It was fantastic!

One year after coming back home from IGIDR, it is surprising to look at how my perceptions of the two years spent there have changed.

As soon as I had arrived, when anybody asked me how my experience in Mumbai was, I would say that it was good for the most part but add a qualifier to convey the fact that it was not all easy and pretty. I would occasionally talk about how, when we all started off, all the people there were the diametrically opposite personalities of each other and that we took time to get used to having each other around and some more time to find friends. Sometimes, I complained about how I was always sleep-deprived because of the amount of work there was to do and at other times about how the institute is isolated from the city and there was not much scope to explore Mumbai.

But now, when I occasionally talk about the place, all I can say is that it was simply, wonderfully, abso-blooming-lutely, fantastic! I probably have only distorted memories of the time spent there. I am now immersed in work and memories of IGIDR comprise only of bits of the kind of conversations and incidents that can only occur within the confines of a university campus that is away from civilization. This is probably also the memory I will guard in my mind for the future.

I couldn't help typing this out when I realised it has been exactly one year since I came back. This is especially for all those friends of mine who are still studying or about to graduate- take it from me, you people will be talking this way about the places you now complain of. Yes, I know, how bizarre!