‘Kinney the cupboard’ is a story about England's finest cupboard who was born on 16th April 1973. A famous carpenter named John Makaly`s last Masterpiece was a story cooked in the middle of 9th grade English class. This was highly inspired by ‘Beauty and the Beast’ the cupboard which was sort of Bella's best friend. The writer in me then felt like the cupboard character was not given enough storyline and screen time, and also because I somewhat sympathized with the character.
Similar to this was ‘Bunsen Burner Burned’ another badly put-together story about my pre-university chemistry lab. The moment I entered that 60-year-old lab, a pungent smell hit my nostrils, pulling my soul out of my body, but weirdly the lab gave a Harry potter vibe which was absolute fiction material. Sadly out of 72 students, only 43 survived.
However, Whenever, Wherever you look, there are stories everywhere. There's a story about riding a bicycle, there's a story about climbing the mountains, and there's a story behind all the stories in the journal resting on my table.
While reading the books from Wattpad, comfortably under my sheets I have traveled to places I could never imagine going to. That is the boundless power stories contain, from books, sitcoms, mangas, and dramas, to real-life down-to-earth stories, once you've read, listened, and seen them you can not undo or unsee them.
How powerful and blessed must be one's vision to give birth to such stories? To me, a superhero is a human who has the capability of doing this.
When children around my age were busy reading ‘chota been, my mind couldn`t stop staring at the lonely book on the corner shelf of my high school library, it wanted to devour the book and gulp it, a whole stack of ‘Jiddu Krishnamurthi’s books were sitting idle and my hands couldn`t resist themself from grabbing those books.
They contained information about life and education. About the system of education. He described how the system of education was such a disaster. That child was not given the right amount of knowledge, the knowledge to love in this real life. This life is filled with failure, they are just given a syllabus that they need to follow and it doesn't help them in real life. And that made me think harder about the system of education that I'm learning, 8 subjects cannot define my entire life, children should at least be given the opportunity to identify their likes and their dislikes. What if they cannot lead their life with this educational system? And all this happened because of just one book. And after that book, there was no going back. And since then I have always wanted to live in these stories, create them, read them, edit them, narrate them or just simply be a part of creating them.
I chose BCA for my undergraduate program, being a BCA student I think I got hints of exposure to humanities. During my 1st year, I had English as one of the core languages and the lectures were teaching both Master's and Bachelor students, the library was open for all, these two factors played a major role in building my motivation for linking my past experience into forming goals for my future. I took up all kinds of seminars, debates, and essay competitions. Sat with MA students and wrote scripts for dramas, and speeches. Participated in intercollege fests ‘Paper presentation’ and tried technical writing. My English lectures always pushed me to write, they even asked me to submit my articles to college magazines. And soon a friend of mine who was working on building websites asked me to write Articles for his website.
There is not a single site I have not tried writing in, I`ve written in miracle, Wattpad, WordPress, tumbler, and other random websites, and even ended up enlisting myself in a creative writing course, to improve and learn different methods and skills writing. And because of this, I was asked to write content for other websites. Freelance content writing became a thing, and with every new content, I could see my writing improve. But I lacked proper guidance, every time a new writing style had to be applied my time was invested in researching the content material and more in understanding and learning that method of writing, and this gave me an insight into how much I still need to learn and Masters in English would help me gain that.
The sole purpose of opting for a Master of Arts in English literature is to link me and put my stories into the world, may it be Articles written about mental health, social fears, self-love, or fiction about nonliving characters, pouring life into them. English as a language was more preferable for me to express my thoughts than my own tongue. My English teacher from 9th grade did a wonderful job crafting me from being a simple narrator to becoming somewhat of a writer. And even the Drama teacher has shared my script-writing skills. And because of this, I know how important it is to have the right people to teach you the right things.
I understand that English as a Masters course is not just about stories, it's about how well you curate them, the vocabulary you use, a good grasp of grammar but most importantly what you understand from that story, how well was it written, and the difference between how the reader thinks and the writer reads. And this is something I would want to experience with other writers by being alongside them, this is something I have somewhat missed in life, 'The writer's perspective', people around me were mostly thinkers from the reader's perspective, My desire to work, learn alongside another writer, narrator lead me to pursue Master in English.
The reason why I'm applying for the Manipal Centre of Humanities is that they have an excellent system of education, throughout my life, I have seemed to get this kind of education, it's not just about the course, the course is amazing( single studies, film, and literature, gender studies) it's also about the ambiance that Manipal offers, a free will to write, 1:1 student-teacher ratio and the faculty, I went in and checked most of their works and I might have fallen in love with the language ‘English’ all over again, their work, their academic background, the thought that these people will be mentoring me, brings joy to my stomach.
One of the Lectures ‘ketaki Chowkhani’ her area of expertise stated gender studies, media, society and representation, education, single studies, identity, and society. A curiosity was built and I checked an article in which she and many other women spoke about the lockdown and being single. This article had interesting aspects about women which made me want to know more and learn more about the subject, it is rare to find such subjects being taught in colleges. The University of Chicago Press journals published an article about ‘The Urgent Need for a Singles Studies Discipline’ where Bella DePaulo writes People who approach their scholarship from a single's perspective have a different way of seeing the world, a different set of questions to pose and a fresh way of analyzing and understanding the relevant issue. Knowing how much one has struggled to bring this discipline into the system of education wants me to dive deeper into the Study.
Attending Manipal would be more than a dream for me. Its commitment to Student-teacher connects with my tendency to write Stories, the program offers innovative and challenging courses on Indian Literature, Modern International Literature, as well as emerging areas such as Film Studies and Gender Studies. I especially appreciate their third-semester plans as they give six credits for the Academic Portfolio which includes participation in various cultural events and their Student community called ‘Chaicopy’ the Instagram page is something I've been following for a while now.
What I hope to achieve at Manipal is an overall writing experience, yes, but also the camaraderie with my fellow writers. Good guidance from the teachers that mentorship will stick with me for the rest of my life. To be able to write a wonderful thesis on Mental health, self-care, and Multiple chemical sensitivity and do thorough research on these crucial aspects of life and continue that with me. MCH's thesis has gone on to be published as monographs, in academic presses, in public media, as well as fiction, non-fiction, and so on. My goal is to write one such thesis which will reach that destination. I can meet the high expectations of Manipal if given the opportunity.
What I'm looking forward to, after my master, is to work as a proper, professional writer whose research works bring out different perspectives towards life.
Content writing is something I've been doing and if I grow a little better that would be great. I have been wanting to write a novel whose chapters I've scribbled in my diary. And somewhere in the journey, I would want to finish that. Publishing house has been a dream job ever since 7th grade. And working in publishing would fulfill my goal of becoming an understanding writer and writing. If being able to achieve one of these things would mean I have received the guidance I was seeking from Manipal
And with Manipal, I can achieve these goals.