There have been few times in my life when something very important was put in a safe place by me. However, I had to ransack the whole house to find it later. It was like looking through sky to find a critical star amidst millions of them. The search was both nerve-wracking and freaking since it involved my academic survival. Now I find them hilarious and they make great suspense stories.
Riding an Auto rickshaw to my future college
This was after high school and I was excited to go to college. I wanted to study plants and got accepted in B.Sc. Botany Honors. Even after 17 years the day is still vivid in my mind since I had got 94/100 score in Biology and students like me were felicitated by our school for good performance. Everyone congratulated me and I was looking forward to go to my future college to drop off my transcript and supporting documents. It was the last day to submit them. We finished the program at school around 11am and we took an auto rickshaw (in Delhi we just call it Auto) from school to college. If you have not traveled in an Auto, it is a three-wheeled very small car without windows. So it is windy and loud. We got to my college and I admired the magnificent campus. I stood in the queue at the admissions office. My turn came and was asked to turn in transcripts. I smiled (you can imagine how happy I was!) and opened my folder. I clearly remembered putting transcript in the front of the pile. But it wasn’t there. I looked through the entire pile of papers, still no transcript. The time was 2pm and it was tea break for the office staff. They asked me to come back in 30 minutes. How could I come back? I didn’t have my transcripts. I was literally crying my heart out. My dad consoled me and said maybe we forgot it at home. Let’s go home and come back (our home was just 15 min away). We took another Auto back and I was crying profusely. I traced back my footsteps back for that day. Did I drop my transcript in the Auto and the wind swept it away? That thought almost killed me since there was no way I could get my transcript back. Or did I drop it at school during the program. That thought was little comforting since the staff knew me at school and they would return it to me. Or did I just leave my transcript at home which was my favorite thought. We got home and I couldn’t find the transcript. We called the school office and nobody saw any stray transcript. My heart sank since the last possibility of losing it in the Auto was still alive. I saw my career crumbling down because duplicate transcripts would take few weeks to arrive and the college admissions would have ended much before that. I was about to lose an academic year and I was still crying. My mom arrived from work at 3:30pm and she was shaken to hear how my day went. She was calm after a little while and asked where else did I look for the transcript. I told her every place in the house. All the shelves, under the bed, on the table, everywhere and we had a small 1 bedroom house, so there was not much space to search anyways. Then my mom sat down and started checking every book I had, my siblings had, and even the old newspapers. She looked between every single page. Books after books, pages after pages. And then she got to my biology book. She flipped the pages and there I saw the shiny orange sheet. My transcript, I exclaimed! Oh My, I was so happy to see it again. My mom was my lucky charm. She found it :). I must have thanked her a million times. It was 4:30pm and the college admissions office closed at 5pm. We still had some time to make it to the office. This time my mom, me and my dad took the first Auto and rushed to the admissions window and submitted all the documents at 4:55pm. 5min before the window closed. My happiness knew no bounds and I started my journey with an exciting/frightening incident.
Ready to fly to pursue my passion
So I finished BSc and MSc in Botany and was ready to launch the next step of my career: PhD in the US. I took a break to prepare for GRE and applying for the PhD programs. My brother and sister who were already doing PhD in US helped me very much in this process. Around February I already had 4 offers from top-notch universities with excellent plant biology programs. I accepted an offer from University of Texas at Austin. I liked the program, my future PI’s work, etc. I applied for the visa and without any glitch received it too. I was ready to fly to a new country, into a new culture, and totally new field of work. It was the most glorious time of my life. I booked my tickets for August 2 around midnight. My brother suggested getting photocopies of my documents in case the immigration officer asks. It was August 1 around 6pm. It was raining pretty hard since monsoons had arrived in Delhi. I was still busy packing my two large suitcases, trying to fit it my mom’s ghee, pickle, and more random stuff. My dad said he could run to the photocopy booth and I could finish my packing in the meantime. It was all going fine. I finished packing suitcases around 8:30pm and wanted to look over my documents maybe the 15th time 🙂 I remembered giving my passport for photocopying. I asked my dad where the entire folder was. He said on the dining table. I found the folder. Great! I started putting all the originals and photocopies in my folder. The last piece was my passport. I asked dad, “Did you keep my passport somewhere?” He said it is in the folder. But there was no passport in the folder. I must have checked all the documents at least 50 times but couldn’t find it. So I officially lost my passport a day before my flight. My mom again came in action and looked in the folder, around the house, and asked me to go back to the photocopy booth in case my dad forgot it there. We walked back and the photocopy place was closed (it was already 9pm). My mom suggested maybe the passport fell on the road and we must look around. As we started walking back searching for my passport on the road, the electricity went off. It was pitch dark and raining. I used my phone’s flashlight to look in the bushes, on the road, and in the puddles too. We still couldn’t find the passport. It was happening all over again that the most critical piece was missing! Finally the electricity came back on after we reached home. I asked my dad what he did when he came back. He said the phone was ringing (the old style, one with cord), so he rushed to pick up the phone and left the folder on the table. I went back and traced his steps inside the house. Still no passport! I sat near the phone which was kept on a small side table. I involuntarily opened the drawer of that side table and there it was- my passport! My dad must have kept it without thinking while he was rushing to pick up the phone and while talking forgot he actually kept it safe! Phew. I got my passport, hugged it tight, kept in the sacred folder, and slept peacefully. I flew to US without any more hitches the next night!!
So the point is, do not keep things too safe to be found 🙂 Always tell another person, someone you trust, where the safe place it. Or better take a picture and keep it with you.
Nidhi Sharma 