REUNION- FOUR DECADES LATER

It was the decade of the seventies when the toddlers who had morphed into boys and girls were into one of the schools which was an upcoming one. By the end of the decade, it was time to bid a farewell into the new realm of high school. Time flew and brought a chasm which appeared hard to fill. Burying emotions and having fleeting memories, the entire group moved on with little or no contact. Early nineties saw a strange encounter which is detailed in https://blendingvoices.blogspot.com/2008/09/strange-encounter.html and sowed the seeds for a possible reunion.

It is said "Man proposes and God disposes". The cherished memories and the scope of a reunion also faded into the inner realms of the mind only to surface occasionally. Then came the college reunion detailed in https://blendingvoices.blogspot.com/2013/08/gundi-haaku-88-trip-down-memory-lane.html

The facebook accounts opened for the college reunion was leveraged to find a couple of friends. Six years down the lane, a chance encounter with one little lad who resembled the most popular prankster of the class led yours truly to his home. The meeting with this lad named after a famous freedom fighter brought to surface the plant of reunion. Over a period of four months efforts were made to reconnect with not much success.

It was again the social media which came to the rescue with one request leading to another that the numbers crossed the double digit in a week's time. Chat messages and telephone calls set the reunion in motion. The fact that two of them were to be in town from the United States acted as a catalyst. The spanner in the works came in the form of an itinerary clash which was ironed out by one of them volunteering to defer his exit from India by a day.

This move sealed the date virtually motivating one of them stationed outside to also express the intention to join the gathering. Suddenly, the reunion not only appeared to be a reality but the possibility of trying to get all of them together was ambitiously thought of. Couple of mini get-togethers later, the informal network was so enthused by one of them who headed an MNC's sales operations in India that the networking moved to the whatsapp mode. The numbers were reaching the quarter century mark under the tagline "four decades later." An ex- service man ensured that the plans fell in place by pitching in with his ideas and volunteering to bear with yours truly's forgetful ways.

The D-Day approached nearer and the ex- service man tried to rope in the teachers as well as more contacts. The surprise was that the D-Day turned out to be the Founder's birthday too. Converging on the school for a birthday celebration, the men and women left for lunch exactly as they left school four decades back excitedly with no control over the decibels. Vision impairment of one of them did not come in the way of the bonding and soon the tables at the restaurant was a classroom reminiscent of the remark "This is not a fish market". After all the numbers stood at the last of the teens and fruition of the plant was savoured in full measure with at least half a dozen of the girls matching the boys getting together which was a feat by itself considering that one came from abroad and another travelled around 500 kms for the reunion.

Assuring ourselves that we had never had a better day, the parting shot came with the remark "Definitely not four decades later". Will the meet again be sooner or will it never happen again can be answered by Father Time. The photographs remain to tell the tale of the reunion for years to come.