Renewal

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I have been smiling ever since I got back from Pune.

There was something magical about the two days spent in the company of old friends.

It is hard to pin. Was it the air of good natured acceptance around these friendships? The fact that an empathetic silence greeted the most vitriolic of one’s outpourings? An underlying acknowledgment of one’s struggles and the journey so far? Affection borne of having known you in those tentative yet fearless years? A stab of fond recognition at their typical gestures you once saw on a daily basis. The assurance and security of familiarity? A poignant curiosity about where life took the rest of the batch? The wistful realization that even though everyone had moved on, nothing could erase the years spent in commonality all that while ago? The notion that here were the few people who remembered you when you were haughty, eighteen  and frost-free?

I tread softly around the familiar ground! Would I have disturbed the memories, I don’t know but there was a sense of entering the time machine, like wading through a kaleidoscope of images in slow motion. I doubt if anyone on the college campus registered the two goggle eyed women running their eyes over walls, steps, trees and the pathways. There, that was the spot we clicked our famous group picture on. Here lay the steps we would sit chatting upon, between lectures. Look at the lab tables, our names might still be there, eteched on the solid wood. Are those the library steps we paused on to catch up with each other? I don’t remember all these dogs back then. Oh my God, there is the college office I dreaded going to. Let’s chat up these kids sitting outside the Chemistry department, what do they think of the college today? Fancy the Mathematics Department and was there a Psychology and Electronics wing in our days. Ah, the cycle stands…click, click, click…let’s register for the alumni association!

Twenty eight years just melted and dissolved in the first instance of meeting these people. Thank you Fergussonians for the affection, the camaraderie and the openness. Here’s wishing you all bigger smiles, stronger hearts and even better memories.

To the good old Bunwada and its fans!

I was, in fact, smiling on my way to the Delhi airport too, for the Pune bound flight.


A college reunion is quite akin to an emotional spa. Renewal follows the sloughing and the mental dusting. Lo and behold, if there isn't all of a sudden, a brand new reference point.