Saying Goodbye

I’ve thought and thought and thought some more on how to say farewell on my blog to the place that has been my home for the past four years. Should I mention each person I’ve known here individually? Just some sort of a time capsule and googlebait that if any associate of mine decides to ego-surf someday twenty years later, (s)he’d end up on my blog… and maybe relive his memories of this place. But the glitch is that I don’t want to chronicle everybody… meeting such a large number of people has its side effects – there are some people I simply want to fuggetabout. And there are so many people I’d want to mention…. but don’t have much context to mention them with… or if I do, it might not be right to put it up on a publicly viewable searchable space like this.

And what do I do about those who I miss out by mistake? That’d be downright insensitive on my part… but then, you know how my memory is.

The memories of this place… I’m not sure the best of them should go up here – they involve a lot of people not all of who will like themselves being known for single acts like that.

I thought I’d go right ahead and do it in spite of all I’ve said above.. but I simply am at a loss for words, especially when it comes to talking about people who matter to me. It sounds clichéd, but I simply don’t want to make my relationships with people here feel less important than they are by putting them up on my blog.. I mean, this is for not-so-close-to-heart stuff, right?

Anyway…. guess I’ll filter it down to what not being at NITK means to me.

No more being nocturnal!!

Guess I’ll have to settle down to crashing at 11 pm and keeping sane hours. My life has always started post-10 pm here. Celebrating birthdays – that’s how we started keeping awake late. And then those innumerable nightouts before exams.

Movie marathons. Especially during the weekends. Sleeping until the sun went down.

Project nightouts. I’ve always flown solo on my project and mini projects, and so the week before submission was one of intense nightouts and extensive coding. Madness it used to be, with many visitors, the number thinning as the night wore on, the music mellowing down as my roommate drifted off. I’d once taken a break and gone walking around the GB when I saw one of the most mindblowing sights I’d seen – first there was this cat, walking around normally. It suddenly froze, brought its four feet together, fur stood on end, eyes glowing in the dark, ears up, neck muscles tense. Two seconds later, two dogs jumped at it. And the cat just jumped sideways!! And again and once more, before finally running away. Cats.. really have nine lives.

Segmentation faults used to be the death of me, until I learnt to use gdb. Thank heavens for the Internet where I would always find some or the other page explaining gently to me why my code didn’t work.

Which brings us to the second fallout of leaving NITK:

No unlimited broadband at all times

Well, I do have Net at home, broadband.. but it’s not exclusively for my use, is it? True, we had/have pathetic Net at college at times, we have Ironport, which bans us from accessing anything that comes under – Entertainment and a variety of similar themes. But we’ve always, always been able to google anything we want to know in the twinkling of an eye, wiki films to review them, GOOGLE ONLINE PICTURE QUIZZES (and win), and most, most importantly to me, BLOG.

And any unfair blockages, we have a plethora of workarounds.

And Mr. PGM sir, you’ve been a great sysadmin. I particularly was bowled over by your changing orkut to localhost at the DNS (am I right?).

No more exchanging arbit fundae and links… atleast not as much as we do now.

The Net wasn’t always there, but LAN and DC++ hubs almost always were…

No more DC++ and unlimited access to media

I just read a NY Times review of Juno, search for it on DC++, and watch it. I hear of Kite Runner, immediately search for the ebook, and discover it’s been made into a movie. I’m reading English, August, and Ogu puts on a Scott Joplin record. No, there isn’t no Scott Joplin, but there’s Janis Joplin, and she has a new fan. When Ogu’s listening to Neera’s present, I, too, feel like listening to
Ella Fitzgerald singing I love Paris. And the next moment, I have ten Ella songs on my playlist.

Now I’ll actually have to pay for music and books… I know it’s the right thing, but I feel the current costs and packaging is simply too exorbitant… and selling individual songs would find more takers… Like Madhavan says in Aayutha Ezhutthu, Never buy the entire liquor shop for 100 ml.

Think I’ll drop by every few months 🙂 just for the DC++ hubs. I hope someone comes upto filling the very large void that will come into existance after Bo… leaves.

No more arbit conversation

People in the outside world, the real world, are too sane for my liking. I don’t think I can discuss threadbare statements like “There are as many opinions as there are heads”, and face criticism by people pointing out that the fallacy is that there might be two-headed people… and argue by saying that that is offset by the number of headless people. I don’t think I can loop about saying “He’s so cuuute yaaa..” just to irritate people and bring out their best sarcasm. I don’t think anyone other than folks here will get my PJs or crack the sort of PJs I consider classy. I don’t think I can just run to someone and say “You know what just occurred to me…” and have them hear me out.

No more LAN Radio

http://172.16.xyz.abc:8000/ on every other status message. Shoutcast, Icecast, Ices2, Darkice, Darksnow, Amarok, Winamp plugin, VLC, alsamixer… I remember getting my playlist to stream across the LAN for the first time… the amount of trouble it took me… all because I’d missed running alsamixer… And the times when it was a fad… “Listen to my playlist da…”… As I’m writing this, I’m listening to Joe Sat on a friend’s playlist… last few times…

No more long post-midnight chats

Venting frusts. Cribbing. Bitching. Gossiping. At the very fag end of the day. Getting advice. Giving advice. Planning schedules. Pouring our hearts out to each other. Making resolutions. Fixing broken hearts. Philosophy. Pragmatism. Analyzing what’s wrong with this place. What’s wrong with us. What’s right with the world. Current affairs, ranging from reservations to Tibet. Religion. Palmistry.

No more status message wars

Needn’t elaborate.

No more all of the above together

My current state. The last few times.

No more front-row headbanging

My last Inci done and gone.

No more GPLs

Only burday bumps. I don’t think any other place has such an elegant name for lifting someone in the air and raining their posterior with the choicest of kicks.

No more club/class/fest Tshirts

True, they were mostly oversized, but…

No more running to the beach on impulse

I didn’t want to say “No more beach”… surely I’d visit coastal areas…? But I don’t think I’d live five minutes from the sea anywhere else.

And… there are a few things I certainly won’t miss – the tiring laundry, the filthy wash areas, unhygienic people, limits on mess food – call it whining and dining, being half an hour from anywhere worthwhile, the intellectual stagnation you experience without the Net, the hard water that causes hairfall, the power and water shortages… and a few people here and there.

But what the heck, all that fades into insignificance at the thought of leaving the place where I really felt I belonged, which has made me the person I am today, that has given me some much-needed self-confidence and taught me to make my own decisions, to stand alone in the face of resistance, to never give up hope even when I’m in the doldrums, to mingle with just about any crowd that comes my way, to dream, and to work towards what I want, to separate the sinner from the sin and the saint from the sainthood, to not be afraid to walk alone when I’m on my way to what I want, to respect others and their space, not to forget their culture and preferences – a right old mini-India here.

And also brought me in contact with some of the most wonderful, most inspiring people I’ve ever met… I’ll treasure all the friendships I made here… everyone here has something in them worth emulating, worth thinking about. I’m sure I’m never going to be so close to such a wonderful set of people again.. I’m gonna miss everyone – my wingmates, my classmates, my hostelmates, my juniors, my seniors, my batchmates, including a good number who I just know fleetingly.

And gave me some of the best experiences I’ve had, some of the best music I’ve listened to, some of the best movies I’ve watched, some of the best onstage acts I’ve seen…

I’ve had the time of my life.

PS: I had this thought irking me.. “You said the same things about school”. But then, it’s just not the same. Fresh out of school, I was thinking of troubles with fitting in, doing well… but NITK has given me the confidence that anything I do, there’s always a non-zero probability I can do it really well. I know I’m going to get over the “missing college” phase fast, but I also know the memories will endure forever, and will be recollected with a smile or a grin, and without the twinge of regret at the end that it’s over.. balls to the cliché, I’ll really be glad it happened.