Convocation 2009 – A beautiful end to the best 4 years of my lyf!!

Hey guys, finally I am back from my bout of fever, cough, cold and what not. Before you thinking abilities wander, I would like to say thankfully I am free from the dreaded H1N1 flu which has swept across Pune especially.

Anyways till 30th June, my condition was horrible to say the least. I was lucky (u must be wondering how come I am like “lucky to be sick”) to fall sick in that week. I meant lucky because I didnt have to miss classes though missed my finance specialisation test and did horribly bad in the Marketing test (though in the end since I got it I feel “All well that ends well”). People were advising me to rest and not go and take care and blah blah. Iwas like “There is no way I am gonna miss this for anything”. My biggest motivation of going was to meet old friends as well as get a chance to see the old environs of Vellore and VIT again (dont know whether Ill get a chance again ever!). On 30th June at the advise of a senior whose also an MBBS, I had the medicine “Sinarest”. The health center doc had given me that medicine but till then I hadnt bothered about having it thinking it to be one of the money stupid things the doc would prescribe. Guys, believe me this medicine worked and I was in a condition to even jump in about two hours.

Finally the D-Day (31st July) arrived. I took the 6 30pm bus and got down at University Circle and went to E-Square. After having a nice meal,(didnt have time to watch a movie 🙁 ) left for the airport. Now I was going to the Lohegaon airport for the first time. I had heard that its a defence airport and all that. But when I reached there, I was seriously shocked to see how kutti (small!!) it was. There are just 4 departure gates (first I thought there were only two:P), one arrival gate and two conveyor belts in the airport. The best part is that people have to walk to the planes with their luggage. The most interesting incident that day was the fact that people by mistake starting moving to the wrong Spice Jet airplane and had to be directed to the right one. So there was mass confusion on the runway. Finally after a delay of 45 minutes, our Spice Jet flight departed for Chennai. We reached after about 1.5 hours in a flight marked by pretty bad turbulence.

It was amazing to be back in South India. The humid air of Chennai, the characteristic smell as well as the auto and taxi “anna’s” saying “going-aa, coming-aa” etc all awakened me to the spirit of Chennai. After an hour long wait, I was on the way to Vellore. I reached VIT by 6 not before being exposed to one of the most crappy Vijay movies. After resting and getting ready in Mohsin’s room in the guest house both of us were on our way. The most important job was to meet friends. But before that there was the BIG JOB of getting the certis. So for that when I finally forced my way into the Student Service Center I was told that I wouldnt be given the certis because of Rs 400 breakage. Finally after the convocation I got it.

The best thing about the convocation was the fact that we were the first batch who had the chance to break away from the 23 year tradition of yellow robes as we got the black robes with a hat. After the procession to the audi, the customary speeches and the hat throwing ceremony the time to meet friends finally came. It was amazing to meet everyone. Mohsin, Padhee, Arun, Giri, Sam and the list goes on and on… One of the KODAK moments as they say was when I saw Sruthi, Ranju and Anish walking together from the canteen side to the main building side. Seeing them my eyes almost got moist (Yes!!). That day I really felt how much I missed these people and how much they mean to me.

The rest of the day was filled with talking, meeting, chatting, running around with friends, juniors and everyone else and finally seeing them off. Ranju had to leave very fast probably as fast as she came like an express train (but ya thats the problem of being with parents). After seeing off Sruthi, had a nice chat with Arun, Moh, Giri and Anish at SUTTA shop where Arun also distributed his “masterpiece” SHIMMERING REFLECTIONS.

After a decent dinner at “BIG CHICK”(now ppl sometimes call it big chicks to..so im confused:P) and a nice sleep in the guest house, I left for Chennai the next day though not before attending my first and only mass in Vellore at the special invitation of Sam (who led it beautifully) and Giri. The time spent at Riya’s house was amazing. It was great to talk and meet her. And yeah the dosa’s were amazing…:)

In the end though I didnt wanna leave, I knew for a fact that I couldnt have imagined such a beautiful end to such an amazing 4 years.