My heart started pouncing with excitement, I started clapping saying 'Yay! Chennai is here' like a kid. Of course Venki and my friend Satish weren't as happy as I was because stepping into the Chennai heat was worrying them more.We started walking through the Chennai central to the auto stand, where we had a tough time as usual with the extremely greedy autowalas. We quickly freshened up and took an auto to IIT Madras, Adyar.
We got down on the other side of the IITM main road, gave the autowala 150 bucks and waited to cross the busy adyar road. So many memories flashed by as I stood there. I remember getting down at the same spot hundreds of times in an auto, at times bargaining with the autowala along with Srujana, sometimes waiting at the same spot to catch autos for treats in besant nagar. As we reached the main gate, as always I could feel the temperature difference between insti and outside. As we waited at our busstop, I got reminded of the instances when Harini and I along with Divya akka bothered strangers for lift until GC :D.
We didn't wait for longer than 5 minutes for the bus to start. It passed through Bon Avenue, Vana vani school, Vana vani play ground, Sarayu extension next to it (which was a surprise to me), SBI, KV grounds (which BTW has changed a bit with a new building added to it) to reach legendary gajendra circle.
We walked through our usual shortcut passing CCD, library back side, sarayu and finally reached "SHARAV". I really don't have words to describe how happy it felt to see our hostel building. The place smells and feels exactly the way it used to 4 years back.
Busy students with college bags walking towards mess, girls with umbrellas coming out of the mess, people walking/talking on the lawns and sharav balcony with their cell phones, the S letter hoarding on the right side which was put up in my 4th year to cover up a wall painting, couples meetings at the cycle stands, nothing changed. It didn't took long for me to realize that place hasn't changed, put the people whom I see around did. I wasn't able to recognize anyone around. My dear wingies, please note that you were thoroughly missed. Only saving grace was that, I had at least Venki next to me, if not for you guys. We grabbed a quick lunch in tiffanys, which hasn't changed at all, including the taste of mini meal I had. One thing notable was the digital scroller on the top of Vindhya mess which gave students latest insti updates. I felt it was a cool idea. Of course while I was going into the Vindhya mess, all the memories of banging the mess door along with Sruti and Harini flashed by.
We walked towards gurunath passing OAT, where Venki and I got reminded of the thousands of rounds we used to do in the name of walks around the OAT :). Mahi once said, if only we had a god's statue in here, we can at least pick up some 'punyam' in the name of the rounds we make around OAT :P We walked through the scorching heat to reach Gurunath, where finally I could see some deers and a black buck. The gurunath stationery is shifted to archies area with AC and archies is moved to old stationery area without AC. The look of the juice joint also was changed. However, it felt the same. :)
After walking around some more places, Venki and I walked to Tapti hostel. While returning we encountered monkeys who were trying to grab a packet from Venki's hand.More monkeys came to attack us as we weren't ready to give it away. Couple of guys on a bike, came in at the right moment and the honking scared the monkeys and drove them away. We had a good laugh and of course reminded of the day when I was attached by numerous monkeys on Sharav terrace. :)
One thing that both of us constantly experienced was that, we looked at same places in insti when were just two teenagers who feel in love at this magical place, fought innumerable times, waged almost a war against inter caste marriage and successfully worked out on the relationship we are in today.
So here we stand as two adults Mr.Venkatesh and Mrs. Manasa.
I am hoping that the next visit is with my wingies :)
We walked through our usual shortcut passing CCD, library back side, sarayu and finally reached "SHARAV". I really don't have words to describe how happy it felt to see our hostel building. The place smells and feels exactly the way it used to 4 years back.
Busy students with college bags walking towards mess, girls with umbrellas coming out of the mess, people walking/talking on the lawns and sharav balcony with their cell phones, the S letter hoarding on the right side which was put up in my 4th year to cover up a wall painting, couples meetings at the cycle stands, nothing changed. It didn't took long for me to realize that place hasn't changed, put the people whom I see around did. I wasn't able to recognize anyone around. My dear wingies, please note that you were thoroughly missed. Only saving grace was that, I had at least Venki next to me, if not for you guys. We grabbed a quick lunch in tiffanys, which hasn't changed at all, including the taste of mini meal I had. One thing notable was the digital scroller on the top of Vindhya mess which gave students latest insti updates. I felt it was a cool idea. Of course while I was going into the Vindhya mess, all the memories of banging the mess door along with Sruti and Harini flashed by.
We walked towards gurunath passing OAT, where Venki and I got reminded of the thousands of rounds we used to do in the name of walks around the OAT :). Mahi once said, if only we had a god's statue in here, we can at least pick up some 'punyam' in the name of the rounds we make around OAT :P We walked through the scorching heat to reach Gurunath, where finally I could see some deers and a black buck. The gurunath stationery is shifted to archies area with AC and archies is moved to old stationery area without AC. The look of the juice joint also was changed. However, it felt the same. :)
After walking around some more places, Venki and I walked to Tapti hostel. While returning we encountered monkeys who were trying to grab a packet from Venki's hand.More monkeys came to attack us as we weren't ready to give it away. Couple of guys on a bike, came in at the right moment and the honking scared the monkeys and drove them away. We had a good laugh and of course reminded of the day when I was attached by numerous monkeys on Sharav terrace. :)
One thing that both of us constantly experienced was that, we looked at same places in insti when were just two teenagers who feel in love at this magical place, fought innumerable times, waged almost a war against inter caste marriage and successfully worked out on the relationship we are in today.
So here we stand as two adults Mr.Venkatesh and Mrs. Manasa.
I am hoping that the next visit is with my wingies :)
P.S: Excuse us for some bad photography!!
