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My Days At St.Stephen’s College - Sunanda Vashisht Sunanda Vashisht Sunanda Vashisht was born in the beautiful valley of Kashmir, India when Kashmir was known for its unparalleled natural beauty and not as a cauldron of fear and terror. She did most of her schooling in Delhi and dabbled with several professions before moving to U.S last year. she is currently pursuing higher studies here. she likes to introduce herself as an explorer because she wants to spend all her time in this world exploring unknown. Writing for her is a cathartic experience. She can't remember when she began writing first but she does know that writing has always helped her to be at peace with herself and with the world around her.

My life has been influenced by many people, many incidents and many places. However, One place that changed my life dramatically was my alma mater St. Stephen’s College. St. Stephen’s College located in the heart of North Campus of Delhi University means a lot to lot of people. Stephanians can’t stop waxing eloquent about their college and non-Stephanians can’t stop talking about how elitist and anglicized this college is. An oddity among other colleges located in the same Campus.

To me, St. Stephens was neither Elitist nor did I ever feel it to be very anglicized. I have always been proud of celebrating Stephens, after all I spent five years there. Elitism was a part of common ethos there since toppers from various grade schools joined St. Stephens, but at the same time, that was not the entire story at Stephen’s. Founded by Cambridge Brotherhood in 1881, its aim definitely was to produce ‘Burra sahibs’ , obedient to the Raj . They did succed to some extent because even in early 1990’s, you could see the hangovers of Raj. Students still sustained Shakespeare Society where Shakespeare plays were organized every year.

There was a Junior Common Room and a Senior Common Room, hostels were called Residence, Res for short. There was hilarious Kooler Talk and Spice, which were unique to Stephen’s. This was the St. Stephens I knew and there wasn’t any elitist or alien about this for my friends and me, because we easily embraced, Hindi movies at kamla nagar, or longed for chhole bhature at chacha’s and really looked forward to the bhelpuri outside our college. For most Stephanians then, the height of career aspiration was civil services and not joinig some foreign multinational.

This was the St Stephen's I knew, and none of us who lived and breathed the Stephanian air saw anything alien there. It mattered little where you were from, which Indian language you spoke at home, what version of religious faith you followed. When I joined College in 1993, daughter of a middle class Kashmiri parents, I did not have to worry about fitting in: we were all minorities at St Stephen's. Distinctions on the basis of religion and region never mattered.

Five years is of course a small part of my life. But my five years at St. Stephen’s marked me for all the years to follow, partly because I spent my most impressionable period of youth there. The atmosphere and the history of St. Stephen’s became mine for rest of my life. I learnt to question all answers and then formulate my own answers.

I still think about college sometimes. I still remember excitedly all the debates I participated in, all my teachers who gave me the confidence to face life. I think about how all my contemporaries have moved on, got married, and got on with our jobs. But there was a time when we enjoyed the winter sun in lawns of St. Stephens and nurtured big dreams. Not all dreams were fulfilled but Stephen’s allowed you to dream and always proudly say that after all, "Once a stephanian, always a stephanian."

Till we connect again...

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