It's an experience I am living right now, and it's sweeter than I could ever have imagined. So I'm a soft-spoken, introverted South Indian girl born and brought up in a rural area who had no experience of living outside my state for a lengthy stretch of time. I was educated in the best schools in the locality and was a good student my entire life, passing the 12th standard board exams with full A+. Sure, I had visited a lot of places across the country because my father was in the army and was stationed mostly in north India, but I was still considered as someone “innocent” and “without exposure" to metropolitan cities and their ways by overbearing relatives. One aunt was particularly condescending as she lives in Chennai with her husband and her daughter, a studious engineering student a couple of years older than me.

I had an affinity towards arts in general and literature in particular from childhood and was one of those lucky sorts who got their parents’ complete support to choose their career path. Therefore, I chose English for my BA, going against the popular trend of MBBS and engineering in the family. I did not want to be confined to my locality alone and was actively trying to get into the best institutes in India, and my metropolitan aunt got wind of it. Over a lengthy phone call to my dad I remember her “well-meaning” proclamation, of course phrased a tad more unassumingly- “she can't handle living in cities because she doesn't have any exposure and will be swayed easily because of her village naivety. What if she gets into the wrong company, gets a boyfriend and even starts using drugs?” My dad just brushed her words aside and did not bother contradicting her because none of us thought it worthy of a debate at the time. The only thing my parents told me was this. Just be the best at what you do and let your actions speak.

I was unfortunately unable to crack the national entrance exams to any of the central universities in India that I applied to that time and ultimately decided to go to a well-known college in my district for BA. This lent weight to my aunt's words. I had my dad's ‘ward of defence personnel' quota and could have gotten into any central university I desired through it, but I wanted to prove myself and my abilities and decided against it. I also was eligible for a hefty merit-based state scholarship, so it was not a bad choice to make at the time. My high-flying aspirations were thus postponed for MA and this incredible urge to get into EFLU Hyderabad seized me entirely. I remained patient and studied hard to avoid a repeat performance of my previous defeat, saved up all my scholarship money for later. During this time, I encountered several other well-wishers and teachers who underestimated me because of how soft-spoken and introverted I was. I did not bother correcting anyone. I graduated with a rank from the university.

After BA I wrote the entrance exams once again, and at last, lady luck grinned wide at me. I cleared EFLU entrance with the higest score, cleared all the central university exams with high ranks and had my pick of the universities for MA. That was a massive confidence booster and I decided to go with EFLU, my hereto elusive dream. I studied in Hyderabad against all odds as predicted by my well-meaning aunt, adapting seamlessly into the Hyderabad culture and making a bunch of awesome friends from across the world whom I can trust with my life. I travelled abroad with some friends (to a northern neighbour of India) for a paper presentation, helped organize international conferences in my university, volunteered for animal welfare activities and eventually graduated with high marks. In all this time, with much difficulty I controlled my country bumpkin instincts and managed to not touch drugs, alcohol or cigarettes even once. My aunt already got her answer, but she still subtly snubbed me well-meaningly in front of relatives saying that my academic discipline was not “as challenging as being an engineer” was, like her daughter. I didn't bother correcting her and her ill-founded assumptions.

Soon after college, without any formal coaching, I cleared the NET exam in English, one of the toughest competitive exams in India that makes one eligible for lectureship in colleges. I aimed higher and also applied for PhD in two leading IITs, hoping and praying for a positive result. I travelled across the country with a few of my ambitious friends to undertake rigorous entrance exams and interviews with 10+ member panels and got selected into both of the IITs. Now I am gearing up to go to north India to join the best of the two. Chennai is eerily silent at this point and all the helpful advices have stopped. However, I'll break the tradition this one time and go against my grain to say this- dear aunt, don't judge a book by its cover.

P.s: I'm keeping all the details vague because as I've mentioned earlier, I'm an introvert and don't like to project myself out there on social media much. Plus, my relatives use Quora and I would like to avoid a family feud 😆. It's the first long response I've written on Quora and that's because the question was simply too tempting to pass up. Thanks for reading!