Voyager

Amsterdam - the city on the water, known for its open and liberal culture, and most importantly the city I call home for the nine months now. There is a tale behind how an Indian, born in the small farming town of Bhimavaram, brought up by ordinary middle-class parents, came to live in this beautiful floating city. We lived in lots of places all over South India and in this time I enjoyed making new friends and exploring new places – I wanted more. Another thing you should know about my upbringing is that I studied 4 years in a strict boys missionary school and in a highly conservative (Hindu) university. Being very curious in nature I have always explored unchartered territory and managed to look beyond these boundaries. This built up the adventurous and rebellious character of mine and fuelled a desire to explore and experience different places and people even more. Schools being the time where we spend most of our time, this shortage of freedom and availability of limited resources taught me to appreciate the simple things in life and be thankful for everything I possess. In contrast to the closed and strict environment I was in, Amsterdam has a culture of directness and openness, simple lifestyle and great spirit. When you hear about Amsterdam it is always about sex and drugs, but for me - a childhood dream of European travel, great student life and international culture, cycling along canals in a historical city and through vast green meadows with beautiful flowers were what Amsterdam promised to offer.

Bangalore in India was a city with an open and accepting culture with great platforms to share knowledge and experiences. I thought if a city like Bangalore was like this, then how much better would an international city like Amsterdam be?! On top of this I did open source development from Mozilla Firefox which required me working online with a lot of people from all over the globe. My interactions and discussions with them made me feel Amsterdam was the right place for me. It also motivated me to have a real education - not only in my domain, but also about life - the reason I am currently pursuing a Masters in Artificial Intelligence abroad. Though I got into a higher ranked university in Los Angeles I craved for student life, variety and culture in Amsterdam. Amsterdam promised me a ticket for an adventurous and enriching journey into myself and today, though nine months have passed already the journey continues and it only keeps getting better.