Reunion

As quoted anonymously by someone great "Sometimes to move forward in your life, you need to step a foot backwards"

This is a story of a squad of four college friends, who met by destiny in college, despite coming from different backgrounds, came closer, and then departed by fate, or work, to be more precise. The group whose friendship was cherished in every college corridor, was now distanced by work responsibilities, as they had to move on in their lives, chasing their dreams, and unknowingly, unintentionally, left each other in the midway, though it was not the plan.

Soon after ten long years of lost contact with each other, one day, they caught up over a call and suddenly planned for a reunion in the coming weekend. Despite exhausting weekday hours in office, rather than relaxing in their homes, they started preparing for the reunion.

Here I would like to quote, "no matter you meet or talk to your friends daily, the essence of friendship never fades, it always keeps the memories and the friendship alive."

And the group of these four friends, prove it.

Now, hours started feeling like days, and days like years, and after a long wait, soon the day of reunion arrived.

Those four could not explain their excitement. It was just a feeling, like the old days are back again. They were so excited that they could not wait going to the cottage, back to their native place, and live those two days to the fullest.

All of them arrived at the common meeting point. The happiness of their faces was irresistible. There were butterflies jumping in their stomach, they were jumping like monkeys, screaming as if they saw ghosts on their way to cottage and what not. Finally, they were back in their childhood.

They reached the cottage, and just like any other group of childhood friends would behave, they started arguing for bed, for bathroom, and for food.

They discussed their joys and sorrows, their success and failures, their pain and laughter. They created a bond in those two days. Some misunderstandings, which were left uncleared, were removed.

Suddenly as they were discussing their childhood memories, they recalled an incident,which was a bad incident rather. There was a friend of theirs, 'Ravi', but their friendship broke, distrust and disrespect took away their friendship and friend both.

“8^th February 2018, it was the first day of their second year in college, and like every second year student will have the feeling of becoming senior, so were them. Unknowingly, in the process of fulfilling their pleasure, and please themselves, and their ego that they were now adults, apart from ragging their juniors, they mocked Ravi too, in front of the whole first. That mocking and ragging broke Ravi so deeply from inside out that he went into depression for the next two years. He left speaking to anyone, he used to sit in one corner of the classroom, study make notes, study in break time , or roam leisurely in the garden, but not talk to anyone.

But as the saying goes, if someone puts in the efforts into something and puts his heart and soul into it, those attempts and efforts never go in vain.

Ravi was now living a happy well-settled life in USA. But the only thing which hurts them, is that while pleasing themselves and running after temporary happiness, they left behind something which was the real gem , And such things are sometimes not understood in childhood, but gradually as the time passes, and the person gets experience.

Despite these few bad experiences and memories , they created golden memories too.

Once , while enjoying late evening tea in college campus they saw a group of children wandering, they were small poor kids of 15-18 age group who ere wandering in search of liquor. Seeing college students day and night, taking cigarettes and liquor, they learnt this from them.

Here lies the irony, the college which is considered the temple of learning and knowledge, which creates fresh graduates who are now ready to serve the nation, indirectly is teaching some children to take on bad habits of liquor and cigarettes.

What the group of this four friends did was, they started a donation drive in college, where anyone can donate anything to help poor children learn. And everyday after their college hours they used to go to the slum areas where these kids and many more children like them were living and started teaching them, their course content as well as basic human values and ethics too. This was just like killing two birds with one stone, they were able to inculcate values in these slum children, and also this changed their way of leading the life. Apart from wasting their time in useless stuff, they started utilizing their time in studies, they understood the value of education, and the value of money utilized in educating them.

"No matter how much new friends you find in your life, childhood friends are real gems, and others, maybe, just fillers"

They went back to their college, where four golden years of their life were spent. As they were living their old days again, they went to their college, and headed to their classrooms from backdoor, as they used to do. Searched for the scribbled names, under the tables, created by them, for a day like this to come and they would cherish those marks.

Borrowed food from canteen, everything they did was just similar, as it used to be ten years back from now. They created thousands of memories in just two days, which they will carry with themselves back to their normal work-life, but will cherish forever. Now they might talk daily, share talks daily, but the bond they created and which they will take back with them is everlasting.Some relations never die, and this they understood in their two days of trip. They were far apart from each other for ten long years, but now when they met, they wanted the time to stuck there only and not move even an inch. They realized that they all were precious for each other, No matter how many people come and go from your life, some people always stay, but people don't realize this. Sometimes in the process of pleasing temporary people, we neglect those, who were always there for us, taking them for granted and thinking that they will anyhow stay. But when they leave, we realize, we lost real gems.