ALMA MATER -II

 

ALMA MATER- II

        Life goes on almost in a steady course. Any study schedule comes to an end in a span of say -5 years in that system. They enter different systems for study or employment and face “life”.

        All those people who were bitterly [re]viewed now appear better in the light of our new “life”. Those whom we thought had no value for us, still come to our mind and what they did to help our study earlier, slowly turns respectable. This is about the average relationship between people on a campus. Some who had earlier impressed us in classroom or laboratory or library become greater in our esteem and we recall their thought every now and then. When we meet our old friends, we faithfully discuss old happenings and seem to agree on many things and depart with a sad feeling that the “earlier life” would not return. As years roll by your value for the alma mater gets entrenched and enhanced and you long to go there. When you get a chance you would certainly go there. You would always look for known faces. Rarely, you locate all of those whom you had known.  Some of them are not there, the others we are unable to readily recognize. Time has played on them to a point of thorough change. Only a few are recognizable with symptoms of aging. Once, they spot you, they enquire of your welfare and details of your position, place, family and request you to be visiting. You keep on trying to gather information of your old associates but gather very little and vague ideas.

       With a feeling of your sense of belonging, you look a stranger in ‘your own home’. But you are happy and sad. If one or two teachers are still there you would try to meet them and painfully remind them of your batch and the few mistakes you committed to them        They receive you with pleasure and console you saying “those days of respect for teachers and the affectionate students are gone”. They too suggest ‘you to visit as often’.

        The paradox:               

        We know our alma mater every inch. But we cherish visiting the place, though aware of many things. You know your friends / associates/ respected teachers have left the scene.

        Still you want to be there; look at those same old buildings ‘replaying’ within, your old truant with friends and teachers and how you took some of them for a ride. Your present maturity makes you regret for that bygone incident. Certainly it is not the empty class rooms and halls you peep in. It is your mental bondage to these structures through the then human relations that you cherish your alma mater. Even if none of your acquaintance is there, you would not hesitate telling the people there that you are an old student. They would also receive you but the bondage would not be there. So, dear friends an alma mater is not brick mortar, but flesh and blood for the individual who cherishes it.  

        Thank you.                                                                  Prof. K. Raman