No more by thee my steps shall be……

12th May - This date is one of the most important dates of my life. It is my parents' marriage anniversary. On this date in the year 2002, I wrote the entrance exam for DA-IICT. And on this date, in 2006, I became en engineer.Ain't it interesting - DA-IICT saga started on 12th May and even ended on 12th May.

Yup, I have become an engineer. It feels so great. I am on the cloud number nine right now. Am experiencing a sense of achievement. I cannot put in words what I felt when I stepped out of the presentation room in the morning of 12th May.

However, along with all that ecstacy due to the succesful completion of my engineering, is the inevitable pain of bidding adieu to my friends of four years. Our hostels are deserted. I have been in deserted hostels all my holidays. But this time the silence is having a different, a disturbing effect. Because this time, I know, the people who have left that silence behind are not going to return. And very soon, I too am going to add to that eternal silence. One of my best friends left today, and hell, it hurt! Till last moment, we were pulling each other's legs, but within, both of us were yelling - "No! Don't let this moment pass, because with every passing moment, the farewell is approaching closer." But neither of us was powerful enough to stop time from ticking away. And so the hour of final goodbye did come. He left and I was left behind, thinking, "Where's the good in goodbye?”

Back in my room, I could not help but feel nostalgic. This is the place wherein we grew-up in the true sense. The counseling day wherein we were made to dream as never before, the first lecture wherein a certain professor scared us to death, the cycling from sector 7 to college in the first semester, the rush to occupy the first seat in the first few weeks, the first exams, the course BEC wherein half of the batch was certain of failing, the gradual coming out of the school type mentality and developing a college-lad attitude, bunking of lectures, computer games, festivals, clashes with seniors, internships, placements, DC++ - ah well, I can go on and on. This place has made me experience every kind of feeling – ecstasy and frustration, hope and disappointment, success and failure, pleasure and sorrow, love and anger.

Away from home, left to fend on our own, we lived an entirely different life here. Being located at an isolated place in a not-so-big city most of our time in the past four years was spent within the boundaries of this 50 acres campus. When we came here, except for a few buildings here and there, it was all jungle. As we grew up, along side this place has also grown. We have been fortunate to be a part of several "firsts" in this college - "first" rural internship, "first" occupants of the hostels, "first" issue of college magazine, "first" elections, "first" Synapse, "first" ragging-victims and several others.

What did I learn at this place apart from "ICT"? Well, I learnt everything. I learnt to take most important decisions of my life on my own, I learnt to handle relationships, I learnt the value of money, I learnt the importance of true friends, I learnt to survive competition, I learnt to dream big, I learnt to have fun in life. My four years here have resulted into an immense value addition in me in terms of a human being. I will not be exaggerating if I said that the foundation of the life that I will have to lead in the outside world has been laid here because it was here that for the first time I lived outside the cocoon of my family. And perhaps, this is the case with most of us.

Living in hostels, the friends became family for us. Whether it was much needed counselling, or care during illness, or money when we were bankrupt, a shoulder to shed a tear, a company to share a joke, an appreciation for some achievement - these and much more was provided by friends. Selfless relatioships - they are possible and DA-IICT taught me that.
Having been closely associated with batches other than my own, I have been able to know a lot of people here. It is the wonderful people that I have come across here that makes this place very very special to me. The talent, ambition, competitive spirit, selflessness - I hope I find such people wherever I go from here.

A few days more and then this place, which was my home for four years, would become foreign to me. I will need permission to walk into the gates of DA-IICT. 200201151 will cease to be my identity. Someone else would have occupied my hostel room. Alumnus - Yeah, this is what I would be called! Am I sad? Yeah. I am. I am terribly sad. But then, as it is said “Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.” DA-IICT was perhaps one of the best things to happen to most of us, at least to me. We came here, we saw, we will always remember! And we must try that we again come back here, we see and then we do the needful in our capacity so that we can take this institute closer to the status it deserves.

As I turn the pages of the book of our life and begin a new chapter, I seek the blessings of all the faculty members

To all my batchmates:

“May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields.
And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.”

Good luck and Good Bye!!




By the way, check out this lines from the poem "A farewell" by Tennyson. They are touching indeed!

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river:
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be
For ever and for ever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
For ever and for ever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

-Alfred Lord Tennyson