Muskaan Chandra : 8 Random Seniors

Q. Where are you from? Tell us a bit about yourself and your journey leading up to here.

I’m from Mumbai. My brother, who is four years older than me, was in IITB and constantly talked about how chill his life there was in freshman year – this was when I was in the 10th grade. I already found science fascinating, but several people told me not to pursue JEE – far too grilling, non-ideal atmosphere especially for a girl, low chances of selection. I did consider other options but found myself drawn back to science everytime I thought about it, so decided to give it a shot. 

When the results were out, I had the option of EE Dual and Mech BTech, and chose EE on the advice of a teacher I really admired (still very grateful to him). That being said, this was a choice I went on to regret big time in the following year 😛

Q. There are a whole bunch of activities you explored in the institute, apart from your two years of association with Insight. Tell us about some of it.

I entered college with only one goal – playing music on stage, and this was what I made my first sem about. I got rejected after an electric guitar audition, so bought a bass guitar instead and found it cooler than expected. I spent the entire night before the MA105 quiz at convo hall having studied nothing in advance, which in retrospect was my first instance with having to “clutch” (pull things off last minute).

I also found Literati very cool, and thought that being a Convener would give me a lot of chances at wordplay humour and meeting bibliophiles. Since ours was the first online tenure, we were not constrained to events seniors had traditionally held, and introduced a lot of new things.

Q. Tell us about your journey through insight. 

In my first year, I got to work on the freshie newsletter as a Panellist, and loved the vibes – it literally felt like a Dungeons and Dragons meet up, everybody was funny, interesting and kind.

Around the time Editor applications rolled out, I also considered other managerial PoRs but did not feel sufficiently motivated for them. I used to read a lot of satire on Instagram, and wrote my own for the Editor assignment – they found it funny, and despite telling me that the initiatives I pitched were “less than half-baked”, I managed to make it 🙂

For my fourth year, I was on the fence between going for a sem-ex or running for Chief Editor. After several dilemma filled days, reading old Insight newsletters is what pushed me towards the latter. The first time I came back to campus after COVID was directly for my Chief Ed final interview, so a lot of mixed emotions that day lol.

We were the first Chiefs in 3 years to be thrust into an offline tenure, and found ourselves barraged with situations Insight had not dealt with in years. Interacting with the administration was also an experience with a steep learning curve. Throughout the tenure, and especially towards the end— it was difficult, it was engrossing, it was rewarding. I consider myself very lucky to have gotten the team we did, they made everything worth it and made me want to be better because of how good they were. 

Q. What is something that you’re proud of having accomplished during your journey here?

Did not imagine I would make friends with so many straight people!

Q. Any funny incidents you’d like to share?

I got a chance to participate in the music GC Goonj in my freshie year, and this was the first time an all-freshman band was allowed to participate. A Guns N’ Roses Cover Band had been invited as the judging panel, and I was clueless enough to think these were guitarists from the actual legendary band. Within 1 minute of our performance, one of the judges stood up and shouted at us to “stop playing!” and “have you even tuned your guitars?” and “this is not a hostel room practice session”. It was traumatising to say the least😭. My friends were very nice to me after the performance, and some of my bandmates posted a YouTube cover the next day with a card saying, “Our Guitars Are Tuned”.

Link to video: https://youtu.be/JcvPhoXreRM?si=FeJrSLDRaGe-ue7Q

Q. Could you tell us an interesting fact about yourself?

I used to run an anonymous meme account making fun of quintessential insti things, talking about the queer experience, etc. My followers slowly became very curious about who the admin was, and I once thought the account had been hacked. In a state of panic, I disabled it, and later saw people posting literal eulogies for the account and how they will miss it. I was very moved and vv #validated – to all those who did this, ily and you can DM me for therapy voucher.

Q. Do you have any regrets? Anything you wanted to do during your insti life but could not do for some reason?

I think things panned out the way they were meant to, but being more outgoing in freshie year would have helped me. I couldn’t make close friends in either of the clubs I was in initially, so my dream of performing my favourite song in a band with my best friends and doing a lying-down-on-stage guitar solo remains pending.

Q.if your college experience was a movie, what genre would it be and why?

(Tw: cringe) Christmas RomCom where the main character realises the meaning of life = love and the person I fall in love with = my friends

Q. Some tips you would like to give to students here, some realisations as you end your journey here? 

5 years of introspection (overthinking) and my spamming tendencies = I can ramble on and on, but I will keep it limited to two things.

1. Under-confidence holds you back more than you know – and a side effect of that is FOMO wrt academic/ career choices and trying to follow the most optimal path. Let your courage surprise you. 
2. Insti has some of the best people, and the people who were achieving the best things also ended up surprising me the most with how helpful and kind they were. All you can do is ask for help when you need it and then ‘pass on the baton’ (this is also something a senior said to me when I thanked him).

Q. What are your future plans?

Consulting, and most probably an MBA a few years later. In my head I am already an influencer, will bring this stuff to LinkedIn soon if life goes well.

Editorial Credits : Goutam Singh