..A Bittersweet Aftertaste..

Another trip, another experience, this time with a difference; it was a trip down memory lane.
I was going back to college, literally.
The occasion was irresistible – a close friend’s wedding, a batch-mate who is the son of a professor (don’t know the exact post) in our college, who lived in the campus, and whose house we occasionally raided back in college days…

The train journey from Delhi to Allahabad was a noisy one; some of us had landed in Delhi, some were from Delhi (Gurgaon, Noida) and the bunch of us destroyed the tranquility of an otherwise quiet AC coach. Almost half the night was spent in catching up, and planning for the coming 2-3 days - where to go, who to definitely meet, what to definitely see, etc. etc.

It looked to be a promising trip.

It was seven in the morning and none of us felt like waking up. One friend had found out; supposedly we were about twenty-five kilometres from Allahabad. As all of us, such intelligent engineers, had no idea how much time the train would take to cover that, we decided to get up from our warm bunks.

Whether it was wrong information about distance, or the train always takes more than an hour to cover twenty-five kilometres, is uncertain. Whatever it was, when the train halted at a relatively unknown looking station with hardly any people, we were not expecting it to be Allahabad Junction station, even though we had been told by co-passengers and the train staff that it was.

Confirmation was made and we descended from the train, all ready with so many bags, as if we were staying for weeks. Our groom-in-waiting had come to pick us up. Well, actually I was going to stat ay my Bangalore room-mate’s place, while the rest were going with the groom to the college Guest House (GH) where he had made arrangements.

As we all stepped out of the station, I looked around, expecting what I’m still not sure – probably some changes, something major. But I was destined to be disappointed, at that time and, and, as I was to find out later, for most of the coming two-three days.

It was the same place; the same rickshaws driven by rather emaciated and elderly people, the same local version of the autorickshaw, called the Tempo (or Vikram), still asking for a larger sum than usual, assuming us to be new to the place. Although now, even the exaggerated sum didn’t sound so much; I guess living in a costly city like Bangalore changes the way one values things.

The one change we could make out was that the eating joint just outside the station that had started while we were in college had been broken down. It looked sad, with broken pieces of bricks and mortar lying around. Though we hadn’t frequented the place as much as other places, it was still some change..

As we drove to my room-mate’s place, we crossed some familiar places, and they didn’t seem changed - the town seems to brushing past life slowly, sleepily, at its own sweet pace, not in a hurry at all. Its as if this city is lulling the citizens too, as if saying to them ‘let the big cities and metros do the rushing, this city always sleeps..’

After freshening up, I headed to Civil Lines (the major market place in Allahabad) to meet the others who were wandering around, doing some shopping, along with a friend’s sister (lets call her Junior) who’s currently studying in our college. As I sat on the rickshaw, I realized it was after quite some time that I had ridden in one of these. I looked around as we crossed familiar lanes, familiar buildings; I realized that change couldn’t really hit such places in so short a span of time (almost 3 years) - nothing drastic would ever happen.

Anyway one new development in the city was a new mall that had opened up in the heart of the city (Civil Lines). Well, it wasn’t all snazzy and well maintained like the malls in other cities I guess, but it’s a start -McDonalds’, Big Bazaar and some more outlets, that was about it..

After wandering around in the Civil Lines streets, drinking ‘ganne ka juice’ (sugarcane juice spiced with a tinge of pudina and salt), we bargained with the Tempo-walas, and finally finding one who was willing to go at a reasonable rate, headed towards my room-mate’s place. I had decided to move to the guest house, as mostly all of the people were there, so I was collecting my stuff from there. Inspite of having gone to her place so many times in the past, we lost our way; we called her and somehow managed to reach her place after a lot of wrong turns and wrong TV towers (the landmark next to her place). Then, we headed to college.

There was an undercurrent of anticipation in my mind; back to campus…those old streets, those old lanes, would have much changed? I didn’t know.
As we entered the campus through the main gate, it didn’t seem (like everything else) to have changed much. I didn’t get the opportunity to look around that much, what with holding the multitude of things there with us.
Anyway, since the others were otherwise occupied, after keeping the luggage in the GH, I went to the girls hostel with Junior, who is currently in 2^nd year (if I remember correctly).

KNGH – hmmmm.. Kamala Nehru Girls Hostel – the place I spent most of my four years..

Going there again, this time as a guest; it was a new feeling. In retrospect, I think that had I gone there with a contemporary, a fellow hosteller of my batch, people with whom I had shared good times in those corridors and rooms, then I wouldn’t have felt as weird as I did.

When we entered, Junior was reminded by the guard sitting there to sign the Hostel register. Old rules which would never change – every student had to sign in while leaving (even for college), and sign again on return, with the time etc. Well, at least the guard was new; i.e. his face didn’t look familiar.

It had been almost three years, so basically, the juniors who were in first year when we were in final year, were now in final year. I.e., the girls we’d seen as scared freshers, always looking to be busy in studies, respecting us, (false or real I can’t say), were now the confident final year dames that all freshers eventually evolve to after 3 years of submissive behaviour. Besides them, nobody knew me (obviously) and the regal treatment we used to get when we were in final year by all juniors, was missing. Except the few juniors who were present at that time, who recognized me and said the general ‘Hi Hello’, nobody knew me; I was a stranger, in a place that had been a second home…

My being alone there further accentuated the feeling of not belonging there; had someone else been there with me, we could have reminisced and wandered around. Since nobody else was, I felt… well… alone.

The hostel was strangely quiet for a late Saturday afternoon. In our time, this time of the year the final year would be lazing around in the courtyard until the sun was shining its last rays, and then in rooms, all in clusters, mostly never alone - chatting, watching movies, gossiping, or playing games and all of this, with the doors open, loud music playing. Some lazier human beings would also be sleeping, in the coziness of their own or someone else’s room. Well, come to think of it, besides the courtyard part, most of the other mentioned activities went on for 2^nd and 3^rd years too, and with limited privileges, for 1^st year too.

While evening set in, people would be seen getting ready to go out someplace, probably Civil Lines or college Canteen; out of hostel, taking full advantage of the half an hour’s extension of hostel deadline from 8:30 PM to 9 PM. It used to be a loud noisy place - music, shouts, calling people from one corner to the other. Another additional noise had been the voice of someone or the other, calling out from the ground floor, for someone else, if that someone else’s phone call had come on the extension phone or the PCO, or someone had called at the hostel gate.

Now, with everyone owning cell phones, the use of the extension phone or the PCO for receiving calls had significantly reduced. Or maybe, just that evening, the hostel was exceptionally silent; no loud screams (perhaps for a stray lizard found in a reptile-phobic girl’s room), no calls, no music and most of all, no people. There was hardly anyone around; on enquiring, I got to know that there was some mock campus going on and final year students were taking campus for 3^rd year students. Wow! If I recall, I think the same was there in our time too, but never this seriously that everyone had to be in college on a Saturday evening. Even though we had been only about 27 girls, the hostel had never been lacking our presence for such noble purposes as campus for juniors. Supposedly now it was mandatory…Haha…. thank God we didn’t have to do all that.

So anyhow, that was a disappointing start. As I walked towards the 2^nd floor, where Junior’s room was (second years got second floor, third years got first floor, and final years got ground floor while the first years were in a different new wing), I looked around, As expected, things hadn’t changed, except for the walls.

When we were in first year, our final year had started the custom of painting one whole wall as a token of remembrance of the batch. All subsequent years had followed suit, and when it was our turn, for the 4^th painting on the walls, we realized that none of the remaining wall facades were suitable to painting because there were other activities involved besides just painting the wall.
Following our seniors, we would have the ‘100 day countdown’ before college ends, (in our case it was 50 days), and every 2-3 days (according to the number of girls in the batch), we would all have get-togethers next to our artistic creation, and one girl would have her day that day - a day where she’d dress up and share her special moments, in college as well as elsewhere, sing, dance, act, whatever she wanted to or the rest demanded. So, the wall to be painted should be well located. During our time, the walls which were still blank were somehow not suited; either they were near the bathrooms, or dustbins, or occupied by MBA, MCA students (since our batch strength was so low, the ground floor was occupied by other girls from non-engineering streams too).

So we committed the sacrilege of scraping off our immediate seniors’ mural completely, little by little. Then we plastered the whole wall, painted over it, that too with a totally black background (so that everybody thought twice before erasing ours in later years), and also put a coat of varnish over that. As I looked now, our subsequent batches had also followed our suit, and two new murals had now replaced the earlier batches’ paintings. Our batch’s one looked to be the next victim of erasure; I guess that was inevitable, I was just thankful that it was present at the time when I went - I would have been heartbroken had it been already painted over.

Besides that, well everything else looked to be the same; the badminton court without the net, the large courtyard, the PCO, the stationery shop inside the hostel. I didn’t venture into any of my former rooms, I think I would’ve liked to but at that time, I was feeling a little low, being there all alone and so avoided it. Probably it would have been rather silly to be knocking on the doors of the rooms I’d formerly occupied, asking permission to enter from a girl I didn’t even know. What would I have seen inside?

The memories were resurfacing, but there was no one around to share them with; the familiar faces were absent and so were the comforting laughter, screams, the hedonistic nothingness… they were all a distance apart…back in time.

When I entered Junior’s room, somehow it seemed smaller than before, perhaps that was because of the somewhat clustered placement of the few pieces of furniture - the bed, the ubiquitous table with the PC, the chair with loads of stuff dumped on it, books, clothing, etc., the cluttered shelves filled with assorted stuff, some eatables, some cosmetics, books, toiletries, amongst other things. Basically each room is one’s whole world, all in some square feet of space, and the above description is mostly what all hostel rooms are like; some might be neater, more organized, while others worse - but than it’s your own room, do whatever you want…that’s the freedom you have.

On hearing some of the woes of Junior, regarding power cuts, teachers, classes, I was conscious of a feeling of achievement of having survived…the place, the people, the shortages, the extremes…

After some time, we went back to the GH, and got dressed for the ‘Tilak’ ceremony - some kind of pre-nuptial ceremony, more like the traditional version of the Engagement, except in this case the bride isn’t present at the function.

The ceremony was held on the grounds of the GH itself and when we reached, the preparations were going on; the decoration, the arrangement, the music, the food, etc. The invitation card said 5 PM, but of course nothing happened before 7 PM. It was chilly and as most of the sitting arrangements were al fresco, we didn’t have much choice but to enjoy the cold of Allahabad. We all sat there in a circle, with some extra friends of the colony, a junior who also happened to be the groom’s cousin. There were our former professors all around; it was a different feeling. We still respected them, yes, but we were no longer uncomfortable around them; we were behaving normally in front of them, and not a whiff of the discomfiting feeling one gets, if one meets their teachers in any surroundings other than class or college.

Some professors recognized us, some ignored, some smiled, somewhat vaguely, aware that they would have had taught us at some point of time, but not recalling anything beyond that. Yet, in this case, the knowledge that these professors hadn’t changed, was comforting. Not all change is good, and seeing them all again, a feeling of permanence of the place arose - it felt good.

A few of us went and talked to the teachers we liked and respected a little more than the rest, asking if they remembered us, I guess they did remember. Since I wasn’t one of those to go and approach my professors, I really couldn’t say.

There’s a particular teacher, who is the kind of person everyone is in awe of, and a little scared of too, because he remembers everything and everyone. People he met once, no matter how long ago, remain inscribed on his memory. When he took our first subject, it was in 4^th semester I think, and the first day, he made everyone tell their names and something they had expertise in. After that one day, he still remembered most of the details a year and a half later when he took another subject in another semester.
That evening, he came up and talked to all of us, remembering most of us; names etc. even though we had passed out about three years back and had been a batch of large numbers.

So the evening went on - soon when the rituals and customs had been performed, the groom also joined us. We all ate the food, which was fantastic and had a lot of choices. After dinner, when most of the guests had left, me, Junior and another girl returned to my room-mate’s place, because the guys had other plans - of revisiting the inappropriate unsavoury places they used to visit back in college; a place called Gaddopur (the spelling might be incorrect) which had(has) a Dhaba where alcohol was(is), I guess, of lower price. I’m not sure what the specialty of that place was and why these guys were so fascinated with it. Anyway, no further details about their evening are available - let it suffice that there was a lot of liquor, a lot of small stake gambling, a lot of laughter (the rolling on the floor laughing kind).

Next morning brought in a lot of sleepyheads unwilling to get up, while us, who had retuned to my room-mate’s place the earlier night, were all fresh and raring to head to the college campus, to visit old times. After trying a lot to wake them, finally six of us headed to college, out of which one guy was a friend who was not from our college (Mr. InvoCasa if you’ve read my ‘Comfortably drunk..’).

Our college campus, the boys hostels, girls hostel and staff quarters are not under a single boundary – the whole college campus and all but one boys hostel is in one campus, while staff quarters, GH, KNGH are in another. These two parts are divided by not much distance, but some local area, shops, a post office, Xerox centre, sweet shops, Maggi and omellete serving shops, and a railway track, come in the area in between. The entrance we took to the college is just next to the train line, and there, at the time, due to some drainage problem, the whole road was strewn with dirty water, we had to tiptoe through select spots, to reach without soiling our footwear. A sign of some deterioration…

Just after this entrance is one of the canteens of our college (yes our college has more than one) and that canteen had been a very favourite hangout for us. However, in our final year of college, the ownership had changed from the local guy named Ubed to Nescafe, which had been a big blow to us. Not only that, they had changed the place’s look. The canteen is not very big and previously, it had a partially wired sort of roof, the sides had plastic roofing while the central part just had a wired frame. This whole semi-covered structure as well as the empty sides was sheltered by a kind of flowering bushes which take a support and then grow around it. This miniature forest of leaves also blossomed some kind of purplish mauve-ish and pink flowers.

So, almost throughout the year, the canteen used to be covered, almost completely from outside. Especially during the hot summers, it used to be a cool haven when we returned from classes. Plastic chairs, some broken, some painted with birds’ poop, would be scattered over the place; pick any suitable (preferably non-broken, non-dirty) one, take it where you wanted to sit, and just relax. Two-three marble top tables were also there, but they were hardly used, except for sitting or supporting one’s feet on - the ultimate place of luxury, the food was good (well maybe OK but some things were really good) and Ubed allowed students credit in times of financial scarcity. Aloo paranthas, egg bhurji, with butter, bun masala, mango shake, cold coffee (both seasonal), noodles, and sometimes, very rarely, chicken rolls, all very reasonably priced.

Another advantage the place had was that any professors walking towards or back from college, on glancing towards the canteen couldn’t really see anything - neither the students nor their faces; it was like the best place to hang out if you had bunked class and the teacher knew you (although I know one guy who had sat there, bunking class after some reason of illness, and had been unfortunately seen by the same professor (the same one who remembers everyone)).

During our final year, somebody had complained something about the owner (Ubed) of the canteen, regarding what I’m not sure; that was why he had to leave. He soon opened the same canteen just outside college near the Boys hostel. Lucky guys.

Nescafe entered the scene and opened its joint in the same place, but after removing the entire history of bushes from the site. The canteen looked like a building abandoned in its initial stages of construction with no walls, almost no roof, and no colour. We never really liked the place after that.
Now as we glanced towards it, despite so many poignant memories, there was no feeling of nostalgia; it looked cold and formal, barren without the greenery around, it didn’t look comfortable at all….

Just next to the canteen is the college auditorium, MP hall. For a long time we didn’t know what that stood for (I think its Multi purpose hall). Anyway, we used to sit on the steps leading to the hall entrance for hours at end, doing nothing, sometimes playing Ludo (for which we got scolded by a professor once), watching the trains go by just outside the campus. We took some photos, and walked along - the basket ball court, the gymkhana....

The general condition of the grounds had improved, the roads looked good, all lined with white paint. One part of the ground next to the Civil department laboratory, which was previously barren and used as a short cut, had now been converted to a beautiful well maintained garden. Apart from that, no other tangible changes could be seen around. Further down, we came to the main building - I still regret that we didn’t enter, to see the lecture rooms (known as GS rooms) amongst other places. Actually, well, everybody else had other things to do, and I guess nobody else felt the college nostalgia as much as I did.

We then reached the second canteen of our campus; this one was known as Panditji’s canteen because a very cheerful old man runs it, and he’s called Panditji by one and all. He used to know us by face, and always greeted us smilingly (this canteen was where we went when we had an off between classes or we had a break during class; so a lot of time was idled here). Unfortunately, he wasn’t there that day.

This canteen is situated in a small clearing in the side of forest like wilderness which was not that dense, but wilderness nevertheless. The canteen consisted of just one small circular room surrounded by a circular boundary where chairs could be placed and people could sit, on the chairs or perched on the boundary railing which was of just the right height. That was it, the sum total of infrastructure; there was nothing else. Mostly, people preferred sitting with chairs outside the small building (if you could call it one), among the trees etc. which were less dense near the canteen. It used to feel so comfortable during all times. In summer, one could place their chair in the shade outside or one could sit inside the shaded boundary; because of the trees, one could count on the cool breezes to float around. In winter, one could place their in the little pockets of sunlight between the shades. The food was also, as usual, good (I guess when you live in a hostel, all food except mess food tastes good) - aloo paranthas, maggi, bread pakoda, tea, coffee, cold drinks…

In present day, i.e. when we went, a building was being constructed on one side of the canteen, thus clearing out most of the trees in that direction. Although it was development an hence good for the college, the building marred the charm of the place.

We sat there for a long time, ordering one eatable after the other; some more friends joined us a little later. Some juniors (now final years) also came around; supposedly they recognized us, but I’m sure we were all vague recollections and none of them remembered names, which was but natural. Just sitting there, temporarily without a care in the world, watching the world speed by, even though it was just for some hours, it felt great. Simple things, like eating plates and plates of the different food being served, the coldness of the winter afternoon, the tranquil sounds of the flora and fauna around, magnified to invaluable pleasures.

It was after two hours before we headed back; the groom had his ‘Haldi’ ceremony and had called us. As we walked back towards the same entrance through a different path, we came across the almost completed Computer Science & Engineering department building which had been in its initial stages when we were studying. Junior said nobody wanted to come here; it was situated at one corner of the campus and looked to be boring and isolated. We were glad we hadn’t had to come to this cornered place for classes. Because our present department was a small wing in the main building, we had classes scattered all across campus - sometimes in the Lecture hall complex, which was a separate building near the Panditji’s canteen, while sometimes in the GS rooms, which were in the main building. So we had a lot of time to stroll around the campus while commuting to subsequent classes. We always had an excuse to be late; sometimes we even used that time to have a quick cold drink in Panditji’s canteen, even though the next lecture had already started.

That was the end of my revisiting old moments – an untimely end forced by lack of company, or, lets say, lack of interested company. Now, when I look back, I rue over the several places that I had missed - Naini bridge, Softy corner, Civil lines, Ganapati Café, Destination, the cold coffee and Pav Bhajji place in Katra…
Well no point thinking about what couldn’t be helped.

We attended the Haldi ceremony for some time. Since the function was a total family ceremony, with some members smearing turmeric on the groom, we left soon. I returned to the GH, not wanting to venture into the hostel where all I’d feel was a sense of not belonging. The rest had other places to go to and the others who had gone to the Students’ canteen had not returned yet. Thus, for some time, I was alone.

An unfamiliar sense of solitude enveloped me; I can’t say I welcomed it - after all I was feeling alone in a place that had almost never let me feel so, what with so many friends around all the time. It was a rather unexpected part of the trip that I hadn’t been prepared for and didn’t really fancy.

Anyway, that evening was the wedding. Well, won’t go into much detail about that, except that it was loud, noisy, and a lot of fun. No other groom in history would have looked as happy as our groom, a grinning smile permanent on his face. He even danced in his own baraat, and later with his fiancée at the marriage hall, before the marriage ceremonies. A special event was the dinner, where a long table was set for all the friends and the bride and groom. We all sat and were served with way too many food items, while the bride and groom fed each other, except, in this case, the groom was happily eating multiple spoonfuls himself without forwarded any to his wife. On being reprimanded by us to give her something too, he did feed her - she smiled, ate the spoonful, and then she fed him something too. They looked so wonderful together; it was an auspicious and joyous occasion.

The next morning, because of the late night, most of us just slept and slept. Then, in the afternoon, we went to the groom’s place and had lunch. We sat there for quite some, waiting for our married friend to return from the temple he had gone to. He came and soon he had to leave again, this time, to meet his in-laws and finally bring his bride home. We returned back to GH. Nobody was in the mood to do anything and so the entire evening was spent there; some slept, some went somewhere or the other, while most of just sat around, talking and lazing. I don’t actually remember how we spent time, just that we packed and again went to the groom’s house to meet the newly married couple and say our farewells to them (temporary because the couple were returning to Bangalore in a week’s time) and his family too.

After dinner, I don’t know how, we managed to be late; some miscommunication regarding the train’s arrival time. We ended up leaving in a big hurry barely twenty minutes before the arrival of the train, almost leaving a suitcase behind (mine, I might add).

The trip had ended; I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Mine was a rather different story than what I had anticipated it would turn out to be - some moments were magical, some moments unimaginably depressing, some memories have been blurred by this trip, while some refreshed. Perhaps, for me something had been missing in the trip. That is why I am in the state of mind, where, if anyone asks me about the trip, I hesitate a split second before saying ‘good’ because it’s not entirely the truth.

People do a lot for their alma mater, I haven’t, till date, and probably never will, because I’m not the active sort of person. But, as a very personal tribute this is all I have to say about:

The college I hated at first..
The college that taught me so much more than Computer Science & Engineering,
The college that gave me so many invaluable friends,
It’s the place that will remain in my heart as the place where, every moment of the time spent, defined me.