During the course of the last year, I went back to both school and college for various reasons. What surprised me was my radically different feelings towards both the institutions.
Walking back into school, the first thing that hit me was a gut wrenching feeling that too much had changed. There were new buildings everywhere, the watchman had changed, even the little temple looked different. It has been six years since I passed out, but in every corner of the place I still have a different memory. A primary class was having their PT (Physical Training) period, and though the teacher was new, I was immediately reminded of the classes where we were made to stand in the hot sun because we were wearing inappropriate "shocks and soos", as my teacher liked to put it. The kindergarten section still had the same small chairs I had sat in, and I was tempted to sit in one till I realized I wouldn't be able to get my backside out of the chair once seated. Most of my high school teachers recognized me and there was no change in the warmth with which they greeted me. Each classroom, each lab, each staffroom brought back something or the other. Heck, even the loos had weird associations.
And then I went back to college.
Nothing had changed. Everything looked the same, and truth be said, the girls too looked the same. Unlike school, where I knew everyone in at least two batches above and below me by face and name, in college I didn't know people beyond my department. Heck, I don't remember some of them in my department. College of course, did have many memorable moments. Like our headmistress starting every year with a lecture ordering us to admire the "natural bouquets of flowers" that the trees offered us, even while cutting down the same trees to make place for advertisement billboards. Or one half crazy professor who used to award the highest marks only to a student who couldn't finish her paper. Or the fully crazy prof who condemned my friend because she dared suggest, in a value education class, that sex before marriage is not the ultimate sin.
But overall, I just don't feel a connect to college. I didn't want to meet any of my teachers- the only one I liked left college the year I graduated. And I didn't recognize any of the students. In my three years of college, I tried unsuccessfully to fit in with the 'in' crowd (those people who, as per my Marketing project report, are the ones ITC hopes will buy their Fiama Di Wills product line- the 'aspirational' segment), the 'out' crowd (super quiet, go-home-right-after-college types) and those from the 'middle path'. It took me 3 whole years to figure out that I was part of the fourth group - the 'Lost' crowd - the crowd that would never feel about college the way they did about school.
My only returns on the trip to college was that I eavesdropped on the following conversation (which I am translating word by word from Tamil). Make of it what you will.
Three girls (G1, G2 and G3) sitting on a bench, eating lunch and giggling hysterically.
G1: Hey, avar inikku varaaru. ("He" is coming today).
Hysterical giggles.
G2: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Where are you going?? Tell, tell.
More hysterical giggles.
G1: (Blushing) Movie.
G3: Eh, introduce me to him da.
Peals of laughter.
G1: No chance. You have enough boyfriends!
All three roll on the ground with laughter thinking about that (I am not sure it is a good thing for G3 that they found it so funny, but anyway)
I exit scene and college.
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