Ripples on the brain

The main complaint I have had about Diwali since I was a kid is that it is too short for a festival, when compared to festivals like Navarathiri. The hype is created atleast a month earlier with the colourful ads on TV and newspapers that you start looking forward to it with so much expectations. And the day comes and goes in a jiffy.

This year’s Diwali was no different. All through my stay at ISB so far, whenever I used to walk in the lawns or the Rec Centre or other facilities, I used to think about what I’ll tell my parents about it when they visit ISB. These were some of the comments I had thought - Volleyball court: “This is where I spend the best part of my evenings and my happiest times”, Khemkha: “Important events take place here, the acoustics is so good, Classrooms: “Look at the gadgets we have here, the Prof. has almost anything he needs (especially since my mom is a teacher, she was interested in seeing our class rooms)” so on and so forth.

And so we decided that this Diwali was probably the right time for them to come over since my schedule can only get busier from now on with the placement season about to begin. They came here the night before Diwali (the rains and the accident in Secunderabad 2 days earlier had ensured that they travelled 25 hours for journey that should have taken them just 14 hours) and saw for themselves what it was like to stay here. They liked some facilities, disliked somethings here, but overall they were very happy. I couldn’t show them a lot of things here - the classrooms, Rec Centre as they were too tired the first day and on the Diwali day, we had other things lined up (there was a music programme in which I sang) and the next day (that is today), they had to book their tickets again as the train in which they were supposed to travel was cancelled. I guess things never happen the way you plan them and you need to live with it. But on the whole, I enjoyed this Diwali thoroughly. So much so that today after I saw them off, I dread to go back to my room to be all alone all over again. Last week, one of my friends was in a similar situation when her parents had just left. She told me that she felt so bad after they left. I know what she meant now.