There is stillness in the eye of the hurricane. And the stillness spawns a culture. When a mere red-brick wall separates barren lands from sprawling lawns, the masonry spawns a culture. It’s the culture of the oasis. It’s the culture of MICA.
Cut the romantic intangibles. It’s about the rational tangibles too.
It’s about the searing debates over the never-fully-read prereads pitching up the mercury another notch even in the conditioned climate of the classroom.
It’s about DCP, ACP, BCCP, ACCP and other assorted acronyms that take life as the desperate eyes of the tutor darts around.
Its about the spontaneity in giving five minute lectures on a powerpoint slide which you have never set your eyes on before in your life (When did we make that??!!)
It’s about The Holy Book of Kotler which gets worshipped in the daytime and doubles as a pillow during those humid nights.
It’s about a chance at double masters in entomology (10 million and still counting!)
Its about vibrant discussions on Rumsfield and Rakhi Sawant over a cuppa coffee at the chota.
It’s about sleep that takes a vacation and zombies that roam around half-naked having midnight walks and chai and cheese parathas at 3 a.m.
Its about spraining your fingers pecking away at the laptop and then spraining your wrist at the T. T. table.
Its about the guy who commits the insane act of announcing his outing to the city and ends up bringing supplies for about a hundred others.
Its about the jam sessions that break out at a moments notice and the dirt that gets kicked up in the war zone aka the football field as coin-sized rain-drops lash on your back.
Its about the audience, half of which swoons while the other half moans as another world- cinema classic lights up the open air theatre.
Its about the midnight parties, dunkings and pelvic thrusts to the yo-mica chant
Its about the heavy head and heavier feet as you dance away the blues till dawn and then some more.
Its about the bitching and back-biting and all other assorted cold-vibes with the life-span of a moth-fly, alive till the next bear-hug around the corner..
Its about the odd loner, alone in the crowd, but never minding that as solitude is bliss and when life beckons, that too is at arm’s length
Its about two dozen months spent sustaining and surviving each other, unaware that somewhere deep down inside, there lies a smithshop taking unsolicited orders forging memories.
At the end of it, it’s about staring at the stranger in the mirror and wondering “What the hell was all that about?” and catching you smiling at your reflection.
As another monsoon arrives and another crop of newbies walk beneath the arches with awestruck eyes, fear not. The past is not lost. It just gets added upon.
Coz ultimately its about the tire swing at the chota which remains with its tales to tell.
Wait! Strike that all out. Damn the trivialities. There’s more to it than the specifics. All those add up to something potent. Something huge. Vocab fails at this point. What does one call it?
Culture of the abstract? Culture of the absurd? ‘Life’ itself?
Beats me.
One can only watch the beauty of the little things and wonder.
Song of the Hour: Namak (Omkara)
Coz it goes way beyond the 'item song' tag.
