I Opened my eyes cursing the alarm ring that was blaring under my pillow, I had to get up and leave for the college as it was our Farwell day and all of us had decided to meet up at marine drive and have a good time together for the last time, because years from now when we will be finding ourselves as the unluckiest of the lot we can take a look at the old memories and bring a smile on our faces. The nostalgia hadn’t yet kicked in so when we met we all had a gala time on marine drive even though many were late by 45 minutes and so. But we tried to do the things we did the time all of us met three years back. After a quick breakfast at our old canteen where we used to spend time together we rushed into the auditorium afraid of being late but as its in India we were spot on time even though we were running 20 minutes behind the scheduled time. The opening speech was given by some dude whom I hadn’t seen ever in college until that day and the whole auditorium was packed that’s when I realized that these people are my classmates, as no one used to attend lectures and this was one occasion when everyone would turn up for sure. We all sat together hearing stories about our “new” classmates sharing their experiences in the five years spent at the college. And then came the warm good bye speeches by the professors who wished us best of luck for the future and also made a humble appeal to keep in touch and offered us a professor’s position in the college for any subject we might want to teach. Our college has been really an old institution and when one of the most well known professors made an appeal to do our best for the college is when we all realized that our heat beats for GLC no matter how much we may curse it, the love won’t fade away. Even after a decade when we will walk out of churchgate station and look at the iconic building it will bring a smile on our face. Because that s the place where we were nurtured to be the best people we possibly can be, where we spent the best times of our lives and made the best of friends. All of us received a nice coffee mug with the words printed “Batch of 2011”. It felt good. It was a short and sweet farewell.
After the official farewell from college the hunger pangs started to get the better out of us all. After meaningless discussions and a disappointing trip to Copper Chimney (they don’t serve buffet on weekends) we ended up at one of the most coveted locations in south Mumbai, “The Ambassador”. It was totally out of budget for all of us but we were so hell bent on making this day memorable that we decided to loosen the purse strings. The food was amazing and we made sure all of us had everything from coolers to the 6 desserts. The brunch lasted a full 2 and a half hour. Then came on the most legen…….wait for it..dary moments of the day. It was the day when India were supposed to face South Africa in the Cricket World Cup match. The hotel had a big projector on which the match was put on, so when the national anthem started all of us jerks instead of Parth stood up to show respect. At his such initiation we stopped having our food and followed his lead and then the food place which was full with people including some foreign nationals stood up seeing all of us show respect and within a few seconds all were standing up to it. It felt really good.
After some more food tucking and saching sehwag innings we decided to leave because we feared if we didn’t the staff will throw us out. The match was in full swing as the duo was on fire hitting the South African bowlers all over the place. We decided to go to the sports bar to watch the match. It was sad that Farhad and Mandar could not join us. I always wished they had stayed a bit nearby but it was already getting late and we they had to go. So we reached the sports bar which was jam packed as any local train is on week days in Mumbai. But we somehow managed to get three table seats in front of the screen. Watching the match was an awesome experience as we cherred on at every boundary and stood up to give Sachin a standing ovation for his ton etc. After the innings got over we headed home and while on my way I realized that it was one of the best Saturdays of my life and for all of us. We really missed our friends who could not join us at the Sports bar for the match but in a nut shell it was a farwell we all will remember for the rest of our lives. Generally people get nostalgic and emotional during farwells but it didn’t happen with us because inside we all knew no matter how much ever we say it we are gonna be in touch for the rest of our lives and we will be just as good friends as we are today. Love you all guys and I will be bothering u no matter where ever you try to hide from me. Cheers to ourselves!!!!!!!!!!:)
