Monsoon mayhem

A trip to Shangri~La

ISFiT|2003 recollection

Zoram

Everything looks so full of life, in their own rhythm. It's finally coming true, the dream I had had of another Deep Springs.

On the banks of Tama Koshi cold wind chills my spine. I am telling the hills on the other side I have come back. The trees on the hill too sway with the wind. The pebbles and stones are bright, and the ones I carried long ago are even brighter. I take a flat one and throw on the composed river. It bounces thrice and finally sinks down. It glitters from the bottom. And I know this is all I had wanted.

Ten km of this river to my right and one to my left is part of the Deep Springs College. I have three hundred acres of hilly area to add to my Deep Springs. And I have all the resources.

My weirdest dreams weren't weird. And this is the award of my life.

They will see my children grow up to be revolutionists and the reformers. They used to say that we only had selfishness and treachery in our blood. I will prove them wrong, all of us aren't at least.
I am here not to make a good life, I am here not to put an example, nor help my children immigrate. They'll all see when we have created a new world - a world where the ethics and primary responsibility are unconditional love, honesty and pure joy of learning for learning.

I remember, I was preparing for college and never could make it. I had desperately wanted a Liberal Arts college, and when I got into one, they didn't give me a visa. I can never forget those emotions breaking me apart. I wanted to immerse in my spiritual sense of life. I was so much in despair to flourish in my vision and interests.

I made up my mind then. I would create a community and a college where people would come to realize their weirdest dreams.

This college is for those who are too unique to find a place; for those who want to study to explore their world; for those who have a spark in them, and can't seem to make it diamond of their lives.

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There is a college called Deep Springs in the state of Nevada. It is a two year college for high school students.
After I got to know this college, and wrote those long essays as part of the application, I really fell in deep love with the college. There is a principle and the college stands upon that philosophy (http://www.deepsprings.edu). The students who become part of the college, I believe, enjoy the best Liberal Arts education.

There was another application essay I had to write for a different college. It asked to imagine where and what would I be doing few decades after I would have graduated.
Well I didn’t get into Deep Springs. I felt a wave up my spine, and it has gradually grown into a big picture of ‘My World.’ ‘My World’ is basically a college, in a rural part of Nepal. It is something like the Deep Springs - a perfect Liberal Arts college.

The above essay is the answer to the question.