Random Nostalgia

That was pretty much my survival kit in India during the later half of my engineering life.

"that's so random", "why the bagpack?", "is that sprite?" and "i dont get it", each punctuated with a confused look, have been the reactions to this snap which rests snugly on my desktop. I set it as my wallpaper about a week ago: the human mind wanders towards the end of a frantic semester. I can get insanely melodramatic, and of late nostalgic too, about random stuff, more so when time is a luxury for me: courtesy impossible academic deadlines.

A job during this semester to pay for my regular calls to family and friends in India, terribly mismatched online timings with friends in India, an uncertainty about when I can visit India and two of my close friends who are visiting India for the summer all add up to some random nostalgia. Fair enough, ain't it? That explains the wallpaper displayed above. The details of the same are as follows:

1. The Bottle
   I sweat a lot. Hence, I drink a lot of water. In addition, it used to take me a mere 2-3 hours of commute in the soothingly hot and humid weather of Mumbai, from my home to my college - ONE WAY! The bottle, always visibly tucked in the side pocket, has quenched the thirst of millions of my partners-in-commute more than it did mine. But I was the one who always filled it up from the college's water cooler before heading home at the end of the day.
   
   
2. The Player
   It is NOT an i-pod. It is a humble, compact and extremely user-friendly MP3 Player called Yepp manufactured by Samsung. And the earphones in the picture are by Sony which I had to buy after I accidentally ripped off my Samsung earphones. It was a sad day. Life moves on. The Player was the best birthday gift ever from my parents(the only time my persuasion ever worked on my parents). I treated it with the respect and the care that it deserved, and it smiled back at me. It still does. We have had our differences, but we eventually learned to outgrow them. My passion for music grew exponentially every time I listened to my favourite songs on it. It has helped me get through exams, vivas, results, TATA(Final year project days), stressful days, stress-less days and of course the eternal commute.
   
   
3. The Bag
   A humble abode to the above two and of course books, journals, CDs, DVDs, index sheets, files, print-outs, wind-cheater, hard-disks, cd-writer, clothes, cameras and much more. I practically lived out of this bag for two years. It was one of the most spacious and sturdiest bags I ever owned. It survived the Mumbai floods of 26th July, 2005. Period.

shamie,
24th may, 2008