Our school reunion took place on the 25th of January. Our classmate Manoj organized the reunion for the Cardinal Gracias High School Class of 1980. After two months of planning, we managed to gather 50 classmates from four different divisions. The total strength of the batch was around 180 out of which 11 have passed on. My classmates have drifted away as our careers took us further from Bandra where we once gathered. Three of them had come from the U.S. and onne flew in from Trivandrum and so on and so forth.
What stood out in the reunion was the lack of ego and emotional baggage usually seen in such events. Where are you? Who are you? What do you do? It was quite an amazing experience. Possibly one of the simplest and the best reunions that I have been to. Vineetha generously brought wine for us to sample. Harry gifted us all coins from the 60s as a keepsake, reflecting that we were born in different years of that decade. There were t-shirts made. There was a DJ. There was some great food.
There was an abundance of talent. We had a magician (Ramnath) in our midst. We had a singer. We had some games as well. And there was dancing. It's surprising how well 60-year-olds can dance gracefully and enjoy themselves without stressing about the world. Mohan was very enthusiastic, which made us a little concerned. Anthony, also known as Tony, danced gracefully, while Chandra added his own unique style. Four people joined the call from outside India to see faces, catch up, and greet everyone. A couple of people dropped out due to illness and one guy landed very late due to other commitments. And of course the backbenchers were there in school and even at the get together
These few hours was a great experience. Our last reunion was in 2010 where we had almost double the number of people. And obviously as the batch grows older, it becomes a lot more difficult. Our last meeting included teachers and principals, but this time it was just us students since many of our teachers and principals have passed away. In some ways we also were aware of our own mortality and thought it would be a good time to meet.
So why do reunions mean a lot? Reunions are very, very special and could happen for class, school, college and even at the workplace. They enable us to remember our true selves and our beginnings before we gathered the burdens we now struggle to unload. It's an interesting thing about how we move forward.
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