A journey from Boy to Man...

THE STORY:

1st Year: Seems like, it was just yesterday, that we entered in our hostel rooms, unknown of the mates who

will be sharing the room with us. New faces with moustaches and beard and faces crouched in fear

of seniors, afraid enough to ask each other's names, and with the passing time, we bid our parents

goodbye looking over to the most longest night ever. Seniors dropping in and out every second and

within no time we were stuffed in with all the rules and regulations for the upcoming month ahead of

us better known in college as the "Ragging Month". And hence we started, setting our foot on a

brand new path, opening a new chapter of life and gradually friends started pouring over in these

pages of our life. Friends so unknown to begin with yet close, with so different tastes yet similar in

thoughts. We fought, we laughed and we played together never knowing where we would end up

tomorow and then just like tirning a page of the diary, we slipped into our next year.

2nd Year: And still resisiting, but yet again, don't know of due to some unknown bind, we felt happy seeing

each other again back oin the hostel. Felt great, now that we were seniours, And well, some got the

fever up on their head and thus again followed the month under us legally or illigally, whatever might

that be called: "The Ragging Month". Though now, a strange change was observed, for people who

thought everything ended up in infatuation, really looked forward to scratch the dictionary pages to

look up the meaning of love!!!! Some even found, and the rest just let themselves flow in their

carefree world of mockery and laughter. And as the days passed, with each plate of pale food we

ate, with score in the game on field, with every talks and jeers and astonishingly with every fights no

matter what, we cameall the more closer. Trying hard to know each other, living off to their needs and

reading them eagerly, we slowly stepped into each others' life. And stil we were unaware of the fact

as to where we were heading for tomorow, even though calmly sollowing the stairway to serenity.

3rd Year: Though there still remained a feeling to be at home, but still everyone felt at ease to be back with

each other or to be more precise to feel the comfort of being at home far from home. For now, it

showed how much glad we really felt seeing these smirks again. Third year is always the most crucial

year for any engineering student and no doubt it was the same story with us too. Galleons of sticks

burned and floated in air as smokes of nicotine and many wandered deepn into reverie sipping

thoughtfully, thinking of walking straight but lying somewhere upside down. The exotic esscense of joy

was all around. And thus there was this gradual realization of we people belonging to the same clan

no one different from others and we all stood united putting our hands on each others' shoulders and

put forth our steps together forgetting all our fears, not bothering what lied ahead and marched happily

and merrily cherishing of what life had in store for us. For some were lucky to find life being fair with

love and mercy to prosper and for some life betrayed breaking them to peices like they would never

find their fragments again but we were there to prove what we really mean, for we arose the deads from

their graves because we always had our hands across each others shoulders and never left may whatever

come in our way and hence we walked in fusion through the cruel times of life naming ourselves

"THE PHOENIX'S TROOP". And what more life is never unfair, for it awarded us with our bright

future in form of jobs and we drowned ourselves in our own sea of happiness still avoiding to see the

duskier shade along the horizon as to where we really were heading for tomorow...

4th Year: Fighting our way back to the place where we could now happily call it our home, for here we found

a family more bound to each other, we again found ourselves back looking gracefully into those

childish and mocking eyes, rejoicing every moment we lived under the same roof of our hostel.

Looking for reasons to be together and atlast open our castles to know what lied deep beneath us,

which were once locked up in darkness and make them realize who we reaaly were and in the

process, there spread a strange scent of belongingness amongst us. And as the days passed, the scent

seemed to grow all the more dense, and we gradually wanted time to freeze for those moments when

we wanderec aimlessly to hitherto, laid back looking at the night sky for hours, lying on the grass dead

talking of things that never meant anything in themselves but still delightful in its own way, of those times

when we cried together and laughed later remembering them and cried again. And its just when we

needed more time up on our arms we suddenly felt short of it. And with time ceasing to exist the cold

realization came like the dawning of the sun behind the mountains as to where exactly we were heading

now. And soon we all be gone and we would be heading into the real world, in a place where there is

no mercy, no eyes, no hands and it's just us and the naked mile ahead of us. And we begged time to just

slow down before we falling into the pool of pirahnas but has time ever really cared for anyone?

Now with each new day, we wake up with a new hope of spending one more splendid day with our

friends, knowing that we are a day closer to the day of our separation.

"And it still seems like yesterday"...