My cousin doesn’t really have the reputation of being a future-predictor, but that day miracles were bound to happen. As we strolled along pitch black asphalted lanes of the campus shaded with lush green trees (it had rained the previous night making the trees look paintinesque) whizzing past the lofty departmental buildings, Science More, AC Canteen, Central Library, Jheel paar, Engineering ground and Aurobindo Bhavan, I experienced the miracle. I was in love. With JU. Standing right there amidst the descending twilight I promised to myself, ‘I am gonna study at this university, no matter whatever happens.’
I did. I still can’t describe the happiness I felt when I got the news of my selection in JU. It was ethereal. Even at the risk of being labelled a ‘certified nut’ (I cancelled my admission from the prestigious Presidency College ignoring the constant glares from my parents) I enrolled in JU. And thus began the fairy tale. From that rain-soaked day of August when I walked into the Orientation room battling with my nervousness and excitement to that December morning when we strutted about the campus in our saffron robes waiting to be convocated — every single moment in these three years has been worth a lifetime.
However all those 1,095 days of ecstasy would have been completely meaningless had I not met ‘them’. It was on the second day that ‘we’ got introduced. At that moment I didn’t have the faintest idea that these five crazyheads — Ani, Pri, Ups, Mou and Drone — would for the coming three years make my JU experience something to boast about for my entire life. Unlike my schooldays, I didn’t skip a single college day during graduation. It was not because I loved attending the boring lectures, but because I hated missing the chitchat with my friends and the tomfoolery we used to do throughout the day. Drone didn’t accompany us beyond the classes, but the rest of us used to stick together like an inseparable quintet. Be it in classroom, canteen, library, photocopy centre or leisurely walk around the campus — ‘we’ were everywhere.
Adda spots in a college generally constitute the canteen or the common room. But JU provided myriad options. We mostly used to hang out in departmental classrooms during the lunch breaks. Milan da's canteen did not have much space to sit. So I would bring food — dalpuri-tarkari, alur chop, iced tea — from there and share it with the tiffin brought by Ups and Pri (they religiously used to carry tiffin boxes everyday stuffed with homemade goodies). Our other hang out zones (during off periods or class bunks) included the bench in the corridor near the front stairs of the department, the back staircases at the rear end of the corridor, the long wooden bench beside the window in the Film Studies department, Jheel paar and at times AC Canteen.
We had even discovered another weird adda spot — a small shop named ‘Mazumdar Xerox’ in a blind lane near Jadavpur 8B bus stand where we used to photocopy tons of pages everyday from various reference books. Quite naturally, we spent a great deal of time in the shop chatting away (that gave everyone the impression we have no work to do than idling our time sitting there) and munching on the nearby Monginis, Bawarchi and Hindustan Sweets delights. We had nicknamed the shop as Machhimara Xerox owing to the large number of flies parading from the opposite sweet workshop to give us company. The name became so popular that everyone from our class actually forgot the original name and started calling it by Machhimara (fortunately the owner wasn’t aware of this ‘name-calling’!).
The Film Studies department has a distinct charm of its own. We felt more cosy spending some lazy lamhe in that wooden bench of Film Studies than in any of our International Relations classrooms. The window right beside overlooked a considerable stretch of JU (the department being on the top floor of UG Science building), particularly the famous Hanging Bridge. Standing there and witnessing dusk setting in all over the campus was absolutely outworldly. I still get goosebumps imagining those moments.
Jheel paar — we called it Vrindavan at times — is basically the lovers’ den of JU frequented by couples of various ages (you might find a cautious First year couple sitting right beside a desperate Ph.D couple) and departments. We had no such purpose to visit there, except throwing comments on a few adventurous couple on the verge of ‘making’ love rather than ‘feeling’ it!
It’s been almost three years since I had hurriedly got down at Gate No. 4 from auto to attend the 10.20 morning class, stepped into the classroom, taken down notes of SC or PPB, eaten dalpuri at Milan da at 1.40, walked along the Jheel paar, rushed to CL to find a book that Partho da had declared wasn’t available in DL, waited at Machhimara for photocopies or chatted all the way from Jadavpur 8B to Garia in the auto with Pri and Ups. But surprisingly I remember all these as if it were yesterday. This, I suppose, is one of the many symptoms of you-can-leave-JU-but-JU-won’t-leave-you syndrome.
The past few months have been a real roller coaster. I left Kolkata, came to Noida, got enrolled in a film school, started staying alone and a series of things happening all at the same time. And still I went to the first class hoping it would be a déjà vu of the JU orientation. Everytime I chat with my friends over here, I can’t help but miss my university all the more. I miss TC’s blatant dictation of Gandhism notes, the cold looks of SS, KS’s awful diction and our sudden laughter imagining his face with that of a pig, DC’s perfect lullaby tone in her sleepathon classes, Ani’s rendering of boka boka, his ceaseless bickering with Drone on Bangal-Ghoti, Pri’s mimicry, her obsession with Shahid Afridi to the extent of declaring Karachi as her sasurbari, Ups’s repitition of other’s words in a way as if she’s saying it for the first time, Mou’s grandmotherly attitude and our constant comparison of her with gomata.
I miss the Friday film screenings at Film Studies, Mainak Sir’s Indian cinema classes, the evening Spanish classes with Tarun and Mahijit, Abhijit Gupta’s swinging ponytail, English department balcony, the mashi-pishi book store at UG Arts, xerox mall, chicken chowmein at Mani da’s, dhoper chop at Milan da’s, coffee at AC Canteen, running at a marathon speed to the department from almost anywhere after knowing that the result is out, waiting in a long queue at Aurobindo Bhavan for paying fees, the hanging bridge, the phuchka seller outside Gate No. 2, OAT, Fests, Freshers’ Welcome that stopped midway due to announcing of mid-sem results, university elections, Holi celebrations, our late night study sessions before mid-sem or end-sem, my innumerable phone conversations with Pri before exam discussing how many topics to skip.
I visited JU once before shifting to Noida. It was kinda relive-the-good-ol’-days exercise. I took a walk round the campus, visited the places we used to spent hours at. Everything was the same, but inside I could feel the difference. The pitch black lanes criss-crossing the campus remained the same, only I had moved ahead. I’m no longer a part of the buildings, classrooms, roads, canteens or the jheel. I know I can still come back and experience it, but the feeling wouldn’t just be the same.
Last night after finishing the article, I called up Pri and narrated a portion of it to her. ‘Why are you making it so personal? Those who haven’t studied in JU — or more specifically IR department — won’t be able to comprehend your write-up. Make it more fluid. Let the non-JUites too get a feeling of what the place is like,’ she said. But how can you not be personal when you’re writing about your love affair? Whenever I think of my university now, all I see is a collage of images that I’ve attempted to pen down as accurately as possible. And that, I suppose, quite explains the significance of the title. This is what I say if someone asks me about my college days. Those were the best days of my life. Period.
Image courtesy: Jayita Sarkar
