Something’s, I will never get over with!

I felt it again, the same feelings which I felt around 7 years back, when I had to leave everything I knew in my life behind and had to step out in to the open world on my own – yes, I am talking about the time when I graduated. I saw the same sequence of events happening all over again, even though the environment and the people were totally different. It was as though history was repeating itself all over again.

Since I work in a university, I got the privilege of being part of a student club. Last weekend, it was their big annual event and as a club member, I also decided to do my part by helping them out. At first, I was a bit irritated due to the fact that I will loose a hard earned weekend and also I had to get up early (believe me, I cant remember the last time I did that). But it turned out to be way better than what I expected.

I got the opportunity of being in the middle of a bunch of highly motivated undergrad students who are organizing an event. Any one who had organized an event in their school/college days knows how it feels like. It’s too damn hectic and tiring at the time of the event. You have to run around fixing stuff, manage others, and no matter how good the planning is, things go haywire all the time.  But after the event, when you look back, you get the satisfaction of a great achievement. And you feel more bonded with your teammates.

All these totally reminded me of the events I had been part of organizing, during my undergrad days. Even though I didn’t do much this time, I got a feel of it. It was a kind of Déjà vu for me. The people who did marketing/publicity reminded me of those times when we went around looking for sponsors or travelled far and wide with the posters of the events. I could correlate almost anything I saw there to my college days, like the registration team or the participation in the events or rushing with a last minute change or people sleeping in the organizing area who were tired to death. I even witnessed people having crushes on others.

But the moment that inspired me to write this blog happened after the event. When it was only the club members, the juniors decided to give going away presents to the graduating students from the club. There was this very friendly girl among them who got totally surprised by this and as I expected, got emotionally overwhelmed. Tears started flowing from her eyes. The gift only made things worse. It was a collage with all those great moments with her friends. Gosh, that’s when I went back to the time when we all sang ‘Kabhi Alvida na Kehana (never say goodbye)’. I wanted to pass on to her something a very good friend of mine told me precisely at the time when I was feeling really depressed about leaving college. “Don’t be sad that it’s over, be happy that it has happened.” But then I thought it’s better to let her figure it out on her own. Besides, I am never good with words at moments like these.

I do wonder sometimes, why do we need “goodbyes” and “thank you”s? I feel it too formal. For me, the best thing to do is to just walk away. No “goodbyes”, no “see you”s; just like you are coming back the next day. We don’t say goodbye at the end of a typical day. People say “One must move on when its time to move on”. There are times when I think I have moved on from a lot of things. But moments like these prove me wrong, that no matter what, I won’t be able to get over with some things, that even now, I look back in time and long to relive those crazy & nostalgic moments of my life.

Farewell Bangalore

Dear Bangalore,
I still remember the day I first set my sight on you. Little did I know that you will play a crucial role in my life. It was in 2002, during my engineering days. I was on my 5th semester tour. I can still feel the cold climate and the smell of the fresh flowers. Those big shopping malls, the pubs and the ultra modern folks (chics) here instantly made you one of my dream cities. All those stories about software professionals making a nice living here, oh! man, I had decided that you are the one city I want to be in.

Fall 2003
I came again for the 7th semester tour and by that time me and my friends wanted to spend some quality time here with you and that’s one main reason we chose to do our final year project here. Those were the days, when I started loving you – fall 2003. I think I loved everything about you. The New Year (2004) celebrations in Brigade road – I don’t think I will ever forget it. Even I loved the journeys to and from my native to you.

Again
Again, you crossed path with my life even if not for long in spring 2005 in when I started ‘hunting’ for a job. But fortunately or unfortunately, I got my job in Trivandrum. Then again, I knew that someday I am going to come back to you. And that’s why, when I got an offer from here, I was really excited. But before coming here, I heard many rumors about the pathetic traffic conditions, the slowly disappearing cold climate etc.

Expectations
What I expected was not what I saw in here. A city which is so polluted with dust and garbage, roads filled with vehicles and dogs, malls and shop keepers who wanted to grab the money in my pocket to theirs, auto rickshaw drivers who will kill if they get a chance etc. I really got scared at first seeing the changed you and because of the change in climatic conditions, I was having fever, cold etc on a regular basis. I even thought about leaving you. My regular readers are aware of my attitude towards you, I guess.

Time is a healer
Getting used to things we confront daily is a quality (good or bad?) of the human race. Slowly I started liking you. One important thing I like about you is the personal space you gave me. Also the technological community here and the exposure I got from you were simply amazing. I realized there is a world like this. It totally changed my outlook towards life itself. I had a very good team and work environment, a new circle of friends, lots of parties to attend, all those nice hotels where I could try different variety of dishes, the beautiful climate which helped me maximizing my artistic talents and so on.

Farewell
Finally the time has come for me to move on. In this journey of life, I have reached a point where I have to part with you, my beautiful friend. I have no idea what is there in store for me in the future. May be I will fall in love with the next city I am moving to. May be I am never going to come back to you. But looking back now, I can see vividly, the influence you have in my life. With so many challenges, experiences, happy times, sad times, you have a very special place in my heart. And that place will ever be there, no matter where I go or what I become. I really hope I will be able to come back some day to you and I know, if that day comes, you will be here with your warm welcome, just like you welcome anyone who comes to you. Farewell Bangalore.

With warm love and regards
- Manu

Memories

Sometimes in life, some instances or moments or even a period of time, affects you so deeply that, it goes deep in to your memory, so deep that it will be there forever. You may not be remembering it all the time. But all its required to bring back all those feelings is just a music or a smell or a view or a season or something like that which we usually don’t give much importance to. We may not have realized it when we were experiencing it, that all these factors have affected us so much.

Sometimes we may be busy doing things and suddenly something, may be a smell of the fallen leaves of the winter, or a piece of music which used to be your favorite and then long forgotten, it will shock you, you feel the time slowing down, you slowly come to the present, look around or feel around, your brain rapidly searching for that ‘déjà vu’ [been there, done that] feeling, what is it? I have been here or experienced something similar. Everything that was inside your head seems to vanish. You start to think about the memory of yours which changed your day.

I was driving to my friend’s place which is also near to where I did my college days. Music was playing in the car. It was winter and the trees on both sides of the road have shed almost all their leaves. I haven’t noticed any of these until the song changed to one I used to love when I was in college. I and my friends used to go for trips and this was our song for almost all the occasion. Even in the exam mornings, for inspiration, to lighten up our moods we used to play that song. Suddenly I was pulled to the past, I was riding along with my friends hearing the song. I completely forgot what I am supposed to be doing, and I became the old graduation student. I rode straight to my college. Since it was the X’mas vacation, the place was deserted. I stopped my car, walked towards the college building. I stayed there for sometime. The smell of the air, the color of the place, the calm of the mountains near, I desperately wanted to go back to the past, meet all my friends talk to them. I thought about my girl friend, I missed her. I stayed there for some more time, wishing that some miracle will happen and will transport me back to one of those beautiful moments where we all were together and happy. Only when I walked back to my car that I realized my eyes were filled with tears. Then I remembered something said by one of my best friends “Don’t be sad that it is over, but be happy that it has happened to you” while we graduated and had to leave the college.

ps: What I have written here is similar to what happened to me during this X’mas holidays.