Eternal Adieu...I hope not

Farewell, my dear friends! since we now can ne'er meet;
If our songs have been languid, they surely are few:
Let us hope that the present at least will be sweet--
The present--which seals our eternal Adieu.
                                          (Farewell to the Muse, Lord Byron)




It is time for you to go, time for the end of a story and beginning of another. Your nerves dance and tingle not just at the thought of leaving behind this place and its memories but perhaps even more at thinking of what the future holds in store for you. Life moves on and so do people like you but wherever you go, you carry with yourselves and leave behind you some impressions which the sands of time shall take a long time to wipe away. The batch of 2005, fare thee well !

It was only a couple of days earlier that we were practicing for the group song and I was all enthused about putting up a great show for the farewell. Despite changes in my personal plans, I did not want the team to get affected...tried to talk them into going ahead with the song and dance by saying that I may not join the party and then turning up late...kiddish plans, I know but they worked probably...

And what an awesome performance it turned out to be...not technically of course, but it did set the mood for rest of the night. With the unending prelude music and people off the stage singing the song aloud even before that..and of course the initial commentary of "Papa Kehte Hain" adapted by Vikhyat, there could not have been a better beginning. And they took it places...lines forgotten but compensated for by sheer enthusiasm, people joining in the song in the middle (from both batches), the karaoke and the vocals playing hide and seek and yet everybody laughing along...infectious stuff, truly.

Chiranjeev and Sandipan were up next with their excellent rendition of "Puraani Jeans". Though the reverb was a little too high and the guitar volume a bit subdued, but who bothered. With the people already in the party mode, there was quite a bit of singing and clapping along as the duo went through the song and Sandipan handled the highs and lows of the melody with ease.

Vikhyat attempted something different as he came on the stage for the second time with a piece of paper in hand and feet firmly planted behind the podium. The stuff (whatever it was...I still do not have any clue) might have been good but he should have moved around and done something more phsically involving. The effort was good (I must convince him to do it some other time), though... :-)

The songs over, it was time for some dance now and the talent of Sandeep Gopal was up for display. I had been pestering him for a performance for long and he had promised me one, even if he had to do a solo one. He almost seemed to be living up to his promise as the dance routine started with a solo performance of Sandeep on some Mallu (I thought it was...not sure) song...quite free flowing and with some unconventional stage dance steps. To add a bit of convention, the next song had Kunal joining Sandeep for an English number where they did some of the more common steps. The variety was not over yet as Vikhyat came along (yet again) wearing a chunni and the three dancers did some fluid steps on a cool Euphoria song that must have entertained one and all.

After a few initial hiccups, Pawan did a great job with rendering "Ae nazneen suno na" and done without any instruments or music, it was doubly great. The best part of it was the ease and informal nature of the entire thing. With performances not mattering in the least and the spirit having caught on like wild fire, it was a free for all as the people (Rajat, Karan, Ankit, Rohit...and the rest) went up the stage a number of times, belting out numbers, talking stuff (some senti too) and above all, having fun.

In fact, the entire evening was a reinforcement of the fact that unrehearsed, unplanned things come out the best as far as the satisfaction quotient of the junta goes. Whatever we did do as part of culturals for the farewell could not have been done better, especially not if we had planned the entire thing and gone by any fixed ideas.

Soon it was all over. With the presentation in the beginning (the flash invitation that was prepared by Pranay and JC and sent out earlier to both the batches) making people nostalgic with some cool snaps set to some excellent music, the culturals made sure that the feeling did not die out, at least not for the night. The few speeches in between were decent, too...with Prof. Uday Damodaran addressing us for one of those last times, it was great to hear him talk about how he wishes his students to be non-MBAs and how he likes confused people as his students (he even named some of them from both the batches). XLRI is certainly going to be lucky to have him there.

The photo sessions were the theme for the next hour as a decent dinner (for a change, TAJ did well) was accompanied by a lot of hugging, forming of huddles and quite a bit of fun and laughter filling the hall. The dance started next and went on and on...with the bar in full service too, there was no reason for any one to stop...and they didn't stop till the wee hours of the morning...Kunal's multiple announcements of "This is the last song" would have helped, too :-)...finally, the last few of them had to be dragged on board the last bus.

And...umm...yeah...I drank after ages (almost six years if you discount the engineering college farewell) yesterday.