Goodbye
Author :
NG
Blog :Yellow Agony
Date: 5/13/2012 6:03:00 AM
Every parentheses that opens must curl back for balance.
I met several people at IIT, many of them became my friends. I can count 13 classmates on my fingers with whom I was extremely close, at some point of time. Not all of them are my friends today, many of them won't be coming with me to Valley. I'm leaving for Europe tonight and by the time I'm back all of them would've vanished. Eventuality of all this is just not sinking in - that I'm meeting some of these for the last time in my life. I've grown so much used to having these people around, it is impossible to imagine a permanent shut down.
It was a lavish building of brick and stone,
But my home was where I found my own.
I've truly found myself in last four years at Nilgiri Hostel, IIT Delhi. A-07, D-63, D-16 and now D-33, this is where my home has been all this time. It is going away. No more Thursday mess lunch, no more infinite download of porn and movies from LAN, no more rows of rooms any of which you could knock and get inside any time of day. I was at Bharti balcony night before yesterday's, and the realization that it is my last time there got me weak on knees.
When I came to college, I was a stupid small city boy. I've grown from that to whatever I'm today - all here. I wanted to do 'cool' things. My perception of coolness quotient revolved around consuming alcohol, or having a girlfriend or having sex, or going to discos or taking long drives at night etc. All things I hadn't done or seen but read about in books. My perception of ideals and morality was straight-outta-book-impractical and way too rigid. My acts were dramatic and often inspired from books and movies. I was living a life that existed in my dreams. As I put check mark on all these boxes and many more, I realized the worthlessness of all things 'cool'. My feet are much more firmly on ground. I'm much more honest with myself as well as with others. This place has taught me so much, not only it is my home, it is also my school, which it is even technically :)
I'm not going all mushy and nostalgic. One of the lessons that I so proudly keep in my kitchen jar labeled maturity is that memories aren't absolute. Memories don't represent what happened in past, they represent what we think of what happened in past. Nolan knows it too well. Our memories, they're very much mutable, we change them all the time for our convenience. Often last bad impressions supersede the harmony of years spent together. Haven't you read The Reader? It is on us, how we choose to remember things - with bitterness or not and the decision is to be made soon. I choose to remember only the most relieving and happy moments of my college life and cherish them forever. Tell me, is it little too much for me to try?
They say what goes around comes back around.
With a pocket full of dreams, I move on, like a bohemia, to wherever life takes me next. Yes, I love you Delhi, IIT, Nilgiri and several others who are reading this. Thank you for being a part of my life. I hope you remember me some years later with a smile on your face. Laugh with me, would you?
Love etc,
-
NG