Reunited and it feels so Good
Reunited and it feels so Good
“Reunited and it feels so Good
Reunited ‘cause we understood
There’s one perfect fit
And sugar this one is it
We are so excited ‘cause we’re reunited .”
(A Peaches & Herb Top hit of 1979)…….And Such an appropriate memory of our times .
Neeraj (Sharma) Ghei recalls …..
It was a mini gathering at Friends club of our batch in Nov 2018 and I was oblivious that I was the next target to help plan the 40th Reunion as Kavi had just turned them down.
So when asked, my reaction was “catch Kavi, he is the right guy”…But after some cajoling and a few G&Ts, I succumbed and agreed to help but insisted that Geeta should take charge. I honestly thought she would refuse and that would be my perfect exit.
But lo and behold, before I knew it, we were both standing in the middle of the party looking at each other, probably hoping the other would back off and this would be over. We were nominated as Co-Chairs of the Reunion Committee. Within minutes a core committee of volunteers got formed and Ajay, Navjit, Neena, Vineeta,Vishesh, Prasoon ,Tapasi and Sujata jumped onboard!
Thus we began this beautiful memorable journey to plan and organise this landmark reunion and bring it to you with the best intentions and spirits of the Core Committee.
Disclaimer: given that not every plan for dates, venue, price, inclusions, etc etc will suit each of us, your core committee had its own share of internal debates, friendly arguments, thrashings of suggestions from other batchmates. We did our best to be fair and accommodate a variety of preferences and needs for the good of the larger group. So please accept our collective apology if we didn’t meet a certain expectation fully.
And so here it is: the BIG 40…Men and Women are said to turn Naughty at FORTY…. But our 40th celebration comes at a special stage in the lives of many of us.We are all possibly in the age group of 58-59,a few almost 60 .
After school we were busy pursuing our education, building our careers, starting our families, moving bases (cities, countries, continents), staying in touch with a few close batchmates, all whilst building new friendships at college and work. While we made new friends along the way, we lost touch with several of our school friends due to the mad race that life became. The years we knew each other without a cause or reason, without knowing who would become who, when it was just about pure friendships that we sought were lost to time and to pressures of our other pursuits.
But somewhere in each of our hearts and deep corners of our minds lie those warm memories of the times we shared together, the friends we formed, the good, bad and indifferent. All these thoughts start flowing at the smallest trigger, and that’s exactly what my personal Reunion journey became- the trigger was reconnecting with you.
A brief Flash back to S1 ….3 convent educated kids moved to Modern on virtually the same day…Anamika Kumar from Mater Dei, Sanjiv Lamba from St Xaviers and I from Carmel Convent.
Whilst the rest of you had spent 6 odd years in Junior School before moving to Senior School and had your old friends with you, we did not. We had to make new friends and, naturally, the three of us bonded instantly.
In fact after a short while, Anamika and I became so close that we did not feel the need to have too many other close friends. We made friends but, in hindsight, perhaps not as many or as deep as we would have liked. In fact the first real separation for us came in S-6 when she choose Arts and I chose Commerce. Initially we even attended each other’s’ classes till maths became her nemesis and history bored me till no tomorrow. Right at that time Kavi entered my life, first as a very close friend, and I had to balance Anamika’s (not jealousy) protective nature whilst I grew closer to Kavi. We ultimately fell in love in 1979 and have been committed to each other ever since. This is a significant year for us as the 40th Reunion milestone coincides with our BIG 40th anniversary and we couldn’t be more excited to share that with you. After all it all started there and then
In retrospect, Modern, to me, meant liberation from a conservative convent school where girls were educated first with skills of being homemakers and mothers and then with the skills that any regular student should learn. I revolted and was virtually expelled. My parents pulled me out and moved me to Modern, without ever reprimanding me. A liberal school where no one forced you to do anything, Modern opened the windows of our minds, guided us to make our own choices and take ownership of our actions. So from being uninterested in everything I HAD to do or was TOLD to do, Modern gave me the confidence to deal with my life choices and embrace its open education style. I dare say the ethos set by Principal MN Kapur “Bond” continued even during the time our daughter went to Modern. For a change I started enjoying what I was studying. From failing most of my classes at Carmel, I finally did well at school and was proud to be a Modernite .
And now to the Present……. To the Reunion Journey that started in Nov 2018, we began allocating tasks to each other, including the important one of reaching out to our own groups of friends from the batch to spread the word and update them about the reunion.
We inherited a list of our classmates that had many missing names (when I began to tally it with the 1979 Sandesh), outdated contacts and the sad discovery that we had lost 12 of our own. Our list did not have names of those who had studied with our batch but had left before the 12th . They did not figure in our list or our Sandesh but qualified to be Modernites. We traced these thanks to a few batchmates who remembered them from school and brought them to our attention to trigger the search.
And so whilst the core committee was tasked with spreading the word, I set a personal goal for myself to work on re-building our list of batchmates and looking out for as many of them as I could.
Having taken on this responsibility with much reluctance and cursing Kavi for getting me stuck with it, I must admit that tracing and re-connecting with our batchmates has been the most fulfilling and satisfying part of the reunion journey. The hot pursuit of all the leads I made, cross verifying with batchmates, seeking the help of many of you and giving it an honest push to conclude all leads that came my way has all been worth it. I realize I must have hounded and irritated many of you with my reminders and prodding but the outcome has been well worth it. yet the task is still not over.
I would love to list the names of each and every person who helped me reconnect with our batchmates but it won’t be fair if, by oversight, I missed giving credit to even one person. Each of you knows how you have helped me and, in turn, the batch to get us all back in the fold of each other. So a big thank you to you! The directory that Kavi is working on will help you find your missing mate; someone you knew back then, lost touch with but the sheer name of the person brings back a warm smile and a wave of nostalgia.
During what I called my mission, “ the manhunt “, I traced a few of you literally from the woodworks who weren’t in touch with anyone or, perhaps, in touch with just a couple of us. I received old phone numbers, email addresses that bounced back and even wrong home addresses. In vain it seemed easy to give up but deep down, perhaps as a sense of my own redemption for knowing so few of you in school, I was even more determined to seek you out. I wanted to reconnect not just for myself but also for the rest of the batch. The updated directory will bear witness to the fact that our list has truly expanded. The task is not complete but with your collective help we can make it happen.
And so on behalf of my Co Chair Geeta and the rest of the Core committee members, we extend you all our greetings on reuniting for the BIG 40th and celebrating our lives , our friendships ,filling in the blanks, connecting the dots of our memories and the sheer joy of meeting an old mate. So many of you are coming from far and near, several from “Across the Seven Seas” and making time.It is reflective of what we feel about each other but, most importantly, about our Alma Mater, which is shortly kick starting its centenary celebrations.
2019 will remain a year of celebration. We met many of you at our home in May at an impromptu fundraiser and at mini reunions in New York, London and Dubai. On 2nd November, we will be back in school in the sanctuary of the red brick walls and under the Banyan Tree with flashbacks and footsteps that we will retrace. Our heart strings will be tugged at, we will recall, rejoice, smile, laugh out loud and maybe even shed a tear.We will re-live all those warm and bittersweet memories , albeit for a short time, but most importantly, we will all reconnect and bond with each other to forge new memories to treasure for a lifetime!
Cheers to the batch of ’79!
