“Lost faces, reduced to mere contact names, suddenly sprang into life.”
(a chat from Satyaki, later that day, while we were conversing on WhatsApp)
Almost 40 students of the 2014 batch of Salt Lake School met under one roof on the 19th of October. Almost two years have passed since we were in school. It was wonderful meeting everyone again. I had missed last year’s reunion since a few of us had made plans to meet and go pandal-hopping on Shashthi. This year I made sure I would be a part.
Aquib and a few other friends had organized this whole meet-up (thank you for this). They had made all the arrangements – rented a guest room, ordered food, set up the stereo system, and every other thing.
Honestly, it wasn’t like school anymore. We were all in different colleges, pursuing different streams of studies. But every time a friend entered the guest room, we all cheered! Waiting for our friends to arrive was like waiting for presents during birthdays or Christmas.
The old friend circles got re-connected.
The floor, the two (big) sofas, even table tops – all these became centres of conversations and laughs.
Avirup lent me his prime lens for the entire day! It was genuinely fun to roam around and take photos with it.
A few friends were really nice. I took (quite some) time to focus carefully (and still make mistakes) and then click. They maintained their positions without budging at all 🙂
After the customary greetings, the conversations soon progressed back to the old memories – eating during non-lunch-break-hours, the times when the entire class would get punished, and the punishment would be transformed into adda-sessions, the without-notice-free-periods that we obtained whenever a teacher was absent, playing in the school grounds and the adjacent BA-CA ground.
We all caught up with each others’ college lives, a bit, at least.
It was enjoyable 🙂
A few of us (including me) left at 6 PM. Avirup took the final photograph before leaving.
