Nostalgic Meetups

I had to finish the year by noting down some of the gatherings I managed in the second half of 2019.

Sid and KK : Only one way to describe them - Two of my longest travel buddies and ever ready for any trip any time 😍 I can't remember a time when either of them have said "No" to a trip. KK was my college senior but as usual I had no interaction with him in college. We realized that we were working in the same company but in different buildings via one of the mails in 'SriFriends" - a yahoo group that another of our common friend had created for interaction of college-mates. We then planned to join an organised trek to Bisile Forest - my first ever trek in the lifetime which also kick-started the famous "wayand trip" that finally led to the formation of this 'travel gang'. We were actually four core members then. Sid was my junior colleague that time and got absorbed to this group soon enough (the only non-mallu or duplicate mallu as we called him) and took over the "planning" burden from me 😊 We have had many crazy adventures and also some very memorable trips. It will be a novel if I need to list down all of those memories and so I am not attempting that. Our trips have reduced a lot after Sid moved to US and also probably we have started aging and priorities have changed 😉 Anyway I am glad to have these meetups at least when he comes down here although this time other members of the gang could not make it.

Silly Girls : We all were in a strange team with only girls and a sole guy (I have to actually say strange manager as he took only girls in his team!)  Ambili was the only married person at that time and she used to describe all of us as "Silly girls" although it is debatable who is the silliest one 😆 Work wise it was a hectic time and we spend most of our time in the office and as a team we supported each other enormously. It was also the time of my cooking experiments and we used to have a potluck lunch almost daily and they were the victims of my cooking experiments too  😂 Anyways that eventful team (we fired our manager) and the eventful days got over and we all moved to different teams but still kept the friendship going. Meanwhile Ambili moved to USA and some of us also left the company. Usually we meet whenever Ambili comes down and it is a large group with spouses and kids. So this time we decided to have a girl's(women's) day out. Yes Ambili was missing this time but these meetups do take us back to those early days of our career 😊

Mahesh : My joining in NIIT is a funny story. I had joined for EEE in REC Calicut that time and my mother had all sorts of "worries" of me moving away from home and finally I had to take the TC and join in GEC Thrissur. So to compensate my disappointment, amma found a 3 year course in NIIT which supposedly would make you job ready (to be frank it did as the only programming that we had in syllabus was Fortran programming!). It had an exorbitant fees that and on inquiry they told about some scholarship test and if I pass can get a fee waiver. I passed their test and got a significant fee waiver and so joined the course. Not sure if it is timing or the course structure or what, I was the only girl in the batch. The lab usage, assessments, projects and seminars was done on a team of two basis. So Mahesh was assigned as my teammate and we remained partners in crime for the next two years. I still remember our first seminar where we started collecting the info on the day of the seminar (last minute rush) and had lots of challenges as only one system had internet. We almost thought we will flunk as it was an external assessor, but could answer all his out of the box questions (Thanks to readers digest and such books I used to read those days). After the session our tutor came and told that he was really doubting about our presentation seeing our morning madness but we did well and guess what -we were the toppers that time(beginners luck) 😉 We continued the same madness in all the semesters and fortunately managed to sail through the course. Over a period of time even our families got closer as his mother was fond of 'girls' as she had three boys. Even after the course, we continued the friendship at a personal level and he remained my kid bro although he moved to US quite early in his career and we were not meeting in person that often. So it was good to catch up with him after 7 years although it was late in the night after an exhaustive day and a long flight for him. Unfortunately as usual I forgot to click a pic and so here is one stolen from his family album.

Uncle & aunty : Although I call them Uncle and aunty, they are more like my parents as I lived with them for 15 long years. Technically it's almost the same no of years that I have lived with my parents too. I had briefly mentioned about them earlier  They have been an integral part of my life in Bangalore  and most of my friends here know them quite well and vice versa. In fact, during the initial days almost all my classmates had the same address and phone number and uncle was the one who used to take the calls on everyone's behalf and passed on the message (pre-mobile era).  It was their presence that I missed the most when I shifted home to e-city. I do visit them often but it is never the same as living in the same house. Anyways when their son Kumar came down from US, they paid us a short visit

Jayan : He was my pen-pal in the e-mail world. Of course we were classmates in engineering but we hardly had any meaningful conversation during those days. It was the time when internet and emails were just coming in and although we had private e-mails, we had to go to an internet cafe to check that. Even in office we didn't have internet access in the desktop (Yeh we didn't use Google for our coding or error solving. God I am already feeling like coming from an alien generation). So most of us used the official email for private communication too and in the initial days, it was quite thrilling to get an instant reply for your emails. And those days only few of us from our class were placed and this was the time me and Jayan started our email conversations. This was before the blogging era and with my love for writing letters, it was a good break to have someone reciprocating compared to the one sided letters I used to send to my cousins. We talked about various topics - mostly stories, dreams, philosophy and all. I was in Bangalore and Jayan was in Mangalore and so we never met and later Jayan went for his MBA and we did not correspond after that and lost touch completely - what usually happens when your e-mail id changes. After his MBA, Jayan settled in UK and so this was our meeting after like 20 years and all those conversations came back. I think I really need to dig up those emails from the old pst files to find that younger me and my thoughts those days. Who knows it might be a book material as Jayan said 😈

Santosh and Leena : There are strange ways in which people cross our paths and this couple is one such. Leena was my senior in school and Santosh was in another batch in NIIT Bangalore where I did my last semester of the course. I knew him by face but never spoke although both of us knew that we are from Kerala. So when we met outside of NIIT in the Raheja lift, we both were surprised and got acquainted (the famous mallu-mallu bonding 😀) He was working in the 8th floor and me in the 10th floor and so we met often mostly during the post-lunch walks in Brunton road. Later Leena also joined their company and we got reacquainted as we already know each other from school. Both of them got married and migrated to US soon after. Although we did keep in touch via blogs and other social media and was aware of the developments in each others lives, we were meeting in real life after 16-17 years.

Changathikoottam : When the whatspp groups came in to existence, this was one of the first groups that I became part of which was a random group of few of our school batch-mates. This was before the overload of whatsapp Groups and so remained special for all of us in this group. As I was in a different division, I knew only a handful of them from school days but over a period of time, we all grew closer together. There were lot of real conversations and fun chats and the group was alive mostly 24/7 as different people joined in at different time-zones. Since most of the members are across the globe, we do meet when someone comes down. So this was one such meetup when Mumtu was in town and we did a short visit to school as well. And it is commendable that none of us lives in Thrissur anymore and still managed to come down to Thrissur for the meetup 😍

Neighbors meetup  : In our days, we had 90+ students in one division and there were 7-8 such divisions in each batch. So it is tough even to actually get to know the people in your own class and batch. But when you study in the same school from LKG till 10th and some times in the same subsidiary for PUC as well, you make friends beyond your classmates as some personalities do stand out. And when they all live in the neighborhood , why not have a get-together 😊  So that's how we all got together. Although we all live in the same area (at least earlier), most of us were meeting for the first time after school. And yeah there is an overdose of  Dhanya's here just the same way it was in school where most of the batches had 2-3-4 or even 7 Dhanya's in one class 😄

Dhanya and Co : I had written about Dhanya earlier so not adding anymore details here. We do meet often whenever we both are in Thrissur and sometimes even in cochin where she lives. So this was more of a customary meetup before the year ended 😄

There were few other meetups also with Ram's friends and also family. So I think the real world experiment did work and one important thing I realized is, we really loose track of the years that has gone by without meeting in this age of social media and virtual interaction. So I do plan to continue the same in the new year too. Let's see how it goes and how long I will sustain 😍  

Checkpoint

I really can't believe it is already June - the last month of the first half of the year. We will soon be stepping in to second half of the year and in a flash the year will also be gone. Anyway it is time to do a reality check on where I am related to the goals I had set for myself. When I decided to reduce the virtual footprint and meet friends in real, never did I imagine that I will be bumping into ones I haven't met for half my lifetime!!!


If the first meeting was a planned one, the second one was totally unexpected. Sudheer is my senior in college and probably one of the very few outside my class whom I knew by face during that time. Coming from a convent school, “politics” and affiliation to any party was limited to whether our class would be left out on that day when the boys from the neighboring school came demanding a 'long bell'. Our sisters were clever enough not to let the syllabus suffer by allowing all the students to go. Their strategy was to use a rotation mechanism in which different divisions where let out alternatively each time strikers come. And we used to longingly wait for that memo which decided our fate for the day 😉Sorry I am digressing. Anyway even at home , my parents believed your political affiliation is personal and never discussed it openly.

With such a background when I joined engineering college, the first day itself was a strike day. Reason -  a final year student was stabbed to death on stage the previous night during their sendoff party due to a political rivalry. That was my firsthand experience of campus politics. I was never a fan of campus politics and believed(still believes) that at such a young age it is very difficult to have a proper understanding of the ideologies that the parties represent and most youngsters follow one or other blindly. This experience kind of enhanced my hate and I always kept a distance from any of the political activities in the campus.  But it was not so easy – the strikes , the rivalry , the fights – everything was real – no rotation to protect classes or sisters to defend us. So my policy was to scoot (jump over the compound wall outside our class and escape 😛) when we get the first glimpse of anything remotely connected to politics . Our class being in a remote corner of the campus, far from main building , helped and I had some like-minded  friends in this activity.  So when Sudheer came with a political group and when they were addressing the class about some issue, he saw us slipping out and got angry that we were not concerned about the important issue that they were talking.  Anyways if I remember right we did manage to escape that day also and probably many more such scenes in the coming years.  For a fresher, not listening to a “Mech senior” was considered suicidal those days.  I can’t remember any other interactions with him during college days but I never forgot that angry face (considering I am very bad with remembering faces). It was after college that we started interacting – I guess initially for the placements and later through the travel group and developed our friendship. Then as usual life happens and he also shifted out of Bangalore.  Since we now work for the same company albeit different cities, we bumped in to each other in the company canteen and decided to catch up for lunch the next day. I really couldn’t believe when Sudheer mentioned that we are seeing after 15 years. Probably it is one (dis)advantage of social media – you won’t realize the years passing by even if you haven’t met for many years since you are updated about the life changes in each other’s lives or at least the ones that we choose to publish. Anyways it was good to catch up with him and know that his political interest is still intact and is quite active in the field. Wishing him a bright political career and hope to get some perks when he enters active politics. I just hope he recognises me then 😉

It was Honey chechi who triggered our plan to visit Australia and it was quickly executed coz hubby was keen on the India – Australia series that was happening there (although we missed it which is another story). But again never imagined that short vacation will lead to meeting so many friends after long. It feels like hardly anyone is left in India and you need to fly out of the country to meet a larger group 😑

 When three of us landed in Bangalore fresh out of college we were coming out of a protective life for the first time - not even any hostel experience till then. So when we moved into Honey chechi's house - it was a huge learning curve. Our first lessons in cooking , housekeeping , financial management and many more were from her who guided us expertly with her 2 year seniority .  The designated place for each and every object at home , the group cooking with rotation based chores , our accounted money 'pool' - everything was so orderly in our lifes back then.  There are so many memories although it was only for a year and then the “New man” came in to her life and took her away 😀 But we still kept in touch and visited each other over the years. So cannot really say it was a long break but yeah it was 18 years (or may be 15 years if I consider UK visit )since we stayed together. It is good to see that she still maintains that order in everything she does even now. So when you show someone their house video, you won't be surprised when the viewers ask whether this is really a place where people live in 😄

Anubha was again one of the firsts who contacted me when I put up the post to meetup. I know her from the NSN days where she was one of my mentees and initially appeared to be a quiet and soft-spoken girl. Later, once we became close, we got a taste of her naughty , fun and talkative part. She is very hard-working and someone you can blindly trust your work with. You ask her to do something and it will be done in the best possible way and no follow ups are necessary. I haven’t met her after I left NSN which was 8 years back and in this timeframe she had migrated to Australia. So I was so excited to meet her along with her baby. A short but sweet meeting I would say ❤

Denny is my engineering classmate and the one before me in our class rolls. So in all of our lab groupings he was stuck as the only guy among 3 of us girls until we finally exchanged him with another girl who was in a similar situation with 3 guys 😂 He was one of the NRK students in our class with broken Malayalam but the favorite Bhai of everyone. I hadn’t met him after college as he was an early NRI. I wasn’t even sure if we can make it when I msged him as we were landing in the evening and returning back the next day. But he picked us from airport, met his lovely family over dinner and then we had a long chatter late into the night.  He was probably the one who I am meeting after such a long period - 20 years!  It was so nice to catch up after so many years and know that nothing has changed and we can just start from where we left during our college days.
There were still many more who I missed meeting in Australia as we choose to be in Tasmania for the major part of our time there. But yeah I am sure everything is possible if we just wish for it… 😍

Live differently

A solo bike ride across India - 115 days , 35 cities , 18000 kms.

  

How does that sound to you? Adventurous? Crazy? Risky? That is the normal for Prashant  - My first meet-up buddy this year.

   

When I thought about meeting people in real, I was very sure it is not going to be an easy task. It meant you are asking for commitment from one more person and I was wondering how many will actually be interested in this exercise. However, there were few faces that came to my mind who I knew will surely make it and he was on top of the list. And sure enough when I shared the post about my intention, he was the first to comment and the first to show up on the very first week of the year as well 😊

  

I first met this guy more than a decade ago though Chrysallis Performance Arts Centre for the Challenged, Bangalore (integrating children with and without challenges) which was a special part of our lives for many many years. We were volunteering for this NGO and was part of the core group who lead the different events and also inducted other volunteers for the programmes.  Later when the frequency of Chrysallis events came down, we all went different ways. But atleast a small bunch dedicatedly found reasons to meet though not as much as we did in the olden days and kept the friendship alive.  

Prashant always stood out with his wackiness and sense of humor and also the unique decisions he made. He always loved exploring the untrodden paths. I still remember the shock I got when the Power Of One was announced and remember telling him the dangers of going to Leh-Ladakh and the northeast all alone in a motor bike. But he was unfazed and full of confidence. It is the same conviction and confidence that will make you admire him when he does Slacklining or when he quit corporate to be a stay at home dad (allowing his wife to pursue her career) or when he empowers his toddler to make her own choices and decisions or when he follow Keto without a single cheat day for more than 6 months and counting (esp with the fact that he is big foodie) 

He is someone who shows you how to Live With Purpose, Conviction, Mindfulness, and Confidence and I am so glad I have these kind of unique friendships to cherish and learn from. 

PS: After chatting on so many topics we forgot to take a pic of ourselves 😒 So I am flicking one pic of this lovely family from FB and look at those smiles 💖

Getting real

During the last quarter of 2018, I uninstalled facebook app and also reduced the usage of WhatsApp to minimum. Resisting that temptation to swipe revealed that there is much more to life. So I am planning to continue the practice in the new year too. This digital detox also meant I missed out on some of the updates from my friends and connections. That is why I decided to dedicate this year committed to true, organic connection - human connection. Given my introverted nature, this is daunting, but I am planning to take one step at a time. For me, at least, there is a huge payback when people smile at each other, tell a story, talk about the day, which is what makes the apps so limiting. Yes it does take an intentional effort, but the energy is so infectious which hiding behind a screen cannot provide.To make this a committed effort, I am planning to write about the same as I feel everyone has a story waiting to be heard.  I can always make it anonymous or choose not to publish if you are not comfortable about it.  So are you considering ditching your apps and coming back to real life atleast for an afternoon? Call me then... Let's meet up for a coffee...

P.s : I will figure out the logistics to meet if you are anywhere in India. If abroad, I would like to have a telephonic conversation - not so real but nevertheless better than social media.