It was the last day of college. I was sitting in my convocation attire with my one hundred and twenty other batch mates. Listening to the speeches of the so called eminent guests had gotten boring one and a half years back. But that dullness had reached its zenith on that particular day. The countdown to the final moments of college life had reduced from the scale of days to hours to minutes over time. The students were desperate for the monologues to end, so that they could receive their degrees and share their last moments of celebration within the campus. It was written on their faces – each and every one of them. Yet, so challenged were the speakers in their understanding of non-verbal cues that they simply carried on their rants unfazed and undeterred.
As I was staring at the flex on the wall behind the podium, I used that time to reflect on my life over the past couple of years – especially the past few months. How tough it had been in the initial few months, how I had gradually gotten used to the hectic lifestyle, and how I had even begun to enjoy the chaos in my daily life. Six months back I had not even contemplated that this day would come, so caught up I was with trying to keep up with time in a race I knew was never going to win. But the day had finally come, and there was no way to wind the clock back. The best times in life were over, as a friend had put it, and only hardship and toil awaited on the other side of ‘today’.
The music of joy had grown to a crescendo over the past few weeks, and the hush that would come would follow suddenly, bringing about a deafening silence. The moments experienced would be gone, the laughter would fade away, and the tinges of apprehension about the unknown would make way to a profound sadness. I wished the sun would not rise the next day, that the night would stretch till eternity, that the moments would freeze in their places forever. Those wishes were intermingled with regrets that I had not lived these years to their fullest. My heart cried out as to why I had not done the things I had done in the past few weeks a bit earlier. And I was left with no answers but the drooping of my eyes and the fluttering of my heartbeat.
Why do we have to lose something in order to realize how much it meant to us? Why do we fail to appreciate something or someone we have, and take that something or someone for granted? Why do we assume that the person or thing will last forever and follow us till the end of days? Why is it that only when we are separated from it do we tend to look back on the mirror of the past, and realize how foolish we were to let it go?
Why is it that a soul's greatest cravings are born from separations? Why are the strongest longings preceded by goodbyes? And why are the most intense emotions those that arise from heart breaks? I will be pondering upon these questions forever...
