Nupur

Hangover July 1, 2011

I looked at a couple of houses today and really really liked one. In my bid to express how much I loved the place, I realised that the only way I could judiciously do so was by resorting to ‘our’ terms. For the first time in weeks, I ditched my IIT-free English and went, “Feeeeeel aa gayi be. Kya infi GOD tha”. Only after I’d let that out did I feel like I had expressed 100% how I felt. I was amazed at how happy I felt after using the IIT lingo. Plenty of times over the past few weeks, I’ve sent ‘Daya’ and ‘Chamka?’ back from the tip of my tongue, and felt terrible about having to do that.

I generally opened my Pictures folder after I got back and started to browse through the countless folders of memories spanned across four years. It amazed me how real those pictures were, how they transported me straight back to IIT. It felt strange to think that getting pictures with the same people again would be hugely painful and in some cases impossible.

I can just imagine the stillness on the main road in IIT as I type this at 1:30am here, a heavy silence, occasionally broken by the drunken party of guys, or by a Techfest, MI or ECell punter hurriedly heading to or from a meeting, or an enthusiastic freshie couple exploring their relationship in the dark isolated freedom of the IIT roads. All of it seems such an age away, like it was a dream, and that it never happened. After all, my mind is grappling with the stark differences in the two strangely wonderful worlds it’s been subject to this year. Amazing though this new life is at every step of the way, I sorely miss IIT. What is comforting is the ease with which I can transport myself back there and soak in the chatter of the hostel mess, the serenity of lakeside, the buzz of activity at SAC, straight out of my imagination. It’s strange, but oh so heartening. I love that in a blink, I can be back there and live it all over again. We might say we survived IIT, but you know what? We also chose to take it back with us in our hearts.

I should stop now, it’s 1:45am and I’ve just realised that surprisingly, my fingers are so accustomed to the office keyboard, that they are making way more typing mistakes on my old laptop than I would like. Sigh, life adapts so quickly. Here’s to change and here’s some more to memories!