I had overshot the deadline for sending in an article that was due to The Guindy Times (the campus newspaper) by over a week. I always held that people who run the paper should not contribute except for the editing and the actual "running the paper" bit. (Okay, poor excuse!). But, finally when I did write one I decided to also post it right here. So here goes :
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.
~ J.R.R Tolkien
So, it is my turn to adventure into the unexplored turf. The time has arrived. In less than a month’s time, I will be trading the luxuries of this world to one often prefixed by the alliterated big, bad adjective. My first memory of visiting this campus is fresh as yesterday (and not often does my memory serve right. So this is something!). I remember coming over right after exam results came out to meet a senior from school at the Computer Science department – a meeting speculating if I had gotten the right numbers to enter this place!
My next vivid memory comprises of Dean sitting opposite to a petrified me and my glowing father handing out a form (there goes my memory; I don’t quite remember what exactly that was!). And pretty soon I was walking past corridors of red bricks with a bag that grew lighter with time, hardly paying any attention in class, the first class I bunked and the countless classes I bunked thereafter, the labs that drove me crazy and then a phase where I never cared what the name of the lab was, the before-assessment-borrow-someone’s-notes-for-xerox times and the contrasting who gives a dime about assessment marks anyway, the times that made my life (like driving my bike in paying no heed to the security guards yells), the times when emotion ruled over sense (you can guess what you want here!) CEG gave me all. I have experienced the zenith of surreal happiness, the nadirs of declining performance, the ability to discover talent that lay untapped, moderate success, awful failure, phases of apprehension and sheer tension. You name a feeling and that would have crossed my living cells and kindled those particular causative chemicals at least once in these four years.
And yes, the learning was immense. Not from the books. Life is a better teacher and life at CEG is the best you can get at that age. I learnt mostly by falling down. Getting right back up is probably more fun and the values you create in the process are the ones you will choose to live by for life. There were as many ups and even greater downs. In retrospect, I appreciate the bad times more so because they were also times of reforming self – whether it was moving on unchanged or widening perspectives.
Most important of all my experiences at CEG will be the people that I met and forged friendships for life. A few are already out pursuing higher studies or their careers and many more will be graduating with me. With life getting ahead of us at every corner, every attempt to catch up again will be defeated. Despite that, these wonderful people have enriched my stay here and have influenced a significant part of me. I guess it will be quite hackneyed if I say life would not have been the same but for these people but that is true.
So, now comes the hard part. All the time I was here, there was a complete impatience to see the world that lay outside these cheery red walls. Now, as the time looms close, I am keen to enjoy what is left of my entitled stay. A dear friend once said the worst thing about goodbyes is that there is nothing good about them. Like the Vitamin C song, I keep, I keep thinking that it’s not goodbye. I keep on thinking it’s time to fly. Maybe, some day my travels might lead me back to where all this started. And as I await that day, here is wishing everyone of the graduating class of 2011 a happy journey all along!
Till our paths cross again,
Swathi
(Dedicated to all the people I have known these years at CEG and who have influenced my life simply by existing in it! Thank you!)
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.
~ J.R.R Tolkien
So, it is my turn to adventure into the unexplored turf. The time has arrived. In less than a month’s time, I will be trading the luxuries of this world to one often prefixed by the alliterated big, bad adjective. My first memory of visiting this campus is fresh as yesterday (and not often does my memory serve right. So this is something!). I remember coming over right after exam results came out to meet a senior from school at the Computer Science department – a meeting speculating if I had gotten the right numbers to enter this place!
My next vivid memory comprises of Dean sitting opposite to a petrified me and my glowing father handing out a form (there goes my memory; I don’t quite remember what exactly that was!). And pretty soon I was walking past corridors of red bricks with a bag that grew lighter with time, hardly paying any attention in class, the first class I bunked and the countless classes I bunked thereafter, the labs that drove me crazy and then a phase where I never cared what the name of the lab was, the before-assessment-borrow-someone’s-notes-for-xerox times and the contrasting who gives a dime about assessment marks anyway, the times that made my life (like driving my bike in paying no heed to the security guards yells), the times when emotion ruled over sense (you can guess what you want here!) CEG gave me all. I have experienced the zenith of surreal happiness, the nadirs of declining performance, the ability to discover talent that lay untapped, moderate success, awful failure, phases of apprehension and sheer tension. You name a feeling and that would have crossed my living cells and kindled those particular causative chemicals at least once in these four years.
And yes, the learning was immense. Not from the books. Life is a better teacher and life at CEG is the best you can get at that age. I learnt mostly by falling down. Getting right back up is probably more fun and the values you create in the process are the ones you will choose to live by for life. There were as many ups and even greater downs. In retrospect, I appreciate the bad times more so because they were also times of reforming self – whether it was moving on unchanged or widening perspectives.
Most important of all my experiences at CEG will be the people that I met and forged friendships for life. A few are already out pursuing higher studies or their careers and many more will be graduating with me. With life getting ahead of us at every corner, every attempt to catch up again will be defeated. Despite that, these wonderful people have enriched my stay here and have influenced a significant part of me. I guess it will be quite hackneyed if I say life would not have been the same but for these people but that is true.
So, now comes the hard part. All the time I was here, there was a complete impatience to see the world that lay outside these cheery red walls. Now, as the time looms close, I am keen to enjoy what is left of my entitled stay. A dear friend once said the worst thing about goodbyes is that there is nothing good about them. Like the Vitamin C song, I keep, I keep thinking that it’s not goodbye. I keep on thinking it’s time to fly. Maybe, some day my travels might lead me back to where all this started. And as I await that day, here is wishing everyone of the graduating class of 2011 a happy journey all along!
Till our paths cross again,
Swathi
(Dedicated to all the people I have known these years at CEG and who have influenced my life simply by existing in it! Thank you!)
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ReplyDeleteNice one Swathi :) I'd say okay to another farewell just for those few mins in our campus :(
ReplyDelete