Minor issues

Ha! Seems like I have a controversial post and an even more controversial title.
Its a day after what is hopefully the last set of Minors I shall face on this planet and I thought about what they mean to various people I see around me and at various times.

Pre-minors
Almost everyone starts talking minor-stuff about a week before they actually begin. The reading room strength starts building up, the mosquitoes in Ex-Hall get busy again, Nescafe and the like have a ball. Attendance is pretty steady overall (one of my profs boasts about how his students attend classes till 5 in the evening and take their exams at 8 the following morning without cribbing).

The night before
Lights don't go off, the night canteen begins, much to the respite of all hostelers, suddenly everyone is so interested in what they are studying (what they have just started studying, rather!), the reading room is full, smelly, sweaty and very, very noisy. The crowd has spilled onto the street, the library and hostel reading rooms as well. Ah! the library. Do not enter this place if you want a quiet corner, for the Insti does not believe in silence. Right from the librarian to the French exchange students, who seem to have breathed the Delhi air big time.

Day 1
And they are here, it feels best to go through the grind happily. Easy and fast... that's what everyone wants them to be. Fast alright... that's the good part, but easy? Naah! Not for me, at least. But yeah, as the minors kick off, life is suddenly changed. More time to sleep, eat, read the newspaper, etc. No boring lectures and labs, no listening to trash, no running to catch the shuttle, a way to spend your weekend that's definitely unique to the Insti.

Days 2 and 3 fly away and I don't recollect much except the daily pilgrimage to hell and back.

Day 4
This is by far the best. There is the wierd feeling of being on the edge of something. A few hours away from freedom? Or just another phase that shall come back in some form or the other? Anyway, its fun to know that life will come back to normal in a few hours. There is always this extra motivation to end on a high (I mean an academic high, no pun intended!).

The following evening
I look around and everone's having a ball. Multiple games of cricket on the same battered grounds, brick wickets and stuff. The sportsies are back, so are the wannabe Federers. The hostels are back to their noisiest, the latest movies are being downloaded and dissected. Cinema tickets are being purchased in black or white, that's the coolest way to have fun right!

All this seems like on big game, that I happened to be a part of for the last two years. A land where a few digits are bigger than your name to a lot of people who are doing what they are doing only because of the same few digits, where four mad days can make or break the way you look on paper to the Insti and the blind world beyond, where biogas vehicles run on streets littered with coffee cups. I stand confused, knowing not what to say.
Are the minors just that - a minor issue that everyone just goes through and gets done with, or are they the ultimate assay of one's academic abilities? If the former is true, then what about the majors that are just a month away? A major issue in my story?Hmph... lets leave that for later.