30 Nov 10-11-12

I was not the first one to get up. Shanthi's mother and Kavya were already awake. I freshened up and sat on the side lower berth looking outside the window. I watched with amusement as familiar scenes went by. First came Mangalore Junction and then came Mangalore Central. We got know that the train would go even to Surathkal station. But then it would have started from Central only after half an hour so we decided to go by road. I saw Meenal's bargaining abilities when we booked a taxi to college. I got down at the junction near GB and walked towards boys hostels, passing in front of Main Building. I started getting calls from juniors and batch-mates. The excitement rushed in again. I went to my juniors'  wing which was the wing opposite to one in which I was staying in my final year. They were staying in the same rooms. Unlike us they were allowed to continue in the same rooms.They came out yelling hellos. The greetings, the slang, the lingo. I was loving it. Gult batch-mates called up and asked me to come to Food Court. We met up there, hugs and high fives. Mechwing gang from the train had left to Ocean Pearl (in Mangalore) for breakfast from the railway station itself where few others from the Mechwing were joining. They came to campus later. Meanwhile Supreeth got down from Pune. We met before he left to Mangalore to buy a formal shirt for the function. The remainder of the day was mostly spent partying. I went to Suraj for lunch with gults - few batch-mates, few juniors - and found that most, if not the whole, of Suraj International was occupied  by NITKians. Meenal Varshini and Kavya were also there. I promised them a treat which couldn't happen then because everyone was busy with everyone else :P . There were lot of other people I met while I was in Suraj and after that we came back to campus. We registered that we had arrived and would be receiving our degrees the next day on stage. Sometime after that, me and Supreeth went and met Gangadharan Sir in SOLVE Lab, and from there while walking back to the hostel I met Shruthi. As always we walked while we talked and after about two rounds in front of the main building she left with others and I came back to the hostels. Most of the gults had gone to beach and they probably had dinner at GNPD after Vidyun came (I'll leave his adventurous bike ride for him ;) to write in his blog ) I went to Sadanand for dinner with Supreeth and Vaishali where I also found Yaswanth and Saketh with their fathers. By the time they all left I was joined by my juniors. We all came back, I don't remember when, I had no track of time, and after a long talk about a lot of things, where mostly only I was talking, I went to sleep.
The next morning as I got up and got ready, the familiar running around for paste, bucket, slippers etc brought back a little nostalgia. I left with Supreeth, went to Amul, took a snack and came to SJA where others were having the so called Hi-Tea.We joined them. Exchanged greetings, asked each other about jobs and job locations.Then when moved into the auditorium. Shanthi managed to continue her legacy, though this was totally unintentional, actually it is never intentional :P . The arrangement and everything else for the occasion seemed just perfect. Everything went on smoothly. We had our moments of fun with random applause. Our chief guest was a Dean from Kumamoto University, Japan. There must be something between me and Japan, I will probably figure out someday. DBZ, Naruto, FairyTail, MarutiSuzuki and now the Chief Guest for convocation :-) . Anyways. After the National Anthem, we all moved out and clicked photographs with our degrees and then people dispersed. Few went out. I came to our very Mega Mess to have lunch with many other graduands. Convocation was over. Things slowed down. My evening had more of thought than excitement. I got a little emotional after getting a lovely graduation gift along with a sweet letter from this sweet sister Vaishali. Later I spent some time at the NITK Beach. I had my dinner with Shanthi's and Saketh's families at Sadanand and I came back to college where people had started leaving. Supreeth, Vishwas, Shruthi and Meenal left that night. I felt bad for not giving a send off to Shruthi; while in college I always used to stay at the pick up point till her bus left. I could meet Shanthi and Varshini for a few minutes before they went back to GB. Thereafter I went to Red Rock where there was a gult party going on and finally came back to hostels with Saketh and few others, and after a sensible yet random chat over phone with Madhu the day came to a close. I slept off very soon probably because I was tired due to all that running around during the day. Next morning I was woken up by Saketh. We went to Surathkal where Shanthi was going with her family to Sringeri. I was going to leave that afternoon and so wanted to meet her once. After they left me and Saketh came back to hostel. Then Saketh left with his father to the hotel room. I got out of the lift on the fourth floor and while I walked towards the wing I felt a chill. I felt all alone. It dawned on me that everyone would be getting separated again, that I would be back to Gurgaon. I realised how much I missed my college days. I started wondering about the possibilities of us being together again and I got lost in the flow of emotions and the thoughts about our future.

Cheers
Aditya

28 Nov To 10-11-12

I started with the thought that the Beginning and the End of this post are probably gonna be one of the toughest ones for me to write, as it is difficult to express extreme emotions especially by me who does not have a good pool of words to chose from. But then it is also very difficult for an expressive like me to describe few of the most memorable days of my life in such small posts. So I decided to do this in parts. Since I have to begin somewhere, I'll start with my ticket booking for convocation. The whole excitement began when the dates for convocation were announced. It was scheduled for the first Saturday of November and I started counting the number of days left to meet my buddies and juniors, gults and mechwing, pclub and baja. Slowly began the discussions with friends about how they are going to travel and who all are going to travel together. Finally my travel plan was set. I was going to take a flight from Delhi on Thursday to Bangalore, train from there to Mangalore with friends, attend convocation on Saturday, and Sunday was return flight from Mangalore to Delhi, with a change point at Mumbai. Few people probably wished that the convocation be held the next week so that Diwali holidays could be used well and God heard them. The convocation got postponed by a week, rumored reasons were the unavailability of the chief guest, about whom, I am sure, no one was bothered. 3 flight tickets cancelled 3.6k cancellation charges. Planning started again. I checked my training schedule and my intuition told me that the Sunday after my convocation would be declared working and the following Monday would be declared a holiday as there were three holidays following, on the occasion of Diwali. There were discussions again but my plan didn't change much. I was still taking the flight to Bangalore and then train to college. But I wasn't coming back to Delhi from college.I decided to give a surprise at home and so got a ticket booked for a bus to Hyderabad.

I wanted to buy something for mom n dad from my salary. After considering lot of options and taking a lot of suggestions I finally went on with the standard "mummy pappa ke liye Ghadi" and bought watches for both of them. I bought sweets for pals whom I was going to meet at college, finished up work at the office, informed that I would be on leave for next four days and packed everything on Wednesday night. The flight departure on Thursday morning was delayed by about 40 minutes for reasons I didn't know. I reached Bangalore at about 2, met Shanthi and along with her parents and elder sister we went to her office. We had lunch at the colorful cafeteria on the ground floor of her office building. We kept talking about all different things, from IT buildings in Bangalore to the malls here in Gurgaon. From there we went to the magnificent ISKCON temple. We spent some time there, then came back to hotel, vacated their room and headed to the railway station where Saketh's father was waiting for us. It seems Shanthi had a record of reaching at the nick of time. We let the legacy continue. For me it was fun to go out of the station with her to get something packed for dinner, all the while teasing her that I will make her miss the train. Her phone kept ringing. People were calling to find out what she was doing when the train was about to come. We did come back in time. I met Varshini, Meenal, Aparna and Santosh. I found Das and Rao were in the same train. Abhinav Kartikeya and a lot of other tricalites were also in the same train. It was only after I got into the train that I realised that the train was full of NITKians. Sarvesh Gabbar Kamath Vijay SrikanthNayak and so many others. I had no control over my voice box. My excitement was at peaks. Only I know how much I enjoyed the journey that night. The Idli Dosa Sambar CurdRice. Moving between S10 and S4. Frustrated TTs. Mysore railway station. Conversations about new times with old friends and old times with new friends. I dozed off, cherishing the memories of those times and thinking about the times to come, at some unknown time after 2 in the night.

Cheers

Aditya