Wednesday, March 20, 2013

What we leave behind - Of Transitions and Changes

"I wonder how many panels would sprout up for the elections in your final year. I am guessing 5-6 at the very least. It would be fun watching you people beat each other into pulp." somebody once told me. The B09- batch was among other things famous for its uneasy truce. Call it luck or laziness or the work of some animalistic spirit, the comment would never come true.

It would ironically take a year which never talked about unity to do all the things that would remain a dream to the previous batches. Camp Art, for instance, would never have revived and become a success if not for the initiative and enthusiasm of our batch. A Ragam with 1500 registrations, a successfully executed theme, wildly successful pronites, hauntingly beautiful lantern fest and events with new formats would set the standards for the future editions of the same. And, thus we would never conform to predictions made about us.

Provided you do not have the habit of messing up your ID card by tossing it into the washing machine along with your clothes, just take a look at it. It's funny to realise that four years ago we were very different from what we are now. We would never be able to imagine the things that would eventually happen to us four years ago. Relationships would make and break. Love and hate would dance quite a sexy salsa. We would never let go of our ego and pride. And most of us would change under the weight of some good and mostly terrible experiences.

And in about two months the B09- batch would mostly become display pictures on a social networking site to us and our juniors, whose equilibrium would be occasionally  disturbed by a random meet like that of a convocation or an alumni or one among close friends. Some would hardly care. Some would care a bit too much. Most of us would unfailingly stick to our prejudices, hatred and ego clashes. But, life would catch on equally with the entire lot of us.

I recently met a senior from the 2004 REC batch on train. That's the year when REC got converted into NIT-C. He initially started talking about how he was about to dump his unremarkable career of six and a half years at TCS for something more challenging and his eyes lit up when I asked him about college. He would go on and continue talking about clubs, elections, the annual sports meet, badminton tournaments, Saarang, Ragam and much more. He would also talk of a one-placement policy that was not enforced by a department of placement and training but rather initiated by students themselves because they wanted to ensure placements for everybody. When I described to him the new buildings that had sprouted up, he would take the backside of his printed ticket and draw the layout of the old REC. And in his sparkling eyes, I would see the future of many of us.

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