Reunion

It was a day planned for quite some time now.A reunion of sorts of our MSc friends.We were just 14 of us in that class of 2005, yet it was a herculean task of making all of them converge at the same point, same day, same time. With 2 of them brand new mom’s, a couple more newly happpily married,another few married for sometime now and bored!!, and a few more clueless spinsters including me taking time out of our supposedly busy schedules was not an easy task.

But where there is will there is a way! We found that out last Saturday when almost 10 of us met up for lunch after almost 3 yrs!.. we had been meeting on and off, keeping in touch through phone and internet but never had all of us converged at the same point same time!..It was awkward at first! we dint know whom to look at while talking , with whom we were talking to and what. There was so much to ask, so much to tell, so much to comment! From how much weight had been lost and gained, to how much work and life had made us different, there was just too much to say.. say we could, if only we stopped laughing! We laughed until our sides ached, and my head started slowly pounding from inside..

Slowly we made our way to the restaurant where we had decided to have lunch.. And as if god wanted to save the rest of the people coming to the restaurant from us, we got a huge table in a corner secluded spot away from the rest.. 2 hapless looking waiters came to us and handed out the menu’s.. in between our hahahaa’s we manged to realize that we had to order food.
“Hey wait lets find out if she is coming too. She is anyways always late from college days” "hehehe"!! the rest of us laughed.. anything and everything was making us laugh.. why wouldnt it? when one of them declared how she had fought with her husband because it had got late for our meeting thanks to his punctured bike! moreover when she said, in the 4 months she had been married, his bike's tyres had got punctured 8 times and all the times when she had grumbled at him over something!!

Somebody dialed the numbers of people who werent still there.. 2-3 of them dint turn up.. lets blame it on work, and unexpected relatives dropping in.. the cell phone traveled from one ear to another.. iam sure the girl at the other end had no idea to whom she was talking to, but still we weren’t ready to stop. After around 15 minutes when we were confirmed that only 2 more will be joining us after sometime we decided to order lunch.

“ Can I take ur order maam” the steward said.. instead of giving him the order we gave him the camera! And all of us give him our best smiles too! He had no option but to keep his book and pen on the table and go to the other end and click our pics!!.. finally we all settled down and lunch was ordered. Soups, salads, starters.. food was good! In between the talking, laughing and eating we made err requested our waiters to take more pics of ours!!.. sometimes its difficult to think girls that too “grownup” girls can make so much noise!!.. the laughs were thanks to our friend SK.. anything and everything she said, made us go “LOL”!!

Lunch dragged on for quite sometime coz we had to eat in between our yanking and laughing.. finally when we were ready to order for desserts 2 more of our friends arrived, much to the shock of our waiters and supervisor!.. “ hey order lunch for them” somebody shouted.. when reluctantly he came to take the order for the last 2 late comers he was again given a camera instead!! Hey comeon! All of us had to have a group pic! He couldn’t complain much, so many girls smiling sweetly at him, he just couldn’t refuse!!… another round of laughter, talking at the top of our voices and throwing diet into the air by ordering the choicest of desserts we finally walked out of the restaurant. Happy and contented leaving behind a tired and with a “ glad they are gone” look on the 3 people who waited on us!

While on our way out I noticed a large group of college girls counting us we went by!! They were probably waiting for a big table to empty so that they could have lunch.. it was ironical I realized.. "enjoy your lunch girls, soon u will be meeting like us only in reunions!"..
After spending another 30 minutes just outside the hotel, talking excitedly to each other, in the hot afternoon sun. we took some more pics in the crowded lanes of malleshwaram ..we got more people in the photographs than we wanted, including other customers of the hotel, random people on the road, autodrivers across the street!!

Then finally we reluctantly said bye to each other..some of us weren’t done yet! 4 of us decided to visit one of my closest friend chai's house soon after. to see her 9 month old baby girl!..
Continuously chattering we reached her home, where the little darling was waiting for us inspite of her nap time!.. it was touchingly weird , the entire situation, few years back we 4 were together discussing record books, pending experiments, notes to be photocopied etc, and here we are now playing with one of our daughters!.. how time had flown by.. the little moppet kept us entertained cheerfully giving competition to her mom chai who I can swear has the most beautiful smile I have ever seen in my life… soon it was time for her sleep, she cheerfully came to all of us, waved us good bye’s and went with her grandmom while we sat and reminisced the good old days..

College days weren’t always fun.. we have had our share of fights, ego clashes , jealousies and what not! But years later when we recalled we just had pleasant memories.. it was like things hadn’t changed at all.. where had all the time gone? We had ofcourse moved so far away in life yet there was an unmistakable bond between us.. we had our lives now, not interwined in any way but just by memories.. we thanked the initiative taken by one of our friend, for this day, coz it was one of the best days of my life.. like we said in unison, "'this was the best day since we left college, haven’t laughed so much since then"!.. I know they are exaggerating though! People had got married, had babies since then so naturally more beautiful things had happened but yet at that moment it seemed like this was one of the best things which happened.. I told too, “ ye this is the best day of my life since college”!.. it will be not fair to the new friends I have made since college esp a sparrow, to some of the best times I have had since then , so I will be honest and say this was one of the best days since I left college and iam so thankful for it!

It was evening and we 4 friends reluctantly bid goodbye's to each other.. it really did seem like we would meet next day in college!. When we to our dismay realized that meeting again like this will probably take years!..

Soon after I reached home, chai called me and we again spoke for half an hour to discuss the day gone by and the rest of them! ;) somethings never change!! We had a great time no doubt about that, but somehow in the end of it I was feeling very down with a heavy heart..

I realized one thing that day, we make so many friends in our life, we move on sooner or later, we might not be in touch regularly, but the bond remains… every friend we make in our life is special.. we don’t become friends with everybody , so with whom ever we do, I think we should respect it and cherish it..

This is for all my past , present and future friends.. we might not have enough time for each other, but any time if you reach out I will respond. I promise you that. And thanks for being my friends! :)