Dear Reader. Have you ever tasted heartache? Not the romantic kind, but the kind where a lot of familiar, friendly things seem to be slipping away from you?
Right until graduation, I felt close to my friends even though they weren't in Mumbai, but now they seem to be slowly but surely sailing away into a sunset; a gorgeous red and golden future of which I have no part.
I'm happy for them. I wish they always sail on clouds of glory so that I can tell my grand children, d'you know so and so? Well I used to go partying with them! Ha!
For there's no doubt about it, that each of them is going to be a very great, a very special person some day. They not only have the ability but also the drive and the ambition which are equally important. I have been inspired by them, and I have admired them.
The best thing that has ever happened to me was getting into IIT. Finally, it is not the lectures, or the opportunities which I value most, though they were certainly very helpful, but the people I have met. They showed me how to live. How to be passionate about something, how to want to contribute to a cause and most of all, how to just be myself.
They accepted me for who I was, an overly dramatic, crazy nerd. I didn't have to pretend to be cooler than I was, or nerdier than I was. They were my friends all the same. I've felt that most of my life, I've tried to adjust to the people around me in order to fit in. But in IIT I realized that not fitting in was the key to fitting in, and not fitting in, simply meant being myself.
I am grateful that I got a chance to meet the people I have become closest to. They are going to be starting new lives in a different country, but I guess I'll be starting a new life too. Here's to the next chapter!
Cheers.
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