Whenever I travel
somewhere, I always write something in my journal. It is mostly about my trip
and also about the recent past. It was during my flight from Entebbe to Dubai
that I noted down 4 goals in my journal for my Mauritius trip; one of them was
to be the badminton and table tennis champion of the university. During the
sports week, I accomplished that by winning badminton and getting a silver in
table tennis. Badminton has always been more than just a hobby for me because
it was introduced to me by Shiraz and it is like I have a lot of love for the
sport itself while I always took table tennis as a hobby but during one of the
community tournaments I took part in, a referee who was also Uganda number 1 at
some point in time told me ‘you know more
table tennis than you know badminton and you know you can be the best amongst
all these guys.’ The amount of motivation his words brought me that day
have stayed forever and I went ahead to become number 3 in the universiade in
Mauritius and number 2 in the all communities open in Kampala, Uganda. I have
concentrated on my game ever since that day and I have developed a love for it
especially for my backhand. Today, I have two backhand shots named ‘trademark’
and ‘sexy’. I know the name sexy sounds very awkward or funny but well, that is
the name and it is a very special shot for me. One of the most happy-go dudes I
have ever met, Kiki always laughed when I hit the shot and said ‘sexy’. 
I have been privileged to
have some outstanding teachers and professors during my educational journey. In
primary school, I had this amazing English teacher; Mr. Gregory who used to
summarize Shakespeare like no big deal and to be honest, I haven’t met someone
more talented as a language teacher than him. In high school, I had two
favorite teachers; one who used to teach us geography and the other; math and
physics. Mrs. Kibirige’s classes were also marvelous because she used to make
us laugh a lot and I looked forward to them. Mr. Julius was a knowledgeable
teacher who made physics look so simple and was humorous as well. The stories
and the jokes all made those physics and math’s lessons worth it. During my
diploma’s, I studied under two great gentlemen. Mr. Joseph taught me business
environment and also made me fall in love with economics for the way he taught
it which says it all, doesn’t it? Mr. Francis taught me quantitative methods
and made me understand a concept that I couldn’t throughout high school. And
then my university final year, I got guidance from Mr. Ashley. I could not have
the honor of having him as a professor but I always went to him for guidance
and assistance. A true professor is not one who has all these degrees and
honors but one who is loved and respected by students. Mr. Ashley has both the
degrees and honors and the respect which says everything. The one thing I have
learnt from him is that ‘never stop in
life. Keep learning and keep educating yourself. Have those plans in your mind
and keep asking yourself “what after this?”.’
When you have a celebrity
in your class, a student council member, the AIESEC university president and a
mix of characters and personalities, you are bound to have an interesting time.
The one thing I am really happy about it the way I was welcomed and accepted by
everyone. It isn’t easy to accept someone who directly comes in third year when
you have been working your ass off for
the past 2 years, but I was humbled again by this. I and Nur became
intellectual buddies, Sanjeet and I were musical buddies, I found a great
books-lover in the form of Anjali, Doreen and I had this little Swahili connection
as we are neighbors in terms of home countries, IC as always was the cheerful
and smiling buddy and of course he is a music star (so I felt wow, I am friends
with a celeb) and someone who called me ‘bhai’, Tania. I had a very interesting
batch of classmates with whom there was everything from laughter to
seriousness, tension to light moments to criticism of the system; practically
everything. The two things that I can think of that will always make me laugh
is how Nur used to mimic someone’s way of saying my name and Mr. Ramdin’s
lessons and Sanjeet’s singing in them; haha amazing moments!!
I love exams to bits. That
is one thing that a lot of people get surprised at but the reality is, I love
exams. I do not feel stressed or tensed about them. Several times in the past, I
have had people ask me ‘don’t you have an
exam tomorrow?’ This is because of the way I am even a day before the exam.
I was playing badminton during my diploma exams and a day before my coursework
submission on campus, I was playing cricket. I remember Doreen complaining to
me about that. Others on campus too were like ‘he is so relaxed’. For my strategic exam, there was confusion and a
mess up and it frightened all of us. The only reason I did not panic a lot was
because of my perception of exams. I think life has tested me so much so far
that I have gotten used to it. This reminds me of two lines written by one of
my favorite poets, Ahmed Faraz. He wrote: Ab
toh dard sehne ki itni aadat si hogayi hai Faraz, kay jab dard nahin milta toh
dard hota hai! Meaning: ‘I have gotten so used to enduring pain in
life Faraz, that if I do not get pain now, I feel hurt’.
My leadership thesis was
made of 36,120 words. WOW! It included research on authentic leadership, feedback
questionnaires from people who know me, two life stories; both written from
different perspectives, my mother’s account of me as a person and personality
test results. I was so excited about this since the start of the year because I
love writing and I wanted to write about my life. One of my long lost desires
is to write a novel on my life but I can’t manage to get a start for it. And even
when I started, I can’t continue it. Anyways, the thesis showed me a lot
especially what people thought of me. That was the most interesting part about
it. I really realized a number of things. I am so glad about that! I even names my thesis the title I long thought for my book "The best weapon is the spoken word"
So I just have one more article to write in this series. The next article will be about my travel back home, my explorations, my friends on campus, the newspaper article and then the travelling back for my graduation to Mauritius again.
One more to go!!
Peace!
Cheers!
Champ!
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