21) Campus Blues

My heart pounded even as I opened the courier with a Jamnalal Bajaj logo. The mail was a terse two liner informing I have been selected for the MMS course and report by a said date. Since then there has no end of a parade of friends and relatives congratulating me on my good fortune; certainly something to cheer for a girl who never ventured outside of Madurai and her father a clerk at Indian Bank.

I was shell shocked even within the first week of campus at Mumbai. I was sharing it with a Gujarati girl from Baroda and God; never have I seen a vainer person. She would cut her nails first thing in the morning and her dresses were far too daring. I put up with Neha’s antics- always crooning on the phone with her boyfriend and prone to talk about clothes, fashion and music 24x7 instead of a sentence of Kotler or Fred Luthans.

By the first fortnight, I was at my wit’s end. It looked like I was living in a time wrap in Madurai while the rest of the world had moved on. I found many girls enjoying a drink; almost everyone had a boyfriend, and lived in a different era with no restrictions. My conservative mind could never accept girls visiting the boys in the men’s hostel dead in the middle of the night. Sometimes I wondered whether I was in India for this looked a scene from a third grade Hollywood flick.

Soon, I was the “fuddy duddy” of the batch and no one cared for me. My shame came out in the open when none volunteered to accommodate me in their teams for a HR project until forcefully fitted into one of them by the professor.

It was the same disaster scrip at the mess hall; I had none for company and even disposed I had to visit the clinic alone. Soon, I turned depressed for being a social wreck.

The images of flashy classmates; those bright lights and colours; drinking, partying, and driving in cars accentuated my loneliness. I was just a simple girl and no one cared two hoots for me. I was fast sinking into a depression and after the first semester packed my baggage to Madurai in desperation. Paralyzed by fear, I was at the end of my resources and nerves sticking over. I was indeed good for nothing and can’t even complete a course.

My aunt Bhanumathi sensed my hopelessness as I recounted Mumbai tales where I was treated like a dirt and plague.

She felt I was plain dumb and suggesting, “You must learn to play by the rules of the campus and can’t afford to stick out like a sore thumb”.

She said,” Look, you are from a different culture and a different upbringing and nothing is superior or inferior. Just keep smiling and be friendly and pretty soon you will have your own set of friends. You don’t have to get carried away by their flashiness and instead concentrate on your studies. Remember, no one can ever ignore a “cheerful face” or one who is genuinely interested in others”.

She put me on a yoga course and packed me off to Mumbai saying that if I do not complete the course then I would live in regret the rest of my life.

Slowly, I got absorbed into the system and had my own set of friends. My presentations in the class and helpful nature were appreciated. In addition, I also began to see a lot of commonality and even grew sympathetic to their fast way of life. I learnt that my core values need to accommodate new winds of western thoughts and be more open to change.

I was so happy graduating and later joining a MNC that took me to the US. The lessons of adapting to a new place learnt in Mumbai will stand me in good stead.