The Year It Was (Part 2)

On 31st December of 2010, I was at Hyderabad, atleast for most part of the day. Boy, was it hot there in December! I remember how I yearned to get rid of the sweatshirt I was wearing in anticipation of cold. Anyhow, an educative Panel Discussion (on mentoring and alternate funding opportunities for entrepreneurs) in a state-of-the-art auditorium in an artificial-looking, engineered ISB Hyderabad campus followed by an inspirational story of how Naandi Foundation has made the dream of mid-day meals possible efficiently in South India. All this was part of the Jagriti Yatra 2010.

The dinner was had on the platform. I remember it was a really good, considering the already high standards. Midnight happened in the train. One new year's celebration it was! If someone was watching the train in motion from up above, she would have seen all 12-13 bogies thumping because of people dancing like crazy. We were shouting, screaming, singing, dancing, eatcing cake, and swearing to one another that in the list of crazy new year celebrations, this would always stay on the top.

One year since, I think it was not an exaggerated promise. Not because dancing in the train tops my list of crazy. But because of the year that the celebration led us into. Deafened by the sound of celebration, I did not notice what my life had so discreetly crept into.

Although, the Yatra did begin a week earlier, the resonance was achieved only towards the end. Those 18 days provided my more conscious learning and experience than anything prior to this had ever done. It inspired me to take up YIF, the learning from which I can't even begin to enumerate here.

In the 7 months here, I wrote term papers, read books, visually depicted a migrant story, collaborated with others on projects while all the time, collaborating, competing, loving, fighting, adjusting, doing, getting it done, leading, following, participating in group activities, giving and receiving feedback and the most important of all - introspecting!

What an year!