Final year - The Future and the Flashback!

So, being a final year student, the struggles are real. There will be new beginnings, post graduation thoughts, excelling in exams without arrears, keeping updated with current/real world that I missed during three years of college and all obscure, good and even scary thoughts crossing the path of my life. All the pending works has to be finished at great speed. Also, most of my time got absorbed by the rains and floods of Chennai now I am in a game called “Mission finishing college” where my goals are to finish all my assignments within few days along with exam tension and by bearing added special headache from the faculty. 

The most horrifying and dreadful thing to me is the queries asked about my career/future plans by my relatives of all kinds (aunts, uncles, acquaintances, relatives whom I have never met or spoke before – “strangers”) which can be an added pressure but for them I guess it is a desirable pleasure to intervene into our matters out of nowhere like it's a part of their routine. There is a term called Schadenfreude/ Epicaricacy – a pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune, which is what their behavior suggests. I feel like if they are so concerned in my life, fund me some money for my education or start-up business or provide me job opportunities or else just be polite and stop nagging me about my future plans repeatedly and bragging about your son’s/ daughter’s achievements. Basically, please stop including extra tension as a part of my life. 

So far, I have written four competitive exams for MBA and hoping to get placed in a good college. When my scores came and I was invited for Group discussion (GD) or Personal interviews (PI) from many colleges which are situated in Pune, Bhuvaneshwar, Bangalore, Delhi, etc. I took a phone interview for one college situated in Bangalore and got selected. And here comes fate’s play, my dad was like “a girl child should not go so far for studies it is not safe.” All my hopes to get placed in a proper institution went into drain. I can understand the concern but it is not fair to believe in old ideologies in 21st century and as a grownup I have right to choose what I want to do but as the fees is paid by him I had to obey his orders. 

The same incident happened to me for my under graduate course selection. The conditions were No co-ed, only Chennai, only women’s college, nearby to home, known/ safe area for girls, etc. So, I applied for all the women’s colleges with the course of my liking and just joined the one which selected me first. And I ended up studying B.Sc. Food science and Management. I had no idea what food science meant during my initial days of my college. I just chose it because murdering a vegetable (or any food) is not an offense. I had never communicated in English in my school days. All my classmates were fashionably updated most of them fluent in English and Hindi and I had sense of being the odd one out. I daily cried after college and was worried that college would be this horrifying for Three years. Most of my classmates had their schoolmates or besties and formed groups. I wasn’t included in any of them. I felt unwelcomed and secluded. Then slowly it changed I found the most unique, spectacular individuals as my friends and I am so glad I met them. Then I got adjusted to the college life. The transition between school life and college life is phenomenal.

Another struggle was the questions people asked about my course were annoying, dumb and made no sense. Some examples of those questions: Is it Home Science? (No); Is it like hospitality management (nahi), Is it cooking management (Uhh.... nope. Not studying b.sc in maid science), you can eat delicious food everyday right? (pfft.. who said I get to eat something edible and healthy food, indha course adhukum mela), you will cook nice stuff for your husband? (As long as he does not have a death wish he will avoid my cooking), you are so lucky that you get to study about food, right? (I am not a big foodie and it is kinda hard to concentrate and study my course without getting hungry) Nowadays I reply that I am doing M.B.B.S in food or I am a food doctor. Finally a question which is ridiculous and serious at the same time “why did you chose this course?” can be a million dollar question but the answer would be fate!

The bazaar/bizarre experience

The entrepreneur development cell of my college conducts an annual event for its students to showcase their business talents/tactics. Every year I used to think of participating but back off. But this time I wanted different experiences to remember my college days as my last semester going to end soon. So, I pushed my comfort levels and attended the meeting regarding the bazaar. The first thing required was forming a team. I wasn’t serious about keeping a stall until I spoke with my classmate about the details. The next thing was to choose what to sell at the stall. (I kept a food stall.) Delicious as it sounds keeping a stall that have perishable or requires purchase of many materials and cooking of those materials in bulk is not a fun thing to do.

After registering our stall, we get to sell tickets for the event. Let me give an important piece of advice from my ticket selling experience. Never feel sad, afraid or nervous while selling tickets; trust me that never work. At the same time, you need to analyse the body language, attitude and emotional state of the buyer because come on they are also common human being just like us. So in order to sell a ticket think like a buyer, think what you will offer along with the ticket, grab or provoke need for buying the ticket, etc. So, ticket selling was hard still the feel you get when a ticket gets sold is something you can brag about.

Due to floods in Chennai the date was postponed to December 26 & 27, 2015. Christmas night was a horror time for me; I started to think that I made a huge mistake investing in the stall. On the day of the event, I and my team members arranged all the required things on the table. Food stall gets crowded at a particular time and during some other time no one even gives a damn to at least see the menu and offers a food stall has. So, if any of you thinking of keeping a food stall the only mantra that helps is “Patience”. But still you can use other strategies like dragging known people and make them buy from you. Even though, I wasn’t astounded with my first stall experience still some new experience is better than nothing to remember 2015.

Belated happy new year!!

Buses & Bus stops

I have been traveling in buses for the past 2 years. By the way my college started; it went well until after that I had to take a bus. Too many holidays, Cold winds, and a distance of 1.5 Km between the college and the bus-stop can make anyone to think twice to take a bus. Even though I was super sleepy and tired, walking is something I always preferred, plus it doesn't cost you any money, just your calories. So, one step at a time with different music tunes from the memory to distract tiredness and reach my destination: The bus-stop. 

Finally!!! I reached the bus-stop. I felt proud of myself whenever I reach the bus-stop and this achievement is something unique and gives me satisfaction even though it is just a walk to reach a bus-stop. So, reaching bus-stop is like Level-1 task; Level-2 is known as waiting and having patience till the correct bus that takes you home arrives. While waiting, we observe a lot of things, the roads, the vehicles, the skies, the birds (mostly crows and pigeons here), etc. This doesn't happens when the travel is by own personal vehicle. So, at first my patience and waiting for the bus was good, until I got bored and weak as the bag I was carrying was heavy.

My thoughts wandered towards questioning the need for urban lifestyle, pollution, no chairs to sit at the bus-stop; what if the bus never arrives? (The Nightmare). I even thought about why humans don't have hibernation period. Also, certain thoughts like what if someone is stalking or staring at me can occur if the wait is too long. An eyesight similar to Binocular vision is extremely important in order to read the signboards on the bus or else suffer missing the correct bus which leads to even more waiting that will test your patience. At last, When the correct bus is coming, my first thought would be Is this a mirage? Is my bus really coming? When it is confirmed a sense of euphoria occurs to me. But reality checks in and shows the bus so crowded which makes me to think twice to get into the bus. Lesson learnt ~ when we get joy, we get haunted by disappointment. 

So, without any further thinking I get into the crowded bus, crammed with people who stare as if I am forbidden from entering a bus. Then, other struggles can be taking out the exact money to get a ticket; holding on to the metal rod which can only prevent from falling and being stable even though the bus is drove on bumps, pits, etc. At this time, I wish and pray teleportation is invented and available to use. When the bus-stop where I need to get down is soon to be reached, I need to reach the open end of the bus to get down so I had to try squirming in such a way I think Yoga is easy to do. Alas, I reach my place safely and the song “we are the champions” by Crazy Frog comes into the mind.

Thanks for reading :)

Rains of Chennai lead to my boredom

          College was something that I dreaded as a routine in my life. When finally the holidays are announced after my exams; I was definitely at cloud nine. But eventually, I got bored of holidays too. The same old Facebook, YouTube, and whole lots of websites became my cheerleaders during my holidays. Finally, I was counting days to enter the first day of my Final semester at college on November 16, 2015. And the skies in Chennai had other plans.

In Chennai, I believe most of the youth/students are diverse yet united by Rains. Because getting heavy rains in Chennai is like a spectacle for every Chennailite. And when it happens especially every school/college student like me turns the T.V. on and looks at the flashing News section of all the Tamil News channels. We all usually wish the college and schools announces holiday due to heavy rains. Whenever they announce holiday due to heavy rains that day has the beautiful sunshine. But this time it was different, the rains were constant and flooded the Chennai. Even though holidays are fun when there are rains it is hard to go out or take a vacation especially for a person who thinks too much while stepping out of the house.

So for past few days my life schedule is dependent on the Tamil news channels, Internet and weather. Now, I am dreading this kind of routine. By God’s grace me, my family and my friends are safe. But there is this feeling of getting annoyed by constant heavy rains, no college, no actual social interactions, no activity, etc. So here I am finally giving a try at blogging about my life experiences.

P.s. All the opinions above are mine and it can be pointless, nonsense, etc. But if you like it thanks for reading it. 

This area was near my house.. hope rains becomes less constant for a while. Picture courtesy: My dad