The thermocol ball

Today, I found one of those in my pocket again - the thermocol ball.

In our final days at IIMA, it was summer training time for PGPs and I was alone in my dorm. I slept at my usual 2-2.30 in the morning and was dreaming peacefully with the morning breeze setting in. And suddenly I had to jump out of my bed as there was a loud bang on my door. I was tired, half asleep, half awake, confused, and scared to hell - did I hear it right? Was the banging in my dream or for real? Who could beat the door so brutally? Is it some robber or is it some watchman? Is it some ghost from the horror movie I was watching before sleep? Somehow I gathered some courage and shouted with a dry throat - who is this - who is there...

Scared to death, I opened the door with a blank mind. There was no one except utter darkness and then there was

-->light giggling. Trying hard to regain my senses, I saw two of my friends coming out of the dark and laughing their guts out. It was the farewell night for one of the first friends I met at IIMA. I joined happily into the group of two for waking up more friends around the campus and bidding farewell with senti speeches. After some time, the three of us came back and sat chatting in her room. There was a bean-bag whose seem was torn and thermocol balls were pouring out of it. We played around with those balls - pouring bucketfuls at each other, rubbing hands on them to see the crazy run of thermocol balls.
Some 3 hours later, we dropped her to station with a promise of meeting some day soon. For many days afterwards, those thermocol balls kept popping out of my pockets and from various corners of my room... and as I wore the same pants again today, another ball popped out of the pocket. Perhaps this was one last thermocol ball that survived washing and there may not be any more balls popping out like this.... but memories.... of that night and all those years that made that night so valuable.... oh those will always keep popping out...!!!