High School Reminiscences, part 13 of 16
Good heavens, there’s no point huffing about how to cope with the issue of lost friendship with high school chums. And by the way, lest it appears that I am flogging a long-dead horse, or trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, it is better to be quite willing to make peace with the ebb and flow of what is now known as the ‘Friendship Curve.’
Well, ‘Friendship Curve’ is one way of putting it, but I’d like to term it as ‘Inevitable Destiny.’ Both are not the same; different viewpoints but. However, it is a fact of life I know well enough now.
But then, old habits die hard. And likewise, old memories never fade, they recur. Every so often, when the memories of my schooldays tug at my heart, I go seek the eager pages of my late-night, under-the-covers diary to make yummy notes: Recounting the days spent with school friends whom, since the time we left school, sadly, no one continued to be in touch with one another. There was simply no means of doing so and, therefore, comes into existence this essay lamenting: why didn’t we keep in touch, what went wrong, and things like that. I hope I am not on a fool's errand here. LOL.
Date with destiny
Those good old days will never come back. I habitually keep repeating that phrase in my mind ad infinitum; I find I don’t get tired of it. I think what keeps me rooted and real is that good old feeling as it warmly reminds me of the distant past, which has always been an unforgettable part of my life.
With me, the past has become a dogged obsession haunting me night and day. But knowing that the temptation of romanticizing the days of yore has no meaningful remedy yet, I go seeking solace in guilty pleasures like writing, reading, and penning down my thoughts in my diary while cultivating my utopia to find peace within. And that’s one of the reasons why this self-examining essay is coursing through these pages like a memory river in spate helping me fathom every last bit of it slick and shipshape.
But still, the past is worth being remembered. If I could go back in time, I’d change nothing but re-experience those days of 1988-90 as if like new. That’s some wild fantasy!
Good heavens, there’s no point huffing about how to cope with the issue of lost friendship with high school chums. And by the way, lest it appears that I am flogging a long-dead horse, or trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, it is better to be quite willing to make peace with the ebb and flow of what is now known as the ‘Friendship Curve.’
Well, ‘Friendship Curve’ is one way of putting it, but I’d like to term it as ‘Inevitable Destiny.’ Both are not the same; different viewpoints but. However, it is a fact of life I know well enough now.
But then, old habits die hard. And likewise, old memories never fade, they recur. Every so often, when the memories of my schooldays tug at my heart, I go seek the eager pages of my late-night, under-the-covers diary to make yummy notes: Recounting the days spent with school friends whom, since the time we left school, sadly, no one continued to be in touch with one another. There was simply no means of doing so and, therefore, comes into existence this essay lamenting: why didn’t we keep in touch, what went wrong, and things like that. I hope I am not on a fool's errand here. LOL.
Date with destiny
Those good old days will never come back. I habitually keep repeating that phrase in my mind ad infinitum; I find I don’t get tired of it. I think what keeps me rooted and real is that good old feeling as it warmly reminds me of the distant past, which has always been an unforgettable part of my life.
With me, the past has become a dogged obsession haunting me night and day. But knowing that the temptation of romanticizing the days of yore has no meaningful remedy yet, I go seeking solace in guilty pleasures like writing, reading, and penning down my thoughts in my diary while cultivating my utopia to find peace within. And that’s one of the reasons why this self-examining essay is coursing through these pages like a memory river in spate helping me fathom every last bit of it slick and shipshape.
But still, the past is worth being remembered. If I could go back in time, I’d change nothing but re-experience those days of 1988-90 as if like new. That’s some wild fantasy!
Thirty years down the road of life - that comprised, I am certain, the transitions, big and small, trials and tribulations and all that necessary jazz - it must have been quite a journey for most of us former school mates: ever since we left school to emerge into the world of grown-ups, maturity, and adulthood - leaving behind what I’d like to believe a wonderful legacy of familiar faces, scenes, and memories our hearts will never quit thinking. In that sense, of course, each one of us has indeed come a long way: we are all adults now. But, sadly, our friendship didn’t come along with us, as it were. So far away into the future now, recognizing one another would hardly be easy for most of us. Because, ultimately, what exists between us is a vast chasm of days, months, years, and decades that has lapsed into forgotten history no one can ever be expected to surpass it and be a hero (or heroine!) or something of that stuff. Not even Gods can find fault in us for not knowing one another any longer because it doesn’t matter anymore if we did, and just who do we think we are in this world? Practically nothing! Just mortal coils of entrails looped around the flesh and bones we define as the human body rounded up with a scandalized head that couldn’t be hollow without a brain full of grey ghosts of the distant past looking for more of their ilk to join together and hitch a ride into the future. Well, have a great one!
Perhaps there is no strong reason left for us to help renew old bonds of friendship or give ourselves a high-five chance to foster new ties or become more acquainted with the individuals who have been in our lives all over again. Who would come forward? No one. No annual alumni meet, no podium, no corner to hang out, and no flagship alumni association are in existence for old students and teachers to bring us together again. No chance, whatsoever, to relive the nostalgic school days with our alma mater. That little window of opportunity, if at any time there was one existing for us to make up for lost time together, has been quite a while back relinquished. In any case, sound judgment encourages us to think that it’s time we let bygones be bygones: Let the past stay in the past. But I ask you: Can we afford to do that? Is it the right thing to do? I don’t think in that way, and that’s why I have memories for company, a great many of them of all those golden days, in my heart’s care!
Figure what you will of this, we have grown up not to be friends but strangers to one another, done being friends. If this is not pitiful, then what could be more troubled than this little mystery we responded to with such peremptory haste to push it under the carpet, wash our hands off it, as if nothing to make a big deal. I suppose: that’s destiny - an inevitable and inescapable fact of our lives. Destiny/Karma has it that we don’t meet ever again. Whether one likes it or not, this debate of friendship not happening between us has a long time ago been won by Destiny, hands down. The book of destiny had it written down that, in the long run, our friendship was not to go anywhere past the school ramparts.
‘Memory keeping’
All those earlier days of friendship we cherished at school; all that old familiarity; all those boisterous days, are gone now, quite possibly beyond salvation.
This realization is something we can never come to terms with, can we? I can’t. No matter how hard I try to suppress our common heritage of school memories, I fall back right into the warm embrace of my old days at the KV school. Every time my heart wanders back in time trying to reminisce about the younger days there studying as a teenager uniformed in robin-blue pants and classic white shirts, a flashback of memories takes me over. Memories last a lifetime.
It’s so much more difficult for me, even now, to keep myself separated from my high school memories and move on as though nothing could be better than setting them aside or lock them all up in some memory box and discard the key. I don’t know, to the outside world, I might appear as though stuck between two different worlds: Old and New. On the one hand, I need my lovely memories to stir me up emotionally. On the other, I want them to connect me to the present without missing a tiny bit of my memories. However, I feel that all other members of my class of 1989-’90 seem to have closed that chapter sometime in the past, all forgotten and happy; and then they just drifted away unmindful of…everything. They put everything behind and moved on without as much as giving a backward glance. But I couldn’t be capable of doing that; I couldn’t rather, for the life of me, ever forsake those two significant years I have spent studying there. I, therefore, carry within me - like an autobiographical memory man, so to speak - my precious treasure trove of school recollections everywhere and wherever I went. Some people excel in the art of “beekeeping” or “bookkeeping,” I excel in the art of, well, “memory keeping”- the art of remembering everything one couldn’t quit thinking. Memory keeping becomes my forte. I have treasured recollections from as far back as my time in school and found much use of them lately. The way I see it, our friendship isn’t over yet, and chances are we can drift back together again.
Though we invested great amounts of time studying, learning, experimenting, and playing together, we have only ended up, post-school, as 'casual strangers,' failing to become close friends. What our respected teachers have, back then, taught us or tried to mould us into is beside the point. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall and had a great fall. Only there was but a classroom full of Humpty Dumpties!
By Arindam Moulick
Disclaimer: This blog is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Perhaps there is no strong reason left for us to help renew old bonds of friendship or give ourselves a high-five chance to foster new ties or become more acquainted with the individuals who have been in our lives all over again. Who would come forward? No one. No annual alumni meet, no podium, no corner to hang out, and no flagship alumni association are in existence for old students and teachers to bring us together again. No chance, whatsoever, to relive the nostalgic school days with our alma mater. That little window of opportunity, if at any time there was one existing for us to make up for lost time together, has been quite a while back relinquished. In any case, sound judgment encourages us to think that it’s time we let bygones be bygones: Let the past stay in the past. But I ask you: Can we afford to do that? Is it the right thing to do? I don’t think in that way, and that’s why I have memories for company, a great many of them of all those golden days, in my heart’s care!
Figure what you will of this, we have grown up not to be friends but strangers to one another, done being friends. If this is not pitiful, then what could be more troubled than this little mystery we responded to with such peremptory haste to push it under the carpet, wash our hands off it, as if nothing to make a big deal. I suppose: that’s destiny - an inevitable and inescapable fact of our lives. Destiny/Karma has it that we don’t meet ever again. Whether one likes it or not, this debate of friendship not happening between us has a long time ago been won by Destiny, hands down. The book of destiny had it written down that, in the long run, our friendship was not to go anywhere past the school ramparts.
‘Memory keeping’
All those earlier days of friendship we cherished at school; all that old familiarity; all those boisterous days, are gone now, quite possibly beyond salvation.
This realization is something we can never come to terms with, can we? I can’t. No matter how hard I try to suppress our common heritage of school memories, I fall back right into the warm embrace of my old days at the KV school. Every time my heart wanders back in time trying to reminisce about the younger days there studying as a teenager uniformed in robin-blue pants and classic white shirts, a flashback of memories takes me over. Memories last a lifetime.
It’s so much more difficult for me, even now, to keep myself separated from my high school memories and move on as though nothing could be better than setting them aside or lock them all up in some memory box and discard the key. I don’t know, to the outside world, I might appear as though stuck between two different worlds: Old and New. On the one hand, I need my lovely memories to stir me up emotionally. On the other, I want them to connect me to the present without missing a tiny bit of my memories. However, I feel that all other members of my class of 1989-’90 seem to have closed that chapter sometime in the past, all forgotten and happy; and then they just drifted away unmindful of…everything. They put everything behind and moved on without as much as giving a backward glance. But I couldn’t be capable of doing that; I couldn’t rather, for the life of me, ever forsake those two significant years I have spent studying there. I, therefore, carry within me - like an autobiographical memory man, so to speak - my precious treasure trove of school recollections everywhere and wherever I went. Some people excel in the art of “beekeeping” or “bookkeeping,” I excel in the art of, well, “memory keeping”- the art of remembering everything one couldn’t quit thinking. Memory keeping becomes my forte. I have treasured recollections from as far back as my time in school and found much use of them lately. The way I see it, our friendship isn’t over yet, and chances are we can drift back together again.
Though we invested great amounts of time studying, learning, experimenting, and playing together, we have only ended up, post-school, as 'casual strangers,' failing to become close friends. What our respected teachers have, back then, taught us or tried to mould us into is beside the point. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall and had a great fall. Only there was but a classroom full of Humpty Dumpties!
By Arindam Moulick
Disclaimer: This blog is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.