summer of '69
At half past 2 in the morning, it seems funny to me that I am writing about a seemingly long gone past of my college. I was on Orkut and visited the SVCE(my college, ignoramus Google it) community. I saw familiar faces and related to them were familiar locations and spots in my college where i could place them vividly in my memory. Each of them was a memory some insignificant, many important but none inconsequential. The faces I saw might not recall me or place me in the jigsaw of memory. For them, I might have been non existent but each of them holds a piece that made me, us, the college and the SVCE batch of '05.
Listening to Summer of '69 (it just began playing on my winamp randomly) mere coincidence, providence or a sleepy mind playing tricks on me. We never had a band that was actually functional in college. Most of us had no core competency to talk of. There were a few quizzers, lots of singers and a player or two scattered around. So technically, I can't relate to the song at a banal level. But the essence is touching, if given one chance, I might want to wait at that bus stop, in hopeless anticipation that the bus might be cancelled only to see a yellow colored behemoth making its way to the stop. One more chance to travel the 30 odd kilometres in the most uncomfortable of seats that probably might not even suffice the human rights regulations. A journey of 1 and a half hour travelling through a city just waking up to the sun and going about with its business, while I watch that familiar tea shop or the banner that never changed at that crossing. And every stop a face gets in greeting me searching simultaneously for a seat. Then we hit the outskirts, barren land, cultivated farms, factories all fleet by, each name is a memory, each builiding is still vivid. And then the infamous turn that i always hoped the driver forgot. The parking lot, a converted ground, the ruch to the canteen for coupons and hot breakfast that I cribbed over but nonetheless was contented.
Another chance to know what the first lecture is and trudging to the class hoping against hope that there must be some unexplored method to get an On Duty permission. Sitting in the class, losing myself in a reverie about nothing and everything answering only attendance and no other question put to me.
Going through all the motions till the lunch break and then rushing to the same old canteen, nothing changes , same menu everyday, the same ambience, the same cribbing sessions and the same full meals
After lunch I never failed to sleep for the next two hours, awake for an hour again and then in the bus, sweaty smelling and jostling for a seat, and waiting for the bus to start to catch a breath of fresh air, and then the gossips, fights, discussions about universities and B schools. Plans for the evening and of course Dumb Charades.
The song is coming to an end, Bryan Adams croons " .....thought it would last forever...forever...."
Listening to Summer of '69 (it just began playing on my winamp randomly) mere coincidence, providence or a sleepy mind playing tricks on me. We never had a band that was actually functional in college. Most of us had no core competency to talk of. There were a few quizzers, lots of singers and a player or two scattered around. So technically, I can't relate to the song at a banal level. But the essence is touching, if given one chance, I might want to wait at that bus stop, in hopeless anticipation that the bus might be cancelled only to see a yellow colored behemoth making its way to the stop. One more chance to travel the 30 odd kilometres in the most uncomfortable of seats that probably might not even suffice the human rights regulations. A journey of 1 and a half hour travelling through a city just waking up to the sun and going about with its business, while I watch that familiar tea shop or the banner that never changed at that crossing. And every stop a face gets in greeting me searching simultaneously for a seat. Then we hit the outskirts, barren land, cultivated farms, factories all fleet by, each name is a memory, each builiding is still vivid. And then the infamous turn that i always hoped the driver forgot. The parking lot, a converted ground, the ruch to the canteen for coupons and hot breakfast that I cribbed over but nonetheless was contented.
Another chance to know what the first lecture is and trudging to the class hoping against hope that there must be some unexplored method to get an On Duty permission. Sitting in the class, losing myself in a reverie about nothing and everything answering only attendance and no other question put to me.
Going through all the motions till the lunch break and then rushing to the same old canteen, nothing changes , same menu everyday, the same ambience, the same cribbing sessions and the same full meals
After lunch I never failed to sleep for the next two hours, awake for an hour again and then in the bus, sweaty smelling and jostling for a seat, and waiting for the bus to start to catch a breath of fresh air, and then the gossips, fights, discussions about universities and B schools. Plans for the evening and of course Dumb Charades.
The song is coming to an end, Bryan Adams croons " .....thought it would last forever...forever...."
Funeral service by Ganty> at 2:33 AM
