Ramblings: Goodbye

Ten days ago, when April finally began, I had a couple of random thoughts about the fact of it being my last month in Nagpur. I wondered how I could say a fitting goodbye to a city that I had adopted for five years - one that has sheltered me for my college life. It's true that Nagpur wasn't a city that I chose, but one that was allotted to me through an entrance exam. The city didn't choose me either, for I knocked at its doors and could gain entry only through vacancies left open by others who left before I arrived. Nevertheless, it's a city that I adopted as mine. People often argue against child adoption with the strange idea that there cannot be any meaningful bond between the parents and their adopted child because they don't share any genes with each other. I was a very avid Quora surfer at some point in my brief life history and that was where I read a mother write that it isn't their DNA report that a kid will hold up in the air twenty years down the line to certify a bond with their parents; instead, they'll be reminiscing over old, fat photo albums and holding their parents' trembling hands tight to celebrate a triumph of love, which, frankly speaking, is all that matters. Memories, not genes, are what make a bond. The same analogy goes for cities too - I may not have any familial roots in Nagpur, but it is the place where I've made my catalogue of memories that I will possibly recount at every stage of life. Nagpur, apart from home, of course, is a place that has given me a sense of belonging. Every time I left for home or for an internship, I knew that I would always be coming back for something more and to resume some unfinished business, be it to catch up on empty gossip with friends or to simply attend a class, there was something to look forward to. Even when we had to leave Nagpur back in 2020 because of the lockdown, we took strength throughout from the belief that one day, we will all be back together in college again. This time, however, it's the end game, the last goodbye.

All through this fifth year in college, I (along with most of my batchmates, I presume) have been waiting listlessly for this arduous journey to screech to a halt at its final destination. We are almost there now, it's just a matter of a fortnight more before we can alight this train and be free to roam around, explore, or perhaps to board another one right afterwards. For many, this has only been a connecting train to bring them to the start of their actual journey, while for others, they have realised that travel isn't really meant for them, what they heartily long for is to settle down somewhere in peace and comfort. Whatever the next step may be, there is no denying that we have managed to get through this perilous journey with each other's support. Support, not in the sense that we have always stood united in the face of calamitous circumstances, but support in the way that we have been accommodative and given space for everyone to co-exist. There are so many students in my batch with whom I have never ever held a proper conversation, and then there is a vast majority with whom my acquaintance is limited to a fleeting wavy flick of the wrist to say hello, nevertheless, in this moment of goodbyes, I wish to embrace every single one of you. We were thrown our farewell bash the day before yesterday, #TheLastDance, where amidst all the dancing and drinking frenzy, people started to break down. It happened all of a sudden really - one moment we were jumping up-and-down to the DJ's hip-hop tracks, the next moment our juniors dedicated a song on friendship to us and the floodgates broke open. We cried our hearts out as we began making promises to stay connected to each other. I didn't cry, but did feel particularly sad seeing such raw emotions float into the air and couldn't escape the soundings of separation. Yesterday, while sieving through footage from the previous night, I got stuck and kept playing a small, one-minute video on loop. I couldn't initially place what it was in that video that tugged at my heart strings. Later, though, it hit me that in the video, a group of us are swearing to make sure to meet every once in a while and one of my friends there says that we will definitely get together once every two-three years. TWO-THREE YEARS! That's too long a timeframe to handle being apart. When it was my turn to answer when we would all meet, I blurted out tomorrow. It might have appeared to be a joke to my friends whom I addressed it to, because we often employ humour as a defence mechanism to avoid emotional confrontations. I do it a lot too, but in this instance, I wasn't doing that, I was serious. I always want to meet you all again tomorrow, not once in a year or once in a month or once in a week as if it were a chore that had to be done, but tomorrow, because I love you. Episodes and antics involving you all will forever make up the core of my memories, some fresh and some old. But I don't want to make us a memory. I don't want to have to remember you and the times we had together, I want us to stay together and keep making these memories. It's as simple a desire as that.

P.S. I hope no one minds the mid-blogpost transition in language from third-person to first-person. It's my first actual personal post and I have no clue yet on how they are best written.

P.P.S. To all those reading this who consider me a friend, I love you!