Final Year Syndrome

 

            The days had become quite different now. First two years of my college life were more favouring and in fact flavouring than the days in the final year. It looks like everybody has been infected with a virus. The virus spread like a pandemic. Their behaviours changed; their attitudes changed; the criteria they had to make friends changed; while they remain or at least believed to be the same as they were. It looked to me in the beginning as if they were spurious. But I was wrong. It is the love I failed to digest. They started to express the deeply buried affections they had inside them. They started to love indifferently. The gangs started to dissolve while the whole class started to become one. I was standing away, in a fact chaotic, unable to adopt the sudden change in people around me. The sudden love from nowhere felt fake to me. It took me so long to realize how stupid I was to even confuse their true love for intimacy. How boorish I had been to them, my friends. It was all the sudden change in their attitude that baffled me. I name it the Final year Syndrome.

            Few months had rolled from that day. The second internal examinations were about to start then. The whole class was studying except me. I was alone in a corner like a spider speculating the whole class without any dispatch of my presence. They were in gangs, sitting in circles; one among them narrates the entire book while the others listen. Every circle had a pro learner whose efforts the previous night served a greater purpose than just writing their own exams. Everything seemed normal. But something tiny and strange struck my eyes. Those were not the usual gangs. There were new inmates in every tribe than the usual. Yeah, I called them tribes. There are many tribes in our class. The ‘teacher men tribe, the ‘Fat pockets’ tribe, the ‘I don’t care’ tribe, the ‘Laugh for anything’ tribe and the last ‘Belong to none’ tribe. And I still don’t know where to put myself in those. There are few like me who deed with one, dine with other and ditch with none. We survive. In the latter days, I noticed the ‘Belong to none’ tribe slowly disappearing. Few joined other clans while some became like me. There were several changes made in every dynasty. Some citizens were brought in; some were evicted while some voluntarily migrated. There was an alarm striking in every face that suggested an entry or exit of some person close to their heart. Lunch bell stroke much harder and the class dispersed.

            There is a lot more than the syndrome has done to our class. While none in the class was immune to it, came the week called Industrial Visit. I thought the industrial visit was just a name that colleges have given to the student tours. They do not actually visit industries. But I later realized why it is named so. The industrial visit takes us to the ethereal industry where drawing out the inner feelings is the major work done and love is the ultimate by-product. The true colours became obvious and indeed made the whole IV colourful. The real sense of pleasure that is attained from sacrifice is smelt. We sacrificed a lot for each other. One girl was sensitive to waters for which many others denied a ride. When a girl was having a heavy fever and had to sleep in three seats full, we two boys took the front cabin and travelled all night sleepless. Christians went inside temples and Hindus inside the churches. Religions sounded just like a birthmark under the skin. I saw students sharing plates, towels, and even hands when theirs were busy. We became lighter and lighter that, the bus we travelled could have even flown. Why would any angel tell no to carry it to flight?

            The memory of our brains has limits. But the chances we get to make memories have no limits. While the whole class was busy making new memories, I was engaged in processing those that I already had. Some part of my brain started to compare them. Why is someone so close to me while he/she was not for the past two years and ten months? Maybe he took time to understand me or just that he wanted to fill his final days in college with more friends. But definitely, everybody has changed.

             Did I change too? This is a question that I cannot answer myself. Nobody can sense their own change. Nobody can see their own dirty bottoms but it stinks when not cleansed. It did stink one day. I noticed my friends falling apart. They were moving on while I was still there high and dry unable to cope up with the buoyant stream. I lost people in the process of researching friendship. The causalities were high. There are a lot of things that need research but friendship is not one of them. The mistake I did is playing around with it. The ship did sink.

            Is it evil to stay the same? But it was indeed harmful. I loved them so much while I was stubbornly ready to watch them go. I don’t call it ego because I was not denying love but just didn’t accept theirs. Would anyone be ready to wake up in the morning to see your mother new? The new mother may be more caring and more passionate but it was not the one I knew – flawed but real. I had the stepmom feeling with my newly evolved friends. While the others had Final Year Syndrome, I had Final Year Phobia.

            Seven months and twenty-two days have passed since I completed college. I am now in a different place with different people. Everybody became immune to the syndrome. They started texting me out. They became the old themselves again. The sudden love out of nowhere disappeared and they are back on the track. The ship did not sink, rather survived the hurricane. But I still fear the small vent in the bottom of the ship that is still leaking. Syndromes are timely, but phobias are permanent.