For The Last Time...

This is a good news to declare to everyone. I am on the brink of writing the last three-hour final examination (popularly called as Comprees in some part of the country and Externals somewhere else!) of my life. We've all had our share of waiting for this D-Day, and aloha, here it is for me! So, although a bit nostalgic about it somewhere within, the excitement is overpowering and it is definitely a moment to savour!

Needless to mention, with exams ending, the day tomorrow also brings the end of the long academic journey I embarked on at the age of 3! It is overwhelming to think of it that way. I Learnt and Un-learnt many things. But, this post is not to tell you about the serious and sentimental stuff (that'll bring an unnecessary halt to my last night-out preparation!); so, I am going to do what I logged on to do.  

As a tribute to all those days and nights of exam-preparation, tension, lectures, professors-teachers alike, techhy classrooms, out-of-syllabus incomprehensible questions, really weird invigilators, and to all those wandering imaginative brilliant minds -- suited to the occasion, here are five of my most favourite from the world of Calvin and Hobbes:

No one does it better than him; I am sure you agree! Cheers!

The Blues and Hues

Disappointments are difficult to handle. You don’t know what you are disappointed with more – yourself or the situation you found yourself in. You don’t know whether it was you who did something wrong or if it was the situation that went against you. But clearly, you are dejected. And, that is why I presume disappointments are tough to handle. Because of the sheer ambiguity they carry with themselves. For a while, you are immersed in a feeling of loss – loss of something good, something you wanted but did not get; later perhaps in the lack of a feeling itself. The vicious circle that the mind then weaves gets you weary to even fight any longer.

I am talking about one such disappointment I experienced today. I will tell you why I call it an experience later. It has not been easy to overcome. Absolutely because of the confusion it clouded my mind with. I did not know who to blame, if at all I wanted to play the blame-game – myself or the series of events that led to the disappointing outcome; or both. And, I did not know of a way to find comfort in my chaos.

It wasn’t somehow a regular college day right from dawn; and yet I dared to march into the unknown armed with… nothing. Or maybe, with some hope against hope. And, as I sit here in the library reflecting on my day that just went by, one thing stands out. Life is not easy. There are days when you become a victim of Murphy’s Law and chance upon the sad realization that the road ahead might only get worse. And that’s exactly what happened today. Being hopeful is even tougher on days like these, but then that’s the best you can do. Perhaps the day was chalked out to be like this, says a friend philosophically. But I don’t know that. Yet, I mean.

Like in most Bollywood movies, where the good wins over the bad, the disheartened feeling also saw a heartening comfort in the end. Sipping on tea sitting outside the college mess, I had a ‘lecturing’ conversation with a friend. So when I say lecturing, you can imagine it to be completely one-sided. And it was not the lecture that was the actual take away. It was the fact that no matter how bad your day is, at the end of it you will always have friends to sit on your either side, who’ll try to make you believe that the script you have been writing for your life will win just when the time is right; that the blues within would soon be replaced with newer, brighter hues; and that there is no greater delight in having faith in yourself, patience with life and wielding your pen no matter what happens.

With the day at its end now, I realize I shall wake up again to dare and march into another unknown armed with… maybe, the experience of having done this before. And, that as they say, is Life!

Variability

This is the exact sequence of events of an evening a few weeks back.

I was on board the college bus that plies to the city (of Hyderabad) every evening at around 5.00pm from my campus. I looked out of the window, it was getting dark and the wind was chilly. I tried to decipher the tiny print of the crossword puzzle that I was trying to solve only to realize I shouldn’t be straining my eyes any further. I folded the newspaper neatly and lied back for a much-deserved nap. I looked at my cell phone timer: it was 5.39pm.

I was fidgeting my cell phone when my eyes caught the time again. It was 6.39pm, exactly. I couldn’t believe the evening was turning into an almost disaster in just an hour’s time. By normal standards, I should have been in the city forty minutes back; but here I was, seated in my college bus stuck in a traffic jam in the least expected spot in the city. My mood was livid although I knew it was not helping the situation in any way. I tried to look around if I could find a way out of the traffic myself, by walking a few meters to-fro maybe. Feeling too restless and angry sitting there, I got down from the bus to fight the traffic on foot.

Something had happened to the auto-walas in the city that evening. I agree it was Bakrid and everyone was out celebrating in the hub of the city leaving Old City and the Charminar area quite deserted. But the auto-walas disagreeing to go towards Old City with the fear of returning empty sounded rather pretentious to me. I had finally managed to find an auto for half the distance and was now wading through the other half of the distance in another shared-auto. I was to meet some family friends in the city. With the anticipation that this ordeal would finally get over, I took out my cell phone and informed that I would be arriving shortly.

Time flies quickly right when you least expect it, worse when you don’t want it to. The time spent at our family friend’s was great. I got to see all the wedding-shopping (which I had hoped to be a part of when I started from my college) – gold jewelry, junk jewelry, and lot many beautiful sarees. I gorged on a few Besan ke Laddus as we chatted, and got a packet full of bakery biscuits for myself to carry back. And although, I couldn’t wait for dinner, I was feeling happy now. I had done what I had come to do. As I was hurrying up to leave, I checked on my cell phone again for the time. It was 8.39pm on the dot!

I reached Punjagutta after another auto-ordeal. There were about fifteen minutes for my college bus to leave for campus. I was feeling hungry now. Thinking of Plain Maggi at Bingers, I calmed my growling stomach. I bought a few magazines to empty my wallet of some heavy notes. Right outside the book store, I spotted Nishant near the crossing. Felt glad I had found some company for my journey back, I was already too weary of the traffic in the city. Upon listening to my entire tale of the evening, his only reaction was to move in quick steps towards a small fast-food joint and get me an egg-roll! It was 9.39pm, he claimed he had 6 whole leisure minutes to get the roll and get back. Quite pleasantly surprised and a bit worried for his hurriedness, I walked towards the area where our buses were lined up…

Human emotions make for an interesting observation. I recalled all my own emotions and varying moods at those hourly intervals late that night. They formed an entire spectrum. And I, was left smiling at the ceiling.

Hope

The leaf lay there
Waiting for its rain drop
At the edge
Of a window sill.


Parched,
It swallowed hard
The stillness;
Stillness of air
Of silence
Of motion
Of Life.

The leaf lay there
Crouched,
Waiting for its rain drop
At the edge
Of the window, now sealed.

The Debutantes

It was my first year of engineering at BITS. Shruti and I were sitting in my room reflecting and fiddling with a pen and paper. We had a few classes that we very conveniently gussed to enjoy the part-winter part-summer afternoon gorging on Lays potato chips and a few five-stars, chatting about how much our lives had changed since we stepped into this isolated yet truly magical town of Pilani.

The exciting topic of our discussion those days was this new Poetry Club that two of our friends were very keen on starting on campus - with the mission of - "bringing all poetry lovers under one roof"! Enthused that we definitely were every time we talked about it, that day, we both would clearly remember, also unleashed our innocent creativity out of us, as we laughed and penned together this 'cute' and absolutely close-to-heart poem. Dedicated to both of us, from the both of us.

Dated: Sometime in Feb, 2004.

The Sky and The Ocean

The sky and the ocean
Share much more than just friendly affection,
Each being other’s reflection
Complemented one another with utmost perfection.

At the horizon when they meet
Their beauty makes hearts skip a beat,
The ardent line of smile they spread around
Leaves everyone spellbound.

Every cloud in the sky
The ocean appraises,
Every wave in the ocean
The sky apprises.

What lies beneath the ocean and above the sky
Deep secrets they share and light moments that fly by,
What makes them laugh, what makes them cry
No one knows, though many try.

And they share a love so eternal
Which is beyond praises so lexical,
They fill everyone’s life with glee
Oh! yes dear, it’s you and me!

Well, what we did after writing this was even more childish! We cycled out of our hostel to show "our" poem to a poet-friend and garner his compliments. His smile said it all, and we beamed with joy! Later that evening we rushed to others too with the poem in our hands like kids running with their pastel-sketches or first paper-planes! Gosh, we really did that, didn't we!

It marked the beginning of something new - a new feeling, a new outlet to emotions, a new perspective, and a new perception of each other. It still brings back fond memories of our 'young' days when all that really mattered was to have extended lunch hours in the mess till the mess-bhaiyas asked us, politely enough, to leave; to cycle around the campus touching every single road; to control that irresistible-talking-phenomenon the night before a test; to sit under our tree till wee hours chatting; to misplacing cycles in Meera Bhawan for the greater good. And ahh, so many more! Kiddish that we really were back then, it nevertheless gave us the adrenaline to go crazy and keep that crazy side of ours alive even now!