Wednesday 9 May 2012

Open letter to my batchmates

Dear friend,
                  Who am i kidding?, not all of you can be classified as friends, some are way beyond that,
Friends do not accompany you to the railway station just to see you off and decide to hop on to the train themselves to delay the farewell by a few hours, friends do not weep like freshly widowed army-wives, friends do not hug you and say "I'm not letting go", while meaning it.

Given the advancements in the field of medicine and the number of 90+ not out batsmen(and women) in my family, four years do not seem like a lot, but boy did we change ! I'd bet half my grades and inheritance( both equally insignificant) and challenge you to find one person who hasn't changed, some more drastically, but all of us have changed. We've gone through events together which(if filmed) could be classified under 2 categories, sequels to the 'SAW' series and sequels to the 'Hangover' series.

There are a million examples i could delve into to tell each one of you how special you are, I'm quite the social guy, be it online or in person and in my 13 years of schooling and 2 years of Pre-university College I've made friends, loads of them, some so special that they're family now,but it took time, with you, it was destiny, diverse backgrounds, nothing in common, not even a common language with some of you, but we clicked ! I guess living 24X7 with someone makes you family first and friends next, but i assure you, had we met under different circumstances, we'd still be the best of pals.

As most of you know, i'm usually the guy who looks at the academic calendar and goes "hmmmm... 3 days of bunking before the vacations begin and returning 2 days late makes it a fortnight's holiday...coolio", not this time, this time i made the mistake of staying back a couple of days after the semester(course) ended, and boy was it hard(boy am i starting too many sentences with the word 'boy').Seeing you off at the railway station or even those brief farewell hugs in the canteen or PMC (for non-BITians : Piya Milan Chowk, which is where one meets one's love interest or dou) , a little part of me died on the inside, with each farewell.

This might be the right time to point out that for the first time in my life, it has taken me this long to write a piece, if i weren't typing this out, the initial paragraphs might have been blotted, lucky for me, tears won't show on a blog, hopefully the anguish and pain do though.

Haven't really been myself this past week, i doubt any of you have, but the realization that the way of life one has been accustomed to ever since one entered adulthood hits you hard, you aren't just leaving behind a place and friends, you are leaving behind a way of life, one that taught you to fend for yourself while having someone's back, one where caring and sharing become apt descriptions of you, no matter how you walked in .

I could go on, but since the bottom line of this post is that all great things end too soon, i think i must conclude(see what i did there? ), but before i do, HINDI ! how can i forget Hindi?, Most of you had a major role in this department, i shudder to imagine how I'd survive four years without learning from you guys(or with you guys).

Three and a half years were spent grumbling about how we never "lived" for four years but "survived", this last sem, especially those last couple of weeks made me realize that we did live ! To the fullest extent,

 Life wasn't rosy,The rooms weren't too cosy ,No scope for being lazy,No hope for the crazy.
But we were always around to wipe them tears,never missed a chance to bump mugs and say cheers, Friends who were never described as peers, chased away home-sickness and all of my fears

I just hope I influenced your lives to half the extent you guys influenced mine, because whether one admits it or not, the greatest fear is the fear of being forgotten .

yours forever,
Nikhil ,voldy, suar ,piggy, joe,nik, joey or whatever name you know me by


31 comments:

  1. it is really good..my eyes are all misty.. :) missing all my friends and that awesome lifestyle that we had..we really did "live" our lives to the fullest..just never realized it..
    -Anubhuti

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    1. True that !, i'm glad you could identify with the post, thank you :)

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  2. This is really some ass(heart) cracking shit......just going through it once makes every single second of those 4 yrs shuffle in front of your eyes.....purely speaking a mixture of every single kinda emoction came out after reading this...
    " Only Craps written with heart make great Lines " - Dark Knight

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  3. Lets start with the last para "Hindi".I still remember one day you asked me,why most people of the "Hindi" belt use "Hum" instead of "main" and i answered your query,hearing on which you looked quite satisfied.Frankly speaking i never thought i will update any status or post any comment on "how i miss my frnds and the college" even till i came here (i.e @home) but from past week a sense of emptiness has struck me from well inside.I can't believe we can't have

    a)those EEE classes where we 5 or 6 start shouting "sir ho gaya" from the word "GO"

    B)those labs where we were always the first to go out no matter we did our experiments or programming or not.

    c)calling our faculties at the morning that sir,there is no water available even when we had done all our works that require water and after calling the way we pray to god that plzz no water for next hour as well.:)

    d)those delayed or better "unsubmitted" assignments and lab records which we used to write last night before the D-day and then blame our faculties to give us "extra load"

    e)one night stands with "GUP" especially during later part of our engg days.

    f)i don't know how many times we failed but still we expected and rejoiced on every single opportunity for mass bunk.I guess even the word "optimism" will salute us.

    When i was coming back to home this time,it seemed like a regular "summer holidays" to me,only to realize later that this holiday will never end.No doubt we will meet countless times in future as well

    पर वो जमीन न होगी वो समाँ न होगा

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    1. wow ! I'm touched ashish, i truly am, thank you :)

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    2. Hey Nik and Ashish

      To add a few more

      Remember guys saying time up?
      All those EEE girls and boys fights...as if we were standard 3 or 4 kids
      Criticizing and making fun of Prabhat Sir
      Last minute completion of projects, binding reports and stuff....and cursing teachers meanwhile....

      Even I felt the same coming back home...our college would never ever reopen for us.....every one knows I never missed a chance of going back home...but this time I didnt even book my tickets in advance even when I had luggage( consisting a count of 9)!!

      Everything will be truly missed....

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    3. Gentle reminder that the EEE faculty reads my blog too :p
      Lol...anways... yes ... I've never been a huge fan of cursing or complaining ..as you all know very well ... hehe.. but yes .... all of that will be missed ...

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    4. hmm....surely I do remember " your not complaining and cursing stuff"" LMAO

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  4. it is really nice. ur blog truly depicts everyone's feelings. i love 2 cherish the memory of the last week in d hstl throughout my life.. i wish i had some more time with u all . missing u all.

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    1. Thank you shiva, really glad you could identify with it, and that last week or so... super special days man.. those meals together...magical.. i'd eat that crap again if i were surrounded by you guys ...missing you too

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    2. be careful what you wish for ....hahahahaha....it is mess food we are talking about....

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  5. Nice post man...really liked it.Its exactly how I'm feeling after coming home, wish we had one more year left. Reading stuff like this makes me feel closer with you guys, like im back there in the hostel, never thought i'll miss that place so much. Nice shit though and hope to see you soon.

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    1. Thanks Rahul, I'm glad my feeble attempt at capturing the essence of separation actually worked ... you are missed

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  6. this article doesnt need any remarks..it jst deserves wrds such as thanks n obliged n lucky n ....
    wish us luck sir so that we cn keep 2k8 alive in bitd till we r here ...

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    1. Nilay yaar ...rulayega kya ?... truly flattered brother... and I'm sure 2k10 will accumulate and leave behind a heritage similar to that of 2k8.. and i wish you luck with that ..

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  7. reminds me of the last few days in college.......mixture of so many emotions....
    nicely written :)

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  8. At least you got to writing something, few of us are too broken to consider such a venture. And the chances dont look good if such awesome remonstrations keep coming my way. miss you dearly.

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    1. oh it was hard my brother, like i said took me ages to get down to finishing what i started the day i returned, do write though, i look forward to reading your thoughts on the subject and you are missed too my man .

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  9. I'd read this "feeble" attempt of your's yesterday itself but was not able to find apt words to put my feelings into...still m not..:(

    Bidding farewell is a 'big deal' not only for the one who leaves but also for all those who stay back...we'll miss you all...:'(...wish you loads of love n luck:))

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    1. That is the implied meaning, all of you will be missed , sorely, the little time we got to spend with each batch does not seem enough, i know college feels like hell to most of you right now, it did to me when i was your age, but someday, hopefully, you'll write a better and more fitting farewell piece and share it with us, all the best :)

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  10. hey, remember the night when you spoke only in Hindi after you got drunk....??? I remember all the crazy things that I have made you do which the Bangalorean in you would never have done....Remember the first time I made you cross the fence, the night when we were almost caught in the "Vishwavidhyalaya" opposite Aastha?? How I made you go for the cheap "maalish" ? Epic stuff man !!

    I have read this post more than ten times since you have posted it....I love it man...

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    1. word bro ! We've done some wild shit together, deserves a post ... maybe someday we can write a joint one .. you're the reason behind half the stories imma tell my grandkids :)... and good god ! personally, i feel i haven't written this one well.. as in..not up to my expectations .. but it's gotten a lot of undeserved love ..must be the topic ... thanks bro ...love you to death

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    2. no , it is not the topic....it *is* that good....:) flattered you must be , na?

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    3. To say i'm flattered would be the understatement of the season :) glad you think so bro(P.S I still think it sucks)

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  11. You shouldn't have made me read this. Now when I write something similar next year, you might just sue me for copyright infringement!
    Jokes apart, good stuff man, I can so relate to everything written here and I think any engineer anywhere in this world would do too :)

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  12. Lol. I'm curious about you being called "Voldy" and "Piggy". XD

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    1. Check DM, i'm kidding :) shall be discussed at length on twitter....

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  13. Voldy? :D I'd love to know where that came from from... ;-)
    Lovely post. :-)

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