Friday, June 02, 2006

Over and Done !

I never thought I would get mushy about it, or that I would even retain an iota of sentiment about it. I never thought it would hit me with such a feeling of awe and leave me dumb, grasping for words, struggling for expressions. God knows why, but I started feeling a bit empty today. Unless I am one of the chosen few personally stamped unlucky by the almighty, I finished with my engineering today. I guess I had finished it an year ago when I had given up hopes on my college, but yet, today I was done with it. Officially. Over, done, finished, completed... like a THE END they show at the end of the movies. The only difference is: the movies actually end with the THE END. Engineering and what I did here or rather failed to do here would remain with me for a long time.

It had grown upon me painfully, but it was something I liked almost with a spirit of masochism. It was wasting, gangrenous, but it was a part of me that was gangrenous and you don't cut away a part of your body that easily. The boring lectures, ineffectual practicals, cutting edge copy technique inventions for the class test, assignments, had all seeped inside somewhere, almost ritualistic. It is something so commonplace that even though you hate it, you never expect it to go anywhere. The feeling that emerges is of chasing the ephemeral days, like running after a an elusive butterfly, yet hoping, in your heart of hearts, of never catching it. Waiting for the days to become better but not wishing them away, for these are something that no new step can ever be : stable.

I am feeling this void perhaps because stability does not come easy. As each phase ends and another begins, so starts a struggle for adaptation, for existence, for survival. What I hate most is uncertainity. However futile may have been this exercise in the pursuit of education, it scarcely left me in doubt to its futility. It did not leave open any scope for idle speculation. What is today, will remain tommorrow, my thoughts decreed. It has become only habitual to assume that after 4 years. However, when what is today, does not remain tommorrow, it is then that change sets in, bringing with itself uncertainity. Perhaps the tommorrow will be better, perhaps it would be worse, but it wouldn't be the same. The smug, self-assured look is difficult to maintain now, as the mind wanders and speculates on what might happen. It is as if, a rug has been pulled from under your legs. You were standing on the edge anyways, but you are off your balance now, atleast for a few seconds till you get your bearings. The only difference in my case here is that my search for my bearings is taking me much more than mere seconds or minutes or hours.

As the feeling seeps inside, the thoughts slip outside. One by one. No one is in a hurry here. But it accumulates, the baggage of experience, stuffing till the seams are on the verge of bursting. Then perhaps the seams actually burst. What do you say when that happens? What do you say intellect loses control and comprehension, when intuition rules and hope cheers. I say to the hopeful, first let it sink in, let me wait till I feel complete again.

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