My Journey

Destination or Direction

A journey is more important than the destination whether it is a known destination or unknown; each time it gives us new experiences and learning which becomes a major source of knowledge for everyone. Each time we go through any environment, we get influenced by certain things which are either positive influencer or negative, here positive and negative does not mean that it’s good or bad but it connects with the flow of journey. So negative influences means hindrances in journey and it does not mean that these hindrances are bad, sometimes these blocks turn into pavement and work as a positive influencer in long term basis.

There are people who start their journey by keeping a destination in mind either a hypothetical or existing one, at the same time, there are people who just start moving, not toward a destination but in a Direction. But how do they get these directions? One can find many answers to a question by perceiving it in different ways.

Ramesh, Shailendra, Sameer, Lalit, Sunil, Sweta, Shreya, Shrikar

It was the completion of my fourth semester at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad (Popularly known as NID). Everyone of my batch was busy there, in finding the Diploma project which is supposed to be an academic requirement to get a Diploma in design from NID. I was also a part of them and was looking for a project related to car-design. (I think it was an Infatuation not Love with Cars as I like other things as well, still I put cars on top, and I don’t know why I got this direction). One can call it personal-interest, but basically it was my perception of direction and it did not come randomly into my mind, In my point of view life is a connection of various events and these connections bring thoughts inside us at a subconscious level and helps us taking the direction, similarly in my case I got the direction and sent my portfolio to various car companies in India, spoke to designers who work there and shared my portfolio with them which was very helpful for me in understanding the requirement of automobile industry. Also I could know to know about my specialty which helps industries to place oneself at right position if they find a vacancy. Meanwhile I came to know about the exchange program at RMIT University, Melbourne and applied for it by submitting my portfolio to my course coordinator, Praveen Nahar, who gave us a general idea about the projects at RMIT. There was a project related to Car-design for future (generally all cars are designed, keeping future scenario in mind) and from there I started thinking about this project and how it would be executed there at a new place like Melbourne. I had never been abroad so there was an excitement about exploring new places outside India, so there were two things one car design and the other was exploring a new place. But till now nothing was on paper so I kept on trying to get other projects as well.

Turning Point

I was out of Ahmedabad and it was around 12 am when I got a call from Sunil-one of my very good friends at NID-that he checked my email and got to know about my selection for RMIT along with Gautam and Sameer. I was very happy to know this and started visualizing myself in RMIT campus (which I have never seen, only heard of it). I could feel free at the moment and planned to go back to Ahmedabad to know more about the project brief. I got my project brief after few days, it was to design a Future Car for urban centers like Melbourne. But before moving into project there were few things which were also equally important for me, My Passport was not ready and without passport I could not apply for IELTS test which was mandatory for getting an Australian Visa. So I planned to get my passport first, I applied it under Tatkal (Urgent) scheme and roam around the city for collecting necessary documents for it. After 7 days of struggle, finally I got the passport in my hand, it was 5^th May 2008. Then I visited British council library for applying IELTS. I tried to get the test date as early as possible for moving to next step i.e. Visa, but couldn’t get it as I missed the 10^th May by just two days so had no other choice then 22^nd May as it was the next available date, it means a delay of 12 days. It was not the mistake of Passport office but of course of mine for not keeping my passport ready. Well I took it as it is and moved ahead by thinking that even if I don’t get all the necessary things on time at least I will improve my language skills by preparing for IELTS. So for clearing the IELTS 12 days were better than 5 days. In these 12 days I worked upon all the sample test papers given by the council also read a lot (more than I did it in last six months).

Hope

Visa, it was just like a major project for me or can say for all of us who were going to RMIT, you can read the experience on Gautam’s and Sameer’s blogs. While doing this Visa project, all of us forget about our own projects. Everyday I used to call visa officer, Atul, he really helped me a lot in this whole process and finally issued visa. I, Gautam and Sameer got the Visa on same day and that day was just three days before our flight from Mumbai to Melbourne and we were in Ahmedabad. We packed our bags and left Ahmedabad on next day, reached Mumbai one day before our flight. I stayed with my very good friend, batch mate and room mate Vijay -who was there with me at College of technology, Pantnagar-a true Mech-chap. We had good time and recycled our old sweet memories of college time.

Another morning I hired an auto rickshaw and reached the airport before Vajir, Shweta and Sameer who were supposed to come in the same flight. We enjoyed the view of deep blue sea below us and clicked photographs which I like a lot, clouds are like dreams, one can make anything out of them, they are abstract and they make us feel light and floating.

After flying above the clouds for about 5 hours we reached Singapore airport, it impressed me a lot especially because of its grand, beautiful look including the internet facility J which all of us used instantly to give the update of journey to our family and friends. We used sky bus for changing the terminal to catch connecting flight to Melbourne. It was my first experience of traveling in Sky bus, I enjoyed it with curiosity and beautiful glimpse of outside world. After having some food we continued our journey. Most of the time I was asleep in next flight which was Singapore to Melbourne- a 7 hours journey.