On Friday March 25th, I graduated from Mount Carmel College, Bangalore.  Well technically, I still have to give my VI Semester exams in April but let’s just leave that aside for the moment!

Three years ago, I found myself walking into MCC to sit for the Communicative Studies entrance exam. I knew nothing about the course except from what the college website told me – the very website that I was looking at for information on applying for the Political Science, Economics and Sociology combination! I read about the CommE course, and I liked what I was reading. Then I remembered that a friend of Essel was in the same course, so I asked her if I needed to prepare for anything in particular and she said : No, just show up for the exam!

I liked this course already!

So I found myself at MCC, bright and early, on the day of the entrance of exam. At first, there seemed to be only a few other girls but in the next two hours it seemed like there were a 100! I filled out the application form, and then sat for the written round. I got through. Then was the toughest part – the interview.

Out of all the people who had made it to the second round – I think roughly about 70 odd – I was the last but one to go in for the interview. By this time, I had seen several excited girls squealing ” I got in! I got in!”, and I found myself thinking okay, no way you’re going to get in now, they are probably just going to go through with the interview just to be nice. I hadn’t eaten since 8:30, because if you missed your name being called out, you missed your chance to sit for the interview. So I was hungry, tired and now pissed off.

Finally, my turn came. I walked in and sat down. I vaguely remember talking about Om Shanti Om and Hugh Grant. Blur. Then..

“Okay, you are in”

Um. WHAT? Maybe they meant I got in on the second list?

No. The first list. Out of all those girls, 30 girls were chosen. And despite being the last but one to go in, I was one of those 30 girls! I faced some opposition, my father wanted me to go to law school. I liked the idea of being a hot-shot lawyer, but I knew that there was a whole lot of commitment I had to give, and my 18-year-old self didn’t relish the thought one bit. Later, I realised what a big deal it meant to be a C girl. A lot of people hated you, were jealous of you, but everybody knew the C girls!

And that was how I got into the best course in the whole damn world.

My three years at MCC have been the best ones of my life. I would listen to a lot of my friends in other courses around me grumble that they hated their course, their college and you know what? That thought never crossed my mind. Not even once. I never regretted giving up the chance to go to law school. I loved the course so much, that I found that I was pushing myself to do better all the time, something I never did in school.  I was so afraid that after going to one of the best schools in the city, I would be lost in a sea of nameless faces in college but CommE never let that happen.

And the best part – my class! I’ve had the privilege to be in a class filled with the most amazing set of people. We worked as a team every single time, we all knew each others strengths and weaknesses and I don’t think there was ever a day when anybody felt like they didn’t belong there.

So it is with utmost pride that I say that I am a CommE girl, and of course, I am a Carmelite!