My Best Four Years

Like any other, I had lived many a dream. Dreams. Of being the archetypal college hero: the leader, the decision maker, the succour of all the weak, and the darling of all the professors. I had lived the dream well. This was my chance to live reality. And when I entered the hallowed lands of the university, a whole new life barged in ostentatiously. Almost like a cloudburst. And it ended.

Suddenly.

With deafening silence.

Yes. College-life came tumultuously and left silently. Nothing in it really to call it ‘my best four years’. Far different from the hackneyed canvas that Cinema paints. No adulation of crowds after stellar performances; no riding the backs of frenetic admirers and supporters; circles of gushing damsels none to bright; life was far different from the mélange of revelry and stardom enjoyed on-screen by the stereotyped heroes. College life belied all my hopes, dreams and expectations. Fell flat.

Well, make no mistake; I did carve myself a niche.

If you asked me to catalogue up my achievements per se, I could state quite a slew of them. Academics I was always able to flaunt proudly. Literature and dramatics were my cups of tea, and sports, biscuits to go with the tea! Quite impressive they were, I can assure you. Well, enough to overawe any bystander or appraiser. Indeed, all of these things now flaunt themselves proudly on my resume. They make me appear a hard-nosed individual, self-made. Hard-nosed, certainly; only ‘all by myself’ replaces ‘self-made’ better.

In a nutshell, I achieved most of what every entrant dreams during the day.

Silently and solitarily.

While I achieved what I was worth, college did little to rid me of my complexes and insecurities. If anything, it only heightened all of them and induced some new. The temerariously confident and the reassured grew more temerarious and reassured; some also-rans found some favours with the public either because they were just supremely confident with the sexes alike or because they knew the strings to pull. And I languished in my inability to swallow the fact that I somehow managed to remain egregiously unobtrusive in a group, and my inability to get over the hill enough to acquaint myself freely with the professed social circles. I just had my small triumphs for company. Uncherished and unsung, I passed out of college unnoticed. Dwindled into obscurity.

Silently and solitarily.

One of those last and painful days, when you realize the hollowness of all your achievements, in one of the regular college hangouts, it occurred to me that the time to bid farewell was looming large upon me. I turned left… then right… and peered right ahead into the gloaming…turned right back for a derelict glance. All new faces. Some blushing bright crimson in boisterous revelry, some exultant, some pensively speculative, some cherubic in wholesome beatitude with near and dear, but all new; barely recognisable. I could not say out a single person by his face. This seemed pretty much a way Time found to let me know that his tryst with me in this soil was over; he did not require me any longer; now he was busy in pandering to the wishes and whims of the newer lot. Instead of spending the final days relishing my triumphs with one and all, I had to stare at the ignominy of being left alone with mere glimpses and flashes. All frozen. No warmth of company for them to melt and flow through and no friendly tongues for them to live through. I was the dying King Arthur. Only there was no Bedivere by my side to allay my worst fears. I was King Ashoka surveying the futility of all his conquests. Only, there were no bodies bleeding; my heart was. The lengthening shadows caused the boughs to appear protruding far into the tenebrous twilight. I felt like a stranger in my own land; like a King without a crown. The old order hadst changed, yielding place to new…lest one good custom corrupt the world.

By the time I left the place, I was so disillusioned and nauseated with the meretricious gaudiness of the place that there were none of the customary reminiscences that human mind yields to in moments of mental abstraction even after those wonder years. Only incoherent aberrations, inexplicable anacolutha and insignificant blurs. The attrition of innocence and naiveté were the only tidings left for me to glean. I took on the world a callous and hardened individual. After I had allowed the last three drops from my heart to bloody the damp earth…


(The author wipes a bead of perspiration off his brow every time he recounts these ramblings of a psenti-semite* he was fortunate (?!) to ‘interact with’ as a fresher in BITS, Pilani. Three-and-a-half years hence, now a psenti-semite himself, he is left wondering whether his fellow psenti-semites are ever plagued by any such strange thoughts…)


* A student who is in his final semester on campus

- posted by Dileepan @ 9:57:00 am

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