Edited by: Sahana Inuganti
For many of us, this is one of the last few weeks of online college, and honestly, good riddance. But as we watch the Zoom calls become a thing of the past, I canât help but remember all the good times weâve had. Because despite it all, woh online wali dosti bhi zabardast thi. From online class shenanigans to shared playlists and study sessions, there was little we didnât do with our online friends. In our loneliest year, they were right there beside usâ just a text away even when they were hundreds of kilometres away. It took really special friends to stick with us through the year, and they deserve extra credit for that.
From walking to class to only barely logging in on time, it was a wild, wild ride. No longer could you work on assignments right as you walked into class or take five extra minutes because every millisecond of delay was logged and resulted in a threatening red âLATEâ. But on the other hand, online classes made redundant those notes youâd never read. Instead, you could now take screenshots youâd never find again. Much more efficient.
We discovered so many new manoeuvres such as the âroll-over-and-log-inâ, the âIâll-watch-the-recording-somedayâ, the âshirt-without-pantsâ and the âIâll-attend-from-my-bedâ (which is simply the polite precursor to âlog-in-and-sleepâ). Just as we got creative with ways of missing attending classes, we got creative with ways to spend time togetherâ from the comforting silence of a study session, to the complete chaos of online game night, to cooking on video calls.
From Discord to Messenger to Instagram to good old Whatsapp, we all had that one platform that formed the entirety of our social lives. The real saviour of the year, though, had to be Zoom private chat. Thereâs nothing quite as beautiful as texting a friend during that one camera-on class and watching them laugh on screen. Bonus points if theyâre unmuted and the whole class hears their notifications go off. You could go further and text on the group chat to see everyone come online instantly and complain about the lecture. Never before has zoning out been a group activity.
But we didnât just zone out, even if that formed most of what we did, it wasnât the full extent of it. The sheer productive power of just getting on a call and vibing together is astounding. Weâd make hyper-specific playlists for every mood, work on assignments together, talk each other through the anxiety of exam week and collectively procrastinate. There were friends who texted you at 4 am, friends who only ever called to ask about class but who ended up talking to you for hours anyway, friends who were there for you and friends you wanted to be there for. There were friends who embarrassed you in class, who did the whole of the group project while you cited internet issues, who found the entire question paper online, who acted as morning alarms, who taught you to cook, who sent you their notes, who heard your rants, who played Among Us with you, who made subtle inside jokes in class, who were never online, who were constantly online, who never replied to your text and whose texts you never replied to.
For all my criticisms of online classes, I made some of my best and closest friends over the pandemic. We didnât have dhaba chai or shared clothes to bond over, we didn’t go for long walks or late night ice cream. We had something very different, but no less special. It wasnât rooted in the sort of compulsory togetherness that comes from living and studying in the same space, but from a concerted effort to be together. Online friendships werenât effortless, and they werenât a by default acquaintance. The effort that youâd put into a close friendship offline was needed even for a slight acquaintance online. And thatâs what made those friendships so beautiful, unique and specialâin a time when we were totally alone, we chose to be with these people and they, in turn, chose us.
So thank you. For every little hey how are you and nice ppt lol and we have a test?!! Thank you for engaging in the mortifying ordeal of being known, so that I may partake in the euphoric experience of knowing you.