NOT an Ivy-League Story!

Amid all the chaos of a pretty messed up school life, I finally had some respite with Senior Secondary Examination results coming out and to my sheer surprise; it was a first-class with distinction.

However, my best of 4 was still below the coveted benchmark, as set by those larger than life Delhi University Colleges, I was eyeing to be a part of.

With little to no knowledge about HOW I will get through, I happen to board the very first UPSRTC bus, destined for Delhi.

It was 1300 hours and I was inside the premises of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College.

Of what I was able to understand, I could possibly hope for a maximum of two D.U. colleges, subjected to no. of applications and the only interpretation that hit my mind was accounting as a subject, which, I didn’t fancy much.

B.Com as an option got a strikeout and so did the larger than life option, DELHI!

Beyond the fixity of the traditional parental mindset, hovering around the standard graduate options of B.A., B.Com and the likes, I considered going for a B.B.A.

I t wasn’t that popular an option in those days and for some reasons (to the best of my understanding) it seemed to be the right decision to go for.

This time it was me and my mother and the bus was destined for the city beautiful: CHANDIGARH!

Of all the excitement I was able to picture up in my head, what I was sure of was the feeling that this was going to be pretty exciting a journey.

I was looking forward to our very first graduation day.

It was 16th July and I was attending my first class of the B.B.A degree.

Panjab University, Chandigarh had an annual system of examination at that time.

Life surprises us in its own ways and this time, it was my turn.

The subject was Quantitative Techniques and this teacher, in the least expected possibility, made up for my first-hand experience of how I pictured my first year as it was going to be.

End of the day and I was trying to run away from this never-ending feeling but to little or no avail.

 I found myself immersed in the FEAR that still haunted me since my school days.

I surrounded myself with all the WHAT Ifs my conditioned mind could think of and I went in for a mental time travel, leading me to imaginary suffering of what the year could possibly end up into.

I went all numb, thereafter.

And that’s how we (the students) in most of the cases, if not all, picture our journey.

I am in it but with all the FEAR in my mind. I feel like going for it as if I am game, but towards the end, I play a blame game when my past hits me hard and I perceive it not as a degree but as if a WAR!!

There could have been a course correction.

Someone could have counselled me towards being better at my actions.

All I expected was a sense of care, for I viewed her more than a teacher and thought she will be there.

It’s moments like these that choked me inside-out.

Of what was supposed to be an awesome story shaped up in those college hide-outs.

I felt like dropping out; there were moments I shouted out loud when my mind would cloud with the fear of the unseen, somewhere down the line, I was losing my sheen.

I was not alone.

Ours was the third section; leave a third behind, the entire class, of what I was able to figure out had really strong economic signs.

One month down the line, our section went on to be the most notorious of the kind and of the way teachers would define us, there was none like us.

Lost in the noise, I would question my choice.

This was a professional degree and I had my eyes on ending up with nothing less than creating a history.

With time, as I carefully started to introspect my approaches, my methods of the way I was hustling, I was getting near to understanding the COMPLEX my mind was heavily occupied with.

Don’t know what this complex was all about but at the least, the seemingly different voices, I tend to relate with; formed the mental cloud.

And I think I can state on behalf of my then the batch mates that this is how it goes in almost every single case.

Predominantly, it stems from the parental instructions that keep circling around us every now and then and influences the way we process our thoughts, adding to it is our own understanding of the outside world which eventually gets trapped in the boundaries we unconsciously place ourselves into, thereby playing the mango man’s role.

Also, that’s exactly the point wherein the societal expectations mushrooms like anything and expects from you nothing but perfection in what you do, irrespective of having an iota of understanding of what your Hustle is all about.

That’s society. No names but very much interested in your game!

And you make your mark not by fulfilling the expectations but by shunning down the voices that doubted your indentations.

As I ventured into my second year, it becomes clearer as to how I should be going about my degree from that point onwards. It was a pass with first class for the first year.

I wasn’t that much into experimenting but to start with, I started working on relationships, surrounding myself with unknown faces but with clear intentions to ideate and collaborate.

The other day, it was the three of us wanting to start a professional club towards skilling the under-grads in personality development.

A year into the grind and we found ourselves backed by a corpus of +30K with more than 200 registrations for the annual membership of Parwaaz The Professionals’ Club.

To our surprise, we saw registrations from Masters’ students as well. It was the third year and now the six of us as part of the club’s core team were all game for it.

We passed out in flying colours.

The city beautiful made me go through some of the best learning experiences and in full realization of what we can potentially achieve, given the way we picture ourselves and nonetheless the outside world.

I never came in the ivy-league of students, but eventually, I happen to be the most sought-after student in the entire batch; not for what I was able to achieve but for how I used to approach people and the situations I surrounded myself with.

The road ahead wasn’t going to be an easy ride, but that point onwards, I instilled a sense of HOPE that was to stay there with me for a good long time.

Maybe, we can!