A Trip Down Memory Lane - I

A post dedicated to Shubbu. This would not have seen the light of the day without her encouraging me to put it on my blog. The trip to Pilani was made on the spur of the moment. As I stood watching (rather shamelessly without a single offer to help) my mom pack my bags and mutter incessantly about the number of ‘non academic’ books on the shelves, I suddenly caught sight of a BOSM T-shirt sticking out from the part of my wardrobe that was never used during the two years of stay at Billekahalli. Dad came in soon; looking smug that he had finally managed to crack the maze called Hostel Blocks IIMB and had actually come back to the room without asking anyone for direction. They say seize the opportunity at the right moment and at that nice family reunion I announced that I would be going to Pilani.

To make a long story short, having missed all flights that drop you off at Delhi at human timings I landed in Delhi Airport at 10:30 in the night. Sitting alone at the Airport I just looked back at the whirlwind meets that I had to do in my last few hours in Bangalore. Interestingly, till then for some reason only one person in Pilani knew I was coming. Very few others knew about it till the night before and even they were sworn to secrecy. My wing and DOPY, over dinner and lunch respectively, refused to believe me and outside them only two others knew of this crazy plan. Whimsical, that’s what most people told me in retrospect.

It was the worse time possible to visit Pilani. The April heat, the realization after APOGEE that compres are near and one of my most favourite places on campus (whenever I think of my department) a shadow of its former self made the visit difficult. But then, it was necessary for me, necessary to go for one last time to the place that taught me so much and so there I was on the early morning bus to Pilani, reliving the roads that had seemed never to end when I travelled to campus for the first time.

To be continued...