Ali Patel was a very lively boy. He enjoyed playing cricket, swimming and bathing in the Ganges river, and sneaking out of school to watch (both Western and Bollywood) movies at the local cinema, all in the company of his school mates. Although he sometimes got into trouble, all in all he describes his early childhood as 'being the best bloody days of my life'. In 2005, however, he arrived home after a school trip only to find out that his house had burnt down as the result of a gas leak, with his parents and little sister inside.

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Contrary to the stereotype, the orphanage that he was housed in did not mistreat its wards, nor did it force them under child labour. In fact, the owners, an old Sikh couple, treated every single child as if they were their own. Sadly, the damage to Ali's psyche had already been done. He put himself into self-isolation and would often lock himself up in his room, just sitting on his bed and thinking about that fateful day over and over again. Eventually, the children and most of the adults in his life stopped trying to build bridges with him, labelling him as a 'duffer'.

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This sad lifestyle of his continued all the way up to his late teens, when his high school allowed them to pick their own electives. In a act of pure nihilism, he ticked two boxes at random, these being 'Gastronomy' and 'Movie Studies'. These things would later play a vital role in Ali's social life.

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Though he found the lessons boring at first, they soon picked up after the students had covered all the basic stuff. He discovered an interest in both of them, and soon graduated as the top of his class. He was even doing a little better socially now, although he was still a long way away from having a good strong relationship with anyone.

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Ali's decision to move to Scotland to study cinematography was somewhat a surprise to the old Sikh couple, mostly because his main reason was that he had seen Braveheart before and thought that it would 'be a dream to sit on an old stone wall facing the castles, sipping some coffee while bagpipes faintly play in the background' (his words, not mine). At the airport, there were many tears shed, which came as sort of a surprise to him, because 'why would have cried about my success after they had not cared about me all these years?'.

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He found himself as a member of the Theta Pi Lambda fraternity in Loch Ness University. At first, he 'acted quite coldly to them', seeing as he did not really know the culture here and was afraid of doing something wrong, but he eventually found many new friends, seeing as how he knew a whole lot about movies and, perhaps more importantly, he was the only one in this group who could cook. In 2017, Ali Patel got his PhD in cinematography with a big smile on his face. After graduating, he moved to a small apartment in nearby Inverness, where he worked as a barista at the local Startups.