Collaejoo Collaejoo!!

This morning I went back to college, after an over-indulgent holiday, ready to embrace my alma mater, arms widespread…
I walked into that campus, feeling all proud. Sniffing that green air, and greedily swallowing every bit of beauty that came my way…

And the first thing to catch-my-eye was the college central pathway being marked off on its edges with a ‘horrendous elevation’, painted in stripes, in colours so mismatched, they reminded me of a zebra climbing a tree!

(No… o… o…o…o…o!)…

I stood back aghast, and wanted to scream out at the top of my voice “Like what...ev...er” (in typical college style), for that’s all I could possibly do…

I walked around college for the next ten minutes scowling at everyone I knew, had something to do with the administration, and (hence) was partially responsible for this heinous crime…

I mean, they couldn’t do that, it was my college, it stood for me, it stood for what I was, and what I aimed to be… they couldn’t be so irresponsible… God!

I gave up in a while, knowing my scowls were only attracting unwanted attention, and went to the kiosk, to calm my nerves over a hot cup of coffee…

Coffee, couldn’t taste better than when it’s served in paper cups, and drunk, with friends all around, sipping on their cups of coffee, chatting, and gossiping about everything possible, under the sun… (You don’t need a ‘café’ to make you love coffee, a few good friends to share a cup with, will do ALL the magic required!)

My friends were there to cheer me up over this humongous loss we’d all faced.
It was a loss for the whole of my batch, my seniors and my juniors…
As much as you’ll want us to accept that it was more about ‘our’ college being decked up to welcome the freshers, we just will not agree…

They’re freshers anyway, and we’ll let them know of how the pathway looked better without those ‘horrendous barricades’. (And you know what…?) They’ll agree with us, like all juniors do.

College life is a cycle of being a junior, a senior and at times of being somewhere right in-between. We’ve been there, done that and now was our chance of being seniors…

We ’d never forget how the farewells were, and how we got to know so many people on that day, and got to know them even better later…(It’s funny how we all wait for the last minute to get to know people, and regret for the rest of our lives that we didn’t get to know them earlier)…

My batchies (Batch-mates to the un-initiated!) were however of the more prepared sort, we sorted out our differences (we like to claim!), and have been a happy little batch ever since…

We’ve been more interested in patching up, or rather fixing up classmates, or otherwise, making grand plans of booking a movie for the whole batch (and going for them too), or otherwise just hanging out in college, happy with our company…ever since!
The company is what matters, not the place…
So as long as it’s us, it doesn’t matter where we are, we’ll surely have the time of our lives…

Our lives for the three or four years in college constantly mingle with each other’s.
We quite unknowingly forge and build relationships that will take us a lifetime to overcome or abide by.
We live such an inter-dependent life, that it’s hard to give it up, when we part ways.
We learn lessons the hard way, and learn to co-operate, but most of all we learn to live life to the fullest.

It’s funny how we die to go on holiday when we’re in college, and cry even more for college to re-open when we’re on holiday. Some of us go to the heights of following the college dress-code at home, and even following seating rules, laid down by the college…
Just so that we don’t feel we’re missing out on all that much.

The college, however inanimate it seems to be, is a part of all of us.
We’ve shared our secrets with the trees, our tears with those corners in the corridor, our laughter with those tables and chairs, and every memory is made up of each and everything we encounter within these four walls, day after day.

The College is alive in all of us!

The bell rings, its 9am, and all the chatting ends… Its time for the first class, of the year… Hope we’ve haven’t been assigned new classrooms… We just love the old ones… can’t imagine giving away even that to the juniors… (God! What else will they take from us?!)…

We walk up to our classrooms, most of us still quite grumpy about those weirdly coloured ‘Obstructions’.
We’re ready to face one more year of non-stop fun.
Sure we’ll have the downs, but who cares, when there’ll be more ‘ups’ to make-up for them.
We’ve just got one more year ahead, and we know we’ll make the most of it.

Friends, Relationships, Fun, Boredom, Sorrow, Tears and Joy; College has come a long way from just meaning ‘Education’ to any one of us…

It’s a part of our lives, none of us can ever forget.