Five Years Forever - IV

If first year was the time to test the boundaries and see how they can be stretched, we realised in the second year that there were no boundaries at all. The only thing that could limit us was our own sense of where to draw the line, where to put the foot down and say “this is it.” All this however was far from my thoughts then. When I look back now on the second year the only word that comes to my mind is “freedom”, simple unrestricted abandon to do anything, anytime.

Staying in a paying guest accommodation in the first year, there were rules that we had to grudgingly comply with, especially the curfew time of 10pm (followed more in its breach but still...). Now we had moved in to a new place, which was a lone residential flat in a commercial building. By ten in the night everyone would shut shop can go home and we would become the sole masters of the building. Just because we had the option of walking in anytime, we made sure that we invariably returned late in the night, say around one. Not that these late hours were spent on some wild partying. What would happen was that all of us to gather around the flat around 10 and then walk down the road to the bus stop on the other side, lazily sink into the chairs stretch our legs and talk. Just talk. Five or six twenty year olds (God! Already feels as ancient as “once upon a time”) talking in their own childish way about life, the truth and why the world was in dumps, to who was the hottest babe in class and how all of us could sweep her off the feet in no time to why movies suck and why we still ended up watching everything twice and the likes. This was as intellectual as we could get.

I really pity the poor bus stop. If it could have willed so, it would surely have moved away, chairs, signboards and all to a place where even our shadows could not haunt it! Our path breaking philosophical discourses, for so it seemed then, look so naive now that the whole seriousness with which we took it never ceases to amuse me. I must admit though, that there was a certain honesty and innocence in all that which almost five years later looks difficult to have. Boys then, we were courageous and uninhibited; on the way of being the men we want ourselves to be now, we all can do with a bit of that fiery idealism and innocence.

So while we did elevate the bus stop to place of intellectual importance, other activities did not cease. Sporadic visits to the college continued. I must confess though that the second years had the most boring of subjects. Add that to equally boring professors and our own wise conclusion that college anyway is for people who have nothing better to do and it resulted in even lesser attendance percentages. Personally I hardly attended any class in the second year. I did put up a brave front in the beginning but could not help from dozing off in the class. So figured that I would better sleep in the flat rather than go all the way to the college and listen to monotonous lullabies of professors that would put to sleep even a bat in the night.