Places on Campus

The drums have started rolling and they're building up to the final crescendo. Less than a month to go, and the curtain has started falling on what have been the two most fantastic years of my life.

More as a bookmark for myself than for your perusal (although something tells me you aren't complaining either), this posting is about my favourite places in the campus.

As is always the case, there are far too many to mention, so I'll either write a sequel to this one, or… and this is far more likely, I'll end up mentioning only some of them for all time to come.

Close your eyes, and picture the campus of the Institute. Picture yourself walking in through the main gate, towards the old library building. Turn in at the small lane and climb the stairs that lead on to the verandah. Now take a left and go park yourself under the stairs that lead to the first floor.

Now for the ambience. Picture a dark gloomy sky at around four in the afternoon, the kind of weather that old English authors would have described as inclement. The trees look unnaturally green, people are hurrying along on the road, all too aware that its going to pour, leaves are being whirled along by an angry wind, leaving scurrying trails of dust in their wake. OK? Stay with the moment for a minute.

Now, you're under the stairs with a couple of friends of yours, with a laptop for company, when it begins to pour. Like the dickens. There's thunder, lightning, sheets of rain, and a cold wind that blows all around you. Little drops of water drip from the culvert of the building you're under, forming a transient curtain between you and the torrent outside. The laptop is playing all the monsoon songs it has. Please tell me you know what monsoon songs are.

And then the rain stops, first slowing to a drizzle, then stopping altogether. Little rivulets of water run down slopes that you hadn't noticed all around the campus.

The smell of wet earth, that wonderful, ravishing sensation, rises all around you.

A rainbow appears over the trees that border the road outside, and the temperature drops to a very, very comfortable degree of coolness.

And Shiva walks in with cups of hot steaming tea.

All to the good, yes?

All classes are, of course, conducted in the seminar room now. It's been done up very well, has air-conditioning, comfortable chairs, and all in all, is a very nice place. But I am in unabashed, permanent love with the last benches of the M.A. classroom.

The professor doesn't really matter. It could be anybody up there on the podium, talking about a subject that we shan't really focus on until three hours before the tutorial.

After the roll call has been taken, the class settles down for an hour or so of tedium. There are a select few, bless them, who shall listen, assimilate, and prepare notes. There are some who shall practice Zen Buddhism, the art of nothingness.

And there are those at the back, who shall look around, and carefully slide out Pune Times from the bags.

Folding a newspaper into a shape so that only the crossword is visible, under a bench in front of which you happen to be sitting, without making any noise at all is an art form that hasn't got the appreciation it deserves. It isn't easy at all, and if you think about it, doing that alone accounts for about five minutes in an hour that you must while away somehow.

And then you start in on the crosswords. There are around five or so of us cruciverbalists, who shall surreptitiously exchange answers, peer at each others squares, and in an hour's time manage to complete the crossword, leave a few clues here and there.

On that rare and wonderful occasion when one of us battle hardened veterans manage to complete the whole thing, we treat ourselves to chai from the tapri.

Of course, it's not as if we don't drink that chai on other days, but it used to taste better when the crossword was completed.

Hour over, battle won… and we live in the comfortable knowledge that tomorrow, another war must be fought.

All to the better, yes?

It's night time, and it happens to be a full moon night. We'll pick a night sometime in November, because we want a night that's cool without being cold, and a night that's still without being muggy. You've spent the evening in the hostel, either playing TT, or whiling away the hours in somebody's room.

Let's say it's Saturday. So you've gone out for dinner, had a good time, and without semblance of hurry, you've made your way back to the hostel. Spent time on the bench outside the Boy's Hostel, exchanging the odd word with everybody who comes back from wherever they've had dinner, and then gone on to the terrace. Sat there with your gang, at peace with the world, watching contentedly as some other people join you there, talking about nothing in particular.

After a couple of hours… and believe you me, those two hours are gone in a flash… the moon rises over the trees at the far end of the terrace, bathing the entire terrace in that wonderful soft moonlight. And then, without realizing it, you nod off.

Sometime later, somebody shakes you awake, and you stumble into your room, falling asleep on the bed as soon as you fall upon it.

All to the best, yes?