and surely she is going places! 

This was the stepping stone to more interviews that Nik and I would end up doing! We met Shashank ND, the founder of Practo and learned about his journey in telemedicine and we also got to interview Jasmine Singh a prominent science communicator and astrophysicist on Twitter (X)! Doing interviews became our way of deepening our friendship and spending time with each other. From recording meetings, to transcribing it to text on the way to school, to tracking down our teacher to edit it... we had a lot of fun! 

This year, Nik and I were made co-heads of Insights, and we started the new edition off with a bang and assembled a group of budding interviewers who had the same fire in their bellies. We designed a website, emailed people vigorously, and created an Interviewing 101 for the newbies, all within one semester! Even though situations arose and I had to move to a new place, Nik continues to run Insights with inspiring enthusiasm and she really took up the responsibilities with fierce passion! Leaving Insights was one of the hardest things for me too, and I really miss working together with her. But, who knows we might find a way to make Insights cross-continental ❤️

If you have been following the news lately, you must have seen that a new Mean Girls movie has hit the theatres and it has been receiving good feedback as well! Nik's favorite movie is Mean Girls so it was even more coincidental to see that the iconic Karen was going to be played by, *drumroll* Avantika Vandanapu! All the stars truly lined up ✨

Credits: Plugged in

I thought that this was truly the perfect occasion to share the interview we did with Avantika, a couple of years ago, so that you can get to know her, before watching the movie! 

https://npsinsights.home.blog/2023/04/12/this-is-a-golden-age-to-make-a-place-for-yourself-avantika-vandanapu/

Check out our post on the Insights website, and do let me know what you think about the interview! And feel free to explore the website as well 🥰

Well, that's all. I hope you enjoyed reading this post! 

Have you watched Mean Girls or Spin? Do you like interviewing people? Are you interested in journalism? Do you have a newsletter in your school? Any tips to make my writing better? Are you a blogger too? 

Tell me in the comments! 😁

P.S. Happy birthday Nik! <3