Kashish Wadhwa

It was my first day in my new College. I was deliberately looking forward to make new friends who were keen on studies and stayed away from any sort of bad habits.

I met a guy during my registration. We had a chat and he looked nice and committed to work. It immediately struck me that he could be the best person to be my roommate. Guess what, I convinced him and we took our rooms together. I was really happy that finally, I had good company in that new environment. But my happiness was short-lived. When I returned to the hostel in the evening, the sight in the room said something else. I saw my friend holding a cigarette in a hand. Bottles of alcohol were over the floor. I was shaken! “How am l going to study here with him like this?”

The next day I went to the hostel committee. After enormous efforts, I convinced them to change my room. However this time I didn’t choose my roommate. I was allocated a new room. With hope in my heart, I greeted my new roommate. He was really good but to my dismay, he too had this habit of drinking and smoking. I was shattered because I never liked these things. “Do I have to live with people like this?” – I had questioned myself then.

Needless to say, I had no other option but to accept the situation. Slowly I started making a good bond with my roommate; he was a nice person. Did his habits matter what kind of person he was? Nah! Soon I made many more friends and loved the way we made countless memories in college… from semester projects to classes to TA’s.

This phase of my life taught me the biggest lesson. A person who drinks or smokes doesn’t need to be bad at heart. Today all of my college friends are doing great in their professional life and have stood by my side whenever I had trouble.

To put it simply, it’s a personal choice of a person to drink or smoke. Then why judge…

Total Work Experience : 3.5 Years (Infosys)