...footPrints...

I got my first real six-string, bought it at the five and dime…

Played ‘til my fingers bled, it was the summer of 69…

Me and some guys from school, had a band and we tried real hard…

Jimmy quit, and Jody got married, I should’ve known, we’d never get far…

Oh when I kook back now, that summer seems to last forever…

And if I had a choice, ya I’d always wanna be there

Those were the best days of my life... 

There is a reason why this Bryan Adams song is, was and always will be the best in the world ever. It sings a story about life. A part of life that every one of us has lived through. A part of life everybody wants to live all over again. 

Today, we are all in different parts of India, some of us even beyond. We have struggled to stand on our own feet, and finally got the first breakthrough. We are happy to be where we are today. And we are happy to remember the four years spent together in RIT. The place, where on an October 16^th in 2002, a bunch of about 60 kids came together in a classroom to start one of the most exciting journeys of their lives, a journey which brought them to where they are now, and which will take them much beyond hopefully. 

I remember the days when we started our journey. The ragging sessions everyday. All the things the seniors made us do in front of the class, and we couldn’t look up and smile, ‘coz it could be us next. The dosas Preena made, the duet by Sen and Tina, and finally, the fresher’s day celebrations which was the icing on the cake. The way we embarrassed ourselves was out of this world. I don’t remember one programme out of the 60 minutes we had which was worth applauding for. We showed our talent, and got booed big time. This was the first step and we went for it, even though it ended on a very bad note. Those memories bring smiles to me now, and I bet it would do the same to you. Our class tours, they were the best. The trip to Ooty in the second year, the Mathews-Rincy enactment, the KK-Sherin enactment, and the Rajavu ki Jai, the Hogganakkal falls, the Ramoji film city, the late night songs in the hotel corridor. I miss those days. The lab sessions, the lab exams, and the lab records, the assignments that somebody wrote, the classes I never attended, the virtuosos, the arts festivals, the strikes, the exams, the suppli’s, the Thankachan Sir, and all the other things that passed us during our stay there. Our Vadam-Vali team, our pookalams, our Mr. University. We really had a lot as a team, even though we never won anything as a team. Until the last year, when we won the biggest of all the prizes in the last competition we took part as a team, Keli-06. I really miss those days. I guess that’s what Bryan Adams was trying to say. Those really were the best days of my life. 

Now I’m in some city where time runs faster that I can catch it. Days zipping past by like bullets. I’m still in my journey in life that has no destination. And when I think of the days in college, it brings tears to my eyes, a tear of joy for the days we spent together, a tear of sadness for the fights I had, a tear of joy for the friends that I made, and a tear of sadness for the friends that I lost. I realize that I could have got back everything that I had lost in college if I ever get to live that life again, but I know it’s impossible. And today, when I think of the batch of ’06, the rhythm of RIT, which has become a rhythm of my own heartbeat, I realize that I have gained much in life in those four years than anything I have or ever will in my whole life.