Go and Live Your Life They Said!

They always said, you are up for a lifetime learning experience once you reach here, now I know why!

Yes it is an excellent learning opportunity, but I will like to go a step further and say that it is the phase where you actually realise your growth, your potential and your endurance. At every step you fight with yourself, you prove yourself that you are worth it and at the end of the day trust your decision that you will be able to survive in this crazy, weird, huge and different world. No doubt when you leave home you eventually grow up but trust me this is all together a different experience.

Here you are not in your comfort zone; rather you have to make this as your element. You are literally on your own and may have trusting issues. Yes, you will have companions who will be more like a family and a home away from home, but you will have to get used to the idea of not waking up after your mother’s wake up scream and actually not snoozing the alarm. You will have to get used to of the living style, the food habits and the culture. The festivals we used to celebrate back home or the fruits/eateries that we used to relish will not be the same. The regular hangout dens, visiting the relatives will be more like the most cherished wish. We have to understand that we just won’t see any of those street stalls where we used to have our street food, that chai ki tapri or that paanwala!

The whole world around you changes and you have to be ready for that. On a positive side, most of the people coming here end up being good writers, photographers, readers, music enthusiasts or for that matter street smart! Previously having alone time was a matter of luxury but this is not the case here as you are assured of one even when you have lot of work! Then you always end up thinking where, how, why and what did we really do before?

The initial days are full of emotions and most of the individuals end up writing them, no doubt maximum blog posts will be about these experiences, and why not, you need a way to vent out your feelings. These emotions come in phases. Well, for about the first month here, I had no clue what was going on. The different driving, the different sign posts, the switches, the traffic signal, the huge time zone difference, the drastically different study method, all seemed to be a world upside down. The next month was spent in boredom! The new city, new adventures, new explorations were awaiting yet I spent the time lazing around and on top of it cursing the city for its idleness. The new month was spent in missing home and feeling so alone emotions! The very mention of Nagpur, college, long walks or pani puri or any new Bollywood movie, its hype, anything remotely related to the desi ness would open the memory gates. Well, how can one fight with that and substitute that feeling? Surely, only a person not in India will understand that! And the next month was a pleasant surprise! I actually fell in love with this place! Wide without pothole roads, no honking horns, speedy rides and the green countryside! All of a sudden, it felt like being in a place of which I had always dreamed. A sudden feeling of being in a good city! Also this month is equivalent to finals, so the deadlines and exams and that rush! You actually realise the words –A Grad Student! Needless to say this month will rush to an early end where if you happen to bump into a grad student don’t mistake him to be a zombie look alike!

The other day one of my professors took all of us for lunch at a nearby place. (Umm, remembered our supper meeting after the final presentation with our undergrad project advisor, anyway!). We grabbed our wraps, raised a toast and started an interesting chat! Our table boasted of Indians, Chinese, Italian, Iranians and the discussions were about football, countries, religions, economy, government policies, social responsibility and what not! Few months ago such discussions topics were restricted to few sports, movies, future plans, politics (mostly with family) or books and suddenly here I am discussing about such global topics! Russia, France, Saddam Hussein hardly came in my discussions before only if I was not discussing about an interesting topic for our weekly columns! To be perfectly honest, I hardly contributed to this discussion, partly because I was unaware of the statistics and probably because I just loved to listen. I was spellbound by the volumes that people are so socially aware not only locally but on a global scale too! I really wonder how much time they must have spent in analysing and formulating their opinions on these topics so confidently! I mean never before Brazil’s topic was in discussion obviously unless it was of football! There is so much to learn.

There are so many more questions of which the solutions are still unclear, so many ambiguities which are enough to give sleepless nights, so much emotional turmoil to think through the hidden lines but one thing is for sure that eventually all the pieces will fall in their proper places, sooner or later they will, and they will have to. Some reach there early while some may take an eternity, but ultimately they certainly reach! All through the while, everyone keeps on dodging the ball with the fate and time! But one thing is for sure, such transition of feelings will keep on recurring and the entity called “Life” ever unfolding!