When you have parted ways….

When you have parted ways….

“I am counting my days, when’d I leave college”

I heard her say this, took a second to absorb that and then, something changed inside me.

On one hand are the final years who are all perplexed at the idea that they have to part ways soon, distance themselves from people who matter to them and move to the real battlefield called Life; on the other, are we, the others. Frustrated because of petty issues, subtle politics (doesn’t seem so subtle when you are at the receiving end of it though), internal conflicts, waves of rage, envy, inferiority complex or any other ingredient that you can think of which has a potency of making your life distasteful. 

This frustration has often overpowered the surreal fantasies that we carved out in our mind about college and college life. But the bigger question is, what is more important?

Trivial differences and conflicts or the loss that we’d bear by missing out on bonding with equally talented people around us?

2 years down the line, when each one of us would walk out of the gate we walked into in August 2012, look BACK at the MIG that we looked FORWARD to and stared in absolute surprise, bid adieu to the stone engraved with VNIT that we clicked photos with, what do we want to look back to?

A time where we could have made our expectations alive but we didn’t because we were struck with ego or extreme sensitivity or just the thought that he dint ask me why should I? A time where we had so much of unhealthy competition amongst ourselves that we began to think of each other as machines rather than working together to build one? A time when we sat looking forward to an opportunity to degrade the other?

OR, better…                                                                                                                 

A time when a Nescafe with friends in the VNIT rains breathed life into the sessional-end semester race, a time when we fanatically screamed in the auditorium and made IG one of the most unforgettable moments in life, a time when a healthy discussion on prospects after graduation made you feel intelligent?

It’s a choice that we make today.

Make the one you won’t regret when you part ways with people.

Agreed, every instance   doesn’t head the way you want, every person doesn’t react the way you expected, neither can they, nor should they. But we must make a choice. Is the difference more important than the person, his one comment more important than his friendship?

We need to rise above pettiness. Look at the bigger picture. Because, not after a very long time, we’d part ways. Probably never to meet some people in life. EVER. Not even those who you’d feel could have been your best buddies.

What do we do? Call/text/meet him. Sort out, throw up stuff, hit him, give him a hug and stay happy together.

If regret is not one thing you want to walk out of college with, just 2 simple tasks weave the magic- Apologize and Forgive. No difference, no hatred, is bigger than losing a person irrespective of how he is.

To some, this might seem one of the other crappy emotional piece, to some it might create the change it created in me. Irrespective of it. Ending the all too emotional and straight from the heart piece, I’d like to apologize to anybody who has ever, knowingly or unknowingly, felt otherwise about anything relating to me.

I am sorry, because life for me is too short to cultivate differences and too short to love enough.
 "When you find somebody you want to keep around for a long time, you must do something about it".

Love

Palak J