The Chevening Experience- Part 1
It was one of the great days in office. A colleague walked in with a request.
"I want a reference from you for applying for the Chevening Fellowship," he said.
"What is Chevening Fellowship?" I was puzzled. I haven't heard of it.
"Oh, it is a UK Government's award for Indians in London. My friend attended it two yeas back. If you search for it in internet, you will know the details. This particular one I am applying for is Chevening-Gurukul Fellowship." He answered.
I promptly google searched these words and found out that every year British Government calls for applications from Indians to attend a 12 week fellowship course in Europe, which is fully funded by the Government of UK. I found that any one can apply and there is no upper age limit!
"Oh, this means I too can apply!" I exclaimed. "Yes, madam," my colleague answered.
The last date of application was just a week away and I had to fill in plenty of details. It had a lot of columns and I had to fill up the entire career track records as well as my skills and achievements. But I applied nevertheless. I was a bit careless and made some mistakes since I was multitasking and in the midst of several other deadlines. Still, I was hopeful of getting selected although thousands apply every year only 12 to 15 persons get selected. Who else is more suited than me, was what I kept on thinking.
I found out that my IPS batch-mate and roommate had attended this fellowship last year, but she never told me! Still I called her to find out how good this fellowship was.
"Oh... you don't study anything more than you already know, but the experience of spending three months in UK was great for me."
Days and weeks passed by without any information from the Chevening Secretariat. Interview for the selected candidates were supposed to be held by May. May came and went, still no news. I thought I did not get selected.
Then, in the first week of June I received a call.
"This is from the British High Commission, New Delhi. I just want to check up whether you are coming for the interview scheduled on 7th. I did not get any reply from you, hence this call."
"I did not get any communication!" I complained.
"We sent several mails to you, there is no response. Please check your spam mailbox too since some of our bulk mails to there. But we have sent mails to the email address you provided in the application." I was informed.
7th was just two days away. How to go to New Delhi from Kerala at such a short notice? But I didn't want to miss the interview. "I'll be there by 12 noon on 7th." I confirmed.
On checking up my application again, I found I made a mistake in typing my email address. One letter was short! I sent mail to Chevening Secretariat apologizing the mistake and gave my correct email address. The next day, I got 16 mails with an apology for sending them to the wrong email address!
I was lucky. While I was racking my brains about going to Delhi and the expenses I had to incur for the trip, a message came from the Central Ministry that there is a meeting on 7th in New Delhi about accident statistics and an officer from Kerala should be deputed!
I was fated to get this fellowship!
The trip to Delhi, meeting at MORTH and Interview at British Consulate went like clockwork. More than asking me any questions, the 3 member Interview Board was telling me about the fellowship, what all I should prepare for the travel and how the weather will be etc!I was sure by then that I got selected for the fellowship. I owe thanks to the two dignitaries who gave glowing references about me. Mr. P. K. H. Tharakan who was DGP Kerala and Chief of R&AW under whom I have worked for a few years and Dr. Sheena Shukkoor, Pro- Vice Chancellor of MG University who is my friend since the last several years.
Being an award by the British Government, I had to proceed to London on leave. So, I applied for three month's Earned leave. I got permission from MHA, MEA and State Government. Visa and tickets were provided by the Foreign Commonwealth Office in London. By that time, a whats-app group was formed by the selected fellows, 15 of us and we were in contact with each other through the social media. I was the only one selected from Kerala and the first IPS officer to be given this award in the State. Of the 15, two were Tamilians settled in Delhi, one was from Maharashtra, one from AP and the other 10 were from Delhi.
Early morning on 10th September 2015 I started from Trivandrum and reached Heathrow airport in London in the evening. My brother, who is a doctor in Southampton which is more than 2 hour drive from London came to pick me up. He dropped me at Moonraker Point an apartment for students near Waterloo Station. I had visited UK as part of my Mid-career training programme (MCTP-IV) in 2012 earlier. My family had joined me then for a few days after my course. But this time, it was for three months.
I loved my apartment. It was small with attached tiny bathroom. The room had a double bed, a wardrobe shelf, a long L shaped table and a chair. There was storage space under the bed and a full size mirror for dressing. Each apartment had four such en-suite rooms and a common kitchen. The kitchen was fully furnished with a table, four chairs and all utensils. The huge fridge was big enough to store all our food, there were burners, oven and microwave. All the cutlery were four in number and there were plenty of utensils. I was thinking of eating packed food while in London, but the sight of the full-fledged kitchen changed my mind.
My brother took me for shopping at Sainsbury and purchased all I immediately needed. After he left, I met the other person who was allotted room in the apartment, Anish Garg who was previously a Judge, but now legal adviser in Dupont. Then came Sapna Poti, who is a highly qualified lady with a PhD from IIT, Chennai and working at NSDC. The fourth person was Dr. Shuchin Bajaj who runs a number of hospitals around Delhi. He later shifted his apartment and in his place came Neha Pahuja, a climate researcher working in Teri. Soon I found that I was the oldest in the group. But I decided to enjoy to the maximum and learn a lot in the process.
Our programme schedule showed that though the main classes will be at King's College at Strand in London, which is one of the oldest colleges in UK, we will be taken to Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Geneva and Paris as part of the Fellowship studies!
King's College was housed in Somerset House on the banks of River Thames. It was a beautiful, imposing building with many wings and our class was in a room at Dickson-Poon School of Law building which overlooked the court yard and the clock tower of Somerset House. From Moonraker Point to Kings College, it was a 30 minutes walk and we had to cross Thames at Waterloo Bridge. Beautiful walk it was!
Since all the fellows had to do individual project work, a guide was allotted to me- Professor Benjamin Bowling. He was a sweet person who taught me a lot during those days.
And London was beautiful. The weather during that month was simply lovely. Sapna became a close friend in a few days and we went everywhere together. Unfortunately the first day itself, I got fever and a bad cold, probably due to weather change. A person sitting next to me in the flight was sneezing, may be I inhaled the germs in the air.
More later.
With Sapna on the way to Kings College- South Bank.
Being an award by the British Government, I had to proceed to London on leave. So, I applied for three month's Earned leave. I got permission from MHA, MEA and State Government. Visa and tickets were provided by the Foreign Commonwealth Office in London. By that time, a whats-app group was formed by the selected fellows, 15 of us and we were in contact with each other through the social media. I was the only one selected from Kerala and the first IPS officer to be given this award in the State. Of the 15, two were Tamilians settled in Delhi, one was from Maharashtra, one from AP and the other 10 were from Delhi.
Early morning on 10th September 2015 I started from Trivandrum and reached Heathrow airport in London in the evening. My brother, who is a doctor in Southampton which is more than 2 hour drive from London came to pick me up. He dropped me at Moonraker Point an apartment for students near Waterloo Station. I had visited UK as part of my Mid-career training programme (MCTP-IV) in 2012 earlier. My family had joined me then for a few days after my course. But this time, it was for three months.
I loved my apartment. It was small with attached tiny bathroom. The room had a double bed, a wardrobe shelf, a long L shaped table and a chair. There was storage space under the bed and a full size mirror for dressing. Each apartment had four such en-suite rooms and a common kitchen. The kitchen was fully furnished with a table, four chairs and all utensils. The huge fridge was big enough to store all our food, there were burners, oven and microwave. All the cutlery were four in number and there were plenty of utensils. I was thinking of eating packed food while in London, but the sight of the full-fledged kitchen changed my mind.
My brother took me for shopping at Sainsbury and purchased all I immediately needed. After he left, I met the other person who was allotted room in the apartment, Anish Garg who was previously a Judge, but now legal adviser in Dupont. Then came Sapna Poti, who is a highly qualified lady with a PhD from IIT, Chennai and working at NSDC. The fourth person was Dr. Shuchin Bajaj who runs a number of hospitals around Delhi. He later shifted his apartment and in his place came Neha Pahuja, a climate researcher working in Teri. Soon I found that I was the oldest in the group. But I decided to enjoy to the maximum and learn a lot in the process.
Our programme schedule showed that though the main classes will be at King's College at Strand in London, which is one of the oldest colleges in UK, we will be taken to Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Geneva and Paris as part of the Fellowship studies!
King's College was housed in Somerset House on the banks of River Thames. It was a beautiful, imposing building with many wings and our class was in a room at Dickson-Poon School of Law building which overlooked the court yard and the clock tower of Somerset House. From Moonraker Point to Kings College, it was a 30 minutes walk and we had to cross Thames at Waterloo Bridge. Beautiful walk it was!
Since all the fellows had to do individual project work, a guide was allotted to me- Professor Benjamin Bowling. He was a sweet person who taught me a lot during those days.
And London was beautiful. The weather during that month was simply lovely. Sapna became a close friend in a few days and we went everywhere together. Unfortunately the first day itself, I got fever and a bad cold, probably due to weather change. A person sitting next to me in the flight was sneezing, may be I inhaled the germs in the air.
More later.
Inside our classroom
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