Moment of Bliss 13 ::: Resurrection of Friendships

Dear Gowri
Today was a memorable day ..... as I met three of my old friends together....The get to-gether was organised by one of them who is a Doctor (Not just a MBBS, specialised in Neurology) and we have been studying in school together until +2... And this meeting happened exactly after 10 years....!!
Well, before I go into the details, Let me candidly accept that I never had been in groups and had very limited people to be defined as friends....!! I do not have enemies / bitter relationships too as it needs some closeness to fight with people.....!! Some how, in terms of friendship, I can recall just 10 or 12 faces and I normally admire people who keep constant touch with their friends....I had always been satisfied with a basic level of interactions with people around me and never attempted to keep the relationships / contacts continued after the need for association (school, college, offices) is over....
Well, this particular re-union is about the tale of 4 friends....The only period where I allowed myself the luxury of Group Friendship...between 91 to 97.....all of us as stated above, studied in same school and the host today also used to host others (and few more) for group studies through out the night at his house.... His family never had interacted with us much but religiously her aunty (periamma, it was a joint family) made a flask full of tea every night for our group.... !! This particular boy was a hard worker and was quite used to studying 8 to 10 hours together....and topped in our school and without any hassles got admitted into Medical college....

In our today's get together, we also had another boy who continued to study with me in my college too...right now positioned as a Senior manager in one of our competitive company at Bangalore....This get to gether is planned to sychronise with his monthly visit to his home at chennai where his parents live....

The third one is a business man owning a hardware shop who always took pleasure in entertaining us in his shop and I vividly remember the time spent at his shop and watching how he handles his customers...This boy's family had always been in business and no wonder, though he completed graduation, he got his own shop now after his father's demise....

Though they were quite good friends, some how, they did not come to my marriage due to some communication gap and I should say that I was terribly dissappointed... There was no reason for them to miss the occassion and it appears that just for some silly reasons they did not manage to reach the marriage hall....!! I was quite unhappy with them for some time and gradually the relationship faded away as I never made any attempt to contact them on my own, while, with the sense of guilt , they too did not try to renew our friendship.....(they just paid one courtesy visit to our home soon after marriage...and I remember I did not speak to them...it was a silent evening for all of us !!)
Now I met one of them (the business man) at a common friend's house quite accidentally and within 24 hours, I got a phone call from the two others...and we have been planning to have this get to gether for more than a month... All the three have since got married AND blessed with two kids each (the Sr Manager - Finance got twin daughters !!).... and me, the senior one to get married is happily satisfied with one daughter....
It was a great evening as all of us gathered at Beach and after spending some time, reached the Doctor's house to have dinner....and reached home just half hour back... Not much has changed in physical appearance in four of us.....though we have gathered flesh around our belly...as a standard feature....!! and in terms of our conversation style and characteristics just remaining as it used to be.... with all children (7 of them) playing, the wives talking to each other, we four were recollecting our school mates names AND teachers names....and their whereabouts....all of us sitting in open terrance of the house..Incidentally, it apppears they too never got a chance for such a get together - being in different walks of life and it was such a natural start of our second innings of togetherness....
Amongst the four, to the extend I have gathered the information, I think, they are much more richer in experience with life....with lot of changes / challenges faced in their personal lives and it had been incident-free during the whole of past decade....!! Of course, this also has a reflection in our careers but I was not feeling any negative feeling when one of them in my own field - who has toiled 16 plus hours at work (and is still continuing....!!) - has risen to the post of Sr Manager.....while I am yet to get designated as a manager....!!
During my chat, I casually shared my recent passion and my thoughts on switching the industry...which brought their heads nodding...as they all seem to have carried me in their memory as some one who talks charming and my capacity of connecting things were always admired by them even during the school days....!!
This was a great evening and I really felt very happy that I was able to relate my old friendships extremely natural from my side, gleefully watching all our children playing together....!! I would rate it as a great get together after last apr 14th - when we celebrated the anniversary of Vanagiri Group.....!!
suchoo