When you come to a residential college campus, you don’t realise how experiences will transform your life by shaping it bit by bit and changing it nibble by nibble. More so, in case of a campus that boasts itself as the biggest and oldest of the Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs).
You do not need to worry, as I’m not going to pass on my nostalgia so soon. I have almost 2 months of stay at IIT KGP, left with me and I would try to make you all cry when I publish my last blog-post as an IIT student. Be prepared!
The agenda of discussion in this post is fear. What is fear? How do you define it? What is the psychology of fear? What is the physiology of fear? How to cross the barrier of fear?
Fear comes from unawareness and ignorance. In most cases, fear is the first form of self-defense mechanism a person exhibits. We generally don’t understand this, but if we stop the fear emotions from coming to the fore, it gives us phenomenal strength to handle apparently extraordinary tasks with much ease and poise.
The realization I gained in the past month is that we can win against any kind of fear, we just need to keep on pushing us to do the task which we fear doing. In my case it is primarily darkness. Hence, I started lonely early morning-late night walks around the institute (can be read as 2.2). Remarkably, I was able to take lonely walks without a sense of fear, I started enjoying the friendly but mysterious sights of Owls; I started stalking them.
I decided to give the final test, as I’d won over the fear of darkness. According to Vatty Da, there is a lane which leads us to National Service Scheme (NSS) office, from the National Cadets Corps (NCC) office. He asked me to go there, as he considered the place as one of the few inside institute which can frighten a person like me, even if I have decided to be strong and brave.
The very next day, I took the call and ventured out on the presumably scariest lonely walk of my life. I was quite normal and nonchalant just 1 foot away from the passage. As I stepped in the purview of the lane, I started shivering. However, there were many more things to worry about that day. I was pre-occupied with lots of ideas and mental conflicts; this fuelled my will power and neglected all the pats on my back, apparent whispers, weird voices and eeriness of that place. This was not the end of it.
As I was returning back, I would have been hardly 10 meters from the lane when there was a distinct screeching voice which tried too hard to divert my attention towards itself. My will power and presence of mind was at its peak and I didn’t pay much attention to that voice which was trying to convey the message “I’m at severe pain, help me!” even if I was not able to hear it properly and the source wasn’t generating any understandable language. Needless to say, it wasn’t a sane idea to go that place for validation of my interpretation. I just went ahead, while the voice kept on following me as if I’m not moving. When I reached near Vikramshila building complex, all the dogs inside the complex immediately started barking at something behind me and after that the voice was no more heard of. I showed tremendous guts and presence of mind to accomplish this achievement of successfully completing the lonely walk to NSS office gate and return back normal.
In the hindsight, there was something very eerie, spooky and scary about that lane which I cannot explain neither you can describe even if you do muster up courage to go there alone. Whenever, I talk about it or think about it I start shivering the same way as I was shivering while walking along that old, almost abandoned lane. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine!
Disclaimer : Try this adventurous lonely walk to NSS office, at your own risk and will power. My advice is that you must not go there between 1 AM to 6 AM
