A walk down memory lane

It was a sunny day (in a direct contrast to what the weatherman had forecasted) when some of us, of the 85 batch of PSHS decided to relive our second bout of nostalgia by meeting at the farm house of one of us, Sathya. I had missed the previous meeting that had taken place at a restaurant near Devi Theater and in which CK realized pretty late that he had forgotten to include me.

But, yesterday’s get-together more than made up for that when some of us (including myself) assembled at our alma mater (just the final two years of school for me but far longer for many) and proceeded from there in a couple of cars to Ratna Cafe at Tiruvanmiyur, where we were joined by more of us, including Sathya.

After a breakfast of idly, pongal, vadai and coffee, we packed our trunks with cricket bats and balls, soda and soft drinks (CK was getting the hard ones for himself and a few others) and set off in four cars and a minivan to the venue, just a few kilometres beyond Mahabs.

The one and a half acres farm with a quaint and quiet two-storeyed house in the middle was a visual treat with different types of trees providing the much-needed greenery and as soon as we unpacked, we got right down to business with a game of cricket, followed by another. I did manage to do well for myself, scoring a few runs in the first game (which our team lost) and taking a crucial catch in the second, which played no small part in our winning it.

Being thirsty, the “vegetarians” among us downed the soft drinks while the rest went after the alcohol like there was no tomorrow. Next, it was time for lunch and while four had to leave early due to prior commitments, the rest of us went to Adyar Anandha Bhavan at Mahabs and had a fairly decent lunch (although for some of us, the much-needed closure we craved with thayir saadham and pickles was missing due to stocks running out, as there was a huge crowd there).

Finally, we came back to the city, but not before stopping once again at Ratna Cafe at Tiruvanmiyur and meeting up with another of our long lost friends, who regretted that he would not have missed the opportunity had he known of it earlier.

The highlight, of course, was that while there were the usual physical changes in many of us that time had extracted its pound of flesh on, including badly receding hairlines and overly bulging waistlines, with the exception of course of a couple of people, yours truly included (can I be a little immodest here ) who managed to keep the ravages of age at bay by adopting a healthy lifestyle, yet while we played and talked, we were not looking or sounding too different from 23 years back when we were doing the same things in the classroom or in the school grounds, pulling each other’s legs and totally forgetting that almost all of us were in senior positions in responsible jobs, having families and being fathers and husbands. We were back to our good old days with nary a care and proving the saying that men are just overgrown boys (of course, in a positive way ).