The Year that was!

Its been quite a while, hasnt it? A year now since I last blogged. Infact now that I look at my last post, I was supposed to write some story at the end of it. Haa I dont even remember what happened on the last day of my engineering. I remember rather hazily about a trip to Manali before going to A but that again as some unclear pictures that I had taken from my camera, a digital one which perished just after the trip or so I think. Infact coming to think of it, I dont even remember much of my first days at A. Remember vaguely getting out of my bro-in-law's car and finding out that Dorm 10 and section D would be my whereabouts at A and also searching for pals in my new section in the small green book they had provided and only finding a few Mumbaites there.
I also remember walking to my room and seeing a badminton court right beneath my balcony and me bragging that I will finally be able to play badminton as much as I want (A small trivia for what its worth: I have played badminton for not more than 10 times there!). Then I remember seeing a rather healthy ( read massive ;)...sorry Bichchu :D) boy moving into my neighbouring room and then giving a nice smile as if to say welcome to the club. Saw the first Bday party at WIMWI (now thts wht we call IIMA...). Flexi's bday was fun with the cake and all but wasnt really representative of the 'real' birthday celebrations that we have here owing to his broken back during that time.
We had our introductory lecture by Saralda....Tuchchas(our seniors...Yaa I know loads of jargons we use :)) had claimed that he was one of the best and hence we put a real good fight at preparing the case to our best. It was a 4 page case and I cribbed saying cases should be shorter(hehehe...times!!!). I remember we all sitting in that amphitheater like CR10 which was going to be the home for all of us in Section D!
This is when my memory starts blurring...I can see HRM lectures by a certain professor with a lot of Ohh Yaa...we all liked his style...not the marks at the end though...remember a lot of quizzes...oh and ya did get my first 0 too...then MANAC...with quizzes every week...getting introduced to Blackbooks and me saying thats not for me and then after some hard learned lessons having to eventually succumb to the 'herd mentality'! ...the all famous Meena....TaDap TaDap TaDap chants :D...my group G12 not being called even once for presentation...much to the happiness of Me, Sagnik Rashmi and Ravi and to the dismay of Gendy...Then findin a study group with Ami, Carona and Chomu later tagging along...then creating a G5 with them and Kazaa for the next term...Well first term was something!!!....Now am I missin something here...hmmm..T Nite :) ...Those were the best days...Just after mid terms, they began...Those Drums, those section D chants, with Fifa coming up with slogans every 5 minutes and Toto adding music to it, Then the D chants with no words and only Plate hits...People who hadnt shaken a limb, dancing...the perfect Mess Nites...a rather disasterous RJM night 1...a great recovery in night 2...The Delta Force on the thermocol...split into two...and chacha and Wright Gowda picking it and bringing it everytime there was a problem...The agony at seeing the points table and getting reminded that one fashion show could have changed it!...nice memories indeed...but at the end of the day, thats what had got our section together...like none other...some people called our section crazy, some called our section pompous but we called our section Doba :)...
Continuing with memories, as Nostalgia is indeed amazing :)...I remember getting too confident for the first endterm after my relatively decent performance in the Mid Term and getting royally screwed and grades plummenting massively and not just by itself but with every ounce of confidence that I had...
I remember those days when I used to see the red bricks as an infinite jail, with nowhere to run. The one behind the library ...the big red wall...was intimdating to say the least...Thoughts like 'Everyone is better than me...I am not even good at things that I thought I was a dude at!' and then that finding out that it was indeed true...Horrible were those days...PPTs by companies...'whatever you speak in class would be a flop...so keep your mouth mum' kind of feeling...and then out of nowhere getting calls from Goldman, DB, Merrill for summers and thinking that there is still hope...and then floppin in Day Z and pickin up the first company that offered me on Day1....then the 96 in quant and a few more nice scores in others...knowing you can stand ground...
Then the infinite assignments in term 3, sitting till 5 in the morning and completing reports, going out for a 4oclock stroll, calling CT at 3 in the night for Chicken Chilly...and asking him to get it Semi-Dry...That Chicken Biryani in FoodKing...and the alternate visits to some restaurant or the other with Chomu, TaDap, Carona...Jassi De Parathe...Metro...Curreys..the list is endless...Those intellectual discussions leading nowhere...Those Friday Night WACs and the Saturday night bash...Being the fraud GOH for 2 birthdays...The dunking of D11 girls during their Corpo...The spy attack from within their dorm ,with their own water captained by D9s Foojzi...man it has been a ride...

And as I sit here, late in the night, nearly 15 days before joining A again for the tuchchadom that we all have been awaiting...I wonder...how much have I changed...I guess I will never be able to find out...but I am sure of one thing, I have learnt...apart from the academics side of it...I have learnt that there are people better than me, I have learnt that there are times when you feel that you are worthless, I have learnt that its not always that you can be happy but at the end there is always light, there is always hope...that the bad time will pass and it does...it just does!