Orientation:
Nothing special to talk about our grand orientation that was conducted at India Habitat Center (yes the huge building you can see in Rang de Basanti). But if I do not mention the sumptuous meals that we were given it will be an injustice from my quarters. Indeed to be truthful I have never seen such grandeur in my life in terms of food and I must say I love Pasta! With exceptionally boring sessions not just in the mornings but also in the afternoons I could barely keep my eyes opened. But I tried my best to keep my eyes, if not my brain, open to the on goings.
I must say that in spite of being in Hyderabad Central University for past two years I never tried hard to speak to international students as such. Not because I was being a snob but because I never thought any of them can relate to me in any ways. But now at the orientation with half of the hall filled with international students I had to buck up my courage and speak to them. And I found that they were actually not as different as I had thought they would be. And an incident gave me more reasons to try my luck: all of them, along with the national students, seemed to be excited at the news of remuneration for the four days of our orientation. But who wouldn’t be if someone pays you for sitting through their sessions! And so I met my first team mate Zoë!
I introduced myself to Zoë, and actually was a little relieved that she wasn’t too upset to see me as her team mate. But even before we could explore deeply about how good we were to each other our major concern became our team mates. Yes the male community in our team- Mr Jatin and Mr Liam. Now both of us hadn’t seen these two individuals on the first day and were extremely worried about our upcoming project which included both research and video documentation. Answering to our queries the organizers told us that Mr Jatin had dropped out of the internship program and Mr Liam had faced problems with his flight. So we slowly settled with the fact that we were only three in our team now. Liam didn’t come for two days and I and Zoë had to do all the team building exercises. And during one of those exercises both I and Zoë found that both of us are disastrous at sketching. Finally Liam came on the third day. But we were glad that at least he got to do one team building exercise with us. My skepticism of being with two foreigners continued and I hardly stayed out with them (only to know how stupid I was).
On the day we were supposed to leave to our respective posting places, we- the Jaipur team, were almost left alone as the others had already taken off to their destinations. As there was no other go except to be with my team mates I decided to face the reality and experience the much dreaded task of bonding with them. Our Bus was at 5 in the evening so we planned to go to the ISKCON temple and the Bahai temple (there starts my first chapter of learning new things! I was completely ignorant about the Bahai faith.)
First time I saw the copy of the much heard of travel guide- “Lonely Planet” and was quite amazed about the details in it. Zoë should be credited for that because we followed the lonely planet through out our trip. By the time I came back I knew one thing that I do not stand out in my team and that my team mates can actually decipher my ways or rather are nice enough to tolerate my ways! I became much more comfortable with them and believe me it was a relief for me. I really regret the moments I delayed to make friends with my dear team mates.
5 p.m the bus started and also our memorable journey to Jaipur as a team. Remaining part of the narration will have to wait for a few days! And yes I still can’t upload any image on to my blog.
Nothing special to talk about our grand orientation that was conducted at India Habitat Center (yes the huge building you can see in Rang de Basanti). But if I do not mention the sumptuous meals that we were given it will be an injustice from my quarters. Indeed to be truthful I have never seen such grandeur in my life in terms of food and I must say I love Pasta! With exceptionally boring sessions not just in the mornings but also in the afternoons I could barely keep my eyes opened. But I tried my best to keep my eyes, if not my brain, open to the on goings.
I must say that in spite of being in Hyderabad Central University for past two years I never tried hard to speak to international students as such. Not because I was being a snob but because I never thought any of them can relate to me in any ways. But now at the orientation with half of the hall filled with international students I had to buck up my courage and speak to them. And I found that they were actually not as different as I had thought they would be. And an incident gave me more reasons to try my luck: all of them, along with the national students, seemed to be excited at the news of remuneration for the four days of our orientation. But who wouldn’t be if someone pays you for sitting through their sessions! And so I met my first team mate Zoë!
I introduced myself to Zoë, and actually was a little relieved that she wasn’t too upset to see me as her team mate. But even before we could explore deeply about how good we were to each other our major concern became our team mates. Yes the male community in our team- Mr Jatin and Mr Liam. Now both of us hadn’t seen these two individuals on the first day and were extremely worried about our upcoming project which included both research and video documentation. Answering to our queries the organizers told us that Mr Jatin had dropped out of the internship program and Mr Liam had faced problems with his flight. So we slowly settled with the fact that we were only three in our team now. Liam didn’t come for two days and I and Zoë had to do all the team building exercises. And during one of those exercises both I and Zoë found that both of us are disastrous at sketching. Finally Liam came on the third day. But we were glad that at least he got to do one team building exercise with us. My skepticism of being with two foreigners continued and I hardly stayed out with them (only to know how stupid I was).
On the day we were supposed to leave to our respective posting places, we- the Jaipur team, were almost left alone as the others had already taken off to their destinations. As there was no other go except to be with my team mates I decided to face the reality and experience the much dreaded task of bonding with them. Our Bus was at 5 in the evening so we planned to go to the ISKCON temple and the Bahai temple (there starts my first chapter of learning new things! I was completely ignorant about the Bahai faith.)
First time I saw the copy of the much heard of travel guide- “Lonely Planet” and was quite amazed about the details in it. Zoë should be credited for that because we followed the lonely planet through out our trip. By the time I came back I knew one thing that I do not stand out in my team and that my team mates can actually decipher my ways or rather are nice enough to tolerate my ways! I became much more comfortable with them and believe me it was a relief for me. I really regret the moments I delayed to make friends with my dear team mates.
5 p.m the bus started and also our memorable journey to Jaipur as a team. Remaining part of the narration will have to wait for a few days! And yes I still can’t upload any image on to my blog.
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