Rambling

Kolkata Knight Riders played Mumbai Indians in the latter's home-ground last evening. And lost.

I missed Kolkata achieving the dubious distinction of the IPL series' lowest score because I was playing another match in Delhi on a slippery wicket... and not quite winning that either.

On the way back from Delhi to Gurgaon, caught in traffic, the skies suddenly opened up and let loose a shower which, inexplicably, took me back to Amby Valley where I was last year in a conference during the monsoons.

An old college friend, still in Calcutta, sms-ed to invite me to her son's thread ceremony; I called her back and heard her rant about how meaningless the whole affair was in this day and age. I agreed but had to tell her that she needed to do this not for herself or her son but because we often do things to please others... she wasn't quite convinced. And it doesn't look like I'll make it to Calcutta for the feast she's organising :-(

The call reminded me of another classmate, now in Bangalore, whose birthday it also was yesterday... her phone though went unanswered. I had found her after years on a bookshelf at Crosswords in Kemps Corner, Mumbai - but that's another post.

At home, an old friend again from Calcutta - now living in Mumbai and staying over for the night - was waiting.

When I did get home finally, no one wanted to watch Mumbai thrash Kolkata. Were we being parochial or just prioritising the few hours we had to spend catching up on each others' lives?

We finally yakked till midnight with Jack Daniels for company and figured that Saurav, Sachin and Shoaib were just not worth it.

Is there a point to this post? Doesn't look like it but Calcutta's always worth rambling about.

Jab We Separated

We are distanced from our friends either by physical gaps or by time.

Of the two, geographical distances are somehow bridgeable.

Time is the one we struggle with. At least I do. And the longer we are separated, the further we seem to grow.

You don’t have to be in different time zones to grow remote. Even the same latitude-longitude co-ordinates are often not enough to be connected.

There are stories, films aplenty about people who meet after ages and reconnect as though they were never apart.

I’d like to be like them. And if there’s any reason to see Jab We Met once again, it’ll be for just this.

I spent an entire Sunday afternoon enjoying the antics of Kareena Kapoor (if only she could act better) interspersed by long commercial breaks. It’s a silly film but, if strangers can meet on a train by accident – or by a scriptwriter’s design – and lose each other after they grow so fond of one another only to meet again after nine months (why the symbolic nine I wonder?) perhaps it’ll happen to real people too.

There are so many people I'd like to link up with again... people I miss scattered around the world, colleagues - and former colleagues - in various cities all caught up in their own mad lives. People I'd like to share memories with but can't because the cell phone can be intrusive. And changing status updates twenty times a day on a social networking site isn't my cup of chai.

Time for a sanity break, I guess.

As the chubby little girl in Sound of Music sang, "... the sun has gone to bed and so must I".

A Year for Friends

2006 will be a year best remembered for Friends.

Old friends who came back from ages ago - and never let you feel your age.

New neighbours turned into new friends.

Colleagues evolved into friends... and felt like they'd always been there. Hopefully, they'll always be there too.

Friends who happened out of the blue. And pulled one out of the blues.

And friends who could have been but, inexplicably, weren't to be. Sadly.

It was (and the year will be over in just a few hours) what Dickens may well have had in mind when he wrote "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Amen 2006.