The Time Of Farewells - The Time We Realise That What We Had Was The Best

Like now, almost four years back, when I graduated from NIT Trichy it was the time of farewells and goodbyes. Though I didn’t know anyone before going to NITT, it was by luck I got a room with a group of friends who were from the same school with whom I stayed together for the rest of my time in college and at that point of time I didn’t know that we were set to become friends for life. The last few months of college went away in a jiffy, with most nights spent playing Dota or discussing random stuff till morning and sleeping through the day or going home during the extended weekends we used to get.  Nearly everyone in my gang was either going to work in Bangalore or was going to study in the US except for me who was moving to Chennai.

At that time, I didn’t realise what was about to happen and what I was going to go through in the next few weeks. After the exams, like most of us are going to, we went for a memorable trip to Munnar and right after the trip everyone started leaving for their hometown. But I stayed, I felt it is not still time, I wanted to sink into the experience living on that beautiful campus once again for a few more days like each day was my last day at that place. I bid adieu to my professors and the shopkeepers to whom I have grown close with, I went to all the places I used to frequent for the last four years and explored the ones I didn’t go to,  eat the same things I used to eat, sit on the lab benches and meadows for one last time. A lot of things happened to me in those three or four days which I spent almost alone in that 800-acre monstrous campus, that are etched in my memory forever. As each day went by, the hostels were getting emptier, my roommate for three years had left early to join IIM-K and an unusual silence had crept in the hostels.

During the hours of power-cuts at nights, it used to feel like I was in a dark forest with no one else and in those last few days I went through one of the loneliest ordeals of my life which was walking to the mess all alone at night and sitting in the tables where our gang always used to sit. That day after four years, I realised the food at the mess wasn’t that bad after all, my mind was filled with the memories of the laughter, random arguments, incessant discussions we used to have about dota or politics and specifically the Calvin & Hobbes joke they used to make fun of me with. I realised how much I missed them and how much they were part of my life.

When each of them left, it felt like an ice pick shot through my throat throbbing into the heart creating a void in my life.  When I knew I wasn’t going to see most of them anytime soon and that I cannot meet them anytime I wanted to or they wouldn’t be just a knock away, filled my throat with heaviness bringing tears to my eyes.  The long hugs we gave each other couldn’t justify the love and care we had for one and another. As days went by, I grew cold as loneliness filled my soul and I realised that every journey of life comes to an end, most of them with pain and not with happiness. Happiness is rather ephemeral and doesn’t have the strength to etch our hearts for life like pain does.

Most of us are in a similar position now, lets us all embrace this time together for we don’t know when we can meet one another as easily we do now. Life is all about love and friendship! Stay in touch with your best friends forever as without them you would not be yourself.