*Chapter 22: Where the Ground Teaches You to Walk
The gates of **Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai** did not announce themselves with grandeur. They stood quietly on the edge of Deonar, holding decades of thought, dissent, compassion, and questions that never accepted easy answers. Suhani paused just outside, her admission file pressed against her chest, heart beating with a mix of anticipation and fear she had not felt in years.
This was not an office she was entering.
This was not a corporate floor with glass walls and performance metrics.
This was a space where people came to unlearn before they learned.
She took a deep breath.
“Welcome to the beginning,” she whispered to herself.
Inside the campus, the morning was alive in its own understated way. Students walked in small groups, some carrying jute bags heavy with books, others balancing cups of chai and conversations about field visits, policy drafts, and deadlines that were not measured in profit but in impact. Walls were lined with posters—seminars on gender justice, rural livelihoods, mental health interventions, climate displacement.
Suhani felt small.
And for the first time, she felt proud of that feeling.
---
The **School of Social Work** building smelled faintly of old paper and rain-soaked earth. Ceiling fans hummed steadily. Wooden benches bore marks of generations who had sat where she now stood, anxious, hopeful, unsure.
She found her name on the list outside the seminar hall.
**Suhani Singh – PhD (Social Work & Community Development)**
Her fingers trembled as she traced the letters.
“You’re Suhani, right?”
She turned to see a girl about her age, curly hair tied loosely, eyes bright with curiosity.
“Yes,” Suhani replied.
“I’m **Meghna**. PhD second year. You’re joining under rural livelihoods, right?”
Suhani nodded. “Yes. My focus is on women-led micro-collectives in drought-prone regions.”
Meghna smiled approvingly. “Good choice. It’ll change you. Fair warning.”
Before Suhani could ask what she meant, a voice called out from inside the hall.
“New scholars, please come in.”
---
The orientation session was nothing like Suhani had imagined.
No motivational speeches.
No promises of prestige.
Instead, **Professor Aniruddh Deshmukh**, a man with salt-and-pepper hair and eyes that looked like they had seen too much to be impressed easily, spoke calmly.
“If you’re here to save anyone,” he said, adjusting his spectacles,
“you’re in the wrong place.”
The room fell silent.
“You are not saviors. You are learners. The communities you will work with have survived long before you arrived—and they will continue long after you leave. Your job is not to lead. It is to listen.”
Suhani felt something shift inside her.
“This PhD will demand patience,” the professor continued.
“It will demand humility. It will demand that you confront your own privilege, your own discomfort. There will be days you will question your choices.”
He paused.
“And if you stay despite that—then you belong here.”
Suhani swallowed hard.
She thought of Dhruv’s words from days ago.
*You’ll find a version of yourself you didn’t know you were capable of.*
---
The first field visit was scheduled sooner than she expected.
**Vidarbha.**
A region she had read about endlessly—statistics, reports, drought figures—but never walked through.
The journey began before dawn.
The institute’s jeep rattled as it left the city behind, Mumbai slowly dissolving into open roads and silence. Suhani sat by the window, notebook on her lap, watching landscapes change from concrete to soil.
Beside her sat **Dr. Kavita Rao**, her field supervisor—sharp-eyed, no-nonsense, compassionate without being indulgent.
“You look nervous,” Dr. Rao observed.
“I am,” Suhani admitted honestly.
“Good,” she said. “Fear keeps you attentive.”
After hours of travel, they reached a small village. Mud houses stood close together, children ran barefoot despite the heat, and women gathered near a hand pump, their laughter carrying strength that defied the cracked earth beneath them.
“This,” Dr. Rao said softly, “is where theory learns to breathe.”
---
Suhani’s first interaction was hesitant.
She sat on a woven mat under a banyan tree as a group of women gathered around. Their hands were rough from labor, their faces lined with stories no academic paper could capture.
One woman spoke first. “You’re from the city?”
“Yes,” Suhani replied gently.
“Then you must be very educated,” another said, half-smiling.
Suhani shook her head. “I’m here to learn. From you.”
There was a pause.
Then one woman laughed. “At least she’s honest.”
That laughter broke something open.
They spoke of failed crops, of loans, of daughters married too young, of resilience that came not from optimism but necessity. Suhani listened—really listened—her pen moving slowly, her heart absorbing more than her mind could process.
Later, as the sun dipped lower, she helped a group prepare evening meals, her city hands clumsy with unfamiliar tasks.
“You’ll learn,” one woman said kindly. “We all do.”
That night, Suhani lay on a thin mattress under a tin roof, listening to insects sing. Her body ached. Her mind raced.
She had never felt so exhausted.
She had never felt so alive.
---
Back in Mumbai, she returned to the Bandra apartment changed in ways she couldn’t yet explain.
Niddhi noticed immediately.
“You look… quieter,” she said, handing her a glass of water.
Suhani smiled faintly. “I feel fuller.”
Dhruv watched from across the room, his expression unreadable but attentive.
Later that evening, as they sat on the balcony, city lights blinking like distant questions, Suhani finally spoke.
“I don’t think I understood what research meant before this,” she said.
Dhruv leaned back. “And now?”
“Now I know it’s not about proving something,” she replied.
“It’s about standing with uncertainty without running away.”
He nodded. “That’s harder than any boardroom.”
She glanced at him. “You would know.”
He smiled, a little sad. “Yes.”
There was a pause.
“I was scared today,” Suhani admitted. “Not of the work. Of how much it matters.”
Dhruv’s voice softened. “That fear means you’re exactly where you need to be.”
---
Days turned into weeks.
Suhani learned to navigate field schedules, academic reviews, and emotional fatigue. She made mistakes. She corrected them. She learned when to speak and when to step back.
At night, she wrote—not just notes, but reflections.
*Today, I realized development isn’t about change. It’s about dignity.*
On one such night, she called her mother.
“Are you eating properly?” her mother asked immediately.
“Yes,” Suhani smiled. “And… I think I’m doing something right.”
Her mother’s voice softened. “I knew you would.”
---
One evening, after a particularly heavy field day, Suhani stood alone on the TISS campus lawn, watching the sky darken.
Meghna joined her. “First field cycle?”
“Yes.”
“Survived?”
“Barely,” Suhani laughed.
Meghna grew serious. “This work will stay with you. Even when you think you’ve left it behind.”
Suhani nodded. “I hope it does.”
As she walked back toward the gate, she sent Dhruv a message.
**Suhani:**
*Today the ground taught me how to walk again.*
His reply came moments later.
**Dhruv:**
*And I’m glad you chose a path that teaches instead of applauds.*
She smiled, phone pressed to her chest.
This was a new track of her life.
One without shortcuts.
One without certainty.
And for the first time, Suhani did not ask where it would lead.
She trusted the journey.
