The Jack-Fruit Tree

I promised myself that I would neither do one of those sentimental reveries (and make people go "Not again, dude!) nor come back to this blog. Roughly three months passed by and here I am succumbing to the temptation on realising through those random facebook status updates, that my alma mater is reopening for yet another year. Yet another lot of freshers coming in wide eyed. Yet another set of fourth years ready to do the delicate balance between running around to obtain a decent placement and stamping their insignia before they leave.

Right outside my house, there's a jack-fruit. It was there when I moved into my house back in the 90's as a toddler and it was still there when I bid adieu to Kerala for an year or so. When my family constructed our house, there were not many houses in my neighbourhood and Trivandrum had not been not very much exposed to the sudden burst of new age liberalisation and globalisation. And then time zoomed which kind of looked like one of those jazzy photographs taken by the ever increasing hordes of amateur photographers using long shutter exposure(I hope I am right technically.)

And only the tree remained a constant in the equation. So why am I yapping about a jack-fruit instead of getting high and eating some 'chakka chola' for a combo? It's just that I have always loved the things which stayed permanent. You did find people growing along with such things in a hurry to get somewhere and it staying constant, changing little and watching over faithfully as people just zap by it. Quite like the tree, offering plentiful shade and delicious fruits to succeeding generations. Changing little, staying sturdy and strong. Like our alma mater.

It's been only around three months but time seemed to have passed like that picture. Every one of those odd B09- people have been catapulted into maturity(which basically means you are either getting a fat wad of money or you are trying to somehow do another two years of desperate studying-something-somewhere to get into some place). You do have those odd pockets of high density areas or companies where people start wondering whether there is anybody else in the world besides an NIT-Cian. But, mostly it's a bunch of 'once-homies' now having to deal with their own separate life in a gradual phased manner.

And in these frenetic times, I cannot help but remember my jack-fruit of an institution called Yennaite and popularly called  ARe-Yee-Cee and even more popularly known beyond kattangal as "**********  *********". I wish for my batch that there exists things inside that college and storied carved onto that institution that would make people remember us once in a while(i.e things other than dues related to Ragam). Of course, yennaite-ens being yennaite-ens,  I am fairly certain that everything we did would have been dissected.  And the criticisms would probably range from "They burned it. Fuck them. They burned it." to "useless SAC, they were. We'll do it better." to " This guy was okay. That girl was great. But, that one no? Dumb. Dumb. Dumb." But then, I still hope even as generations pass out of that institute and the jackfruit grows older, it would still carry a lingering scent of our years there. The fun we had. The memories we made. And the shit we did. And all those bonds with the juniors. And the good stuff we did for that college.

And, in turn I hope the jackfruit stays tall for years to come. Because the thing that is fairly certain is that people will return to it. For a bit of its shade, when life becomes too annoying.

"Yes, this is a noon for wild men, wild thoughts, wild love.To be here, far away, is torture. Wild feet stirring up the dust, this hot noon, at my home in Malabar, and I so far away. " 

- A Hot noon in Malabar, Kamala Das

PS : Don't judge the mushiness. I reckon I just miss that particular way of life.