I approach Chavadikmukku junction. I am cruising at a higher speed because of the dog chase. When considering these types of incidents will happen much more frequently, a two-wheeler isn’t a safe option. I must start considering taking my car out. But my scooter is way more convenient than a car. I did come across a couple of situations in which I would have been forced to reverse my car and take the opposite lane. There are bound to be cases where cars or even buses might be blocking the entire road. I need to carry a stick or something to frighten these stray dogs if they furiously approach me.

I see the signboard announcing the left turn one has to take to go to the engineering college. It is a well-known institution in the entire state. It was founded by the late Travancore king back in 1939. It was first located in PMG. The building that is the current PMG was the college back then. It was shifted here after some time. The college has produced fine students who have contributed to the state in various fields. I appreciate the effort taken by the king back then. He must have been a visionary.

Travancore was a prosperous kingdom that was doing really well. It was well ahead of its peers when it came to social matters. There is this beautiful book written by a young historian about the Travancore kingdom. I read it a couple of years back. It paints a great picture of how life and times were in those days. I loved reading the book. I am not a history buff. Nor did I like the thickness of the book. It is 500 pages long. I can read fiction that can stretch on and on but not something non-fiction. The book doesn’t feel like one. It is like a well-woven tale being told by an all-seeing entity as he narrates his take on the lives of the queen who takes the central character in the book. I have recommended it to my friends who had come asking for a book other than fiction. He has published a couple of books after that too. I haven't read them though. I would have loved to read them but there were other books I wanted to read.

This is something I don't like - the fact that there are so many awesome books in this world and you will never even read a fraction of them. You might read all the well-known ones, the ones that have attained recognition and global accolades, the ones that are bestsellers and are seen in every bookshop you come across, the ones that your friends and relatives recommend, the ones that keep you all excited and gripped and the ones that you have heard of in one way or the other through all the marketing and publicity that goes into making them be heard.

But there are so many other amazing books that will never attain popularity. Some will only get sold in the first batch of publications. Some might see a bit more success but would never make it to the list of books to be read. Some might be too controversial to even exist after their publication. They might be burned away and the author made to suffer for it in various ways.

Some would have seen the hands of an editor or two and then ended up in the dump. Some will not even see the day of light. I can only sympathize with them. I wish they had taken the first step in putting the words in their heads on the paper. Maybe it might not make sense. But what is in your head is something unique. Only you are privileged to it. If it is worth sharing the story, one must take the effort and bring it to life. Maybe your friends will read it and that's it. They might tell you it is good but you know it isn’t. Don't give up. Keep writing. You don't stop with one story. When one finishes, another one comes up. There is no dearth of stories. We are all stories in motion. Our life is a story in itself and in it millions more.

I wonder how one can even fathom all these stories. Like if there was an entity above all, someone who made this universe and now finds himself witnessing all these stories. How does he process them? Does he even care for them? Are we the only ones who care for a story? Are stories our thing? Do animals have stories to tell each other?

Stories are something I hold dear to my heart. I love hearing a good story. All stories evoke the respective emotions they are meant to within me. I laugh out loud when something funny happens, cry softly and quietly when something moving happens, and get mad at the protagonist for not saying what is meant to be said. I kind of live these stories in my head. Sometimes they happen as the story is being played out. The process happens subconsciously in my head. I am aware of it after a certain point in the story. I let it play out. I don't hold it back. It makes the story even more beautiful.

Sometimes they happen after the story is done. I recollect them from time to time. The first recollection paves the way for how it will be played out in future iterations. The characters and settings take shape along with the outline of it. The problem with recollection is over time the story gets distorted. I forget some things. They might get completely erased from the story or might be a bit distorted to fit the need of the hour. Sometimes I even add elements that are not there in the story. This happens when I rehearse to share the story with someone else. The pressure to make it interesting and elicit a good response from them makes me add elements catering to these needs. This is not right. I am not telling the story in its truest sense. But then they don't know what the story is. All they need is a story and I am creating one for them from an existing one.

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Stories that existed when humans came into being are long lost. Does a part of them remain in our DNA? I don't know. I mean I don't know if we even store the information we process in our DNAs and pass it on to our younger generations. If so I guess there might be a very tiny part existing in it.

If they exist then they must be stories of survival. After all, survival is something woven into our DNA. Not only ours but of every living species. Survival and propagation of its species. If stories could play a part to help then why wouldn’t they be stored? They would only enhance it.

I am thinking too much about all of this. I don't know why but I have been in a very philosophical mood today. I reach the junction from which the road separates to the college. I decide to head to the college. When it comes to finding out more people in an area, the college would come out on top. They have all reopened after being shut for more than a year owing to Covid. Students are waiting to head back to college and utilize the remaining beautiful time of their lives.

The road to the college isn’t as big as the main road. The shops in the junction are all closed. A lodging of sorts stands tall on my right. I see t-shirts and pants hung out to dry on the balconies. I honk my horn nonstop and look out in the direction of the balconies and open windows. I get no response. I continue with my ride.

I pass through a stretch of road that seems out of place. On my left are huge houses. They are situated in an ample amount of space with tall trees covering the plot. On my right is an empty plot that is filled with tall trees among which coconut trees are the majority. Normally people would want to set up a building or a provision to cater to the needs of the students in the form of lodging or a gymnasium or restaurant, a stationery store, etc. If the college can't accommodate all of its students then lodging becomes a good business. As far as I know, amongst the engineering colleges in the state, only the one in Calicut provides the facility to lodge all of their students on campus. I don't know about the other colleges. The MBA college in the same city is also completely residential. I know this because some of my friends have studied there.

The stretch is over in seconds following which I am greeted by the kind of atmosphere I was talking about. I see a building on my left. It has a board in front of the wall that advertises lodging for women. A few meters ahead on my right is another small two-storied building advertising boarding for men. There is a small supermarket on my left as well.

I see the tall boundary wall of the college. There is a board that says the same too. A small road diverges to the left. I stick to the road I am in. I am heading for the main entrance of the college.

I see the buildings of the college on my left. They are old in construction. To my right is another lodging for men followed by a juice center and bakery. There is a small restaurant too. I feel excited. It is the whole vibe of the place. I feel all young and vibrant here even though I am not. I passed out a decade ago. It has been a long time since I have sat in a classroom and listened to a lecture being taught. I am not counting the various training programs I have attended for my work. They are a different breed.

Sometimes I wish to go back to college and learn something. I don't know what it is that I really want to learn ahead. I don't want to do a course just because the majority of my friends are doing it or because it has better job prospects, thereby eliminating a lot of options. I am not left with much. There was a time when I had seriously thought of going for a degree in the few options left for me. But it required a good amount of effort and dedication from my end to revise all that I had learned in my college days. I had forgotten them when I joined for work. My work doesn’t require me to use even one percent of what I have studied. What was needed for it, remained with me? Everything else faded over time.

Honestly, it is not about going back to study. It's about going back to an atmosphere that had given you the best years of your life with the hope of getting something similar. The truth is, it rarely happens. There are only a few colleges in the country that can offer an experience for your master's degree similar to the one in your graduate college days. Everything else just fails. Those three or four years are never to return. I wish someone had told me this beforehand. I wish someone had made me realize the importance of these years. I did have my fair share of fun and excitement in my college days. It's just that there is this nagging feeling of it never ending or lasting for a little bit longer.

With life having gone off on a trajectory very different from the one before it after passing out, I sometimes wish to go back to those simple and carefree times. I don't want to earn anything. I want to live off my parent's money once again. There was a certain freedom to it I cannot explain. It was much different from what I have now. I think it was the carefree nature we had back then that makes it so precious. We had no idea of what our futures would hold. We were blooming forth with all the figs in the fig tree right in front of us to pick. Little did we know that the moment we pick one, the others would vanish into thin air.