Vetty Post #2

Sweet fumes of Nostalghia

A trip back to the Alma Mater is always special. It's been just 22 months away from her but the intensity of the Nostalgia was already sky-high. Six of us decided to make it to the "Waves", the cultural festival of the Institute ... If not all of us, I was not bothered much about the culturals. You just need a pretext to be there again - The very idea of walking through those familiar frontiers is always an excitement. 

There is something very strange about Nostalgia - Only Nostalgia can transform the most mundane of the memories into very special remembrances, Only Nostalgia can render that special halo romanticizing the dullest moments of the past. Nostalgia, in a way is a very "selective" memory - You tend to relive and relish things which with some reason (for that particular individual atleast) are meaningful, sentimental or inspiring or whatsoever.

For me, Nostalgia about the institute was multi-diamensional ... Personal, Nostalgia about the places, the sense of social cohesion which the whole setup provided etc. Visit to the library, being under the Insti-roof , walks through the Shopping complex and the hostel corridors, breakfast at the Monginis - Very special moments they are - Longing for the past was just aggravating over time. As always during the "odd-sems", the campus was sparkling green.

Vasco da Gama occupies just three parallel streets and will look very ordinary in terms of the tourism value and the social life it offers but the kind of experience and memory that each of us carry with respect to Vasco is enormous. Dining at the Vasco Inn and Ginza's, snack at "The Temptations" were a part of the wish-list of all of us ... We ticked the boxes one-by-one. How can you travel to Goa all the way and not visit a beach at all ? - Bogmalo it was and a carefree four hours there.

This will well be incomplete if it doesn't carry a reference towards the perennial raconteur of the group - Cheenu. Cheenu's storytelling expertise is something which will age like wine - He did recall some of the evergreen bullet-points of our times there. We covered everything starting from Physics 1, Computer Programming exams, Mechanics of Solids project submission, duels with the profs, notoriousness at the labs, check-posts infront of BH1, Birthday parties and so much more  - we had an additional audience for the above - the junior guys.

Those are "Good old days" ... {Read the paragraph 2 aloud again}  :)

PS: "Nostalghia" is a 1983 film by Andrei Tarkovsky, one of my personal favourites.