Most years in my life are a blur of mundane events, with nothing outstanding to distinguish them from others. But 1998 stands out, for a lot of reasons.

I turned 18 the previous year, and was chomping at the bit, ready to leave Guwahati behind and looking forward to the strange new life that lay ahead after the different engineering entrance examinations. Those would determine my fate, whether I would go West, North, South, or stay behind in Guwahati. South happened, and when I walked through the gates of my college in Warangal, a place that seemed very different from my 18-year-old life so far, sure, I admit I was a little petrified. The fear however was not about leaving my old life behind, it was to do with the rotund, serious-looking, dry-voiced senior who had effectively taken charge of our luggage when we landed at the railway station and herded us towards the auto-rickshaws. And that was the scariest Udatta ever got, before I got to know him better.

But I get ahead of myself.

It was the year I saw my first A-rated movie in a theater. Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen. I told my mother I was going to see it, and found it really strange that she did not complain at all. Even gave me some extra money so I could have dinner outside with my friends once we were done.

1998 was also the first year my friends and I travelled with no adult supervision of any kind. To Nepal, where we spent heady nights in the streets, temples and casinos of Kathmandu, lost our hearts over random beautiful women in the city, and tried to behave more grown-up than we felt. My first taste of beer in a ramshackle hotel on the Indo-Nepal border, just because my friends found Budweiser for the first time – I ran down the hotel corridor looking for a wash-basin to spit up the mouthful I had swallowed, because it tasted so fucking terrible. Checking into a hotel in Thamel slightly out of our budget just because the receptionist was a drop-dead gorgeous girl who smiled at us when we went in. Ordering sizzlers for lunch and dinner, because we could. Then to Delhi, to apply for all the colleges there, because the Joint Entrance Examination results were late and we had to think of the back-up plan. The heady feeling when my father called up the hotel to say that it was fine, I could relax, the results had come in and I had not done too shabbily, followed by the twinge of regret about not having more money so I could go and have a good time. Trash-talking with the street-vendors in Paharganj, cracking Assamese jokes in Connaught Place, being loud, obnoxious dorky and wide-eyed, all at the same time.

Before the year was over, I would have gone to Calicut and Bangalore. I would have my first Kerala Beef Curry, and curse myself at having not tasted beef all these years. I would sing and play the keyboard on stage, in front of an audience, for the first time. I would meet the strangest people. I would make friends over the strangest things, like whistling melodies recognized in a bus. I would make friends who still are.

It was a good year to be in love. The year Titanic released in local theaters in Guwahati, and the year Silk Route released Dooba Dooba. The girl I was in love with was moving away to a different city. For an insane moment or two during college admissions, I had actually contemplated selecting  a college in the same state she was in. Logic prevailed, “love” was put in its place. I wonder how different life would have been had I let the heart decide. I still have her letters, written in a graceful cursive hand and littered with small sketches. She, on the other hand, has a kid.

It was the year I read the first Sandman comic I understood completely, and loved to bits. Issue 50, ‘Ramadan’. That giddy feeling when I first came across it in a library sale in Goa. Yeah, I was in Goa that year too, because classes were due to start a month or so after our admissions were done, and we could either stay on in the campus – and be incessantly by seniors stressed out by final exams, or just get the fuck out of the place and come back a month later. My uncle stayed in Goa, and there we went, my father and I, to spend a few weeks away from real life. I walked through the alleys of Panjim like it was fucking Wonderland; there were others I met, in addition to Gaiman – Indian Ocean, Vangelis, Michael Kamen, Robert E Howard. I didn’t go back to Goa for 12 more years; I’ll probably never go there again.

One last, enduring 1998 memory – me dropping my father off at Madgaon station, where he was taking his train back to Guwahati, my train to Warangal being a few days later. We stood on the platform for a bit, talking about this and that, about how I should tell him immediately if any seniors bothered me, and that I should have fun at my uncle’s but not trouble them too much. It was nearly time to leave, and he patted me on the back, and told me to get a move on – why wait until the last minute, after all? And this is where perception and memory play tricks with each other. My father remembers waiting at the door of the train so he could wave goodbye to me. But I strode away and did not look back even once. Maybe it was to avoid letting him see the tears in my eyes.  Perhaps it was a conscious act on my part, a fear that I would look back and he wouldn’t be there at the door and I wouldn’t like that one bit. Or maybe as a gesture of innocent stubbornness, as a friend put it, that tried to say that I had grown up. It’s a clear, burning memory for both of us – I did not look back. 1998 was the year I learnt not to look back.

It was a good year.