It's Over

'OK, thank you...Who's next...'

And just like that I knew that it was over. My project 'supervisor' gave me sly glance which said something like 'huh! there goes another one'. The tales of summer extentions and the reputation of a certain professor in my group coupled with the fact that I myself didn't think that I had done enough to deserve a Master Of Computer Science & Engineering had made me almost believe that I wouldn't scrape through. But I just had. Surely they wouldn't call me back for an encore!

The heat had already got into most of us. The campus wore a deserted look. Everyone I knew, well almost everyone, would have gladly taken a D. Somehow grades didn't matter anymore. All that did was to get through. Everything was binary. On one side were all the grades above D, inclusive. On the other were the nightmares of a summer extention or worse.

IIT wore a different look that day. Everything seemed so much more calmer, peaceful. Like the end of a big event, started with much pomp and show. But one which had lost its significance mid-way through and everyone, the participants as well as the spectators were just waiting for it to get over. The result didnt matter. Not to either parties. The end did. To both. It took time to sink in especially because some of us had yet another day to go, another day of anxiety and restlessness. Another day of grinding it out while everything around you, from your friends to the weather screamed out loud to do otherwise. But gradually it did. I had achieved something, something most people would probably die for, something which might not be the best thing to happen to me but was certainly the most important till date and one which is likely to stay forever, no matter what I do or who I become. And I was happy. Very happy. Happy to have made it through. And there was a tinge of sadness too. For I knew a watershed event had ended. A five year journey which is never likely to be replicated in any form. It was time to move on.

It got over the next day, 31st May 2006. Everyone had made it. It was time to raise a toast. We went to MJ in the afternoon and got drunk. Even the ones who didnt drink ended up having 5/6 shots of vodka. The beer flowed as did the whiskey. The sardar laughed like only he could, the tallad smoked without the filter, and the rest of us just went berserk, crazy and wild. The sense of relief was unprecedented, the occasion, grand. We stayed there for quite some time before deciding to get back to IIT. And then it rained. We got wet and took shelter in the Vision Lab. Everybody was high and happy. There was nothing more to worry about. The assignments, vivas, projects, presentations were all over. Lectures, majors and minors had long become history to most of us.

Dinner at Mezbaan and then Star Wars in the Vision Lab. The day got over in a pretty sober fashion and along with it many things. Looking back, its the sense of utter relief that stands out among the gamut of emotions that were felt during those two days. The end although was quite sweet.