Experiences at Anant Fellowship — The Orientation

I hope my previous post on The interview made you familiar with how I landed in the fellowship.

The journey from Jaipur to Ahmedabad

The journey from Jaipur to Ahmedabad

It’s time to take you further on this journey. The 12915 — Ashram Express (the train name) departed on time from Jaipur on the Sunday of 2nd September 2019. I had been travelling alone for a while but I was a bit anxious during that time. It was a challenge starting something new when many eyes were upon you. The audience I had gathered through the campaign whom I am answerable to for the contribution they have made. Umpteen questions were popping in my mind during the whole journey — how would it be like? How would the fellows be?

Besides, I was going through the manual provided as a guideline of how the fellowship is structured. The eight terms of fellowship were subdivided under the categories of Domain & Technical, Society & Cultural, Communication and Self-growth. All these were to assist us in THE LIVE ACTION PROJECT, which began to be called ‘LAP’ later. In addition to this, we had book clubs, debate hours, and writing support classes.

Train journeys are quite always exciting until unless you are surrounded by sobbing children or a vociferous group of people. Isn’t it? The train reached Sabarmati Station (Ahmedabad) an hour later than scheduled. A cab was arranged to reach the hostel. Reaching the hostel was no less scary in the strange lanes of the unknown city with an unknown driver. Finally, after reaching the destination my job was to find the hostel. Yes, the building was visible to me but no one to help me with the confusing name board of ‘Royal Girls hostel’. After much helter-skelter, some fellows came to my rescue through a common Instagram group we were part of.

Following a brief interaction with some of the fellows, I dozed off on my new bed in Room 005 of the hostel and woke up with an alarm the next morning. The weather in Ahmedabad was quite welcoming with showers of early monsoon retreat. I boarded the fellowship bus to the university on 3rd September 2019 with other fellows from different nationalities and the states of India. The silence continued until the undergraduate hopped in. Amidst this I was busy looking out of the window, avoiding any interaction to just feel the air of the city. The forty-five minutes journey ended at the university entrance. Moving ahead the day was full of pleasantries, welcoming and introductions. The initial three days of the eleven days orientation was of self-reflection workshops, rather call it ‘LABS’. For me, Labs till now were only meant for physics, chemistry, and so on.

I was not wrong in thinking about the diversity of fellows in the fellowship. My co-fellows were architects, engineers, artist, farmer, journalist and social worker et al. The diversity was so cool that the abnormality within you will also be stunned. And mine is not an exception.

We covered a variety of aspects in the orientation. It involved visiting the heritage sites, playing games, conversing on mental health and gender roles, cooking together, and discussing the issues faced at the hostels. Lastly, on the eleventh day, we all presented an exhibition of a unique symbol, sign, and element we brought from our native places. These activities helped me settle in with the fellows, getting to know them, their thoughts and get a sense of togetherness.

The Exhibition. Collage courtesy- Dishunee Pandya

This brief period of the orientation was a trailer of how the journey of fellowship would be like. In simple words — HECTIC. The word hectic was on everyone’s mind, since the beginning. Maybe this is how solutionaries start from scratch. Nevertheless, we Indians can manage with anything but it’s tougher for the international fellows. It was then when I understood the idea of personal space. Space which rarely exists in Indian society but played an important role for them. The personal space not only physically but in minds as well.

So this was the way I started with learning about the fellowship, understanding it, questioning it, scrutinizing it and whatnot.

If you are a fellow reading this, I would love to know your orientation experience. The crazier, the better. All ears to your experiences and feelings.

Stay connected, there’s more to come.