It had been a long time. By long,
I mean long enough to forget all about ourselves and where we came from. We had
grown apart and now lacked the coordination that once glued us together. On recalling the past, a rush of excitement and sheer loss filled my heart. A
ceremonial event was required to refurbish our minds to adapt into the realm of
friendship. Being schoolmates didn't instill any
sort of alumni enthusiasm as the years faded away. Time had inked our past as a story in
each of our chapters. We never thought we could get closer again – the few of
us.
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| The Chaos in the Chatter Image Courtesy: DW-WP |
By birth - a victim of war, and by
growth - a social cynic, I was stuck in India with the unusual urge to commit
myself to patriotism. The country had
inspired my mind to bloom in thought. The nature and the naturist scenes of
life portrayed, displayed a naive impact in my heart. Time again, I felt lonely.
No amount of pleasure could soothe my
inner thirst. I wanted more than the life that I lived. Feeling an inner urge
to get back in touch with my friends kept lingering in the back of my mind. I
longed for people to respond in the social network. Due to the chaotic life
circumstances and a billion other things to do, people never got the time to
get together and converse. Even if they did, the conversation would not last
for more than a couple of minutes. I didn't know any of my friends like I did
before. They were all strangers to me, who were once part of a meaningful past.
The greatest curse mankind has got is loss of memory. You tend to forget things
and people. Time does not heal often. You need to heal.
| We all want to be heard, but do we listen? Image Courtesy: KAPLANCO |
One night, while lazing at home,
an idea surged into my head. I was introduced to WeChat by a colleague, and he
said that it was a good form of getting in touch. I did not take it seriously
at first. On exploring through the internet, I found out that it was reliable.
So I installed it that night into my smartphone. After leaving school, I had
kept in touch with only a hand full of friends and that too once in a blue moon.
School life in my foster-motherland of Kuwait was exciting. Evening tuition
and hangouts at various shopping malls and street corners was a thing of my
past. But now, I had only about five friends in my contact list to cherish
those memories with. Nonetheless, I added them on a group in WeChat.
| Creating a connection Image Courtesy: LonerWolf |
At first,
it wasn't easy to get everyone to come online. But when they all did, it was
like Christmas in summer! And with Christmas comes lots of fun. We began our occasional
chatting, and recollecting of the past. My batch mates are scattered all over
the world, and the ones close to me were the ones in India – the ones I was
chatting with. I wanted to expand my boundaries and be in touch with everyone around
the globe, at the same time. So began my search for contact details. I kept
pulling out all links I could grab my hands on. It felt like creating a
miniature social networking platform. More and more folks were added, and the
conversation and gossips never stopped. We were live 24/7 thanks to the fact
that people were there in various corners of the world. Most of us flooded the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan and Bangladesh, while a few of us were stranded all over the USA, UK and Canada. Three of them even found their way to the Caribbean Islands, and one drifted off to Australia. I couldn't sleep on the
first night of celebration, and everyone was equally excited. The reality had
struck us by storm, and it felt like a rain of blessing to be alive and together
again – talking, fighting and loving each other’s company. I had recreated my
classroom that was believed to be lost and scattered five years ago! We had engineers and engineering graduates, doctors, teachers and business professionals in our batch. We also brought in one of our teachers every now and then to enhance the classroom atmosphere. What turned out as a lazy evening thing, has now become a daily activity. Lucky for me, all my friends all well off and most of them have started working. It's hard to say when a real reunion is possible, but the foundation stone has been laid - it'll be done with time in our favour!
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| A glimpse of the Recipe! Image Courtesy: TOBYHK.com |
Now our group is live almost all the time, and people stay in touch. We no longer ignore each other, and are cool about the transformation from childish plays to adulthood pranks. At least we all got each others' contact numbers. All thanks to WeChat!
P.S.: This post is dedicated to all those lovers of WeChat, and to the contest that WeChat has put up at IndiBlogger.in.
2 comments:
Heyy Anoop...this one's a great read!! :) :) :)
That peace sign is demonic in nature. It's an inverted cross and the West has been promoting it all over the world.
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