From West Godavari to IIT Hyderabad: How One Student Built a Campus Family

A final-year B.Tech student from West Godavari in Andhra Pradesh is leading the annual Diwali celebrations at the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, as the overall coordinator of the Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat cultural club. The student, who is 20 years old and studies Material Science and Metallurgical Engineering, recalled her first Diwali at the institute when friends pulled her out of deep sleep to join batchmates painting diyas and making lanterns. Growing up, her father worked as a small businessman in real estate and her mother worked as a teacher. Initially, her father was not convinced that higher studies for a daughter was a worthwhile investment and higher education was rarely discussed at home. Despite attending a college that taught entirely in Telugu and lacked any coaching group for engineering entrance exams, she pushed to switch colleges in Class 11 and prepared on her own without a mentor or coaching institute. While preparing for the Joint Entrance Examination, she contracted double typhoid in the middle of exam season and struggled to walk. She decided to write the JEE Advanced anyway and became the only student from her entire town to secure an IIT seat that year, prompting her father to apologize and tell her to plan her own life. She entered IIT Hyderabad in 2023 at the age of 17 and chose her engineering branch after reading that it connects to semiconductors.

Campus Life And Leadership

After initially spending a lot of time in her room during her first year, she began joining campus activities. She worked with the Extra Mural Lectures student-run team to receive prominent global and national visionaries, and later applied to the Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat club across multiple domains including finance, operations, public relations, and multimedia. She served as the General Secretary of IIT Hyderabad in her third year before returning as the overall coordinator for the cultural club in her final year. This year, the institute's Diwali event spans two evenings and was shifted slightly earlier on the calendar to accommodate students leaving for placement season before exams. Funded by the institute, the celebrations feature diya painting, mehendi, clay modelling, origami, food stalls, games, and lantern releases.

Context

Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat is a national initiative and student club network in Indian higher education institutions designed to promote cultural integration and mutual understanding among students from different states and traditions. Festivals on large residential technical campuses often serve as major community gatherings where students far from home recreate family traditions together.