The bus screeches to a stop at my stop. Letting the others ahead, I read the road as I involuntarily board the bus and move to the seat that has been always left to me. As I sit, the small surrounding around me, gives me a warm welcome hug sort of feel and I feel I am home, again. It usually took me a short while to doze off to the usual rubbery travel nap, but today seems different. There is this strange funny feeling in the stomach, a feeling of fear.

They had announced the last working days for this semester yesterday. They had announced formally my last fun days of my life. Phase I of my life is over.

I look sober and dull. People ask me what is wrong, I try to explain, I try to diverge but alas. I just keep silent. After the precious hour and half, the precious time that has seen many a record writing, test preparing, peaceful snoring, the white washed buildings appear behind the familiar arch that had proudly declared SSN over it.

As I am carried to the department, it felt like home coming to me. The familiar smell in air rocked me like a mother rocking her baby, Come here my child. This is where I belonged, this is what made me ME.

The well known faces and things lying around like they always did, the non bitter feel of having to see them again and again every day every year seem to have lost something now. They seem who they are, but behind them, they hide something, something is strangely missing.

The touch and the feel of the department is pain for a fourth year, someone like me who hated this place everyday until today, until its phase is certified a Time Up.

Long ago, the first whiff of this college gave me nausea, right now, the feel is nostalgic. I wish I could wind back time to August 07, when the first thing I felt was fear and loneliness, yet had unexpected surprises all along.

Fun thing about college or school is you never know when you fall in love with your friends. You never realize when your bench-mate becomes your enabler, your alter ego. You only find it out, when you find them taken away for a brief period. But now, our paths diverge, so out of phase, we will never know if the stars collide again. We will never know if the planets that supposedly decide our way of life wish to recombine the order they had been for these four years. We will never know if the lines on our palm that decided our fate these years have run out of you and me. The hour glass is out of beads.

All these smiles in front of me, they hurt me. That smile that tries to cover the pain and sorrow beneath is useless. I can see through them. I can read you my friends, I can. Cause I smile too.

Those here who have seen many a farewell, are not to be left out. Spending a long time with someone does make you miss them, no matter what they have done. No matter who they are. To make a bond, is to make one forever.

Whoever you were, front seater, back bencher, nerd, geek, you were mine. You formed the critical part of my life that kept me going, that made me smile inspite home and life. The love I got, the love I was made to give, the enameled connections et all. I learnt to love myself, learnt to believe in me, trust in me. 

College was fun, college was brilliant fun. The everyday pain of waking up in the morning, stepping away from classes unnoticed, the usual HOD homages, the stolen experiment values and what not. But, I am old now, all these seem a little of the past, something that the heart desires but the mind cant take, I can only look upon it, and cannot wish to be a part, cause I already was.

They give me slam books to fill. I flip through the pages, read what others have written, for want of creativity. Strangely, I turn foggy, and the nose runny. I write something I don't remember now, cause what I wrote limps compared to what I feel like saying.

Couple of months, couple of months left. And then I shall walk out of these doors to never return. But, for good or worse, the memories these days engraved in my brain shall never vanish. They shall linger on forever, sweet as the after taste that lingers on your tongue when you've eaten a delicacy. That sweetness.

The best piece of cake in my life.

But wait, who am I? I am you people. I am the glazed eyes that has filled the hall today. Farewell my friends.