17th February 2025. A day etched forever in my memory. The day I finally crossed the threshold into my college life after years of home-schooling....
COVER STORY
A new beginning
17th February 2025. A day etched forever in my memory. The day I finally crossed the threshold into my college life after years of home-schooling.
That day, I woke with a heart palpitating with excitement and a head teeming with expectations. I was starting a brand-new chapter. I would be making new friends – real ones – not the imaginary ones that lived in my head. A hundred conversations raced through my mind; conversations I envisioned I’d soon be immersed in with my new classmates.
At length, I was shown the room that would serve as my class for the foreseeable future. Instantly, every castle I’d built in the air in the days leading up to this moment came crashing down on my head. I learnt I was the only student admitted to the Associate Degree of Arts Programme. I was to be the only student in a classroom meant to accommodate 30 students, if not more.
My first day of college came with a blow. Coming out of an isolated life, I was told I was to be alone – yet again. The same situation, a different environment.
I heaved a deep sigh. “Well, that’s life I guess,” I told myself. “And there’s nothing you can do about it.”
It wasn’t just disappointment. It was the realisation that I had no choice in the matter. So, I tried – tried to tell myself it was okay; not to feel disappointed. But it was neither an ideal nor an amusing situation. I was not amused, and I could not pretend to be. And when I am not amused, it is quite visible on my face.
But at home, my complaints about having been enrolled in a course I never wanted to study, let alone being an only student, were met with an overt guilt trip.
“You can stay at home then. No need to go to college. Our money will go down the drain, that’s all.”
So, I heaved another sigh and shut my mouth for good. The adage says, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” And that’s what I decided to do. Just go with the flow.
As the days turned into weeks, I wondered what lay in store on the road ahead.
Accepting my fate
Settling in came with its set of challenges. I had to kiss goodbye to my old habit of staying up late and waking at 10 in the morning. (I know. Waking at 10 is embarrassing, but it’s the truth, and I can’t shy away from my truth).
The first few weeks were overwhelming. Stifling yawns during lectures or struggling not to doze off during class was easier said than done. You may as well make me climb Mount Everest. Couple that with having to keep up with making [assignments], sitting up late to complete them – things felt stressful.
While dealing with my new setup, I had no time to worry about not having a classmate to exchange gossip, swap notes, or share my life history with.
Those things hit me when I stood in the corridors and watched the girls below walking around on the college grounds in twos and threes – childhood friends, school friends who’d entered the same college and continued their friendship, never running out of topics to discuss. In those moments, I wished I could enjoy that privilege, too. Watching the companionship of the girls below made me look over to the ones sitting in the row beside me. I wasn’t entirely alone in my classroom. I shared it with the ADC (Associate Degree of Commerce) girls – five of them and all my seniors.
Call it my lack of social skills due to years of isolation, shyness or a feeling that I couldn’t fit in with them, but friendship with them was not instantaneous. It blossomed over two months, primarily because my ADA senior – a naturally outgoing, friendly person who befriended me on the first day of her classes – played the middleman of sorts.
As I grew comfortable with them, the college began to feel less alien. Or to be more precise, I began to feel less alien. The stares of the girls passing outside the class no longer bothered me.
Over time, I became acquainted with some intermediate girls, began participating in college events, and learnt my way around the college: the library, the auditorium, and the best spot to get away from the sun’s heat – for which I must again thank my ADA senior because that’s her favourite spot to relax.
Easing into college life and growing familiar with the environment made me think that maybe being an only student wasn’t so bad. It was more of a novelty. If college life were a movie, I was its main character.
Strolling through the silent corridors
By mid-March, the intermediate prelims rolled around, and then … silence. A resounding silence in the corridors.
The classrooms emptied, the hum of the chatter died down, and the college transformed into a ghost town. The intermediate students vanished like they’d been swept away by an invisible hand.
The scrapping of chairs, the patter of feet down the corridors, and the echo of someone calling from the hallway faded like a dream. I had woken to a new reality: a surreal one, where I was the only student sauntering up and down the college stairs, that is, on most days. My seniors are habitual bunkers.
It earned me a reputation – the girl who never missed a class. The teachers were eager to teach me because, to them, I was a student keen to learn. My consistency in showing up every day won their approval, and I revelled in the feeling this created in me. It gave me the push to work harder on my studies.
With my academics moving along steadily, the solitude that once loomed over my head like a fearsome monster slowly became my friend. On the days when I was alone because my seniors decided to bunk their class again, the silence became my companion.
When I didn’t have classes, I was at liberty to daydream, watch the birds flit across the tree branches, smile at the wind playing with the treetops, or gaze at the Sun playing hide and seek with the clouds. More productively, I could complete my pending notes, read through my books, or pick up a novel in the library. I could stroll through the corridors, or dance, or sing. In short, I felt like I was the queen of the college, and it was my stage – a canvas I could paint as I liked.
But more than a canvas, it became a space where I could be unapologetically me.
Academic lessons weren’t the only thing I was learning here. I was learning something about myself. That I could stand even with no one around. I came to college hoping to exist among people – to feel part of a wider group. But before I could do that, it was necessary to learn to exist with myself, to sit and walk with myself. Before belonging to a group, I needed to belong to myself. So rather than dread being alone in the vast space, I came to cherish the hours I could spend here, enjoying my company.
In the afternoons, after getting off, I sat on the stone bench watching the teachers walk out the gates one by one while I waited for my family to come pick me up. Sitting there, I would lose myself in observing a tiny butterfly fluttering in the bushes or a sparrow hopping on the ground in search of food.
The stillness around me filled me with inspiration; it urged me to finally pick up what I had long given up: my passion for writing. Picking up the pen again felt like reclaiming a buried part of myself. The words that poured onto the page were not just words. They were a silenced me learning to speak again.
Being there, all by myself, taught me to see myself, and maybe that was the most important lesson I needed to learn.
Yet to come
As of writing this, I am on summer break. In August, I shall re-enter the college gates, meet some new faces and reconnect with old ones. Most importantly, I will return to a different world. My world. Where I am the central character.
I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t know if I’ll be joined by a peer. A part of me holds on to the hope that I won’t end this year as the only ADA student in Year 1. But I don’t rely on it anymore. I used to think growth required the presence of others. But I’ve learnt that all one needs to grow is oneself. After all, trees grow tall in their own shade, too.
I didn’t begin this chapter in the way I had imagined it, but it has proven to be an experience worth living. Whatever the future brings – crowds or solitude, companions or none – I know I shall be okay because I will have me right by my side.
In sharing my story, I hope to give courage to anyone who might feel caught in a situation contrary to their wishes. While things may not always be as we want them to, they often work out in our best interest. Growth can come in many ways – in an empty classroom, the silence of hallways, or observing nature – not just in ideal circumstances.
