ADHAA

They usually respond by the gentle rustle of their leaves. For the wind, in a clear exhibit of its childishness, always tries to orchestrate our conversation! And somewhere deep within, my spirit dances to the rhythm of the waves. Their erratic moods are sometimes difficult to adapt to, but it their willingness to listen that overwhelms me. And there, in the towering night when I speak to my chosen star, I cannot help noticing that the many others around it have been listening too. Then that ‘something’ that is stretched over the cosmos that immediately identifies with me. Even though I never gave it a call... * Sometimes we celebrate my victories by dining together in the open night. And when I see life for what it is not, they cry to keep me company, but more so, to make me understand that it is quite unnecessary.

...The never-submitted assignments ...The ‘paper-chat’ sessions during CTS classes ...The launch of Pranav’05,ECE department’s first National level Technical Symposium ...The blank expressions that greeted every viva Q posed by the external examiner ...The ranking of MSEC among the top 10 engineering colleges in just 4 years of its coming ...The quotidian tests that burgeoned “professional copiers” ...The letters of apology for every mistake Tom, Dick, Harry, Jane, Jill and Jiki ever made ...The teachers who came, saw, and went ...The ODs that stood for what college life is all about ...The IV trip to Bangalore ...The “5X impositions” rule that was exercised on all students from time to time ...The never understood EC-I paper ...The never understood EC-II paper (...and to cut short, every other paper...) ...The “kalaichifying system” that measured a target’s embarrassment o

It was the year 1996. Another warm summer’s day. The curtains had been drawn so that a faded shade of yellow coloured the otherwise bland room. I sat there gazing dully at my father, a string of thoughts slowly engulfing my mind. -Would I ever make it to the tenth standard? -If I persistently remained dim-witted for the next five years (i.e. from 6th to 10th std.), failing in my tenth boards was of course one thing-but it was more, the forced association with maths for that long a time that frightened me. I gulped. Between living a nightmare, and choosing death, I wasn’t left with much option. My brother was to blame for my newly discovered tenth standard phobia .Watching him pace across the room with a book in his hand every day and every night with a “board-exams-can-kill” attitude, it was, but natural, to treat tenth standard as the ultimate crucible and something against which I could measure all scales of progress, to and fro. (Maths which I considered as a separate entity altoge