Friends have reasons to part. They may not feel like staying in touch. One possible reason could be this: I got a promising job somewhere, so I am moving on, going off the radar altogether if you fancy the term, and losing touch entirely. In the pre-mobile phone era, let alone the landline, to get in constant contact was becoming a challenge, a tough call.
So why did we abandon a trustworthy company of one another when nobody had done anything "disappointing" or "unpleasant"? Why this complete absence of social interaction, then? I wonder why I feel this sad sense of being left behind now, weighed down by nostalgia, which is, confessedly, had been largely self-inflicted upon my senses. Things were so wonderful when we were younger, more ambitious, and more driven (GG had no idea!). We worked well and made a good team (GG was instrumental in this, at least!): more like lifetime friends than just merely like workmates working as a team at an office.
Do you remember the discussions we've had in our cubicle? The booming GG-led Monday-morning meetings? Those hilariously candid conversations? Think back to those coffee breaks that sparked more humorous conversations, our sense of good humour: really about anything our apparent enthusiasm welcomed while working collaboratively on our functional tasks and coping with our demanding taskmaster, and not to forget mentioning our conduit of personal creativity and jovial collaboration in pulling up GG's huffs and blow-ups like Ongole Bull almost daily. Those unforgettable moments shaped our journey as a team together at Satyam! But we all ended up quickly drifting away. I know priorities shift. But still.
Not long afterward, marriage occurs, a kid or two, and then settling down in life, romantically and financially. Learning and mastering the craft of family life while working to keep everything coherent day in and day out causes one to fall into a traditional routine, perhaps resulting in a 'peaceful' family circle in a by-now familiar household domain but, alas, with old friends long gone and their relationships left to fade, life had turned a different chapter, met new friends maybe, and it goes on.
Communication, circumstances, and these days, some well-meaning individuals don't hesitate to reiterate personal growth endlessly. Everything indeed changes. Friends change, too. There's no sacred promise, is there, that we will stay in touch forever. Nobody keeps their word. I understand that now. What better reason could there be to pursue new opportunities and move away, even if it makes us reluctant to communicate? Priorities do shift. And some friends never look back.
When Friends Drift Apart
After my years in Satyam, I have often looked back with nostalgic awe: the memorable friendships I made with the colleagues I worked with; we all have tried to embrace the change that didn't seem to lurk around the corner but eventually made their icy presence felt: GG jumping ship first.
I embraced change (did I really? I have my doubts), as anyone would (but with great reluctance and unhappiness) in the face of new changes. I joined Wipro after leaving Satyam. Later, after returning to the city, I moved on to a New York-based IT organization for a few years, followed by a position at a U.S.-based IT group company. Life has evolved this way for many of us in the software industry. As a result, hardly anyone could be concerned about keeping in touch with old Satyam colleagues who have gone on to make a difference to the world beyond Satyam.
Life of a whole other kind took over our lives, wholly and completely, casting off old friendships as if they were enough, slowly falling away as some of us were too quiet and aloof to reflect on the past.
Devi and Suresh, the finance wizardry that only they could handle in the GG-helmed roaming division, never tended to stay in touch, except with Mandeep perhaps, as did Renju and Gnana, who have similarly forged ahead to other, newer, growth-oriented IT vistas: at large somewhere in the messed up, global crisis-laden, AI-driven disruptive world of IT software industry, scaling up the career totem pole while also losing contact permanently with every one of that old beautiful time we have all loved so dearly at the Satyam Computers on the Raj Bhavan Road.
Shiv and Shahnawaz have also disappeared, permanently out of reach—more than 25 years have passed—since those beloved days at Satyam. Thanks, guys.
GG never enquired after us. Has he ever? Ha-ha-ha. Can he ever? He will never stoop to the level of doing such a menial thing in his life of a (un)Holy Man of... Hell: GG the Great Dope, and that's understood. To be sure, 95% of the ex-bosses like him feel less important to do so. For these forever accursed individuals, nostalgic memories of the distant past don't recur as they don't let them enter their present — no one can expect anything like that from this rude narcissist who had damaged our innocent days of the first IT experience.
Mandeep and I maintained our friendship for a few years before letting ourselves abandon it altogether, ultimately drifting apart as some people do, no longer in tune with each other's company — perhaps having less interest in the life of the other. Kavitha was gone, escaping—just like anyone having slightly more grit and guts than the thousands of ducky also-rans and has-beens—to the US all those years ago: the profoundly exciting years she missed out on living and longing in this very city where she belonged to. That's her life, her choice. She was too far away for Mandeep, me, or anyone to renew or fully understand or establish the bonds of friendship that existed only for a little while among us when we worked as a team at Satyam, after which, sadly, it had to taper off as there was no forward momentum in the ordinary flow of friendship, albeit more professional than personal, none that had even existed ever since she went away purposefully choosing to live an ambition-scarred (or is it?), too-much-of-too-soon, gravy train of life that certainly had to be less ordinary there than it afforded her here if she continued in the same usual oh-no-not-again Indian mode, so to speak. That is all there is to this touching tale of friends and friendships that had, many years ago, taken place at a renowned company called Satyam Computers, our former office on Raj Bhavan Road, which regrettably went out of business (due to a sensational financial bungling in 2009 and the economic recession of 2008).
But Kavitha, now a veritable Half-Indian-Faux-American (HIFA, my coinage), had missed out on a great deal of that exquisite Satyam experience. The choices she had for herself differed from those that we had taken for ourselves: we continued to work with Satyam while she chose, rather determined, to move to the U.S. Every person's life is different from that perspective.
It is a bittersweet feeling, leaving behind something unforgettable and a lovely environment filled with numerous memories and camaraderie meant for the fortunate few. I still consider myself to be born under a lucky star to have been in such great company of friends at Satyam, for the incredible friendships I forged during those years that shaped my personal and professional life. It is no small miracle that my fate took a proverbial leap of faith to that level of what life could give me as a blessing as we supported each other and celebrated each other’s successes, making it all the more worthwhile memories that will last for a lifetime. Speaking from the point of view of an ex-Satyamite, for those of us who worked with Satyam, two eras will characterize our professional life: The Satyam era and the post-Satyam era.
In the storybook of my life, my friends have carved out a significant niche for themselves in today's fast-paced world where friendships are difficult to make, and the freedoms that once fostered camaraderie seem to be dwindling. It is rare to find friends these days, nor are they found in many places, especially when they like to move on, leaving everything behind while aspiring for a new life ahead. Memories are rarely made, often slipping away unnoticed, uncared for, and unloved by many who have no, as it seems to me, inkling about the significance of your life's work: your memories for the soul. For some of us, this is how life has turned out to be. Even though the mildewed pages are wasting away and my thoughts are as scatter-brained as autumn leaves lately, they remain etched in my mind even as the relentless march of time, a blessing or a curse, happens along swiftly, year after year and era after era.
Yet, I hold on to nostalgic memories of the past Satyam years that I will never omit from my present and continue cherishing no matter the changing circumstances I am dealt with, time after time, unravelling the mystery that life is.
So let’s pick up where we left off.
(To be continued…)
By Arindam Moulick