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Clueless college journeys

by Ahens Stone
(Tamilnadu, India)

CLUELESS COLLEGE JOURNEYS - An exciting All India Tour with the bunch of extroverts



Back in 2015, I was right out of high school with the decent score in my 12th board exams and ready to enter college in a course, that I have never heard before until, I was enrolled at it. The information regarding my college course transferred by word of mouth among my relatives and finally, found its way to me. There were a lot of field trips, study tours, for a person who is quite reserved and introverted the curriculum demanded me to be a lot interactive. When I got in, I didn’t have any idea what to do with college, nor did I have any big plans post college.

So far basically getting through each day as it came, I received a lot of mentions as someone who is ‘quiet, quirky,

Amidst the funny chaos

Things got a lot less mundane when I somehow, got set with group of friends who are very much unlike me. They were loud, humorous got in trouble often in class for their low buzz chattering and sniggering. But strangely, I liked to hang out with them and felt comfortable around them, in spite of their noisiness. We all settled in the last bench in our class, sometimes fought with others to get a hold on the last bench and shared the same hostel dorms. The college records work, semesters and assignments kept us occupied, so we barely gave thought to the things to be done, after we finish

the Jerky rail rides

Of all the study tours we had, the one that excited us more was the All India Tour. It was a part of our final semester in the final year, and it was the longest of all the study tours we had, planned for 17 days. Our first departure was from Chennai central to New Delhi. We all were mostly on the train throughout the trip and buses were only used for local transit. Though the train journeys were a bit bumpy at first we got used to it eventually.

We all were assigned the same compartment, lived off mostly on the bread toasts, chapatis bought on the train and junction station platforms, and roamed round the train corridors chatting, as we watched cities, villages, days and nights flash past the window. kinda sleep walks around the place’

Tireless sightseeing

Our official visits to the research institutes, industries, and other field trips were all well planned in advance. But, the only issue was the minute we stepped foot in those institutes all the train lag, and travel tantrums would kick in, and we barely listened to those lectures. But all the tiredness would vanish into thin air if we hear the word ‘Sightseeing’

Be it the way, we all nearly froze to death due to the pouring rains in an already ice-cold Shimla, Be it the time when we saw the first sight of Taj mahal as we marched through the Royal gate in Agra under scorching heat, And the fact, when we wandered around the bustling streets of Karol bagh in New Delhi haggling with the vendors, over the price to buy souvenirs in our hardly understandable Hindi, And the time we all stared at the Amber fort

in Jaipur in awe for its hugeness, as we gasped our way through its stonewall corridors to get to the top of the fort. And finally we all arrived in Hyderabad, our last destination in the trip and had a little tour inside the cinematic world of Ramoji flim city.

All of these experiences and the things we chanced upon throughout our trip, remains pretty strong in our memory and hopefully will still be in the years to come. Although we vaguely remembered much of the lectures we attended, and felt muted during All India tour’s Viva voce examination conducted when we returned to college, we all were lucky enough to pass the tour’s written examination.

Beyond the college walls

Though deep down I felt like I didn’t belong in the course I studied, oddly, I never then or later thought about the change of course. The days I spent with my friends didn’t turn me into some kinda brat, because I have always thought ‘preferring to spend some time alone than being in company doesn’t make you a recluse, and being yourself and sticking to your own terms is not something to feel bad about’. But, my friends did make my college days memorable. So, I was the same quiet kid as always, with the bunch of crazy friends, with whom i managed to get through the course together and finally we all were graduated, fortunately with decent grades.

As an ex-student, after coming out of my mundane yet exciting, scary yet safe college gates, days spent after college made me realize that, it’s quiet alright to feel uncertain in college, and not to have everything figured out by the time of graduation. Because sometimes, real life gets us beyond the college walls

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