Campus Diaries – Tricia Bhattacharya

They say your school is the place that leads you to the doorways of the world. A giant mural of lessons, laughter and memories that you eventually walk past but never entirely leave behind. I did not walk through my years at GDB with the thunderclap moments that make for a good alumni story. Instead, my most profound school memories were tucked in gentle silences, small moments almost like lingering echoes, teachers who saw beyond what was printed on the marksheet and laughter that seldom made it to the newsletters.

I remember being the kid who liked to exist in the sidelines, not knowing how to express myself amidst the drumrolls of the centre stage. That is why it is only natural that it took me 14 years to learn that being quiet does not mean being invisible. The learning came wrapped with an incident when one of my short stories was published in the school cross currents. No loud applause. No grand revelation. Just my words, printed neatly on a page surrounded by so many others. It was a small thing yet it told me that my voice matters, even if it whispers. That publication gave me the confidence that storytelling was not just my secret pastime, but it could possibly be a path that I was looking for all my life to express myself. I started writing more and eventually fell in love with literature. There was no single mould we were all expected to fit into and it meant that I could explore my love for stories without being made to feel like I was falling behind. Even now, that moment keeps coming back to me in every entrance exam I attempt, every personal essay I draft and every time I question whether I am good enough.

Then there were the people. Friends made in between classes, over shared complaints and borrowed pens. Even though the people in the camera roll would never come under the same roof again, all of them left some trace of a joke that still makes me smile, a photo buried in my gallery or a memory that still flickers when a certain song plays. The rhythm of that song reminds me how school never announced itself as a singular story sealed with lessons rather a thousand little moments of self-growth and building confidence stitched together by routine and time. Over the years, I learned how resilience is not always loud. Sometimes it is just about showing up for a regular Wednesday even when your head is spinning or your heart feels heavier than your backpack. I learned how to manage time not just between classes and submissions, but between the small emotional earthquakes that teenage years bring and the deadlines that refused to wait. As I step into new rooms in college now, I realise how GDB provided a sense of belonging I only recognise now that I have already left. It has been a place I may have grown out of in size but never in sentiment. Because few things do not need forever to matter.

My school did not hand me a blueprint for life. But it gave me a voice, a few memories and the beginnings of questions I am still learning to ask. It was not like a storm but a drizzle, barely noticeable until one day you realise your shoes are wet and something has soaked in. The walls may change colours and the lights may glow brighter now but I will always carry the warmth of the spaces that held me before I knew who I was becoming and also the quiet belief that I get to live this version of myself because of the years I had spent at GDB.

Tricia Bhattacharya
Batch of 2025