The day before yesterday was the convocation day. Finally, we graduated with master’s in Statistics. As the date of convocation was announced, the excitement mounted since it was meant to be a day to be spent with the good old buddies. (Not old exactly…it’s just eight months since we have parted, yet it seems to be a lengthy interlude of separation from the cronies (especially the hostel dwellers)). But, alas…not many of them were there. No prize for guessing reasons…because though graduation means passing the final exam i.e. the end of studies, it’s in fact like qualifying the entrance exam of real life; to decide whether you are fit to come out of the academic cocoon. And there come the difficulties associated with the real life like getting leave, securing tickets and so on… So were my friends pestered by these problems and couldn’t make it to the program. But still, there were quite a few lucky ones. To be precise, we, four project partners were able to meet as planned, after overcoming some petty obstacles.
It looked as if nothing had changed. The same meeting place: open canteen…, the same delay by one of us (though this time it was me who caused the hold up and not the ones who were known for getting delayed most of the times), irritated others bothering her by calling every minute…, everyone skipping lunch for making up this delay, the relentless chatter, the incessant photo session, …all these, unmindful of the other tasks seeking attention. And then abrupt goodbyes, once the deadlines were looming. The only difference was – we didn’t think twice, while hiring an auto to catch the running time, the reasons being: we are earning and now, missing deadlines would cost more than just a few grades here and there.
After all, that’s life…smaller joys replaced by bigger ones at the cost of lesser sorrows being replaced by the larger ones…
It looked as if nothing had changed. The same meeting place: open canteen…, the same delay by one of us (though this time it was me who caused the hold up and not the ones who were known for getting delayed most of the times), irritated others bothering her by calling every minute…, everyone skipping lunch for making up this delay, the relentless chatter, the incessant photo session, …all these, unmindful of the other tasks seeking attention. And then abrupt goodbyes, once the deadlines were looming. The only difference was – we didn’t think twice, while hiring an auto to catch the running time, the reasons being: we are earning and now, missing deadlines would cost more than just a few grades here and there.
After all, that’s life…smaller joys replaced by bigger ones at the cost of lesser sorrows being replaced by the larger ones…
