Until the finish line

“My father always wanted both his daughters to have a doctorate degree but since he passed away before he could see it happen, I decided that I had to think of it as his last wish and fulfil it anyhow. My elder sister pursued a PhD in Literature and inspired by her, I also took up Literature during my under-graduation and discovered I was good at it. But soon after, linguistics caught my attention, something that I didn’t even know existed, in school. When I made the shift in my Master’s, I earned a Gold Medal followed by a NET qualification which further strengthened my inclination towards the subject.

My PhD topic was influenced by my supervisor at IIT Ropar, where I did my internship. He suggested that I work on my mother tongue, Odia, which although is a mainstream language, hasn’t been explored a lot in terms of phonology. Its phonetic inventory is still riddled with ambiguities, which is one of the most important aspects of any language. My thesis aims to discover that and beyond.

I had no MPhil degree when I embarked on this journey and therefore wasn’t well-equipped with the research world. During my initial days of PhD, I felt extremely lonely and suffered from imposter syndrome. Although there were others who pursued Linguistics in the campus, their branches were different and hence there was no scope for academic discussions or peer support.