@UCC, Kerala, India.
*This might rather be the last post before this blog go into hibernation, except for may be the yearly summary update.
*Not that much of an external journey – be warned. “The Truth shall make you free”, said the motto of my college, which is rather the former college for me now. The distance from being a student to becoming a former student is much shorter than I had expected. The question about truth making one free stays alive, but one would wonder if it comes as part of “Travel Diaries: Of this world and beyond”? The answer would be yes, as I travelled every day from home to college in a car, and every time a Chevrolet Beat is involved, it is more or less a journey, and there is also no less scope for an exploration. Another thing is that UCC, our own Union Christian College looked different almost every day, as if it is a new place each time one takes a look around and captures a few snaps. That makes one new journey on each week day for the last two years, and living an experience each and every morning, and in my case, as early as eight fifteen in the morning only being as late as eight fourty five maximum – extending from three thirty to four fourty five in the evening; often staying there longer than expected. But in simple words, this is no travel, no doubt.
Known to the world as UC College Aluva, Union Christian College’s inception goes back to 1921, as an inter-denominational creation from four of the Kerala Christian denominations, Church of South India, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, Mar Thoma Syrian Church, and Malankara Jacobite Syrian Church. It is not that far away from the river of Periyar and only about four kilometres from the town of Alwaye. The place which was visited by Mahatma Gandhi in 1925, and being blessed by him planting a mango tree, might be one of the most well-known colleges in the district, if not the state. There is that joy which surrounds a student when he tells the name of his college and only good things are heard about the same. It is indeed prestigious to be a student of the college, as there is that wonderful reputation that creates an invisible aura around it, and studying there for post graduation is one of those things which could be explained through a poem, but I am rather weak and drained and taken further away from the creativity by the void, the nothingness that has taken over after getting the Transfer Certificate from there, and staying at home doing nothing that fills the soul.
The arrival of the results further increases the strength of that void which seems to have been surrounded by a black hole. There is no question about the fact that this void is self-created. It is a result of not doing enough, not only now, but also when I was there, amplifying that feeling of loss which has pervaded through the conscience of my soul and asks myself if I have done enough. I have never really studied, and that is only one of those things. The first class that I gained and indirectly mentioned in my Facebook status message is not really of me putting anything into learning. I haven’t worked hard, for I have never been a hard working person. I used to find it a crime not knowing answers to questions, but ever since Mathematics started boring me from my school days, I stopped searching for answers. I found that I can have no answers and still exist as long as I can work well with languages. I could create and modify the worlds which I have created and maintained, rather than keep a giant planet in my head – was fair enough. Thank You Lord, for pointing me to the right direction, and my determination to do MA English was as much a surprise to myself as getting the admission, and for that there is pure divine intervention. Otherwise, who would wish to admit someone who can’t use what he knows when it matters the most?
I have carried over this idea with me, even in the absence of Mathematics. Maths, my dearest enemy from the depths of hell, you are not the first one who hated me and surely not the last one. When the classes started, Doctor Faustus, Paradise Lost and The Pilgrim’s Progress were set against the replacements for Mathematics, the theories of Rasa and Dhvani, Seven Types of Ambiguity and Biographia Literaria. There is the concept of good and evil, and even in the absence of Mathematics and also Physics, something had to take over the role of bad guys. As time progressed and the course was coming to the end, the number of bad guys just increased, and the last semester was full of such people, as even the viva examiners seemed to align with the bad guys. Existentialism, absurdism and post-colonialism are not the best things to read, and with Film theories, plus what books like In an Antique Land and Midnight’s Children already achieved in the earlier semester, the whole interest comes down like a dead dinosaur from the top of a mountain.
It is also nothing less of a boulevard of lost opportunities, and the fact that you didn’t study is just one of them. Despite performing fine in inter-college quiz competitions, what bothers one the most is what kind of use it is for your knowledge when there are a lot of questions for which you know the answer, but just can’t get to say it; and it disappoints more than those questions which you don’t know the answer and also those questions which are too easy and right from the text books. What is the meaning of knowing and still can’t use the knowledge when needed? The loss of answers when in pressure haunts like Freddy Krueger, and its mightmares are as big as any other opportunities you waste as well as the time you send down the drain. The only saviour is the tea, and I am boosted by it regularly from the college canteen. It is a further disaster when you are the pheonix who rises from the ashes, and yet can’t get rid of those ashes completely, and there is so much of them that it affects your flying, and you would rather think that you stay on the ground.
Still, haven’t you earned enough from being in a college which was the only right place for you to be? Despite everything that you missed due to your own fault, there were two good years of glory even if happiness was not something you carried over? Well, I wouldn’t have felt better if I was anywhere else – this was the first choice for me during the time of centralized allotment, and I got the admission in the first allotment itself. Anywhere else wouldn’t have been more suitable for me, as I would have struggled to keep myself going. The case of UC is rather perfect for someone like me, who doesn’t want to live my life in those text books and studying only what is attained from the class. UC had a charm which is powered by nature as well as the wonderful teachers of the English department. If I would have been anywhere else, I suspect that I could have even known about my existence, but here in the English department, I lived. And about my marks, I have got exactly what I wanted, and for my lack of focus, determination and hope, and supported by that plague of pessimism, I have got enough, and anything more would make me feel that people can read my handwriting.
Diving out —>
TeNy
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