My Aahan story

I've never been a gharghusla – Hindi slang for people who like packing up and going home as soon as they can. Still, I have no business sitting in the Express Building right now. Somehow, I can't haul ass off to my matchbox even though I need to pack for Chandigarh tomorrow.

Hanging around places I love after hours isn't new to me, yet I shouldn't be here tonight, I'm morally obligated to stuff a suitcase with woolies right now.

For the first time in three years, I have nothing to do on January 13, a date that's marked some of the most memorable moments in my life so far. This time last year, I was dancing away the last minutes of my final college festival. Aahan 2011 was ticking away to its conclusion. I was hugging my team, almost afraid to let them go. I hadn't planned for the end, it wasn't on the to-do list, had no mention in the diary.

I miss the rush. I miss working towards a cause, I miss the jhing. I miss fighting to stay awake for three days of the showpiece and the last-minute certificate fiasco.

It's a little selfish to write about my time in aahan when the kids have pulled off a great show but it has to be done. I can't think of any other way to acknowledge the festival, no the movement on the one day when the hearts of all of UPG's Aahan-nites will sink and the Aahan-nation weeps out its eyes.

I've stayed back because I miss going back late. I'm nowhere close to drained, don't have a to-do list for when I get back home or the satisfaction of achievement or the spine-tingling realisation that midnight brings the festival one day closer.

I'm never going to experience that ever again. I don't want to either, that'd be corrupting my memories of Aahan, those five months when I walked all over Andheri in a hood that bore the legend – Srinath Rao, Literature Head. I've been wearing it the past three days like I wear my SNIFF pullover every September 16, but the pride's drained out of it. It's hanging limply like any piece of cloth.

I should have been there today, they'll never forgive me for being misssing. But this is their time. I'll go back to being a 21-year-old dinosaur that's retired from college festivals.