The End of the Middle of the Beginning.
This is Where I Learnt To Live.
Documenting my experiences gives me joy. When I write about the good memories, I feel content. When I write about the bad ones, it gives me strength and hope. I was always a sucker for pain.
A wise man, who knew me very well one day told me I always had too many thoughts in my head.
The truth.
I consider it to be a boon and a bane. My weakness and my strength wrapped up together entangled in a sheath I like to call my mind.
After a writing hiatus lasting about 3 weeks, my hands are restless. I had to write something down. What better way to let myself go free than to write about all those fleeting moments in college.
College is a special treasure trove of memories for a lot of people. Most people really come out of their cocoons and transform themselves into the who they are really are at the end of their course. We have heard this story from our fathers and mothers to those belonging to our generations — our cousins and siblings.
And they tell you, “ You will know when you get into your college.”
Like every Bollywood love story, we have had the good fortune of following, Model Engineering College aka MEC follows along the same lines. You hate it at first sight and slowly, oh so steadily, it grows on you. You learn to love what you have and finally at the end, you cry your hearts out when you know you have to part ways.
To every junior who might be scowling and grimacing reading the previous sentence, I assure you — tears will silently roll down your eyes when you get where I am.
A trip down the memory lane through the various emotions I felt along the way.
Devastated.
I always wanted to be a doctor just like my doctor parents. Long story short, my twisted fate brought me to MEC. I was obviously devastated at first. Little did I know I would find out later on, engineering is probably what is best fit for me. Engineering is not a one size fits all kinda deal. But it definitely gives you the avenue to figure out what you want. We are too young and immature at 18 to know what we want anyway.
Angry.
The campus is too small.
…
…
Back in the first year of college, I could list 101 reasons why you shouldn't come to MEC. In all honesty, I can’t even remember what those were right now. Today the reasons don’t matter anymore.
After all, the beginning of every love story starts with hate.
Lonely.
Finding your lot can be a crazy process. Loneliness is inevitable. I would usually walk alone the short trip, every evening after class, from college to my hostel. But as I started getting myself involved and forging new bonds with other students, I would wait until I found someone to walk with me. Soon, we converted those short trips into 10 min conversation segments to catch up on our lives. This is what experiencing magic in our everyday lives feels like.
Curious.
There is more to experience than what meets the eye. To satisfy my curiosity, MEC did provide me with multiple avenues to explore my interests. All you have to do is go searching.
Step out → Attend Meetings →Meet People → Make Connections →Do what you love!
Hurt.
I have had my fair share of incidents where I felt hurt and pained. MEC is filled with different kinds of people, each with their own unique tastes and skills. You will have hurt people, failed, succeeded and learnt a hell lot of lessons along the way.
Pain is beautiful. If I ever write a book of my own, this is what I would want everyone to take away. I came to understand how difficult it to deal with people. How your actions define you, brick by brick and then bring you down in a split second if you are wrong.
And then, it dawned upon me — I didn’t know who I was at the core. I needed to learn who I am first. I was just a naive young kid, back then. Not anymore.
I let numerous people come into my life. Some stayed and some I pushed away. And there were many, I slipped past. The air is filled with regret now. Friendships can be a very tricky thing — I don various roles, tip-toe my way around stories, jump over fights and enjoy the fun times. Would I do things differently if I could go back in time? I don’t know. I’ve started to live in the present. For better or for the worse — we will never know.
Happy.
Writing has been somewhat of a constant companion during these times. There are those select moments in your life when the emotions, the song on your playlist and the stars in the sky align to set the mood and help you deliver that perfect piece.
Let’s get one thing straight — Am I a writer? No. I don’t consider myself one. I struggle when I write like really (start-sweating- rapidly) struggle. So what the heck am I doing here?
Do I enjoy transforming my thoughts in my mind to the computer screen? Absolutely.
In this day and age where everyone is busy documenting their stories and declaring themselves writers, I started PaperKin as an avenue — for students just like me — to practise writing, build a social brand and push content out to the world to see. Yet, take a moment to remind yourself — practise your art if you want to include it into your skillset.
I learnt this late. You don’t have to.
Coming back to my case, I always relied on my writing to get me places. And it has worked beautifully because the world relies on written communication and to succeed in life, you need a bit of everything. College became my second home thanks to the people I met through my writing. I landed my first content writing internship because of my blog and it was then, that I decided I wouldn’t stop writing whatever happens.
To add to my happiness, the HPAIR — Harvard conference also happened. You can read about my experiences here.
Confused.
There have been often times when I’m in pyjamas thinking about how I could be doing a lot of great things at the present moment.
Taking on a new project. Finishing that course on coursera. Working on my book. Documenting all my experiences in neatly planned out blog posts.
Moving on to the fun bits- Posting amazing stories on my Insta feed. Drafting a new FB post which is gonna get me at least 5 shares.
This up here is a culmination of how social media continues to dictate how our lives should be. We are expected to lead perfect lives, do everything we want, achieve every dream we can think of and NO isn’t in our dictionary anymore.
Generations previous to our own knew how to handle pain, accept life and move on. Being a rooter for social change, I kind of find myself caught in the crossfire sometimes.
Rejections hurt a lot. I can’t handle the NO. Neither can you. And we all believe there is nothing we can’t achieve if we put in extra hours of work. Second- best is for losers as we deserve only the best. Meritocracy is everything.
If you are in the same boat as me, blame no one. We are just forced to think in this particular way thanks to the world around us.
And then comes in the element of surprise: FATE
“You cannot connect the dots, looking backwards but only looking forward. MEC taught me that. It is true, things make sense only when I visit them backwards. Why I am here, how I am here.
But one look at my future and I start turning my back on it. Everyone around me assumes my life is all figured out. The best part is that other people seem to know me better than myself. And I find that pretty assuming.
Proud.
Today, we invited all the teachers to meet us for the one last time on the occasion of it being our last day of class. We had mostly the entire CS Department in our class and there was just one emotion running high. Everybody was proud of our class — the long journey every one of us had endured to get where we are today. We are all looking at a bright future ahead thanks to our teachers, our parents and last but not the least, ourselves.
Excited.
I’ll let this picture speak for itself.
As for me, here is what the next chapter looks like.
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Pic Credits: Nibras Roshan
