How many times since I left Delhi I must have hoped to meet a friend, an acquaintance, a neighbour, a classmate who would say this to me. You can say that was the only one thing I longed for, but over the years, forgot.
Then suddenly, in 2001 or so, I was accosted by this question. The tall man in front of me looked like no one I knew, and yet something deeper connected and I knew he was a dear friend from school whom I last saw when we were 14. It was almost 15 years, and as expected of boys, he had shot up. But there is something about a person that never changes, does it?
Slowly a few more connections got renewed and the social media lived up to its promise.
But just how much, and how empty the pot still was, I realised when I was added to the whatsapp group of my batch. Initially started to connect the different groups from the different streams, it was suddenly merged. It could have stopped there and the group still would have been substantial. But even those who left in between were added, including me.
Yes, the messages flood the phone. Despite all resolutions, you end up getting caught to see who is saying what.
But the best part - they remember. In a group of 60 plus, not some one or two, but many remember and that is when the pot started feeling full. It meant being able to revive memories, of sharing snippets and laughing at nothing. It was like unraveling a thread and watching a knot come loose!
Whatever our age now (you figure it out), I feel like a teenager, nay, a child.
Sharing what a friend from another similar group sent:
Money cannot buy us our childhood. Only friends help to recreate those moments, from time to time, at no cost.
