As We Leave…#20

Pranav Kulkarni is an undergraduate of Y15 batch from in the department of Mechanical Engineering. Have a look at his journey at IITK.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

  – Robert Frost

I have stood by these lines as far as possible in the last four years while following my intuition. Right from the beginning, when I was almost forced by my peers and family to choose IITB, I chose IITK. Ever since I made that decision, I had promised myself that no matter what anyone around me said, I would do what my heart ached for me to do. Even if it was the most popular choice or the least, at the end of these adventurous four years, I can most definitely say, I couldn’t have been more grateful.

I remember the lines a professor said not only in our class but also during our farewell: The funny thing about running the rat race is, no matter where you end up at the end of the race, be it the topmost or bottommost position, you will remain a rat. Not only is this statement funny but also most accurately describes the current state of affairs in our world. And I was following what my professor said long before I had even heard it. And that has made all the difference.

I have not met a single person who did not go through a rough patch in their lives. Be it in their early childhood because of bullies, or in college because of academics or because of unrequited love 😛 No matter how hopeless the situation might seem to you, there is always someone who would believe in you and will be there to support you. I have seen people rise from their lowest to the top with a wide smile. I have seen these people go through several sessions with a counsellor to no avail only until they found their true calling when they came through. I was one of these people. It is not as important as what you do than it is why you do it. So no matter what you feel like doing if you have a strong why you will get through! More often than not, when people go through a bad patch in their lives, most of them are alone and don’t have a confidant to talk to about their sorrows and hardships.

My life went on with many such highs and lows, I was without an intern even until the end of my sixth semester, I had three PORs and had worked hard for each one of them and those were my highest days working tirelessly for something much bigger than myself. I was sad, frustrated, angry, happy, ecstatic, carefree at different points in this three-year journey for a myriad of reasons. It was during Techkriti 2018 that I met a friend who gave me a book that talked about death and that was my introduction to the Bhakti Vedanta Club IITK.

You may or may not have heard about BVC but allow me an introduction. So BVC IITK is a group of students who try and implement the ancient Vedic knowledge into their lives. The references for this knowledge is the holy Bhagavad Gita and Shrimad Bhagavatam. Although I am not a stringent follower of its principles, I can tell you about my experience. My final year was filled with many situations which would have involved me getting sad over or overthinking about all of it but also whatever I learned at BVC, it has given me a stability which I am most grateful for today and I am more stable and equipoised than I ever was. Spirituality is an essential part of our lives and most of us realise this towards the end of our lives. If you just go over YouTube and search for spiritual living, you will find so many different ways of meditation, spirituality etc. Not only are there so many different ways but also these have been existing for millennia now.

Counselling and therapy might seem like a bad thing but coming from someone who has been through multiple such sessions, I can assure you that talking helps. Even if you don’t find a solution you want or like, talking to someone who has your best interests at heart will always help be it a few millennia ago when Lord Krishna counsels Arjuna on the battlefield or be it a few millennia in the future (if humanity is successful in restoring Earth that is 😛 ).

There will always be a dream that you wish to fulfill but no matter how hard you try, you just wouldn’t get it. That was the internship season for me. Until the last day of the arrival of companies I was left with nothing. The company for which I thought I was fit, raised my expectations only to break them all due to unavailability of time. I was never a fan of the corporate culture, trying to profit some high ranked individual who doesn’t even know you. And yet here I was running the “rat” race for a good internship. Had I obtained an intern position, I might have gotten trapped into thinking that this was how my life was supposed to be. I felt defeated; I was vulnerable; I felt I wasn’t good enough. And yet here I was asking a professor who taught me a course to find me an industrial intern. Although I was miserable for the most part through that intern, it made me realize my true calling. I decided to give the GRE and TOEFL and almost had myself convinced that higher education is necessary. Soon, I was applying to numerous universities, and unlike most of the population, I concentrated my efforts towards European Universities and rightly so, saved most of the financial burden on myself and my family.

I had entered IITK in an era of rising CSE dominance in almost every field, be it placements, internships, research and yet in my 7th semester as I was glancing over the list of companies coming for placements, as lucrative as their packages seemed, I despised the thought of sitting in front of computer screens 40 hours per week. Although that is how I had passed so many of my courses at IITK, it didn’t seem like a feasible option for me considering the internship experience I had. I had set my eyes on only the core companies, and after a few unqualified tests, a couple lost interviews and rejecting one company during the interview, I landed a core Mechanical Engineering job. From almost believing that I wasn’t good enough to landing a job in a sector I genuinely wanted to work in, I finally connected the dots looking backward. Right then and there I realized through all the sad faces at the end of every placement day and hopeless interviews, everything falls into place for everyone. No matter how hard the going might get, I truly believe that the only person stopping us from reaching our highest potential is none other than ourselves.

Back in my second semester, I met with an accident, and after a couple of hours of surgery and three weeks of missed classes, I had lost all hope and was considering dropping the semester. Although I found myself in a tough spot, every professor, friend, and wingmate was there to help me out. I got to know a lot many people even more closely than I ever knew them before. So even if one feels that there’s only bad in difficult times, trust me when I say that there’s always something to gain out of potentially bad experiences, be it out of accidents or be it through your mind playing tricks on you. I’ve been through many such experiences in the last four years, and I am sure most of you will do too. I just want you to know that even if you find it difficult to find, there is always a silver lining to every crisis, an opportunity in every discomfort. A chance to grow. One of the best ones at that.

Towards the later part of the second semester, I was assigned a task by the fourth year seniors of Hera Pheri Films. I was to talk to graduating students and ask them the message that they would like to give to themselves when they came in IITK as freshers. It was a weird experience for someone who was just in his second semester because even when I had seen all these chaapu seniors be bakait at what they did, here I was seeing them cry over reminiscing the last four years of their lives. Like many others, I had never thought I would be able to gather so many memories worth crying over at the end, but IITK has a way to make sure everyone has moist eyes while graduating. It began with a pressurizing orientation week in the first semester to an accident in the second. In third semester I  became an engineer in SAE and later got rejected the position of Assistant Coordinator in the Counselling Service in the fourth. A Goa trip in the winter break was a good start to become the Astronomy Club coordinator and later manage Ritambhara in the fifth semester. A kickstart for the sixth semester with a Haridwar trip to rigorous placement season in the seventh and ended with a nostalgic eighth semester, I guess IITK made me a human. A human who will never be afraid to follow his heart, who will never be afraid to care for others, who will never be afraid to make new friends, who will never be afraid to cry on his day of graduation.

I know this post is rife with so many ‘fundaes’ and details which may not be relevant to most of you. However, I believe my experience could give hope to someone who might be going through something similar. I want to conclude by saying that there would be similar things happening in your life, positive or negative. Now while I stand at the brink of new beginnings, I know that even though all of this matters in terms of my overall growth, being happy in any situation is a matter of choice rather than just a state of mind. You are your choices; you are your beliefs; you are infinite potential.

Pranav

Edited by: Avisha