From the chronicles of my last month in India - June 24th 2009

I had just got back from Chennai yesterday morning. I got the US F1 visa, yes, but what a hassle it was. The interview lasted just a couple of minutes and the whole process took just a little over an hour. That is quite fast considering the number of applicants I saw there that day. But the hassle was not on the interview day. It lasted for almost 2 weeks just before the D-Day. Owing to a paranoia that though I had already been offered a Graduate Assistantship it was better to get as many financial documents as possible (not fake by the way) even those that I had just a minimalistic probability of being asked for by the interviewer, we ran around different banks getting all the necessary statements. As it turned out, during the interview they asked for none of the documents I worked so hard to obtain.

Anyway I now find myself on Dennis's home turf in Kodagu. Just a little over 24 hours back I had only returned to Trichur after the visa interview in Chennai. After getting back home I had quickly repacked, had a bath and within a couple of hours I was all set in a bus to Calicut to join 19 friends from college. We had planned a trip to Dennis's home and we set out in two cars from NIT Calicut, a Santro and a Wagon R. Then later, Kiru's Santro and Shillu's i10 joined us from Wynad. I was in Sajju's Santro along with Frijo, PKV and Roney. I was sitting right behind Sajju who was in the driver's seat. It was a great road trip at night. It wasn't that eventful and all but
for some reason it just felt great. Three of the best moments during the trip were obviously the sighting of a lone elephant on the road through Wynad Wildlife Sanctuary, the sudden transition from a good road to a hopelessly atrocious one across the Kerala-Karnataka border and of course the Pitch Black effect.

It was a cloudy day and we were inside a thick forest. The only lighting in the path was that of the car headlights. You switch that off and you will really learn what it is like to be blind. It was the blackest darkness I had ever seen in my life. And what more! Sajju kept trying it out a few times each black out lasting for a couple of seconds. I must admit, that was fun even if it risked us getting trapped in front a lone elephant which we might suddenly see in our path just as the lights were turned on again.

However, we reached Dennis's home without incident by around 11.30 at night taking the less travelled road via Tholpetti and Kutta. It was a really bad road after the border, but it was fun too except maybe for the owners of each car who would have empathised with the car's suspensions having to deal with such brutality. We had dinner and we were off to bed...

"I am running. I look down at my watch. Great! I am late again. Oh god! More than 30 minutes late. I am now supposed to be sitting in my Economics Class. Fantastic! I already have over 8 bunks. I reach the class and with a long, sad face I try to get in. And of course the Sir shows me the way back out... The scene changes suddenly. I seem to be in an examination room. I look around. I see the Economics Sir coming towards me. He takes my answer sheet back and politely asks me to leave. I am not supposed to be writing the exam owing to attendance shortage, it seems. Attendance shortage! In final year! Excellent! A year lost, my MS-PhD admit gone, my job also thrown away, all because of one subject - Industrial Economics! Great! Distraught, I walk back not even being able to summon the resolve to cry my heart out. I keep walking and walking. I go past F hostel, I go past E Hostel but still I keep walking. Into the bushes I walk and still keep walking until..."

I find myself awake. Maybe it was a bump with the wall beyond E Hostel or maybe something had stirred me in the real world. Anyway I am fully conscious now. I look at my watch. It is 8 in the morning on June 24th 2009. I was up after a long swim in the depths of sub-consciousness. It was a strange dream, yes, but understandable considering that I am after almost a month, again in the company of NITC friends. It is of course possible that some of my worst fears of NITC life had come alive last night. But, now is high time I let it all go, it is time I relinquish my hold on all of those few painful NITC memories of the last semester. It is time that I start waiting in anticipation for my new life in the US.