End of an Era

Four years in a place that has taught nothing but to stop feeling, to stop living, to stop whatever you start if it is not helping you with a job. I feel free to have left the place I will leave behind good memories, more like desperate attempts of breaking free, attempts made by people I have learnt to love and cherish. According to Einstein, institutions have a moral obligation to the society to teach the individual how exactly to contribute to the betterment of the society. Considering Einstein was the greatest minds of the 21^st century, I’d like to believe him to be true. So how exactly has my college taught me to free the society of its so called polluted nuances? Well, it starts with learning to live with it, learning how to not rip your hair out when you wait in the line at the Finance Office and the counter closes just when your turn is on. It continues with smiling despite the fact that four of the five offices you have gone to have turned down your request for one lousy signature of a guy you’ve never seen in your life. So, yes the college has taught me a lot.

There is an upside though, when I leave this college, I’ll miss the various nice things which we could never use. The beautiful lawns where we couldn’t walk bare feet, the expensive books in the library we just couldn’t touch, the overly expensive International Mess where we couldn’t eat, the college does have its perks. My friends call it cynicism, I call it mere optimistic attitude, and where in even the worst of places in this world is more than bearable because, hey it could’ve been worse. I could’ve been sitting without any work on Saturday nights, partying away to conventionality, instead I chose to sit alone in a room and do assignments due the next week. I could’ve been wasting time, dating guys to get over boredom, instead I chose to become a nerd (I still blush at the thought of that cute guy calling me a nerd and stomping away when I turned him down for an examination).

‘What will you miss the most?’ my proud father asked me when we drove off the Main Gate, I thought long and hard and couldn’t find answers, I could say friends but I know I’d be laughing years later at the thought that I even imagined I’ll lose them after college. “Life”, was m answer I don’t know why I muttered such a stupid answer, it’s not like I am going to die and most people say that fun begins after college. But yes I will miss the life that I lived.

The eating in the middle of the night talking about what our future may hold, the getting wet in the rain the first time because of potentially crazy friends, the praying together at the advent of the scary results, the laughing at…well, absolutely nothing and laughing still. What I write here is not a memoir, no, it is a tribute to all those people who morphed me for good or for bad.

I will miss the lecturers who made my life hell, the friends who refused to tell the truth, the guys who started weird rumors about me, and most importantly, the rumors I started about themJ. My friends think college has made me quieter and more resilient or as some say I can take anything from anyone now. This would have to do with all that I went through here. I look back and smile that saintly smile and think oh my god I actually let these people get to me! But just as I begin to think that the end of an era concept is overrated I remember the number of times we all missed our respective homes, the times we fought and pretended not to care about each other, the times we laughed together and oh the one time we all got so scared after watching ‘The Exorcist’ we all had to go in groups down the empty hostel corridors and wait faithfully while the other answered nature’s call. The midnight noodles spree, for a moment I thought we’ll all end up eating so much of the one minute noodles that even the folks in Japan would want us to stop!

But what I learnt is beyond all this. What I learnt is to keep secrets, to tell even the worst of all truths to your best friends, to pretend to like everyone but to like only your best friends, to be as nice to people who are nice to you. Yes, it’s the end of an era, an era of honesty, truth, laughter and a shared sorrow. In the four years of my college, I learnt…how to live.