Sense of an Ending

A Romanticism of My Time at IIT (BHU)

Endings are almost inescapable. “All good things must come to an end” is what we’re told, time and again, throughout our life; and while the statement has some truth to it, things never really end, do they?

A multitude of things were coming to an end a year ago. There was Avengers: Endgame, which came out exactly one year ago and was a culmination of some of the best cinema experiences there have ever been. There was the final season of Game of Thrones airing at the time, and despite its shortcomings and mistakes, we glued ourselves to the screens to watch the episodes, often before they actually came out. And it was the end of college days for my 2015-batch peers pursuing B.Tech. Being an IDD student curses you to experience two farewells — once after your fourth year, the other after your fifth. And though it feels like a sad period of time with all things one held close coming to an end in quick succession, one perseveres, because one still has memories to keep them company once things actually end.

While Avengers: Endgame may have ended after its three hour run, the experience of watching it the first time with a crowd of people in their early twenties screaming at the top of their lungs during the screening is a memory that one wouldn’t really forget. And that is how things continue on — not in the physical world, but in our minds and memories. The same can be argued for Game of Thrones, which did not have a very good ending as Avengers: Endgame did. Despite this fact, Game of Thrones is still widely influential. Not many who haven’t read the books forget their shock when Ned Stark is beheaded. I particularly remember my reaction to the Red Wedding. That is the beauty of things. They continue to creep into our minds, delighting us, frustrating us and influencing us, despite having ceased to exist.

This also translates to one’s college life. Despite the fact that college ends, people cling on to memories of the place, their experiences, their conversations, the time they spent all night on the hostel roof, the time that they were sent out of an exam for not wearing shoes, the time that they laughed half the day and slept the other half away on a certain day in March, the time they took a walk around campus just because… These years also provide one perspective about so many things that make it possible for one to survive in the real world. For the longest time, I loved college because it was a safety sphere for me. I did not really have any “real world” responsibilities. I could afford to slack off anytime I wanted. I could get wildly enthusiastic about anything that I wanted to know or learn. There was nothing to stop me other than my academics, which I realise I could have spent some more time on. Yet, I did not fully grasp that this protective sphere was still a site where I was learning so much about the world.

IIT (BHU) for me has been an amazing community that I had the fortune of being a part of. But this was not always the feeling I had towards the college. When I came to the college, I was utterly disappointed by the infrastructure. The hostels looked old with their central gardens full of trash, the roads were unpaved, the public thoroughfare got on my nerves, and the internet connection was a big, big mess. I used to think about a how if I had one less negative question in JEE, I would’ve been in some other college. The myth of an “IIT” quickly wore out for me. To me, IIT (BHU) felt like it wasn’t anything close to what an “old” IIT would be. In the five years hence, a lot has changed in the institute, as well as in my thinking. I ventured out into clubs and cells, getting to know some really amazing people both older and younger than me, and soon realised that college was not just a place with good infrastructure. The people, more than anything else, made the college special. This is what made Harvard, Harvard. And that’s what had to make IIT (BHU), IIT (BHU). Once I overcame my prejudice, college became a place where I could try to get into things I did not know existed before. At this point, I had no real aim as to what I wanted to do later in life, and the plethora of thoughts and influences of and from the people I knew in college seemed like a blessing, allowing me to explore many things. When I see freshers now cribbing over the college they are in, I can’t help but think back to the time I had been similarly naive. You could say I was institutionalised by the place, but even if it was institutionalisation, I am glad that it happened.

That is not to say that academics is not something a college is supposed to not concern itself with. Academics is still an area that IIT (BHU) struggles with due to outdated courses and curriculums, leaving a lot of scope for improvement. The idea of a college to me would always be a place that helps in not just academic growth but personal growth as well. When you are at a place where you can discuss with people about the paintings of Vincent van Gogh, the works of Alfred Lord Tennyson, and about the origins of pig iron, you will never leave the place as the person you were when you entered.

While I have enjoyed the journey at the college, I can’t help but think back upon the statuses that were all the rage this time last year, quoting Tony Stark from his last effort monologue recording: “Part of the journey is the end.” Never had I thought that the end to my college life would be so different from what I had seen a year ago. I had looked forward to the last semester, hoping to say a memorable goodbye to this place and the people I met here, because in the end, memories are all that you have after things end. This does not mean there aren’t other memories to leave with. When you’re at a place, you try to make the best of your time trying to stuff in whatever memories that you can of your time there.

The end I, and pretty much everyone, hoped for was quite the opposite of what these Edward Hopper-esque times of COVID-19 have provided us with. In these times, I can’t help but think about how our college life will just frizzle out sitting at home, unable to get the closure one needs in changes like leaving college. In my thoughts I have often found that it’s quite easier if there’s a definite end and explanation for something. Closure, in such cases, becomes a misplaced word. Closure, according to me has never meant a happy ending. A sad ending can have closure, and the best example I have is the way BoJack Horseman ended. It’s not a happy ending per se, with all of BoJack’s friends going separate ways and Diane especially hinting that the two won’t be talking anymore. But there’s a definite explanation for what happened in the end and BoJack knows the reasons. Bojack famously quotes “Closure is a made up thing by Steven Spielberg to sell movie tickets. It, like true love and the Munich Olympics, doesn’t exist in the real world. The only thing to do now is just to keep living forward,” to which I disagree. Closure is essential if you want to carry out the “keep living forward” bit, otherwise you keep obsessing and being unsure about where you are. More melancholic than this, however, would be the realisation that our college life ended before we even realised; that one day we left college to leave for our homes due to the pandemic related evacuation not realising this was our last day in college, and we will only be returning for two/three day bursts at best in the future. That, in my mind, would be the antithesis of what closure should be.

As Marina Keegan wrote about Yale, IIT (BHU) is full of circles we surround ourselves with — clubs, cell teams, fest teams, friend circles. This all won’t exist for us next year. There will be no gatherings in G11 or Swatantrata Bhawan. There will be no chai from LC. This is what troubles me. Losing this feeling of connectedness, where the degrees of separation are really just two at max. That is another thing I love about this place — how it’s one big community. I still remember the time I put up a simple Whatsapp status to sell extra tickets for Avengers: Endgame, only to see my chat box flooded with messages from people whose numbers I didn’t even have on my phone. If I loved my club and cell before this, I was in awe of IIT (BHU) after this.

When I look at the end of my time in college now, I have a sense of an ending. It’s April now, and we should have been writing our end semester exams and submitting our theses. Though this is absent now, it will happen in due course of time. So while our college term has technically extended, it comes at the cost of being able to enjoy it. And that is not really an extension, is it? I don’t expect closure in such a scenario because you never really would get to say goodbye that one last time. It’s just a gradual fading away as we slowly come to terms with the fact that we have moved on to a different stage in life. But at least I’ll have my memories.

The end, and this journey, however, do not mean that the best days of our lives are behind us. The best times that we have had, the influences they, and the people we met, have had on us will always be a part of us. We are a generation born in a remarkable period that offers much more ahead than afforded to us by our years past. There is still a lot to look out for. This leads to the question posed by Beach House in their song Myth: “What comes after this momentary bliss.” Being someone who has no idea about what the future holds for me, and what I want to do in life eventually, I know that the future looks daunting. It took me my final year to realise that I came into the college with so many ambitions and ideas, but eventually lost them to self doubt. But know this, these doubts are nothing but a ploy in your head. You are at a place where you could let it all out. I have interacted with a few freshers who joined this year, and I think they know not to let inhibitions suffocate them. And that is what I hope out of the class of 2020. Don’t let minor failures set you back. As Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote:

Things never do really end, for they continue on in our memories, and I know my time at IIT (BHU) has given me something to remember when I look back at these five years. I did not realise it when I came here, but between those red-and-yellow buildings was right where I needed to be.

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