Of Celestial Nostalgia

It started with Saturn.

I was looking up for some details of night sky these days (and an impending solar eclipse), an almost guilty reminder of a passionate hobby during under-grad, and I was reminded of a homepage of a friend which used to carry a pretty useful software which formed my desktop screensaver for years, one I was really proud of showing off. While the homepage didn’t exist, a google search landed me elsewhere, on some blogs, which took me somewhere else, which further took me to some defunct blogs of people I knew in what almost feels like a past life. I was reminded of times when I wanted to get away from that life because I was getting tired of being a nobody among a league of extraordinary gentlemen.

For a few maniacal minutes, I just wanted to go back again. Desperately. To a life, I think, I will end up liking more than my current one, when I look back later. To passions pursued with dead seriousness, only to be dropped inexplicably the moment I stepped out of that life into another. To some of those people who I always wanted to emulate, but never had the ability to do so. To some likeminded people. To some of those moments which will be difficult to forget, the banality and mundaneness notwithstanding. To some of those mistakes and bloopers I can’t believe I committed. To some of those blistering Mays, sticky Augusts, freezing Januaries and there’s-something-in-the-air Marches.

Sometimes it takes the unlikeliest of instances to take you to a life you left behind, and the smallest of pokes to remind you how much you still miss it. I am glad for the whole lot of us from the same mould who seem to have found a better life afterwards, owing to whatever reasons.

The year in perspective

With the speed at which time flies by, one might actually begin to believe that time is running out. For what, you ask? Oh, generally, nothing in particular :). But the feeling gets stronger with each passing year, no doubt. Each one feels faster than its predecessor in its passage.

I also maro-ed another trip abroad – this time to US, to the Stanford university. And like both previous trips, there was a lot that I discovered along the way, not just monuments and museums, but about people and ways of thinking. In fact, in hindsight, it is rather interesting –my three phoren trips have come at an interval of 2 and a quarter years. Let’s hope the next one is not that far away :)

Internship was one of the best experiences of this year. For something as non-committal as it turned out to be, I sure put in a lot of effort. And clichéd as it might sound, after a long time it seemed like I had found something I liked doing, and more importantly, found people I like working with – people who would make great colleagues to anyone! It was a sad end to an honest effort, but then, I guess you don’t get back to life just because it hasn’t allowed you your way for pretty much the first time. I don’t suppose I ever had the need to ‘shrug and move on’ before, so it as well turned out to be!

Vista happened, and it was exhausting, at times exasperating, but ultimately a satisfying experience. More so for the desire to prove. Hopefully, at least some people might have thought that I was not all that bad.

I guess from a personal point of view, it was difficult to match the good things of 2007, which had almost felt like redemption after 2006. However, the start of the year was brighter than the previous one – marked by an academic revival, only to be topped with an internship where I hoped to make a mark for myself, rendering an easy 2^nd year. I started the year with hopes and aspirations, and it ends with confusion and a rather helpless feeling of not being in control of what is likely to happen. Turns out that the year peaked too early, pretty much around the time oil was over 140 :), and things have been, well, pretty much downhill from down there with little to be happy about. Along the way, I also fell in love twice, once with Mumbai and once with California :). One for the sheer captivating nature of it, and one, for the idealism and comforts of existence.

I was back in MDC for the summers’ process of PGP1s. I could swear that the place did not look a day older. And this time I was in yet another avatar, that of a tracker. It is fun, because you get to know pretty much everyone in the batch by name, but then it also means that you are a part of the exhilaration and the disappointments, the puffed eyes and the elated hugs. In less than two months’ time, I would be back there for one last time, in the same avatar as the first time. Life comes back full circle, I guess.

Time draws close and in two months I would be checking out of this place forever. In hindsight it is almost unbelievable how fast 6 terms went by – and this is not the sigh!-good-things-hardly-last feeling, but one of being on to something pretty much all the time, never allowing myself any time to sit back and think. Let’s face it – I may feel differently at the end of March, but until now my feelings about this place have been rather cold. I never liked this place – it did not embrace me the way IITK did. The stones are as cold as they were on day 1. I see people around, and many of them sure look like they got more out of this place than just a career. I am not sure if I wish I was one of them – I just know that for some reason I never allowed myself to want that.

Another year gone by, with really, nothing to write home about. I am not too excited about the coming one either. Forests have been razed to get it in print how 2009 might just be worse than ever in living memory. I do not intend to harp on that. Let’s just get on with it.

An aside, but I just completed a Star wars weekend - all six movies back to back. Totally fell in love with it. Can't believe I kept it for so late in life!!