Those yellow-tinted pages...

I came back home looking for something good and comforting. Something which will tell me not everything is futile and pointless. I came home searching for something that has been a little elusive of late. For meaning. For People. For reasons to continue.  

As I laid the keys down with a sigh,  I noticed something slide at the back. Something i haven't really looked at in a long time. Something which reminds me of a time that now seems eternities ago. A time when I could call myself a student and when I was looking forward to something bigger and better. Today, those times seem long gone - distant and forgotten. Today, I face the realities of life without the brilliant hope that always clouded my vision. 

Today, as I flip through those yellow-tinted pages, I look back and a smile appears on my face. What transpired doesn't feel all that bad. Those were the pages of a book of memories. A book that was conceived as we stepped out into the real world after many trials and tribulations. From jealousy to deceit, from harassment to appreciation, from love to heart break- in those five years, we had seen it all as a collective. We were now looking at escape - at taking flight as we completed our PhDs. 

I look back at the makings of that book and think of how it had been plagued with problems. I wonder at how this tiny thing had caused us so much trouble then. We had complained of the unfair distribution of effort, lack of interest, acknowledgment etc etc from the others even as we had plodded along with despite all obstacles. Despite all our complaints, we had persisted. The three of us had stayed the course and got the book ready for all our batch mates. I call them batch mates, because friendship is a word reserved for special bonds and while these were not the fondest, there was still a comfort in these relationships. There was still a sense of camaraderie and fun that would shine through the dust and grime of problems, frustrations, egos and differences at everyone of our get togethers. 

That book was a parting note, our swan song to a group that had meant a lot at one point but had soon been roughed up by the winds of time. The past half a decade of our life was imprinted on those pages in the form of pictures, sketches, collages and messages. As I see the pages, I think of all the hours that went through putting everything together - from collecting the pictures, to arranging them to finally printing the book. But then, today, I am glad we did it. 

Because at the end of the book, I see those messages of farewell in scrawls and scribbles and I feel the sentiment behind it all. I see the words - "smile", "friendship", "journey", "love", "farewell" and after a while, I can feel them too. I can feel the presence of that hopeful girl somewhere underneath it all. I at least know she is not dead.

Somehow it feels that the story is far from over yet. That there is a lot more out there than what I am able to perceive. And who knows, something good may come out like that thin, spiral-bound book from the present too.