A Cold Welcome!!

Its 4:00 in the morning and I sit wide awake on board 6009, Mumbai-Chennai mail.
I look around and reckon that I am the only one awake, the whole compartment sleeps as if it has never slept before. All I hear barring the regular chuck-chuck of the train are the snoring and the deep breathing of co-travelers.
And for the first time in three months I feel alone and I start scribbling in the faint light....
I look outta the window. Its still dark outside. But I see silhouettes of trees and small buildings racing past me...
Just as a station approaches I crane my neck and strain my eyes through the stained glass window. "TIRUVALLUR" it was... "Well!! Madras again" I thought...
Suddenly a blast of cold air hits my face, bringing me back to reality.
Yet again Madras din fail to gimme a Cold and Hard Welcome...!!!

Shailesh R Nadar
4:10 am, July 25, 2007.

Campus (not) calling…Yet bye-bye Mumbai

So, it is time to bid good bye to home yet another time, Yet it was somewhat different from the last six times I left home..

Summer vacations are always difficult.. With three long months you become quite settled and develop a sort of ‘inertia’ and it tends to become difficult to move again.. Unlike winters in which u start packing again almost as soon as u completely unpack..

Still this time it seems different and unfortunately difficult. By the end of the hols there is always a sort of hollowness partially overshadowed by a sense of euphoria. Hollowness coz you are leaving home… And Euphoria coz the campus awaits… Towards the end (of the vacations of corz) the campus seems to call, and it really does, every single time except for this time..

I strain myself to hear, but it still doesn’t call, for reasons known to my brain but reasons which my mind refrains to accept… I know what awaits me!!! More pressure.., more tension… more responsibilities!! And above all, I take with me a mind already crammed with annoying possibilities and ideas. Damn!! The three months (or 78 days to be precise) seemed so simple, so smooth so welcome.

With barely 6 hours left before my train to Madras departs… I know I have little choice… I better know its bye-bye home for the next four months. A friend of mine says I always force on a smile on my otherwise expressionless face… I know that when I reach my hostel, I will force the same smile, only that it will take me more effort this time around…

Shailesh R Nadar
4:55 pm, July 23, 2007.