The curtains are now falling on a rather eventful Michaelmas term here at Oxford. With the submission of my last assignment today, and the conclusion of all formal events at The Rhodes House this term, there is now a need for me to reflect and internalise.
The Rhodes House was the fulcrum of my experience here, and much of what I did revolved around this world. I go back to when I was selected as a Rhodes Scholar - I had been sceptical and dismissive about this whole thing. Whenever I was asking about what it felt to be selected as a Rhodes Scholar, I would just shrug my shoulders. Life had come to mean much more to me than what the Rhodes Scholarship can ever be.
I was very fearful about coming to Oxford. Once I came here, I soon realised that I was actually two people.-One was the person I was back in college - passionate, loving, empathetic, insecure and very hardworking. The second was the person I became at McKinsey - confident, successful, distant, mature and, to an extent, complacent. The worst moments I experienced here at Oxford was when I was unable to reconcile the two, when I tried to bring the learning one of these personas had, to a situation that that persona had never faced. I feel much better now, because I feel that I have largely reconciled the two and created, hopefully, am amalgamation of the two that will make life a smoother journey.
The first few weeks were among the best days of my life - I was completely cut off from everything I had been used to, and everything that was breeding a certain complacency within me. It felt good to be a nobody again, to know that you are among the hundreds of unknown faces that throng the town at this time of the year. It was when I began to have a face, a personality, that bigger questions began to emerge. It is when I had to start filling the personality of 'Subhashish in Oxford' that I the journey became more difficult.
My time at Oxford thus far, however, has been defined by my rediscovery and refinement of love. My experiences of four years back had frozen something within me, and no matter where I moved and no matter which ladder I climbed, I was still there in that moment four years back. It was a conversation I refused to have with myself. But here I was at Oxford, old wounds reopened once again, and I looked within and I realised that all this while, love never left me. It continued to power me on, continued to make me a better person, continued to make every instance of hurt turn into an opportunity of love and service and selflessness. All these years, I thought of myself as a maudlin soul. But this term, I realised how happy an individual I am; that behind my love-lorn poetry is an individual who is here to truly live. And that hurt, hope, despair, love, hate and everything else are all parts of this experience of living; that my constant espousal of love was not as much the wail of a hurt lover as it was the celebration call of someone who had tasted nectar.
What I feel most proud about is my steadfast refusal to be overwhelmed by systems that I was part of. For instance, the M. Phil. in Economics was a course that could have very easily overwhelmed me, especially had I come here immediately after my graduation from St. Stephen's. But the last two years have endowed me with a bit more perspective. It allowed me to enjoy the subject and appreciate and critique it. But it also allowed me to keep the subject at bay, and not let it overwhelm my life. Every single day, I chose to go out there and do what I would add more value to me in life - be it yoga, rowing, reading or meeting people. Even in the last week, with two assigments and a test waiting for me in two days, I refused to close myself in my room. Rabbit holes aren't places where dreams are made and fulfilled, the world is; and that is where I would rather live.
There are so many things that I did for the first time. For one, I took good care of my health, had more fruits than I have ever had in life before, treated myself to a hot glass of milk every morning, did 10-15 minutes of power yoga before classes and either of rowing or running or my exercise schedule every evening. For most part (and for the first few weeks for sure), I studied more regularly than I have ever done before. I also subject myself to social situations where I have not been most comfortable.
To sum it up, Oxford has been wonderful, not easy. It has been wonderful because it has forced me to ask all the right questions - and that is has enabled me to go find the answers. It has instilled in me the zeal of an explorer, and even when I saw a storm approaching, I went ahead and conversed with that storm. Because storms clear the layers of hurt, pride and tiredness that one builds around oneself, and it brings us closer to the truth. I stand tall, a bit exhausted from the storm that hit me, but looking forward with misty eyes to the next set of adventures.
Signing off,
SB
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