For Those Pursuing Roads Not Taken

This one is for my seniors. I am sorry I could not be there for your farewell(s), but as some of you know my state of health is a little bad.

I still remember the first day of college. After orientation, we were told to go home. On the way out I was accosted by a group of seniors, but I was not afraid. These people did not seem hostile, they had welcoming smiles on their faces and they became my first ever friends in college. By the end of the first week, my seniors had told me which books to refer to, why the infamous WBUT Organizer was necessary and the importance of doing classes.

My seniors were not confined to just the Electrical department in college. They were everywhere. They were also from all years. I remember being struck by how much I had in common with them. I must digress here and point out that I was a kid who did not like his school life because I felt like I was different, and I was made to feel different in certain cases. As a result of this, I found that I read different books and watched different movies that the rest of the crowd and for that reason, people called me crazy and not in a good way.

All of this changed in college. I found friends with the same “mental disorder” as me, and I started to feel right at home within the first month of college. This was made possible due to the part my seniors played in that first month.

I clearly remember chatting with some people from fourth year, who have now passed out, others from third year, who will now pass out and my immediate seniors the second years who were like my pack (if I assume I am a wolf). The Fresher’s welcome they threw us was an amazing way to integrate myself into the college, because after that program I was officially a part of the college.

I also would not have been able to anchor the annual college fest, Metapsyconix if a senior hadn’t come to me, thrust a microphone in my hands and said to me “Get up there, Ashesh”.

I realise I am rambling on here, so I think I should wrap up soon.  I guess what I’m trying to say is I love my seniors and I will miss each and every one of them. That is the reason I did not name any of them in this writeup because all of them are special in their own unique way.

I will miss playing FIFA with them, shooting photos which become WhatsApp and Facebook DP’s for them. I realise that I will step into my final year after this semester and then pass out myself. There will be no familiar senior faces in the college for this last year.

Know this. All of you made a difference to a kid fresh out of school, who is now a grateful junior, honoured to have seniors like you.

I hope you will forgive me, because I must now put a stopper on the words I have written and refer to the words of the immortal J.R.R. Tolkien thus

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say!

Ashesh Mitra