Farewell

It is 13th December, 2008. As shafts of sunlight stream through my east-facing window, I am clearing up my room, while Anand sits at my computer humming a tune about stars fading into the night. Half heartedly, I tell him to shut up, and get on with my packing.

It is 8th August, 2005. I sleep fitfully in my new room at BITS, with expectations and fears of what college might bring. Everything here seems strange, new, and weird in some way. Early into the morn, I wake up, and gaze at the luminous dial of my digital watch. It reads 5:01 A.M. I generally do not voluntarily wake up this early, but I cannot seem to go back to sleep. Thoughts keep rushing around like eddies in a whirlpool, and try as I might, I cannot stop thinking what this new microcosm willl mean to me .

14th December, 2008. I sleep with a heavy heart and the realization that this is probably my last day as a student at this campus, though I will be a student for the next six months, and an alumnus thereafter. I go over all the things that the last three and a half years have done to me in this place, and the result brings a wistful grin, and the realization that I have no regrets. I sleep peacefully. In a cliched world, I would wake up to the same numbers on the same watch, but I have packed it away ages earlier. As it happens, when I wake up, it is around 5 AM according to my mobile.

15th December, 2008. We say our goodbyes to friends and teachers, try to laugh it off, but with a kind of foreboding underneath. Talking in sombre tones deep into the night, we walk to our hostels. I leave my college at 6 AM in the morning, and say one last farewell to friends at the campus. 

It is 17th December 2008. I am back home, and a couple of relatives having dropped in helps to focus my thoughts somewhere else. When they are gone, I unpack, and memories come flooding back. When I put on the music, I am hard pressed to select a tune. Only for a while, though. Remembering, with a sigh and a smile, I play the song by Oasis on the soundtrack of The Butterfly Effect, and it makes a whole lot of sense.

Cause all of the stars,

Are fading away

Just try not to worry,

You'll see them some day.

Take what you need,

And be on your way,

And stop crying your heart out...

Mot juste, I'd say.