Hello, Again....Hello...

Hmm, my long absence was beginning to get to me! I hate these unavoidable breaks, it’s been months since my last post. Life’s been twirling’ us on its toes….a shift of place, shaping-up my new home, getting the feel of this new town, its people, going over the entire process of forgetting old mates, making new friends and fitting in……the damn heat is intolerable, even inspiration has been evading me!
Finally, it’s good to be bloggin’ again.

I found my baby-girl howling when I reached her play-school to pick her up today. Oh, let me say one thing about my little two and a half year old bundle of joy – she is the ultimate drama-queen! And she believes howling and creating cacophony is the best, fastest and easiest method of getting your way. Sympathies reached out to the poor, harassed teacher. She was trying hard to console my little brat, who was obviously getting a kick out of the fuss!!
Well, the reason of the outburst was that I was out wrapping-up chores and was about fifteen-minutes late in getting to school, so she was the only kid left in the class.
Sanjana comes running up to me and sobs in utter consternation (these tots today are very well-equipped in expressions), “ mommy, all my friends have gone !”

I couldn’t help but ruefully smile at her distress. I wanted to tell her, “ all of mommy’s friends have gone too !” Woe! Such is life !! So simple the world is for sanjana - mamma, papa, friends……..how complicated it is for us.

I remember the time when we were children and it was so easy to make friends. How innocently trivial the qualifications were, how differently we gauged people. Hell, who gauged??? Just spill your name n get playin’, that’s all!! And how awesome those friends were, we related on such basic terms.

I find it gets loopy as we grow older. It’s hard to make friends without selfish reasons. We’re friendly with our neighbor because we might need help suddenly sometime. We’re friendly at work simply because its easer to be part of a gang. We have shopping-buddies, pool-buddies, squash-buddies, kitty-friends……we guard our secrets, we watch our words, we speak politely, we behave pristinely. Where are those friends we used to be maniacs with, fought with, shared our joys, sorrows, fears, crushes, everything!! Those days without guile, without malice, without ulterior motives…and those buds that lived those years with me…..how I miss them all! like happy shadows they sailed with me, my friends they were…..

Neil Diamond must’ve felt like me when he sang, “ shadow, when I was young, I used to call your name, when no one else would come, shadow u always came

Even today my deepest bond is with pals from childhood. Like me, even they’re caught-up in adulthood, eking-out in this mad, mad world. I’ve made many friends since them, but over the years, its become a mechanical process more than bonding. Faces, names come to my mind as I write this, people swim across from the sea of memories in my head. People come, they go, reality dwindles, and ghosts become reality. Things change and we change with things, but some things never do. Friendships from our obliviously gleeful childhood remain just that…static in time, like clippings from an old movie.