A school boys’ reunion!

A classmate from my primary school days called me up one fine morning out of the blue, to invite me for the wedding of his daughter.  I could not recognize the voice; my mind was completely blank.  He kept insisting enthusiastically over the phone to recognize who the caller was.  I gave up.  After he introduced himself (rather disappointingly, I thought), something inside my brain clicked and I could vaguely remember the chubby little boy with a friendly face.  Now, who would recognize someone you have never seen or heard from, for the past 50 years or so.

Oh! What a day and week that turned out to be; reliving the past memories of my old school days.  I immediately called up another classmate friend of mine, who is still in touch with me for the past 55 odd years and exchanged this good news.  It appeared that it was he, who had provided my number to the new caller buddy from my old school days.

As old memories rushed in, I rummaged through my desks and drawers to search for an old school group photograph that I had somehow preserved (hidden cleverly from my wife, who has this strong penchant for disposing of old things at random despite strong resistance from the other family members!).  On spotting the old classmate of mine in the group photograph, I felt excited like a school boy who is unexpectedly handed an ice-candy.

I made certain of the venue and date of the marriage reception of my classmate’s daughter; although my inner mind kept agitating on attending the reception late in the evening, all-dressed up, and driving to the venue in Bangalore’s traffic conditions.  I would say it was a real achievement in the end, having managed to keep my date at the wedding reception.

As soon as my old friend (buddy of 55+ years) and I, entered the reception venue (a little apprehensively as we did not know anybody there), a young lady usher confronted us at the door and asked us whether we were from the bride’s side or the groom’s side.  We were taken aback at this questioning girl; we blurted out that the bride’s father was our classmate from primary school days.  We could see that the young lady was a bit skeptical with the explanation; however, she hid her disappointment well and bade us sit on one side of the reception hall.  Meanwhile, a dapper middle-aged gentleman (wearing silk brocaded Kurta and Pyjama of “Maanyavar” brand) with greying hairs, approached us with a hesitant smile, stretching out his hand.  You are Ganapathy and Nagaraj, right, he said.  He was all warmth and ebullient.  Our minds were frantically trying to connect the boy from the school photograph with the middle-aged gentleman in front of us.  We embraced each other warmly and got into deep conversation for the next two or three minutes reminiscing excitedly about our school days.  The bride's father went on to confess that he recognized our faces only from the WhatsApp profile photos.  Unluckily for us, we did not have the luxury of recognizing the bride’s father beforehand, as there was no profile photo of his on WhatsApp.  Be that as it may, how long can the conversation last in the middle of a bustling marriage reception? there were other people in the marriage hall vying for the attention of the bride’s father; he hesitatingly told us take our seats and moved away greeting other wedding guests merrily.

We had the fortune of meeting another primary school buddy of ours in the reception hall and it was a wonderful reunion of sorts of our old school mates.  It was an eventful evening to remember!  We all swore that we would keep in touch with each other and have a regular sort of ‘meet’ of our old school mates.  We reminisced late into evening about the good times we had as school boys (although I had hated going to school, when I was a kid) and how wonderful those days were (an outright exaggeration, as were just naïve boys of the Sixties!).

In the long years of having lived my life, I have had the privilege of attending a number of school/college get-together/send-offs; professional get-together/send-offs (innumerable transfers/trainings and even resignations); where there were some moving, emotional speeches delivered; addresses or contact numbers exchanged; and tearful hugs with earnest promises made to keep in touch with each other.  Whither those promises and tearful hugs?  Well, that’s life for you; you learn to move on.

Is this emotional reunion of my old school classmates in a wedding reception going the same way?  Hopefully not.  In this age of easy telecommunication access, there shouldn’t be any problem dialing from our mobile contacts, right? Well, keeping my fingers on the dial!