The Last One

The title is a homage to the last episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Because that last episode had been resonating in my mind for a whole week ever since some of my friends left the beautiful campus we had come to call our home for the last 4 years. The campus felt smaller without them. It used to be a happy place filled with love and laughter, but more importantly because of the people I shared it with. All of us had stayed together in each other’s rooms just like at one time or another every one of the F.R.I.E.N.D.S characters had stayed at Monica’s apartment. And now some of us had left the campus to start a new chapter of their lives, leaving the keys behind along with a lot of memories to cherish.

I should let you know that I’m writing this a few days after the convocation ceremony here at our second home, IIT Madras. It feels as if it’s the end of an era and the start of a new one. I’m constantly thinking about how the convocation will probably be the last time when everyone gets together. The very next day after the last guy left, I saw freshies entering the institute, proudly might I add, with their parents beside them, not knowing how hugely the next 4 or 5 years of their life was going to change them as a person. For those few moments that my gaze fell upon them, I myself was a freshie walking through the campus for the first time with my dad. Completing the registration procedures, buying a mattress, cycle and all other necessary items. Little did I know that that moment onwards my life was going to change in ways I had never imagined in my wildest dreams. But my mind quickly came back to the present, from the memories of me being a freshie, remembering a dialogue I had heard somewhere.

“We all change, when you think about it, we're all different people; all through our lives, and that's okay, that's good... you've gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be. I will not forget one line of this, not one day, I swear.”

Now, I stand 4 years from that moment when I set foot inside the campus for the first time, looking back at all the memories, at all the little infinites I was a part of, at all the trips we had, with a painful but happy smile on my face. The first day in the campus was when I turned a corner in my life and found myself in an unfamiliar territory, 700 kms from home, with no one I knew around me. And now, I’m turning another corner to yet another area of life. And that is what life has in store for you in the future too. Life is going to put you in tough or difficult situations just when you were just starting to get comfortable with everything. You have to learn to make peace with those different situations that life is definitely going to put you in, deriving your strength from the memories that you made along the way. It’s okay to be a bit nostalgic to remember the memories every once in a while, because those memories are a way to relive those moments of your life once more.

I’ve always been a nostalgic person, mainly because of my belief that nostalgia is the one true thing that defines us as a person. It’s the memories we cherish with the people we care about that makes us who we truly are. And the convocation was going to be such a memory that I was going to cherish my entire life. I had been growing accustomed to the mundane schedule of the holidays, working in the lab all day, when everything turned into chaos all of a sudden. And yeah this chaos was a good chaos I could get used to.

Did you know there could be good chaos? I know because I’ve been experiencing them for the past two days. From a rather boring vacation period spending hours on end at a lab, to an absolutely unpredictable chaos with so many people you have known for years was a change I'd needed so badly. My hostel room had become like my house when we were organising a marriage, and my relatives from all over the state had come to crash at my house. But instead of the relatives from all over the place, this time it was the friends from all over the country coming to a single place for one last time. They may not be my blood relatives, but they’re my family nonetheless. As a kid, I was part of such huge chaotic situations regularly, mainly because marriages were relatively frequent and because a family reunion for every festival season was extremely common. Back then, I used to just enjoy such chaos with all my cousins but I never understood why people used to get together so frequently when it’s all so chaotic. Now I know why. 

Back then I didn’t have to deal with all the mess that was left behind after everyone left. I used to go back to my computer games and cartoons while my parents were left with the task of cleaning up the mess contemplating the beauty of the last few days. And when the few days everyone came together were beautiful, the mess left afterwards would also have a weird kind of beauty associated with it. 

I am someone who likes to keep my room neat and tidy to a “certain” extent. And hence, I’d been forced to clean up my room and arrange all the things that were left here and there after everyone left. My room’s back all neat and tidy after the cleaning now. But why am I not feeling a sense of satisfaction seeing a tidy room? I used to like everything neat and tidy. But not today. Not after seeing the happy cluttered mess that was my room for the last few days. There’s beauty in chaos & mess when it represents something. And that something was the bond of friendship that we shared. That mess represented the days in which we used to eat whatever a single person had ordered for dinner, “we would attack his food” might be a more suitable choice of words. That mess represented that if you’re together with the people you care about, nothing else matters.

Now it’s back to an eerie silence again. I have to start trying to make my peace with it again after the wonderful few days I had. It’s during those moments of silence that you contemplate the memories that you shared over and over again. Those hair styles we associated with a certain friend; That walking style and the peculiar sound they made while they walked, rubbing their sandals along the floor in a specific but unique pattern as they did so; Their unique physique that lets us recognize them from a mile away. I remember it all. So when I look around now, I see it everywhere. After a second of happiness on spotting my friend, I’m forced to come back to reality. I convince myself that the person I'm staring at is not my friend; that things are probably never going to be the same as they were. The friends I’m thinking about have all left this place. And there are only a few of us left. All we have for company are the memories that were left behind. 

When you look back at all these years, when you’re a middle aged man unable to escape from the spider web of corporate life, huffing and puffing to keep your head afloat, you’re not going to remember the classes you attended or the marks you scored but the memories that you made and the time you shared and the food you ate from the same plate with your fellow musketeers. So stop for a second. I mean actually stop reading this blog for a while after you’ve read the next 2 sentences. 

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

So stop. Look around whenever you can. Not just when you are facing the scary unknown of the impending future. Let the moment seize you. Do not let the moment pass. Life’s not all about running to get ahead of others. If you do not stop every now and then to enjoy the little things in life, you might end up regretting it. 

Change is never easy, but it is inevitable. It’s only when you are faced with change that you start realizing that everything in life has an expiration date. Everything ends. You’ll be alone in the end. But that doesn’t mean you have to be alone all throughout the journey. At the moment the last of my friends said his final goodbye, promising me that we'd get together soon, something beautiful echoed through my mind. Something I had once heard in a graduation speech somewhere. Something to help me deal with the sorrow. As much as I’d have liked to avoid it, it was necessary to confront it. Because it was something that would help me move on. And I hope it'll help you too.

“There is a universal truth we all have to face, whether we want to or not, everything eventually ends. As much as I’ve looked forward to this day, I’ve always disliked endings. Last day of summer, the final chapter of a great book, parting ways with a close friend. But endings, like change, are inevitable, Leaves fall, you close the book. You say goodbye. Today was one of those days for you & me. Today we say goodbye to everything that was familiar, everything that was comfortable. We’re moving on. But just because we’re leaving, and that hurts, there are some people who are so much a part of us, they’ll be with us no matter what. They are our solid ground. Our North Star. And the small clear voices in our hearts that will be with us … always.”