Sunday, September 18, 2005

Absence does make the heart grow fonder

I'm typing out this blogpost from home. In Chennai. I've been home about 30 hours now, and I realise how much I missed the people and places I had taken for granted earlier.

I zip around in the chaotic Chennai traffic with careful recklessness, feeling a strange sense of liberation as I feel my car leaping down East Coast Road (which, for the uninformed, connects Chennai to Pondicherry) under the touch of my feet on the accelerator. I trade colourful abuse with an irate autodriver, doing it with a smile on my lips and a song in my heart. I shake my head wonderingly at the sight of a potbellied policeman harassing a harmless urchin even as a PTC bus driver roars past the junction in blatant defiance of traffic laws. I sit on the beach, curling my toes in the crunchy sand and watching the timeless waves rising and ebbing, rising and ebbing, rising and ebbing...

It feels great to be back home, to catch up with old friends and see they haven't changed at all. To go to all my usual hangouts and relive memories of what were, in many cases, happier times. To learn of the problems, triumphs, romances, expectations, plans and adventures of all those who matter to me. To call up and rebond with friends who have left for foreign lands, pursuing dreams vastly different from mine. To test the strength of my emotions and relationships, even though its only been 11 weeks.

So much to do, so many people to meet, so many places to go, so much emotional baggage. I'm loving it. (Copyright, McDonalds')

But I also find myself, very strangely, missing IIMA. Already. So much so that I call up my classmates all over the country, just to ask them what's up. To hear their voices and feel the warm emotions that course through me as we both realise it's simply awesome to hear one another's voices again.

I think back over the last term at IIMA, supposedly the toughest grind one is likely to go through in one's two years at IIMA, perhaps through most of one's life. And I realise that what stands out, the memories that stick, are not of getting an F grade in a quiz, staying up several nights to complete assignments, long fruitless hours hammering away at a MANAC case where the accounts refuse to balance, crying in frustration over the workload, angering the Professor by sleeping in class, pages and pages of course material to cover overnight, desperate last minute rems from the acad studs in my class, being repeatedly told that we have to mug and mug and mug or else we will lose out in the race...

Nope, the images imprinted in my mind are of Antakshari at CT (Cafe TANSTAAFL) at 3 a.m., eating ice cream all alone at LKP (Louis Kahn Plaza) at night, sixty people shouting 'Aala Re Aala' as one, dancing in public and forgetting all the steps, walking around campus barefoot and in a dhoti/veshti (Why? All will be explained over the next few posts...), people sleeping on the desks in the classroom with a half coloured T-Nite banner as a sheet, chilling out with friends during power cuts, jiggying to arbit Punjabi songs (even in the presence of a Prof!), smiling understandingly at those who stare at me when I eat with my hands, celebrating birthdays with bumps followed by a mad dash for cake, discussing life with close friends until 5 in the morning, the entire class dressing up in formals just for the heck of it, tempo shouting till I lose my voice, surprising a half naked Oka in his room with a GUSSHOW and embarassing the two girls who were part of the group, putting up arbit replies to arbit responses to arbit posts on the Section NB in DBabble, cracking the most atrocious of PJs at the worst times possible...

Opening up to people and realizing that I need a shoulder to cry on just as much as the next person, sharing and caring like I never have before, getting used to the fact that I instinctively call my dorm room 'home', making friends and building relationships that really matter and that I hope will last all my life.

I love Chennai. I love IIMA.

24 comments:

Suze said...

:) nice..

i dont really miss wimwi tho.. havin too much fun here :)

and i called ya up t'day morning.. ur mom said u weren't home..

seeya in a few days .. tata!

Gayatri said...

you are extremely lucky to have 2 places that you absolutely adore and can call home..

very well written post!

AC said...

Thanks so much, guys :) I'm glad to be back here, in my messy-yet-cozy room... Well, it's back to the grind now. Will probably visit Chennai next only in April...

Anonymous said...

Very nice post, man... just the right amount of senti... I miss Chennai :(

Anjana said...

Wow, is that an example of un-subtle advertising or what :)

amit said...

totally agree with u here man.... i also missed IIMA during the term break, no matter how much i was pissed of this place in the first 3 months

nice post...keep writing

Anonymous said...
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Unknown said...

do they still serve those amazing cold coffees out of vans outside the IIMA gates?

Kunal Jain said...

Must be nice there in IIM, i am still stuck in SVCE. ;)

Anonymous said...
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Ganesh APP said...

Well AC its big time u update ur blog.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...
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Lavanya said...

Awwwwwwwwwwww.........Nothing like Chennai, is it?
Oh, this guy above me wants you to buy his weightloss product. I suggest word verification for your comments.

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Bosky said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Bosky said...

hey you might like the pics taken from colg with my canon 5.1 mp to add to the nostalgia 8 )

Keep CLicking,
Bhasker 02-06 ,IT

December 03, 2005 6:05 PM

Ganesh APP said...

"Absence does make the heart grow fonder"

I am not sure about it...ur absence from ur blog, is kinda irritating...

Kunal Jain said...

AC, looks like these guys(reduce your weight in your sleep, awake, while eating) care more about you than your mom. I think you should heed to them :-)

AC said...

Sorry for the looooong delay, guys... been pretty busy. And WTF?! What's with all the ads?

Anonymous said...

thanks for the info