So the year has come to an end. In a few
more hours, 2015 will be history. Like always, looking back makes me feel that
the year passed at a breathless pace, in the wink of an eye. But God knows that
is not how I felt when I was actually living through some of the days. 2015 has
been a truly remarkable year, and not always in a positive sense. It has been a
life-changing year in many ways, and I cannot deny that I am relieved that it
is coming to an end in a quiet, uneventful way. In fact, one of the most ardent
prayers I have for the coming year is that it be a comparatively peaceful,
uneventful, unremarkable one.
The year started out with my preparing and
then appearing for the ISC examinations, the final step before passing out of
the boundary of school. I did not have a very happy school life, so I was very
glad to have reached the end of it. I spent the early months with dad in
Durgapur, and returned to Kolkata to sit for the examinations in end February.
The exams – only six papers – were spread out over a month, a tedious month
that I spent shuttling between my two homes because dad had his yearly
admissions bang in the middle of the exams. With the end of the examinations in
end March (or was it early April? It is incredible how quickly memories fade) I
spent a few days in Kolkata, sleeping off the examination weariness and “hanging
out” with friends, as our generation likes to put it, and then headed for
Durgapur. Dad had been looking forward to this year ever since 2013, because the
long breaks meant that I could spend a lot of time with him in Durgapur. We
spent a very pleasant April together, eating out, watching movies, going on
long scooter rides, going swimming, eagerly anticipating my upcoming college
admissions. All was going hunky dory, and then May 19th happened. I have
already written about the accident so I will not repeat myself now; suffice it
to say that it was a traumatic event – as all accidents are – and the aftermath
still hangs heavily over us. Thankfully, dad has had a miraculous recovery, and
he is walking around with his normal marching pace. In fact, we have a trip
planned at the end of the coming week; we shall be off to the mountains after a gap
of nearly eighteen months, and I’m certain we will have a wonderful time
walking around the lovely mountain roads. Some pain persists, but it is
bearable, and hopefully will not give dad too much trouble during our trip.
This year was stormy in more ways
than one. I lost three friends – one of them a senior in college who passed
away days before Christmas – and so it is little surprise that I have been thinking
quite a bit about mortality. Does one really ever know when one’s time will be
up? We humans tend to take so much for granted; we waste so much time under the
impression that we have forever to get things done. We let friendships wane,
love loses its flame, we delay vacations and family reunions – all the while
thinking that we can do it tomorrow, the next month, five years later. But how
do we know that we will be around tomorrow? If there is one resolution that I
want to make for the next year and ask others to think about, it would be not
to keep things for later, especially in terms of human relationships. If you
have had a fight with a close friend, go ahead and apologise instead of waiting
for her to do it. Get back in touch with people you were fond of but have
fallen out of touch with. Do not hold grudges; let complaints pass as far as
you can. If you fancy someone, go ahead and own up. And do it for your own
happiness, because at the end of the day, “none of us is getting out of here
alive” as some smarty pants said on the internet. Holding on to all the anger
and pain and longing is just not worth it.
After that sermon, I have to admit
that “do it now” is a dictum that I need to imbibe and practise in a lot of
less abstract and philosophical situations. There is a term called lyaad that my Bengali readers will
understand. The closest translation that I can think of is an extreme level of
lethargy in engaging in any activity whatsoever. It is the sort of lethargy that makes
getting out of bed feel like an insurmountable ordeal, and settling down
comfortably in a cozy corner you feel like staying there indefinitely. I have
been bitten by that lyaad bug, so
characteristic of Jadavpur University students. The fact is that I have always
had the tendency to being lethargic; I have now found an environment
fantastically suited to nurture the instinct. How bad the affliction is can be
judged by the number of blogposts I have put up this year. I enjoy writing, yet
this strange apathy towards any activity keeps me from doing the very things I
love. If there is one thing that I have done diligently this year, it is
watching movies and TV shows. Which would have been fine if I had been doing
more productive things alongwith, like reading books and writing and
playing my synthesizer and learning French and even exercising. This is what I
need to change for the coming year. No more procrastination. I will set myself
assignments and deadlines if needed, but I will
get things done!
The year has witnessed a lot of changing relationship
dynamics for me. I have had a childhood friend drift away for no obvious reason
and despite considerable efforts on my part to keep in touch. I had
misunderstandings with a friend I made in my previous school, and we fell out
of touch for months. It was only recently that I thought about it and realized how
silly the entire fight was. I got back in touch with her, and thankfully things
are all fine again. I made a couple of friends overseas, even got romantically
involved with one for a while, only to face the inevitable demise that is the
lot of most long distance relationships. But most interesting have been the various
ups and downs with the people in college through the semester. By now I think I
can no longer count how many times I have had to change my opinion about many
people around me, and it has only been one semester! But in spite of the highs
and lows I have met some really wonderful people, many of them with funny
quirky habits, and I can only hope that some of these friendships last long. A very good thing about our college is the close-knit friendships that develop
between seniors and juniors, at least in some of the departments. Or maybe I
should not generalize at all, and just be thankful that some of my own seniors
are delightful, and I can now think of quite a few of them as close friends.
There is one particular senior that I am especially thankful to, somebody who
made a conscious effort to talk to me when I was lonely and without too many
friends. He helped me open up and make friends and even get over post-breakup
depression. Afterwards I came to know that it was not just out of the goodness
of his heart; he did have an agendum in his mind, but that does not make me
resentful, because that does not change how much I enjoyed myself talking to
him. I am fonder of him than any other friend or senior, and I am glad to have
met him. Of course, most boys I am fond of tend to be more than slightly nutty,
and that holds true this time as well. I am hoping the person concerned will
never happen to read this, but even if he does, I have the feeling that he
might agree with me!
But on to other things before I make this
post sound any more like a cheesy chick-lit declaration of undying love! Getting
into Jadavpur has been the undeniable high point of this year for me. Even till
the beginning of the year I had thought of studying law, and I even prepared
and sat for two law entrance tests. But to be honest I had lost all intention
of joining law school after learning about life in law schools from a lawyer
ex-student of dad’s. That kind of regulated, rushed, competitive environment
did not appeal to me at all, and so I did not work too hard for the entrance
tests. And in any case dad was due for surgery the day the results were
declared. I did not even check which law schools I was eligible for according
to my rank! Since dad and I had already made up our minds that I would stay put
in Kolkata for my undergraduate degree, I did not apply to the Delhi colleges
except for JNU. In Kolkata I had my heart set on Jadavpur University, though I
did apply to a couple of other places. I was first offered admission to
Scottish Church College in Kolkata, which I accepted with some reluctance. With
Jadavpur it was a really close shave; I was 43rd on the waiting list for the
General candidates, and I was the last person to be offered admission. I had
given up all hope of getting admitted, so I went numb with shock when the admission
office announced my name. The day of the admission and the first few days of
class are blurred in my memory. My friends and I now laugh about some of my
stupid actions from that first week. But I am a third generation JU student,
the fifth from my family, and I could not be happier. For the first time I
actually look forward impatiently to going to an educational institution and
express thankfulness at the dearth of holidays, much to dad’s chagrin. I aced
the JNU language entrance test and was offered admission about two weeks after
classes started in JU, but I was already way too much in love with the place to
even consider going off to Delhi.
My experience of the first semester in
Jadavpur University will have to be a separate post by itself. There is so much
to write about, so much to reflect on. From classes to friends to libraries to
canteens to crushes to university politics – it has been a whirlwind. Some of
the things I did were hilarious, some quite dangerous, and some downright
silly. I dare not write candidly about all of it; someday I might have my own
children reading these posts, and I do not want to scandalize them, or even
worse, give them ideas! I am starting to have quite a collection of my own “don’t
do anything that I would have done” experiences. Richard Castle would be proud
of me! The second semester starts this Monday and I cannot wait to go back.
This semester I hope to be a little more serious, a little more focused on my
work. After all, I have only five more semesters left to make the most of my
time here. Of course there is a good chance that I might continue with my post-graduation course here itself, but I hope
to try for someplace else. Let us see how things play out.
Daylight is fading; the last day of the
year is coming to an end. Soon it will be dark and comfortably chilly. I will
snuggle into bed with a hot cup of coffee and watch Star Wars with dad. An
ideal end to a less-than-ideal year. Here’s to love and hope and joy and
renewed vigour and passion, and a wonderful time ahead. Happy New Year
everyone.
