Day 1 at NDTV

Date 28th April ’10. Time 6 a.m., I drive out of Agra with my father heading towards a new life. The cliché, but had occupied my head for quite some days now. As he zooms on NH2, I dose off. Is it in my dreams or is it but a part of my conscious remembrances? Date 26th April ’10, time 8:30 p.m., there is an excitement – overwhelming emotions that I was drenched in - perplexity. There were smiles and there were tears. There were little giggles and surely there were sobs too. And little did I realize a hooting blue serpent would end it all. I woke up with a start. That was the regular honking on the highway not the thundering on the railway station, and I heaved a sigh, again venturing in my thoughts this time intentional. I had finished my graduation that day; I had finished a way of life that day.

Well in time I reported in the plush NDTV building, and I am greeted by two smiling batch mates. I smile back. People start pouring in and I continue to pass that smile. As the air settles, there is something that comes down heavily inside me. The images of the recent past flash sharp and a realization sinks in. I am out of Nagpur and forever, I’m out of my cocoon and that would return never. As if a bolt from the blue, it suddenly dawns upon me the reason some of friends wept on the 26th.

A new journey is marked, a new beginning, and new introductions is what Dr. Nigam asks for. I hear them speak, which somehow interfaces and superimposes with the sounds and noises from the past. Introducing took me back to my first year with an odd smile being painted on my face; I take a pause, for the class is in peals of laughter. She starts speaking again and I delve into my cauldron again. It is a cycle I realize, the whole process was now unfolding again, and for bonds I’d left, I had to start it all over again.

I shake myself and sternly instruct for my behaviour, saying, “all here are new and begin the process alike”, but the hurt locked inside me laments, “it’s just a day before that I’ve been lynched, at least little time I ask, to heal and start afresh.” I sit numb.

I pay a little attention, and Dr. Nigam speaks of the strong bind between an image and an emotion stitched to it. Hapless, his words drive my mercurial mind back to task. I see people around me – amiable, but I see people from inside me now far away. Friends parted away, and 31 new ones waiting to be enlisted, but somehow for the untimely start, the current image does not resonate with the emotions pinned to the word. Somehow I just want to chuck all this out and focus, but my reminiscing lingers.

One little break, and as if conspired against me, the batch of 31 treads towards the hostel staple – magi. The day ends, if not for journalism, but for me the ‘truth’ I highlight is a regular self preaching command. Old bonds just need a timely maintenance, and newer ones you keep on constructing throughout the journey. The course somehow took a backseat for the first day amidst the emotional whirlpool inside me, as I geared up to take upon a new set of friends a new batch of 31.