Turkish Diaries- Part I

Was it a tryst with destiny or a ripe dream falling upon my lap like the Newton's apple, i still cant decipher. Probably a confluence of both. Probably a swish of bubble and smoke from the sorcerer's ball!
It all began in a hot sultry Sunday afternoon, sometime in late July of 2010 when i got recruited into the world's largest student run organisation AIESEC after a long strenuous process of selection and much jostling to wake up in the middle of Sunday mornings to rush for group discussions and interviews. Finally after snaking my way into this cave of humanity and grappling with new pseudonyms of the organization and the "code of laws", i entered their den. it was like walking down a busy street in Delhi flushed by new faces, smells, sights, voices, activities and a surprising dollop of veritable camaraderie among the AIESEC'ers.
However as i meandered through the following event-less months, disillusionment seeped in unconsciously until Turkey came knocking on my doors. till then turkey was only a faraway (though closely guarded) dream at the back of my mind conjured by Orhan pamuk's 'Black Book'. he could have never imagined the magic it created in my mind by opening a pandora box of dreams to bask in the wet night air by the Bosphorous while the sea gulls screamed above the head, early morning wisps of Turkish coffee and cay, the Hagia Sophia and the Topkapi looming arrogantly into the azure sky and the smell of thousand spices. All these came in the form of an amazing internship opportunity offered by AIESEC Bursa, turkey. instinctively, i jumped onto it without even throwing a second thought upon Malaysia, Poland and Indonesia, who too came to allure with their own different internship programs. after a series of interviews with AIESEC turkey, in late september my fate was finally signed, sealed and delivered at my Gmail inbox and the second phase of my journey starts. welcome letters, guidelines, internship details, travel bric-a-brac poured and suddenly life became a whirlwind of activities.

If anything that can be more vexing and painstaking than examinations are the hoard of grey headed persnickety government, visa consuls and medical officials. and delhi traffic too is not so far away in adding an extra ounce of trouble on your head and specially when you are already running late to meet a white capped 'babu' in a limestone washed office so that he does not slunk away for his every 15 min 'pee break'. procuring documents that proved me medically healthy to proving myself a resident of my own country is no easy task in this country of billion! one has to cross a colossal mountain of obstinate, supercilious lecherous 'paan-chewing' men and gold frenzied tittle-tattler women. and once you hold that piece of paper in your hand you have conquered the Everest. in the midst of all this hullabaloo, there's this sudden surge of solicitude that engulfs all family relatives when one of their brethren heads off to 'vilayat'. and i was not spared too. and mothers specially become possessed of hilarious unimaginable fears which could range from getting sick to getting kidnapped.
however things suddenly became awry in late November when Delhi university dropped a bomb of terror and disgust upon thousands of hearts by ruffling examination dates and the vacations henceforth. i was the worst victim. i ran late and got tangled in a mesh of dilemmas, with certain documents yet to see the light of the day and by late November Delhi university too joined the race of "who is the most harassing". after a fearsome 'battle' of my temperament , i got my tickets booked and was bound to leave.
nevertheless all these segments suffocated and also filled the days preceding my great exodus.
.......to be continued