The finale

“This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again

Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...stranger's hand
In a...desperate land”

(from The End by The Doors)

Francis Ford Coppola’s magnum opus begins with these tranquil lines playing in the background as a strip of jungle gets lit with fresh napalm. I am yanking these lines out their intended context and am pasting them here. My college days are drawing to an end. The finale will be the very last lab exams of the course.

There’s still one more theory paper and a course viva, to be faced before the grand finale enters the picture. I don’t know what I will be up to once this four year long dream ends. I just hope that the dream doesn’t get extended into a nightmare.

My vision has become hazy especially when I try spying the future. Predicting the future is like sailing in uncharted territory. You can chart out a course in the ocean of life and try to stick to it, hoping that the rest of the variables in this complex equation turn out to be your allies.

I am not desperately in need of a change. I have become used to this groove. This college has witnessed der untergang and the revival of my little life. I have become resilient. I ought to be thankful, I guess, to this unfeeling cluster of concrete structures and the students who define the college’s character.

In a few weeks, most of the students of my batch will be viewing College of Engineering, Trivandrum, no longer as their own. Will be witnessing it morph into yet another alma mater. People are going to be scattered around the country, like a seedpod exploding to disperse its children.

Thanks to the service industry which has absorbed most of the 2006 batch, the transition into the next change wouldn’t be too hard for the majority, as there will be lots of old faces to stand by them while the future weaves its new patterns in their lives. Many others are going to continue the pursuit of further education.

After we (provisionally) step out of this place, a new consignment of raw materials is going to enter the production line. Fresh faces might bring about a change of character to the college. Our life at CET was tumultuous. It was one great roller coaster ride. I think I am overdoing the use of the word “roller coaster” in everything that I write.

The future is uncertain. But there’s one philosophy that most CET-ians might adher to, no matter what comes in their path. Geo had written about it once. The keyword is -

Mair-Uth-Anne…

[In rough terms, its contextual meaning is that “it doesn’t matter”]