At the other side of the year...

What date was it? 16th of June? or was it 17th? No, it was 16th, I am sure. The day I arrived at Joka. Yet another campus, yet another degree, yet another platform for battle. I remember, on that day my mind kept on drifting back to the past, my days in school, my days in college, my first day away from home, amidst total strangers. This is what I wrote in my journal that night:-

Today, on my first evening at the IIM campus, or at "Joka" as it is popularly known, memories flash by infront of my eyes. Memories of struggles. The sight of a kid sitting in a rented room in the rural Purulia. The image of that kid sweating in the scorching summer in power cut, but still studying. The memories of the kid getting nightmares of failures and jeers. And now that kid is sitting on another table and writing this.

So far, all I have learnt is, life is fair, irrespective of what people might say. People get exactly what they deserve - no more, no less. Those who work hard and still fail to succeed do so probably because they dont think well, or strategise hard.

Now, at the end of my first year in IIMC, I am more of a manager. I have seen a lot of difficult times in these months, times that have tested me, stretched me beyond my limits, leaving me to discover that they were not my limits after all. I have made new friends, I have learnt new ways to live life. Never in this last one year did I want all this to end, not once. Not even on days when I got no sleep for over 60 hours, not even on days when half the batch criticised my decisions as a student representative. I could find a learning in each and every situation this place put me through, and this explains how much of a value add this place has been to me.

Tonight is practically the last night for our batch as freshers. Yes, there are official deadlines, but then, not all things can be defined in an academic calendar!