After-Grad.com

This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 6:35 am by Manjiri Keskar.

Along with the year 2007 ended a beautiful period of my life that I spent at home in cosy comfort of my family. 2008 was to make me come out of my nutshell and live in the open world, face challenges and fight them off on my own, with nothing or no one to fall back on.

I bade my family a tearful good bye at the airport but it seemed like the world was celebrating my departure with all the firecrackers and cheer in the air.

My itinerary was as follows:

Jan 1 ‘08

Leave Mumbai. Fly Jet Airways. Reach Brussels.

Jan 1

Leave Brussels. Fly Jet Airways. Reach Newark.

Jan 2

Leave Newark. Fly Continental. Reach Denver.

It wasn’t as boring as it sounded though. Luckily, I got to fly premier class from Mumbai to Newark so I had one nice comfortable bed throughout the journey. The personal entertainment system made the seemingly never ending journey much more bearable. The Continental flight from Newark to Denver was a pleasure; thanks to the amazingly beautiful views outside. It was early morning and the sun was just starting to creep up the horizon. The sky was a heavenly blend of pink, orange, white and blue. The earth below was covered with snow all over and the plane was zooming in and out of clouds, making it all seem like a brittle dream. The layer of clouds below us seemed like huge cushions of cotton being gently touched by virginal rays of the sun. I was too much in awe to observe anything inside the plane and was practically sitting with my nose glued to the window during the entire flight. It was an ethereal experience I will never forget all my life.

Finally we landed at Denver International Airport. It was heavily snowing in Colorado the week I came and it was apparent from the chunks of ice still on the airport in spite of the constant cleaning around runways. It was pleasantly cold in Denver when we stepped out. It was very nice of my classmates, Ankita and Dhaval, who study at the same university, to take time out of their busy schedules to come pick me up at the airport. A bus took us to Boulder, which is about 45 minutes away from Denver.

Boulder is situated at the foot of Rocky Mountains and is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful places in the world. Especially during this time, when the peaks are snow capped and everything is at its prettiest best. Boulder is the second fittest city in US and it boasts of various outdoor recreation facilities like skiing, biking, rock climbing and fly fishing. The sun sets at around 4 pm and it leaves us, the newcomers, wondering when the day slid past us. It is at night when the chill sets in and the temperature dips below 0 degrees. Before I realize it, the next day has already begun. It has been around 2 weeks of inactivity at after-grad thanks to this strange mutual chase between days and nights here. I apologize to everyone for not being able to comment and solve queries in time. Hopefully I should be able to do so just as before soon.

So there I was, two days back, sitting at my window at home and noticing the traffic and pollution below and complaining about it. And now here I am, noticing serene mountains from my balcony. Clean and untouched. Still there is something that I continuously miss and have a perpetual feeling at the back of my mind that I left a part of mine somewhere while coming here. What that was; friends, family, home or something else? That’s something I have not yet been able to put my finger on till now.

But there is one thing for sure. If heaven ever existed, I know what it would look like. Boulder.

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