Today as I stand, a sheet of rolled paper in my hand, a paper which proclaims to the world that I am entitled to wear the black robe I am wearing, my heart takes a small tour of the past�.. how many hours of hard work has gone into making this moment of holding this sheet of paper in my hands. how many people have sacrificed their happiness and joy and time to make this moment a reality. How many hearts have secretly risen in prayer that I come out of all this a successful man.

A lot of them today are not here. But something tells me they know that I today am no longer a kid. I am a man!

I still remember when I was a small boy, I used to look at my elder brother, Raj, wishing I were going to school too�. I did not know then that school meant huge monstrous bags, homework, exams, punishments, �Get-out-of-the-class�es and so on� it was a place where lots of children used to be, and I needed to be there too. And I remember how I used to cry, and my mother, or father, or aunt, or even the servant maid used to take me (on special permission, while the entire folk at the Regional Engineering College, Trichy staff Residential Quarters looked on in astonishment at the boy who so desperately wanted to go to school!) by the same bus that my brother went to school, carrying a metal school box containing an empty slate and a few notebooks inside, sitting in the last corner seat in the old bus which we came to call �Gundu Bus�, and after dropping everybody in their respective schools at BHEL, the bus would return empty but for me, and my companion. I never wanted to come back, and eventually would always end up creating quite a scene! That was how I had first gone to school�my first memory of school life. And when my first ever friend in my life, Ranjit started school, I had a major heart ache.

My first day at school in reality dawned when my father took me to Mrs Marilyn Gomez�s class at RSK Primary School, Trichy�.. a day I would never forget, and a decision of my parents that I would forever be thankful for in my life. When the doors shut on our parents, I still very vividly remember about fifty voices crying out in search of protective parent company�. And to my astonishment then, and my embarrassment now, I cried too. I remember now how I used to get that extra privilege everyday as my aunt Devi Chechi used to come all the way to give me my daily bournvita. And I still remember that only stroke of Mrs Gomez�s cane that I received one day, though the reprimanding was for no act of crime I had committed. I learnt my first alphabet from her, and to her I dedicate all my successes. It still feels as though it was only yesterday when I was sitting pouring over my �Art-For-Fun� (or some equally kindergartenish name) sticking colour stickers over the correct spaces.

The classes that followed appear now equally a distant dream as the stars in the night sky�clear, alive, and sparkling. Ms Rita, Mrs Krishnaveni, Mrs Shirley, Mrs Linda, Mrs Virginia, Mrs Meera, Ms Charmine, PT Master Kulandairaj�.Sister Mary Celestine�. and a host of others who helped me with each rung of my climb to becoming a complete man shall forever remain etched in my memory as hard impressions that would stand any missile of the Taliban, or any erosion by the sea�. My childhood friends, Kowsalya, Santhosh, Arunesh, Gayathri, Neetha, Vidhya, Tara Raman, Nithya�.. these people shall hold a special place in my heart throughout the history of time. Primary school was over with all its enthusiasm. My classmates shall still remember how we used to fight over group alignments with the two perpetual heads in the forms of Anthony Raja the Powerful, and Neel Kumar, the moderate and succour for souls turned down by Anthony. I still shall give anything to take position under the same �A� sector tree where we used to conduct our secret meetings. I do not even know if it exists still, or maybe I am too old now to remember which one of them is that tree. And my mother also reminds me as how I used to prefer my aunt to come to school as my �mother� just because she �speaks better English�. For me then, that my mother was the Head Of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Government Polytechnic, Trichy meant nothing. At home she spoke only Malayalam to me, and that meant she knew no English. I did not know then, or maybe I would not have comprehended the fact, that she is the second lady in the whole of Tamil Nadu to have graduated with a Bachelor�s Degree in Electrical Engineering. I only remember the daily recesses and the routine catching of grasshoppers by us classmates then.

Junior school went by with no �real� thing happening. In fact, I do not remember a single episode of significance happening there except how I became the President of the Literary And Debating Association at school, outwitting the poor pox-struck Devanand, who has ever since become my best friend, and the picnics to Madras, and the �Leaders� picnic to Valparai. And also I had my share of the corruption when the LDA conducted the huge charade of the Children�s Day competitions, and I forgot to make a note of who had won which event, and finally when people started asking me the results I started giving away �prizes� to my closer friends in the fond hope that they would not come and ask me for the certificates. It is amazing how Bro. Soosai Raj accepted to distribute the certificates that day when they did not contain any authorising signature! Maybe some of my friends still used one of those certificates to get them a job! Mrs Judy, Mrs Ammukutty, Mrs Lakshmi Kantham, Mrs Prema Sivaraj, Mrs Catherine, Mrs Valsamma, Mrs Baby, Mrs Saro, Mrs Kokila ( and how I remember the day the Exhibition was held and we made that model of �The Town Child� and �The Country Child� poems!), Mrs Getsy, Mrs Josephine� the list of people who handled classes for me just goes on��and what a time I had with all of them! I still remember the look of hatred on many a face as I went on to become the favourite of all these teachers, and poor Venkat had an identity crisis too.

Main school...the ultimate feeling of superiority at RSK is when you are a student of the Main School, and with Main School came Mr Lloyd(My friend, philosopher and guide), Mrs Prema Jayadevan, Mrs Prema Juney, Mr Chellapillai, Mr Devaraj, Mr Jeyaraj, Mrs Nirmala Grace (to this day, I have not figured out whether I should call her �Madam� or �Aunty�), Mrs Mangala, Mrs ArokiaMary, Mrs Ranjini ( a good friend and a concerned teacher), Mr Rajagopal, Mr Rex, Mr DKPN, Mr Sowrirajan and a lot of others who have helped in chiseling my future. And my friends� list expanded to accommodate Manikandan, Ezhilan, Praveen, Sangeetha, Prasoon, Sam, Arvind, Krithiga, Vinod, Prodgy, Shammi, Sajiv, Priya, Venkat, Prasanna, Radhika, Debannita, Shankar, Meena and a whole lot of others, naming whom would make this the world�s longest epic! Santhosh and I fought, and then Dev and I fought, and then, well, I fought with a lot of them a lot of times�.but we always made up, within a day or a month, or even within a couple of years, as after the fight between Santhosh and me. The slap I gifted Ezhilan for a comment on a childhood crush still remains with the marks on my fingers. The remarkable victory in the elections for the LDA President, this time a convincing real victory, a record breaking victory, shall be my greatest show of might at RSK when close to 900 out of the 1050 student friends voted in my favour! At least this time Dev would not have had anything to feel sorry about! The fun we had during the picnics to Kodaikanal, Malampuzha, Trivandrum and KanyaKumari is one that can never be replaced by a visit to any other distant holiday spot. When a major blow struck in the form of my father�s death, my friends were there to lift me up, and I walk now because of the crutches they gave me that day 7 years back. I do remember Santhosh having told Prasoon on why he did not come and talk to me the first day he was seeing me after the tragedy�he had said that if he were to sit next to me, I would obviously burst out, and he could not bear to see me cry, and hence was keeping away. This was the only thing that kept me going with the hope that Santhosh and I would be together again during the fierce silent battle that ensued between us, for no apparent reason. The loss also fetched me two new friends, Prakash, and Sarath. And later, when in the final year of school, I also met Syed. Today, these three are my younger brothers, and ones who dictate my every move, and ones who have kept me from taking the wrong path when I had so many chances. To their name too I dedicate my successes thus far.

�Best Student Of the Penultimate Class� in the XI standard, and �Best Outgoing Student� in the XII standard later, I stood not knowing where exactly I was going out to. After a dismal performance in the State Entrance, and a, what I still hold, a narrow miss in the Pre Medical Pre Dental Exams, and long waits hoping Mr Kannan Thiagarajan, Trustee of the Madurai Thiyagarajar College Of Engineering would smile on my mother�s request to secure an admission for me at the College, I walked into Shanmugha to meet my friends for life. Ms Vijayalakshmi, Mr Raghuraman, Govind, Ravi, Sangameshwar, Arun, Vijayalayan, Srivatsan,Aravind, Suhasini, Vijayaraghavan,Tirumalai, Sangeetha, Balasree, Sasikala, Gayathri, Gowtham, Prabhu, Ganesh Srinivasan, Rajeev(my favourite junior), Kannan(My favourite junior), Srinath, Anush, Vishali, Brinda, Rajesh, and again, a whole lot of others.

People often remember Prof T R Rajagopalan as a stentorian, but I saw him as a good human who believed in giving me a chance. Others knew him only as the warden who turned down requests to go home from the hostel for the weekend, but I knew him as �Edhirveettu (Opposite house) Uncle�. In the first year at College, I had the pride of being among the very few who have had the privilege of sitting on a chair in his office chambers. And he wanted me to get the coveted Kamakoti Medal. I did not feign an act of artificiality to grab the award, and in the end, it went to a person who deserved it much better than I did. Vishali, my sister, winning it was among the most joyous moments in my life. I shall never forget her acceptance speech that evening. Prof. TRR would have had to be happy with me having bagged the award for the �Best Outgoing Student of The College�, and I was happy I had won at least that.

College life was too good to be true. I subscribed to a very small group which loved Shanmugha genuinely. I saw my not joining KLN, or Kannan Thiyagarajan not smiling at me as only an opportunity for me to meet Govind and Ravi and Sangameshwar. I shall remember the trip to Bangalore that we went in the Department as among the most treasured moments at College. The fact that Govind did not talk to me at all during the entire 4 days just so that I would talk to the others and get to know them too, in the process making it difficult for him too, shall go down history as one of the greatest sacrifices anybody would do to their best friend. My trips to CIT, Coimbatore with Ravi shall be the most cherished visit I have had while at College, and then would come visits to Pondicherry, MEPCO Schlenk, and to CECRI. The night before our project presentation, the heavy downpour, the loss of electric supply, and the drive by car with the 3 other batchmates with no wiper, and Ezhilan�s irritating comments on my driving skills�. What a night to remember!! And to top it all, our project at Bangalore!!!

Being Secretary of the Old Students� Association of RSK is the happiest post I have been in, and the proudest. My friendship with childhood schoolmate Vinod was discovered, and the feather to the cap was the conduct of the State level OSCAR�99. OSCAR was the talk of the town for quite sometime.

Out of college, and an offer from TATA Infotech in hand, I saw off a lot of friends to the US. And when I got into Sankhya, I felt real, hard earned, my own money in my hands. My first contribution was to the College, the beginning of a lot of things slowly to come. After a short but pleasant stay at Sankhya, pressures from within the family (into which had entered my younger brothers Syed, Sarath, Prakash, Srinath and Azar) made me take up the offer with Infosys, where I currently am, trying to call myself a substantial success. And with the entry into Infosys, I have gained new friends, Ravi(my best friend), Raju, Rasool, Thilaga(whom I have never met to this day( Mar 31, 2001)), Sundar, Girish, Prathiraj, Deepa, Ashish, Mohit, Vijaykumar, Vittal(what a character!), Milton, Rajesh, Jai, Manish(among the first persons to share my frequency), Narasimha�..

Life has a lot of good things to offer, and a lot of bad too. Generally, we get a good balance of both. But we are so interested only by the bad, that we fail to comprehend the good pearls. I have had my share in the realms of self pity, but then I wake up each time from a pool of salty tasting secretions from the eyes, with the feeling that all is not bad with my world if God were to have gifted me the world�s best mother, memories of my father, again, the world�s best, my brothers, the best that anybody could ever get, my friends�..the ones who make me who I am, and those special persons who keep praying for me each time I take one of life�s great tests. I shall cherish to the last day of my life my association with Mr Lloyd, Ms Vijayalakshmi, Mrs Prema Jayadevan and Mr Raghuraman.

A number of significant happenings, deaths of good friends like Ambarish, loss of relationships with a number of good friends, a lot of stories in love and life later, I stand taking my first steps into the domain of the money-minded, cunning world where cannibalism is the only language understood. There shall be no one to point out to the beauty of the stars, and no one to stop by a rushing stream. Wordsworth and Longfellow are long dead, and Frost keeps whispering in my mind about the miles I still have got left to go.

A lot of times I have felt things happen bad only to me. But the truth is everybody has an equal share. But our feeling that the world centres around us and our loved ones puts a veil around others� lives. We need to appreciate the good things happening around us, and also learn to accept the bad. We need to live our lives looking for those special words our friends say about us, not in our presence, but in the absence. I would rather die today to hear one genuine word of praise from a friend behind my back, than a hundred words of flattery when I am around. And when you look at life as a rollercoster ride with ups, and downs, you feel that it is really exciting after all. Maybe you do not enjoy it always. But you shall have to learn to master the game soon. Nobody can afford to be without knowing the tricks of the trade whichever he/she is expected to do, and life often does not give second choices.

I stand now, having come back from my tour down memory lane, and I feel a pinch in my heart. I am happy I am alive, for when I go, there shall be at least 50 hearts which shall weep in real pain. And that is a good number, going by how fast love is becoming a commodity these days. Mentioned here are but a few names which pass the veil that clouds my mind as I sit soaked in emotions. There are certainly some more more important names which I might have missed out as a result of this cloud, and I would like to say that this article brings them also into my mind. While I thank all these people who have lived their lives for me, I dedicate this degree of mine to their efforts of having helped convert all these mentioned, and the thousands of unmentioned moments of my life into golden memories.

Vijay Kumar
(This article was written on Mar 31, 2001, the evening that Vijay received his Bachelor's Degree in Engineering. When this goes in the net, (Apr 2003), there have been many other developments in his life, however, Vijay would want to keep the article unaltered. He considers this article to be among his best works (Not that it says much!))