On the day when I had finally completed all of my paperwork and submission and all that jazz for completion of my IITM degree, I was sitting at CCD -- the A.C was real good, and after all the flurry of stuff to be taken care of, I had finally managed some time to let everything sink in. In the five or six minutes that followed I could see the last four years flashing by -- as if in snapshots or a slideshow of some kind. It was only then that I could truly realize that it indeed was gonna be the end of nothing less than an era for me. And I am sure, the same feeling would be running through the minds of many -- retrospection and the nostalgia notwithstanding, the real multitude of experiences that this brilliant place throws at you is in itself worth a lifetime.
I can't imagine what I would be today if these four years had been different from what they were. It might have been better, for all I know, and it might have been worse as well. However, I chose to leave this apart and let myself think of all that I have got. I got friends, great and amazing friends, I got to see a wide world of emotions, passion and glory, I got to experience the highs (pun intended amigos) and the lows, I got to learn stuff that I had never dreamt of, I got to do stuff I had never even imagined -- all this within a span of four wonderful years. To be able to experience fear, love, hatred, anger, self control, passion, and indifference, to be able to stand in front of a thousand plus crowd of unknown faces and perform, to be able to head a hundred member strong team to manage a huge extravaganza of an event, to be able to cry at your friends' sorrows, to experience that warm helping hand extended when you are low and down, to get back from there and get your chance of doing something big, to be able to innovate, to initiate, and get a searing pain in the back as you slog it off, finishing it all off with a laugh at one of those jokes that a close buddy of yours might have cracked -- everything ... everything about it all is nothing short of sheer brilliance.
And as one of my friends put it once, its the people who make the place. Nothing could be more true than this. I have come to know (and this I mean it in all earnestness) some of the best people of my life over the course of the last four years. And some of them have become my friends for life. People who are absolutely brilliant in terms of many aspects ... and some who are not (and yet conspicuous by their presence alongside the others) -- people who have taught me stuff, loads and loads of stuff, for me to carry with me in the years to come.
I guess it has all been a long drawn climax -- these last couple of weeks -- in terms of all that has happened in the past four years. It is just amazing to think of what this does to any newcomer at this place -- they come, they see, they do, they learn and unlearn, and they come out to be a completely different set of people. And it has been so much in my case that I can't keep myself from looking back, and thanking everyone for every minute of all these years that went by.
To all my amigos -- "We shall be Heroes one day ... and all shall Watch".
