College Fairytale

26th August, 2014

College Fairytale

By Nidhi Panchal

Once upon a time there was a little girl who always dreamt of seeing the outside world. She ardently believed in fairytales and miracles and thought that one day like Rapunzal she would also be freed from this protective bubble in which her parents had kept her for the last 18 years of her life. Her whole life was pre-planned by her parents but, one day everything changed.

That day she broke out with few of her other friends to explore the unknown world. That one step proved to change her life forever, almost in a magical way. That one step got that little girl to college. By the way, that little girl was “me”, Nidhi.  

Well, the first week was like the beginning of Alice in Wonderland. Everything was so new to me. Just like Alice; I too took the wrong directions, fell a lot of times in the corridors, slipped in cement pools, met new people and annoyed some others. And yes, I also went for ‘Fresher’s Party’ which was equally crazy and filled with fascinating characters, just like the ‘Mad tea party’. I felt like I was living the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ fantasy.

Moreover, coming to college brought me face to face with the stark differences between the kind of life that I had lived and the one that I now have to live for the next three years. I’ve this new found freedom to ‘choose’, whether it’s about the kind of activities that I want to get involved in or for that matter the choice of attending a certain lecture!! College is the place where one gets the first taste of being ‘independent’ and ‘responsible’. Both these words are not just words used in school assembly speeches but, now they have a true relevance in my life.

They asked in college, what was the difference between school and college? Well, in my opinion, in school all our classmates had the same lifestyles and more or less the same kind of culture. However, in college ‘diversity’ doesn’t merely mean the cultural or religious diversity. It means more than that. One gets to meet people from all the strata’s of society with experiences which are poles apart from yours. I had been surprised over so many things in these last few weeks that I’ve lost count of it. I had felt that I’ve lived in another world. The definition of reality has suddenly changed or should I say that I didn’t actually know what really ‘reality’ and the ‘true world’ were like?

College challenges all the pre-conceived notions about life and the world at large. There comes a time when one feels like a ‘social misfit’, but this time passes away and teaches a lot of valuable lessons about the society that we live in. College teaches you to ask questions which somewhere as children we had truly forgot in school, where rote memorization was a huge part of our curriculum. With time people accept you and you accept them. Moreover, one realises that “he/she is not alone” who is going through this bizarre phase.

In the end just like a fairytale, I’ve got amazing friends and professors instead of a ‘prince charming’ and I’ll live ‘happily ever after’ with them!!

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About the writer!

Nidhi Panchal, is a first year student at Delhi University, pursuing her Bachelor's degree in English. This is her first guest post for the blog, where she shares her experiences of college life, from how it began, and how she finds college life completely different from school life. She maintains a blog, that you can visit, and read more stories from her. Her personal blog address is, http://www.misscrazymind.blogspot.in

Nidhi, we would like to hear more from you. :)

Regards

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