2303 Champion Court

Has it ever happened to you that you are driving down a road on which you drove many times in the past and you see all these sign boards and turns and bus-stops and infinite memories from a long lost time gaggle your mind? Words spoken long time ago, the inside jokes with your friends, the memories of times when you ran like crazy to catch that bus, all these tender memories throng your mind and in that cacophony of memories, voices, events and sights, a single thought shouts out loud and clear – can I get those times back, if only for just a day?

This happened to me a few days back. Driving down the I-440 beltway around Raleigh, North Carolina, I saw an exit sign that said “Crabtree Valley Mall”. And it all began. With every exit sign I saw, with every intersection, the K-Mart, the University bus-stop, the labs, the Burger king, and finally that signboard that my eyes had grown so accustomed to seeing: “2303”, every signboard had a story to tell, every landmark had been an event marker. That Crabtree Valley Mall sign I had seen. It brought to my mind the first time in Winter break when we all roommates went to this mall for an evening out. Visiting a US mall for the very first time had been a memorable experience. And this mall had been plush, filled with the best well-known American stores (“stores” were still “shops” for us then). We used to walk about a mile from our house to catch a bus to go to this mall and then return with the same exercise. It seemed like a pain, but with all 4 of us together, even that evening out in the mall was something we looked forward to. Then there was that exit I saw which took us to Cary, the place where we all went to buy Indian grocery. This place was so far away from our house, that it took us a half a mile walk to the bus stop, then a bus ride, and then again about a mile long walk to get to the actual store. All of our other friends used to take help from people who had cars to go to this place. But we four refused to do this. Maybe because we saw this trip as a means to be out together, a break from studies and a simple excursion that we could afford to do. Now, living a working man’s life, I’ve visited many many malls and have been to many Indian grocery stores, but the simple fun and the good times we had during the grocery trips executed with military precision (we even used hand symbols and military time J), the long walks and bus rides, cracking jokes on the way, pulling each others legs, that’s what made those trips special. Having each other’s company is what made us almost not miss home at times. And even when any of us got homesick, we all would cheer that guy up, and make the whole atmosphere so homely that we felt like brothers.

As I drove on towards 2303 Champion Court that day, everything spoke to me. Every street corner, every piece of land had a memory attached to it. Like that bus-stop near the university where we waited one evening after dark for hours to catch a bus. It wasn’t that far from home, but as it got dark, we started scaring each other with mugging stories. Such simple memories too now seem to touch the heart every time they come up from the ocean of memories that was 2303. My evening and morning walk routes, the computer center where we spent countless hours solving projects, the Blockbuster outlet we used to frequent so much that the staff all knew us by face, the many group cooking experiences, they all burst out into my mind as I parked my car outside the familiar board of ‘2303 Champion Court’.

As I sat there in the car that night outside 2303, overwhelmed with memories, I kept thinking, that two years ago, I was this naïve and ‘scrubbed-clean’ guy from India who had just come to America for higher education when I moved into 2303. I was moving into this house with 3 other guys all of whom also had come like me – fresh into this foreign land. One of these guys I had known for about 9 years now and my equation with him was good, but of the other 2 I knew barely little – that is, to say just their first and last names. That night sitting in the car, as I looked back in time, I thought, “with just that kind of knowledge about these guys, what was it that made me decide to move in with these people”? It’s a question to which my gut knows the answer but not my brain. Little did I know then that this house into which we moved in on that bright morning in August, ’04 would become my most favorite place in all of America.

Sometimes in our lives, there’s a place from where we started as novices and which we get to re-visit when we are atleast ‘somebody’ on the map of the world – atleast a blimp on the radar of achievers. One such place in my life is “2303, Champion Court”. This is the only place on the face of this earth that I wouldn’t hesitate calling “home” apart from the home I grew up in. It was a happy place. A place filled with friendship, laughs and sweet memories.

As I sat there that night looking at that condo numbered 2303, I thought:

“Friendships were made here, Here bonds of brotherhood were forged;

Home was here once for all of us, but “Now move on” is what Time urged.”