a new start... a new home... (a reveiw back in time)

well... this is the third one... my article... that was printed on 10th july 2006... eduplus collegian the hindu



Well… its admission time and most of you will be off to your new college, and some of you might be staying in hostel. You know what people say about staying in hostel, especially for the first time. I for one am really attached to home and never liked going places. But I decided there was no way I was going to feel homesick when I joined IIT Madras about a year ago. After all, it’s a whole new world out there waiting for me to explore. My parents were there with me for the admission, but I was alone on my first day of classes. It won’t be so tough without them. That’s what I kept telling myself.
On my first day of college, I woke up early about 5.30 (on my own!!!). It was a bright morning and I sang to myself
“It’s a new day, a new start
It’s alive with the beating of a young heart…”
– Here I Am by Bryan Adams
Nothing can go wrong. I washed my clothes, took a bath, made up my bed, cleaned my room and I was ready for breakfast by about 7. We, girls from my department, left for mess together and had some jolly good time, chattering away and wondering how our first day is going to be like. By 7.30 we were on our cycles zooming off to classes. In all the classes we paid extreme attention to every word the professor had to say. Time passed by quickly, as we shuttled between classes with our confusing timetable and before we knew it, it was lunchtime. I wasn’t even hungry.
I was all excited; things have been going just great. It was then that I realized I was cycling alone and I lost my way. It sounds stupid now, but back then, it was easy to get lost even on a straight road. I was staring at a traffic island. Was I supposed to go right or left? I was not even familiar with traffic rules. I strained my memory and decided to go right, so I jerked my handle suddenly, cut the circle and turned right. I hadn’t even gone 2 meters when a security guard stopped me and warned me never to cut short the circle again and let me go. He was friendly and nice.
I was all bubbling with enthusiasm to tell my sister (she is a fourth year student here) about my day. She was waiting for me outside the hostel and I ran up to her. But as I reached her, I turned all blue. Wondering why was looking so down, all she did was ask what had happened, and a dam broke somewhere. I burst into tears. She hurriedly rushed me to her room where I sat crying like a five year old who fell down the stairs. My sister was exasperated trying to find out what had gone wrong. There was nothing to say. Nothing happened. It’s just that I felt like crying. I had no idea why, but I just felt like crying. I had a great day and just one more class to attend. It was almost perfect. But I felt like crying. May be I was, what they say, ‘homesick’!
That was the first time I cried in IIT Madras. And in the months to follow I cried over a hundred times. Mostly because I got myself into a bad situation or I fought with a friend or I scored less in a paper. But never again did I shed a tear in the memory of home. Why would I when I was at home, my new home!

Comments