Of distant times and faraway places....

I was reading something the other day and the guy in the story, in an attempt to cheer his friend up, askes her to think of a happy place. Now some of you would take a while to think of what your happy place is, but I know instantly where mine is. It is where I did my post graduation. It is on the 2nd floor right outside the internet lab. I would stand there looking out of the metallic railing that ran across the entire corridor. If I looked down I saw the open quadrangle between the two buildings. Furthur down I would see long stretches of green grass and a flame of the forest tree in full bloom that sometimes you saw only the red. If I looked straight ahead of me about 200 feet away I would the steeple of the church. I would always stare at it for several minutes cos of the sheer beauty of the church

But that corridor, outside the internet lab was not my favorite place because of the church, or the trees, or the grass. When I stood there, which I did so many hundred times during my two years there, I felt like I belonged. I knew standing there that I could call, Adeona or Pacific Guy or Lucina or Drake and ask the standard question, "where are you?" and the answer would be "in the canteen", "at the library", "in the main lab".......... and not " I'm in california", "I'm in Dubai", "I'm in b'lore", "I'm in delhi". I knew when I stood there, that if I felt lonely even for a second all I had to do was run through the corridor, down the stiars and within minutes fall into the arms of a friend. I could go to the canteen and sit with Drake and both of us would play with those tazo's that came free with Cheetos. We would spin it on the table and see whose spun longer. Pacific Guy and I would sit next to each other in class and play word games or snake on our mobiles. If I ever lost at it (which was very rare) he would hold up his fingers in the shape of an L to his forehead and call me loser. Lucina and I would discuss the latest sale and about how bad it was, but still ended up spending a bomb. Adeona and I would lean against the pillars outside the building facing each other discusing the cutest guys in college.

When I stood there outside the internet lab I knew that my whole world was just a few minutes away, that my whole world was just a few feet away. I would stand there often holding on to those moments because even then I knew that those were the best moments of my life, that those two years will always be most exceptional years, and the reason for that was not the place itself but the people, who made that place, my happy place!