THE FAREWELL...

Etched forever in the sands of time,

Stories of a careless life of mine,

A tale of two years spent in Bombay,

Shades of black, white and grey…

The pursuit of ambition in hopeless hope,

MBA, NM and this useless bloke,

And it began with new friends that soon became old,

As we did fight, did love and just occasionally did scold…

If it weren’t needed to pass, I’d never open a book,

I’d walk the beach every cranny and nook,

The lectures that always seemed to begin too soon,

The mornings that inevitably began at noon…

Sessions outside class that were always so much fun,

Filled with games, innuendos and a whole lotta pun,

Movies and coffees that soon defined life,

Those wonderful women that were reasons for joy and strife…

Forever the dreamer, even in class,

Professors forgotten, in my eyes that beautiful lass,

College life spent socializing in the quad,

Attendance that was a matter of proxies and fraud…

Bakar that went on through the night,

Economics that made it heavy and gossip that made it light,

Through jokes that the best lessons were learnt,

In the chats of our dreams that the midnight oil was burnt…

As another phase now draws to an end,

The present into the realm of memories does transcend,

When it’d begun, I’d thought I’d walk on ahead without a blink,

But things are so much different here at the brink…

Now at the farewell dance, I close my eyes to gather strength,

I lose it instead as all the images come rushing back at length,

I console myself of a better future to allay my fears,

I don’t believe myself though and there’s nothing I can do to stop my tears…

Time Machine

I sat down to write another chapter in the tale of my tryst with engineering and as almost always, this time too I was suddenly transported back to the old corridors of college. Almost always… hmmm… let me tell this in a little more detail.

Have you ever wished for a time machine? You know the same old scientific marvel that would be able to transport you back or forth in time? Well, as every other 10 year old, so have I. My dreams of possessing a time machine though have come true and strangely enough, it happened in my dreams. At the risk of throwing modesty for a toss, I will make a confession here. I have an elephant’s memory for everything that has nothing to do with academics. This fabulous memory helps me recreate all those bygone times in great detail and when the memory fails, I have an over-active imagination to fill in the gaps. I can transport myself to any place and any time that I feel I have a very strong memory embedded in. Sometimes almost like out of a Spielberg movie, I can revisit those moments and suddenly catch something that my keen eye might have missed. Most of the times, I have been right and haven’t been a victim of my over-active imagination.

Coming back, every time I sit down to write something about college life (at RSCOE) I invariably find myself back at the entrance of the corridor from the parking lot across the canteen, I always have that one friend beside me (with that infectious smile!) and I always see my other pals coming across from the other side of the hallway. The next instant I could be almost anywhere that I had actually begun to recall but that first instant when I land back in time is the same scene! And I could never get bored of it! Some memories are eternal, ephemeral and surreal. I don’t think I have been happier than I was at that moment ever. That despite there was nothing significant to note about that day. It rolled out as an average nondescript day with no obtrusively happy or sad moments to document…but it also epitomizes how to me the little things matter most!