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What are some interesting internship stories at IITs?

Experience of Vipul Shrivastava –

Old lady filed a case against me in a foreign country!!

I think I can contribute to it with my story.

It was April end and I was going through with my end sems. With all the more excitation and interest, I had already rejected an offer of an Internship at IBM India and was looking for my first foreign trip experience. The internship had all the things associated with it covering my area of interest, decent funding and everything looked well settled. The exams ended I was up for it.

Everything looked planned. I had arranged an accommodation after looking for ads online suggested by a few of my friends. I got in touch with an old lady who wished to offer her house for rental purpose and I got a pretty good deal for the same. We also had a talk before I started the journey and I thought it would be a decent experience to have.

I entered the country and reached the place where I had planned to stay. I met that old lady and immediately paid the amount along with the security amount too as soon as I entered. It was a decent place and I started settling down.

Day 1 got over pretty nicely. Day 2 came, when I tried my hands in cooking. As I made my first dish (Maggi Noodles),the old lady prevented me to proceed as she didn’t like the Indian Curry’s smell .Then I nodded and told okay. Then I bought some eggs and thought I could atleast cook those. The moment she saw eggs told me that she thought as I belonged to India, being a Hindu, I didn’t eat eggs. I although don’t eat non vegetarian stuff but I do eat eggs I explained. Then she started putting restrictions and those restrictions started increasing at an alarming rate. My family couldn’t call from India as it disturbed her moreover she didn’t want me to give that house’s number to anyone else. Hence I couldn’t talk to my parents atleast for a first few days after which I could get my own SIM. I visited my University and had a great time over there. I met a person coming from asian subcontinent only. We had a good time and I asked about the place where I could stay. He asked me about my experience listening to which he thought of helping me out. I met a Srilankan guy, Philanthropist (whose wife was Indian) helped me out and arranged for my accommodation that day itself. I got a good enough place with lots of Indians that too in the University Campus. I thought of shifting that day itself but then thought I had paid a good amount to that lady too.

I tried to stay for a few days more. When the restrictions reached my tolerance level, I decided to shift. I transferred my stuff to that place with the help of some of my newly made friends and incidentally she wasn’t there. I came back again to return her keys but then she got frustrated. She started shouting and I was dumbstruck when she told she would file a case against me for doing that. I was naive with that country’s law and other details. She shouted over my friends too telling that the next time she saw she would call the police. We all were stunned having done nothing in retaliation which could have increased her agitation.

I described the incident to my Prof who was quite supporting and he apologised on behalf of her. He directed me to a legal advisor. I was quite nervous during all this happening. I came there for an internship to work in my field of interest and here I was stuck in all this useless stuff. The legal advisor was quite shocked too and she told me that she would look in this case. I got a mail that day from that old lady saying she had filed a case against me. I didn’t know what to do or what did I do. I didn’t reply to her mail.I met my legal advisor. She had a look at the case and told that we had done nothing what she had accused me of. She advised me to remain calm and not respond to her.

Her case was I had taken her living for a few months as she assumed I would be staying there for quite sometime. I hadn’t given that in writing, on the other hand I had her documents signed mentioning about the amount I had paid her which was a decent enough amount. I kept getting a lot of emails each day increasing my mental stress. I got a mail which mentioned the dates of tribunal and hearing, the next day she searched for me in the University. I was reading law and was going through Tenancy acts, residential acts and what not. I contacted lawyers personally, contacted my Embassy too. I was having a nightmare that time and cursed my decision of rejecting IBM. (lol!!).

Then came the interesting turn. My legal advisor had a look at this and told me to go open. She after arranging all the thoughts and stuff advised me to sue her. I was like what the hell? She told me that the ball was in my court. The old lady should return my money as it was illegal of her to keep that. Moreover she gave me a lot of mental stress which also was wrong legally. And she was dealing with a native of another country hence accounted for different versions of the law according to that country’s constitution. I asked what should be done, she told me to go on and sue her legally. She was ready with all the stuff. Historical cases dealing in these areas made me feel glad that I was in for some interesting time. The moment I saw the amount of money I could get I was like why should I not do that? But then I thought I wanted some time off the court and this legal stuff so that I could concentrate on my research. Hence I went against it.

I got along with my research, finished up the project, designed my own algorithms, worked on a second project too. I ended up getting a research paper published too for the same. I ended up on a high and learnt a lot from this experience. I enjoyed a lot too before I met this promscious girl at the Airport when I was returning.  I would describe that incident too sometime later…:P.

“Interesting Experience” seemed to be an understatement to me for my experience.

Published here on permission of Vipul Shrivastava
Originally published on Quora — http://qr.ae/lMNCc

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