Saturday, April 15, 2006

After ten years

As on most weekends, tonight's agenda consisted of meeting up a friend for dinner. But tonight's program differed in one major way: I had met my friend P last when I finished my 10th standard. Which was more than 10 years ago. After that, in a short while, we completely lost touch with each other. Until one fine day, somehow we got each other's email-id and mailed again. After that, it was an on again, off-again kind of contact - sporadic emails once in a year probably. Then sometime towards the end of 2004, I got a call from a strange number. It was P! And what's more, she was in the US on a company project and in the same area as me! What a surprise! I don't remember how she got my cell phone number but I was totally thrilled. A friend from the past! We managed to talk over the phone a couple of times but somehow couldn't meet. Then P returned to India and that, was that.

Then again, this Friday, P mailed again - she was in the US again, sent by her company back in India. This time I was determined to meet her and we decided to meet up today. I was extremely excited about meeting P again - when I saw her, I realized that she hadn't changed too much in appearance. The only difference was that the folded pig-tails of the days of yore had been replaced by a staid plait. And she said that I had lost weight (eeeeehaw :-)) and that my face was no longer round (gosh, exactly how fat was I before?)

And to my surprise, there was absolutely no awkwardness at all. I for one, felt like I was continuing a conversation left over from the previous day. And the talk flowed. We spoke of all our common friends, about each other's lives, about our hopes, our plans - about everything! It felt so good :-)! P was not my closest friend back at school - we both used to compete for the first rank (yeah, yeah, I was a geek back then) and hence never got too close to each other. But surprisingly, after I left school, I was more in touch with P than with my close friends from that school.

Thanks to my dad being in a transferable job, during my childhood, I had to go through the process of making new friends every so often. When I was younger, it was much easier. Now, even when I go to new places, I no longer make too much effort to make new friends. Even with the people I have become good friends with now, there is something missing with them which exists with the "older" friends. Have not really figured out what that is. But one thing I do know, there is no feeling quite as warm, comfy and happy as the one you get when you meet up with an "old" friend. That's why tonight was special!

10 comments:

Priyanka said...

hi archana,this is priyanka i was just surfing and the blogspot randomly displayed ur blog.
usually i just avoid them but then i dont know why i went through yours and really liked it.
i completely agree and understand wat u must ahve felt after meeting ur friend.
nice expressions happy blogging
continue writing.

Prabhu said...

"And she said that I had lost weight (eeeeehaw :-)) and that my face was no longer round (gosh, exactly how fat was I before?)" - LOL :)

Ohhh, now I get why I was bestest with eevery1 in my class. I never used to vie for the first place. Duh!

kuttichuvaru said...

ya... i knw how it feels to meet up with old frenz!! I hav a big grp of frenz frm school, college n frm my Masters here... but school frenz r always special... u somehow get transformed to those childish n adolescent years!!

BZ said...

Aha! :) Nice.
School friends are special because they kind of let you go into the past.. into your innocent childhood. :))
My school friends still think me as this weirdo girl that I was before , and are surprised when they see me all normal now :D

And btw, you dont look fat!! Atleast in the pictures I have seen :))

Archana said...

Riya - thanks a lot :-)! And, welcome aboard!

Prabhu - :-D!

Kuttichuvaru - yup, school friends are quite sth na?

Saranya - yeah, I guess school friends are associated with childhood memories :-)!

Oh, everyone tells me the same thing - "You are not fat - so quit cribbing". But for some reason that's my favorite crib *sheepish grin*.

Anonymous said...

Been to Sayesha's... just wondering who's that blogger who complained about the rain lately like me :-))

I'm having a fun time reading your entries. I'll come back to read more of your previous posts.

Have a great week ahead!

Archana Bahuguna said...

I know .. meeting old friends is soooooo much fun ... and you have those butterflies in your stomach for whether you would still connect ...

But really, you always do ... they just bring back those wonderful memories ... and we just want to keep our childhood alive, dont we?

Archana said...

Joy, welcome aboard :-) and thank you! So its raining a lot at your place too? I just got back from outside and it is raining again *sigh*!

Archana - so true about the butterflies! And amazing how you connect immediately :-)! I know - I guess we all want to somehow hang onto those carefree days...

Shilpa said...

Hmm...I am tempted to look at the old pics Arch...but then again we guys look soo weird that its best hidden. hehehe.

Good to know that u had fun with P !

Archana said...

LOL! Especially the one's we took at your chennai place - heehehehhe!