Its been exactly 10 years since we walked out of the campus with a sheet of paper that proclaimed we were engineers. I can now vaguely remember the final days, after 4 years in that campus, not necessarily studying, but forming a ton of memorable moments and lots of strongly cemented relationships. Yes, its been 10 years since we completed our bachelors degree in what was once called Shanmugha College of Engineering - now fancily named SASTRA University!
Recently got a chance to drive past the college and it brought back all those awesome memories. Memories that have slowly faded away, being the victim of time and my poor long term memory! :)
The memories of those new friendships and bondings that happened over the period of four years - some that are still going strong, some that are struggling hard to hold on and some that have simply fallen away by the wayside, unable to keep up and compete with other "important things" of a fast paced life of adulthood.
The bus rides... the death trap of buses numbered 37, 47 and 57. The countless trips to Trichy and Kumbakonam... the movies at Cauvery, Kamala and lunches at the ridiculously darkened Raghunath hotel! The countless trips to Archies stores, the innumerable greeting cards, the strips and strips of stickers on those cards, the long hours of listening to BackStreet boys, Hotel California...ohh I should write about my BackStreetBoys crazy friend, Mr.S. So, we have Unix-C programming lab and all of us are breaking our head with the program code while Mr.S comes over and says that his code doesnt compile and asks us to look at it. We being the sincere friends, go over to help him. And what do we find in the code? Yeah, the lyrics of "Everybody, rock your body" song by BackStreetBoys and not a single line of actual code!!! :) hmm, now that reminds me of the great story book idea by Mr. M - his idea was to write a story book that captured his life in college those 4 years. I believe he had written a page and half over two years! Should check with him what happened to it!!
The great lecturers - ofcourse most of them great not for their teaching skills but for their easy going, friendly nature. The ones that we had most fun with like Maths Super Subbu, Chucks, the many Priyas - SuryaPriya, MadhuPriya..., the many Geethas - LG, Chemistry EG, Microprocessor AG..., the ones that we loved to hate like English Sound, Algos Janu... the ones that we loved to love like DataStructures VasanthaLakshmi, hmm... she deserves mentioning twice... Vasantha Lakshmi! :)
The interesting classes like Engg Drawing from first year where we loved to get confused and additionally loved to confuse the lecturer with our stupid arguments... chemistry class where, believe it or not, we actually fought for colored markers to take neat looking notes!!... DataStructures class... this one just purely for VasanthaLakshmi... not for the course itself. By now you have probably figured out VasanthaLakshmi was our heart throb... I remember all of us had a string of doubts just so she would walk over to our desks to explain things once again! :) I also remember most of us stepping up to the stage to teach the class on topics that we had no clue about whatsoever - just coz she asked us to. I also vividly remember the sad day when she got married and the whole college was in mourning for a long, long time. It still hurts to think about that day! :).... Control Structures class... though I cant remember her name, she was one awesome lecturer... this time I really mean it, she was very good at teaching one of the toughest subjects; though I only managed to just pass in that subject is an entirely different matter! :)
Ohh, and the never ending list of other great memories like the college tour, the lunch box fights, the Mothers Chicken dinners, the College House / Udayar kadai teas and parathas, the study holidays night studies - all we ever did was waste our time the whole night but promptly walked over to the overnight tea shop for our 2AM tea to keep us awake to waste the rest of the night!!!, the bench behind the girls row... hmm that makes me wonder... I was never always a back bencher or never ever a first bencher but almost always on the bench right behind the girls... given that fact, my success rate with girls is probably at negative infinity now! :) whatever, I will attribute it to this cruel, cruel world!!!
Those 4 years were definitely one of the best times in our lives... for all the great experiences, friendships and some technical knowledge we gained there! :)
