“So how are your studies going...in your college...ah..what was the name?”

“Amrita school of engineering aunty. It's going great", I responded.

The hint of mockery was clear in the question. Honestly, this was one of the questions I had dreaded ever since I failed to clear the IIT JEE. Like every other IIT aspirant, I changed cities after 10th for coaching in one of the best coaching centers. I was one of those brilliantly bright approximately 15 lakh students who dream to make their mark in the top 10 percent in India. So. Small town girl, big new city. A dingy little room to put up, a nebulous dream. And an even bigger sense of responsibility towards a humble home, back in the village. Damn! Sounds like a cliche Indian web series plot. But this is no fiction, but the truth of thousands of aspirants like me.

I studied really hard, two years without a break, no social media, no outings and no friends, but competitors. My walls were crammed with formulas and diagrams, and I slept in between a pile of books.

Finally came the D-day. Perhaps my best was still not the best. With a general category, I failed to get into a good IIT. Those 3 hours had apparently decided my life.

On one hand, some of my friends got into the IITs and became “the face of the flex" across the streets and served as a bait on the morning newspapers to lure the next year's lot of students and parents. On the other hand, one of my friends got clinically depressed and locked himself in his dark room for months. Some, like us, got completely forgotten by the coaching giant, like we, the average never existed.

I took admission with CSE in Amrita School of Engineering, at the Amritapuri campus, because of my knack for coding. In the past two years, the burden of expectations and the cutthroat competition had ruthlessly throttled down my creativity to nothingness. The pure ambiance of this college embraced me with open arms and nurtured the seed of fresh thought in me. I started painting and writing poetry again. The college slowly walked me into a complete social, mental and spiritual well-being.

I came to know that this campus has 3 very active clubs with a commendable track history:

FOSS@Amrita: It is a club where a group of students learns and do contributions to open source organizations. In 2016, 11 out of 16 selections in Google Summer of Code are from this club(Source). Foss@Amrita is ranked 10th in the world ranking in terms of GSOC selections. Many members are fully funded to study at various universities across EU as a part of their degree.

Team Bi0s: The CTF team is the #1 team in India in India and has been organizing InCTF, the very first large scale CTF competition in India, for 6 years now. The club was also the first to start a CTF competition (InCTF junior) and summer training camp for school students in India.

ICPC: The members of the club mostly prepare for ICPC and have qualified for ACM ICPC world finals twice in 2014 and 2015. Graduated members of this team too are rocking the cradles of the world.

I joined the FOSS club in the very beginning, along with a number of other 1st year students. I found a group of highly enthusiastic and welcoming seniors. Coming from the very competitive atmosphere of coaching class, I was surprised to see that the seniors were helping us selflessly! No, our mentors would not spoon-feed us, but only guide us towards the right path. In other words, they would only increase our thirst and make us capable enough to go quench our thirst on our own. The Internet has immense power, only if we know how to use it well. Whatever be the problem, we can surely “Google it”, without being dependent on anyone. FOSS@Amrita taught me how to “learn to learn" on my own.

Under the able guidance of our mentor, I soon realized, I would be more interested to do cybersecurity and moved to the Bi0s team.

The Indian government has embarked on a programme to turn the country into a digitalized economy with many initiatives like Digital India, demonetization, etc. As a result, increasing amount of citizen’s data will be stored digitally and a large number of transactions will be carried out online. With cheap and easy access, the internet has reached every common man. They put across their sensitive information on the Internet with basically zero knowledge about security, making themselves vulnerable to cyber-criminals and hackers. Keeping this in mind, the scope of this field in near future in India, and the world at large is endless.

Till date, I have been working in Cybersecurity. We have a separate lab with biometric access where we get a perfect work atmosphere, to work as long as we desire. I have been in contact with many friends in IITs, who are really talented but don’t find this kind of a support system and facilities in their college. They either have no such active clubs or have ones just coming up with no such outstanding track record over the years, unlike ours. Many of them have even spent a fortune on workshops to learn cybersecurity. But how can a few days’ workshop be compared to everyday hard work and regular 1 to 1 guidance?

There are many bright students who failed after going to the IITs, got addicted to gaming and wasted their time, being comfortable under the warmth of a reputed name and government facilities. So what is it that makes the difference? It’s the hard work that we students put in every single day, staying late in the lab after college hours, support of the best-in-the-country teammates and the vision of dedicated mentors, that form the recipe to a bright future.

Today, I am glad to say that I have been a part in laying the foundation of probably India’s first All girls’ cybersecurity team, where cybersecurity has been largely a male-dominated field, and there are many opportunities especially for girls in this field, which the poorly represented girl students at many IITs are not even aware of.

I am grateful to have taken admission in Amrita School of Engineering, Amritapuri. Yes, the rules are strict, there is less of the so-called “college-kind-of fun”, but there is also an awesome growth atmosphere and exposure. The rules are stricter for girls, but we who want to work can get an authorized letter from responsible faculties to stay out till 9.30 pm. The mess food sometimes gets boring, but it's reasonable and healthy. I am a Bengali foodie. Who else but me would have had to adjust more to Kerala mess food? Everything on earth has its pros and cons, and here, the pros surely out-wing the cons.

Amrita University is ranked the No.1 Private University in India by the official Govt. of India ranking system, the NIRF. Amrita is the 9th best University (overall) in the country, in the 2017 NIRF ranking list published by the MHRD

Not getting the IIT tag, is surely not the end of the story, but a Prologue to endless possibilities. And yes, aunty, today as I respond to your mockery-laden question, I realize, how lucky I am, and I don’t dread your questions anymore.

"If you are good at something, never give it for free."

Sometime back, some apparently wise person told me, after seeing my paintings that I should make better use of them, participate in contests, hold exhibitions, sell, etc. He especially emphasized on the selling part. He also told me never to gift my paintings, as a few years later they would not value them enough and they would be just lying in some dusty corner.

I was kind of convinced with what he said. My paintings are dear to me, if I give it to someone, it really means a lot. My heart ached in remembrance of affection unreciprocated, and at the thought of my so dear paintings being wasted on people, who hadn't even talked to me for years now.

But yesterday, I went to one of my childhood Math's teacher's house. I was seeing him after four whole years! As I touched his feet a gust of old memories gushed through my head. He was the one who built me up and strengthened my concepts since a tender age, for five years, my dearest teacher. He used to scold me when I talked in the class or didn't do the homework, and had (and still has) a well-varnished cane too! And it all was a sweet memory now.  I was one from his very first batch of students and his family, consisting of his old parents too loved me a lot. It was always more than a modern day commercial student-tutor relation.

His old father had been bedridden for years now, he could hardly talk and move his hands. After the classes, at times, I would sit beside his bed and talk to him. One particular day is clearly etched to my mind when I was sitting beside him, he called his 24x7 nurse to give him the bottle of biscuits. He couldn't really move much, so he held the bottle horizontally, by pushing it with one of his legs against the wall and slowly, with all his effort, rotated the lid of the bottle with his feeble hand to fetch a biscuit for me. He told me to take it. It was and is the biscuit I hated the most on earth, Marie Gold. I never ever ate it at home or anywhere else, whatever be the condition. My mom had tried in vain an infinite number of times. But that day, I just took it and ate. In silence.

Seven years back, on one such day, I painted this Buddha's painting for him and gifted it to him. He instantly had someone called to have it framed. Since then, it hung on the wall in front of his bed.

Time passed. I changed states. We almost lost contact.

Years later, one day when I was in Delhi, Sir called me to give me this news. He was no more now. This gift still hangs there. The family still talks about it when visitors come and ask about it. My name surfaces in discussions, in the midst of people I don't know, while I am far away in some city they don't know. I am remembered by half-forgotten bonds that had ones sprung up. This remembrance is much more than any money I would get by selling my art to hang on a arty wall of a big house. My dear painting wouldn't be so at home.

I looked at it and felt good to see how I painted when I was small, I noticed many flaws here and there. But I forgive the ten years younger me and smile at my old little mistakes. :)

I removed it from the wall, brushed off the dust and placed it back in its place. My teacher's enthusiasm in helping me do it filled me with warmth. The best place it could ever be in.

I was no more sorry for the paintings I gifted to people. If not all, some of them have found more than what I could ever give them.

To my Maths Teacher,

Dear sir, I find this weird why it is so difficult to tell our's parents how grateful we are to them, may be because a thank you is too little a word. 'Thank you' is for the rest of the world. And I just feel overwhelmed when I even think about it, let alone express it. For my parents and teachers like you, 'thank you' is never ever enough and like I could never tell this to my parents, I could never tell this to you. I type this with a lump in my throat.

Off-late I have been seeing lots of posts of this kind on Facebook, where a photo of a dark-skinned, fat or skinny person is shared which says tag a certain XYZ(a very common name).

 I get that people are trying to make fun of the fact that a certain name is too common. But people, there are much better ways of doing that. Okay?

I can’t believe people’s mentality has stooped so low! How can you mock a person because he/she looks or dresses up in a certain way? They are simply from a different background, race, etc. They are just humans like you and me. They too breathe, struggle, toil, succeed and celebrate. They have a personal life and they surely wouldn’t be cool with random people using their face for memes of this sort.They aren’t mere objects to be laughed at for your merriment. I mean this is so damn upsetting!

It's high time we get this straight. Each person is uniquely beautiful. No fixed parameters for beauty can be set by the media, society or you and me. Each person is designed by God, to be differently beautiful regardless of the exteriors.

I find beauty in the spark in a person’s eyes when he/she relishes his/her favorite street food, I find beauty in the sweat of the one working hard to achieve a certain goal, I am in love with the positive vibes one radiates, I am in love with the glow in one's face when one talks about a certain passion or dream! I find beauty in their imperfections! We all are imperfect, yet complete, gorgeous in our own little imperfect ways!

    No one gives you the right to judge someone on the basis of appearance. Fair skin doesn’t ensure a fair heart.

Please stop this racism, body-shaming, and hypocrisy on social media. I request you all to not share or encourage such posts. Report them.

AND! By the way...

She is  Gabourey Sidibe, an American actress who made her acting debut in the 2009 film Precious, a role that brought her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. This is the link if you wanna check the number of awards she received for her phenomenal acting skills. To know more go here!

AND...

He is Mark Jerrold Henry, an American power-lifter, Olympic weightlifter, strongman, and professional wrestler, who is currently signed to WWE on the Raw brand. He has been one of the most popular star of WWE. To know more click here.

To those who are sharing their photos, you stand no chance of marrying them anyway. :)

You are not beautiful like me, You are beautiful like YOU! 💓