I first met Rashmi at Saarang (the IIT Madras fest) in Jan 2007. We were taking part in the crossword, and she and my brother had met at fests earlier. My brother introduced us to each other, but that was the end of our interaction.

The next time I met her was at the NIT Surathkal fest in March last year. I was sitting alone and munching something in the canteen, and she’d come to grab a bite with the basketball team. She was sweet enough to come and say hello, and we started chatting. We spoke about many things, from her basketball team, to a professor of mine, to health issues and tons of other stuff.

Most of out talk centred about us feeling that if things wrong, it was our duty to do something about it rather than complaining about how lousy things were. We started around tea time and eventually stopped at ten thirty or eleven in the night, only because she had a scrabble final to take part in, and I had the solo quiz final!

I went to Vellore for my internship and Rashmi started work. We got in touch sometime in January again through facebook. We continued our conversation from where it had paused in Surathkal, this time over e-mail. Sometime in March she mailed me about Grassroutes and asked me if I was interested.

I took a look at the website and was really impressed. It was very professional. They were very clear about what they wanted from their fellows and had a structured plan for the whole thing.

I thought a bit about it and the next day I told her I was game.

Through Rashmi I met Susa and Maya, and here were are now!

Rashmi’s account of the whole thing should be interesting!