I read Helen Kellers autobiography in school and came across a rather peculiar adage- “Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light”. Though back then I laughed it off thinking it might resonate with someone like Helen Keller but can never be true for me. It took me five years to change my point of view about the adage. I very much agree with Keller today. Friends are necessary and important. More than a want, friendships are a need.
To be very honest, my survival instincts started acting up after I left the comfort zone of home and family and landed in college. I fainted on the first day I arrived in college and that’s when I realized that I need to make friends, whether I like it or not and so I did. It was one of the wisest decisions I’ve ever made, it has not only saved me from attendance shortages but also helped me fetch extra marks in exams thanks to friends who stay up with me thereby helping me pull those unimaginable all-nighters.
As I inch closer to project submission deadlines in the midst of a lockdown, away from college, and as my mother stares at me with absolute disbelief that I’m brewing myself a cup of coffee at 3 am, this is presumably the first time in life I feel not so sure about completing my projects on time or of not doing a good enough job. Suddenly, it is not about the deadlines and a lump rises at the back of my throat. This angst emanates from the sudden realization of being away from college and missing my friends and not knowing when we’ll see each other again. I’m finally starting to realise how important friends are.
They accompany you to GH or Sanjay Bhaiya’s canteen or Nescafe when you’re in dire need of coffee but are also dreading wasting even 10 minutes of your time. Those 10 minutes of break time to go have an espresso or cheap machine coffee and talking about the random-est things in life with friends have presumably been one of my most cherished memories of college. Those 10 minutes ensured that I get the much needed oxytocin to calm my nerves and that caffeine (though I think now its really all placebo) to help me stay awake throughout the night and fetch that ‘O’ (or ‘E’) in my exams. It’s as easy as walking with a friend to get coffees! We procrastinate but we also get the work done and there is no place more like home than the company of friends in college. (Things are not the same when your friends from college live in the same city as you do, trust me.)
Literature, Poetry and Reading. 