Ramblings of a deranged alumnus

It was one of the last times I took my bike to college. And it was different. The environment seemed strangely alien. It was crazy. I had always belonged there, haven’t I? And yet, this time it was not the same. What was wrong with me?

I parked my vehicle near MCV and headed towards the office to collect my marks card. As luck would have it, the office was closed that day. As I walked back, I glanced at the entrance to the IS department, where we used to have our EC lab. And for a moment I felt I was back in third semester and surely, I would find Pradeep and Uma and the rest of the A3 batch inside, complaining how pointless the whole lab was. That’s when it hit me. I was an outsider; a pass-out; an alumnus. Just some dude who used to be a student there, finished his engineering and got a job.

It was not just about your friends not being there or missing them. It was about the whole “being a student” experience, if you know what I mean. It was about attending classes (CS guys might wonder when we ever did that, but I mean the few we did attend). It was about getting text books photocopied two days before the internals, complaining about the unfair portions and then coming to write them completely unprepared. It was about plotting mass bunks. About begging for question banks. And paying huge overdue to the library for a book you never cared to read. Standing in long queues to pay your examination fees. Whiling away your time in the labs and then searching for a decent lab manual to bail you out. Complaining about college policies. Breaking them (remember the ridiculous VTU mobile ban?). Arguing with your lecturer that the ludicrous answer you wrote in the test was right. And convincing him. More mass bunks. Class trips. Playing table tennis. Studying for your exams. The anxious wait for the results. The vacation. Meeting your friends on the first day back. Buying the syllabus copy. Checking out the new subjects. Checking out the timetable to see who will handle what. The CR election. The inaugurals. Jayciana. Technologix. Cyberia. Tuxedo. The contests. The tech talks. The prizes. The juice parlour. The canteen. The steps. The parking lot. The administrative block. The audi. The nescafe. The stationary. The co-ops. The placement cell. The temple. The benches. The fountain. All of it. It was about “the feeling”. Of being a JCite.

I just wanted to be back there. And experience all that once again. The whole four years. Just one more time…

Now where did I keep that time machine?