Recharge, Restore, Reunite!

Recently had series of school reunions. Well, anyone who knows me at all knows how much I hated school. It's common knowledge. The emotion is a very strong one. But my school friends, well that is a different story all together. They are the funniest, endearing bunch of happy go lucky people I know. And the best part is their charm, totally infectious. They will make even the most cynical smile.

From a very young age, quite like Calvin I longed only for freedom. Thankfully though I was not the Spaceman Spiff. Freedom growing up was mostly related from all things school. I hated the daily grind, the uniform, the classrooms. The depth of my hatred for organised - education ran deep. A misfit, and a maladjusted kid I was the epitome of a problem child. My spirit always wanted more. I was not remotely interested in grades, which made me a very bad lab-rat.

Today I think most of it stemmed from studying subjects which I mostly detested, e.g. Math, Science, SUPW. Well, the last one basically meant craft which, we had lovingly labelled as Some Useful Period Wasted. Although the fortnightly double period was generally a picnic, but it still made me make man out of ice cream spoons or coasters out of bangles. And my child spirit revolted to this banal exercise. Pink Floyd and "Another brick in the wall", was home to me. 

But little did I know it would turn out to be the best part of school. These double classes led to the creation of the school gang. Somewhere we connected, rather I connected for once to the normal world, and felt for a transient moment quite like a well adjusted lab rat. These classes allowed us to get into pranks on a perfect winter sunny day or a rainy day for that matter. The teachers basically let us have some "down time". We also had many impromptu singing sessions drumming on the desks during these interludes. For me it all made school a little bit more tolerable. Little did I know how anchoring these camaraderie sessions will pan out to be in the future.

I was somehow born an adult and mostly ambled around my childhood years completely confused. Most of the time I was clueless and that made me sulk even further. I was simply aiming to find my own feet in this world and was forever on a quest, seeking answers. Possibly a bane of being an only child who had no siblings to share the confusion. As usual I thought the more I get away from my comfort zone into the world the more I can expand my horizons and become what I was suppose to become and definitely not a lab-rat. I was more like the crazy centipede who did her own thing. 

As soon as I stepped into college things changed. For once I could just study literature, philosophy and history for a change, not was there any possibility of making table mats with wool anywhere in the horizon. Well, I truly felt liberated and empowered. BBC became my guiding star on the Telly and The Hindu a great friend. Al Jazeera and CNN were yet to catch our imagination. We had just graduated from World This Week with Prannoy Roy to NDTV. Psephology was a magical world we found, away from the conundrum of Exit Polls and breaking news, Little did we know how all pervading this was to become. The mega monster of information age. Noise.

Those were interesting times, the Berlin Wall fell and USSR disintegrated into a rubble of inter - fighting and squabbling nation states. Names such as Slobodan Milosevic made headlines for bringing down the one-party communist system and ushering in mult-party system in Yugoslavia. Serbia and Croatia became new countries and the world news was dominated by Bosnian wars. Eventually Milosevic was overthrown in 2000 and had to stand trial for the crimes against humanity, abuse of power and embezzlement.Milosevic conducted his own defense in the five-year long trial which ended without a verdict when he died in his own cell. Not to mention the Rawandan crisis that followed. A new order was growing in India too. India too became liberalized under Manmohan Singh's able stint as the Finance Minister. 

Through it all life happened. Fascinated as I was with the changing world around me I dabbled into many things. I drifted from advertising to development communication to program management. On the way made many wonderful friends and lost a few. Loved and lost too. The depth of sorrow and sadness brought back the friends of my childhood like they never went away. They just came back and stood by without being patronizing, listening and holding my hand. My blessing in life after the most amazing set of parents are my friends. They catch me always when I fall, trip or plunge without a harness. They are ever ready to extend their hands without asking, patient, indulgent yet watchful. This post 201 is for you all who make me shine on. With my deepest gratitude and love for you all. You guys make me complete. Lots and lots of love. You guys rock!.