2004-2009

‘Last evening my alma mater celebrated its 8th birthday and its first at a sprawling 51 acre campus.’

The old campus building and its “new” make shift class rooms each year, the hope always was this would be the last. The last never came and it was time to say good-bye to college days. The hostel, its creaky gates, rusty doors, the big tree and the endless gossip all ended so soon. It took me months to realise that I would never be going back to those classes again to chat, crib, laugh incessantly, eat the mess food and stay up all night. The trips to the hostel were initially once in 2 weeks, then once a month, then for some one’s birthday, by the time our convocation came a year later, I had not paid a visit for 3 months and then the next came when the second batch left. As familiar faces were replaced by non-descript little people moving about, who would tomorrow be identified as one of our own, I now realise we have grown up since the care free happy.

The feeling of last evening was completely different. There it was the new campus, all shiny, glittery, pretty and right out of our dreams. The WOW! Moment.  We strolled around, saw the new buildings, classes’ hostels, mess, everything so well organised so clutter free, so different from what we had been given. But there was this emptiness, that although it was “ÖUR CAMPUS” it was not. There were very few familiar faces and no old memories at all. They had not only left behind the old campus, but also our memories of half a decade. I could associate with people but not feel the warmth of being on the Old campus. So, although this is the campus and this is where all of us graduated from and this is where all the coming batches would also pass out from, my college was the one in that rickety building in Sector 26, GIDC Electronic Estate, Gandhinagar.