Farewell?

The following is purely a product of my cynicism - any person taking this personally will be solely responsible for the negative feelings that might get aroused within him/her.

So, we had the last of our lectures sometime in the second week of this month (Okay, 9th of April - I remember the date. Big deal.) and ever since then, everybody who is anybody - teacher's pets, nerds, double triple droppers, potential university toppers, rowdies, etc. etc. - had been getting really excited about this farewell business. Fair enough - even though it happens every year, this time we wouldn't be the gatecrashing sophomores or the imperfect hosts from the penultimate year. This was going to be our farewell.

Then again, did it merit so much excitement? Forget the kinds I mentioned - in our college, there's only one splitting attribute (yes yes, too much data mining). So, there are people who head back home at exactly 3.30 or 4.30 (or 5.30, or 6.30 - depending upon your semester and branch), and there are people who don't. The former bunch is so obsessed with securing their future that they don't let go at any point throughout their college life; the latter bunch lets go so often through the four (or more) years that in all probability this night is a step down. So, the former try and dress up and have fun; the latter look at the former and go crazy laughing; the former look at the latter laughing and think they are doing so with them, not at them.

Okay, maybe not - maybe everyone's actually nostalgic about spending that last fun evening together. But we do have a bunch of other things. The guys dress up (in "smart casuals" which is generally accepted to be the de-facto partying attire - perfectly alright), the girls dress up even more. Sadly, many of them think that it means wearing the shortest possible dress and plunging their faces in a mountain of powder not unlike Al Pacino in Scarface just so that they look good (read: fair). Someone needs to tell them that:

• looks don't matter (and if you can convince yourself that they do, you can just as easily convince yourself that you're pretty enough to matter),
• Fair & Lovely ads rarely speak the truth, and, most importantly,
  
• today it's talc, tomorrow it might be silicon - please exhibit restraint!
  

So, the dressed-up guys (who are even louder than usual) and the decked-up girls spend the better part of the evening clicking each other's snaps (interacting like long lost buddies even though they did not even acknowledge their existence in the not-so-distant past). That's until the food arrives - a wholesome vegetarian thali cooked especially in the college canteen. Yes. And after that is the "jam session". No, not the musicians from the third year improvising - hell no, it's the final year people trying to dance to the tune of loud, blaring music (usually trashy remixes of golden oldies and rock staples, other than the usual mix of house and hip-hop).

And then there's the "unoff" - at some place where you're expected to pay 600 bucks to enter and have an unlimited amount of your choice of booze in order to redeem that amount and in that drunken state, well, "dance" till you drop. And drop most people do, especially since many are first-timers and many more just don't know when to stop. So they create a ruckus, barf all over the place, spoil their relations with some person of the opposite sex who they got acquainted to just a couple of hours back and finally pass out, thereby proving to be a major nuisance for their immediate friends.

So, if you enjoyed yourself that night, I am happy for you - but I expect you to understand that I was in no mood to force myself, for the umpteenth time, to be a part of something which I always knew I wasn't going to enjoy.

PS. Thanks DJs (should I mention your names here?) for not playing Nashik dhol.