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...

The Ashoka website describes the purpose of the Young India Fellowship as “bring(ing) together a group of 215 (now 285) bright young individuals who show exceptional intellectual ability and leadership potential from across the country, and trains them to become socially committed agents of change .” It’s a big statement. It’s ambitious. And it is a baffling notion for someone who is not part of the programme. Apart from a broad range of modules, the YIF focuses hugely on developing leadership and entrepreneurial skills. There are some of the mindset that leadership cannot be taught. Through a cocktail of upbringing and circumstances and fairydust, you either have it or you don’t. Dwight Jaggard, visiting professor from UPenn, is not of this opinion - he is of the view that leadership is something that can be learned and honed and that anyone, given the right training and mindset, can enhance their leadership potential. This does not mean that YIF students are waking up at 6a...

As I was handed my passport containing my Indian student visa the embassy official told me that I was going to a fake university. She said that the one that I had listed was not on their register of legitimate universities. Ashoka university – the university that I am attending – is 7 years’ young in its establishment. In a country whose universities are well known and have gained veteran status, I thought that perhaps the register simply had not been updated. I had provided her with offer letters and other supporting documentation so I didn’t understand how she had arrived at this conclusion and more so, why she seemed so smug about it. As I stood there, delighted in having the visa in my hand but simultaneously trying to process this information, I wondered, could I have been hood-winked? In this age of fake news, nothing is concrete. And the real question to be asked is; why on earth had she issued the visa in the first place if she had red-flagged its authenticity? Embassy of Ind...