17th of July, 2009. A day that changed it all.

It all started with a family wedding that I had to attend in Jaipur. The wedding finished on the 30^th of June and I was back enjoying the summer in Mumbai. It had been two years since I had graduated from high school and my mother was all hyperactive about how I had not taken the initiative to go to university. Not like I hadn’t tried but Lady Luck refused to be on my side.



Grandmother Darling

One fateful afternoon, on the 15^th of July, I decided to have a conversation with the matriarch of my family, my grandmother (mother’s mother). The conversation started out smoothly until she asked me the question my mother had asked me ever since I graduated; “Avi when do you plan to go to college?” I tried to dodge the question a couple of times until she let out a tirade in Sindhi. I told her that I was trying and that I would sort it out once I went back to Hong Kong. However, little did I know that Grandmother Darling had already plotted her next move.

The New Alma Mater.



She spoke to me about the possibility of “extending” my trip for a couple of months more to look after her declining health. During the next couple of days she insisted that I go and visit colleges to be “occupied”. I visited K.C. College and Jai Hind College and told the Grandmother that I found them pretty decent. She then picked up her phone, dialed a few numbers and next thing you know, I was a student of Mass Media at K. C. College.

By the 17^th of July, my life had taken a turn that is impossible to explain. I now had a new home, Mumbai.