#PeopleOfDonatekart: Meet Shreya Mishra
“When you enter Lucknow, there’s a board that says, “Muskuraiye, aap Lucknow mein hain” — ‘Smile, you’re now in Lucknow.”
I don’t think anything else captures the essence of my hometown better. The city of Nawabs welcomes everyone with open arms and a benevolent smile. Even on a very busy day you will find the passers-by smiling back at you and asking about your well-being — ‘Aur sab khairiyat hai?’ This warms up my heart, it is nice to see people being kind to each other.
And the food! I can’t even stop talking about it. There is this smell about the city that reminds me that I am home.
And this is the home that I loved but decided to leave behind so that I could pursue a master’s degree in social entrepreneurship in a different state. I left everything back but the memories. Memories of my joint family, my friends, my beloved city and most importantly, memories of my granddad. A painter himself, my Baba held my hands through so many firsts in my life — making a curry, chopping vegetables, doing my homework and of course, painting. He left us too early — for years I couldn’t muster up the courage to hold the paint brush again. Then finally, in 2019, I started painting and immediately I felt so close to my Baba again.
Staying away from home is tough. But staying at a place where you’re unable to communicate with people around you due to language barriers is a whole new level of toughness. I realized that I had to brush up on my English, to overcome my fear of public speaking and other things — a lot of people don’t take you seriously otherwise!
My batchmates were older than me and more experienced. More often than not I hesitated to participate in group discussions, fearing that I was not as aware of things like them. My foreign professors spoke in heavily accented English and I was at a loss. I woke up early and was up studying late yet nothing was enough. Was my decision to leave home a mistake? I thought. I almost considered quitting.
Well, almost. I didn’t. Instead, I started maintaining a sheet to track my progress. My own performance review. And it fills me with immense pleasure to see that I have come a long way.
I sure have a lot more to learn, but the young girl who was nervous and scared to give her opinions is now no longer afraid to present in meetings in front of the stakeholders. She dreams of her own startup, she is happy that she has proved everyone wrong who thought she didn’t have it in her. I would call that progress, won’t you?”
- Shreya Mishra, Manager- Strategic Partnerships & Alliances
