It was a sure feeling of losing something. Letting go of something that was a part of me for six years - something I was a part of too... IARI. The rain was adding to the nostalgia that was building up. It was raining on the day of my M Sc counselling.. and its raining now, six years later as I circulate the notice for my final Ph D viva voce.
I can feel that rush I felt when I first set foot here. I remember being totally mesmerized by the thick trunks of the stately Arjan trees and ancient looking wild Jamun trees... the chaotic vegetation that was so unlike the previous campuses I had studied in. There were grey hornbills on some branches, and plenty of peacocks. The jamun fruit lay scattered, squashed making purple blotches on the sidewalks. The air was thick with moist odours of squashed fruit, wet wood and earth.
Today, as I walked back from Lal Bahadur Shastri Building, towards the gate, I stopped to look at the amethyst globes of jamun, splattered around. Some had collected in a puddle, fermenting - as if in a mini mud-vat of jamun wine making! A little microcosm - the puddle was teeming with little water bugs, fruit flies were suspended mid air in their lazy, non-buzzing flight wondering whether to oviposit or not... so much activity in a few square centimeters! The drizzle strengthened into rain and I stood in it, soaking in the last rain I would catch at IARI!
Many students on their bikes whizz past. I don't know them, and they hardly know me.. I am a 'super-senior'. Some Malayali juniors trundle past on their Ladybird bicycles.. one of them recognizes me and waves out to me with an effusive smile. The 'brown dog association' as I called it.. a bunch of brown dogs, all part of the same litter is all grown up now. Pummy hated it when I called out to them and talked to them as they looked at me quizzically. Now they are heading towards the porch of the library - they hate getting their paws wet.
I reach the turning where, on many of our 'after-dinner strolls', we (Pummy, Chhawi, Vinni, Kalyani and I) would abruptly veer away at the familiar sight of a bunch of approaching lumpenous seniors - who had changed their dinner timings just so that they could bump into the chicks who were out for their walk! Many of those lumpens are scientists now! Married, with kids and all!!
Okay, now. The gate is here. Out I go. And I'll be back pretty soon, so I should save some words for the final farewell ;)
Gosh, I never knew time could fly this fast... I slowly approach the end of my extended childhood.. a prolonged state of studenthood, that was my Ph D.
