Convocation

Searching for the right color of cloth for the kurta, running around all the khadi bhandars to finally get one that matches and then not getting enough of material to make two kurtas ( one for my friend). Locating a good tailor was easy with a little help from Anup, he knows half of the city. Then pleading the tailor to adjust two kurta in the amount of cloth we had with us. Finally with a delayed of two days from the actual date I get THE KURTA. A good fit, but it turned out be transparent and boy you could see the skeleton.

Rajkot Express the waitlisted train, I never get tickets on this train always tatkal booking, but this time I was reaching ahmedabad way before THE DAY. It was exciting to be going back to the institute but this time it was a bit different, I won’t get to see my friend when I arrive there.

The day of the rehearsal arrived, all hugs and kurta color comparison to getting the foot ware right, all the guys’ dresses in traditional Indian dress, kurta and pyjama and girls adorned in sarees. But it was too fast, very-very fast it felt like I was running to catch up with everything around me. It was different than the usual NID way I am used to. I had a lot planned but then unplanned, I was there gathering as much as I could of the time that I had in hand.

Well we were all happy gatherings, dressing up, speeches, photo sessions and parents who had by the time ceremony ended were so boarded that they ready to run off the ground as soon as the ceremony got over. It was a moment were you feel like a celebrity, as soon as we would pose for a group photo for camera, there would be ten more focused at you and the result, you end up with photos in which half the people are looking at a different camera and the rest on some other and some who are still getting ready for the shoot. Everyone wants a individual photo for their orkut account or later to be show to relatives, friends and may be their own kids and grand children.

In between there are funny moments of technical difficulty in the mic, names being miss spelled, everyone trying not to fall when walking on the stage and give their best look for the cameras. By the way there are a lot of cameras in NID, It’s like a grand press conference where at a given time either some is taking a photograph or shooting you with a handy cam, you have to look your best all the time (for around 4 hours and I was one of the camera person two years ago).

As I write this and my status message on gtalk says, I still can’t believe that I have convocated, the grand convocation function is over. Is it going to take some time to sink in or just that it was over so soon that my mind could not keep track of it or is it just the way it is. You wait for something so long and so much that when you are finally through it, that it does not feel that this was it??