Summer Internship with University of Kiel – Somyanshu Arora from Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar

Daily Winner for: –  29th August 2013

Weekly Winner (Editor’s Choice) for – 23rd Aug – 29th Aug 2013

Name of the intern: – Somyanshu Arora

Institute: –  Indian Institute of Technology Ropar

Organization interned with: – University of Kiel, Germany

When I first thought about writing this story, I must admit I did not know why I should do this. I mean each one of us has a story, which needs to be told and heard. So, why should I write just another story? What makes it so special and so different that it deserves to be told through words (which may not be able to do justice to its beauty), through baroque use of language (that may not be able to bring justice to its uniqueness) and through ostentatious use of embellishments and magniloquent words (which may not be magnify its effects on my life). Then I realized that my story is nothing less than a Bollywood movie. It has romance (I hereby admonish you that it is far from the Yash Chopra type. My name is not Rahul/Rohit/Raj and even though my name starts from ‘S’ I am not SRK), it has action (“Asta-Vilasta baby”), it has emotions (“Mere Karan Arjun aayenge”) and it is nothing less than a fairy fable. In some way it is not just my story, but it is yours too (and that of your friend who bunked his class along with you).

The story consists of a protagonist (that’s me, Somyanshu Arora) and a beautiful lady (I guess I just personified the 80 million strong country of Germany). As it happens in every romantic story, two of these leads had something in common. Both of them loved technology. Our hero is a mechanical engineering undergraduate student at IIT Ropar and our heroine is the undisputed mistress of this field in the world. The hero is a hardworking guy, ready to take the world by the scruff of its neck. He comes to know about the mistress and thinks that she might lead to the fulfillment of a long-cherished dream of mastering his field. One day he hears about a program known as DAAD’s (a part of mistress’ ruling authority) WISE India program (visit the DAAD New Delhi website for more details) that allows people to have a glimpse of the mistress and get entranced by it. Somyanshu then sends his application and thankfully gets selected.

Everything from then on seems to go smoothly until the day of the flight. Our hero, as true to his nature of being carefree (may be a bit careless), forgets his passport at the immigration department of Indira Gandhi International Airport and realized it only after reaching the boarding gates. He then rushes back and prays to the security department to let him go back (which they did) and somehow manages to find his passport. Yes, our hero had taken all the wrong documents to the VFS centre in Delhi (but still somehow managed to get an interview date for the next day) and yes, our hero had sent the application on the last day (seriously, lets just leave it at that) but this was the closest he had come to losing it all. But through all this he had believed in his guru SRK’s line, “Agar kisi cheez ko sachche dil se chaaho, toh saari kaayanaat tumhe usse milaane ki koshish karti hai”.

Moving on, once he finally reached Germany he realized that there were some differences in the lifestyle of people. The people in Germany believed in “Dienst ist Dienst sprachen ist sprachen”, which means there is a place and time for everything. It was something new for our hero because he came from a country which worked on the hoodoo magic of “Jugaad”. Germany worked on discipline. Anyways, it just meant that our hero had more time on the weekends which he duly spent by getting to know more about Germany’s siblings (she has a lot of them: France, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark and Austria). He did it because he was accustomed to the Indian way which was summarized by Chetan Bhagat as “For marrying the girl, you have to impress her family as well”.

The work conditions were nice, there was freedom but calls from home would make our hero a bit emotional. His mother was sad and thinking that the lady-love of his son was driving her son away from her. So, she would try to tell him that she is counting the number of days. This went on and his mother would always say in ‘Rakhi-esque’ style, “Maa to aakhir maa hoti hai” (Mother is after all a ‘Mother’). This used to make our hero a bit emotional and feel bad whenever he used to eat food (if you are a vegetarian and a teetotaler you have to take extra care about your food. If you know how to cook then nothing is better. It saves a lot of money as well).

One day, our hero was called upon for a ‘Swaymvar-esque’ meeting in Berlin where other people like him had been called upon by DAAD for a meeting. It was like any Indian Swaymvar with regal treatment given to the guests. Our hero was also told more about the cultural background of Germany and was thus apprised about the things he needed to work hard on (well frankly the Germans are very nice people. They always help you. As for speaking German, the more you know the better it is for you. One should at least learn how to greet and bid adieu in German). So, he returned with a new fire in his heart. He worked hard and tried to gel more with the people of Germany. It was tough for him because he was somewhat of an introvert by nature. He attended weekly parties in his hostel’s halls (there were international days organized by the students of various countries and these were attended by people of every background). He studied more about Germany, and the more he did, the more he fell in love with Germany.

But he soon realized that the day he would have to leave was drawing near. His mother had by now become Mother India, constantly reminding him about the greatness of India. Finally, the day arrived. 21st July 2013. It was the fateful day he was to go back. He left his love but made a promise to come back, and probably for a longer period of time. Our hero then came back to India and talked to his parents about Germany, her ravishing beauty and his dream to have a future with her. They resented in the beginning, but in the end, our hero’s love won. This is where the first part of this film ends. The next part shall continue it and will begin with our hero ‘mastering’ in Germany. I can’t disclose the story of second part anymore because one has to extract maximum profit from the sequel as well.

Thanks a lot to Internshala for allowing me to tell this story to the world. Germany is a great place to be in and to learn your trade. And it is not just about traditional sciences anymore. There is a lot more to it and if you get a chance to visit Germany, then please don’t miss it. I would also like to thank Internshala for the fact that it was where I was apprised about DAAD-WISE program.

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