July 27, 2011

KU Changed My Life. Did it really or did I change myself?

I would not have seen Kathmandu University till this date if I did not have a craze of traveling without fixing my destination. I would have been deprived of this wonderful life experience I am having now in Kathmandu University. Well, this article is going to be personal one, with my own experiences before I reached KU and a few experiences of university life here.
 I used to go for entrance preparation classes at
 PEA. I had a good friend named Aadarsh, who usually sat besides me in the classroom (a couple of times he had been scolded by 'Manoj K Jha' sir for shifting his place in the class hours, just because he would come to sit with me). Both of us were from same district, may be that was the reason why our attitudes and topics of discussion tallied. There was a similarity between us; he used to tell me that he can do well in any Multiple Choice Questions and I used to think, "well, this guy is of my type!"

         Though I have had a horrible experience in my first semester in KU. I scored 3 out of 20 in 2nd internal test (CHEM 101, Kathmandu University-School of Natural Sciences). Aadarsh would kill me if he knew this; we used to finish the weekly MCQ tests of PEA within half an hour and scored more than 55 in average. Once he came out of his exam hall after 20 minutes; he scored 71 in that test. Well, we used to be happy to score high points with no effort at all.
        Linking those moments to experiences in Kathmandu University I start to think about an old man whom I had met on my journey to Gorkha (A historical place situated around 140 km by road towards west from the capital city Kathmandu of Nepal). He was a stranger; I had talked to him just to ask the route to the building of Chamber of Commerce in Gorkha Bazaar. He asked me with whom I had been traveling.

        When I replied that I like to travel alone he frawned at me and asked, "Do you think life remains as it is forever?" I replied, "Yes, as long as you know what and why you are doing things." He then tapped my shoulder, brought his head closer to my ears and said, "My boy, you are ignorant! You do not know anything about life; you even don't know how your life is going to be next month. You should learn to know yourself; you must be aware of each and every change that might occur in your life. You ought to have a motive to live; you must live for a reason. Do you think you are going to live your life this way for ever? Do you know what you will be doing on today's date next year, or after a few years? You do not! You do not have an idea about when you will return back home tomorrow. If you found a beautiful place to shoot pictures you will leave for your home at 12 or 1pm in the afternoon; if not you will catch a bus at 7 am and leave. Is this how your life should have been? Is this what you have learnt from your life?" The old man was enchanting the lines of Garud Puraan to me. I was fed of it and simply replied, "Dear grandfather, I am here to research about the typical lifestyle of people in Gorkha; I have got a ticket for a bus to Kathmandu at 8:00am. Is that alright?" The old man didn't ask for the ticket with me; he tapped my shoulder once again and left. I watched him climb up the stairs up to his house. I started to judge myself. Neither did I have any ticket with me, nor I was there with any specific reason. I realized that my life was like my journey to Gorkha!

(. . . to be continued | a lot to describe about Aadarsh | Still to be linked with my life in KU at present | Got to go for a sleep! )
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(. . . I waked up just a minute ago; I slept with my laptop! I love it, I love it more than anything else in this world that doesn't smile back at me. . . OOPS!!! I have been writing about life in Kathmandu university, not about my love story! Well, no matters; this paragraph is in inside braces; many people skip this... :) and who do not will find it interesting enough, or at least worth enough the time spent. I did not come to orientation class of KU just because I was at my home to collect some money to buy a laptop. It was already 89,000 rupees and obviously it was difficult to collect money for a laptop. I should feel sorry that buffaloes do not have teeth in their upper jaw. May be that was the reason why they don't smile back at people. I sold my buffalo and bought a laptop :) for myself. Enough . . .)
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I have been told about shooting without an aim and jumping into the water without thinking about its depth; I have been warned several times for being reckless and stupid. Every time when someone corrects me I feel like being held with my palms to walk in a right path. Obviously life in Kathmandu University is what I had never expected or thought about. I could have joined any other college inside Nepal or in foreign; yes, I had been planning to go one of the colleges in China to study Aerospace Engineering or something like that. Now I don't even remember the name of that university which had once my dream land; life changes, I would have never talked about Kathmandu University if I had been there; this is how life changes and Kathmandu University has changed my life in this way. I have transfigured myselfe to adapt with this new experience; this university, it's undergraduate programmes for engineering and it's global recognition- they were completely new topics to hear about for the first time. 

         Aadarsh and I were here twice before filling up the admission forn. We used to stay in hostel near New Baneshwor; actually I used to stay in a room in Bagbazaar but I had to abandon it because I was having trouble getting ready for the classes early in the morning. I left the room after 12 days and paid rent for half of the month; I had to quarrel with the owner of the house for not paying the rent of whole month- one of the worst experiences I have had in Kathmandu. Few of my friends from college were already in that hostel, that's why I had reaced there and met Aadarsh. Almost everyone among us in the hostel had a mig33 account (a java chat application for mobile devices, with a supporting website) and we used to be quite busy chatting with friends and family. Actually mig33 is damn cheap method to chat, send sms and share pictures worldwide. One of my friends had a lady friend from Bhaktapur whom he once went out with; the girl had brought him to Saanga for visit. That evening he showed the hill of Saanga from the hostel and told that it is around KU. I got somewhere to visit; though the notice about registratioin form for KU was there in the main gate of PEA that was overlooked since I was supposed to give entrance exam for Institute of Engineering, Pulchowk (Tribhuwan University) not an unknown college.

           Next day we found a bus from Baneshwor to get to KU. As soon as I reached Koteshwor, I was in the mood of returning back because the road, the traffic jam and that dust blowing all around was suffocating me inside the bus. The conductor came and asked for fare and asked where are we going. I replied 'Kathmandu University' and handed over 50 rupees; he asked for 30 more. I asked him how much is the fare and he replied it's 40 rupees per person from Kathmandu to KU. I didn't believe him and asked a gentleman behind us. Well, I had asked the fare just because I did not know that Kathmandu University is actually situated  in Kavrepalanchowk district. It was supposed to be somewhere in the Kathmandu valley. The journey was one of the longest journey of my life!

         Finally we reached Banepa, then 28 Kilo; actually we got off the bus at 28.5 kilo as we did not know where we needed to get off. Well, it was alright and we moved towards KU. Till that time we were not in mood of filling up any form for KU, neither we knew that the admission form is to be filled up online. We saw the KU hillock and laughed once, then instead of walking all the way long we started jumping off the field to find 'shortcut' path upto there. It's fun to do mischiefs in a strange place unless you fall off the edge of paddy field and get 'painted' with mud and water. He had fallen off while running ahead me; he looked awfully dirty. His face always looked like a drunkard's and I was a fan of his 'that' kind of expression which he brings to his long face after getting pissed off by anything he didn't expect at all. Well, I have found no one here throughout my life in Kathmandu University who is as interesting as he was. Anyway we reached KU, and asked for application form. That was the moment when we knew about online registration system for entrance exam in KU. We ate a plate of chowmein each at 'Durga Bhojanalaya' and went dhulikhel, somewhere walking in the middle of the road and stepping on the road-side pillars (kept to determine the edge of the road) and stepping on the top of each, falling down and getting up.. all with much fun and interest. Finally in the late afternoon we returned back to Kathmandu; we shared our wonderful day around Kathmandu University to other friends at hostel who insisted me to come to KU the next day. I came here again after bunking my class in PEA. 

          It was not much fun the next day until I met my brother cum friend from Bernhardt College, Kathmandu. We together were 14 people and each of them except I was here at KU to fill up the application form for Engineering. As far as I remember each of them filled up form for civil engineering. I was excited to fill up the online form because- it was free (elsewhere you needed to buy the application form to fill it up)  and I could surf the internet from inside the computer lab of Kathmandu University  (though I had rarely used internet before coming to KU). Yes, I really felt happy to be inside there; perhaps that's the moment when I started loving the life in KU for the first time. A kind of affection sprouted inside me (it was like talking to a strange girl for the first time and getting to know almost everything about her in the first meeting). While we were returning back one of my friends insisted to apply for Engineering in KU. I came to believe that he was right. The next day I got all my documents ready and proceeded towards here. Had I known life here would have been this wonderful I would have filled up the application form on the first day. Well, I am stupid by birth; I never make big mistakes but tiny mistakes that I make cause a serious problem. After I reached KU I realized that I didn't have enough money to pay for application form; I had an ATM but I didn't think about that at the moment. I was about to return back when one of the friends from PEA called me. He paid the application submission fee for me; I verified my certificates and other documents, got an admission card for the entrance examination and returned back. This is all about how I reached KU.

              Admission card is not a big thing; I had to attend the entrance exam. They give model questions for the entrance examination. I went through it; there were 'multiple choice questions', 'fill in the blanks' etc. There was a 'biology' section in the questions. I wondered why we needed to give exam for biology for entrance of Engineering. Today I know why because it's our final examination for second semester, and it's ENVE 101 (Introduction to Environmental Engineering) tomorrow. Obviously, I did not prepare for the entrance exam at all; I was good at choosing best option. :) Finally it was our entrance examination, and I did it went good. While we returned back to Kathmandu Aadarsh and I discussed as many questions as we remembered and laughed every time because we had selected different options in most of the questions. We were sure that only one out of us is going to pass the entrance. We did not want to know who it's going to be, that's why we did not look any book or notes to tally our choices. It was time to depart from each other. The result was published one late night. Unfortunately it was a PDF document, which we could not view in mobile. I donwloaded the result and transfered it to his phone. Fortunately he had got a Mobile PDF reader an I had internet connection in my phone. It was a document with 'Kathmandu University' in the top. We had been hearing about entrance examination of other colleges and universities. We had chosen Kathmandu University. Aadarsh went through all the symbol numbers. There was mine but not his; he failed to choose right options in MCQ (though the model question had other formats as well, the entrance exam was completely based on multiple choice questions). His life changed, and mine too; it was just a matter of 2 seconds- since he saw my symbol number, to realizing that his number missing in there. 

           He congratulated me and gave the same expression; that night I could not sleep at all thinking all about my life in KU. The more I started thinking  the more I was unsatisfied. There were a number of factors about being sad about life in Kathmandu University because I had hundred reasons not to study there. I called my home and asked whether I should study in KU or wait for the entrance exam of IOE, pulchowk? I had to spend four crucial years of my life among one of the choices. I was suggested to get admitted in KU or return back to my home to study in Pokhara University. My first choice was Pokhara University; there came a few personal reasons because of which I was obliged to get admitted in Kathmandu University. Yes, it was a time a few months ago when I had thought that it was my wrong decision to choose KU for something that did not last in my life for long. Though, I am very satisfied here. University life would be wonderful, I knew; what I did not knew was the fact that life in an university is completely different from school life and college life. I can remember very well that at that phase of life I was unable to decide for myself; I was not bold enough to believe in what I do and understand why I do those things. Kathmandu Univesity has shown me a different aspect of my life; I have learnt to be bold on my thoughts and believe in correctness of every decisions I make. I don't know whether university life in KU changed my life or I changed myself. 

               Now Aadarsh is not in my contact; he studies engineering in KEC, Kalimati. He came in my life like spring season. He used to tell me a lot of things that still inspire me, stop me from doing something that he had warned not to do at all... and so on. Though you do not give back anything to nature, it makes your life wonderful. It leaves you and goes away; your life is again an autumn. There is hope, a spring is to come again. In this phase of my life, KU is a spring season; I am enjoying it. On my mind, this spring never leaves me; yes, nobody believes that what comes in life goes away one day, for sure. It's how life is; it's how my life in KU is. 
Writing all these lines, I have been thinking only one thing- I am still incomplete. A lot of things there are to understand, to change. One is my skill of writing- it's awful; I am quite weak in language. Even a student of Lower secondary level understand each and every sentences. I don't know whether it is bad or good; I still cannot believe in what I do. That's why I say I am incomplete. A long journey to go, and the only path is my life in KU. A completely new path- a completely new experience of life. I had never been like I am at present. I have been changed.

            May be, Kathmandu University changed my life for me or I changed my life for Kathmandu University. I am in dilemma. The only fact I know is that my life at present is not like the journey to Gorkha. I have a ticket to my destination and I am here with a reason. I am satisfied with what I have achieved in a short period of time in KU. I should thank my mom, my dad and my brother who are always in my side whether the wind of the world blows east or it blows west. I must thank all the wonderful people I have around me in KU, who inspired me to start blogging. I must be grateful to that old person who changed my life just tapping my shoulder, who made my shoulder strong enough to hold my ambitions and hold the power to walk straight with a heavy load of dreams.

4 comments:

  1. Man, I wonder why no one has commented on this post. Maybe everyone who read this were left awe struck by your such true words that flowed like melancholy of music. You are an amazing writer whatsoever be the grammar. One gets connected to you, as in connect to the internet. I, for sure feel the connection. Your blog evoked something I had read somewhere and of which I now no longer remember. What I remember is though what is said and it was by Osho. The strangest paradox in life is, The moment you accept yourself is the moment you change.
    You should continue the blog bro. (i do not know if this reaches you.)
    kada hai boss!! :D KU parama.

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  3. Though I'm not a student of KU, I can feel the emotions flowing through this article. It is a sweet piece of writing. Do continue your blogging.
    P.S: I got myself admission in KU but later on withdrew my admission from KU but I loved the environment of this University. :)

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