BACK TO WONDER YEAR'S

Minakhee-at-Buzzingtales

Ten years! That’s quiet a long time, the longest probably any Hollywood marriage ever lasted. Memories and moments that make up those 10 years are bound to last a lifetime though. Some endearing, touching, funny, heart breaking, sad, forlorn, a whole bouquet of different memoirs distinct in flavor, fragrance and color. I am talking about the decade long journey we all make in our childhood, the 10 years at school. Yes, it’s so difficult to erase memories of school no matter how torturous they have been, more so if it has been beautiful. These are the years when we are polished, reshaped, our jarred ends smoothed out. These can be the make and break points of individuals, depending on the experiences. As the years roll by and one starts carving out their individual destines, school and its recollections are pushed into some recess of consciousness/sub-consciousness. They reveal their presence in those rare occasions when we drive our kids down a boring ride and indulge in, “you know we did this and that at school” moments. Nostalgic to us but arising “Oh No Not again” kind of reaction from our kids. Only a few lucky one’s still retain childhood contacts, as they push forward in the road of life.

We all seek to reconnect, get a glimpse of those special people we lose along the way. Face book made it possible for us Stewartian batch of 1990 to revisit our past and reboot our roots. Many of us traveled from far and wide, with an extraordinary tingle in our hearts, in anticipation of meeting after 2 decades. Many had changed beyond recognition, with time imprinting each with its own special touch. We had spend hours in the same campus for a decade yet now we were complete strangers again. In each of our books of life  volumes had been written in the passage of another 2 decades. The slipping moments we reconnected in was not enough to know or comprehend anyone properly but there was an undisguised joy of being together. As one very close friend put it "we can be totally unrestrained and devoid of self-consciousness among childhood friends." Perhaps it was for this reason we jumped at the prospect of a reunion. At the prospect of revisiting childhood, without  feeling embarrassed to reveal the child within an adult body- at the prospect of laughing and giggling at those childish and foolish episodes, which seemed so profound and serious way back in time.There was the unspoken regret about childish foolishness, shyness or mere ego, when we had the time to speak, communicate and know each other better, but did not use the opportunity. As boys and girls, we were mostly on the opposite side of the line of control, but the reunion had evolved us into men and women mingling in spirit of friendship. Don’t we all always want a second chance in life, a second take to change things to shape in a better way? Well it’s too far-fetched to think reunions like this one can achieve that, but they do give us a chance to take a second look at our life’s-How we were looked upon in childhood by friends and how we fare in their perspective at present. That said I would like to quote what I read somewhere, “The ideal way to live is to actually be what you would want others to believe about you.”  Getting too deep and excessively complicated here UHH!! Therefore, I will just drag my mind and put it in a track it was on the evening of the reunion, just exhilarating. There were no promises made, no false hopes that the bonds forged will last forever – just-untainted joy in the moment when friends met again.