(it always takes me a bottle of wine to start writing)I blame it on the Indian education system that when i feared that i will flunk in my maths board exam in High School i managed 70%. that was good enough for me to take up maths as an elective subject along with Commerce(though i always thought i was better at arts). but i blame this too on the system (even though no one forced anything on me, its nice to put the blame on others). but after 2 years of hard fought struggle i managed to survive commerce, and that too with flying colours. i had kept my expectations low and fears high, so the 70% i got were good enough. Meanwhile i was still thinking what next???
what can i do after school? continuing with commerce would have been like stabbing my self AGAIN!! so that was out of question. or shall i continue pursuing one of my passions, that was at that time, JUDO. Maybe i thought, i was never sure. i had heard about Hotel Management, don't remember from where. but heard it was the course of the future. what future? I had no clue.
so i applied to 7 hotel management colleges in the country. gave entrance examination everywhere. the results started pouring in. i got scared. i got through each and every one of it. ooty, kolkata, delhi, aurangabad, meerut but the fight was between Gurgaon and IHMCTAN. gurgaon was sponsored by a reputed hotel company, no fees but a 5 year career bond after a completion of a course of 4 years. 9 years of my life dedicated to a company?? i did not know what to expect out of the course after 1 month, imagine 9 years of bond. phew!! it was not for me. al other colleges never excited me. one of my family friends who worked for Pusa Institute was very possitive as i had scored All India rank of 144 and i could choose any of the 26 colleges spread all over India. i had no clue what to choose. i heard Delhi college is v good(pepper would agree), and i can be home while studying. But a friend of my dad told him that bombay college is much better than delhi. so my dad asked me if i wanted to go there?? i still had no clue.. i said, Why Not?
I went to bombay in Rajdhani express with my dad. at 7 am in the morning as the train was closing in on the Mumbai central station, the view outside was not an ideal start to the day.
we reached IHMCTAN mumbai (dadar catering) at around 9 am. the college campus was just 2 buildings, 1 basketball court and staff quarters. Much smaller than the average college campus in any other part of the world. I guess the prize paid for being in a prime location in Mumbai. at around 10 am I along with other 200 odd clueless students had an induction to the college. We were told about the history, reputation, discipline of the institute and stupid questions and answers were exchanged. As i sat through all that my mind was working overtime thinking, if all this was worth it? had i made the right choice by coming here? I had no idea what to expect out of this B.Sc.(H&HA).
After two hour long induction session we were told to check out our Hostel rooms. mine was 809!!
And the journey began!!
