Simply Me

In college we were an inseparable group... Anagha, Priyanka, Sujata, Supriya, Varsha and I.. always together in college... watching movies together.. going to college together.. calling up each other when we got back from college and then talking for hours on end.. conference chatting late into the night on weekends... An year after engineering has ended, I find that we are slowly drifting apart. When we do meet, we just keep on talking, like we did back then.. all at the same time.. But the times when we actually meet are few and far between.. Studies, work, marriage and life in general seem to have torn us apart... We call each other up once in a few weeks or meet up once in a few months and though there is that link, it just seems strained.. last time we met my friends kept on saying how quiet I had become... I guess it was just enough to see them again after so long and listening to them that I couldn't get out the words to actually say something..

Last time we met, we met at my home as we had many times before... For almost an hour, we just sat and talked about what was new in our lives... We didn't even want to decide where we would go out to eat... Just sitting in the hall and talking was enough.. When, at last, we decided we would go to Marzorin, I don't think any of us was too hungry, talking together had filled up our appetites... We missed one of our really good friends, though, who is now married and has left Pune..

As soon as we finished engineering, Anagha and Supriya started on their jobs, Priyanka joined MBA, Varsha started preparing for MBA, Sujata started with a course which pretty much kept her longer at the institute than I was awake during the day(OK thats a hyperbole, but come on.. her classes went on from about 9 in the morning to 10-11 in the night.. and add to that 30-45 minutes travel time each way... and that on all 7 days of the week), who soon got engaged and is now married.. and I started with a course myself(and no.. I wasn't that busy). So now with just 5 of us still in Pune, Anagha leaves for the US tomorrow, for doing her Masters..

Will this mean that we will be further apart from now on or does this mean that we will grow closer? What will prove to be truer... Out of sight, Out of mind or Absence makes the heart grow fonder????

In the final year of graduation, I had written a poem for the college magazine.. Priyanka had thought, she told me later, that this would never actually happen with us... but even though in my heart I had never wanted to believe this to be the truth, the future, I find myself thinking that when you are apart, that when you don't meet each day, you DO sort of grow apart...

Well here's the poem, the reality of life... life after college.. Starting off with a new chapter of life..

Ringing in the New Year

As an old year ends,
In comes the new,
Old fancies, old mistakes,
All this we are through.

We step into the new year,
Resolution in our heart,
Of a new beginning,
To become a part.

New places, new faces,
Everything brand new,
A whole new world,
Of which nothing we knew.

Soon we settle in the new life,
The new us, that we are,
But we can’t shake off the past,
Which suddenly seems so far.

Gone are the times,
When carefree were the days,
When we still hated the present,
But still had fun in many ways.

The SMSes, the phone calls,
Chatting late at night,
Journals, submissions, VIVAs,
Now seem alright.

‘What about a movie?’
And we’d suddenly decide,
‘Why not go eat bhel’,
Or ‘Together go for a ride.’

Did really we think then,
Nothing would keep us apart,
Every month we will meet,
We’ll be together in our heart.

We start off well,
Phone calls every week,
‘Sure, why not?
At Vaishali we will meet.’

Slowly the meetings trickle off,
The calls, they do too,
We become caught in our lives,
In various things to do.

‘I have an exam next week,’
‘My PM is breathing down my back,’
‘My project is due soon,
God! I’m becoming a nervous wreck.’

Then, ‘I’m being transferred,’
‘I’ll be married soon,’
‘I’m going abroad to study,’
For each other we have no room.

It was not like this before,
We never thought it would be,
It just happened a day at a time,
What was WE turned into ME.

Then one day it arrives,
A window into the past,
A moment of joy,
A Reunion Invitation at last.

Some have come, some have not,
We laugh and dance and sing,
‘Of course now that we have met,
Next week I’ll give you a ring.’

Labels: If only I could turn back time, Yaaron Dosti badi hi haseen hai...