Right now, it's tempting to try to sum up the last four years but I've already done that here.
Having survived eight semesters, exams, attendance, the heat, the travel, the submissions and more importantly, the mosquitoes, I think we should be proud that we all made it to the end in one piece. There were things in the college that irritated me. Perhaps, they were the challenges thrown at me to see if I could come through fire-proof. I made friends. Like, friends for life. I learnt some valuable lessons. Call them, lessons for life.
Looking back, I wouldn't want to change one bit of what happened.
I think, I actually liked it. Maybe, I loved it too but it wasn't easy.
It wasn't easy to read those e-books, it was never easy to take notes, it was never easy to travel for nearly three hours everyday and sometimes taking the wrong buses, and it was never easy to look at your GPA every semester end.
We struggled, endured, reveled and finally emerged.
Truly, the tassel was worth the hassle!
Dated 28.03.2013 at Anna University Grounds.
For once the sun was outshone, not just any sun but the "Chennai Sun". Standing below were 1000s of students in their bright yellow cloaks challenging the sun's brightness. Why would our college make us wear these shiny yellow cloaks? Remember how our Science teachers once taught us how yellow reflects light while black absorbs it, perhaps, this was it. Or was it our way of saying,"Bring on the IPL!"? Whatever be it, yellow it was. We moaned about it initially but later it was our robe of pride.
Relived college moments #1
Hugs, screams, smiles and clicks. Making fun of each other without having second thoughts of how it might hurt the other person, trying to find out how leaving Chennai had changed a few, how people had grown fat, thin, tall and short. Some were getting married, some were changing companies, some were going abroad. Everyone had grown up and yet we were talking "God promise" and "family promise". You could be care-free, indecent and undisciplined because it was this crazy bunch that taught you all this in the last four years, after all.
Relived college moments #2
A couple of juniors turn up with a "Hi senior!" This senior-junior relationship that was unique to our college will stay close to our hearts forever. Put us in a crowd and ask us to spot our college juniors and we would do it hands down because we were taught to say, "Senior!"
Relived college moments #3
We were asked to enter the grounds for the ceremony at 4 P.M. Dude, but we had to take pics, capture moments and make up for all the lost talks. And around 4.40, we hear the announcement, "Closing gates 2 and 3." Everybody rushed in just when the gates were half closed. No, we saw it half open. For four years, we ran to our lectures just in time to beg for attendance. And we continued, yesterday as well.
Relived college moments #4
The ceremony begins and there were musical chairs being played around in order to make up for the pics that were not taken outside the gate in the last two hours. And a staff interrupts and shouts, "Where is your mannerism? Still behaving like students." And a friend says,"Graduation vandum thittu vangiachu. Ippo thaan full satisfaction." (We've come for our graduation and are being shouted. There is this full satisfaction only now.)
Relived college moments #5
The chief guests arrive. Their speeches begin. I can randomly point out to someone who was in the ground and prove it to you that they have no clue what the chief guest was saying. Remember the sleepy lecture hours where the first benchers alone took notes? Pretty much like that.
Relived college moments #6
The toppers were sitting right up there, in the front. A handful of them, all alone. We pitied them. They weren't having the fun that we were having sitting at the back. This is how we saw them for the last four years, didn't we? And this is how we justified why topping was never a good idea.
Relived college moments #7
After the ceremony, we quickly regrouped to take a class photo. Much like the good old days where grouping for college tours or late submissions was never a problem with my class.
And I officially declare you all "Graduates!" marked the end of a ceremony which was all about the reunion than about the graduation.
When did all this happen?
The ever-busy canteen, the overly-crowded xerox shops during exams, walking on the road and completing records, the group studies, the random drawings and sudokus during lectures, the IVs, projects, the dark and sweaty hangars a.k.a examination halls, the non-stop stories... Days of no pressures and no responsibilities. I remember all of this like it happened yesterday and suddenly they say, I am 'Jenifer Sam, B.Tech'.
One day, I will tell my kids that I once went to college and had FUN.
And then, show them this picture:
Class of 2012, you make an unmissable chapter in the book of my life. Thank you!
