It's O-V-U-R, Over

4 Years ago still feels like yesterday, when I stepped into the college and felt my heart racing after checking out the football ground. It was August, much before the start of the term, and I wanted to see how the campus felt like. The bustling environment that I saw for the last time yesterday wasn't there 4 years back.

I still remember entering the gates way back in 2005 with a striped orange tee and a jacket over it, and already getting into the firing range of the then HoD, who said this kind of clothing isn't allowed in the college. I thought this was the clothing that one likes to wear for college and was forced to believe the opposite. Tucked shirt, smart shoes, no jeans, ew.. I couldn't take it in the beginning. And the worse thing was, I was forced to un-tuck the shirt, get rid of the shoes, the watch and even the belt, by the only senior batch at that time. It looked like they wanted us to look like the worst of the lot just for fun's sake. We went on with it, and by the time we blinked, we were already sitting in the last ever exam of our engineering life. Now when I look back, I suddenly feel why didn't I do anything useful in those 4 years. They zoomed past so fast that I was only trying to catch all the time, and failed miserably most of the times. But whats over is over and there's no time travel kind of options to change things.

One one side there's delight in finally getting rid of all those headaches with the college. The sick lecturers, the sick management, the sick crowd, everything was on the down side. No encouragement, no support, no advice, no teaching !! What we achieved in these 4 years is definitely not because of the teaching! That statement can be readily confirmed by almost every student in there. Either it's over-ambitious 25-35 year-olds whom we have to teach in reverse, or it's 75 year-olds who can't talk, forget walk. Their achievement: They successfully squeezed out the love for the subject of Aeronautics I had all through my childhood. And the college crowd? Another EW!!! One word: Tasteless..

But when I look at the other side of the coin, the story's different. I came out of school almost nerdy looking. With nothing to be really proud of. But life suddenly changed here. I met friends who were always by me. What I should be happy about is that fact that, I got people to like me. They didn't stick around because I was popular, or cool or hep, or un-popular, un-cool or not hep. They stuck around because of the 'me' in me. The thing that really made the college my home was my brother Srikar. 30KM away from home still wasn't boring or uninteresting. The frustrating academic life forced me to look for alternatives to release the pressure. And I found many. A blessing in disguise. Freaking out with friends and Srikar's friends too, playing music, drawing stuff, multimedia, reading, writing (blogging), soccer, and whatever I could lay my hands on. I tried everything and had the time of my life trying them. When I think of all this, it makes me a bit nostalgic. Yesterday was the last time I finished my dealing with the college and yet, I didn't feel a thing when I was moving out of the gates.

Suddenly I swim out of a river into the dark ocean. Nothing is familiar, nothing is clear, nothing is visible, everything's cold and creepy, the nearest destination is thousands of miles away, literally speaking. I suddenly feel like going back into the warmer, calmer, and more comfortable river water.

4 years of life just whizzed past my ear without even whispering to me. And before I realized it, it was gone. It's all over now. All the irritation and all the fun. It's all O-V-U-R, Over..