The Delhi Diaries

A psychic once told me that I should reconnect with nature. When one of my batchmates proposed a trek, I thought I should seize this golden opportunity and act on her advice. I would never have counted myself as a huge out-doorsy kind of person. I like my creature comforts; I like to feel clean and to wear nice clothes. It was marketed as a beginner’s trek, so I thought, what harm? I had done some family hikes in Ireland. I thought this would be more of the same. All I had to do was sign up my name and show up on the day – Ambika and her next level organizing skills had taken care of the rest. Boarding the bus to Manali, I did a quick inventory of what I had brought. Runners. Check. Raincoat. Check. Socks. Check. Water. Check. This was my first exposure to Indian buses – we climbed aboard and braced ourselves for the long journey ahead. Our bus managed to break down not once, but twice on the way, increasing the trip from 13 hours to 18 hours. Driving down in to the valleys of Ma

Before my arrival at YIF I knew one name in particular. Shardul. It turned out, I wasn’t the only one. In a batch of 285 fellows, it is hard to stand out and gain recognition. He wasn’t a Bollywood movie star and he hadn’t committed any heinous crime that would garner international attention (as far as I’m aware). So what had he done? And how did we all know his name? In this global world, Shardul had reached out to people before the programme began and connected with them over social media. It was effective. When he arrived on campus, everyone knew who he was. Simple, right? This is what I wanted to find out. I asked Shardul how exactly he went about this. He told me that after participating in the Jagriti Yatra Fellowship in December, he had realized the value of connecting people. Finding himself with some time on his hands post-graduation and before YIF began, he decided to try to connect in advance. His modus operandi was such: the YIF admin created an of