Amidst all the parties
and socialising, programming books and facebook, the heartbreaks and the
gossip, the bunked lectures and attendance shortages, you can’t say that
college hasn’t changed you even a little! Bathing and sleep lose their
importance, friends and their needs become the priority. The closer you get to
graduating, the more your heart wants to say “Arrey, bhad mein jaye duniya.”
From the value of last minute studying just the night before to what a life
savoir a packet of maggi can be on a long sleepless night, college has taught
me A LOT. Here are the five very important lessons of life I learnt here!
1. Before coming so far far away from my
cozy red bedroom, I used to think living by myself in the big bad world, away
from my family would be the best thing ever. My freedom, my rules, no questions
asked! Sounded like heaven! Now I wonder, “what was I thinking?!” Mom was
always there to wake me up! If I had an errand to run or a friend to meet,
there would always be a chauffeur driven car waiting at the gate. When I
returned home mom would have dinner ready! And now, I have to rely on my
unreliable alarm clock, worry about my next meal (the month ends being a
nightmare!), clean my room, do my dishes, no shopping with mommy’s credit card
AND do my own laundry. How hard it is to know that I can’t just walk
across the hall and spill whatever’s bothering me and know that everything will
be taken care of. Now I would happily exchange my ‘freedom’ for my family
and the washing machine!
2. I truly learnt the
value of money HERE. Man, how hard it is to not be a whiny boy who gets
everything they want! Every third day I wake up wishing I had "Bill
Gates" bank balance! After coming here and being given a monthly allowance
I learnt to truly appreciate how hard it is to earn every rupee and how much
harder it is to not spend it on every frivolous whim!
3.Everyone’s blindly looking for love! I
know so many people who say that they don’t have time for love, or are not
willing to share their ‘personal space’ just yet, they’re all just kidding
themselves. Truth is, everyone’s looking for that one person who’ll fill the
colour in their rainbows and carry them off to their happily ever after.
Everyone is scared of loneliness and everyone dreads being left behind. All of
us want to be loved and want someone to claim that we’re the reason for their
smile.
4. This one I learnt the hard
way-how hard it is to be truly happy! Seems so trivial when I say it out loud,
but it’s so true! Every day is a new struggle and everyone’s just trying to be
happy in their own space, in their own twisted way. And it’s
incredibly hard, if you ask me. But the biggest truth of all, it’s
always ME first for everyone, not in a spiteful way, mind you, it’s
just how we were wired.
5. The last one’s a little sad
actually, but equally true-How hard it is to keep in touch! All those promises
we made in school, all the ‘we’ll be best friends for ever okay’ and the ‘we’ll
talk everyday NO MATTER WHAT’ all seem like a lifetime ago! Not like I didn’t
mean it then, just seems like these promises were made by this immature version
of me who had no idea what was coming. There are times I think about my friends
and wish I could fill them in on every tiny detail, but it’s all so much of an
effort and with so much already going on, it just seems impossible.
I’m pretty
sure I wouldn’t have learnt any of these if I studied back at home, living my
comfortable and protected life, but I can’t deny that there aren’t days when I
just want to leave everything in exchange for mom’s cooking and to play on the
ps3 with my big brother. Why oh why was I in such a hurry to grow up! What I
would give to go back.......
