Looking back at these four years is like peeping into a bioscope because everything seems like in the movies, where boys turn into men and girls age with grace, where friendships bloom, where people come and touch your life in a way that you are no longer the same person that you were. Lives change forever! Friends and acquaintances, the fun, the fights, the doldrums, the arguments, the unanimity over trivial matters…you would miss it all alike. But what you would miss the most is just ‘being you’!
It’s funny how first impressions can be so deceiving. (I wonder how the ‘love at first sight’ notion even exists!) Maybe you were just being a little too judgmental and seeking refuge in yourself - the only self you knew or at least you thought so then. Fresh out of junior college with the school airs still gathering storm clouds in your head, you had definitions of what’s ethically sound and right and going against which would be next to the original sin. Lines of morals delimited your every single action and dictated all your thoughts. So it wasn’t hard to see why some titles were conferred upon the unknown faces that literally flocked the classrooms well before time. We had the bookworm, the bold, the beautiful, the arrogant, the confused, the sincere, the genius, the smart, the silly, the spoilt, the silent, the sensible, the aggressive, the diplomat, the effervescent all coming together to complete the mosaic of the freshman class.
Before you knew you were losing yourself to adapt to this cult of VJ Comps. It has a set of unspoken rules and unwritten traditions. It believes in the rules of the thumb to get around with things. Sometimes, rules of the other finger work as well. Boundaries disappeared and differences faded. Everybody had to take that crazy walk on the wild side of engineering life and run on its treadmill. Everybody turned out to be like everyone else. Cribbing about the same things, sharing the same sorrows, rejoicing for the same reasons, believing in the same rumors, whisking away the same fears, shedding the same tears, laughing over chestnut jokes, speaking the same lingo, and fantasizing the same miracles. Lifestyles changed. People did. Habits too. No longer was it about seeking the truth and doing the right thing. It was about simply getting it done and moving ahead. Been there, done that was the catchphrase.
The fine line between sense and sensibility was first redrawn and then erased forever. Confines of craziness and limits of laziness were redefined. The wackiest ideas of having fun were found. The pleasures in doing simple things were rediscovered. The barriers of age between maturity and juvenility were broken. When we sold our souls to the drudgery of life it was this madness that bought it back for us.
It’s said that all good things come to an end. I believe they don’t. They just see a new beginning. You know it’s time for one when suddenly you see yourself indulging in talks brimming with emotions. Your don’t delete messages from your inbox because you are afraid that you wouldn’t see those names flash on the screen again. You feel a sense of leaving back something when you have a look at the 'Kodak' moments. You sit and wonder if life would give you a second chance to live these moments again. You know the bitter truth. The people who taught you to laugh would go spread happiness elsewhere. The jokes would sound unintelligent and the worries would seem insignificant. But there is a time for everything and that was the time for it. A time that was as special as ‘special’ is. Never to return, just to be lived and relived through reminiscences.
I wish all my folks the strength to pursue and live the dreams we weaved back here. I also wish them faith to believe in themselves. I hope they don’t allow themselves to be blinded in the chase of things that would last for a while but instead sprint in the pursuit of true happiness. The days I spent here is my bit of happiness and I’m glad my folks helped me find it!