First it was planned to be on Thanksgiving. Then we realized that is too costly a time to fly. So we had our undergraduate friends, accompanied by their significant others (me being the sole exception, still holding on to my freedom!) getting together at Baltimore the weekend before.
Time flies so fast. I still remember the days at my Calcutta home with these folks, getting drunk and talking nonsense. And waking up next morning with a bad hangover. Those never felt like any special occasions. Now, to spend a weekend together, some of us have to fly halfway across the country, worried about missing work, shaky finances and flight delays. And unlike those days, speaking Bengali is a luxury for a few, as their better halves are from different parts of the globe. So the simple pleasure of talking in Bengali probably is a big enough attraction for them. And then there are those favourite stories about how one guy was thrown out of a pub at Miami or another got almost molested by an eunuch at an Indian train, which would be repeated and repeated at every gathering and never be old. Those old jokes. Calling each other names. Remembering the old crushes. Thinking what could have been. And looking ahead to mostly uncertain futures.
Back in JU days, during our trip to Lava, a scenic, mostly unexplored hill station near Siliguri, I remember a couple of these guys playing cards sitting inside, too lazy to venture out. So I would think for us, waking up to hit the road early in chilly mornings, after understandably not much sleep, was an achievement. We drove through Shenandoah National Park, explored Luray caverns and landed up in Washington DC. And on a personal note, I took an afternoon off, drove down to Silverspring Maryland, met a good old friend, and got my picture taken in front of the Hospital where I was born.
This is all of us in different moods. (Opens in the same window)
And these are my random clicks-
No comments:
Post a Comment