THE YOUNG INDIA FELLOWSHIP EXPERIENCE

"It was the Best of Times, It was the Worst of Times,

It was the Age of Wisdom, It was the Age of Foolishness,

It was the Epoch of Belief, It was the Epoch of Incredulity,

It was the Season of Light, It was the Season of Darkness,

It was the Spring of Hope, It was the Winter of Despair,

We had Everything before us, We had Nothing before us,

We were all going direct to Heaven, We were all going direct the other way"

-CHARLES DICKENS

I can think of no better words to sum up my YIF experience than Dickens' wise musings in the classic, "A Tale of Two Cities". Over the course of the past one year, I was asked about my fellowship experience almost on a daily basis. While my feelings about the program remain largely ambivalent, in my mind there is no doubt about what was the best thing about the program. It was something I was most proud to post about on social media. I am usually not one for show off but when some of the world's most well educated, intellectually profound, professionally sound, highest achievers and authorities in their chosen field of work travel half way across the globe just to spend a month and a half with you, it becomes an exception to the rule under 'special ocassion'. In the Young India Fellowship that happens in each class, every term, throughout the year.

There were times during the fellowship when I wondered what could I have possibly done to deserve the good fortune of being taught the basics of a course from the legends in the field. Understandably, the Imposter Syndrome runs high among the fellows. It took me the whole year to feel like a student truly deserving of the prestigious 'Young India Fellow' badge of honor and this happened despite my rather long list of achievements. Make no mistakes though, the Imposter Syndrome does take its toll on the vulnerable and sensitive. Ashoka University is rather infamous for not being a safe space for mental health inspite of their best efforts and a truly dedicated Counselling Cell like no other university in India. Me and many of my fellow fellows suffered from acute depression and suicidal tendencies for a significant portion of the fellowship. The reasons varied from work/academic/performance pressure to sudden dip in self esteem to broken relationships as a result of the fellowship to not getting what we expected out of the place to simply not being able to perform to the best of one's ability or doing one's best and still not achieving good results. In a place filled with brilliant students and Professors such feelings are but natural and when you walk with giants, it is easy to get stepped on. Due to severe mental health issues and subjective nature of grading in YIF, escapist tendencies arose full force. Consequently, classes were missed, courses were flunked, assignments were not submitted, CGPA hit an all time low, relationships were thrown for a toss and all that remained was one glorious mess of a fellowship.

This Blog Post lists out all the courses I took this year alongwith the names of the esteemed Professors who I was fortunate enough to learn from. I won't write anything about their achievements. Instead, I would post a link to either their Wikipedia or official professional profiles. Once you click on those links, you will understand why there just could not be enough space in one blog post to describe these Professors or their body of work as each one deserves a very lengthy and detailed Blog Post. (I am pretty sure even their Wikipedia/official professional profiles list merely one-third of their achievements as they are too humble to update the record.) [Please note that for the sake of this post I am refraining from the use of any titles such as Prof. or Dr. and the order of listing here is Term-wise as these courses appeared on my Academic Calendar]

1. Foundations of Leadership - Dwight Jaggard

2. Political Economy of India's Development - Mihir Shah

3. Women, Society and Changing India - Urvashi Butalia

4. Mathematical Thinking - Gaurav Bhatnagar

5. Making Sense of Indian Elections - Gilles Verniers

6. Gender and Culture in Bombay Cinema - Geetanjali Chanda

7. Fundamentals of Law - Apurv Mishra

8. Paradise Lost : A Text for Our Times - Malabika Sarkar

9. Art Appreciation - Anunaya Chaubey

10. Heart of Leadership - Kenwyn Smith and Flora Taylor 

11. Advanced Group Dynamics - Kenwyn Smith and Flora Taylor

12. Totalitarian Century - Dilip Simeon

13. Popular Perceptions of Indian Reality and Sociological Enquiry - Dipankar Gupta

14. Whose Heritage Is It? - Shobhita Punja

15. Reason and the Makers of Modern India - Rudrangshu Mukherjee

16. Behavioral Change - Kai Qin Chan

17. Economics and Public Policy: An Introduction to Applied Microeconomics - A.K. Shiva Kumar

18. Managing A Business - Rishikesha Krishnan

19. Philosophy and Cognitive Science - Ritwik Agarwal

20. Globalization, Migration and Diaspora Identities - Sumita Chatterjee

21. Critical Writing: Language and Reality - Anuj Gupta

The following is the list of the courses which I was not formally a part of but were parallely on offer at YIF:

1. The Historical Moment - Patrick French

2. Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Sabyasachi Bhattacharya

3. History, Memory and Memorialization - Nayanjot Lahiri

4. Statistics - Santosh Venkatesh

5. The Coming of the Robots: Globalization, Industrial Revolution and Jobs - Nayan Chanda

6. Nature in Transition - Rinki Sarkar

7. Shakespeare and the World - Jonathan Gill Harris and Madhavi Menon

8. The Arts of Communication - Mihir Mankad

9. Visual Communication - Sanjeev Chatterjee

10. Law and Economics - Shubhashis Gangopadhyay

11. Urbanization - Partha Mukhopadhyay and Marie Helene Zerah

12. International Relations - Eswaran Sridharan

13. Kabir: The Poet of Vernacular Modernity - Purushottam Agarwal

14. India and the World: A Startegic History Since 1945 - Pratyay Nath

15. Evolution, Economics and Reasons - William Green

16. Designing Innovation - Kim Grinfeder

17. Approaches to Grassroots Community Service in India - Dev Tayde

18. Health Systems: Lessons from Comparing National Health Systems - Manoj Mohanan

19. Ecology and Global Modernity - Aseem Shrivastava

20. Theory and Practice of Intellectual Property Rights - Rajshree Chandra

The strutcure of YIF is such that in addition to academic courses, fellows in teams of three work on a client-based project called the Experiential Learning Module. It could be thought of as an Internship only it is far more gruelling and taxing. It is more like a full day job reserved for the weekends. My batch's ELM record was by far the worst and we also had the most horrendous experiences both with the clients and the YIF ELM administrative team. I worked on Public Policy analysis with the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) under the flagship of their research wing called the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Research Foundation.

As the fellowship comes to an end, I am asked what would I miss most about this place. As I type this in the Library, I realize the answer lies all around me. It is the place, the unique ecosystem and socio-academic culture that Ashoka has created that I will miss. It can't be the people as I never truly miss anybody. In my humble opinion, no matter how good you are you can always be replaced. People and relationships are always replaceable. However, the space which one lives and breathes in, at a particular time in the universe, never comes back or returns to its original state. I may come back here as a Teaching Assistant in future and yet this space will never be the same.

I will miss the swimming pool where I spent my evenings in a desperate bid to beat the summer heat as morbid as my depressed mental state. I will miss my carefully decorated room which remained my refuge and witness in the worst of times. I will miss the large spectacle of Dr. Reddy's Auditorium which staged some of the grandest shows and also Dwight's classes. I will miss the MPH where I danced my woes away as we partied till dawn every chance we got and where I was fortunate enough to be audience to some of the most inventive Shakespearan play adaptations (under the supervision of the brilliant Professor duo Madhavi Menon and Jonathan Gill Harris).

I will miss all those classes and courses where I got to be the 'Shining Star'. I will miss terribly all those delightfully friendly teachers and TAs who took out the time to genuninely care about me. I will miss the dreadful Critical Writing classes which I attended only because my Writing Preceptor was the sweetest, most empathatic, kind and understanding person I met in YIF.

I will miss the signature red brick walls with posters full of impactful messages of social change. I will miss the uniquely mystifying architecture which at times made no sense and posed itself as a design challenge (as I learnt in Prof. Kai Qin Chan's classes). I will miss the deeply meaningful art installations across the campus.

I will miss being surrounded by thousands of people yet feeling more alone than I ever have. I will miss feeling like an ant walking with giants (metaphorically speaking, of course).

I will miss the utter unconditional freedom the likes of which are unimaginable anywhere else in India let alone an academic institution - the freedom to question, be critical, genuinely be your most authentic self - no judgment, no questions asked, no permissions required. I will miss feeling accepted.

I will miss feeling like anything is possible and there are no limits to how high I can soar. I will miss feeling like my dreams are within reach. I will miss dreaming away like there's no tomorrow. I will miss reaching out for the stars. I will miss the zeal, enthusiasm and burning ambition that this place imparts which didn't let me sleep at night on many ocassions.

I will miss being my worst, most irresponsible, selfish, stupid, rebelious and reckless self. I will miss being lazy like I have never been. I will miss procrastinating indefinitely until I couldn't any more and then pulling illogical all nighters. I will miss waking up as late as 7:30 PM. I will miss living off Netflix and junk food without a care in the world. I will miss not caring for my grades. I will miss walking aimlessly across the campus at 4 AM on those long insomniac nights. I will miss eating out of vending machines. I will miss having the most elaborate, scrumptious meals post 3AM in the Dhaba. I will miss the nights I did not spend in my room, sleeping and waking up in all sorts of places on campus, embodying the true spirit of the Ashoka fest title 'Banjara'. I will miss not competing with anyone but myself. I will miss being around similar minds who made me believe that I am not "weird" for coming from a diverse array of educational and professional fields. I will miss feeling like I belong (in the strangest way possible). I will miss being anonymous and invisible. I will miss not being missed.

But more than anything else, I will miss the incredible habit of reading that this place relays to all who are fortunate enough to spend some time here, the good old Library in all its glory filled with wonderful books on diverse topics, the sheer diversity of courses I studied in this year and the variety of assignments which I worked on.

I have lived and died a thousand times within the fellowship. It was truly an experience like none other.