Goodbye, King Edward!

How do you say goodbye?

To seventeen years of being a student. Seventeen years of backpacks, pencil cases, papers, class rooms and teachers. How do you say goodbye? To a journey marked with so many landmarks: your first illegible doodles with a pencil at preschool, the splashes and blotches of your first fountain ink pen at school, the last rushed ball pointed lecture notes of university. How do you say goodbye? To a lifestyle that molded and shaped you for so many years, a lifestyle that defined who you were and what you wanted in life.

And how do you say goodbye to a place you’ve spent half a decade of your life at? How can you articulate anything that could sum up all the gratitude and affection you feel for an institute that’s given you so much?

04.10.2013. My last official day at KE. At 2 p.m. I sat on the high wall opposite KE’s main ground gazing at Patiala’s majestic white domes. There was a calmness and stillness in the air and not a soul in sight. Perfect. She looked proud, Patiala did… at least to me. Proud of the journey her children had made. They had braced nightmarish professionals, insanely timed maternity duties and lengthy ward hours. They could have crumbled and crushed under the weight of all of that. Yet here they were. The teenagers of yesteryears now soon-to-be doctors of tomorrow. 

A word cloud of memories seemed to be floating in the air. The good, the great and the not so wonderful moments all swirling and whirling around. But the feeling I’m glad I got the most of was of contentment. KE had honed whatever little there was in me of oratory, writing and creativity, providing me with platforms of expression I hadn’t ever imagined I’d get. It taught me free spiritedness and independency. Creativity and craziness. How to stick to my principles and what I believe in. It gave me friends and oodles of laughter. It taught me that every disheartening dusk would always be followed by a glorious dawn. It helped me discover inner strength and fortitude. And particularly this final year, it gave me the most wonderfully memorable learning experience possible.  

Your colleagues will move on and branch out. Familiar faces and voices, their laughter that once echoed the halls, the characteristic present each roll number said, the moments spent, the memories made will never be again. Life and time will move on. KE too will move on, even presently it’s bustling with hitherto unknown juniors.

The child within you has a nagging feeling of wanting to hold on. The adult outside can’t wait for life’s next adventures and to make the most out of them. As a whole, I guess you’re somewhere in-between… gently soothing the child to let go… urging the adult to look ahead but not to forget the past years.

You can take a Kemcolian out of KE but you can’t take KE out of a Kemcolian.

There was a flock of birds on KE’s main ground. My friend A. Kohli, who was with me, and I looked at each other and grinned. We put on our white overalls that were covered from head to toe with colourful goodbye messages from class mates. On the count of three we raced into the ground setting all the birds soaring into the air around us. There was a rush of wings left, right and forward moving majestically over the sky field above, rising to the great domes of Patiala. It was the single most wondrous moment I’d ever experienced. A befitting end. Out chase your dreams and Altapete.