A Beautiful Memory: Learning, Belonging and Other Musings
High School Reminiscences, part 10 of 16
Why do friends stop keeping in touch?
Human relationships are frail, often short, and need-based, and if your classmates elect to distance themselves from you, then what do you do? Let them go? Or force your friendship on them? That’s likely one of the few, I confess, not completely misunderstood reasons as to why we are NOT in contact with one another after we passed out of school. About a few of whom I have mentioned (all in good faith) in the last few of my web journals: interspersed with my share of nostalgic recollections.
It’s been three long decades of anonymity of one another now. Thirty years of not knowing what my erstwhile classmates are up to, how they have managed in life, or how their life’s journeys have come along. Each of these questions assumes a logical answer - if not exactly the right answer. Beyond this plain rationale, I don’t intend to go any further, besides I know a happenstance meeting occurrence could be well-nigh possible somewhere, anywhere.
Recalling back to what I have gained from my two years of somewhat sceptical association with these guys, I can vouch for the fact that they all have fared much better than what I am presupposing. When I get slightly philosophically cum psychologically intuitive about the days that have receded into quiet memory a long time ago (but never forgotten and never will be), I find my guesswork getting the better of me. With my advancing age and all, I can be less pacifying. No matter how long you might live, nobody can ever forget their school days. Good old days. High school memories stay with us forever.
(One wishes them all the glory in the world. Everybody has to deserve the best, ultimately, even your average school bully who can’t stop picking on you. Hopefully, God bestows them all a long life and good health, and are doing great wherever they are.)
Saying it like it is
Back in the late 1980s, when I was in my early teens, things were a lot different than they are today. That was a long time ago, 30 years to this year of 2020. Life was indeed far simpler and sweet as there were no hassles of smartphones, the Internet, social media, easy access to computers, and so on to hustle you. Today the world we live in shoves and pushes you into an ever-transforming always-on world, that which loves being blasphemously messy, and wants to be unmanageably chaotic. We are not "a call away from each other" anymore; we are but "a click away from each other." How miserable that things have turned out the way it has for our generation these days.
But still, looking back on those two years of my life, things were not that bad at all. But, as far as the issue of friendship with my schoolmates was concerned, it could have been far far better than what it ultimately turned out to be.
Sadly, a friendship was never in our scheme of things. At school, we never became friends ('acted friendly’ rather) with each other in the truest sense of the word, and as a direct consequence of that, there was no fellow feeling left amongst us whatsoever. Of course, one understands the fact that whatever little chance we may have had for our friendship to flourish (which then inevitably floundered) at school was entirely based upon how ‘advantageous’ you were as a student. Or, how well can you do in your life, your ‘qualities’, your ‘desirable traits,’ et cetera? Terrible that such things sound, as I understand now with proper clarity, there was no real face-to-face relationship component existing between any of us. We drifted apart without having to say a proper goodbye to each other before leaving school. But again, a formal greeting to that effect carried no weightage to be fussed over, or was it? We learned our academic lessons all right but forgot to imbibe the biggest lesson of our studentship days, which, in my opinion, is, and always been, friendship. Say what you must, but friendship does not fructify if you have to base it on anything other than love, trust, and respect for each other. Lastly, it did not happen the way we all would have wanted, perhaps or perhaps not. Maybe, we never sought it in the first place.
So aloof and skittish some of us have been during those years. That apart from studies, we forgot to excel in the all-important subject of friendship. Before we passed out of school, most of us did not want to develop friendships because it demanded time, space, and attention of the kind that none of us were willing to afford. Over time it led to a loss of communication. And so, we failed to reach out to each other and never felt able to embrace the beauty of whatever differences there could have been present between us. Unmindfully, we embarked on yet another (putting it gently) owlish-selfish quest to elevate our lives into the stratosphere, our career-slash-future prospects, without giving as much as a backward glance to the leftover friendship we had. So busy were we.
To win out in the battle of supremacy in the field of umpteen entrance exams and further studies, most of us (or better all of us) forgot to recognize or accorded due credence to the fact that we all studied in the same school and have 'shared educational heritage' so to speak. Therefore, we need to be friends with one another. I would say the super convenient aspect of ‘acting friendly’ in the classroom took quite a heavy toll on our touchy-feely friendship.
Our school friendship (of Class Eleventh and Twelfth) breathed its last. Decades back, it was a sudden 'death' caused due to the consequences of abandoning it, bailing, general lack of friendship, and understanding between us youngsters coming from varied social backgrounds, it had to die. Needless to add, we have had problems with isolation, motivation, reciprocity, and perceptions that went hardly noticed. There have been, however, experiences of zero companionships and misinterpretation in affection leading to the quick demise of our overall school friendship. Nobody could help it becoming a sad relic (of the past times), not even our respectful (and much loved) teachers we looked up to could do anything to put such things into the right perspective for us to make amends. I can say this with greater surety now than before that no one wants to remember nor reminisce about it anymore. (Maybe my presumption is getting the better of me as I write this account from the perspective of a former student thinking back with nothing but sweet fondness to that memory). I believe, when you have been drilled with patented knowledge that makes you look ahead to the future optimistically, then no one wants to get caught looking back into the past. The past is gone; it is history, prologue. The present seems like the future; it is here, happening now. (Reflecting fondly on the past is a pathological necessity for me, however; can't say that about them.)
As I ponder on this, I realize not all friendships are cut-out to last forever, however, I’d have been much happier with myself if I was a little more forthcoming than I had been for a certain friendship I had wanted to flourish. Too bad, forgotten friendships were never meant to last. But I'll always remember all the little friendships I got from those two years I’ve spent as a student at the K.V. school – in its classrooms, science labs, on the playground, library; how can I forget. Thanks very much for the times we've had. I feel I have kept my part of the bargain and I have nothing to reproach myself for.
Things have changed much since the late nineteen eighties (1980s) and, personally speaking, it would’ve been profoundly disheartening to know if the whole connexion to our beautiful old K.V. school nestled in the back of beyond (of the old Air Force Station) had been unremembered. I trust the memory of our association is never forgotten. Just so you know, I’ve never forgotten anything about our school. Ever.
For me, the Past will always be adorable. The future will always come. Our planet will spin. Days will turn into nights and nights into days, bad things will always happen, just as good things will and so on, and so forth… what could be so special about it, it’s just Time wandering through Space and our beloved Earth is just a speck of dust – a pale blue insignificant dot in the Cosmological scheme of things.
Thank heavens, I am one of those happy souls that believe in God and that our Future lies in our Past. So friendships are welcome.
By Arindam Moulick
Why do friends stop keeping in touch?
Human relationships are frail, often short, and need-based, and if your classmates elect to distance themselves from you, then what do you do? Let them go? Or force your friendship on them? That’s likely one of the few, I confess, not completely misunderstood reasons as to why we are NOT in contact with one another after we passed out of school. About a few of whom I have mentioned (all in good faith) in the last few of my web journals: interspersed with my share of nostalgic recollections.
It’s been three long decades of anonymity of one another now. Thirty years of not knowing what my erstwhile classmates are up to, how they have managed in life, or how their life’s journeys have come along. Each of these questions assumes a logical answer - if not exactly the right answer. Beyond this plain rationale, I don’t intend to go any further, besides I know a happenstance meeting occurrence could be well-nigh possible somewhere, anywhere.
Recalling back to what I have gained from my two years of somewhat sceptical association with these guys, I can vouch for the fact that they all have fared much better than what I am presupposing. When I get slightly philosophically cum psychologically intuitive about the days that have receded into quiet memory a long time ago (but never forgotten and never will be), I find my guesswork getting the better of me. With my advancing age and all, I can be less pacifying. No matter how long you might live, nobody can ever forget their school days. Good old days. High school memories stay with us forever.
(One wishes them all the glory in the world. Everybody has to deserve the best, ultimately, even your average school bully who can’t stop picking on you. Hopefully, God bestows them all a long life and good health, and are doing great wherever they are.)
Saying it like it is
Back in the late 1980s, when I was in my early teens, things were a lot different than they are today. That was a long time ago, 30 years to this year of 2020. Life was indeed far simpler and sweet as there were no hassles of smartphones, the Internet, social media, easy access to computers, and so on to hustle you. Today the world we live in shoves and pushes you into an ever-transforming always-on world, that which loves being blasphemously messy, and wants to be unmanageably chaotic. We are not "a call away from each other" anymore; we are but "a click away from each other." How miserable that things have turned out the way it has for our generation these days.
But still, looking back on those two years of my life, things were not that bad at all. But, as far as the issue of friendship with my schoolmates was concerned, it could have been far far better than what it ultimately turned out to be.
Sadly, a friendship was never in our scheme of things. At school, we never became friends ('acted friendly’ rather) with each other in the truest sense of the word, and as a direct consequence of that, there was no fellow feeling left amongst us whatsoever. Of course, one understands the fact that whatever little chance we may have had for our friendship to flourish (which then inevitably floundered) at school was entirely based upon how ‘advantageous’ you were as a student. Or, how well can you do in your life, your ‘qualities’, your ‘desirable traits,’ et cetera? Terrible that such things sound, as I understand now with proper clarity, there was no real face-to-face relationship component existing between any of us. We drifted apart without having to say a proper goodbye to each other before leaving school. But again, a formal greeting to that effect carried no weightage to be fussed over, or was it? We learned our academic lessons all right but forgot to imbibe the biggest lesson of our studentship days, which, in my opinion, is, and always been, friendship. Say what you must, but friendship does not fructify if you have to base it on anything other than love, trust, and respect for each other. Lastly, it did not happen the way we all would have wanted, perhaps or perhaps not. Maybe, we never sought it in the first place.
So aloof and skittish some of us have been during those years. That apart from studies, we forgot to excel in the all-important subject of friendship. Before we passed out of school, most of us did not want to develop friendships because it demanded time, space, and attention of the kind that none of us were willing to afford. Over time it led to a loss of communication. And so, we failed to reach out to each other and never felt able to embrace the beauty of whatever differences there could have been present between us. Unmindfully, we embarked on yet another (putting it gently) owlish-selfish quest to elevate our lives into the stratosphere, our career-slash-future prospects, without giving as much as a backward glance to the leftover friendship we had. So busy were we.
To win out in the battle of supremacy in the field of umpteen entrance exams and further studies, most of us (or better all of us) forgot to recognize or accorded due credence to the fact that we all studied in the same school and have 'shared educational heritage' so to speak. Therefore, we need to be friends with one another. I would say the super convenient aspect of ‘acting friendly’ in the classroom took quite a heavy toll on our touchy-feely friendship.
Our school friendship (of Class Eleventh and Twelfth) breathed its last. Decades back, it was a sudden 'death' caused due to the consequences of abandoning it, bailing, general lack of friendship, and understanding between us youngsters coming from varied social backgrounds, it had to die. Needless to add, we have had problems with isolation, motivation, reciprocity, and perceptions that went hardly noticed. There have been, however, experiences of zero companionships and misinterpretation in affection leading to the quick demise of our overall school friendship. Nobody could help it becoming a sad relic (of the past times), not even our respectful (and much loved) teachers we looked up to could do anything to put such things into the right perspective for us to make amends. I can say this with greater surety now than before that no one wants to remember nor reminisce about it anymore. (Maybe my presumption is getting the better of me as I write this account from the perspective of a former student thinking back with nothing but sweet fondness to that memory). I believe, when you have been drilled with patented knowledge that makes you look ahead to the future optimistically, then no one wants to get caught looking back into the past. The past is gone; it is history, prologue. The present seems like the future; it is here, happening now. (Reflecting fondly on the past is a pathological necessity for me, however; can't say that about them.)
As I ponder on this, I realize not all friendships are cut-out to last forever, however, I’d have been much happier with myself if I was a little more forthcoming than I had been for a certain friendship I had wanted to flourish. Too bad, forgotten friendships were never meant to last. But I'll always remember all the little friendships I got from those two years I’ve spent as a student at the K.V. school – in its classrooms, science labs, on the playground, library; how can I forget. Thanks very much for the times we've had. I feel I have kept my part of the bargain and I have nothing to reproach myself for.
Things have changed much since the late nineteen eighties (1980s) and, personally speaking, it would’ve been profoundly disheartening to know if the whole connexion to our beautiful old K.V. school nestled in the back of beyond (of the old Air Force Station) had been unremembered. I trust the memory of our association is never forgotten. Just so you know, I’ve never forgotten anything about our school. Ever.
For me, the Past will always be adorable. The future will always come. Our planet will spin. Days will turn into nights and nights into days, bad things will always happen, just as good things will and so on, and so forth… what could be so special about it, it’s just Time wandering through Space and our beloved Earth is just a speck of dust – a pale blue insignificant dot in the Cosmological scheme of things.
Thank heavens, I am one of those happy souls that believe in God and that our Future lies in our Past. So friendships are welcome.
By Arindam Moulick