Graduation Day: Day 7 of A-Z Challenge

One morning you get up realizing that you have graduated and now you have to run the rat race of a corporate life.

This is a story of my graduation day.

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In India, most of the private colleges have commencement day year after you have graduated. This may seem bit awkward to my other countries friends but this how it is in India. Wait but there could be some exceptions like some big engineering colleges or Business schools may have their commencement day on last day of graduation.

Alas! I never studied from such big college to cherish such opportunity. So in year 2011, on a hot humid day in July on date 27, I graduated from my Alma mater.

We were informed through mails regarding our graduation day. By that time,I became a post-graduate student of a different college. This was great opportunity to catch up with old friends and acquaintances. Moreover I was home on my summer break from post-graduation college.

My best friend and I decided over phone that she will stay at my place once our graduation program gets over.

Dressed up in our new outfits, we reached college to find all the familiar faces with big knowing smile. We were shrieking each other’s name loudly and laughing on seeing the transformation like lunatics.

We were provided black gown and square hats with a purple hood for the program.So their is a bit of history behind wearing gown and square hats on graduation day which comes from this story.

Back in the Middle Ages, the church was the sole institution of learning, so clerical robes (long gowns) were the standard attire worn by medieval scholars.However, over time, education became less associated with religious life and the wearing of gowns was marked as a symbol of achievement and recognition. Hoods nowadays have different colours and are worn by graduates to signify the academic discipline they studied.

The square academic hat worn on graduation day is called a ‘mortarboard’, due to its resemblance to a tool used by bricklayers to hold mortar – a paste-like material of sand, lime and water which hardens when dry. Historians believe the mortarboard is based on the biretta which is a similar hat worn by the Roman Catholic clergy.

So now you see how this tradition has got evolved over the period of time.

The program started with big long speeches, which no one was hearing 😉 Everyone was busy in noticing others. The top three students from every stream were called on stage to collect their degree. Rest of us, got it, backstage. Once the program got over we went over to food section to have lunch. We were doing two task simultaneously greeting the known batch-mates and eating like apes 😀

One of my close girl friend who got married on our last day of college examination came with her  eight months old kid. We brought every guy who had a crush on her to meet her and the Baby, asking the baby to call them “mama” (mother’s brother in Hindi). It was real fun to tease everyone.The boy was really admiring all the attention.

We took lot many pictures, but two of my very close friends missed the day. It was like big reunion event, where every one was smiling seeing a known face. On that day I realized why I why loved this song.

I am really gonna miss this place, I am gonna miss my college days.

But no graduation day is complete without this hat throwing moment, so was ours.

I didn’t encountered a great commencement speech on my day. But if I had the chance I would like to hear  JK ROWLING SPEECH IN HARVARD 2008.

“The best university in the world is neither Oxford nor Harvard. The best university is “youniversity”. YOU got the lecture halls of thoughts in YOU! You got everything you need to graduate with first class accomplishments put in you! YOU can do it!”
― Israelmore Ayivor

PS: Share your graduation day story 🙂

This my attempt for the Seventh day of the A-Z Challenge.

Day 7: G(alphabet)