Remembering college days

Last weekend, I was on my way back to Bangalore from my native. I choose to take the train (Hampi Express). In the train, I was surrounded by a bunch of fresh engineering students, who were returning to Bangalore after their first semester holidays. It truly reminded me of my college days, when I was studying in Belgaum. During those days, even I too, used to travel in train with few of my friends after semester holidays.
That day, while I was sitting in my berth, I had a continuous, non-stop chat with these college kids. Each of them had a story to tell about their college, hostel, mess, ragging, internal exams, professors and also how they choose to join their engineering college. I met one guy, whom I found very interesting and funny. The boy is doing engineering in Computer Science. He has his own tale to tell. This guy told me how he did research for two months in selecting the college. He was interested to join engineering in relatively small towns in Karnataka such as Mysore, Davanagere, Hubli , Belgaum and other similar ones. He had a fight with his family members for not choosing Bangalore colleges. The reason he stated to me for not choosing Bangalore was traffic. He said, instead of killing time on roads, he can use the same time in other constructive activities. He also gave me the examples of successful people who were from small towns. It made sense to me as well. But ultimately he had to change his decision at engineering counseling day. He thought that he must not hurt his family members. On his engineering counseling day, he called up his cousin and asked about the colleges in Bangalore. His cousin suggested some college (which this guy thinks not up to the standards). With no second thoughts and with an intention not to hurt his family members, he took the admission there. He has to change his mind at the last moment. Poor guy… All these days, I had a mindset that this generation college kids would like to study in big cities. But this guy changed my way of thinking.
This guy was also upset over the computer based education these days due to recession in IT industry. I gave him little piece of advice and explained him the current scenario in the Industry. I also told him that recession would not last for long time. He got all cheered up...
I could connect to my college day’s stories from the stories these college kids were narrating to me. All the stories of theirs cherished my memories of college days. I miss my college days... :-(