Nostalgia tomorrow

WIMWI started its T-Nite today..

Four days of excessive fun and delight which will remain frozen in time for both the fachchas and the tuchchas..
Its memories will remain one of the strongest.. especially for our juniors.

Though a completely internal affair, with no involvement of those outside, it pulls in the alumni who sneak away from their corporate abodes at least for the weekend if not the whole event.

Why?

Its probably that nostalgic link.. obviously this is a no-brainer..
.........................................................but then as we sit here, now, today, there emerges the question of tomorrow.. when we will be away from these red-brick walls.. and we fall into this complex double-thinking trap of the nostalgia that we WILL feel tomorrow.. and suddenly you enjoy the moment all the more.

Not that this is any deep rumination.. its a natural motivation of thinking of tomorrow.. unfortunately, we keep thinking of 'where are we going tomorrow?', rarely asking 'when are we coming back tomorrow?'. Luckily some off-the-tongue commitments we make seem to help pull us back. If someone asks me, 'How often will you come back to campus?', I'm sure I'd say, 'Every year'.. and I'd do it, not because I said it to someone, but because some nostalgic juice asked me to shout it out to the world, using the words only as a tool to bind me more firmly to my alma mater.

..and this makes me miss the place, even as I stay in it.. and work, and complete assignments.
..and it resounds telling me to give it my all.

Its a beautiful and unique experience.. not one that just flows to you.
Its one you need to think about to experience it.

That somehow seems to rob it of some of its beauty..
But you've got the ability to feel it all the more consciously.
And this awareness suddenly makes you look at yourself from far away.

A similar experience of a collection of people together would be astounding!
I wonder where I'd find it.
Maybe that's another experience in itself.. altogether.

The 'experience' of an experience

Often, we say that we undergo a unique experience. One that may change the course of our lives, shake our beliefs, rattle our conscience and flare a whole host of indescribable emotions in us.

Yet, this always seems to be observed retrospectively.

When it occurs, what is the experience truly about? You know that it is going to be unique, shivers shall pass down your spine as you walk away from it. Yet the moment is oft inexpressible in the present. What truly is the 'experience' of the experience itself?

We change our behaviour, our thoughts on incidence.
We change irreversibly.

On noting the reason, we realize it was due to us having experienced the moment. Now a memory of it remains. It is presumably difficult to feel the exact same emotions as you had at the incidence, yet they've left an adequately deep impact which prevents you from retracing your steps.

There may have been a surge of chemical reactions in your brain which seemed to have created a complex understanding of the situation and which in parallel, redefined your script forever.
Coincidently, this is also probably the reason why you felt the moment, but can't truly remember it.

Its there. Staring at you. In front of your face.
You understand what it says, but YOU.... CAN'T... SEE.... IT.

Its searching for these moments in our everyday lives which can send our lives into a focussed Brownian Motion ( pardon my Physics, its a little insane ). When in each day, through glaring mistakes, through daring acts, you grow phenomenally.

You know you grow.

Shaken

Its been a long time since I'd felt socially responsible..
Retrospectively, it feels as if I'd been in a vacuum, and it felt really uncomfortable getting out of it.
Not that I wished to stay in..
More like I was scared of facing myself..
I was amazed seeing the face of persistence in adversity, hope in darkness
.. a story of brave India being carved.

Prayaas was started by IIM-A students and has successfully enrolled 17 kids into a mainstream public school this year.

To some its a statistic,
To some just another newspaper report
To some another social cause
To another, a world which can only go so far

To me, this was Light
The one that we sang hymns of in our elitist schools in the metros
A lotus in the marshes

It was a sight that uplifted my spirits
I reconciled to the blessedness that has been so generously imposed upon me
Smiles in tatters taught me many a lesson I've still not gathered
In a photoframe it sits in my mind.. and shall startle me and provoke me in the days to come

For there is a way we oft not travel
This is it

A year ahead..

A year ahead of when I last wrote on this parchment..

Been a wakeful creature of procrastination since..
Been to many a place
Done a thing here and there
Graduated from a Fach to a Tuch
Pursued many an eccentric activity
Jumped my wildest expectation
Scrambled my sleep clock
Vegetated
..and obituarised my old self

Allo,
I'm back
..and I'm here