I owe my two years to you.
I can't forget Friday, July 14 2006. I entered the IISc gates with
nervously excited feet. Put my luggage in hostel room allotted to
me and started navigating with help from the maps I had printed.
Destination Dept. of ECE. I go to corner near the aeroplane, refer
map and turn to left. I see a never ending road. The map says
I have to walk until the end of the road to see the place where I
am to spend my most memorable two years of life. I start walking
the road. Somewhere on the way I see a board telling me
it is Gulmohar Marg (Mayflower Road).
I owe my two years to you, Gulmohar Marg, for you really are never ending.
I still walk on Gulmohar Marg, everyday.
You are the distance between the outside world and the dept of ECE.
You are the distance between the outside world and the real me.
You saw me frustrated with equations I fought hard to understand.
You saw me depressed with my disappointing first semester results
and relieved with second semester results. In moments when I had
nowhere to go, you showed me the way to Tata statue and you silently
stood waiting at the corner, watching me sitting near the Tata statue
or the entrance of institute building. After consoling myself I went
back to my room while you perhaps smiled with the age-old wisdom.
You took me to library. Somehow I always chose to sit at such places
from where I could always see you. I could see morning sunlight
seeping through woods, a blue mormon gliding, dry leaves falling
with evening breeze. In due season, you invited me out to walk on
the red carpet you laid for us.
You called me and showed the mehfil of red, yellow, orange and violets.
You called me and showed the celebration of fireflies,
sorry, the stars had come down to earth. At midnight, the moonlight
shone on you as if it would shine on the face of a rishi busy in sadhana
with its eyes closed.
Time and again, you told me that the road is never ending. You just
have to keep walking. You just have to keep looking around and
appreciate beauty of life. Sometimes the road traveled turns out
to be more beautiful than the destination reached.
4 comments:
I'm reminded of my own first day at the ECE department... I had come through the ATM gate, and asked the security staff about the ECE department. They told me to go to the old airplane, and take right. I clearly remember the feelings I had during my first walk down that road. I remember the bright sun shining. I remember the sounds of birds chirping in the trees above. I remember noticing several people walking down the road, mostly boys and girls a few years younger than me. I remember having noticed the utmost freedom with which these people moved about, and conversed while they walked. I remember asking a guy, very politely, for directions to the ECE department. I remember that he had told me to just walk to the end of the road and look left, and had added a "sir" at the end of the sentence!
I'm sure everyone at IISc loves the Marg on which his/her department is/was situated. That explains why even a professor from ECE has penned a poem on Gulmohar Marg!
Well, after spending a few years in the mildly-harsh reality of public service in India, my stint at IISc has rejuvenated my enthusiasm and optimism towards life... In retrospect, the simple and serene nature of Gulmohar Marg indeed has played a major role in my perception of IISc. And the memories of the Marg, and of IISc in general, will certainly bear a calming and soothing effect on my life. Indeed, the road never ends, in an abstract sense. We keep walking the road forever.
Oh the beautiful Gulmohar Marg! It stays the same and shall stay so, forever in our memories..It's a pleasure reading about it from you, as well as Suneel's comments :)
hey! nostalgia has set in huh? campus is still very beautiful...each road and even places where roads do not lead. it is humbling to realize that some day you shall not be there but campus with its ever-changing beauty shall remain!
Amazing...your description is so good that I actually felt myself walking down that path. And you have a wonderful ability to put down with such clarity all the emotions that you felt, over space and time! Love for your alma mater reflected throughout :) Great post!
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