We were meeting after a gap of 50 years, the alumni of a Bengaluru co-ed school. The excitement was palpable. It had all started off when four enthusiastic classmates of the batch of 1972 formed a WhatsApp group called “School Mates” and gradually decided to grow it. We did not even know what messages to post. Back in the 1970s, we boys and girls had been too timid to have much to do with each other, forget interacting the way today’s generation does.
At the beginning, getting our school mates together was a very arduous task. It was difficult to locate them after such a long span of time, but gradually the group grew, very slowly at first then faster and faster to over 20 members.
Gradually, the posts stirred a desire to have a Zoom meeting. Two or three virtual meetings later, everybody felt it necessary to meet in person, most of us being naturally curious about how the ravages of time had affected one another.
But how was this possible? Over the years, we spread over to Canada, the U.S. and several other cities in India. Some of us had retired after working abroad and had now settled down in India. In fact, our most enthusiastic member, hell-bent on immediately organising a reunion, was in Delhi.
The Bengaluru- based alumni finally got together one bright Sunday morning with nine classmates meeting at a prominent mid-town club. Of course, there were hiccups, as two of us had last-minute chores to attend, while another had a bereavement, but we were together at last. But what was there to talk about? Fifty years ago, the boys had been too shy to speak to the girls and vice versa. So how to break the ice (most being grandparents now)?
One person began to simulate a board meeting, reading out agenda items one after the other, finding out how we could assist our school. This was promptly vetoed out as it was essential to get to know each other first before starting any activity! Yet another put in a video call to our most enthusiastic member in Delhi to ask what next. Everyone remembered a very attractive biology teacher and how several boys would go and attend her class despite being mathematics students. Another remembered how he had hit a classmate in the eye accidentally while playing hockey. Several others recalled how we had been together at NCC camps. Punishments which had seemed highly embarrassing then now brought smiles to our faces. Discussing our old school lives, specially the fun moments when everything seemed much better despite the homework and teacher’s punishment, took up a large part of our meeting time.
Nothing beats a school alumni group of friends from a time when we are incapable of selfishness. As social beings, we crave for opportunities to exchange our collective memories, ideas, views, experiences, opinions and agendas and an alumni meet is just the occasion to get together with old friends whom we have not met for years.
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