Waterproof Farewell

Well, to begin with, I attended the farewell party of my B.E. batch on the 30th of April. Everyone was quite excited about it because apparently this was the first 'official' party organised by the college for the outgoing batch. So the girls all looked pretty decked up in saris and the guys looked handsome in their best formals.

It is quite normal to expect lots of teary goodbyes and hours spent reminiscing cherished moments spent in the college. But I suprised myself by keeping my emotions under check. For a girl who cries at the drop of a hat, all I did was sniffle with moist eyes.

Imagine a situation where you have been diagnosed with some terminal illness. You know your days on this planet are numbered and this realisation occurs after much self-denial so that when the final moment arrives, you will have done enough things to make you happy. When our life becomes time-bound, we start sticking to our 'Things-to-do' list more diligently,carefully chalking out plans so that you can tick off one item after another. I guess most of my friends are in the same situation.

When I was in Third Year, I knew the end of college was imminent and suddenly I found myself observing time. When in the early years of college, you wouldn't even notice certain things around you,owing largely to the 'taken-for-granted' attitude. But now, I started taking in the atmosphere and made a more conscious effort to personalize my experiences. For example, I started enjoying time at the lake occasionally feeding the fishes and enjoying the sight of the school of fishes breaking the calm of water to catch bits of food. Or for that case, checking out benches where I has scribbled random thoughts or etched my name out during a boring lecture. Or checking out every single dish in the canteen which you didn't try in the previous years. Or hugging someone for no reason.

When your life is spent experiencing such things, you hardly get time to mourn the end. You happily accept it because you have a buffer of beautiful memories which will protect you while you hurl down a dark chasm of uncertainty and darkness. I realize that farewells are necessary to help you filter out people and stay in touch with those who really mattered. We were insecure when we stepped from school to junior college and then to senior college but in spite of the hundreds of friendships that were forged, we tend to remember only those who have touched our lives. So let us not think of this farewell as something nasty and a grim reminder of the big bad world ahead of us. Let us think of it as an opportunity to enjoy a new phase in our life where we will be enjoying our hard-earned money and well-deserved freedom. Cheers to that!