Blast from the past

Some things never change. Like college friends, butter on toast or my love for kebabs.
Some of you , I can see are already nodding in agreement. The rest of you who are still in doubt will also agree by the end of this post. I am sure.
[Promise to give you a mouth watering kebab recipe in my next post!!]
One fine morning, inspired by a get together story heard from my very close friend Bee with her school mates, I logged into my yahoo account to mail my "group". For those of you who can read bengali , I did post an introduction poem about my "group" here.
We BECAME the "group" in BHU. Apart from all that an educational institution can give in terms of degrees and stuff, it gave me my "group" which I consider one of the "blessings" in my life.
We are a group of eight.
So, my dear M,S,K,S,M,S,D,S. [Need to copyright this before Karan Johar grabs it]..this is for us! 
So, where was I?  O YES, the mail was sent ...LETS MEET UP GIRLS!!
Considering our latitude-longitudes, I think logistics was the main challenge! However,  proving that where there is a will there is a way...some mails, some logistics and some months later some of us did succeed in meeting up.  Unfortunately logistics stopped  S, M and K from participating......

We the rest (Haradhoner panchti chele) met last July in Kolkata....and literally ..
It was a "blast from the past".
Apart from the nonstop-nonsense-nonwhatever giggling, laughing , smiling, talking ...the most important message  which got reconfirmed was "Friendships are forever".It does not matter if we have not seen each other for years..it does not matter whether she regularly replies to your mails or not, it does not matter if she doesnt have a Facebook account, it does not matter ..it just JUST DOES NOT MATTER!..all that matters is that we are FRIENDS. 

Friends Forever.
We started off EXACTLY where we left it all those years ago.

1990. First time away from home. We were young (we still are!!) and homesick. Googles and Skypes were not around. Ragging was there and so was mess-food, both equally messy. Budget was low. Experience none....THAT is where and how the bond was made.This line really takes me back to our room..27..old hostel....maybe 1:00 am..tea boiling on the heater..all of us scattered here and there..books in hand..exams nearing...some giggles...some SSHHHHhh...smell of super-boiled tea in the air..I can almost SEE it.

When people stay together for 24 hrs, the friendship graduates into a family-like feeling. We shared our clothes (nonono..I cannot fit into S's ..she is half my size, putku!!!), our food (still remember Sunday night M's egg curry, yummy), our moments of fame (I sang a bhajan while S did a hijra dance with it according to the wish of our seniors on a ragging day), our sorrows ( frequent tears in M's eyes for any or no reason) , our joys ( the hostel reverberating with our laughter)...

We learnt discipline (who can forget S's scoldings when we lazed for too long), dancing (c'mon, you know how S has a copyright to her HAWA HAWA steps), romancing (remember K's kajal lined beautiful eyes sparkle when she spoke about T)...

That was the JAB WE MET part.

Now for the "JAB WE MET AGAIN" part.....

The place is called Vedic village. We booked a car and shuttled to and fro between our respective homes, vedic village, the airport and the City center 2 mall. Finally after gathering all of us we went into our room. Immediately it felt like our hostel again. I cannot explain how excited we were. My literary skills are too limited to describe what we felt. My camera did not get a chance to come out of the bag even though the intention was to "capture every moment"! I cannot even remember what exactly we talked about the first few moments. Or did we even talk?

Putku made tea and brought it over with EXACTLY the same expression.."Ekdom bhalo hoy ni re cha ta.." [Kachu machu mukh]

I told you , somethings never change.

We all sat on the couch together talking, smiling, laughing, exchanging gifts..basically just enjoying each others presence...o what a lovely time we had. Two and half days passed like in a dream....."no husbands, no kids" was a good policy. That really helped us to go back in time without bothering to explain our giggles, our PJs, our abbreviations , our expressions...just ourselves exactly like we were 20 years back.

We did miss K ,S and M very much..because it felt kind of incomplete but still.."something is better than nothing."

It is impossible to write about all that happened in those 2.5 days. On the second day, after a long spell in the room, we decided to go for a walk. There were some bicycles available for rent which gave us the idea to go cycling. "Action!!" In BHU we did cyle a lot but some of us have never cycled after that. Putku was a bit skeptic about this whole thing,but somehow she was cajoled onto the cycle by M and S. By then I had actually moved on a couple of meters ahead...suddenly I heard Putku  WHOOOOSHH past me saying.."I can only go straight, so please do not make a turn . I also cannot stop so please keep going".

The next half hour we were mentally far far away from Vedic village..I almost started believing in time machines. I need pictures to tell you the later half of this story. Believe me, my vocabulary is not enough.

The food was fantastic. To be very honest we would not have noticed it if it was otherwise !!!

There was a massage center and a spa. We did not have the time to visit it . To  be honest we did not care!!!

The pool looked cool and inviting, S did a few quick laps. We , the rest just sat at the side and carried on!!!

The apartment had two more rooms with attached baths..We just huddled in the living room with no interest for comfort!!!

We just wanted to be together....

It was such a refresher.....wish one day in future we can all do it together , all eight of us.

Lets start planning for JAB WE MET AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN.......