Just a couple of moments together and all those memories strike you like a wild torrent from no where. It makes me wonder at times why it always happens this way. You never even bother to think about them when you have all the time in the world but when they’re right in front of you, you want those moments to just get back to you.

I’d been to Chennai with a few of my friends from Hyderabad for my convocation last weekend. Though we’d applied for the In-Absentia mode, we thought this was one event we just couldn’t miss. Machi, Adi, Abi and I left on friday evening by the Egmore Exp. MV, Kittu and his cousin Hari joined us at the station. Kranthi and Thopz were supposed to meet us but then had to drop their plans as they’d got their visa for their Masters at Hertfordshire university and had to fly the next day. The train journey was as such pretty boring. We reached Arrakonam at about five in the morning. People started pouring in by around 6:30 am. We managed to get a room in one of the lodges and left for the University at around 11:00 am.

The convocation was to begin at around 3:00pm and registrations were supposed to be done with by 1:00 pm. As we’d applied for the In-Absentia mode, we were relative free. Our time was best spent in the classrooms and the hostel rooms. The moment you’re in the hostel, you’ve got people all over the place calling you ‘Anna’ 🙂 It was in fact wonderful to get back to those ‘Senior’ days! People keep asking you advices , career prospects or just for the heck of it pull your leg, very well knowing that you’re just a year wiser than them. But still even that matters 😉

The main event was as somber as it can get. The regular lecturing stuff, nothing really motivating. The person is called on to the stage , a moment for which he’s been paying shit loads of money for the past four years and finally when that moment comes he gets to be there only for a second. I wonder how convocations in Foreign Universities are! Here it’s more of a formality than a bonding between the university and the alumni. Moments after the ceremony got over, I had to rush to the Admin to get my certificate . They’d told me that the certificate wouldn’t be handed to me on the stage as I’d not registered prior to the convocation. Anyways, looking at how things went in the ceremony, I’m more than happy I got to be away from it and enjoy the fun from far 😉 . It at least gave me some time to catch up with people whom I’m not sure whether or not I would meet later.

We decided to stay back at Pavan’s place in Adyar that night. We left at about 9:30 pm and reached his house at around 00:30 am. I was tired as a pig and believe me, I’ve never slept that well for quite a few days 🙂 ! Next day morning at around 8:00am we walked down to the Besant nagar beach. This was just about a km from where Pavan stayed. To be frank, I never knew Chennai could be this beautiful! In contrast to The marina, The Besant nagar beach was pretty clean and the ambience was definitely breath taking. It was a wonderful sight to see the fishermen catching fish with magnanimous nets that early in the morning. This is something that you simply don’t get to see in a place like Hyderabad 🙂 Vairavan joined us a few minutes later and we had a great time together. The Horse ride on the beach shore gave a silver lining to the beach episode 🙂 .

The rest of the day was spent in Burma bazar with Abi and Adi scouting for Movie and Game CD’s . This is one place that they just don’t miss out when they go to Chennai! 🙂 . We could manage to have a brief stop by at Spencer Plaza where Rohit met us and even before we realised, it was 4:00pm. Our return train was at about 4:45 pm so we had to rush to the Station. Reached Hyderabad today morning and everything is back to square one now. Nevertheless, Two days of travelling, a few hours in the scenic beach and recollecting those innumerable wonderful memories have rejuvenated my mind 🙂 .

My Final theory papers were done with by 15th of last month and my friends and I had plans to go to an amusement park the next day and have a blast one last time, before we bid our final adieu. All was fine till the end of the examination but when we reached the rooms ppl started slowly lamenting of the heat and finally withdrew from the plan! 🙁 Got pissed to the core!!

At around four pm, Calvin and I decided to leave to Hyd. We only had the option of leaving by bus. We generally take a bus to Tirupathy and from there a Hi-tech to Hyd. For some reason this time we decided to go via Chennai. The Bus service at Chennai to Hyd is sometime around 8:00 pm. So we had ample time! We boarded a 76BExpress service from the Kanchi Bus station and started placing calls to people in the hostel just to complete the final formalities! Was actually still fuming 🙁

 The bus had just come out of the town outskirts when I realized I hadn’t called the Hindi trio [Black Bombay, White Bombay and Rahul ]. The moment I called them, they started abusing me literally 🙂 !! Somehow they managed to change my mind and I got down at Meenakshi Hospital. Well the bombayz had told me that they were planning to have a party that night in the hostel ,that was the main reason why I’d changed my mind! 🙂 The Bus driver was kind enough to accede to my request! (Being an Express service he is not supposed to stop in b/w ). This was about five kms from the University and on the NH7. Rahul said he’d be there within ten minutes. Calvin carried on in the bus to Chennai as he said he had some important work to attend to. True to his word, Rahul picked me up and I was in the Hostel in twenty minutes.

 

We pooled money for the night’s party from the Hostel inmates. Bala and the Bombayz went over to the town and managed to get Fire crackers, a huge cake and Appy packs! The Administrative Officer was invited .He’d come with his grand daughters. Was fun with the kids around! All the crackers were burnt by 12:00am. After the Cake cutting, distributing and not to mention the smearing, people started getting back to their rooms. Junior’s had their Semester exams the other day so they got back to their rooms pretty soon. A few other non active members of our batch hit their bed after munching their share of cake. With nothing much left to do even we guys got back to our rooms. It was then that Bala removed the Rocket’s that he’d hidden. Around ten of us and a couple of juniors moved over to the Hostel terrace. The girls’ hostel was about 400yards away from our hostel! So you could very well expect the target! 🙂 . Hit the bed sometime around two o’clock. Man! We had a blast that night!

Evening the previous day I again proposed a trip to an amusement park. Rahul readily accepted and we decided to go no matter what! Somehow we compelled Black Bombay ,SGP and Akka too. They reluctantly accepted. We initially thought of going to MGM but later for no apparent reason decided to go to Kishkintha! Both are amusement parks, MGM being much away from the city when compared to Kishkintha. I had to dump my bag in CMBT ( the main bus terminus in Chennai ) as I decided to leave directly to Hyderabad that day and I didn’t want to carry the luggage with me to an amusement park. Our plan was that I would wake Rahul and leave to CMBT at around 6:00 am. Rahul would wake the other guys and they would come to Tambaram by 9:00. I would come down to Tambaram from CMBT by 9:00. But as luck would have it, the Express bus which I was traveling by broke down mid way and I had to catch another bus to CMBT. Tried dragging Sooz to join us but he had some other important work to attend to. It was 10:00 by the time I reached CMBT! I deposited my air bag in the Cloak room and got myself a ticket to hyd for that night’s service. Nevertheless, Rahul, Black Bombay, Akka and SGP got delayed too for no apparent reason. We managed to meet at Tambaram only by around 12:00pm. Kishkinta was around 10kms from there. We took an auto and reached the park by around 12:30 .Bought the tickets and sat on a few rides. Kishkintha is much smaller compared to MGM and has much lesser rides too. We had a feeling that we should have been to MGM. But soon realized that since we were already here, there was no point lamenting!

The water pool here was definitely different from the one’s we’d seen at other parks. Spent much of the time lazing, sliding and not to mention ogling! 🙂 There were only two attractions at Kishkintha that I feel makes it a different amusement park. One is the Chennai Kuttralam. This is  cave sort of entrance which sprinkles water in miniscule streams on you when you walk by and the other is an artificial  waterfall which Kishkinta has developed to emulate the Kuttralam falls in Kerala. I’ve no words to explain how good the emulated falls was! The very beauty of the falls left us so very enthralled that we forgot taking snaps there!

 

Quite aware that travel back to CMBT would take me around an hour from Tambaram, I wanted to leave a bit early. Moreover I didn’t want to take any sort of risk with Chennai Traffic! 🙂 SGP and I caught the 18:10 service from the park to Tambaram. Black Bombay, Rahul and Akka got back to business! You know what I mean! 🙂 I reached CMBT just in time to catch the Hyd Hi-tech. Placed a call to Rahul and was  to hear that they were not successful in their mission! 🙂 They’d picked the 18:50 service and were on their way back to Kanchi! Had an extremely comfortable journey back home! Literally,  My last trip back home after my Engineering !

 
All set and done, I had a wonderful end to my Enggineering life! Thanks to that one call that I’d placed to the Hindi trio! Three Cheers to them 🙂