LEAVING ON A JET PLANE….

In the book of life many chapters are to be written. A very important chapter of my life just got over, but at the turn of a leaf a new one is to begin even sooner. I am in transition mode.

I am to enter the mean and dreaded professional life. Dreaded not from experience but because of what I have heard. Many people laments for not having enjoyed there college days enough. They say that if given a chance they will trade their present for their past in a heartbeat. I being fully aware of this school of thought tried to live my last days if college as if there was no tomorrow. Now those days are history and I am standing at the crossroads of life, uncertain and also a bit scared about the future.

But I have never walked on the beaten path. I remember in school I went through the same phase. I remember people saying how much we are going to miss school and that we close friends will now be separated for good. Thankfully today that is not the case. School got over, the fun did not. I am still friends with those who really mattered to me in school and am sure that it will last a lifetime. Things have got better with me getting the best of both worlds. College was always great, and when I came back home I was pampered like anything.

But I got a hunch that this time it will be different. The professional world may not be as kind to me. Firstly I will have to toil more, secondly I will get much lesser vacation time and thirdly I would have become old. My mentality may get reduced to- go to office, come back, chill- no spirit of adventure left.

Thus now as weird as it may seem, after cursing for years as to why we have to go to class so early, today I am actually a bit skeptical as to if that was the “good” life and what lies ahead is nostalgia and remembrances.

Change is the only constant, but there are certain things which you hope never changes. Things that matter the most, things that you dread to lose. Thus as I enter a new phase of life I hold on to these magical things very dearly, with all my life and swear to never let go.

The book of life may have many chapters; it may take many twists and turns but what matters is what happens in the long run, how it all culminates. I may leave on a jet plane many times, my life may take many turns but the end is predefined.

I SHALL ALWAYS RETURN TO YOU. Sorry to make you cry.

All my bags are packed
Im ready to go
Im standin here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But the dawn is breakin
Its early morn
The taxis waitin
Hes blowin his horn
Already Im so lonesome
I could die

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that youll wait for me
Hold me like youll never let me go
cause Im leavin on a jet plane
Dont know when Ill be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

Theres so many times Ive let you down
So many times Ive played around
I tell you now, they dont mean a thing
Evry place I go, Ill think of you
Evry song I sing, Ill sing for you
When I come back, Ill bring your wedding ring

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that youll wait for me
Hold me like youll never let me go
cause Im leavin on a jet plane
Dont know when Ill be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

leavin on a jet plane
Dont know when Ill be back again

leavin on a jet plane
Dont know when Ill be back again

leavin on a jet plane…… leavin on a jet plane

THE POWER OF LAN

I am sited in the comfort of my home. I has all the resources which are normally available to the average middle class Indian.But I am a bit bored. I do the obvious. I switch on the idiot box. After a few hours I realize just why it is called the “idiot” box- you have to be an idiot to watch some of the programs on it. With IPL not on till the evening and the good English series not being aired I succumb to the torture and give in.

After having switched off the 21 inch, I took a leap backwards in time; I next tried the ancestor of television-the radio. But gone are the days of vividh bharti (not that they were much entertaining). Today we dance to the tunes of FM radio. But I soon got feed up of RJ’s cracking below the belt jokes. It was really awful, the cheesy alias, the brain dead PJ’s and the irritating, artificial tone negated the joy of listening to good music. I soon gave up on that also.

So I turned to something which is the invention of the century. The largest network on the planet with millions of pages, each with its own uniqueness and appeal had to be the answer to my boredom. But I was cheated once again. The browsing speed was too slow. I did not feel like surfing educational websites. So I was reduced to social networking. But I was never an active member and I always used to feel that the task of going through others private information is an act of voyeurism. So it happened again- I got feed up. Not knowing what to do I started to search for some good, entertaining torrents. My search found many hits but when I pressed the magic download button, it flashed the estimated time left. My heart sank. I would die of boredom before this download could be complete. If only I had a faster download speed? Then it struck me, not long ago I had that facility, because not too long ago I was a member of a 2000 computer strong, 20 TB worth LAN. Not long ago I had access to my college LAN.

So whenever after college I had to study I had the prefect distraction and did not study, whenever I should have gone out and played, I being true to my engineering subject did play, but “on lan” not in the hot sun. Also, whenever I was bored all that I had to do was run "DC++.exe" and presto-the beautiful and limitless world of entertainment was there in front of me. It was all that easy, so easy rather that we did not appreciate it, but know when we no longer have that invaluable asset we miss it like hell.

So when out of utter desperation I see the DC++ icon in my desktop and double click it which the hope that a miracle will happen and I shall somehow get connection, I get the reply “Host unreachable” and my heart sinks. I knew the result before clicking it, but sometimes when you miss something terribly you start to hope against hope.

Yes I miss my classmates, I miss my institute, I miss my friends, I miss my bestest friend but DC-I miss you too :-(.

BREAKING A HABIT

Dedicated to all my special friends from college

The fine line between regular activities and habit is usually crossed without the self knowledge of the practitioner. But when we are to let go of our habits and once again reduce it to an infrequent activity the change is difficult, long and tiresome.

Thus when I left my picturesque campus some practices which were merely activities when I joined my college but then in the course of four years became an essential and almost involuntary habit, had to be broken, almost suddenly. This breaking away was rather difficult.

There was the usually lazy, laid back attitude which us engineers practice throughout those wonderful years of college. It was just like heaven- waking up at 7:50 to attend the 8 o clock class, the liberty of not taking bath for ages and also the independence of not being judged by any of your classmates as all of them are in the same shabby state. The freedom of being as indiscipline in your personal hygiene as possible (you don’t want to be the one who broke the thumb rule of the hostel). But when you are back home and are firmly under the rule of your mom you are forced to abandon the good life for a more “disciplined” way of living.

All that is well and good, I mean we are engineers not maugly, but the habit most difficult to break it the feeling that you have certain special friends who were a stone throws away all these years but now are very far way. Through out college these special people were all that you had. You got up with them, meet them in the bathroom, walked till college with them, sat in class besides them ,ate in canteen with them , played with them , fought with them, wherever you went they went with you,. It was assumed they will follow your every step, be with you every moment, never leave you; you will never have to miss them. But change is the only constant; you get to find this the hard way.

So those special people go away and you have to break the most wonderful habit you practiced all these years. You have to let go the habit of amusing that someone will always be there for you , besides you, holding your hand, comforting you, telling you in the deepest, darkest moments that “everything is gonna be all right”. You have to let go of the habit of believing such well intentional words and forgetting all your troubles just like that. You will have to let go of lots of fun times.

Miss you all 

BIDDING GOODBYES

Goodbye is often a very difficult word to utter. I found this to be untrue. Bidding good bye is the most difficult thing to do. So as I set sail to begin a new life I bid farewell to my past with a truly heavy heart, moist eyes and with memories that make life worth living.

So it all began. The last day in college began. After being awake till the wee hours of the morning I woke up late realizing that I till that a few things to sort out. So hastily started to scrutinize my room and ended up stuffing things randomly into any bag which had any space left. After all once I reach home my super-mom will set things rights. So after having left many important things and packed the useless ones it was finally time to bid adieu.

It all started with my first room mate showing up in my room. It all began with him and ironically the end also began with him. He was his own self as usual but like myself he too was nostalgic. We remembered the pigeon hole we shared together, it was a small, filthy room but we had some good times, we had some really good times. Then one by one they kept pouring in. My friends were all there in my room to have one final banter with me. We chatted like any other day. We made fun of each other, we giggled, and we frowned. But it was all so special. We were doing this for the final time.

Interactions with acquaintances were also heart warming. Whoever crossed the lobby and saw my bags packed stopped for a second just to say good bye. Many close friends were not close by, so frantic calls were made to find there whereabouts. I just had to meet everyone who mattered before I left.

By the time my transportation arrived I was feeling in a car wreck. The auto wala pressed for a quick departure else I would have stayed much longer. So with an auto rearing to go he all shook hands and embraced each other with a promise that no matter what may we shall all be friends forever. So after having let go of my beloved hostel is was now time for the real test.

After a calorie full pit stop I and a few close friends had reached the railways station. I was now a train wreck I vividly remember my previous journeys back home. The time spend in the station waiting for the train to arrive was the worst. The hot sun, the crowd, the noise, the flit, the lack of sitting place used to get to my nerves. But like everything else this time was also different. That hour of misery, which earlier used to stretch on for time infinite, ironically flew by with me wishing all the while that it last a few more moments.

The train arrived. I and my friends got on it. Placed my luggage on my berth and stepped back on the platform. My last few minutes with some very special people had begun. We did not talk anything special .We did not explicitly say that we were going to miss each other. All of us just looked as each other. I looked at the line signal. It was still red. I was still happy. Suddenly it happened- these girl I tell you. One broke down and then the chain reaction started. It was not comfortable seeing your best friends sob, but they were sobbing for you. It just tells you just how lucky you are to have certain very special people in your life and the fact that they will miss you when you are not there simply makes you not go anywhere. But it was inevitable. We were soon back to our merry ways, joking and pulling each others legs. But then it happened. The signal turned green. The trumpet blew. I was going. So with a final wave of hands I jumped into the train and stood near the gate waving for as long as I could and gazing out for those wonderful figures till my eyes permitted.

Bidding farewell is definitely tough. But I happy this was not the final farewell. We will all meet again .I will ensure that we will all met again.

……AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

As I that stated earlier, due to the unsurprising goof up of my dearest institute my journey of becoming an engineer got prolonged a bit more. Many including this writer found this irritating. But we decided to focus on that single ray of light in this room of darkness and took solace in the fact that this lovely journey is not yet over.

So we had a last man standing….but after it was all said and done, after the dust had finally settled, after we all had answered that last question and squirted that last drop of ink we all realized that it was all over. For some time we had one last man standing tall but now there were none left.

It is over, not almost but completely over. We are done. Our time is over.

It struck us all of a sudden. It was always coming but somehow none of us could see it coming nor could understand the magnitude of it. I guess for me the moment of reckoning had to be seeing the status message of my fellow college mates in my IM list. I mean seeing everyone keep the same status message in a way says that something huge has happened. Although the words used where different but it all meant the same. All the statements were written with a heavy heart, all of them were stating the obvious, and all of them were going to miss this place.

For the past four years we all traveled on the same road. We lived together, we grew up together, we learned new things together, and we became engineers together. But now we have all come to the crossroads in our lives. The road will now diverge into many separate, lonely sub branches. Each road is different from the other, each road is unknown and while going through this new journey we shall miss our past fellow travelers to the extreme. But all of us still carry the hope in our hearts that these separate roads will sooner or later intermingle once again so that we all could reunite once again.


Bas ek bar wapas lautne ka man karta hai

Aaj har wo din jeene ko man karta hai.

kuch buri batein jo ab acchi lagti hain

kuch batein jo kal ki hi batein lagti hain.

abki baar class attend karne ka man karta hai

Dopahar ki class mein aakhein band karne ko man karta hai.

Doston ke room ki wo baatein yaad aati hai

exam ke time pe wo hasi mazak yaad aati hai,

college ke paas Munna ka dhabe ki yaad aati hai

tab ki bekar lagne wali photos chehre pe hasi laati hai.

Apni galtiyon pe tumse daat khana yaad aata hai.

Par tumhari galti dekhne ka ab bhi mann karta hai.

Ek aisi subah uthne ka mann karta hai

bas ek bar wapas lautne ka man karta hai.

bas ek bar aur

wapas lautne ka man karta hai.

LAST MAN STANDING

It’s over … almost.

As our fight with pen, paper and time reached its final leg it was going to be all over for us. But as faith will have it in a fitting tribute to the past four years something unexpected happened… again! So while everyone was but taking “final” snaps, being nostalgic, being sad as well as excited at the same time I was in a totally different state. I was indifferent because for me the last hurdle was till to be crossed.

This gave me a good opportunity to observe others and realizing once again that what perceives the eye is not always true. For the scenes after the “last” exam was a sight to behold. The various emotions were all out there in the open. I realized for the first time that we may actually want something very bad and be very eager to get it, but when we finally achieve it we realized that it was the journey that stole our hearts, mesmerized our souls, got the adrenaline rushing whereas the end result was just a consequence of the journey which was to occur sooner or later but had no real importance.

We were all to become engineers. We were all destined to leave the place when we first landed here. But somehow we all valued the end result more. I remember having thought about the “future” in my first year itself. I remember having thought- when this will be over I will enter the “good” life. I remember making plans about the distant future, so distant that when the future finally became the present the idea became obsolete. I felt like kicking myself for having worried so much. I felt like punishing myself for not living in the moment. So now as everyone lined up to bid their final goodbyes, to take their final bow and someone asked me “how are feeling now that it is over?” I smiled back and corrected him and replied “It is not yet over, at least not for me”.

For seeing people realize that it is all over it made me think that even I will end up in this state very soon. But until that day comes I will not think about it. I will not stop enjoying the present by trying to anticipate the future. When it is over it will be over, but it is not over yet. So I will carry on in my merry ways keeping in mind the fact that it will be all over soon which will hopefully drive me to enjoy the present even more.

So because of another stupid action by our administration it is not yet done and dusted with for me. Although it is irritating that such silly things happen again and again but keeping in mind Dr Phil’s philosophy I am able to look at it from a different perspective
-IT IS NOT OVER YET- KEEP ENJOYING.

My Last Hurdle is still standing tall and I will take my own sweet time to knock it down. :-P

Yesterday is history
Tomorrow is a mystery
Today is a gift
That is why it is called the present