Here goes everything: Episode 1

Week One in Calcutta:

– A dog eating a used sanitary pad in the girls’ bathroom.
– Movie stars over breakfast.
– A Bengali man and I going to town on bubble wrap, trying to finish wrapping a tower fan after the store had already closed.
– Singing old Hindi songs in a hostel mess with sixty strangers.
– Getting to know my home for the next two years—just a little better.

I landed in Kolkata a week ago; my glasses fogged up the moment I stepped out of the airport. This was humidity like I had never known before. Tired and in desperate need of a meal, my parents and I made our way to the hotel, which was about 16 km away. Expecting the usual rush of other big cities like Delhi and Mumbai, I had braced myself for a slow-moving traffic jam. But to my surprise, the roads were largely silent and empty—no twinkling lights from skyscrapers, no blaring horns. Nothing to suggest this city had once stood tall as India’s first capital.

The picture became clearer in daylight. I had heard people call Kolkata a dying city, but I had imagined something a little more romantic—crumbled but charming. And sure, there were pockets of that: Park Street, and Calcutta’s famous clubs and associations, which felt like a wormhole to another era. But what stood out most was the stark poverty. Later conversations with new friends confirmed I wasn’t the only one who found it difficult to digest.

No one at a B-school dreams of moving to a city that feels like it’s standing still. Kolkata moves at a snail’s pace—not out of laziness, but with the kind of unbothered calm that comes from having seen it all. From colonial grandeur to communist movements, zamindars to famines, and from being the intellectual capital of India to often being written off as irrelevant—Kolkata carries the fatigue of a city that’s already fought its wars. And maybe that makes it the perfect setting for a journey where I expect to experience my own extremes—highs and lows, exhaustion and discovery, chaos and clarity.

Arrival at Campus

Then came IIM Calcutta. The heat was relentless. In the Ramanujan hostel’s common room, second-year students lay passed out under the AC while parents sat around, waiting patiently. I remember feeling completely overwhelmed—out of place, out of patience, and completely ready to leave.

It took a few arguments, some tears, and a bit of perspective to begin seeing this time as one of transformation—not just because of academic rigour, but because I’d be learning how to handle daily, unexpected stressors. The kind that don’t come with instructions. The kind that make you grow.

So yes, it might suck at times. I might wonder why I chose this, why I left home, why I’m here. But I want to graduate knowing I gave myself the chance to try.

Registration, Orientation, & Realisations

Registration day meant long waiting times, and even longer lines. But in between the sweating and the standing around, I made my first friends. Everyone looked just as daunted by the chaos.

We got our textbooks, had our official photographs taken, and I met Vaidehi, one of my neighbours. She’s an architect, and I was thrilled to finally find someone else with a design background. That small shared language was a quiet relief.

Orientation week rambled on with speeches from chairpersons, directors, and alumni—each one trying to pump a little motivation into an exhausted crowd. It worked, mostly. There was just enough clarity in those sessions to hold on to.

Two days in, we had our first lecture—a multidisciplinary course called The Firm. We were asked to come up with metaphors for what the firm that is IIM Calcutta represents. I said: toothpaste.

Because I’m here to have every last ounce of potential and fortitude squeezed out of me—just like how every Indian household flattens a toothpaste tube to its very last drop. I know I’ll be rolled around, pushed, and made deeply uncomfortable. But I’ve made some peace with that.

It helps to know that everyone around me is going through the same thing.

Maybe That’s the Point

There’s something strangely comforting about watching a city and a student body both move slowly—but persistently—toward reinvention. Neither Kolkata nor IIM Calcutta fits into a perfect, Instagrammable box. But both carry within them the possibility of unexpected beauty, community, and growth.

And maybe that’s enough for now.