My Incredible India. Part 1

As every fire starts with a spark, every great life-experience starts with a single thought, event or a person, who changes your worldview and turns your way to the opposite direction.
My story of discovering the country of dreams and wonders was initiated by all mentioned factors together.
Being a member of the biggest international youth organisation AIESEC, which provides an exclusive opportunity for personal and professional growth through internships around the world, I couldn’t imagine my future development without going for exchange. During all 3 years of my membership I’ve been motivating and persuading people around to make a step out of their comfort zones and experience work in another country. It’s not easy to sell a product if you have never tried it, and it’s much more difficult to realize the whole value and benefits of it, and still being not able to go for it. So at the time I became the President of AIESE C Simferopol I made a strong decision of how my future in AIESEC would look like.There was only one question which remained open : “Which country?” Not an easy choice if you take into account the fact that AIESEC is represented in 107 countries of the world, but as I mentioned once we are lucky to live in the world of circumstances and occasions, where everything is connected and influenced by each other.
In my case the answer to that question (which is now asked by local people in the form of “Why did you decide to come to India?”) usually has several reasons behind:
1) Event. There is one grand and unique conference in AIESEC, which gathers more than 700 people from all over the world and represents the essence of leadership and cultural diversity through the range of great events and atmosphere of enjoying participation – AIESEC International Congress. This year it is organized by AIESEC India – an important factor for a person who has always wanted to join the Global plenary of successful young leaders from all over the world.
2) Person. This reason as long as the following ones defined not only the country, but the city for my internship. Who could ever think that hosting of an Indian intern from Kyiv would end up with a great friendship. Arunesh Moudgil – the exhange participant from AIESEC Chandigarh, being such a lively, patriotic and positive personality simply changed my perception of India.
3) №1. AIESEC Chandigarh is the leading Local Committee out of more than 700 representatives all over the world. Providing hundreds of Exchange opportunities every year, it is a real craddle of cultural diversity and learning experience for everyone, who wants to experience working in the international environment.
4) Chandigarh is the cleanest, greenest and most well-planned city in the whole India. Along with unique and colourful Indian culture it’s the best place for getting cultural and working experience. Amazing traditions, hospitable people, incredible places and things –all these made the impressive influence on my decision to discover India in its full.
And here THE STORY begins!

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All is for the best in the best of possible worlds

    Our life is a maze of thousands ways, cross-roads and barriers…And every day is a choice of your next step into the unknown, but so much desirable future. Each day we stand at the cross-road, and like in folk fairy-tales, struggling to take the best path out of three in front of us. That would be the most unresolved puzzle for everyone, if not the fact that every living-being in this world is walking in the same maze, where the paths are intercrossed and lives are overlapped with such a force, so that this energy can swirl and spin your way and lead it to the absolutely another direction.
    In this maze of life every little thing can make a BIG difference: one event, one person, one action, one single WORD…Such simple small things are able to change the whole life and they do, but so many times we ask ourselves: “Are these changes for the best or for the worst?”
The story of my walking through the maze of life proved the well-known and optimistic saying: “All is for the best in the best of possible worlds”.
    The first conscious life-changing choice I remember was the decision about my future profession and a university in particular. I felt lost and confused, because, from the one hand, there was an option to study architecture (quite attractive, but very specific), from the other hand, the faculty of Interpreting (much more attractive, but from the words of people IMPOSSIBLE to enter). The deadline was coming closer, my nerves were running low, but still complete mass in the head…In the end, my parents, like professional FBI agents, set me on the chair, stood in front and created the following dialogue: “What do you like most of all?” – “English…” – “Then you’ll enter Interpreting.” – “It’s impossible...I don’t know anything….I cannot….” – “Everything is possible! You have your brains and strong will! You can!” In one year, after preparatory courses I managed to be in the ranking of top students, won the University competition on English and now I’m graduating with honours never regretting about the decision made 4 years ago!
    Summer 2007. After a year of studying at one of the most challenging faculties I was offered a job as a translator in the Internet by my teacher: a well-paid, perspective work in the area I loved. But, as it always happened in my life, one person changed my plans: in September 2007 my friend introduced me to HIM...An open-minded, strong, ambitious…the one that made me feel needed, the one that created me as a PERSON and stole my heart and soul. In September 2007 I fell in love with….AIESEC. At that time my employer suddenly stopped calling me, as though giving some time to choose and decide. And when on 13th of December, right on the day of my Birthday, he called and offered a new work – my answer was firm and clear: “NO”. I devoted my time to the organization, which is still playing the most important part of my life, so my way through life was called AIESEC Way, and I must say it proved my motto hundreds of times.
     For the last three years my path has been looking more like a climbing the peaks somewhere in the Crimean mountains: descending, falling down to precipices, but just in order to win even higher mountain top than before. My first steps in AIESEC were not very successful, I applied for two initiatives, but for some reason failed to be selected (I felt myself a real loser…), and I couldn’t even imagine that one month later the President of AIESEC Simferopol would call me and suggest going to the National Conference for Executive Boards in the role of Talent Management responsible! I didn’t hesitate a minute and agreed! SO it’s not difficult to foretell my future aspirations: after the conference I was officially selected as a Talent Management coordinator till the next elections (in March) and of course when the time for filling in the Election Applications came, there were no doubts which position I was going to apply for;) I had two competitors: Mavile (my friend from school years), who actually brought me to AIESEC and another girl El’zara from my Recruitment. In spite of a big competition I felt very confident and competent and ready to be announced as a Vice-President. After a long process of selection three of us were standing together waiting for results from Emir Shevkiev – elected President…Three … two… one…and another failure!!! Not me, not now…I was shocked, confused, standing in despair at 10 p.m. on the bus stop and crying like for the last time. If someone told me at that moment that I would thank Emir for this decision till the rest of my life, I would cry even more, because I hate when people calm me down with such obvious and untrue words. But that “someone” would be absolutely right, as three months later I was standing on the railway station hand in hand with my boy-friend (and our relations became possible due to the fact that I WAS NOT in Executive Board) and Emir after the conference which also made them best friends even now and suddenly Emir made me a proposal to become his….PR coordinator with a perspective of Vice-President position! Dreams came true: working in one team with Djon on the position, which soon became my obsession and style of life! Another mountain top – where is the pitfall?
    The new pitfall put on the scales of values LOVE and FRIENDSHIP. October 2008 will stay in my memories forever: the best friend of mine was going to get married and invited me as a bridesmaid (a great honour and happiness for me). Beautiful wedding, romantic atmosphere and two lovers – I was imagining all this and thinking about my own relationship, which by that time had been creaking at the seams (the distance took its toll and the only way out was to meet urgently at the conference). Everything should have been perfect: firstly I settle my personal life, then next week go to celebrate the holiday of love and unity of hearts. BUT… The life-maze had another plan: several weeks before the conference I got to know that the wedding had to be rescheduled for one week earlier. It was the end…The end of the sincere, faithful, big love - of my life (as it seemed to me at that moment), but (as it turned out a long time afterwards) it was the beginning of the strong, tempered, forceful personality I became. Nothing can develop such a huge and imperishable inner strength in a person as a love tragedy. Everything I survived at that time made me reconsider my values, attitude to myself and to my goals in life. Being a strong and decisive with a great passion to my organization, I ran for the position of Local Committee President in AIESEC Simferopol and for the first time I got it without any shifts and changes!
    Year 2009-2010. My term was 100% the most challenging year in my life! So many things happened: failures, success, devoted people, traitors, happy and sad moments, but all the time I knew that everything was not by chance, but thoroughly calculated by the same maze of life, which was leading me to new peaks.
    January 2010. The logical step up in my AIESEC career was applying for Member Committee in AIESEC Ukraine for my beloved position of PR. Manifests filled in, speech delivered, interview passed, I was one of two candidates, believed in myself and in the future of AIESEC Ukraine. But my perception of that future was different from the rest and eventually it didn’t help to conquer that summit. But, taught by my previous experience and supported by a huge amount of people who believed in me, I knew then that my way was leading me to another fateful turn. And that turn threw me into a dilemma of my next steps: I learnt a lot during my President term, but made a lot of mistakes, so my desire to continue my work in the second term+ the fact that I didn’t have a successor defined my decision. The decision itself was not difficult, the most difficult thing was to “fight” with those who tried to talk me out of it (second term on the same position is considered to be a suicide). This is what, unfortunately, ruins many amazing ideas and actions in this world – when no one believes in you. =(
    In spite of this, I kept my way: I was elected as a President one more time, selected a great team and was completely happy and confident about the future. And….again, one simple conversation, one thought, one suggestion changed the whole life! I still remember, when talking to my current Vice-President El’zara (yes, the one who some years ago applied for Talent Management with me=), I suddenly realized once again how much passionate she was about the organization and what a perfect successor she was. Word by word I discovered that all the barriers, which held her back from becoming a President before, were gone! It’s impossible to describe everything, but it all ended when one day in front of the whole Local Committee I officially resigned and delivered the Position to the MOST DIGNIFIED person ever. And then I felt it was the best decisions made in my life!
    I can hardly guess, how my way is going to twist in the future…But so far I made up my mind to continue my development in India on AIESEC internship (of course, it was also influenced by some people, some facts and events, but this is another story=). What is waiting for me? Who will lead me through my maze further? How many turns and dilemmas will I face? These are the questions without definite answers, but the only thing I know is, for sure, that “Everything’s gonna be all right”!

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