Summer Blues - Anirban Basu

I had given up writing. Once a passion, later it amounted to lying to oneself. Of course, once too many I had not adhered to my own feelings and beliefs. Writing made me hate myself. But today, as I stand at the threshold of a new morning, writing seems to be the best and perhaps the only way to give a shape to my feelings. The following piece of text may eventually not be meaningful, but when was I known to make sense anyways?

Really seems like yesterday when I had walked into the SIBM building for the first time, promising to put behind old memories and mistakes and make the most of god’s new lease of life to me (read SIBM call). Little did I know about my ignorance towards the relentless devil called ‘time’. Today I am supposedly half an MBA and soon, would be walking out of the hallowed portals with new promises to myself and with yet another new lease of life (read some unlucky company). I guess I am at a constant duel with the almighty to test each other’s perseverance – can He throw more opportunities at me than what I can successfully waste, or will I end up a winner by exhausting his repertoire of blessings?

Leaving aside God, my tryst with people too, has been worth a mention. Truly, life has been like a series of train journeys. I have met many a new fellow passenger everyday. Just when life looked great with all the perfect ingredients and amazing friends as garnishing, we reached our respective destinations and parted ways. And when we refused to, the train finally ran out of steam and forced us to disembark. SIBM has been one such wonderful journey thus far. Just another few days and I will bid adieu to many more passengers. I will miss you - Seniors! And especially, MY S-PAT! It is funny to see seniors in tears in anticipation of a new world and even funnier to watch seniors making promises to stay in touch forever. Perhaps they are unaware of the concept of ‘train journeys’. I would like to believe they would do a much better job than me at keeping promises.

I see batch mates gradually trickling out of the city, each to their respective hometown or project location. Bear hugs are rampant everywhere as friends part ways for two months of hard work and making efforts at shaping a career. Luckily, this train journey still has a year to reach its culmination. Despite having failed to keep up to promises myself, I wish I would stay in touch with the friends I have made here, forever. I don’t want this train journey to end. We almost ensured that I guess, with the batch promising to garner a record number of backlogs in the second semester examinations (I have been strictly instructed by my editor not to write anything that may have a detrimental effect on the incoming batch, but couldn’t help telling you this). But I also see the ‘system’ conspiring against me. The ‘system’ makes it very difficult to get backlogs, but very easy to clear them! I guess some people just don’t want others to spend more time together. The batch’s effort may just go down the drain, thanks again to the ‘system’.

Not having written freely for so long and the subsequent rust in my pen are finally catching up with me. As this edition marks the farewell to Nisha - the brain behind MadMag, I wish her all the best for a rollicking future. And finally, to my incoming juniors – the ‘train’ is waiting, come aboard a wonderful journey called SIBM!