30th April, 2009: Hyderabad
This was the day when
I gave my last engineering examination at my college. We were all just a bunch
of students celebrating the fact that this would be the last exam of our
graduation. The memories are still fresh in my eyes.. I was very restless when I
started my first answer in the answer booklet. I remember taking 2 additional
sheets but don’t remember the subject name..! Some of us were wearing white
shirts. I was wearing the shirt given by my close friend then and close friend
now.
The exam time was 2 PM to 5 PM. In the morning hours, we sat
in the college canteen thinking of studying but ended up gossiping about ‘worldy’
matters. This was the usual practice on
all the exam days. One of my friends had this sentiment of shaking my hands
before the start of the exam. Time was ticking away and finally came down to
last half an hour. The last 30 mins were probably the longest time of my life
and desperate to complete the half answer for the 5th question.
Finally over…!
I came out to take my college bag (red colored) which had my
house keys but could not find it. I lost my bag on the last day!
All of us stayed in college for some quite some time. My friend
and me missed our college bus and were given lift in car till Kothapet in their
Maruti Wagon R. I sat on the lap of a friend and he was cracking jokes in his
usual manner. We all stopped at Kothapet Spencer’s Plaza to have food at KFC (don’t
remember if it was KFC) (It has been replaced by a big shopping mall now), took
pics, played a couple of games in the gaming court and then reached home at
round 8.00 PM.
I sat for a while in the sofa chair. We were all texting
each other. We were feeling very low. This
was the end of my graduation.
30th April, 2015: Phoenix
Life has changed so much in these 6 years. Infact, life
starts to change so much at every stage once you enter into graduation. This is
where you would learn so many things about career and life.
Life changes rapidly for the first 7 or 8 years after
graduation; you try to settle down in your job or try out further studies and then
settle for job, get married, have children later or try out some different things
altogether. You travel to different places as your job/studies demands it. Take
up responsibilities one by one.
Your own car, home, office desk, promotions, hikes, office
politics, stupidity of people working around you.
It was so nostalgic for me today thinking of the time gone
by. 6 years passed by since then. I always had this thought in my mind during
my graduation of how my life would be after 5 or 6 years, where will I be, how is my career, how would my friends get scattered etc etc.
I am now writing this notes from Phoenix, USA which is
around 8851 miles away from Hyderabad, India, sitting on the bed, my better
half sleeping beside me in a single bedroom apartment with the
time nearing midnight.
Being student is the best part of every one’s life. Its not
that there is no enjoyment now but being a student without any responsibilities
is a different thing. Carefree, innocence, no answerability are a
few words that can describe it.
Excerpt from Chetan Bhagat's Five Points Someone novel: "Like all bad things come to an end on one day, so do good things"
