had a jam-packed weekend after a long time and dint really miss the sleep i lost out on till monday dawned on me.
an old pal from college days is in the country now and saw her for the 1st time in 5 years and it was as if the years fell away instantly. while our catching up progressed it felt as if we regained some of those years. kaal ke thapede being what they are…
i dont know why women do it but we always go back to the men in our lives in our nostalgia-induced states and do a thorough dissection of the 5 W’s and then some!
my friend was one of the first one of us to get married and we’d (the rest of us who knew her well) had breathed sighs of relief that she had finally found some stability in life. she of the numerous dum-chhallas trailing behind her, the captivated mooney-eyed men who she somehow compelled to be nice to; had willingly settled for a grown-up (yes, they do exist in the male species) and accomplished man and the parents had also seen fit to bless the union and soon after off she went to yankee doodle land,life as she knew it, fell apart. only we dint know of it till recently.
over hors d’oeuvres and weirdass cocktails did the tale of her unravelling marriage come out, interspersed with “hey whatever happened to..”, “do you remember so&so…”.
this girl was known for her hyperactivity (2nd to my own) and everything that seemed to be bemused and lost and looking for an anchor was attributed by her name. it’s kinda like pulling a monica but in a nicer way :o)
so there we were, past midnight, on the swing looking out at hyd’bad sleeping in front of us and somewhere from the recesses of the night came out confessions, regrets, hopes, dreams, grievances advices that were doled out and secrets that still had to be kept for another few years till we met with another load of stuff to share and talk about.
i’ve always loved the idea of having a time capsule. having lived in so many places and been with so many types of people, it always seemed like the thing to do. having your life chronicled in front of you and getting a chance to go back to who you were, what made you tick and where you are now. dint get around to it finally…and now the packing boxes in the basement are chronicles or the various phases of my life and the photo archive that my mother religiously maintains just augments it.
we have an egroup of our class from the undergrads and everyone posts stuff that’s going on in their lives but somehow there’s a superficiality in it, only the good stuff that’s going on in our lives get shown to the others. nevermind that earlier when we used to cry,rant’n’rave it would be in front of the same classmates but now things are different. we have veneers that we have developed, nourished and cultivated since we left college and they’re always in the forefront when addressing the old mates. but masks have a way of slipping and when they do, it’s usually with a vengeance.
someone goes into clinical dep coz of the chudhail saas, someone gets smacked around by hubby dearest, someone gets into a marriage of convenience, someone sits at home letting the talents get atrophied coz the dependent visa status is getting extended, someone makes plans for marriage only to see them dissapate and others with their ruts,routine and some kind of unhappiness which has to be contained from the world at all cost!
doesnt mean that our lives are festering and we’re all angst-ridden. no! but just not as happy as we’d like to have been, the way we normally tend to portray to all those who saw us dreaming the very same dreams we havent been able to achieve, i guess.
but some of us have done extremely well! and have followed their hearts&minds in a near-perfect combo and are actually happy.
my friend and i were reflecting that those who had setbacks in their professional lives had GREAT personal lives and vice versa. Fate’s (??) way of restoring some kind of equilibirum i guess.
catching up with friends is an indescribably great feeling but it leaves you with much to contend with at the end of the day…
Random. Structured. Haphazard. All Me. 