A Hazy Old Photograph

It all started one morning when one of the girls posted an old, slightly hazy picture of class 9B. With squinted eyes I looked for myself and slowly a smile spread across my face as I recognized more faces. I could clearly remember the smiling faces. More names popped into my head as did lots of ‘likes’ and comments on the Facebook picture. I must have seen the picture at least twenty times and every single time it made me happy.

With the creation of the WhatsApp group came the whole avalanche of messages, bringing along all the wonderful childhood memories. The energy and warmth radiating from my phone was immense. It kept buzzing throughout the whole day, till late into the night. As I read through the messages many sights and sounds began playing in my mind. It all started coming back to me, firstly as a trickle, gradually growing, along with the pace of the messages. The look of the majestic red brick buildings, the multi-purpose hall, the amphitheater, the red-stoned walkways covered by Gulmohar trees leading up to the canteen that sold hot Samosas for two rupees and  ice lollies for five. Soon, we were discussing our favorite teachers (with their voices echoing in our heads), the funny infectious laughter of a classmate, the banter, the fake fights and the first crushes.

It felt like it had just been a few years, while in reality it had been much more. We had been classmates almost two decades ago! It was unbelievable! What was even more amazing, was the way we could seamlessly connect with each other. Pickup from where we had left off. Maybe, we are essentially the same kids we were back then, just in older bodies (and hopefully wiser minds). A lot us put aside our work and kids to reconnect with our classmates, with our old selves. I felt proud to see the unique mix of men and women we had all turned into. We are now spread across the globe, working in various fields. We have a Doctor, a Professor, a Scientist, Entrepreneurs, Corporate Managers, Teacher, Fashion Designer and more…What a mix! Simply Terrific!

I almost felt like I was back in the school playground. As if I had taken the slide from my present day work desk and slipped down to another era. The way I smiled at my phone, anybody would have thought that I had either gone crazy or was having an affair. I was awash with a trunk load of memories. I could once again feel the innocence and the simple joys of being a student. By the time it was evening, a warm, fuzzy feeling had taken over me and I continued to revel in the wonder years of my life. It was a nostalgia induced high!

A hazy old photograph, a box full of happy childhood memories, and a bunch of friends constantly pinging from across the globe is all it took to make us all deliriously nostalgic and so…so happy!

  

Forgotten Keys!

It’s happened many times in the past, so I wasn’t surprised. A few years ago, we reached the airport and found that the keys to the suitcase were at home (He stopped locking his suitcase since then). On another occasion, we reached the airport barely twenty minutes before take-off since he somehow saw 17:50 pm as 18:50 pm. Thankfully, the then new Indigo airlines let us board the plane (sans our check-in baggage). There’s more…After an offsite he forgot his new crocs at a resort; left the car unlocked overnight and went for a trip. Thankfully, the security guard called up to inform us and my Mom (custodian of the spare key) rushed to lock the car.

More recently, when he sold his car, he gifted a nice pair of shades with it (forgotten in the dashboard)…an expensive pair that had been his birthday present from me. No wonder, I could not stop myself from laughing out loud when our toddler threw out his next pair out of the moving car. Before hubby could retrieve it, it had been crushed by another car.

Last Friday, after I had gotten myself and our baby ready, picked up my bags, the baby and his paraphernalia I could not find the car keys. I was almost certain about what had happened but I called him to confirm.

“Hi! Can I call you later? I am in a meeting”, he whispered into the phone.

“Where are the car keys?”

After five long seconds, “In my pocket.”

I was surely mad at him. It was raining cats and dogs, we were all set to go, I was getting late for office, the car was right there, but the keys were not. He had made the same blunder earlier as well….a few years ago, when I wanted to take Mom-in-Law out for lunch, but discovered that he had conveniently taken the car keys with him. This time I felt extra frustrated for some reason. I called a cab and left home after some time. On the way, I thought about writing this post, intending to shame him maybe through it, but now that I am writing it, I feel none of the anger I felt then. I was definitely inconvenienced and his apologising over WhatsApp was not helping much, but, two other things that happened during the day made me think.

Later, the same afternoon, when I wanted to go back home, I asked my colleague if she wanted to share a cab with me on the way back. She readily agreed. I called for a cab and was waiting for it to arrive, when my colleague realized that she had her car in the office parking! She would have gone home with me, leaving the car behind in office! (Her husband works in the same office and they had driven-in together that morning. He had given her the keys to drive back home.) This was a déjà vu moment for me, almost.

At night while scrolling through my phone I chanced upon a blog post by someone who has a holiday cottage in the hills. She had written about the mental ordeal of realizing that she had left the keys to her cottage behind, after travelling 220 KMS away from her Gurgaon home. What were the chances of me reading about her post on the same day ? I was amazed. Maybe our state of mind attracts certain things to us, who knows! Was this God’s way of telling me “Shit happens!”?

Today, as I write about this, I am laughing about this incident. Such is life, full of human errors and strange happenings. You feel annoyed at the moment, you worry, you feel stressed, but later you laugh. Eventually, it becomes an interesting memory from our otherwise mundane life. As far as hubby is concerned, I guess this is what makes him the way he is. The way he forgets these things once in a while, he forgets the numerous faults in me too. He forgot about the keys, while I found something else.

Did this post make you think of a similar instance from your life? Share it in the comments section. I would love to hear from you.

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