You know you are from TISS when...

 You have series of fresher’s welcome after 2 months the new batch has joined
 You sleep during the F.C classes at the convention centre and rush quickly to the tapri to grab a cup of tea and a plate of hot Maggie
 You plan to go off to marine drive after submission of an assignment to chill after a lot of hard work you have put in by copying and pasting
 You get a polite scream from the professor teaching in the next class for making noise in the hallway
 You make random conversation with a person in the canteen and very next moment start discussing ideologies
 You wonder why there are no good guys to date
 You sit anywhere and everywhere
 You know about the sutta corner right next to the canteen
 You get out of the campus just to have anna’s chai
 You wonder why one has to pay such a huge amount to book our own convention centre
 You hide from your research guide or fieldwork supervisor if you haven’t finished your reports
 You crib about the dining hall food but whenever the dining hall is closed and you have to go out to eat, you miss the DH the most
 You say hey to at least 20 people whose names you don’t know
 You always crib about Mumbai rains on your field work days
 You have an opinion on everything going in the world and keep on the discussions live based on clashing ideologies
 You see half of the facebook updates related to some or the other social issues
 You crib about your course being so hectic and you not having a social life beyond TISS
 You have a common room which is actually a classroom for teaching
 You have all your group meetings in the quadrangle where you sit day in and day out
 You go to the cyber library during summer time just to sit in the a.c and facebook
 You just find a reason to be dressed in a traditional attire
 You celebrate each and every festival on campus
 You eagerly wait for the hostel night just to have inter-hostel mobility
 You secretly have a crush on someone and when that person comes in front of you, you pretend as if you don’t know the person
 You don’t miss even a single opportunity to get yourself clicked
 You have a GBM for each and every issue you want to raise
 You show that you are least concerned about placements but you do get worked up as the placement week approaches
 You have a stress buster party followed by a DJ night right before exams
 You are referred to Joy hospital for hospitalisation each time you go to the doctors on campus
 You question the college’s policy of giving hostel accommodation to the second year students and not to the first years
 You wonder how did the semesters passed so quickly and then feel nostalgic
 You imitate your teachers over a cup of tea or just randomly
 You everyday plan to go to the gym or go for yoga but end up not going
 You get up exactly 10 min before the 9 a.m class and rush to the class with breakfast in your hand
 You plan to explore Mumbai the next semester as the present semester is quite hectic but end up finding the next semester even more hectic
 No matter how much you might hate it, but deep down you know that this is the place which you’re going to miss a lot...all the insane fun moments, all the night walks on campus, all the fights with friends, discussions in class, discussions outside class, and all the awesome time you’ve had.

Endless Wait

Waiting eagerly for the time when he would be back,
I spend my days & nights
thinking how would i meet him,
how will I greet him...
thinking that maybe things would be fine once he will be back

maybe its just the distance between the two
maybe we would be back again....
thinking "and they lived happily ever after" does exists in real life too
& in the script of my life, finally one day we will be united forever....

Even though its been a year now since he left me, I did not realize for such a long time that he might have moved on and he does not think of me anymore. Maybe I was aware all this much before, but never had the gutts to accept it all.
But a month back I just realized that I've lost him forever...and he's never going to come back to me.... so after so much persuasion from my friends I finally decided that I am going to get back to what I used to be and move on and enjoy my life....and to some extent I was quite successful in doing so...
But when I got to know that he was about to come back, I had started getting restless, and the frequency of my mood swings increased. But my friends always supported me, they were always there for me.
The day arises when he was supposed to be in town, I started thinking about him, if i should go and say a hi to him or should I give him a call or how would I react if he came infront of me. I had no answers to these questions.
As days passed by, every day I used to wait for his call, I tried to look around for him.
It was already the sixth day since he was in town and still no contact. Everyday I started getting even more irritated, wondering if he does even know that I still stay here.
Finally after waiting for such a long time, which seemed like an endless wait to me, I saw him going out with his friend.
We barely saw each other for a minute. Within that single moment, I went through extreme emotions. At first I went totally blank, just could not think about any thing and at the very next moment, all d memories, and the moments we spend together, came flashing back. My heart did skip a beat on seeing him again after such a long time. But i did not want to make it so obvious to him, so I turned my face away.
During that minute, our eyes did meet, but both of us were numb, had no emotions to express (maybe we did have, but never wanted the other to know).
Had things really changed?? or the feelings are still there but we are just supressing it and trying not show it to the other??
Cant really answer this question as I myself am not sure of the situation and the feelings..
The whole day I kept waiting for his call but he never called up....
Questions kept on arising in my mind... Should I forget him? or Should I try for one last time? But before taking the final decision, I had a lot more questions regarding my feelings towards him which needs to be anwered first....

P.S - All Characters are Fictional and Have no Basis in Reality.

Existential Crisis of my life

Over past few days i’ve been in quite an introspective
mood..... I often have phases in which i go through a lot of existential crisis.... Somewhere i believe that its mainly because of my subject of study being psychology....but when i look around, i feel that existentialism is the basic foundation of our society, our beliefs, our culture, dogmas, rituals.....and i feel that the crisis regarding our existence, our purpose, our goals in life are which everyone go through in their life.

At present i am going through a lot of emotional turmoil, too nervous to face the future and the baggage it brings along with itself.... been wondering what exactly is the role that i have been assigned before coming into existence... What exactly i am here for, what is the purpose of my life,what exactly is my goal, and Am i on the right path.... There are lot many questions like these which i am seeking answers for...and dont even know if they will ever be answered....

Over past few days, i’ve confined myself within the four corners of my room, mainly due to the fact that very important entrances are round the corner....these would help me choose a career for myself to which i am supposed to stick to for the rest of my life....

Sometimes I really ask myself that why do we need to grow up? Why cant we stay the way we were in our childhood? Why do we have to act mature and not show our emotional side to the world and always put up a brave face and be what others want us to be? If that is the case, isn’t our individuality lost!!!! But, before that an important question which makes me think- Does an "individual" really exist..???? Right from the time a child is born, he/she is trained according to the rules and regulations of his/her own household...there is not much of freedom which the child gets, to explore and understand the world through his/her eyes...the child’s likes and dislikes are heavily influenced by the family, in most cases it seems the exact replica of the parent’s or the elder sibling’s choices..... So, is there anything called an individual’s choice?

So, coming back to my own life...if ‘I’ as an individual really exist, Should my purpose and goals be defined by taking into consideration my own self, or should they be defined according to the desire of the people around me and the society... but the answer to this question would really get me into a huge turmoil...if i am asked to do anything i want to do in my life, then my side of story would be that i actually dont know what i want to do...as throughout my 22years of existence, i have been spoon-fed and never actually had to take a decision regarding myself or for that matter anything else....

But, currently I am standing at a point in life where i need to be mature and responsible enough to take the decision regarding something which will always stay with me forever and this time no one is there to take that decision for me....

Writing Credits : Swati Sharma

Editing Credits : Amit Pande