Of things lost and of things gained!

Today is the second day of me being a sophomore. Today is the second day of me being an Electrical Engineering sophomore. Today is the second day of me not being in the Biotechnology department. I am happy. I should be content. Elementary, My dear Watson!

Am I happy?

Let's see..

Of the things I gained - a 'respectable' (it's all relative!) discipline, a more comfortable disposition infront of people (I got rid of 'Biotechnology has no scope in India' refrain), and the end of the 'I need to get a branch change' ordeal.

I gained a lot, I must confess. I feel I did.

Now coming to the things I lost - I lost out on great people. I lost out on the juvenile Batch 'I' happenings. I had to part with the company of some really close friends. I know I'll see them around and will try to be with them more often than not, but it's just not the same.

Yesterday, in my new class with new faces around me, I felt lost. I missed the 'We'll study here itself' and the 'bohot bol raha hai tu' rantings. I missed the people who helped me become what I am today in this institute. I missed my comfort bubble.

We as human beings abhor change. Change in any form- sleeping pattern, food, friends, school, place. We loath having to do something new, venture into unknown territories (I am not referring to scuba diving or the likes here!) and change our set schedule. I am probably one of them. I am trying to adjust. I am trying to fit in. I am not liking it, but I know I don't have any other option.

A week down the line, probably, I'll just laugh all of this off! But till then, I guess being lost, grumpy and a lil' peeved is going to help me cope with the situation.

Adieu till then, bird-brain! *sulk*

Clenching a fistful of sand!

At the outset, I will try not to make this an overtly sentimental, rather emotional, post like the previous ones. But due to the content that is going to go into this soliloquy, please give me the requisite space to take the necessary liberties.

It has been a very uneventful summer. Nine weeks of unlimited stupor, unbound rest and gluttony have made me realise the importance of quite a few things. Of my 6 by 6 bed. Of my 2000 square feet floor which I call home. Of a 46 year old beautiful lady who I call Ma.

I came home looking forward to the most relaxing time in the past 12 months. I got that for sure! But very soon, I was also plagued by a benign disease, 'boredom'. I started having my tiffs at home on very trivial, rather petty, issues. I lost my cool when I had to eat okra even though I like it. I was preoccupied, or so I thought. But that wasn't enough. I needed to go out. To rejuvenate. To escape to a place I hadn't been before.

Unfortunately, those plans never materialised and I was at one place, mostly the bed, for straight 8 weeks.

The summer wasn't that bad, ofcourse! I met up with school friends. Went to the cinemas. Chatted with my granny for hours together. Started writing a blog. Learnt how to manoeuvre a car and rekindled my old passion of going for a run every morning.

Today, when I have less than 48 hours to head back to my life at Roorkee, I feel lost. I am going to miss everything that I failed to appreciate. I am going to miss the ghar ka khana. I am going to miss my daily routine- of doing nothing! I am going to miss the caressing touch while drifting to sleep. I am going to miss the 'Eat your food properly' refrain. I am going to miss Ma.

It is so very strange that we take these things for granted. We yearn for freedom. We yearn to be with friends. In the process, we underestimate all this. I am here today standing with my fist clenched trying to hold on to sand. I know what is going to happen. I know I cannot change what is going to happen. I hope it takes a longer time for the sand to escape my hands. I want to apologise to each grain of sand for my ignorance. I want to make it feel special. But alas, time forbids me to do so. And so does human nature. We aren't very effusive when it comes to telling the people who mean the most to us, how important they are in our lives. So this is to all of you who have with-held themselves hitherto. Go and give your folks a huge smile and a warm hug before you leave home this time. After all, that's what'll keep them going till the next time you see them.

They deserve it!

If it were as it is!

Before I publish this blog, I want to give you a background to such an effusive outburst of melancholy. This is about all those people who have 'just' made it, yet not quite. It's about those who did make it 'there', but at what price?..

As I walk back to see how far I’ve come, a sense of pathos and nostalgia grips my being. Nostalgic about the times I’ve spent hitherto – good in most patches, not so good in others. Pathos, not in its literal term, but generally for all I missed out. For the boy standing there, at the corner, the junction, wishing to go this way but forced to go the other. Maybe because the ‘other’ way was right. Maybe he didn’t have an option. Either way, it was his loss. To me, it’s been a different kind of a journey. It’s been an experience. Experiences can be good or bad. Let’s go with it then: Experience. ‘I travelled with a hope of never reaching my destination’. What would I have done reaching there? It would have meant the culmination of the journey which initially seems very enticing, but gradually loses its sheen as you start enjoying the process of getting there.

Life’s been kind. Or has it? When I look back at the time when I was just there, yet not completely. Or the time when I wanted to run out and get it, but was stopped from doing so because of circumstantial limitations. We don’t get all we want. They say you shouldn’t. It makes life perfect and therefore, we don’t strive for improvement. Acceded. Great thought. But why don’t we, for once, 'put a smile on that face'. A smile of complete satisfaction. ‘I have it, now! I can be myself’. We tend to lose ourselves in the process of getting there. We compromise to such a large extent that when we finally get what we want, we wonder whether it was actually worth it?! Whether it was worth the gradual degradation of ‘me’. Did I not waste myself , rather lose myself, in the process? I achieved what I wanted, well that’s what all of us say, right? What “I” wanted. Give it a thought. Did “You” really want it? Or were you conditioned to think this way? ‘I want to be a millionaire’. Why?! So that I am respected, I have a lavish lifestyle which others admire. So it’s basically not that you want it absolutely. It’s relative. So we let someone – a whole bunch of them – dictate what we want to do and in the process, we bartered a part of us. What a gain, sir! Bravo! Quite a favourable deal.

You reach the top. You are there, boi! You are the star of the evening. Accolades. Appreciation. Unbound respect. You come back home and feel good. But think now, and be true to yourself, did you not pretend to be someone else today evening with everyone around you? Someone who knows that he has changed over a period of time to get here. Someone who isn’t you. Or someone who wasn’t you till sometime back. Change is the only permanent thing. Well said! But to what extent? To the extent of you looking at another chap in the mirror? Or you losing that ‘personal touch’ that was your trademark? That’s not a wise thing to happen to you, sir. It’s detrimental. Can you do something about it now? No, you’ve come a long way and have become complacent about it. ‘Why bother now? It’s too much of a hassle.’ It is. But what will hassle you even more, now, is the fact that you’ve transformed into someone you didn’t want to be. ‘Whatever you do, don’t change.’ ‘Always be a good human being!’ Heard all this before? Yah, from friends and family. Did you follow what they said? Nah! Fools, weren’t they? Look, I am very successful, so why should I heed to their superfluous advice?

Don’t! Don’t listen to them at all. But don’t feel sorry for not listening to them later.

Why do we at some point in our lives want to relive our childhood? Why the school days? Because we didn’t have any responsibilities. We were carefree. And what did ‘growing up’ do? It metamorphosed us into this completely different person. Someone we couldn’t even relate to ourselves.

Pitiable! Highly.

It's not Time, It's me!

It's almost the end of that time of the year which every pupil looks forward to- The Summer Holidays. It's time for me to pack my bags, head back to my Alma mater and cope with the stresses that the new year will induce in me. However, I just want to talk here about what I felt when I went to school recently, a visit that I never forget to pay to my 'launching pad' whenever I am in Delhi.

This was probably my 7th or 8th visit to Sanskriti after I graduated in 2007. So I wasn't expecting what I experienced standing in front of class 12-D on that day. I had been a part of the institution from July 2000 through March 2007. 7 years! 7 very long years, which surprisingly, passed by in a jiffy. So I shouldn't have felt a quaint sense of loss, a feeling of being alienated.

What triggered this response in me? What was the stimulus?

I walked through the familiar Amphitheatre, through the square Central Courtyard finally reaching my first pit stop- My classroom. It was just the same, apart from the bulletin board which now had the theme 'Global Meltdown'. I cast a furtive glance to my desk and chair. I saw a different sachet, not mine, and I felt.. different. I went back a few years and could see myself sitting on that very chair, laughing at a certain Mr. Mirza (the tenacious Physics teacher) whenever he squealed in horror seeing the blank faces of Neha, Elly, Dhriti and the likes. I went back to me arguing with the industrious Mathematics professor on whether we could just cancel the integral and differential signs and get the answer. And while I was reminiscing, I felt sad.

I met my teachers, most of them just the same. The same ol' Neelakshi Ma'am telling me that she needed to lose more weight to control her diabetes, Madhavi Ma'am asking me why I had 'gone down' so much? And during all this friendly banter, I felt sad.

I met the support staff of my school. Rajendra Bhaiya, much the same, running from the princi's office to the admin block. Ram Baksh Bhiaya trying to setup the biology lab for the upcoming practical exam for the 9th graders. Madho Sir with his usual smile complaining about how I had completely forgotten the ever so helpful chemistry lab assistant in the past 2 years. I enjoyed my conversation with them. I liked the rendezvous. Yet, I felt sad.

Why was I unhappy?

As I write this blog, I can figure out one plausible reason. It wasn't that the school, the classrooms, the teachers or the bhaiyas had changed. Time hadn't changed them at all. But It had taken its toll on me. I had changed. I was forced to change. I was forced to move on. I know we have to let go. Change is the only permanent thing. But did I want to change so much as to feel like a complete stranger in my own habitat? I left behind a lot of friendships and acquaintances on my way to get here. I sacrificed a lot of people, sacrificing myself in the process.

I don't have much of a reason to complain. It happens this way in everyone's life. The key point here is that do you still have the people who mean something to you around? I guess I do. So I can't crib about. But I do wish that the next time I am in Sanskriti, I feel the pulse of the institution. Hopefully, I will. I have to, because no matter how far a bird takes its flight, it comes back to its nest.