Beginnings and Ends

So, my three years at Jadavpur University are almost over. Some people will no doubt assure me that "it passed by in a flash", but for me it was quite the opposite. It seems like a faded distant memory, my first class at JUDE. I grew old at Jadavpur. Felt really natural, going to class, seeing the familiar faces. Yet some remain unfamiliar. I have no regrets, of course. Jadavpur may have been the best thing that ever happened to me. Before, I merely existed. Then, I learned to live. Yet, I wish I knew each and every one of my classmates more fully, to understand their desires, their dreams, their quirks and their neuroses. Now it is too late.

I made some good friends at Jadavpur. I learned how to make friends at Jadavpur, too. I started off hating a classmate, and then learned to like him. I fell in love with a classmate, and hate that she doesn't know.

But that's in the past, because the fact remains that after the semester exams I may never see some of them again in this life. Perhaps most of them. Perhaps if I met them ten years later I wouldn't recognize them because they have changed so much, or because I have. I don't know, maybe I have already changed since first semester. The one thing I'm sure of is that Jadavpur changed with me.

And now I'm leaving. The last lecture has been delivered, the last class test held. Only the tenuous link of the end-of-semester exams still anchors me. But the tide of change is strong and claws out the anchor from the oozing sediment of routine and sameness.