Meeting Surya after 9 years

Yesterday turned out to be a wonderful day. Met Suryakant after some 9 years. Also met a few other school friends and it was absolutely great. It does feel great to meet old friends and relive those moments; to walk down the memory lane knowing how good those days were and also that they won't come back. But then that's what memories are; and more the happy memories the more you know you have had a good time.

Going back to yesterday I was to meet Surya at around 12 noon at CP. Deepak was to join us. I got a little late and met Surya at around 1 PM. We had a walk in the inner circle catching up on the updates from the past 9 years. Its not that we don't talk or don't have the updates but its just catching the details we might have missed. Surya has changed somewhat over the years in his appearance and I couldn't recognize him at first. He has put on some weight as well which I guess is normal in our lives.

We both had been trying Deepak's no since morning but he wasn't picking. Surya decided to call aunty (Deepak's mom) and enquire about him. Aunty told that he was taking a bath. Surya told aunty to lock Deepak in the bathroom so that he doesn't leave home and that we are comming to his home. We took the metro from CP to Tilak Nagar. Deepak called in the meanwhile and we decided to meet at Tilak Nagar metro station. As we reached Tilak Nagar the schooldays came back - how we used to walk from there to Deepak's house, sometimes took bus no 808, how we used to roam around there. It had been a long time since I last came to Deepak's house.

We reached Deepak's place and met aunty. It was nice to see her after so many years and it felt great when she recognized us. A thought crossed my mind - 'Its these time when you miss the old days so much and wish why you didn't do this for such a long time.' We sat there chatting over a cup of tea. Sandeep's (Deepak's younger brother) friends came there and as they waited for Sandeep who was sleeping they asked us about playing football. Neither me nor Surya have ever said no to football; so there we were agreeing to play football. We went to a park in Janak Puri to play football. We were 8 people in total and played a 4-a-side match. It was so good to be playing football after a very long time; and it showed. Stamina was zero. Within 5 minutes I was out of breadth. Sandeep seemed to be a good player. Deepak and Surya have always been good. I had lost the old touch and just about managed to hang in there. All I could think was "I need to work out a bit"

After the match we went back to Deepak's house. There we had lunch. Food was great and I had to go for a second filling despite not being too hungry. And after that I felt like sleeping. Deepak had similar ideas but Surya dragged us out. We had to go to Rajouri to meet Vaibhav.Sudhanshu was also comming there.

We reached Rajouri to find Vaibhav waiting for us. Vaibhav has recently moved to Hyderabad and was back home here for vacations. He hadn't changed much over the years in appearance. We decided to go to KFC. Sudhanshu had joined us by then (he came all the way from MDI Gurgaon). As we sat in KFC we started talking about the school days. Vaibhav seemed to be in a different world as he continuously drifted towards girls. Surya, Sudhanshu and Deepak were having a serious conversation on Telengana-Andhra divide when Surya suddenly asked Vaibhav (who had been quiet this time) "Kya soch raha hai?" Vaibhav replied "Akon ka ek gana chal raha hai mere dimaag mein" On being asked which song it was Vaibhav replied "I wanna F#$% you" and everyone looked at him surprised then burst out laughing. To stop Vaibhav from speaking we had to call Manas (Manas used to be a terror in our schooldays and Vaibhav still fears him :)).

Having spent a good hour or so chatting it was time to leave. As we walked out of the mall we met C Mohan Surya. And as we talked we remembered how Mohan had broken his leg while playing cricket in class XI. Deepak wanted to have some picture together but the light didn't allow us to do so. Finally we said goodbyes and went our separate ways.

Now that I am writing this it feels like I just came from the get together; in fact the school days seem like yesterday. It felt so wonderful to meet Surya after so many years. He is still the same Surya - same way of talking, same behavior, same expressions. Maybe he has changed and it was that way because we met after such a long time that we became what we were when we were in school. I missed Manas and Bobo yesterday coz if they were there then it would have been the complete group; but maybe that will happen sometime in future. Just hoping that time comes sooner rather than later.