Dwell on the past – it is good for you!
Live in the present is one oft-heard adage while prepare for a rainy day is yet another. Living in the past, however, is never recommended – in fact, it is mostly dissuaded. Events leading up from last month to today, however, have reinforced in me the fact that many of us would do good to dwell on pleasant memories of the past.
Last month, my seniors from my grade school in Chennai (where I studied for all of 2.5 years) held a multi batch reunion. I met some I vaguely recalled seeing around school all those years ago, some I had no recollection of and many whom I have been in touch with.
I took it forward, making new connections. A sleeping giant was awakened as little known memories surfaced from the netherworld, rekindling yet others. This in turn brought forth previously unknown glimpses into our common alma mater seen through those I did not share a classroom with. For some, the memories were good ones. For others, they were not. We spent time imagining the situation from the other’s perspective. After the passage of this much time, everyone found something to look back and laugh about even as we remembered those who had left our midst all too soon.
A common start does not mean an automatic bond. We lose touch, paths diverge, interests and passions change and life deals us different cards making us different people – sometimes totally unrelatable to the last known avatar. By the same coin, though, we find strangers whom we feel we should have known decades ago and the only words to describe this feeling would be profoundly invigorating.
It is currently Navaratri – 9 days of celebrating the female Goddesses of the Hindu pantheon. Displays of dolls are set up in many homes and ladies and children are invited home to look at them, sing in praise of the Goddess, given snacks and token symbols wishing them prosperity. At one school mate’s home, I ran into other school mates, known and unknown. As we discussed who knew whom, what happened in our classes etc., this bunch of us, ranging in age from early to late 40s, were literally happy-go-lucky children again. For that time, we left behind all our cares and tensions of the real world, the next day’s nagging to-do list, the little fires (in our bellies or otherwise) that we all have. We looked at our children, elementary to high school ages, imagined ourselves in those shoes, and transported ourselves back in time. It was sheer bliss for all. Nothing else but shared nostalgia could have afforded us those moments.
As if that were not enough, today another totally serendipitous incident startled me- which linked my grade school and grad school days. I had visited one of the temples from my childhood recently, at the urging of a friend from the reunion. While there, I had noticed daily music concerts going on in celebration for this festival. I went again there today to take in one of them. As I finished prayer and sat in a corner to take in the live music, a gentleman suddenly came up, asked me if I was Lakshmi and if I had done my MBA at Penn State years ago. After I answered in the affirmative, he replied that he had been my classmate. This was eerie. I rarely visit temples and this one, hardly ever – it is quite far from where I live. This classmate, last I heard, was in New York working in a Wall Street firm. The last he had heard of me, over 18 years ago, was that I was working in State College. The only piece of information I already knew of him was his undergraduate institution and that he had grown up in Bombay. I had not known that he had lived in Madras at all. The moment he said he was a classmate, I was able to place him – there were only three of us of Tamil origin in that batch, and it turned out that this gentleman too had connections to my backyard. While at Penn State though, sharing the same classroom for the bulk of two years, we had hardly spoken – there had not been much in common between us.
My classmate explained how he had thought it was me the moment he walked in, but had decided to ask me only if he saw the Goddess dressed in orange today – taking that as a sign. Just as he saw the Goddess, incredibly enough dressed in orange, he saw me head out the door (to fix something). He decided that it was not going to happen, only to see me ensconced in my original spot just a few moments later. That was when he decided he should talk to me. It was utterly incredible.
We exchanged numbers and promised to reconnect soon. Both of us were incredibly surprised at finding each other in a totally unexpected part of the world. I marveled at how the only reason I had been at this temple today was because of my schoolmate from the reunion. And entirely as a result of that, I run into a totally unrelated classmate from grad school.
I hear that drinking excessively can cause a hangover – repercussions of the binge that last well beyond the time actually spent drinking. Well, the effects of the events of the past four weeks has been pleasantly radiating every moment for me. I feel a spring in my step and a decade of cares fall off. The effect of nostalgia on a shared platform –priceless. And irreplaceable.
