Acceptance

So apparently, my charm and wit (and the blog header printed on a page) seemed to have cut it in the books of Panel A at the MAEER MIT’s Institute of Design, Pune. Yes, I got in. Yay.
Of course, I reacted in a different way on the night I found out. I was consumed with pride and joy. Joy because I finally got into a college… a design college. Pride because it wasn’t money that got me in. It was something that I accomplished myself, and for that I had to be proud. But with time, I’m beginning to doubt everything.

Leaving Bangalore. Leaving for the hostel life. It sounds like fun, but how much of it? Doing something I love doing... Is it really worth it?
My father tells me to differentiate between a hobby and a career. Maybe I’m stupid, but why can’t it be both?
It can’t be both. It can never be both. I’ve probably learnt that the hard way.

I’m still happy with my decision, though. I’ve had a number of people try to convince me otherwise, telling me that I should have chosen something more stable like Architecture, my other option. It makes me feel like the black-sheep. Far too many times. I’m from a lineage of Men of Science. The grand-father was a man of Chemistry. The father was a man of Chemistry. The mother was a woman of Dentistry. Uncles of Medicine and Engineering. A brother who plans on doing Applied Bio-molecular Technology. And here sits a foolish little fellow telling the world he wants to do design. Foolish isn’t the word.
“Design-uh?” they ask with idiotic looks on their faces, as though I’m committing treason to my ancestry.
Yes. Design. Uh.
“But… what is design?”
Good fucking question. It’s that chair you’re sitting on, the bronze sculpture on the coffee-table that you just commended, the shirt you’re wearing… yes the one you bought from the Marthahalli factory outlet that day, the Blackberry phone in your Marthahalli shirt pocket that can’t shut its bloody face, that revolting piece of pink plastic (glittered and cleverly named as Barbie’s comb) that your daughter is brandishing like a mad-woman.

Sigh… The doubting uncles and aunts…

Convincing my father was the hardest thing to do. You can’t expect a Man of Science to appreciate an artistic field, easily. No matter what I did, my word wasn’t quite enough.
My saving grace, however, was a lady named Bani; An ex-NID graduate living in out apartment complex who seemed happier for me than anyone else. She plunged the final sword into the stone heart. She changed all our minds. And thanks to her, I’m going to do design.