(Almost) a year older and none the wiser

I still like more animated movies than non animated ones.
I still can fit in stuff I've had for 8 years.
I still find Tom and Jerry funny.
I still procrastinate.
The idea of a picnic out in a green place on a warm sunny yet windy day still excites me.
I still gaze up at the night sky and find it enchanting.
I still like finding amusing shapes among clouds, and cook up random stories describing how their day was.
I still find homework annoying.
I still get homework.
I still have a course whose title begins with 'An introduction to'. (NLP, btw.)
I still get excited about my birthday, and love bugging people to see their (virtual if actual is not possible) reactions.
I still get giggling fits for no reason.
I still sing the songs I used to sing as a kid when I play Antakshari.

I'm never going to grow up, am I? Not too sure if I want to either. Peter Pan, take a bow :)

That bittersweet feeling.

Okay so I know this isn't the most ideal thing to do, but screw it.

Spending about four hours on group chat on Skype might seem like a recipe for suicide when you have two homeworks due in less than two days, but trust me, it's just as good as that steamy cup of hot chocolate on a wintry morning when you think the world could not look less morose. Even better.

So do yourselves a favour, find a bunch of idiots who would wake up at 4 am just to talk with you, and be good to them. Its worth burning the midnight oil and spending sleepless nights working on those assignments later. True story.

Saat samundar paar.

This would've been a huge post had I written in detail. But I had a feeling I would've gotten bored in the middle and left the story unfinished. So here goes. Not written well at all. Most of this is in chronological order, I think.

25th. T3 Indira Gandhi airport. Lufthansa. Excess baggage. 747. Cramped seats. No personal TV. Fat guy on right side. Sleep. No sleep. Cute steward. 9 hours. Frankfurt. Security check. McDonalds. No sleep. Expensive net. One girl missing. Boarding time. Frantic running across the airport. Security check. Hot water bottle. Quarantine. Rat on airport. No, mouse. Random guard. Visa passport check. Train to gate. Herr Ghotra. Squeaky hellos. Nice aircraft. Personal TVs! How to train your dragon. Asian meal. Saunf. No sleep. Philadelphia. Immigration check. Seniors. Shuttle. Head ache. Temporary accommodation. Crestfallen faces. Night stroll around area. Own house. Wall to wall carpeting. Pizza. Sleep.

Oh and then rest of the week could be described as: fire alarms, AT&T, people getting lost, shifting luggage, cooking, fire alarms without batteries, no keys to first two gates, no lease, bidets, no bidets, 1 $ flipflops, fire alarms ringing without batteries, taking lite with fire alarms, no drains on bathroom floors, 'lota', green board/table, 'keedas' and peppermints, cute I 20 guy.

I iz brev. (I haz brevity, so.)

Closure

(Warning: Senti attack. Read at own risk. Not written too well for the aforementioned reason.)

So I had slept all evening, and was watching random episodes of Friends to while away time. I have, a lot of times, tried to write something here. Something, so that the blog doesn't go dormant. And I couldn't find anything.

And then in the middle of Ross and Chandler's futile attempts to quit the gym, Saniya pings me and reminds me that it was exact four years since she first landed at BITS. Which reminds me that 29th July 2010 would be exact four years from when I first began the BITSian journey (cliche, yes. But cliches are cliches for a reason. No, not playing the pronoun game here, JD/Bing/Pubby.)

Four awesome years. The good, the bad and the downright ugly (transition from BPGC to BPKKBGC being one.) In some regards we didn't change at all, and yet we changed so much. From 'writing lyk dis' to cringing every time someone else writes in the now incomprehensible 'kewl' version of English, from running around shouting on the roads in huge gangs in first semester to calling people three batches junior morons for doing the same, from Orkut to Facebook, from not knowing DC++ existed to being totally addicted to it, we've all transformed. And yet one feels like the time just flew by, and we're still where we were.

When 2006 batch joined, the hostel curfew was 11:00 PM. There was no football field, and Zephyr saw some of the fiercest fights in the campus. In our first few weeks, the A mess was better known as the 'boys mess'. Thinking about the thrill Sanskriti and I got in exploring random nooks and corners of the campus now brings a wave of nostalgia. Dandiya night was conducted in the now awesome badminton court complex(?), and the next day we lost three seniors.

Second year saw us making shiny stuff in MT1 chemistry labs,  copying shamelessly when the instruments won't work in physics, and adding juice and detergent to the same concoction in biology to extract DNA. Second year was the Quark 2008 year. Still remember sitting outside on the last day as the Music night came to an end, wondering what I was going to do for the rest of the semester.

With third year came the responsibilities, whether it be the CDCs, or getting a fest up and running smoothly. The sucky grading system added to the woes. The farewell one whole (in some cases two) year(s) before we left the campus gave everyone something to obsess about. No one dressed up for the now once-in-a-blue-moon DJ nights anymore. And then came the second sem compres, which this time around not just meant the end of the semester, but also the end of time together on campus for the batch as a whole. Whether you switched your semester at the last moment, or you always knew you were going in first sem, it didn't make much of a difference. Cartons packed and couriered, hugs and promises exchanged. The end of the journey was now in sight.

PS2 was a different ballgame altogether. From wishing everyone you knew got PS at Bangalore, to cribbing about the work or lack thereof, to making elaborate plans to go to campus during Waves. To talking about how your strict PS instructor makes you call every morning at 9 30, to putting in night outs to finish reports and applications. To wishing to get back to campus and yet feel a little sad that your stay at Bangalore (or wherever your PS station was) coming to an end.

Last semester on the campus kind of serves as a rude shock. For you're happy that you're back, but it doesn't feel like the same place. You hardly know anyone, at times the only person you know at Monginis happens to be Uncle Sam. You feel like the campus has already forgotten you, and then soon enough you come to terms with it, and start finding new ways to kill the huge amount of free time that you have. Some actually do stuff on their 'to-do-before-college-ends' list, others don't. Single degree students get annoyed with their suddenly all too geeky dual degree friends and vice versa. First years look like a bunch of buffoons, doing the exact same things as one did three years back. Exams and project submissions start losing out to hanging out a little more at Nescafe. Bogmalo trips become a lot more frequent.

And then the time flies by and soon you're staring at the day you never thought would come. And then you take the final walk across the campus, sit outside till you can, take it all in for you know that you won't see the campus at 12 20 am again. Not the same way, at least.

And then you go back, and you finish off with packing. And you hope for a sense of closure.

And then you sit and wonder where the time went, two and a half months after you said your final goodbye to college.

And then it rains

The air sits heavy on the head, as if it's all the troubles you face and then more. The heat and humidity do their little dance, in perfect tandem, and you're caught in the middle and you're neither here nor there. And the burden won't go away just as those drops of perspiration won't. You seek shelter but there is none. You spend sleepless nights wondering if this would end. Wishing it would end. Not a leaf moves, and you feel like your eternal damnation lies in these doldrums. Time seems like a crafty thief, sneaks in and out unnoticed and takes away what you've treasured. And it does so every night, over and over again, till the morning arrives.



And then it rains.

All will be good.

(PS. Yes, I love rains. Check this out sometime)