Let this story of mine begin with the awfully clichéd rainy day in June, because it really did. My neighbour returned from a certain magical land called Singapore, where the land is lusciously green and the people are obscenely rich. Upon a casual visit to his house, it was revealed to me that he was cherry-picked by their Ministry of Education to study in the city-state for free.
As crazy as it might sound, he was indeed receiving a fully-funded high school education in arguably the best education system in the world. I decided to apply to that scholarship too, and when I did land that solid-gold opportunity in the following November, I accepted it. As most gripping stories put it, that was the moment when everything changed.
It didn’t necessarily change for the better, though. Let’s just say it was a journey of ups and downs – and a great deal of homesickness. But I wish to keep this article on topic, and focus on how my personal experiences prove my November decision right – going overseas when I was of a tender age.
Let’s start with independence – that one word you were forced to memorise every August back in school. The moment I bid my final goodbyes to my dad on Level 2 of Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, I was my own boss. Obviously, it did come with its fair share of downsides. Most kids of my age wouldn’t be all too familiar with managing their own finances, doing their own laundry or cleaning up their rooms – all while keeping their grades above water. I’m not one to brag, but I was an expert in all of the above by my 15th birthday. When there were no parents to boss me around, I had to be the one bossing myself around. It was a matter of survival – do it all yourself, or succumb to the cut-throat competition and get deported. Not a friendly choice by any stretch!
Next up was the ‘people problem’. Fourteen years in India didn’t adequately prepare me for being a foreigner in a foreign land. I was utterly overwhelmed by the gazillion different cultures that I hardly knew existed. My classmates spoke different languages, ate different foods and had entirely different worldviews. Thankfully, being an impressionable kid comes with its advantages. I gained the much-advertised ‘global exposure’ through my relatively young brain being rewired by the flood of stories from my international friends about their respective cultures. Their habits soon rubbed off on me – my taste buds now fancy a lot more cuisines, my vocabulary now includes expressions I never thought existed, and now I even sport a military-style haircut that is trendy in East Asia!
Teenage years are the time when one starts building perspectives. At the peak of my adolescence, I was describing features of the Indian government and politics with my friends. I was explaining the history behind the bindu and the sindhoor (affectionately referred to by my friends as the ‘Indian infra-red sources’). There were times when I didn’t have witty comebacks to racist hollers, so I had to google the reasons behind stereotypes. By rationally acknowledging both the successes and flaws of India as a whole, my view of the country is not heavily nationalistic like the average Indian, nor is it the typical NRI view of ‘I hate India and I don’t want to come back.’ I achieved the healthy middle ground at a young age largely because I talked to people who knew zilch about India, and that too for four years straight before I could vote!
I plan on pursuing my undergraduate education in the United States beginning later this year, and I hardly think I will face many of problems I faced back when I first landed in Singapore. I don’t think I’ll crave for Indian food again. I don’t think I’ll snap under the weight of responsibilities again. I don’t think I’ll be offended by whacky racial stereotypes again. It’s probably (read: most definitely) because of that one outlandish decision I made over four years ago – I chose to study abroad at fourteen.
(The contributor is a recipient of the prestigious A*STAR India Youth Scholarship, and aims to work for the Indian Administrative Service)
