Image: marybethhicks.com
I just want to be able to express all that I can at this moment. I know words have their own limitations and human mind is fickle, and can only remember a fraction of what it absorbs. Still, I don’t want to miss this chance. I don’t want to fade away as one of the many…you know one of many Indians, many MBAs, many girls, numerous youngsters…. and that feeling is strengthened as see swarms of people like me… all waiting to discover and be discovered. At one moment I am feeling so unique and at others I just want to blend in the moment. Sometimes I am in awe of all the brilliant people around me at this point in time and others I just am scoffing at the humanness and vanity of it all. I know it, everything is changing. Everything is changing yet again.
After almost 2 years, I felt settled in…created my network in the city, got familiar with the roads, found out the sundries in the marketplace…and now it’s time to leave it and find a new place. I went through a phase of searching, and being, and finding my own space, my people….losing them….for nothing, for everything….distances just happened and shortened at the same time. I am in a vast milky way, and everything around me is changing, including me! And I think I can figure it out? Bah! Naivety.
In the last 2 years, I’ ve experienced much more than I could ever imagine. When I look back, I get this familiar feeling of being tizzy. The wondrous daze as I call it: it fills you up…all the friends who have helped me to get by; in class, in hostel, in tough times, in fun times, all those who tolerated my jokes and jibes, my unsolicited advice, my interventions in classroom…….BOW!
I first thought I will individually write for all my friends, but I thought, who all are they? Yes, I have been closer to some than others, but it would be unfair to those that I haven’t had the chance to interact with and those I will be interacting closely in the years to come…how will I ensure fairness of tribute? How will I tell each one of them that somewhere in me they have made a difference, and I wish I have somewhere in them too. How will I tell them that given the circumstances, I have felt more than passion to work towards for the institution that has shaped my life? How will I tell these people I wish to be associated with them in whatever capacity I can? How will I express that their feedback and support helped me to get by these years and will do so in the coming years? I don’t care about the cliques and the stereotypes, but I’d like all of us to be proud of being where we are and who we are with. I’d like to know how your years have been…….because after coming here I realized the fluidity of life…that you have to move on……..from next trimester to another, one year to another, one hostel room to another, one day to another, one railway line to another……….and they don’t call it nostalgia for nothing.
I’ve learnt a lot: how to be “cultural chameleon”, how to “strategize”, market a “b-plan”, treat employees as “resources” …one thing I am yet to learn is how to say goodbye without being a little teary- eyed.
