One of the one percent in 13 million.

[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]

She’s leaving home. Jaya Sharma entered the Jawaharlal Nehru University eight years ago as a Master’s student. By June, she will submit her 300-page PhD thesis and forever leave her “second home.”

On this summer night, the JNU student is wistfully strolling through the campus, keenly feeling for the sights that shall soon cease to be part of her daily life. The trees and bushes are exuding a profound remoteness—the rugged terrain, after all, is part of the Aravalis, a range of hills more ancient than the Himalayas.

Jaya begins her walk from the slopes of Ganga Dhaba. Students are sitting on ketchup-stained rocks. “Only after leaving home you discover your true self,” she says. “In JNU, I unlearned and learned afresh.” She heads towards Sabarmati Hostel, where the windows of her first-floor room tremble each time an airplane flies over the campus. Indeed, one such plane preparing to land in the international airport nearby is arching over the 9 pm sky, mimicking the motion of a comet. Otherwise, the sky upon the JNU is currently starless; the full moon resembling a small pale-red hole.

Walking along silent paths, Jaya skirts an open yard submerged in darkness, except for a string of pale lamps. Tables are set out beneath the trees. Silhouetted figures chat in low voices. The smouldering ends of their cigarettes sparkle like the eyes of wild animals at night. “Mamu Dhaba… I only like the adrak chai here.”

Ahead, two neelgai are lingering beside the School of Social Sciences, boldly impervious to human presence.

Jaya completed her Master’s in French and Francophone studies. Her PhD thesis on French cinema focuses on film director Agnès Varda, one of the pioneers of the so-called French New Wave. Turning into a deserted stretch, she talks about her beloved writers Balzac and Zola, her eight-month-long visit to Paris last year, her father’s encouragement to pursue her studies, the “mess food” of her hostel… Suddenly, a dog crosses her path. “No, it’s a jackal!” she cries. Moments later—“Look, a porcupine!” Coated in quills, the creature walks up to the pathway, stops, and turns back into the undergrowth.

Jaya now enters a zone of utter darkness, the silence deepened by the tick-tock-tick-tock of chirping crickets. She steps over steep cliffs, gaps filled with battered moonlight, swiftly reaching the top of a hill. The rocks are teeming with three or four students. This is PSR (Parthasarathy Rocks). Here, Jaya spent many winter afternoons snacking over Haldiram namkeen. The elevated retreat overlooks a massive sprawl of trees. Beyond, glistens the city lights. “JNU has been a long and meaningful journey for me,” the PhD scholar says, leaning against a rock. “It’s time to move on.”

[This is the 609th portrait of Mission Delhi project]