Timbuctoo to Malgudi via Jhumrithalaiyya

I may be a working professional now. But somewhere inside me resides that college girl who had nothing to worry about in this world.

I may be an independent girl now, but still alive is that girl who would ask her mom for money to buy a maaza or a mango delite at the college store.

I may be travelling alone back home at ten in the night now, but deep inside me, is the girl who wouldn’t even catch a bus back from college without Sree telling her which bus to get into.

I may have been made strong due to circumstances, but that girl who used to cry silently in bed at night during her last year in college, her ghost still hovers around.

People don’t change; circumstances do.

My best friend from college, Sree, got engaged. Engaged. To be married in August.
Wow. Have we grown up or what.

I just can’t believe that she’s getting married in a few months time. Actually, I can’t believe that I’ve come so far from the day I first sat in the college bus, nervous, apprehensive, but also excited at the thought that I’m going to college. College!!! That, for me, was equivalent to getting into Hogwarts. It was a magical world. But then, I’d never been to college, and as they say, the grass is always greener on the other side. When you’re in kindergarten, you want to be in school. When in school, you always get excited at the thought of going to the next class. And then, you can’t wait to start college.

The prospect of not having to wear uniforms is the most exciting aspect of going to college. I remember, going shopping for clothes before college began. I was super-excited. But then, once I had finished wearing one round of all the new clothes, I was bored. I started wishing that I didn’t have to go through the ritual of opening the cupboard every morning, scanning the clothes I had for ten-fifteen minutes even though I knew I was late, and finally picking up the first dress I could lay my hands on and rushing, because my bus-driver definitely wouldn’t empathise with my predicament.

When you’re in college, after the initial fun wears off and you remove your rose-tinted glasses (or any other shades that are in vogue then- and believe me, I’ve seen quite many colours), you then want the bigger picture. To be free of shackles, to have your own money, to be answerable to no one except yourself. It happens to everybody. No matter how much you deny it, it will catch on some time or the other.
But as I said, the grass is, and always will be, greener on the other side. Once you start working, you’ll always want to turn back time. You’ll find that you’re broke by the tenth of the month, and you have nobody to blame but yourself. You would want to bunk office, and start wishing that if only it was college, it would be so easy to bunk. You wish you were back in the back bench of your class, so that you can sleep in the afternoon after lunch break.

We’re never happy, are we?

P.S: By now, you all must be wondering what the point of this post is. Started in Timbuctoo, moved on to Jhumrithalaiyya, and ended in Malgudi. Well, that’s what happens when you take too long to write a blog. You tend to lose track.

Apologies.