As We Leave #14: Embracing the (Extra)Ordinary

Keerthana M Arun is a graduating Y19 from the Department of Physics. In this piece, she takes us on a transformative journey, filled with resilience, profound friendships, thrilling research pursuits, and the ever-changing landscapes of college life.

Disclaimer:- The views presented below are the author’s own and are not in any manner representative of the views of Vox Populi as a body or IIT Kanpur in general. This is an informal account of the author’s experiences at IIT-K.

When I was filling in the form for As We Leave, they asked me what set me apart and what I could talk about in the minimum number of words that would make sense for at least some people that only I can tell. That got me panicky because I have a pretty regular (ish) life at IITK, nothing chaapu or exciting. But, then, this would be a feeling I am qualified to talk about. Maybe this is what people need to hear – being normal(ish) feels great, and my life is definitely not falling apart if I average it over a month’s time. Also, I feel talking about my entire 4 years of life at college would include a lot of mundane things. So, going to talk about four things I feel is a good start to describe IITK for me, and as always, DM me for more stories if you think I might have any that you are into. So, returning to the four things – Research interests, Friends, Intense hall love, and mental breakdowns. I chose them in quasi-chronological order based on phases in my first semester.

So, I chose Physics at IITK because I knew that research(in Biology or Physics) was something I found appealing at that point in time. Physics felt marginally cooler and gave me a scholarship, so I picked that. I did not know what or how I wanted to do and wanted answers from day 1. As you might have guessed, I reached out to second years and to a Prof in How I met my Professor. The first lot told me that research was hard and Physics labs a complete pain. The professor told me to do my courses well and then get back about projects. That was not the answer I wanted, but I tried to do the courses well with questionable success. I took courses in everything I thought I would be interested in from 3rd semester, like Number Theory, Bioinformatics, Information Theory, Data Structures and Algorithms, Feminist Theory, Molecular Biology, and International Diplomacy. Eventually, Bioinformatics, along with Molecular Biology and Information Theory, stuck with me. I also started doing a project from 2nd year summers in Bioinformatics. In my 3rd year summer, I got to work in a lab, and I loved the lab experience. So, by the end of summer, I was sure I wanted to do a Ph.D. in quantitative biology with my feet in both wet lab and computational work. But the issue was, what exactly did I want to do in this vast domain? It took a couple of months to put it down for the applications, some interviews with the programs, and many rejections by March. That was a scary moment that took me back to the first semester when I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do but with no actual leads. However, the difference IITK made was that I knew who to reach out to, gave me the perseverance to send out 100 emails for research assistantship roles, and a support system to catch me when I fell into the depths of aimlessness (more about that later). This part of my story does have a good ending – I have a research assistant role for the next two years in a domain I love, and it gives me the time to sketch out the finer details. You might wonder if my interest in biological research waned in between, and you would be right. It did because of some things I tried on campus (like the fem theory course). Still, I knew it was right for me because even after a long day, I was happy to discuss the nitty-gritty details of some topic in semiconductors or throw a night out to work on some code for my project. This was something I was unwilling to do without external motivation for most other things.

The next worry in my head in my first semester was about FRIENDS. I always dreamed of having a large friend group in college, going on trips with them, and being there together forever. So, the first few weeks did not really work out like that. People appeared to find tons of friends, and I was kind of hanging out with some wingies and always on the lookout for “the friend.” By November, I had two great friends – Saumya and Debaditya and was super excited. I think that they were what made my first semester, with academic disappointments and a weird shade of helplessness to make my life better, doable. This continued to the second semester, before and after the pandemic struck. Online, however isolating, was a medium I thrived on socially. Conversations over Facebook posts, many messenger groups spammed at once, and hour-long calls with people I had just met over the next two years helped me reconnect with my acquaintances and reach out to new people, especially seniors. I was a part of the Counselling Service in my second and third years, which required me to push beyond my comfort zone to talk to many random people. This also allowed me to organize the Wabi Sabi contest, wherein my friend group literally converged into a WhatsApp group. And they are the people who make IITK home for me and the ones I waved bye to as I left – Meghna, Saumya, Uma, Pradunma, Shashi, and Debaditya. This has led me to realize that while I can actively search for “friends,” I will meet them when I meet them in places I authentically wish to be – scrabble matches, CS core team, wing competitions for Jigyasa.

WhatsApp Image 2023-04-15 at 18.50.23 (1)

I am sure hall feeling in IITK has a whole series for itself, but it was slightly different for people at Hall 6. In the first year, Jigyasa was the first time we realized there was a significant difference and how “merit” is highly dependent on who the person is or what their hall is. We were literally termed “the potential girlfriends for the people from other halls who helped our wing win.” This continued onto Takneek when we just participated. But as a batch, we broke the expectations from hall 6, and that was the first time I felt that overwhelming feeling of loyalty to a bunch of people I lived with. Then came January, and with it, Galaxy. I still remember the speeches at GBM and the sparse attendance. I wanted to give it my all and signed up for dance. Then came many, many nights of practice and days of PHY103. The seniors seemed to have infinite energy to make us go over each choreography multiple times, which gave us first-years the determination to stick with it no matter what. We were rewarded with the dance cup, and that is one of the proudest moments on campus. I tell every Y22 I meet about it when they ask about my years on campus, and I still feel the warmth of pride on my face as I write about it. The second encounter with this feeling was in my 8th semester, with the restarting of Takneek and Galaxy. I wanted us to be the seniors we could not find in the first year to guide and motivate. I really hoped that things would change, and they both did and did not. As a hall, we did better than ever before, but I am confident we could have done better. This feeling especially hit after the SnT night out when there were literally four of us from the pool in the morning. I am sure as a hall we can do much better and we shall.

And the heaviest topic for the ending – dealing with mental breakdowns on campus. The first hit me sometime during my first midsemester exams. The feeling was a mixture of academic disappointment with no good ideas to improve my situation, finding it hard to hang out with people I genuinely wanted to, and being homesick after 3 months on campus. It included a lot of overthinking, keeping it all in my head, and just bursting out in tears routinely. And after a particularly sad bout of crying over a call with mum, we decided that the best idea was to go to the counselors to figure out what was going on and what I could do about it. The first session was cathartic, and I walked out a lighter person – literally because a lot of shed tears and mentally because I could finally tell someone about everything in my head. This also helped me categorize my “life problems” into things I could do something about and those I needed to accept and move on. And somehow, by November, they did with a couple more sessions and a kind of acceptance about academics in my head. My second breakdown occurred in 6th semester though I think it started sometime mid 5th semester. This time academics were going pretty great, and my CPI had recovered well. But I felt like a disappointment to everyone I knew and had lost interest in courses. Back on campus, living in the rooms took its toll, and I lost all my productivity. So, this time it was different because I knew exactly what was wrong, but I still could not fix it. My academics began to tank again, and loneliness began to set in again as I could not share this feeling of dread. Summer came in the middle of this, and I went to Vancouver for my MITACS internship. It was my dream internship and, at the same time, one of the experiences which helped me learn about myself and what I value in life. I was having bouts of productivity interspersed with long gloomy days. The return to campus made me acknowledge the sheer privilege of being surrounded by people I loved, doing the work I was enthusiastic about, and just existing in a familiar place. Perhaps, this feeling was what tipped me over the dreadful times.

I do understand this must have been TMI for most people, but I hope you get the point that when looking back, certain experiences are etched deeper than others. It was a narrative decision (thank you, Suchitra ma’am, for the course and the many discussions about this) to include these parts of my last four years and exclude so many others because this is perhaps my unique offering, or so I hope. The four years were a long time because IITK runs at 1.5 times compared to the outside. Each day brings humidity, rain, intense sunlight, and chilly winds. These experiences have taught me to weather it all out and even enjoy it. My last message would be that you will encounter many critics among friends, family, and professors, but the harshest one is you. It took me some time to figure that out, and I believed people wanted me to be someone I was not. But looking back, it was my inner critic that wore that disappointed frown. So here is a poem( a villanelle, please look it up) I wrote to put away those feelings.