After the school

I’m in Agra, staying near the beautiful Taj Mahal, with 8 friends from the Summer School who decided to visit the North of India, and I wanted to share some conclusive thoughts about this incredible experience with all the readers of this blog J. I know I’m a bit late so I apologize… I wrote it on Saturday 7th.

Every good thing has got to come to an end. Maybe we wouldn’t appreciate things in the same way if the time were infinite; the fact it runs so fast makes it precious. Many times during this two weeks of summer school we have lost some sleep trying not to miss any single drop of this experience, which value does not only stand in lessons and visits.

It’s the morning of 7th august; the last day of Summer School has eventually arrived. We feel numb, confused, as in a surreal dimension. How could this have happened? It looks like yesterday we had the first “traumatic” approach to the city of Bangalore: the pick-ups provided by Xime to take us from airport to college led us to really discover the meaning of the words crowd and horn, which we realized we have used in an incorrect way until that moment! From that point in time a lot of stuff has happened: the most various lessons, the company visits, the cultural show with all its rehearsals, the building of friendships with both our trip companions and the interaction with the Indian students.

Someone is going to leave for Goa in the afternoon, others are heading to the north of India to discover the famous Golden Triangle, the last ones are just going back to Italy or to other countries in the world for another trip. Our roads are going to diverge, and here it comes the feeling we’re losing a piece of ourselves in this place. The bonds we have created in such a short time look so deep, leaving us the sensation they won’t be broken for a long time: living a strong experience such as a summer school 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is something that hold us together as a very powerful glue.

Different reasons pushed us to go for this adventure, a different search drove each one of us, but I think everyone got touched eventually by India. Some may have found some answers, but most important, got other questions, which I think are the most powerful driver for someone’s growth, leading to another search, another journey…
As Don Williams Jr, an American novelist, wrote:
“The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination”

Thanks to everyone who made this unbelievable experience possible and so special.
Raffaella