My first Diwali at IIT Hyderabad, I slept through the beginning of it. My friends came to my room and pulled me out of deep sleep. When I got there, slightly disoriented, expecting something ordinary, I found my batchmates painting diyas, making lanterns, putting mehendi on each other’s hands, and learning games together.I stood there for a moment and understood: this was not going to be like Diwali at home.I am from West Godavari in Andhra Pradesh, 20 years old, and in my final year of B.Tech in Material Science and Metallurgical Engineering at IIT Hyderabad. This week, I am running the institute’s Diwali celebrations as the overall coordinator of EBSB, better called ‘Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat’. It is the IIT’s cultural club that organises events bringing together students from different states and traditions. What I find ironic and astounding is that the girl who was pulled out of bed at her first Diwali here is now the one making sure the diyas are painted, the lanterns go up, and the event runs across two evenings for the entire campus.My fight for my futureMy father is a small businessman in real estate; my mother is a teacher. I am their only daughter. My father, with the financial pressures he had and the beliefs he had grown up with, was not convinced that higher studies for a daughter was something he could invest in. I did not even know what IIT was until Class 12, it simply was not part of the conversation at home. My mother supported whatever I wanted to do, quietly.I had always been driven by something I could not name precisely: a restlessness, a need to achieve, a feeling that I was meant to do something that stood out. But the world around me was drawn very tight. I could not step outside my room, could not call friends, could not go anywhere beyond school and home.The first real fight came during Class 11, when I was at a college that taught entirely in Telugu, had no IIT preparation group, and was not interested in students who wanted something different. I wanted to be in the IIT coaching group at that college. I begged the faculty. They looked past me. I eventually pushed hard enough that my father agreed to let me switch colleges for Class 12.Story continues below this adAt the new college, I prepared on my own — there was no coaching institute, no mentor, no one in my town who had been through the IIT process and could tell me what to expect. And then, in the middle of exam season, I got double typhoid. I could not walk. I told myself I would sit for the supplementary exams and try again — that it was over. But I went from bed to write the JEE Advanced anyway.That year, I was the only student from my entire town to get an IIT seat.My father came to me, held my hands, and said: I am so sorry. And then: do whatever you want. Go and plan your own life. Before all of this, I had begged him for one chance; I told him, invest this once, and if I fail, I will be whatever you want me to be. It was the best moment of my life.That one chance is what brought me to where I am.Story continues below this adLife at IIT Hyderabad campusI joined IIT Hyderabad in 2023 at 17, with a small bag and very little idea of what I was walking into. I did not know the branches, did not know what I wanted to study. I found Material Science and Metallurgical Engineering, read about it, and saw that it connected to semiconductors. That was enough; I am drawn to the things I do not yet understand. I chose it.The first year was about learning to exist without guardrails. I had always been social in the small space I was given, class leader at school, comfortable in front of people, but the openness of a campus, with students from across the country, every language, every kind of background, was something I had to grow into.For a while, I stayed mostly in my room. Then I started showing up.By my second year, I was in multiple clubs. Through EML – Extra Mural Lectures, a student-run team that invites eminent national and global visionaries to deliver inspiring talks on campus, I helped receive prominent speakers to campus, coordinated with them, and spoke with them professionally.Story continues below this adFor someone who had never been allowed beyond her neighbourhood, those conversations were an education in themselves. I understood that confidence is not something you are born with, it is something you acquire by putting yourself in situations you are not ready for, repeatedly, until the unreadiness goes away.Then there was the first DiwaliAfter that night, the diya painting, the lanterns, and the warmth of a crowd that had come together from every corner of the country to celebrate something together, I applied to EBSB in my second year. I applied to every domain they had: finance, operations, public relations, multimedia. In the interview, they told me they were not certain yet what I was good at, but they could see the motivation and love I had for the work. That was enough for them. I joined.In my second year, I helped organise the Diwali event from inside the team, lanterns, food stalls, mehendi, clay modelling, games. In my third year, I became General Secretary of IIT Hyderabad. In my final year, I came back to EBSB as overall coordinator. This club is where it all began. I wanted to close the circle. Celebrating Diwali at IIT Hyderabad campus (Images via special arrangement/Enhanced with AI)This week, we are running Diwali across two evenings. The date was shifted slightly earlier this year to work around the placement season, so that the students who go home to their families before exams can still be part of it. Ahead of Diwali night: diya painting, mehendi, clay modelling, origami, games. One-day before Diwali, lanterns were released into the sky. The funding comes from the institute. The hundred small decisions, what to buy, where to set up, how to make an entire campus feel like they are home for a few hours, those come from us.Story continues below this adI grew up with Diwali as a quiet evening between three people. No neighbourhood celebration, no friends at the door, no noise. Here, Diwali is the loudest, most crowded event of the year. It goes across two days. People wait for it. Celebrating Diwali at IIT Hyderabad campus (Images via special arrangement/Enhanced with AI)For students who are far from their families, there is a question that arrives with every festival — a quiet version of: where do I belong right now? The answer, every year at IITH, comes from somewhere in the middle of a crowd of students from Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan and Assam and West Bengal, painting diyas together and not entirely sure how they ended up being this close.