That was it!

I slid my hand inside the window to hand over my documents & ID card (with 3 visibly faked signatures at the back-side, thanks to my friends) to the person behind the window. She observes the ID card carefully, gazes at me in suspicion for getting the signatures forged, and finally smiles and ignores as if nothing really happened. That was it! I was officially a non-DTUite now.

Walking back with nostalgia about the place, I picked up one of those yellow Ofo cycle parked beside the Nescafe, and intentionally took a bigger route via OAT and Science Block heading my way back to the hostel. It felt as if I’ve let go a part of myself; a different minimal lifestyle, unique set of people, a small but large enough campus (excessively large if compared to DU :p), and much more. Some experiences can’t be classified as just good or bad, they are rather “different” (one of their sorts), and that’s how my 4 years at DTU have been.

4 years ago, I entered this place as a homesick, self-obsessed and socially anxious person just after being thrashed off by the IIT madness, with new dreams, new ambitions, in an entirely new environment. From almost always willing to go home every fortnight (and sometimes even earlier) to not wanting to go back even 10 days after everything was over, that’s how my perspective about this place has changed over the 4 years. I have never felt so comfortable in my entire life like I’ve felt in the last few months, and it’s hard that I’d have to leave. Leave all those luxuries of just enough spacious rooms with just enough amenities to survive, sleeping and waking up at whatever time and for as many hours as I wish to, many different kinds of people having certain admirable uniquenesses of their own (some carefree, some insanely smart, some innocent, and some with surprisingly similar interests), those 2-3 am walks in the premises, those exhausting tennis/badminton matches, the Engifest (and dancing with all sorts of weird moves with the hostel folks for 3 nights in a row), those Ofo cycle midnight drag races, those butter-rotis and Paneer-butter-masala at Apsara with unlimited supply of chutney/onions (not to forget the “saunf”), the “not-so-tasty” mess food and the conversations with people whom I mostly saw at the mess, the night canteen (aka “Mic Mac”) near a giant tree and it’s highly frustrating (but nice) shopkeeper, the tensed “don’t-know-syllabus-until-last-day” to “didn’t-start-anything-until-last-night” to “syllabus-not-finished-until-very-last-moment” like exam weeks, the annoying internet that responds erratically to sites like Quora and StackOverflow, and the list goes on…

I hate that time moves on so much differently than we anticipate. Sometimes it feels like it’s been just a few days I’ve been to this place. And then again, it feels like the final 2-hour drive back home would be much longer than it seems. But as time flows, it brings a lot of change (things change, people change, places change), and sometimes it freaks you out. It’s hard to accept that the days of Hackathons and free food are over (and I won’t be able to wear those cool Hackathon T-shirts to my workplace), I won’t have time to fill up those Hackathon application forms with so much enthusiasm (and a slim hope that we’d be accepted and travel places), I won’t have time to work on silly ideas like wtfpython, that there might no longer be any endless quest for cashabacks/discounts on apps like Faasos, Zomato & Paytm, and most importantly, the people that I’ve been with in all those 4 years, they would become “too” busy in their own life hustles, and I won’t be able to see more than 90% of those faces again in my life.

If there’s something that I have learned in these four years (except for a bit of Computer stuff), it is the fact of “what matters more” and what not. After 4 years of hustles and hard work, I wanted to no longer care about marks, or getting a job at one of the dream tech companies. Instead, I wanted to make a few nice memories with a few awesome people at this place which I can cherish during the rest of my journey. I realized that health and relations come foremost any other commitment in the world, because it’s not the place that’s awesome (we always had bad things to say about the hostels/classes/labs and all) it’s the people surviving in that place which made it awesome.

I also realized I’m not the center of the world, and no matter how much efforts I put, no matter what I do, there’s very very high probability that I’d be some random person to 99.9999999% of the world (Example, no matter if you have a placed in a top company and about to earn millions, the library guy will still refuse to issue your book sometimes, the MechC guy will still keep you waiting for hours, or you’ll still have to go thousand times to get your file passed from the registrar), but the remaining 0.00000001 (don’t count the zeroes, I put them randomly :p) is what that matters. They are the people who’d be in touch not because of your skills/position/capabilities but because of your stupidity/honesty and ability to crack lame jokes. I really wish some of us stay in touch for long.

I guess that’s enough for now. I can go on to write an entire book about the college experience, but I have bored you enough. The post was a long overdue, I couldn’t complete it before probably because I still thought that I have some time left at the place.

Anyways, It’s time to pack my stuff, and travel back with a lot of memories (and regrets), with new dreams about the drastically changed upcoming life, to a place that has been constant throughout everything, to my home! :heart: