Friends Forever??

There is a saying which goes like this- ‘You don’t realize the actual worth of something unless you part with it.’. I had always been a believer of this saying in the theoretical sense but recent past has made me discover its practical veracity.
Sometimes you tend to take some things for granted. You feel that whatever may be the case, somethings wont change. Somethings are just meant to be permanent. And then one fine day you wake up and find that the static has changed. Your whole world falls ap[art. All of a sudden your plans become a distinct vision and all you are left with is the agony of that loss.
Life is such a trivial entity that predicting English weather seems an easier chore than to predict the course of your life. Borrowing from a famous quote I’d say ‘Life is like a cricket pitch, you never know which way they will turn.’ And perhaps the only thing which brings a bit of stability to life is the presence of friends. Being surrounded by friends is a unique experience. When you are down and out, they lift you up. When you are skeptic about something, they clear the air and your mind. When you fall back, they trudge you ahead. When you have a hand which grabs your shoulders when something bad happens to you or the hand which pats your back when you achieve something good, you know that you have a friend watching your back. And believe me when I say this, having such hands can be an addictive feeling. Never get held on to it and least of all make it a habit, because one fine day it will happen. Those hands go away. You fall back and there is no one to catch you, you are drowning into the sea of misery and there is no life boat you can latch on to. What you thought would never leave you, suddenly vanishes into thin air, leaving you gasping for breath. And that’s exactly the time when you are swept away by the deluge of memories, the ghosts of past haunt you, you see the invisible hands which prodded you. You begin to realize their worth and you actually miss them. You want to say so many things but never got the chance. You want to thank them but they are not there to hug you and say ‘Its all right.’
You get this sinking feeling as if the dam is about to break. You feel as if you are hanging by a thread and that you went over your head. An acute migraine develops and you close your eyes.
After a while it all starts sinking in. you see things clearly. You try to understand their prospective. You realize that the time has come for you to be for them what they were to you. You have to be the invisible hands for them now. You take the personal suffering in a stride and push them ahead. And at the end of the day you lean back on a chair, staring into the dusk that’s settling in, looking at everything but seeing nothing, with a thin grin on your face, feeling happy for your friend, getting over your misery and finally the thin grin replaced by a wry smile, knowing that you’ll be there for them when they need you no matter what.
You have moved on because life….goes on……

Hope

Every morning as I rush to catch my bus, I see a young man sitting near the ‘chai-wala’ or at the sidewalks, with a smile pasted on his lips. I never remember seeing as much as a frown on his face, just the same affable smile. Once I catch my bus, is it there thinking, wondering – what makes a man, leading such miserable life, to smile all day? I juggle my mind with so many theories about the enigmatic smile, that the hour long boring bus trip from my home to office turns into an exciting mental warfare!

Then one day it happened.

I was standing at the stop, waiting for my unusually late bus when I heard a soft chuckle. I turned around to see the man himself standing there, with the trademark smile of his, looking at me with a puppy face. I couldn’t restrain myself from asking him what he did for living. His lips spread wider as he told me simply ‘nothing’.

That bus journey was the longest as far as I can remember. My mind and heart were in turmoil. My heart feeling pity for his state while my mind couldn’t make out the reason for his smile.

The next day I went to him and subtly asked him for the reason of his smile. His reply was very simple, yet it took me quite some time to unravel the significance of it. He said “its hope”!

Suddenly I could fantasize him as the perfect model for the wallpaper-quote “Never stop smiling because someone might be falling in love with it”. It got me thinking – ‘wasn’t this 4 letter word the biggest driving factor for many lives?’

Each one of us lives in constant hope. We face the harsh today, hoping for a better tomorrow. Haven’t we all, at some point of our lives, felt that nothing is going our way? But we hold on, hoping against the hopes, for a better and brighter tomorrow.

Hope is the one thing which always finds itself at the back of the mind of every optimist, the one thing which keeps so many people going however tough their times might be, the one thing which brings smile to the unknown stranger of my everyday life.

People say that ‘hope’ is overrated! I, on the other hand, have felt it to be severely underrated. It has been my ‘good Samaritan’ throughout my bad times. Everyday as I walk out of my door, I hope. Every time my life seems shitty, I hope. Each day I hope. I know I would me evincing for many people when I day that hope is something I live for. I hope at all times, for a wonderful life, the serene comfort and great times. But do I hope for the impossible? No, I don’t think so, because I believe that a man has the capability to change his fate, and I believe that if you really want something badly, or just hope for it bad enough, one fine day you just might wake up living the ‘impossible’.   

Philosophy

To do nothing and to be nothing are two different things. There come times though when they seem one, and it is this strange contradictory situation, when depression coexists with a feeling of elevated suspension. I walk on a tight rope made of nothing, staring at blank spaces on either side that inundate my brain with more of nothing. I don’t want to remember anything because I fear I won’t. Somehow I feel that that my brain now exists in a realm where my past and present are merging into a ‘null point’, a point where all faculties that my brain could have called upon, have now dissolved into complete nothingness, leaving behind a void that can only be filled with fear. To think of it, the world of today can only stand for ‘all’ or ‘nothing’. To be equivocal is to mean nothing. To be suspended in thought is to signify nothingness. To be non-judgmental and perceptive is to mean nothing. This, because in the world I live in, there is no room for indecision, suspension, random motion or an answer more than one. Decisiveness is not my greatest companion, nor do I believe in endings, cause there really aren’t any. Only cycles exist. My love for creative ambiguity can only bring forth the creation of an abstract nothing. Even in the angst to prove a point, or to achieve a victory in a battle of beliefs , there exists an elemental futility, a summation leading to nothing, for what are beliefs but pathways to some form of existence, pathways that all lead to the same destination. The journey on such a pathway is what we call life, but all these pathways dissolve in a null point, a point where one suddenly realizes that his was not the only pathway, a realization rather late in the day. And what after death, what remains but nothing. So maybe life does come to nothing. Maybe my rather dispassionate life does emblematize nothing. Snapping back to reality, my eyes, now wearing lenses of worldly perception, feel nothing after reading this quasi-philosophical yet quintessentially escapist piece of nothingness. I am sure you’ve felt the same, unless you consider yourself an outsider to this world, much like me, for unlike the rest of world, I do savor these special moments of ‘nothing’ in my life. And now that you have read so much about nothing, I’ll just throw a small question. Faced with those blank, suspended, seemingly directionless and illusory phases of life, how do you tend to look at life? What does it mean to you?.. nothing special?.. or a special nothing?

A Tribute

There are certain things in life which all of us long to have throughout your life. The college friends are one of such things. There has always been reluctance on my part to accept and talk about them but now that only a few days are left here, I see that how important it has become to tell you guys all about what I have been keeping inside me for all these 4 years of my life. I have been the most attention monger among you and there were times when I just wanted to scream out and say to you all, that treat me with some respect and give me my share of bread but I never could come out and say it out. I have always been the black sheep of the group and I know that I have always been the butt of your jokes but frankly it has never bothered me. I know many of you don’t rate me as highly as I do but it’s all the same for me because feelings are stranger than the simple logic. I have always trusted and favoured you even though many think otherwise and finally here we stand at the dusk of our college life still united and holding hands, bidding adieus and crying inwardly. Through this I just hope I can give a proper tribute to all of you for being there and I want you all to know that come whatever may I’ll never stop believing and trusting you. Here is the summation of what I have observed through my very alert and conscious conscience.

Sai: He is the one guy I’ll miss the most in my life to come. I consider him as my best friend even though the reverse might not hold true. He is the one guy who has influenced me the most in my life. What I have learnt from him is the art of living life in a decent way, I have learnt to discreetize my thoughts and never let anything slip out even when I am down and out. He holds a special place in my life also because he was the first proper friend I have ever had. Right from the day when he calmly invited me to his room to do my work in the first year, I have been mesmerized by his practicality. I regret having never told him how much I cared for him and that I considered him to be my best friend. He is the best listener I have ever come across and the way he advices just goes to show how mature he is at such a young age. He sometimes behaves snobbishly and self centre’dely but I know that deep down he is a very good and caring person. It’s just that he cant extrovertly say out what he feels. He is the only friend I have never ever felt anger for, and in the end I would not feel abashed in saying that I love him and I would do anything for him. I m sorry Sai if I have ever pushed it too far.

Adrit: Ever heard of the Nirvana song- ‘Man who sold the world’. Whenever I think about the first lines of this song I picture only Adrit. People usually derive pleasure from power, he does the opposite. He is one of the most powerful and influential guys I’ve ever come across and I feel honored to be placed alongside him in the college. He is one of the most heartless persons I’ve ever seen. If you ever have an emotional problem, he is the last person on the face of this earth you would go to. But apart from that he is a very mature and sophisticated personality. But he’s also like the mob, he never forgets and he never forgives. But at heart I know that he is a guy who cares for others. He is just afraid to bring out his inner emotionalities. He is the kind of guy who cant bear himself to be vulnerable and so he has built that cocoon around him. What I like the most about him is that he never belittles anybody. This one quality keeps him way out of the reach of his contemporaries. He treats one and all the same. I mean he has never ever made me feel small or incompetent, he has always backed me up and for that reason I whole-heartedly thank him. He is made for big things in life and I sincerely hope that he achieves those.

Saket: In 2004 a movie was released by the name of ‘Hitch’ and I cant stop wondering how could the makers of that movie have known Saket Singh. Saket has been friends with me for the last couple of years and believe me when I say that I have come to know him much better in this short span of time than most of the people with whom I have been for far longer times. What he brings to the table is utter chaos! He is one guy who can make a joke out of the most obscure things. He is a deeply emotional person and I like him for that. If you are ever facing a problem with your emotionalities, he is the person you would go to for help. He can give the most subtle suggestions. And for me he is like the Lord Zeus himself. I see him and I never stop feeling awe at the way he handles himself with people and especially girls. But like every armor, this too has a chink. He faces the same problem as Adrit when it comes to feelings and vulnerability. He can get intensely sentimental sometimes when things don’t go according to him. I might be wrong when I say that he is a completely different person than what he appears to be. Many of the guys think he is just a shallow, loud mouthed prankster joker but I have known him otherwise. Many people don different techniques to save themselves from what they fear and I think Saket takes on the humor as a tool for the same reason. Nonetheless he is a guy you can completely trust yourself with and unlike many others he has a certain sincerity about him which makes him one of the most likeable characters in this play called life. I am sorry Saket if I have ever created a misunderstanding between you and Shikha. Any such occurrence was purely un-intentional.

Akash Agarwal: When you meet someone, you start to make an opinion about them. On the outset you might think that Akash is a good, decent boy but once he flashes that wicked smile of his, you begin to wonder how wrong you’ve been about him! So here is the only guy from our group who has been truly successful in his college life. He passed where all of us failed; he conquered a hill which now seems too far away. He is a real glib talker when he wants to be one and he can be a harsh annihilator when he wants to. He is the most ambiguous person I’ve ever seen. To be with him is like a joy-ride, pure adrenaline and no fear whatsoever. He was my best friend till the 3^rd year but things changed. His priorities changed and we drifted apart, but never so much as to lose the fondness. I’ve whole heartedly supported him through every decision he has ever taken for 3 years and I’ll continue to do it throughout my life, i.e. if he thinks me to be capable enough for that. He’ll always be the one guy whom I’ll look up to whenever I am in need of something and I hope he does the same for me. For 3 whole years we’ve done so many ludicrous and ingenious things together that it now seems mundane to write about us anymore. We have been far too good friends to prove it to anyone or one another about where our loyalties lie. Thanks buddy for showing me how to live life on the edge and being there when I wanted you the most. I sure will miss you like crazy once we are out of here.

Vaibhav: He is one of the cutest guys in our group. He has brilliant inter personal skills and he can get along very well with anybody. I envy him for that. Whenever I meet a new person I am very reluctant to talk and say things but in the same scenario baby just goes all out and makes the person his. But the guy is an absolute no-gooder when it comes to girls. I have seen him run away like a rabbit everytime a girl comes to his sight. He cant talk to a girl normally and that’s pretty much understandable since he had never had any contact with the opposite sex throughout his school life. I many a times wonder how many times he would have wet his trousers during those council meets because he had to talk to the girls there! But on the serious side he is a sweetheart. And what amazes me is that he is out rightly outspoken when it comes to sharing his feelings but at the same time he has this glitch in him. He sometimes goes too far and says some things which he should not have said and that leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I know very well that he thinks of me as a big nothing and a wastage of resources but even for that I am thankful to him. There were times when I just wanted to grab his neck and tell him that I far better than what you think of me but I never could. You see, everybody is entitles to harness his/her opinion and a violent act cant change it, so I never tried to tell you anything about this because I may be a no-gooder, I might just not have realized it yet. Other than this he is a guy who will do anything for you and never cease to amaze you with the lengths that he will go for a friend, may be not for me but others surely. Have a great future my man and I just want you to know that I never took anything to heart and that I always have and will treat you as one of my best friends.

Chinmay: What do you call a mixture of mind-blowing talent, an eye for opportunity and utterly negative thinking? The answer would have to be Chinmay Kelkar. He is the most talented guys I’ve ever laid my eyes on and he deserves much more than he has achieved. He can be anything at a given moment of time, from a nervous wreck to a confident crusader, from a whiny kid to a mature adult. He is a character which fascinates me. But then again I hold just one regret for him, that he too, like baby, never treated me among equals. He holds prejudices against me and feels surprised whenever something good happens to me. But that doesn’t matter to me, we have been friends for far too long to let any of such feelings effect my psyche. I can perfectly understand why this is so and I have always forgiven him for thinking like that (as if I had a choice). Besides this he is a wonderful gentleman, a goofy dancer, an infectious hell-raiser and a sweet friend. He has a bubbling enthusiasm for anything and everything. He can light up any gloomy scenario with his gloomier talks! Just kidding. You rock buddy and I hope in future you achieve what you are meant to achieve.

Hemant: Discipline meets eccentricity. Hemant is a person who will always remain dear to me. He has been with me for the past 4 years and I enjoy testing my psychological skills on him. He is a guy with whom you can talk about absolutely anything and he’ll always lend you a very helpful ear. He is one guy with whom I can dare to be the real me. Its just that he is too simple and yet mature, which brings you out to him. His love for Prasanna is one thing which I never understood because frankly I never have fallen in love with anyone. A few days back I had a very long and earth-shattering talk with him. He made me realize who I was on the inside and what my fears were. He has always been the perfect foil for me. Whenever I used to feel low or down and out, he was the guy I always looked up to. He is a person I’ll never forget and miss a lot. Thanks paanchu for being there for me always, even when the so-called Juj’s Gang members were not there for me. I owe you a lot for everything. Never change.

Kunal Sharma: Ever heard a word –‘Obsessive’? Meet him and you’ll know exactly what it means. Meet the perfect gentleman Kunal Sharma. His obsession lies with cleanliness, tidiness, orderliness, mannerisms and with almost everything that is related to clean! Visit his room and blimey! if you ever find a particle of dust anywhere. I have been around him for 4 years now and I have found out less than nothing about him! He is like a watchdog, which never lets anyone pry into his self. All I’ve known him doing all this while is studying or reading. His meticulous work has always been my envy and his dedication to anything he undertakes, is something which I know I’ll never be able to match or even get close to. But even through this aloofness he has emerged out to be a much better friend to me than many others whom I know very well. He has stuck with me through thick and thin, and I want to thank him for that. Dude whatever may be the case, I’ll miss you a lot, Kanpur buddy!

Jayant Raj Pokharana: Poku is a gem of a person. This lanky fellow can be one of the most irritating guys you’ll ever meet but he can also be one of the most understanding guys. I have known him since the first year and I can say that he is a person who has changed a lot in these 4 years and that change has done wonders for him. His never dyeing enthusiasm to learn new things is something I have always envied. He has tried his hand at almost everything except singing and dancing in this college which says a lot about this guy. Thank you friend and sorry if I have ever intentionally or unintentionally hurt you in any possible manner.

Manish Barlingay: The biggest ‘small’ man I’ve ever come across. With just above 5 ft Barli is more than a handful. He is the perfect gentle man and for that its no surprise that girls swoon over him like a swarm of bees over a freshly cooked jalebi. I’ve known Barli since 2^nd year and I can tell one thing about him, no one can ever remain cross with him for longer periods of time. Every time I wanted to do something good and noble, I used to think of how Barli would do it and it would help me do it right. His pseudo-cool guy talk just fascinates me as does his dwelling into the intellectual stuff. I thought we hit it off very well in the 2^nd year but somehow we lost track somewhere. Believe me when I say this, I would give anything to go back there and mend the lost track, but this is life and nothing remains constant. We move on. May be it was good that we drifted apart, nobody will be able to say for certain but I really liked being the fall-to guy of Barli, however brief that phase was. And this does not mean that we are not close or anything, I still care and vouch for him and so does he, its just that our interests got divergent. Thanks buddy for being there for me and I sure will miss you a lot in the days to come.

Dhaval Raut: there are certain things in life which never come back, like hair, and there are things which never change, Dhaval raut for example. To be really true he is one guy who I used to look up to in early days of my college life. He used to strike me as a confident young man who knew the ways of world and knew his way around people. He always used to hang out with whacky bunch of guys and sometimes it pained me to see that he never even cared if I existed. But things change and so do circumstances. Years later I came to know him like this. He’s always been like this. He has to be with the most hot and happening people all the time, even though it might mean hurting someone’s feelings. But this doesn’t mean he is a goal digger, it just in his nature. But he can be a great friend when he wants to. Now whenever I see him, I see a young 12 year old kid who looks at everything with such a fascination and awe that it consumes you. He’ll always be a kid at heart and kids have a very good heart, there is nothing sinister in there. He acts naïve actually I should say too naïve for his age. Other than that he is just a crazy and funny guy. You’ll never regret spending time with him. He is a complete entertainment package, he can make you smile, he can make you laugh, and he can make you laugh your bowels out. Even his senti talk sounds funny! But he provides an excellent place for all of us to sit back and enjoy good cricket matches. I am pretty sure that all of us will always remember the tense cricket matches which we had the good fortune of seeing at his house. He is cynical to some extent, he has this unending enthusiasm for stuff which he likes and he will not stop until he finishes his interest in that particular thing. I will miss you a lot too man.

Kedar Shukla: I tried a lot to come with an opening line which could suit his attributes but I couldn’t. so this is what Kedar Shukla does to you. He takes away all you can say about anything. Have you ever seen a carefully planned suspense thriller movies, in which we come to know in the end that the guy who acted the most innocent and most unlikely was the culprit? Kedar Shukla is that guy. He is behind most of the incredulous and perfectly illogical yet indigenous ideas about ‘how to make ones life a living hell’. Behind the very cute and innocent face lurks a mischievous prankster who possesses his body from time to time. And the most amazing thing is that once he comes into the dark area of suspicion, he comes up with such an innocent face that you’ll never suspect him again. But one thing I would like to add here is that Kedar Shukla is a man with clean and clear conscience. It irks him if he has done something and the person concerned is suffering. He can simply never deceive you for good, he’ll always come clean if anything like this happens. And believe me, he is a guy you will most readily forgive. His tastes and his ways would make a 10 year old kid shy away. He is a complete kid when it comes to likings in movies, clothes and any other thing possible. And what’s more interesting is that he always looks spic and span. He carries off whatever he wears. His quick wit never ceased to amaze me and his ability to make fun of simply anyone is the thing which makes him unique. And for all 6these and many more reasons I would miss him dearly.

Manu Chowdhury: Jack of all trades but master of none. This aptly fits Manu. He is a guy with immense talent and cynosure but he just doesn’t know how to use it. When I see him I feel sorry for him sometimes because I think he is the biggest under achiever among us. With his set of attributes and skills, he should have been somebody else. May because of immense laziness or because of lackadaisical attitude or just pure bad luck, Manu could never get what he deserved here. But apart from that I feel proud to have known him. He is pool house of knowledge and of bubbling enthusiasm to do anything. Doing what thy heart says is one of the most difficult things thy do but manu does it easily and successfully. He is one guy who’ll never say no to anything that is whacky and promises to be crazy. What irks me about him is his impracticality, but that’s something which comes with the ‘follow your heart’ thing. Dude I deeply regret every grim episode between us and I would like to tell you that all those were just acts of insanity of times. It never meant anything and I deeply apologize for my every action which hurt you. I hope you forgive me and remember me even when you become a hot shot business tycoon.

Gaurav Johri: I doubt if GJ has a split personality disorder! He is completely different under different circumstances. I know that people behave differently sometimes but there are always certain traits and behavioral patterns which never change but not with GJ. He is the most mysterious guy I’ve ever met. I usually can predict what sort of things charm somebody and what a person feels at that particular moment of time, but with GJ I have been haywire with my predictions. In the initial years of my acquaintance with GJ I always thought of GJ as the snobby bookworm type who are really sensitive just about any damn thing! But as I grew close to him I sort of started understanding him. He turned out to be this really sensitive and emotional person who was meticulous in things. Even a small non-orderliness used to deflate him and darken his mood. Many a times guys have faced the wrath of GJ’s fury when he’s in that kind of mood and I have unfortunately been there on one of the occasions. With my description he might sound like a psycho but he’s not, he is the complete opposite. He has a very conscious mind which takes in everything and produces it when its needed. I have seen him transform after he got placed in Oracle. He is a completely changed man now and all the more likable. I have grown to respect him over the years and I feel that he deserves it all after all he has been through. I’ll never forget his poignance when I went through that accident; it was as if he could feel the pain. Thank you my dear, for all that support and trust you bestowed upon me and I am sure you’ll do wonders in your future.

Karan Deshmukh: he is a man with most varied interests in our group. He is a crazy guy who is obsessed with anything and everything. The guy just devours books and never lets the smallest of chances of reading a book, pass through his hands. I have known him for a very short span of time and haven’t been able to get through much. He likes to keep to himself. But when he starts speaking and if he speaks a bit more than he usually does, it means trouble! It either means that he is having one of his fits of trying to figure out things for himself while saying out aloud or it means that he is tense. In both cases he can eat your head off! But on a serious note, he is a very dedicated person and I’ve learnt a lot from him. He is sometimes crazy but there are times when he is perfectly sane and talks the most sensible and informative things you’ll ever hear a college going guy will say. Good luck to you mate and hope you do magnanimously in your future to come.

Dinesh Rao: Maayi ka laal Jaikishan of India. Meet this very short dancer from down south. He is a complete fitness freak. He’s always ready with a few suggestions about taking care of your health. The first look at him and you’ll see a tangled and disheveled crop of hair which never seen to change their appearance and a lean, fit and lanky body which says out that ‘Mr. I am a footballer’. Sometimes his dressing sense can be really funny. But he is a guy you would want to talk to when you are alone and need somebody to talk to. He is a mature and patient listener. But he is a guy you would not wish to be with in a group as he will take you down if he wants to by making fun of you. He has a great taste in music and he is a thorough person. He never takes the ‘chalta hai’ attitude. He wants things perfect. These reasons make him endearing. Please forget about all the taunts I have ever made on you, as they were a product of pure frustration and anger at my own failures. I hope you understand. Just keep the white shining eternal smile there on your lips and the world will be yours.

Varun Meena: A man of one sentence. I am not very well acquainted with this guy but whatever meager knowledge I have gathered from him is that he is a very simple person. He is afraid to ask for help from anybody he doesn’t trust and from those whom he trusts he expects a lot! He is a man of very few words. He’ll rarely be seen speaking in a group. He’ll just lean back and enjoy the feeling of being there with a cute little grin on his face. He uses the word ‘Like’ like a million times each day. He is a football freak and strange too as he believes in playing bare footed or in sleepers! He is a person you would like to be on your team because otherwise he can make fun of you unabashedly. And the most frustrating thing about it when he turns on the ‘Game’ is that you’ll be left with nothing to speak or defend yourself, he’s that good. I hope you have a very bright future in front of you and I hope you remain my close friend for a long time to come.

I am sure many of you think I am a freak and an attention seeker and I wont blame you for that but this time I am really sad because of now its really time to go. One moment you think you are on top of the world and have all these friends and the other moment you are left with nothing but emptiness in your heart and only memories to cherish. All you can do is to hold on to those memories and spend your life thinking it was a beautiful dream which came by, touched you and went away for good. Because nothing remains constant in this world. And aptly put by Shakespeare ‘We are mere actors in the play of life, we come, play our part and we part, whats more important is that the show must go on!’

Thank you to all of you my friends for making my stay here in VNIT the most wonderful years of my life.

And if in any way I have ever intentionally or un-intentionally hurt you, then I am really very sorry.

Adieu!

‘I walk back towards the entrance, breeze rustling leaves across the road, fluttering in the wind. I walk past the lifeless canteen with no one to shout. I peep into the empty classes, missing the screams of joys and ‘treat!’. I stand in front of the library where scores of girls bore the brunt of our jokes, now lifeless and serene. A single tear escapes my eye and rolls towards the emptiness of grass, as my mind races in thought. Alone I stand as its all over.’

Leaving one’s college can be considered a barbarous act. But it’s also like the job of an executioner. He knows and does what he has to do even though he feels sad about it. The golden era of your life passes you by and all you can do is to watch it like a mute mourner. The 4 years of life which brought to you moments of immense joy, sweltering anger, hopeless love and despondent anger. The 4 years which you’ll long to relive and which will remain etched in your memory for the rest of your life.

When I retrospect on the years in VNIT, I see myself as a naïve individual when I entered this college. The department was not the talk of the town but it was the scarcity of girls in the college! The first year opened the gates to limitless possibilities. It taught us to broaden our horizon and think the unthinkable. Now everything in life had a solution only thing was to know where you had to look for it. A lot of futile time was wasted in daydreaming about what we wanted to achieve in 4years of college. And one fine day you wake up and see that you are in second year! One year lost from the time allotted to achieve what you aspired.

The second year saw the department opening its arms for you and for the first time you feel alone in the crowd of strangers sitting around you. The fact that you have to spend the next 3 years with the people sitting around you whom you don’t even know creates a lot of apprehensions. Then an even harsher reality hits you in the face- ‘no girls in the batch’. This comes as a killer blow. You suddenly find yourself staring into the darkness of hopelessness. You imagine yourself sitting in the same classroom, staring blankly at the front where some teachers is preaching the unfathomable and all you see when you look around is 60 guys and no attractive incentive to keep you there, and that imagination leaves you a bad taste in the mouth. Then there was another stigma waiting for us to be dealt with- the unspoken drift between the day scholars and the hostellers. Each group supposedly thought of the other as a bunch of no-gooders and themselves superior in every aspect than the others. But I believe that we dealt with the stigma quite well. We pushed the envelope and filled in the void that existed between us and the day scholars and the rest as they say is history.

‘Its strange when the stars suddenly shine bright, the hearts meet, when u become partners in everything, when tears flow only in front of them, and a smile comes just by looking at their faces, then u know something special happens, and life becomes more endearing, then u know it's you're time finally, and you've found what u needed the most- your FRIENDS...’

This was when we made friends. These lines depict the exactness of the feelings felt in the second year. The getting together of us with the day scholars and the bonding between us started to show. We were already the most envied bunch of guys.

Then came the third year and it continued piling up the misery and frustration. This was supposed to be the toughest year as far as the academics are concerned and it did prove itself worthy of the dread. But what it also did was to gel us together. There were no longer any small groups of guys who hung out only with there group members, as was the practice followed in the other departments. This was mechanical 3^rd year. It was a pack of 60 boys who had the balls and enough fire power in the form of wit and humor to overpower any situation posed. This was a crazy lot who knew each other very well and whose sole aim was to disrupt the lives of any living thing of the opposite sex. We began to see the positive side of having no females in the mech population and we enjoyed it. The unity brought with it the strength and the style. We were unique in every way and in the eyes of envy of others. We were registered into the black books of every girl of this college and now we were hell bent to make the list blacker! And it was my good fortune that I was bestowed the opportunity of leading this bunch of lunatics for one year. And I did everything in my power to help these guys realize their sole purpose. By the end of the penultimate year of engineering, it was a common ratiocination that no boy from mechanical 3^rd year can make a girl fall for him. This was the grandness of our legend.

The placements started at the end of 3^rd year. All of us were eager to prove our mettle and we succeeded. We showed the world that the mech guys can master the art of competition too. Our batch bagged the best packages offered and once again the eyes of envy were staring at us while we continued unfazed. We started and continued the tradition of having a job treat for the whole batch in the canteen, sponsored by the person placed.

Then came the last year of our stay in this college and I wouldn’t write down our exploits as they are well known to everybody in this college. But all this sums up to just one fact- the college life is to be enjoyed thoroughly. No matter what circumstances come, never stop believing in yourself and trusting your friends. This college has provided us the launching platform from where we can leap and find the apogees of success. And leaving the college is not the end of the road but it’s the augment of a bend, a bend which will take you into the glittering horizons of future. The world is out there to be conquered; you just need to find the sword.

The following lines are the tribute to the final year students. We rock the world as the poet does.

A life which is to end

Only when I am no more

A life which transformed me

In a fighter to the core

A season of love and friendship

For eternity which will last

In my future to follow

I will long to relive the past

Memories of this part of journey

I’ll carry all life long

Memories of those precious moments

Which made my life a beautiful song

My eyes go teary

Emotions fill my heart

As my days left here are few

Now its time to bid Adieu….

Intra-muralistic pleasures

There is a line of separation between having freakish fun and gearing up for the future. If one needs to violate this line and enjoy both these premises at the same time, one has to look no beyond the one place- Hostel. The name itself brings vivid flashes of dingy rooms with rickety beds, giving you claustrophobic sickness; really bad mess food and the works. But believe me, in veracity there is much more to hostel life than these small intricacies.
When I first entered my hostel I was apprehensive to say the least. I had never been away from my home and at that time, to go to an alien city and live among strangers was a preposterous and ludicrous idea for me. But when I retrospect, I find myself deeply gratifies with the way things shaped up for me. When a person enters a hostel, he leaves behind everything to be a part of a completely new and different world. He is like a pliant mound of clay waiting to be moulded to desired conformation on the hearth called ‘hostel’.
Apart from the fact that the food was outrageous and at times it seemed that the mess workers were contractually bound to see to it that the inmates lost their appetites, everything else was wonderful. It seemed like a cultural summit, where everyone was uniquely different in terms of background, castes and creeds, yet the purpose was same- to grow up to be a successful human being. In spite of the huge cultural differences and upbringings, everyone gelled together. A hostel epitomizes the really pretty picture that the makers of constitution had in mind, when they concocted secularism into existence.
In hostels you are away from the perfectly sheltered lives of your homes. You start to feel lonely in the crowd and that’s when you develop instincts of survival. Somehow hostel life seems to be in contention with the Einstein’s theory of relativity. There is no ‘survival of the fittest’ but rather a ‘survival to be the fittest’. Everyone tries to help each other in growing mutually.
Hostels are like dream worlds, where everyone knows each other and are willing to look out for each other at the drop of a hat. You learn to be ascetic in certain sense, but that doesn’t deprive you of new indulgences every now and then.
Where there is a rose, there ought to be thorns, similarly in a hostel you are faced with some saturnine moments, clash of interests, egos, emotional outbursts and cynical perseverance but they only spice up hostel life. And more importantly they instruct us how to tackle problems of life amicably and in the interest of both the parties involved.
Insouciance becomes the code when you inhabitate a hostel. The boundations cease to exist. Everyone is a free soul, devoid of any social stigmas and behavioral etiquettes. For the period of stay you experience what it feels like to be free. The place which resembled hell’s alternative at a time, looks like an abode of happiness. It is the place you learn to laugh with others, cry for others and feel for others. The previous mawkishness becomes genuineness and binds you together.
The most important thing that hostel life gives to us is the persona. Most people develop a personality during the say in hostels. I’ve seen introverts simpletons turn into street-smart manipulators. You are a zilch before entering a hostel and you are everything you ought to be when you leave it. I’ve seen boys become men and men become gentlemen and that’s where it is so important for a person to taste the recipe of life in a hostel.
When I started writing this article, the idea was to pay a tribute to what has been a dweller’s paradise but I ended up in giving you a realization of how impassable is hostel life. When I think about it now, words form in my mind-
Men as always come and go,
But it stands rigidly tall;
It treats us a friend not foe,
Until we can take on the fall.

Life Estranged

Life-the one word which embellishes almost all the philosophical articles, the very basis of so many clichés in the literary world. But have you ever thought about it? There has to be a reason why it is the only thing which can be compared to anything in the world? The comparison could vary from the most innocuous thing like a bicycle horn to the most bizarre stuff like a soccer pitch. What is it that makes it click as a literary weapon? Almost all the major writers have something or the other to say about ‘life’, and each one finds something unique to compare life with. Those of you novel buffs might have noticed that whenever the author is looking to stall the pace or get more number of pages into his creation, he invariably chooses to forcibly push towards us his interpretations of ‘life’. Even an amateur like me is choosing ‘Life’ to get through to you. So is life that simple a phenomenon that everybody has a unique say on it? But that certainly doesn’t seem very likely possibility because I cant think of any writer who has had the courage to spell out life as ‘simple’. So what we gather by this is that even though life is very complex yet any Tom, Dick and Harry thinks he knows about it.
Actually life is far too complex for anyone to understand. It is the congeniality which attaches itself to you when you are born and just like the truest friend it doesn’t let you go until death separates it from you. It is the only thing which has the power to make us do anything. Some fear it, some bear it while still some befriend it. It is like the dragon which keeps hovering around you that can’t be tamed or made to follow your wish. It is the vessel which can’t be measured for its depth and capacity.
When you really look at it, a man, starting from his birth, develops a bond with life although subconsciously. When we are young, we respect it. We treat it like a cradle which holds us until we are ready. It seems like a smaller idyllic world, provided to prepare us for the bigger and bitter outside world. We feel warmth under its shadow.
Them comes the famous ‘teenage defiance’. We start looking at life as a caged carnivore, which on the onset seems docile but inwardly it is ferocious and deadly. But we are too wasted in the intoxication of youth that we pay no heed to the inward possibility. We keep pushing the envelope. We try out level best to try and intimidate it, but it doesn’t loose its portrayal of unruffled equanimity. Some of us do get lucky in provocation of that savage but they don’t live to bask in the glory.
Then youth comes and with it comes the effervescence. We taste success, we fall in love. Everything seems to be brimming with verve. Life seems to have become your best friend while it bestows on you the joys of life. Each new day brings with it a new meaning of life and exuberance. It is the phase which each one of us wants to continue indefinitely.
But as they say ‘life’s like a cycle. To keep your balance you have to move on’. Like all the ephemerals, the euphemism dies down. The life dons a new hat and a new role. A role which we have never seen it play that of a tyrant landlord, whose constant fear haunts us. The mornings become tawdry. Each day you wake up to a new agony in waiting. Life seems to be castigating your transgressions. You start to slide down an abyss. The gears and steers are no longer turning at your will. Luck seems to run out. And that’s when you develop the fear. The moment you start dreading your life its all folks! The life takes away everything you ever wanted. The apodictic certitude is gone and all you are left with is a meek acceptance of the fact that your peroration is just around the corner. You become just another pawn in the vast game of chess.
In the end darkness engulfs you. Try however you may but life shows you the upper hand. And then it all disappears, the suffering mitigates, the agony subsides and you are left with an eternal peace. Your languorous soul emits opulence for a while and then the circle of life starts all over again.
So in the end life conquers all then why try to conquer its complexity. Why waste some precious moments of life in trying to comprehend the notion behind the mother of all clichés. Life is too beautiful a concept to clutter your mind with. Live in the moments that take your breath away. Past brings tears and future brings fears, so try and live in the present and never forget to have fun along this journey called ‘Life’ because try however hard some may, no one has ever managed to come out alive.