reflectionz.... don wanna lose them...

We would arrange friendly matches, cricket, during the summer hols. Pooling in one rupee each, various prizes would be taken. Comic books, rubber balls, use-and-throw pens and once we even had a round ‘electronics’ watch. Actually the watches were given as a freebie with some health drink and someone had already had half a dozen- decided on some good hearted charity! And so! We had everything to play for and bag the digital dial. There used to be three match, five match series.
Collecting player profile cards during world cup; the prized Maradona, Pele and Klinsman would be hunted for! Exchange schemes, deals struck and card counts compared daily- little envy, considerable pride! On birthdays we had to buy those bubble gums (cards coming free with them) for everyone but you could keep the card! A sweet lure to egg the b’day boy into being benevolent for his own prosperity! It was so precious for us- our own concept of shares and debentures!
Sharing our worldly possessions was the convention. Video games, story books, cricket gear, indoor games or even those ‘phoren’ chocolates we would get from relatives offshore- it was one big treasure trove. The gang would meet whenever there was something new added to our property list! Running around the neighborhood, shouting out names, in no time we would be all happy faces- proud and richer!
Academic interests were shared too. Class notes, books, ‘egg-jam’ rescues or even the ruckus at school- forever partners in crime J
During the umpteen religious and social festivities, we would go around the locality in all finery, trying to match steps with elders around. Rendering help with over-enthusiasm when someone would ask for. Arranging flowers for the deity, serving food for community lunch or putting up skits for the evening function, we would co-star in all the verticals of life.
Sitting down, tired bodies, we would plan some ingenious strategy; solving any local problem which we would have inkling of (from censored elderly conversations) to deciding on a winning combination of our cricket team, we would gate crash into all the domains around. And we always perceived that we could make a difference in a big way!
The girls in the group would complain a little about cricket and football though some were exceptionally good athletes! They would win the tack events of the community sports- those desiring indoor game sets would be given off to them! Still, we would all huddle in the next day and life didn’t change J
Girls were especially good at the fancy dress competition! Aided by their maa, they seemed to walk away with all the goodies. We would always blame it on their elaborate dressing skills, their natural make-up habits and sigh… hahaha!
There was nothing shameful in asking for a second helping… or even a third… and we believed in this mantra even during ‘aunty sponsored’ meals at each others’ place. Chatting, shouting and guffawing with an excitement that was never moderated by the scolds. And even the ‘kakimaas’, as we used to call our aunts (friends’ mother) would never tire of us! There was never a gap between the son and the rest of the group. Affections and rebukes were shared equally- but they really never made us change!
We never changed, or so we felt!

Climbing up the ladder from the rudiments of education to middle school, we were all a bunch of friends who walked the path together. Who had never thought about taking, exploring the by lanes around. Who had never tried to measure out certain aspects and see how life would seem without certain shades, certain people!
Who never feared… of change.
But the metamorphosis had begun inside each one of us. As education and social commandments showed us the individual track of life! The importance of ‘I, me and myself’ mixed in the veins of a gang of friends… like air bubbles trapped in a vessel, the collective bunch started to keep aside some oxygen for selfish interests. ‘We’ were just a collective ‘I’ only. And we never realized how time ate away into the forts of our friendship.
People re-located, new people came in; the zombie of Indian education system started strangling us with school, tuitions and examinations! Of all those virtues of science, commerce and then again graduating and working with dignity in the same substrate- society!
The evaluations were pasted on each one of us, as if suddenly the kids were no more friends but rivals- fighting out for the morsels and armed to the teeth with varied resources. Even… even parental affections seemed colored as kakimaa seemed no more like ‘my’ own.
The sharing of possessions stopped, slowly, and even those knowledge sharing were banned by some social dis-trust! Hahaha… time played hara-kiri with the gang of friends… and now! In time, has died the sweetness of a bunch of kids who had looked at the panorama of life together- hand-in-hand!
Did anyone ask them whether they wanted to change? Were they given a chance to re-group and battle the titanic of time? Or did anyone help them to retain the collective smiles, their essence of life?
I have lost them with the years. In moments of strange silence, pains, tears or even utmost happiness, have missed them. Their antics, their laughter, their cries and even the scuffles we used to have! I have just missed the silly smiles which never faded.
Or even would I recognize them, more than a decade after the cross of changes? Ironically it’s no looking back. The ladder rungs swinging in the airs of life and the ascending climb would be hindered with this stoppage.
Those ‘half-pants’, t-shirts, frocks and ribbons have given way to brand formals, starched manners and corporate codes.
And so, as I now walk down the winding puzzles of life, maybe I meet my friends from the days of yore… and brush past; or in measured silence or words, and the new found etiquette just maintain a distance.
Life has become a stranger for me. I am running fast they say, I am running good, they even have given me a handsome raise- they have clapped and toasted to my success! They have really made my life- where the past is prohibited. Where the future gobbles down the measures of present to suffocate existence… where friendship translates into profit margins. And here- I, me and myself- just lost in translation!

Sourav, Sanjay, Chotka, Ruku, Bapi, Pompi, Papai, Tultuli… even some names now escape me but am I complaining? I have to fly down to Japan tomorrow and rake in a new deal with the conglomerate there.