Alwal Tales, A Trip Down Memory Lane - part 3 of 10
Armstrong, Sunil, Satish, and I
At the turn of the new millennium, mistaken assumptions and a negative situation foreshadowed our long-standing friendship with Sunil. These events were though not difficult to rectify but still went on to affect the friendly intimacy we had cherished in the 1990s.
To begin with, Sunil distanced himself from Armstrong and me - sparing Satish the inconvenience that followed. Second, Armstrong's move to Delhi. Also, as the years went by like they always do, the world was changing - without either of us being able to rekindle our bond with Sunil, our very convincing Tom Hanks-resembling college mate.
****
Despite the Y2K bug issue, which, after all, the considerable fanfare and bother about it turned out to be a damp squib, the year 2001, even 2000 the year before, were generally exciting for those in the IT industry and generated positive enthusiasm about the "birth of a new millennium" globally. Qualified IT engineers squashed the so-called critical bug with aplomb, served hot and fresh with the right kind of programming code, and debugged it forever. I fondly remember: on the dazzling night between the 365th day of December 31st, 1999, and the start of the new millennium, 2000, Satish and I were dressed to the nines, riding my bike around Necklace Road and Tank Bund, celebrating New Year's Eve. It was great fun. We had a terrific time celebrating the "Millennium Celebration" while munching on hot dogs, burgers, and potato chips and chugging icy cola beverages in the Necklace Road park area.
Inevitably, umpteen "impending apocalypse" or "end of the f***ing world" scenarios were making the rounds, especially among young IT professionals like us who had access to such informatics on the Internet. Although we didn't pay heed to any of that funny BS, it was fun to laugh about while the rumour mills were at it: working overtime churning out story after story, intentionally trying to convince the gullible in return for their great amusement.
Huge fanfare of breathless excitement was seen everywhere: on the streets, in the malls, and on primetime television, from the stroke of midnight on December 31st, 1999, to the end of 2000 and all of 2001. All of that was fantastic, but on a more emotional level, it was heartbreaking to realize that our precious friendship with Sunil was going south, deteriorating, perhaps, who knows, beyond redemption.
****
Our once- or twice-weekly meetings became sporadic, one-off at first, but soon it became clear there was little chance of recovering when he married, although his marriage in 2001 was not a great explanation for our friendship to diminish like that. Consequently, Sunil and I stopped meeting, and it was the same with Armstrong. And this ended up being an unfortunate debacle in our more than ten years of companionship with him. In any case, Sunil kept staying in touch with Satish, the "DeMello," as did we.
For my part, I cannot even remember what stupid argument—or was it an argument at all—we'd had that was worth arguing over. It still hurts now as it did then when I think of our unnecessary estrangement with Sunil. I can't help but say: if ego got in the way or something else threw a wrench in our connection. Whatever it was, losing a friend did come as a shock, as he phased himself out, gone on AWOL by himself. We tried in vain to keep our friendly relationship with him unchanged. Sunil was a friend whose loss we deeply regret.
For my part, I cannot even remember what stupid argument—or was it an argument at all—we'd had that was worth arguing over. It still hurts now as it did then when I think of our unnecessary estrangement with Sunil. I can't help but say: if ego got in the way or something else threw a wrench in our connection. Whatever it was, losing a friend did come as a shock, as he phased himself out, gone on AWOL by himself. We tried in vain to keep our friendly relationship with him unchanged. Sunil was a friend whose loss we deeply regret.
Looking back in joy
Armstrong was the ‘centre of attraction’ in our group of four friends, someone who kept us all in good standing throughout the 1990s and beyond, the reason why his permanent shift to New Delhi and afterwards to Gurgaon (name changed to Gurugram) in the mid-2000s had left us lonely and isolated.
After he left, our days seemed to spiral into disillusionment, spotlighting our isolation. Thankfully, Satish and I kept our friendship as it ought to be: friendly and closely connected to this day. Having married and had two children, he now seems a little perturbed by his happy marital life. But he's doing fine, progressing in line with the expectations of his proud bourgeois family of four happy souls. We get together now and then for old times' sake, but even that is becoming less and less common.
When we met every other day, especially on Sunday evenings, to sit on the two puliyas (our old "rock"), our friendship was a lively and vibrant experience that we were proud to own and protect. In the early 1990s, we were a fabulous foursome bunch that never missed an opportunity to make the most of things. Lately, however, I've been wondering what went wrong between Sunil and us all those years ago when our once-close friendship suddenly became distant and less conversational. Was it ego, which develops with age and then fades as we move on with our lives and later realize we never had it in the first place? It appears our friendship has already lost some of its earlier intensity and innocence, even though there was something we couldn't quite pinpoint that would have allowed us to address the problem ourselves and move on. Understandable. Since those times have long disappeared into the solitude of our once-cherished college years, we'll not easily find them again. Unless we consciously recall them and search the deeper, rarer parts of our former lives that we left behind for the few fragments of seemingly infallible memories. There's not always another time. No matter where you live, what you do, or how hard you try to block them out, you can't stop remembering those times when your heart was more passionate and eager to experience life as it came.
Unfortunately, it's one of the bitter realities of life that even a group of four friends will have to face sooner or later. Do friendships end? Yes, they do, don't they? They come to an end, are abandoned, or are left behind, thus consigning them to the past. Many may avoid dwelling on the past, but I don't. The future for them is too formidable a task to tackle first, followed by the luxury of deep leisurely reflection if necessary. Only if necessary, else they take care to avoid it. For me, however, nothing from the days gone by is prosaic, everything's divine. (Does this imply that the ‘future’ (whatever that conveys) should take precedence by forsaking friendship altogether? Or was it misdirected ennui that torpedoed everything as far as our friendship was concerned?) And while it may be true in a rapidly changing world, I didn't think any of my friends wanted to face one of the many actualities of the postmillennial lifestyle of the 2000s, which is to be in a state of continual bafflement or something like being on the cusp of things. This unique condition of not knowing what to do applies to people like us. It's a matter of the previous-generation thing convincing some of us not to change our share of memories (of our glorious days of friendship spent on the unforgettable residential campus of Trishul Park) while thinking about whether or not our future should take precedence.
(Conjecturally: even if the future looks promising, the past is a veritable gold mine of delights, life lessons, and the bittersweet ache of heartfelt recollections that you know even the heavens will shower you with flowers of love if you dwell in the sacred portals of your distant past. It may sound preachy, but it is true.)
The future will come, and we'll grow old, but the past, the past is never gone because it's anchored in our memory; it's always present within us, like a memorable yesterday that's not entirely forgotten, but which we fondly remember while living in the present. But, to state the obvious, the past doesn't come back to you unless you think about it and reminisce about it nostalgically. And then we must look to the future, which is always coming.
We'd no conflicts, verbal fights, or arguments over anything that would have kept us from staying in touch with each other over supposedly hurt feelings, of which the four of us were sure there was no rhyme or reason. (But perhaps Sunil's erudite sarcasm has turned out to be a fly in the ointment!) In the final years, however, Armstrong and I kept hoping that things would settle down before he relocated to Delhi. But, alas, it didn't. We could allow this to happen despite being vividly aware that having friends is one of life's greatest joys and that losing even one of them is like losing a part of your soul for all time as you journey through life. Those were sad times.
Gradually, our newly acquired convictions melted away slowly and unheeded in the emotional milieu of our beloved roots, born in a kinder, and I'd say, more thoughtful generation of the 1990s. It was a small matter to haul them into the ever-changing post-1990s coals of the future. As a generation, we were dreamers but were far more persistent in our thoughts than today's wistful jet-set post-Millennials give credit for, but it's a different story that things did not work for us the way we'd have liked; it's okay if it didn't always.
When we met every other day, especially on Sunday evenings, to sit on the two puliyas (our old "rock"), our friendship was a lively and vibrant experience that we were proud to own and protect. In the early 1990s, we were a fabulous foursome bunch that never missed an opportunity to make the most of things. Lately, however, I've been wondering what went wrong between Sunil and us all those years ago when our once-close friendship suddenly became distant and less conversational. Was it ego, which develops with age and then fades as we move on with our lives and later realize we never had it in the first place? It appears our friendship has already lost some of its earlier intensity and innocence, even though there was something we couldn't quite pinpoint that would have allowed us to address the problem ourselves and move on. Understandable. Since those times have long disappeared into the solitude of our once-cherished college years, we'll not easily find them again. Unless we consciously recall them and search the deeper, rarer parts of our former lives that we left behind for the few fragments of seemingly infallible memories. There's not always another time. No matter where you live, what you do, or how hard you try to block them out, you can't stop remembering those times when your heart was more passionate and eager to experience life as it came.
****
They say all good things must come to an end. Our close friendship, once intimately known, took a dismaying turn with the usher of the digit '2' and a triplet of '0's' (zeros or noughties) fastened to it: 2000 or '00s, the first leap year of the 21st century, right on the dot!
Unfortunately, it's one of the bitter realities of life that even a group of four friends will have to face sooner or later. Do friendships end? Yes, they do, don't they? They come to an end, are abandoned, or are left behind, thus consigning them to the past. Many may avoid dwelling on the past, but I don't. The future for them is too formidable a task to tackle first, followed by the luxury of deep leisurely reflection if necessary. Only if necessary, else they take care to avoid it. For me, however, nothing from the days gone by is prosaic, everything's divine. (Does this imply that the ‘future’ (whatever that conveys) should take precedence by forsaking friendship altogether? Or was it misdirected ennui that torpedoed everything as far as our friendship was concerned?) And while it may be true in a rapidly changing world, I didn't think any of my friends wanted to face one of the many actualities of the postmillennial lifestyle of the 2000s, which is to be in a state of continual bafflement or something like being on the cusp of things. This unique condition of not knowing what to do applies to people like us. It's a matter of the previous-generation thing convincing some of us not to change our share of memories (of our glorious days of friendship spent on the unforgettable residential campus of Trishul Park) while thinking about whether or not our future should take precedence.
(Conjecturally: even if the future looks promising, the past is a veritable gold mine of delights, life lessons, and the bittersweet ache of heartfelt recollections that you know even the heavens will shower you with flowers of love if you dwell in the sacred portals of your distant past. It may sound preachy, but it is true.)
The future will come, and we'll grow old, but the past, the past is never gone because it's anchored in our memory; it's always present within us, like a memorable yesterday that's not entirely forgotten, but which we fondly remember while living in the present. But, to state the obvious, the past doesn't come back to you unless you think about it and reminisce about it nostalgically. And then we must look to the future, which is always coming.
****
Sunil’s falling out with us in 2000 or 2001 meant that our relationship would not have had to end but required minimal interaction at that time (with the chance of mending it in the not-so-distant future). That was encouraging. We'd no conflicts, verbal fights, or arguments over anything that would have kept us from staying in touch with each other over supposedly hurt feelings, of which the four of us were sure there was no rhyme or reason. (But perhaps Sunil's erudite sarcasm has turned out to be a fly in the ointment!) In the final years, however, Armstrong and I kept hoping that things would settle down before he relocated to Delhi. But, alas, it didn't. We could allow this to happen despite being vividly aware that having friends is one of life's greatest joys and that losing even one of them is like losing a part of your soul for all time as you journey through life. Those were sad times.
Gradually, our newly acquired convictions melted away slowly and unheeded in the emotional milieu of our beloved roots, born in a kinder, and I'd say, more thoughtful generation of the 1990s. It was a small matter to haul them into the ever-changing post-1990s coals of the future. As a generation, we were dreamers but were far more persistent in our thoughts than today's wistful jet-set post-Millennials give credit for, but it's a different story that things did not work for us the way we'd have liked; it's okay if it didn't always.
For all we know, today's jet-setting generation, the Gen-Zs, is more emotionally driven than we Gen-X dreamers were back then. For that reason, I deeply rue that we let our friendship end that way, which isn't a pleasant thought to broach or brood over now, and life is a harsh mistress whose effects you sometimes can't handle. Sometimes life forces you to face its many facts and truths one way or another. Perhaps, I'm overestimating the present scenario in as much as our 1990s era; if so, give me my old days back, and I'll be happy. Only that the old days they're gone!
(To be continued…)
By Arindam Moulick
Dedication: This essay is dedicated to three of my closest friends from my college days of the distant unforgettable era of the early 1990s - Armstrong, Satish, and Sunil who sadly passed away. What beautiful days they were. Memories are all we have now.
Read ‘Remembering: Going to The Dhabas with Friends - part 1’, the first part of this essay.
Also read, ‘An Abundance of Tasty Memories - part 2’ the second part of this essay.
(To be continued…)
By Arindam Moulick
Dedication: This essay is dedicated to three of my closest friends from my college days of the distant unforgettable era of the early 1990s - Armstrong, Satish, and Sunil who sadly passed away. What beautiful days they were. Memories are all we have now.
Read ‘Remembering: Going to The Dhabas with Friends - part 1’, the first part of this essay.
Also read, ‘An Abundance of Tasty Memories - part 2’ the second part of this essay.