Are You DEAD?

That's what half the junta associated with me have been flooding my inboxes of my email, mobile and even my blogger comments with. Well, can't blame them, for I have indeed been in exile for quite some time. Thanks to a whole lot of pleasing things happening in my life. As it is things are moving really smoothly in my life, when my friends decide to add fuel to fire by bowling me over with quizzes regarding my well being and sanity. So here is for all you curious little chaps and buddies, to my adopted siblings- present and would be ones too, to my lovely girlfriends (do I have any?), to ever caring relatives and family people, to the world on which I am a burden, once and for all, I AM VERY MUCH ALIVE!

The New Year hasn't been so very new to me. Apart from the fact that I always have the bank counter guy giving me weird stares when he realizes that I haven't moved on with the times, signing with date DD/MM/05. I'm pretty lousy at updating you see, and my blog is an excellent exemplary. Coming back, so the New Year, to me, has got nothing so new about it. The celebration in the hostel on the New Year's eve was one of its kind. There was a huge raging bonfire, loud music (read as noise) and rivers of the right kind of beverages flowing. People scaled greater heights, thanks to potted plants with weeds. There was merry in the air and everyone was in this state of strange frenzy. However, I failed to understand why so much of hoopla about a New Year? After all, when you wake up in the morning of January 1, its inevitably going to be SSDD (read Same Shit Different Day).

Despite all these reasons which gave me aversions to the whole idea of a New Year's Eve celebration, I still joined the festivities. It was a different feeling that started bubbling in me. And since then, its been only growing in me. There is this vague steam in me which is building, and I'm afraid, one day, I'll burst...

On 3rd September, 2002, I came to Regional Engineering College Trichy, which was of course, on its way of being rechristened as National Institute of Technology Trichy (NIT Trichy), with the dreams of becoming an engineer of caliber and competence. Since then, there has been no looking back, different matter that its been a really bumpy ride for me. There have been moments in my stay here when I felt extremely defeated. There were moments when I wanted to run away from this place. There were instances when I wanted to commit murder. There were instances when I was applauded and wanted to fly in the appreciation. There were times when some people entered my life and I wished they stayed there forever. And today, I know for sure, that I feel really bad about one truth...

Today, 24 January 2006, as I sit here in the Internet lab which gave birth to a blogger in me, I face that impending truth. In 4 months time, I would be transformed from a wannabe techy, a would be engineer to an engineer with a BTech degree. Of course, that is something to be amazingly happy about. My parents would be proud. My friends would be proud. My community would be proud. And I? I'm proud of course, no doubt, but in the heart of hearts, I'm scared. Will I live with the trade off that I'll be leaving this god forsaken campus, about which I crib about 24/7, yet love it with the same love that I love my house? My friends who gave me the support and reason to fight? My love and passion that I found here in people and things, will they all fade away? Will I lose them all, just for the sake of a degree? I'm scared... I'm scared...

Life is a journey up a hill, some say. Life a river that flows, some say. But I don't care what life is, but this is certainly not the way it has to treat me. In the last 3 years and so, I've found so much comfort and peace in many a person in this place that it really petrifies me that one fine day, a train journey will change everything, from my going to lectures straight from bed to wearing the same pair of jeans for days together.

But then, I guess that is the way life is. A long train journey. From one station to another, meeting new people till their station is reached or yours. And then, they are simply but a piece in memory. Sometimes you have the option of upgrading from the unreserved to reserved compartment, from the reserved to AC compartment and so. And in the process, you meet more people, more experiences, more things recorded in memory. A train of events. The train of life.

To all those whom I met in this train, I'm still alive, thanks to your prayers and wishes.