Time Traveler's Note

Yesternight was like any usual night, I ate, read and slept. But when I woke up, I realized this is my NIT room, D-305. I got out of my bed and just to reassure its NIT, I opened my room's window wide open, the lush green pine trees freshly bathed under night's rain, were all there where I left them 3 years back, grass has grown to full during this rainy season and a motley group of final and third year students, with all the possible symptoms of a tough night, passed through the college ring road, which runs straight through the woods.

Trinnn...Trinnn... my alarm rang out aloud. Its 9:39 in the morning, shit I will miss my breakfast. And today is Thursday, Dal Parnathas. Where is Sunil Rana ? D-306. I went out and banged the first door right to mine. Some horrible sounds came from inside, this is like a signal,as if your system boot process has been started and it will take 5 minutes to load it, kindly wait outside the room. I turned back to find Mr. Vignesh and Mr. Diwakar enjoying a serious morning discussion in Vignesh's balcony, with Vignesh in his proud-out of bed looks, sitting in his rickety chair and Diwakar, who has just managed to stick all his long locks at right places, stooping on railings. I tried to overhear them, noooooo !! Again the CSE department and again the bald-head. Thank god, Peter (sunil Rana) took 4 minutes. His morning appearance resembles closest to a rape victim, especially his gait.

In the mess, the traffic is highest at the closing minutes, as if eating is the last thing on the priority list of an engineering student, I can see the mess is full. On the left side, there are few round, thin and hairless creatures waving at us and cracking some jokes. At the center is sitting, an elderly figure with round face and big spectacles on his nose, he is Mr. Naveen Panta. Flanking him on either sides are Mr. Arun Vikas and Mr. Saurav Sirckek. Collectively they are like lambu, motu and chhotu. Just right to Arun, some hairless thing is sitting, Mr. Ishan Thakur, I think if not above he must be ranked along with Chuck Norris and Rajnikant, he never does wrong thing, he knows everything and nothing is impossible for him. Or may be except for growing hair on head. Facing them in front of Panta is Mr. Anshul Mahajan, who as usual seem to have been dragged by others to mess. We heard that he had a bad experience with 'Roti Chachu', a mess worker, in first year and since then, preferred coming to mess in company. And Mr. Gill sitting opposite to Sirckek, who by his lost looks, seem to be still figuring out who is the one among these all who called girls by his name in first year. To Gill's left is Mr. Shekhar and Mr. Nayar. Both are famous for their strong bond, which was next hottest topic after my and peter's friendship.

On the right side there are some creatures of different colors and sizes. They all are from a sect, people say they belong to same village. They eat together, drink together, fag together, sleep together and possible shit together (even after multiple attempts no one saw them studying together).

And the scene shifted to evening hours. I had company of Peter and Ishan. Evening hours are probably busiest hours at NIT. Girls who have boyfriends are busy with them, boys who have girlfriends are busy with them, girls who don't have boyfriend are looking for one and boys who don't have girlfriend are divided in two groups, a minority trying to woo one and majority, probably having understood the concept of supply and demand, busy disturbing every single couple and every single girl. So in totality everyone is very busy. Mr. Ishan is busy too. Though he claims to have a very high standard, he blushes in front of every single girl (And I assure you today he must be blushing in front of his maid too). I don't know its true or not, but he claims that he is most famous boy in college. May be true because premature baldness was not so common at NIT.

The boisterous campus sleeps instantly as the PGH (girls hostel) gates are closed down at 8:00 in evening. In this late hour, when most of our industrious mules (or lucky ones or chosen ones or CCs) return back to their stable, the campus grows even more beautiful. A widespread and apparently eternal silence, occasionally broken by some small packs of returning students from HHH and Paradise, two world class Bars which give student discount on most of the drinks.

As I return, unlike chosen ones, with Peter and Ishan, something is churning in me. Is it ephemeral, noo. I will attend classes tomorrow, how can it be over ? But what will be life after college ? Will I have friends around then too ? Will I be lost in the big crowd, travelling everyday in Metro tubes ? Will my identity be lost as just another working man ? Will I submit to the circle of life ? aaaah.....

Tunuu....nuunuu..tunuuu...its my phone. 8:30 in morning. Ohhh hell I need to get ready, its office time. Was it a dream ?? naah . I am a time traveler :)

Poles apart ..

For a week or so I have been a lone occupant of the hotel room provided to me by Aviva. A couple of years back, most of my nights were spent like this only, on the top floor of MMH at NIT, lonely and thoughtful nights. The constant humming of fellow mates with occasional shrills from the ground floor reminded me of the world out of my surreal thoughts. For a better part of my stay I had the company of Mr. X, who has to be my next door neighbor and Mr. Y, who has to be my classmate.

Mr. X and I had hardly anything in common, it was just that by simple game of chance he and I got the next door rooms. Mr. X (was then) an eternal disbeliever in himself and subject of constant influence. Mr. Y on the other hand was one of the most extrovert and influential personalities of the campus. His character's ability to sought humour out of any non-comic subject or event garnered him a prolific post and a strong network of friends.

Any boarding institution develops its own ecosystem and order. The entirety of NIT was particularly notable, we had good and bad, we had good impostering as bad, we had women and womanizers, we had many who disliked women and womanizers, we had addicts, we had humble welcoming groups and we had some cliques. The chemistry or interrelationship of these groups and individuals was complex and variable with time.The mere realization of fact that we are studying in NIT was sufficient and good enough to deter us from any productive activity which has any far off concern with studies. The 80% of college which was in this state most of the time, depserately awaited the annual cultural fest, out of them 90% ( like me and Mr. X) had no clue what so enthralling is there for us, but still were deeply enthralled. Well the rest of 10% obviously had some ulterior motives and were right on the shot when it came to fairer sex. Mr. Y who due to his positional powers, was probably most visible and pretentiously most active person during this part of the year. The closer the dates of event got, the grimmer his face grew, just as to reaffirm to us all that its near. A week before the event, Mr. X probably under influence of someone or just because of sheer boredom took refuge in alcohol and started having drinking sessions. During one of these drinking sessions Mr. X and company felt an imminent need to show the whole college, that they too exist (well not all of them). So now Mr. Y had the worst kept surprise of the event, Mr. X and the band will perform. The daily round of practice sessions began.

I am, as mentioned in the begining an unsolved riddle even for myself. Lost in books (absolutely random) and movies (die hard romantic), I took evening rounds of the campus and morning jogs of a nearby village. During this phase I was discovering my love for nature and solitude. My contemptous attitude towards all the happenings in the campus didn't find any concerns around, as for others probably everyone was busy.

Coming back to Mr. X and Mr. Y, the event was as eventful as it could have been. Mr. X had fun and Mr. Y had honours. Amidst these eventful nights, I joined everyone. Far away from my lonely thoughts, here I was crumbling the floor below my feet with my random moves. Mr. X was inebriated and probably oblivious of everything, and made me to think how easily he can be lost in any group and for me it is the toughest job, like a black swan theres always a feeling of being out of place.I am not sure, I enjoyed it or not, but in hindisght I repent joining the party, but I don't know what best could have been done, but it was not appropriate for me. As for Mr.Y the star of event, he was well aware with eyes open wide of proceedings, probably looking for some pretty faces in his audience.

There are always two extremes, two poles. For me Mr. X and Mr. Y were such two poles. Life is not lived in extremes I saw them changing with time. The days at NIT will always be bittersweet for me, but as for now I miss two letters X and Y. I can write volumes about what happend and what should have happened, but for all of us its, "what you sow is what you reap". And what I am reaping today is what I have sown, I can see two trees around me marked X and Y.