So, after all this time, I’m finally bidding good bye to IITB. I finished my MTP work on July 4, got my degree on August 13, but it is today that I feel I’m finally leaving this place. In three days I will be moving to Tokyo and that separation has a finality to it that my brief stay in Pune didn’t — after all, if I wanted, I could reach the campus in about 6 hours from Pune.

Whenever someone asks, I usually say I preferred IITG to IITB (and I guess, as my alma mater, it will always be №1 for me). However, in many ways, my time IITB was richer.¹ I feel like I experienced more here, that the highs were higher and the lows deeper, but that could simply be the effect of a slight increase in senility. IITB also felt a lot more like home, probably because home itself is so close. Like the moon giving a pale reflection of the sun, the campus had a comfort, reflecting the comfort I felt at home. It helped that most of my time here was spent doing things I enjoyed (cough not Mechanical Engineering cough ).

So what did I do on my last morning here? I climbed a hill, of course. It was an endeavour I’d been putting off for nearly year; time ran out and now my hand was forced. The last time I was there, I got a few delightful pics of the black kites that frequent the campus. And since these birds didn’t seem to mind the rain in July and August, I hoped to see a few of them today, since a sunrise seemed hopeless. Well, not one turned up. I barely heard the echo of a kite’s scream today. It was a very humid, very wet morning, and I didn’t get much to photograph.

In a way, the trip reflected both what I wanted from time at IITB, and what it actually was. I wanted to set goals, put in the effort and achieve those goals. Instead, I spent most of time coasting, leaving me with regrets and missed opportunities. And much like the trip up the hill, I’m not sure my time here was all that fruitful — I leave here with the distinct impression that I haven’t achieved what I came here to do.

A few pics to cheer up a depressing post²: