Day 445 - 2nd April 2012

Woke up relatively early today. Had breakfast at Chota before taking care of some last minute packing. The painful goodbyes continued through the morning. Donated a lot of my stuff to the housekeeping staff and Chota.
Made a trip to the main building and administration block for one last round of goodbyes with the staff. It still hasn't hit me that the MICA journey will come to an end in another half an hour. I am pretty sure that sinking feeling will hit me when I least expect it. It is only fitting that the trip to the airport will be made in Azhar Bhai's rickshaw. Its been an amazing two years out here, this place has exceeded all the expectations that I came with.  Will have my last meal in the mess as a student of the institute before leaving.

Adios!

Day 444 - 1st April 2012

The penultimate day at MICA. Spent the first half of the day in arranging for the bike to be packed and sent to Bombay. A lot of people started leaving campus, saying multiple goodbyes wasn't an easy job. Had our last group lunch at Pizza Hut - Kalkar, Shibani, Sania, Kore, Dua, Apu and Buds were there. Got back to campus by 5 in the evening. Caught up on some sleep in the evening. Spent most of the night copying as many serials as possible from myzone. The last dinner in the mess happened to be biryani. With so many people leaving, the campus felt like one of those deserted towns we see in westerns. Spent some time at Chota in the night. Saw the convocation video online before calling it a day one last time.

Day 443 - 31st March 2012

Today was the big day. Spent the first half of the day packing. It seems incredible but MCSA work continued to keep us busy for the first half of the day. We all had to gather in the auditorium by 430 before the batch photograph would be clicked on the cricket field. The convocation ceremony went off quite well - doing the rehearsals actually made sense ;-) The chief guest was Mr. Arun Poorie, Editor in Chief of the India Today Group. He spoke really well. He shared with us his experiences and learnings from a career in media that spans more than 3 decades. The ceremony was followed by dinner in the Nescafe Plaza.

Had our last batch meet in the audi at 1130. Thanked TI for arranging for a webcast of the convocation. Placecomm was given a standing ovation for the brilliant job that they did this year. This was followed by a pillow fight :P Football was played under floodlights one last time. This is the beginning of the end.

Day 442 - 30th March 2012

Woke up by 12 o'clock and had to spend most of the afternoon waking up people for the prize distribution ceremony. The awards ceremony is an annual fixture that is held the day before the convocation and awards are given to students for outstanding academic performance. Yours truly won an award for the best all round performance. Also had to give a speech in my capacity as the President of the MCSA.This award has been instated in the memory of a MICA alumnus who left for his heavenly abode. His batchmates have contributed to this award for the past two years. The award was given by the adviser to the Prime Minister. Post the ceremony the MCSA had a meeting with the Governing Council of the institute wherein we presented our feedback to them based on our experience at MICA. We were given a half an hour slot but the meeting ended up getting extended for almost two hours. Its been extremely hot out here and was completely dehydrated by the end of the meeting. Hadn't eaten anything since morning as well. Just before heading to the mess for dinner Shibani said that she would be getting pizzas for us as her birthday treat. Dinner at the mess was duly skipped ;-) Ordered a cheese burst pizza for myself and finished it in no time on the Asoka terrace :P The heavy dinner coupled with sleep deprivation over the past couple of days meant that getting sleep in the night will not be difficult!