Sunday, January 27, 2013

The Reunion



Rarely  does a person feel old and young in the same moment! The reunion had exactly that effect. A bunch of middle-aged folks feeling and acting exactly like they'd scratched 25 years off their lives. More juvenile, in fact! The jokes came quickly and everyone laughed, independent of how terrible they were.

Walking around campus alone at 4.30 a.m. with the orange traffic lights on the trees and the deer slowly sauntering, unperturbed, the crickets making a gentle racket in the gul-mohars ... a strong sense of nostalgia hit! The memories were blurred, but the one of the black buck and chital deer herd bounding across from left to right in the moonlight while I was returning from the computer center on my moped "Julie" - an indelible scene carved into my young mind.

Walked to OAT all alone to see that there were renovations ongoing; I could see the spot where I had first spoken to my wife; we have two young boys because of that meeting 25 years earlier. A few words exchanged ... and the world changes!

Met my 3 Idiot friends; 4, 5, 110 of them for that matter. Singing along "All izz well" with the rolling credits at the screening of the 3 Idiots movie the next day at OAT, walking right into the ambush of the warm Madras torrential rain as it soaked us to the skin as we walked back to the Taramani guest house.

Better than it was 25 years ago? It was

The only thing in favor of our student days? 

We were younger, our hair was black! We felt like our sons do today?