The wonder years
You know they say time flies. They couldn't have been more correct! It’s been almost three years and we have just another month to go. Batches have come and gone, but each batch has given the college what it rightly deserves. We too. Placements are just one of the things. But that is not what I am talking about.
We defined a culture. We upheld the Gitam culture. Back when I walked into this college I thought life was good. Real good. We enjoyed the ragging; we loved the treats we got from seniors. Most of all we had a reason to love and respect this college. It made us men, men in our own right.
We were no longer the pampered kids; we were out on our own. We learnt a lot of things. Most of it the hard way. Looking at our juniors I think they are missing out on all the good things in life. We will pass out of this college as men. Whether they pass out as men, well, I don’t know.
After three years, we have become immune to the new rules and regulations of this college. Hell, they have some real clean up work to do. And with the batches of students coming, I think rules should be made stricter than what they are. It might help in curbing the exponential growth of ‘new age brats’ hounding the college scene.
After three years, I often ask myself; what am I taking home? I don’t know how many would agree with me. But this degree is just an excuse to teach us the bigger things in life. You learn management skills when you want to, while on work. Half of us won’t remember what we had done in these three years after 10 years. What we learnt are not management skills but survival skills. But unfortunately, that’s no longer the case. With an effective ban on any kind of an interaction with the juniors the skill sets no longer go down the pyramid, it unfortunately goes only with us.
College life seems hard, but the fact is that we have a tougher life ahead. A life governed by your rules. You set them, or you break them too. Its clichéd to say “rules are meant to be broken”, but the fact of the matter is that if you do, you just break your own rules. Would you be willing to risk it? No one will call your parents to set matters right, no one will ask for an apology letter to be written for missing a lab. You write your own apologies, you stand up for your mistakes. It’s a wild world out there; and like I said, a degree is just an excuse to teach us to live in it.
It’s funny how aspirations change in three years. Back in first year we wanted the world. We thought of us as the best. We freaked out and had the best time of our lives. By second year we started getting used to the system. It grew on us; or rather we grew on it, we saw what great placements our seniors got and were enthused to beat them. (We did, but that’s not the point!). Third year, everyone has a job in their hands and they know what awaits them. No more dreaming, no more fantasizing.
Plain simple truth, you know where you stand in the heap of 300 students. Eventually we learn to live with them. We have to, have no other choice do we?
Ten years down the line, things that we crib about would hardly make a conversation. These are just passé. We are a great batch, and we will forever remember the good times, the bad times and the fun times. I can picture it, some days down the line we would be chatting about the good times wishing that they would never end. Talking hours about how we made the best of what we got. The classes bunked, the night outs in beach roads, the road trips to Yerada beach, the ‘acoustics’ in class…we had our share of both good and bad.
Sitting around lazing in our rooms we dream about what might be in store for us in the future. But having been in college for three years, we know it’s just a futile attempt. We can’t change who we are. College either makes you or breaks you. We just walk into the vast empyrean hoping for the best.
There is so much here. And we do take a good share of it. We take our friends and all the good times we shared with us. We only hope that one day we all might get together over a drink and catch up and relive those memories and rekindle the spirit of the Wonder Years!
