Two days ago we had a reunion. My roommate from grad study days came from western side to our lands to show his wife around town, and also meet us up. Its funny, three years have just flown by. So much had changed, and yet nothing had changed. We had grown older, much mature, and could boast of having three credit cards in our wallet. And yet at the same time, our conversation started from where we left off. It didn’t matter that we hadn’t called each other up since last three years, emailed just twice in those years, and all of us knew that after the reunion, it would be the same till next meet up.
We knew he was going to come over since the last two months; that was the last mail I had gathered from another friend who’d got the mail. I was not sure he and his wife would want to meet me at all – after all time had passed, and I hadn’t even got an email or a phone call about the visit. I am not sure what that feeling was, but it was a weird feeling, a feeling of insecurity perhaps that we would come face to face after three years. Somehow memories of past haunted me that morning.
Morning turned to afternoon – and my friend called up that he and his wife were coming to my place, and he would join us too. This caught me by a little surprise – why not call me? Will it be OK for him to be at my dirty place? What if? In the next half hour, I cleaned my place as much as I could – not because I wanted to impress him, but I didn’t want her to feel bad about it. And at the same time, I was not sure what to expect… by the time they were about to arrive, I was already in two minds if I wanted to meet him at all. I just didn’t think it would be an appropriate meet, and was almost certain it would lead to an uncomfortable situation all around. My friend arrived, but these guys were still finding the directions to the place.
Eventually after ten minutes, the bell rang. With a twitching feeling in my stomach I walked to the door and opened it, expecting the worst.
And yet, when I opened door, the first thing that we roommates did was to hug and greet each other; a genuine feeling of happiness that comes after meeting someone after that many years.
Suddenly, at that instant, the past didn’t matter anymore *.
We had a great time in the afternoon – we recalled our graduate days and our days when each penny was accounted for, each frivolous spending analyzed in detail over spreadsheets, those countless fights over who would cook each night of the week, and then the complains over how bad the food was, the fights over who would make tea, who would serve it and who would wash the vessel (one of those three would never happen), and our wild parties we held at home because we couldn’t afford the luxury of expensive pubs and restaurants, those days of despair over not getting funding, or the genuine joy on hearing someone get a joy (with a customary question – “kitna mila?â€), those days when only he and the other roommate had cars, both vintage variety, but served the purpose, the days when we set out on our bi-annual house cleaning marathons (which was forced because the roach population would have hit the 10 million mark by then), the typical fob art of using a coal refill glass for more than a week together to save money, the trips to temples for free food, the snow fights, another guy’s hauntingly tasty Dosas and Idlis, and the fights we had till the end of day when we parted, and some even after, with one leaving a bitter taste and some not.
Yes, there was so much to talk about – we saw the pictures that I have collected over the years of the grad studies – we all looked so different in present day, not just physically but in every sense. We looked back at them with wonder, and laughed at our own stupidity, and suddenly all those fights which we fought with tooth and nail for, have become just another incident to laugh ourselves off.
Later we headed out, and we met up with another roommate, and had a gala time – which resulted into many more hours of catching up and catching on. By the time we had bid good byes, it was more 3 in the morning. As I walked back to my apartment in wee hours, I don’t know why but I had a smile on my face.
I felt happy.
* Time is a great healer. Sometimes its just easy to forget and go on. When we all got jobs and moved apart, I and my roommate didn’t exactly depart with happy words for each other. I knew that both of our natures were such that we would gladly overlook it and move on. And yet after three years, that tinge of insecurity had remained before we met – what if we didn’t overlook this one incident? I am glad we did.