Birth of a wanderer

Wanderers are not born, they are made sometimes by the way they are brought up, sometimes by the situations, sometimes by choice and sometimes it is written up there to get bitten by " The Wanderlust Bug ".

Exactly 5 years 11 months and 20 days ago, an ambivert girl brought up in an overprotective though loving family in Delhi, where she wasn't allowed to even board the metro all by herself whenever she missed her school bus, decided to go to Karnataka to pursue her engineering course.

The idea of taking up an engineering course was never on her list. Always being among the top scorers she never planned on studying anywhere except her hometown. But life never runs the way we plan.  One failed attempt in clearing the medical entrance and persuasion from her parents to take up engineering made her give up her medical dreams.

Though there were humongous number of colleges who were offering her a seat for B.Tech degree in her home town, but the urge to be independent, the urge to make her own decisions, the urge to see and travel the world and the urge to explore things the way she wanted , made her pick a college down south in Karnataka. In Manipal.

Marking the birth of a wanderer. Marking the path to find the real me.

As per Wikipedia : Manipal is a suburb within the city of Udupi in Karnataka, India and is administered by the Udupi City Municipality. It is located on the rocky hinterland of Coastal Karnataka. From its location on a plateau, it commands a panoramic view of the Arabian Sea to the west and the Western Ghats to the east. Home to the Manipal University, the town attracts over twenty five thousand students every year. It is one of the most cosmopolitan towns of India, with people from close to 60 countries studying there. It is called the campus town by the locals. And for many of us who don't know, Manipal is also the international headquarters of Syndicate Bank. 

Manipal for me, is a magical place, a magical word. Whenever I spell this word, memories of people, memories of rains, memories of the innocent attachments, memories of stupid fights, classes and memory of everything is ready to flow out and up of my nostalgia box and envelope me every time with a warm glow of reminiscence.

Though my stay in Manipal wasn't the best experience as my fellow peers, but it played a very important role in my evolution as a person. I laughed, I cried, I loved, I got betrayed, I lost and I found myself. Though my present can never match up to my past, I still can dwell in the memories and experience I gained in Manipal. In the wave of change , I found my true self. And the place gave me a learning beyond any curriculum.