So, after all this time, I’m finally bidding good bye to IITB. I finished my MTP work on July 4, got my degree on August 13, but it is today that I feel I’m finally leaving this place. In three days I will be moving to Tokyo and that separation has a finality to it that my brief stay in Pune didn’t — after all, if I wanted, I could reach the campus in about 6 hours from Pune.

Over time, I have changed my position regarding the existence of god(s). From apathy (‘Don’t know, don’t care’), to disbelief (atheism) to doubt (agnosticism). I have heard many accounts of god(s), from the ‘universe, then god’ (like the ancient Greeks’) to ‘god, then universe’ (most other accounts), from single god (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) to many gods (Hinduism, the Egyptian pantheon). The problem exists, in my opinion, specifically in the proof (or lack thereof) of the existence of gods. For the purposes of this article, let us consider a few things as given:

In my days at IITG, I have often been asked where I hail from. Somehow, I never am sure how to answer it. Consider: I was born in Kerala, I stay in a town called Kalyan, in Maharashtra, and am studying here in Guwahati, Assam. Should I say, I am from Kalyan, where I stay, and which no one will recognise, or should I say I am from Bombay (or Mumbai), which people will recognise? Or should I say that I am from Kerala, where I was, in fact, born? Each answer means different things, and I would often be in a quandary as to which meaning I should choose.

What constitutes a friend? My mum thinks that every single person I know is my friend. I certainly don’t think so. I mean, none of them are my enemies, but not all of them are friends. Some are just acquaintances. People you meet, get acquainted with, who no longer visit my mind after they are gone from my life. People to whom I give a polite smile, a ‘Good Day!’, or a wave. These are like shooting stars, sometimes they lighten up the sky, sometimes they aren’t even seen. To me, a friend is something else. A friend is like the stars, or, better still, like the planets. They are always there, even if you don’t see them. Someone you can trust to be there when the time comes. A friend is someone I trust, I respect, I admire. Someone you can open your soul to, someone you can let in to the deepest parts of your mind.

So, finally I’m, back in Dihing, my second home… It does feel great to be back. I wonder what New year celebrations would be like with so few students here. Aside from the return to home2 part, most of it has been quite annoying. I landed in Guwahati at 1:30 in the morning on the 30th (that’s 12 hours late, half a day wasted!), waited five and a half hours for the bus, lugged my luggage to the hostel, where I find the mess and canteen closed, the tubelight in my room not working, and no balance in my phone, and the validity period over too. Then I went to Barak to breakfast, and lo!, its aloo paratha, and I hate parathas.