There are some people one would like to happily forget having ever met – conversely losing all track of one-time close friends can be frustrating too. In the current scenario of the hyper-active social media and whatsapp groups surging all around, there are innumerable cases of long lost old chums and class-fellows and even ex-soulmates getting reconnected and picking up the threads for another innings at wonderful relationship building on the back of old memories and associations !
The first few moments of such reunions are generally spent on exchanges (from pictures shared) on the physical metamorphosis that necessarily goes with passage of time- ‘wow, you’ve really lost weight’; ‘oh you’re still the same’ ; ‘you seem to have so matured’ (meaning lost hair and/or started looking old !) and such happy exclamations. The next round is devoted to sharing personal details – professional and personal, and for those in mid-life, the family’s progress and their notable milestones, which become a source of great amazement to others-‘Super!’, ‘Really!’ ‘How Wonderful !’
Having gone through all of that, what’s more spectacularly exciting is unexpectedly bumping into an old, dear friend one fine morning and the belated recognition that comes a split second late ! This, like all true stories, happened to me, on a day which started uneventfully. Catching an early morning local train to work I barged into a guy in a hurry and lo and behold we came face to face– ‘Good Lord, imagine meeting like this after 17 years’ he said, but only after a massive bear hug of sheer delight ! Purushottam Jhalani and I had spent three exciting years together, working in our overseas office in Nairobi, Kenya back in 2000 but had somehow lost all contact after we went our ways.
What was astonishing was that not only had we instantly recognized each other (both being perennially youthful !) but had actually been living in the same city (Mumbai) and in the same locality for the last seven years without our paths ever crossing till this fateful morning at the station. But then as we know, Someone above has his own ways of mending things … in his own time !
It’s not said without reason ‘Happiness is meeting an old friend after a long time and the feeling that nothing has changed’ !
Working on Living 