As my sis-in-law begins her college journey away from home next week at MMU Mullana, a visit to the campus took me back to my own voyage at IIT (BHU) Varanasi which ended five years back. Watching groups of students chatting at the cafeteria reminded me of the lunches my friends and I used to share at VT in the BHU campus back in the day, its dosa being my most favorite till date. And who could forget Chaubey ji’s juice corner or the fresh smell of dahi-jalebi at HG in the weekend mornings or that yummy chole-samose and tea almost every evening at LC, the cobbled walkways being witness to so many of our stories, not to mention those who were here before us as well as those who are yet to adorn these hallowed grounds in the times to come... The small things are the ones that you remember the most, like ‘hocruxes’ holding pieces of you!
The day you start out at college, you step onto a blank canvas, which you can paint as you want. And while some make clever strokes with their brushes, with an overall vision of a final portrait, others flounder around with a blotch here and a streak there… 2020 truly brought down the curtain on a decade full of volatility and changes, as many of our batch-mates get nestled into their lives and tie the knot, while some hopeless dolts hilariously get hitched to their ousted college hand-me-downs, helping them keep up their façade, in a futile attempt to cover up their past fiascos. Oh! Well… I crossed that finish line a long time back and I’d have to say my 5-year sketch turned out exactly as intended. I guess once a hard-nosed crazy hatter, always a hard-nosed crazy hatter, eh? Haha... It is all about the continuum for my generation now, moving along the creases of our own choosing, for those of us who have been fortunate enough, and trying to make the best of what's left, by others with a relatively sour deal. When one plays the game hard in the big boy's league, the results are likely to be hardcore too!
But, at present this is all about my sis and her journey henceforth… Those final year students at MMU giving my wife and I strange looks as our new faces walked down the department hallways in full confidence, was beyond comical! Little could they have guessed that we were a lot senior even to the last yearites there, albeit from starkly different fields of law and engineering, until obviously we introduced ourselves to the professors of the dental school. Having our lunch at the university mess amongst the deafening clanking of cutlery, which could be heard from half a mile away, was something we had sorely missed. It is funny how time passes…
I wish I get the opportunity to revisit my own college campus some day with my wifey in the near future, as some things just never get old. So much has happened since those golden days, I have almost begun to forget some of the names of the popular spots I used to hang out with my friends at, which is never a good sign. Nonetheless, right now I would just like to congratulate my sis, Shreya, on having made it to this juncture, despite a worldwide pandemic still reeking havoc globally, albeit with a few vaccines on the verge of commercial production here in India. I’m sure her generation will probably be the first to experience regular long term online classes and a lot else, something I would like to hear from my sis herself, over a cup of tea someday.
Alas! I guess the time has finally come for someone else to recite her college tales from here on out…
