Years of boring lectures and surprise tests, assignments and seminars. And then comes the day when it is time to bid adieu to all that. However, the feeling that takes over is seldom of joy. Classrooms you hated for so many years are now places that are drenched in nostalgia. You long to have just a little more time to hang out with your buddies, play pranks as you laugh with your classmates. As you go down memory lane, some of you might even miss exam time tension and those last-minute combined study sessions.
There are some who would like to freeze beautiful moments in time via autographs books — books that are fast disappearing. Then there are those final days in college that are too precious to be lost, but GenY has found innovative ways to keep in touch. “With emails and SMSes, it has become easier to connect with friends,” says Meera Manu, a final year MCJ student, Kerala University.
“In school it was still popular. In my final year, we used slam books. But now, as I have reached my final days of postgraduation, even slam books have gone missing. I miss autographs, a hand-written message has so much more depth than a ‘typed email’.”
Though autograph books are not enjoying the same popularity, youngsters today do miss taking their time to pen down their thoughts and taken-for-granted messages, they haven’t given expression to in all these years.
Anisha Netto, a second year BA (literature) student realises that autographs are in the ‘fading out phase’. “Today we write email testimonials and exchange photographs on the mail,” she says. However, she misses the “smell of old paper along with the precious memories that mature like old wine”.
Ashik Kalam, a final year engineering student from Thiruvananthapuram, says that autographs used to be a rage, while they were about to bid farewell to their school days. “However, today, with Facebook and instant messaging, people no longer feel the need for autograph books. But unlike IM or FB, autographs capture moments and thoughts and freeze them in time for you to savour later,” he adds. An autograph book is a fun way to bid farewell, you can look back and smile at your thoughts, feelings and the incidents that happened many years ago, he confesses.
Less than 10 years ago autographs were still very much the norm amongst final year students. Praveen Rajan, who finished his engineering from Kollam in 2003, remembers a souvenir made by his class. “We called it ‘autograph’, it was a collection of all our photographs together with our contact details. We all took back a print out of this ‘autograph’. Those days, social networking and even mobile phones were not so popular.”
He fondly remembers, one autograph, “Don’t get married to someone you can live with, get married to someone you cannot live without.” And yes, he did follow this advice.
Go back 10 years and you’ll find an even more emotional value attached to these little books. Reji Koshy from Thiruvananthapuram, who finished a bachelor’s degree course in 1993, recalls, “Years later when you look at these autographs, you get a picture of how deep and meaningful your relationships were.”
Deepa S. from Kochi, remembers the words used in autograph books during her high school days in the late 80s. “We used to start buying autograph books from January onwards. At that time there was a trend to use the latest pictures of actors. There would be coloured or printed papers used and it was a great feeling,” she adds.
Flashback a decade and a half more. No Facebook, Orkut, mobile phones or the Internet. Malini Rajkumar, from Palakkad, still carries her autograph book from the class of 1972. “When I think of autograph books, I can still remember running behind everyone to get their autographs,” she says. She reads from her old autograph book, words written by a friend who is no more, “Choose not beauty, more than goodness, when you choose your bosom friend. Goodness lasteth till the end, beauty often fadeth away.”
Social networking may be the ‘in thing’. Instant messages may reach faster than a handwritten word. But for the lady from Palakkad very few things feel the same way as opening a book 40 years later. That’s love etched on paper, and it doesn’t fade so easily from the mind that reads it.