Cleaning up my closet

It was one of those lazy Saturday evenings. I didn't have any particular thing to do for the day. After waking up at 11 in the afternoon & having a breakfast at 12:30 followed by lunch at 4pm, you can pretty much imagine how my day was going. It is one of these kind of days when I log in to Orkut. Orkut is a great time pass. You can flip through your friend's photo albums, check out their testimonials & scrapbooks. You don't realize how time flies in doing such completely irrelevant activities but you still enjoy them so much.

Flipping through a friends' profile, I came across a profile of someone whom I knew once upon a time, someone who used to be good friends with me once upon a time, and today when I just fumbled upon this profile in my friend's friend circle, it felt so strange. The distance between us had grown so much that now I was even hesitating to send a friend request! I felt as if a lifetime had passed by & we were complete strangers to each other now.

I was angry with myself. I still missed the beautiful bond I once shared with this person. I do not know what our differences were which got us so apart. But things were ended on such an abrupt note that I realized there was still a part of me which was yearning for that friendship! There was still something that was eating me from within. I wanted to get back and re-live all those memories, leaving aside our individual egos. Someone had to do it. I have always believed that life is too short to waste living with such grudges so I decided to take the first step to sorting things out.

I picked up the phone. Called up the common friend. She herself was surprised to hear from me after such a long time. I had gotten so busy with my life that keeping in touch was a thing of the past. After our initial exchange of "how have you been", "hows work","lets meet up sometime", I finally came to the point.
"Do you have ...'s number or email address?". She was surprised but then she also knew I would not have called her without some motive.
She promptly passed the number to me. I thanked her and hanged up.

I picked up the phone and dialed the number. The phone started ringing and my heart started beating harder with every ring. I was still speculating how this person would reciprocate.What should be my opening line? Would ... recognize my voice after all these years? There were a million questions in my mind and the phone was still ringing.

Tring...Tring....Tring...

"Hey, don't you have office today? Its already 9 am!"
"What are you staring at me for?Get up, you lazy bum!"
I opened my eyes and suddenly realized that the phone wasn't ringing but my alarm clock was.It was 9 am on a Monday morning and I was still in bed and my room-mate was shouting at me from the other end of the room.

Oh Gosh, the whole thing was a dream after all.I was disappointed.
And it just occurred to me that I didn't manage to clean up my closet after all :-(!

Nostalgia

I was visiting my alma mater,Manipal Institute of Technology last week for my final MTech presentation.While walking around the campus with my old roomie Nisha,it suddenly dawned on us that these were our last few days here. Two years had just flown by.Technically speaking, I was in Manipal only for a year- my first year of MTech. I got an internship in Bangalore for the second year and had to move out, Nisha stayed back though. But that one year of hostel life at MIT was the most exciting, memorable, enjoyable year of my life and it was as if I had lived an entire lifetime in those two semesters. I promised Nisha then that I was going to pen down a few of these memories for my blog. Coming back to Bangalore, I got busy with my work and today, finally I have managed to find the time to put up this post.So here it goes...this one's for my Alma Mater!

Things I can never forget about Manipal......

• B3 Quarters, a home away from home. The staff Quarters converted into a hostel for the Post Graduate Students and the experience of living in it with 5 strangers for an entire semester!
• Room No.307, 4th Block: My home for the second semester and a taste of the 'real' hostel life..All the pains we took to get into it, including a verbal fight with the MIC girls (my debut ;-) )
• The Group Study Hall in the MIT Library, where we watched movies, chatted for hours together, had long discussions, spent more time than in my hostel room and ofcourse, sometimes managed to study too ;-)
• Maddy a.k.a Madhuri-A vegetarian roomie who would freak at every sight of me having chicken in the mess and our vegetarianism v/s non-vegetarianism fights that would go all night in our hostel room.
• Murgi a.k.a Nisha and her strange fascination for sun-rise photography!
• Channveer, my classmate and study pal, who always treated me like I was a guy and taught me how to ride a bike.
• Uma, my old roomie and the only other gal besides me in the class of MTech CSE 2007-09.
• The taste of Maggie cooked with a forbidden Electric Heater in the hostel room in the middle of the night:Noodles never tasted so good!
• The Chicken Kababs from Ashraya Mess...Mmm..I still remember the taste....why would they give only 6 pieces in a plate :-(?
• The Manipal End point: Our own spot for the little trekking adventures
• The adventure trip to the mountains of Kodachadri with Akshay, Channveer and Uma and the bumpiest ride of my life from Kollur to Kodachadri
  
• The General class train journeys from Manipal to Goa and back and all the interesting experiences I had aboard.
• The juice Centre at MIT Cafeteria and my favourite, the mango milk shake!
• The open book tests in AI: the number of reference books we would carry to class and come out dejected every time coz not a single one would be useful.
• The First semester presentation in the class and how I managed to get an A+ despite all the odds.
• The Second Semester Results and the excitement of becoming a 9 pointer for the first time in my life.
• The sizzling Chocolate Brownie at Saiba and how we would order it just for all the attention we would get when the waiter would arrive with it.
• The pappu from Andhra Mess with the extra ghee
• The last minute preparations for sessionals
• The Swimming sessions at the MIT swimming pool
• Diwali Celebrations at B3
• The Day I cracked VMware Interview
• The birthday Treats at Saiba, Guzzlers,Dullops and Kediyoor
• The Trip to Malpe at the end of semester one with Channveer and Uma
• The screening of RDB at the MIT Quadrangle
• The Manipal Rains and how no umbrella or raincoat could save us from getting wet coz it would rain in all directions :-)