Being a 'graduate'

Parents, relatives, and all the elders that we know of never fail to remind us how we are growing up so quickly and how it was just yesterday that they saw us coming out of our mother’s womb. Of course, we find it annoying. But the reality is that we are growing up and we fail to acknowledge the very same. Every day we take a step closer to being that ‘perfect mature human’ that our young selves had envisioned.

There are days, events in your life, like those troublesome group of elders that bestow upon us the realization that we are growing up. That, the time flies so fast that we are now almost ready to step out into the real world, a world which we always wanted to be a part of but not now that the time has actually come. But these realizations by life hit us real hard.

For me, that event was my graduation ceremony. It is nothing like what you all imagine. We have not finished with the boards and definitely haven’t got our result. We were not wearing any robes or hats like they show in movies and did not throw our hats in the air like they do when they get their degrees. No. It was none of that. It was a ceremony which was quite different yet was our own sort of graduation ceremony.

Honestly, I was not too excited about it. I was totally clueless as to what was going to happen. But once I reached the auditorium of my school, my perspective changed. It started with the academic procession, teachers coming in a row with lighted diyas in their hand and placing it on the rangoli in front of the stage. I never realized that our school had so many teachers. That was the moment which first knocked on my conscious telling me that I’ve grown up.

Teachers formed a choir and sang a beautiful song for us. My classmates and some of the teachers welled up at this point. I became sentimental too but thanks to the lack of tears inside me I could not shed a tear as I would have wanted too.

There were speeches by students and parents going section wise. Everything that was said on the podium that day brought back memories for many and made fresh memories for us all of us. It was a grand feeling to be standing there in the line waiting for your name to be called out, walking towards the stage, the class teacher reading out your achievements and finally receiving the citation certificate.

When I was on the stage those thirty seconds made me truly realize that now is the time to take on the world by my own means and solo. I realized at that moment that I’ve actually grown up. The proudest moment for me was when I walked on the stage to receive my certificate and my history teacher who was presenting it to me told me that she is proud of me. I felt honoured and felt like I've truly achieved something.

I think that in between making funny names for the teacher and them writing our names on probably our last school certificate we all grew up. In between crying on our first day of school and crying on the last day of school we all grew up.

PS - Even with all the realisation on graduation day, we will call ourselves grown up only when we have had our school farewell.