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My autograph ... sweet memories

With bundles of colourful memories that will tag along in the years to come, it's time to bid adieu to your buddies.

Photo: K.R. Deepak

FRIENDS FOREVER Final year students taking a group photo

Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense, but the past perfect! - Owens Lee Pomeroy

Indeed, the present is so tense and the past seems so perfect. There are times when you just don't want to move on and you just don't want to let go of time. How we wish we could turn back time. But life, they say, is a one-way journey.

Remember those evenings when you had the steaming coffee coupled with hot gossips at the college canteens? And the movie shows when you bunked the classes under the pretext of combined studies just before examinations? And there are many such nostalgic events in each of our lives shared with our dear friends.

With final examinations knocking at the doors, the countdown has begun. A few more days of laughter, a few more days of canteen gossips, of bunking classes and a carefree life!

With the last semester at its fag end, final year students are gearing up for their new life ahead. With bundles of colourful memories that will tag along in the years to come, it's time to bid adieu to your buddies.

"It's an emotional moment for all of us. During the last two weeks, we have been busy filling slam books and took photographs," says Garima, a final-year student of GIFT.

"The college party is over and now we have to gear up for the party of life," says Akshay, an Engineering student.

The talks in the canteen have a touch of nostalgia. They sign each other's autograph books and promise to catch up as the years pass by. But, hectic work schedules often wreck all the plans.

If you meet your classmates 20 years down the line, chances are that you might not recognise them. But, when you do, the thrill is worth savouring. We part as lanky young men and gorgeous young ladies and get back together as pot-bellied grown-ups.

In this era of instant karma, friendships are also on a fast track. People come together for a purpose and the relationship lasts as long as an interest binds them. But very few are lucky enough to find a long lasting kinship. "All these years, we have developed a special bond and we have become like one family. Though we are moving out of college, we have promised to keep in touch and hold a reunion once every year," says Poornima.

"Trapped in windowless offices in a rigorous nine-to-nine grind, we would hardly find time to catch up with friends once we are out of college. Reunions are indeed refreshing to bring work-weary friends together," agrees V. Shanti, a final year B.Com student.

As the current academic session comes to a close, there are mixed emotions all around. "It's the time for a new beginning. We will be entering the corporate world where we have to prove ourselves every moment," says Garima. "But these sweet memories of our college days will remind us of the ever-lasting bond of friendship."

As you embark on life's new journey, let's all then remember the golden moments spent with our friends.

As Kahlil Gibran writes:

`and in the sweetness of friendship let there

be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.

For in the dew of little things heart finds

its morning and is refreshed'.

So don't forget to make a call, drop a line, hang out and make that nostalgic trip wherein every sentence is punctuated with "do you remember when...?" - because that's what friends are for!

NIVEDITA GANGULY

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