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Thirty Two Years down

A few weeks ago, my father left for India for his college reunion. The few weeks preceding the trip, I had never seen him so excited. E-mails, international calls, t-shirt designs, sponsorships, hotel bookings, alcohol, a myriad of issues were debated over ceaselessly while my mother scorned over this child like behavior of her fifty plus year old husband. It had been thirty two years since his batch graduated, though this period was peppered with reunions now and then between old friends and their families. The coming one would be the biggest of them all. It would take place at the very location where it all began, their old school, in the presence of the very professors who once taught them. People would arrive from all corners of the globe to relive the old times.

And in the midst of all the planning, he rather boastfully dropped the question,

"Why are kids today not as close to their friends?"

"Competition perhaps?", I made a rational guess.

But it was more than a guess. It was the model answer that shifted blame away from my generation, to the point my father concurred to our status as victims of globalisation. It was true as well, not necessarily because it strained relations between friends, but more because we suddenly found ourselves competing with a mass of unknown faces to elevate our social status in a judgemental society, lest we lose. Though if we really need what we were told we would lose, well, we never really had any time to think about that.

Nevertheless, thirty two years down, it would be interesting to see if we would still meet up. We will all most likely be scattered all across the world. Some might have families, some might have careers, some might have both and some might have neither and yet, when you see that email invite in your inbox, would your tired eyes light up? Would you sit up straight and check the list to see who else is coming? Would you reminisce the good old times when there was always someone else to share your happiness and your suffering? Would you set aside everything else for that one day?

Would you come?

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