The Gift

I want to give Mark Zuckerberg a great big collective hug from all of us prehistoric beings (read as 'those born before the times of the internet')...

You see, Facebook is giving us a very special gift indeed!

How else would I have located my teen-time buddy, with whom I pretended to study Chemistry and Physics, studied neighbourhood boys, read 'hot' bits from Mills and Boon novels, and painted the town red?

And in what other way could I have reconnected with my very first 'best friend' - one who wrote a poem about me in Class 1... and for whom I ran to reserve space on the school merry-go-round at breaktime everyday?

There are many many others, with whom I had lost touch decades ago, but found via FB in the last 2-3 years. But a handful of them, like those above, are truly special. Finding these special ones and sharing your lives all over again is a thrilling feeling indeed!

Last week Mark Z's baby did it once again. I found a couple of long lost friends on FB... and with that, discovered anew an important phase of my life that has, at least in recent times, not found pride of place in my reminiscences. And so, now I must share the story of the Kalonia sisters, and some memories from the first few years of matrimony...

Kalonial Times

Dan-ta-ra. Flashback..

Sudarshan and I are just married, and leading a hippie-like existence in a 1-bedroom flat in Munirka. Sudarshan has to travel a great deal. But he always comes back on time though - on time for his next trip. That leaves me with a lot of time on my hands... and no one except the portly middle aged neighbourhood ladies for company. The idea of mingling amicably with them in my free time to talk about maid-servant hassles and in-law woes is quite alien to me. Of course, there are our neighbours upstairs- a joint family where a live soap opera plays out daily. But after some time, one gets tired of the same old melodrama, and even the thrill of learning new swear words in Hindi and Punjabi wears off..

That's when I found the Kalonia sisters - Vaishali and Sonali. It is difficult to explain what exactly they were to me. Technically, I was their teacher, since I was teaching at the Naval Public School where they were studying. But the actual equation we shared was hardly teacher-student - let's say it was more 'Abe Oye' than 'Good evening Ma'am'. Vaishali and I hit it off at once - we got along like a house... rather, a whole colony on fire. Sonali joined the party some time later, no doubt impeded initially by the fact that I was teaching her Math (her most hated subject) at school.

Very soon we became sisters-in-arms. Upon their return from school, they would barely touch home before they were in my house. We would hang out together, cook up interesting snacks, share music, or just indulge in wink-wink nudge-nudge girl talk. Once in a while, we would have a sleepover at their place, talking late into the night over food and the latest Grammy videos.

Their Mom frowned upon this arrangement though - she thought I was a bad influence. Can't really blame her, since I behaved more like a debauched hippie than a prudent and respectable teacher. To make things worse, I wore no sign of being legally married - no mangal sutra, no sindoor, no 'shankha-pola'... nothing. So for her, I was a libertine whose origins, morals, and marital status were all suspect - a total no-no as a companion for her daughters at that impressionable age..

But Vaishali and Sonalil were at that point in their teens - when if your follks want you to go East, you naturally go West.  And I think I had not outgrown my teens either. So we drew even closer.

Ditched!

My reminiscing about those days will be incomplete without one particular story.

Soon after we were married, Sudarshan (for reasons unknown till date) had decided that I needed to learn that one thing every new bride must know (no no, it's not cooking... or the finer points of Kama Sutra) - riding a bicycle. Accordingly, he spent a couple of days to teach me to ride. Which, incidentally, was not a simple job, since I  seemed to have had the singular knack of turning the handlebar of the bike directly towards any approaching vehicle or person while riding . So, to avoid giving heart attacks to unsuspecting drivers and pedestrians, I started practising daily in the afternoon, when there would be fewer moving objects on the streets to try and run into.

This seemed like a great idea... till that fateful day when I fell off the bicycle while trying to stop it (you see, Sud had only taught me pedalling... not how to start or stop that damned thing!). So, there I was - sprawled in a ditch at an awkward angle, with the bike twisted over me at an even more awkward angle. And having so carefully chosen a time when the streets were deserted, there was no one to rescue me.

That is the situation in which the Kalonia sisters found me. And it is not everyday that you see your Math teacher lying in a ditch. That too, one who resembled an overly ambitious contortionist - bent at an impossible angle and  waving her legs in the air, seemingly pedalling at the bike that was lying atop her. (I was doing this in a  rather futile attempt to dislodge and kick away the bike...).

To cut a long story short, the Kalonia sisters rescued me, and it kind of sealed the friendship.



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Last month, we made a brief visit to our old house in Munirka. And as I gazed fondly at the spot where I had lain in the ditch, I resolved to try and find Vaishali and Sonali again.

And last week, I did. And it definitely is an event in my life. Because the times we shared were not only the growing up years for them, it was growing up years for us too - as a couple, and as individuals living independently for the first time. For Vaishali and Sonali our house meant a taste of grown-up life and freedom, for me their company meant the stolen joys of youth in the times of sudden hardship and responsibility. Reconnecting with them brought back waves and waves of memories - all the struggle of those early years of marriage, and all the fun...

The interesting thing is, I don't think the coming generations are going to experience the thrill of finding a long lost friend at all- Messrs Zuckerberg et al will make sure people never go out of touch in the first place! A good thing? Umm... maybe, and then again, maybe not!

You lose something precious, think it is gone forever... think of it less and less often as time goes by... only to discover it suddenly, after years, at the most unexpected time and place. And the joy of that is absolutely unparalleled!

Vaishali called me - all the way from California, barely minutes after she confirmed my friend's request on FB. 2 days later, it was Sonali. While ending our call, Vaishali said, "Now I'll have a smile on my face throughout the day!"

And the smile on mine is still going on, and on, and on...