Staying Connected...

This seems to be my season for re-uniting with lost friends!

 Recently, we went to Bombay for a wedding. A friend's daughter was getting married, and it was the perfect opportunity to meet our old friends. I was travelling to the city after 12 years, and a lot had changed, and was still changing. It took us ages to go from one place to the other especially because of the Metro work, but the warmth with which our friends welcomed us more than made up for that.

Twelve years is a long time, and children had grown into adults, found jobs, married and started families. Neighbourhoods had changed, and new housing blocks had sprouted where once there were open spaces. Our old colony had changed so much, become busier and more crowded.

 And yet, some things had not changed. As I ascended the steps to my friend Pushpa's house, I remembered going there thrice a week for my yoga lessons. I will never forget the look on Pushpa's face! She had been thinking of me constantly for the past few days, and there I was, in the flesh! There was so much to catch up with, phone numbers  and email ids to be exchanged.

Why do we do it? Why do we go out of the way to locate our lost friends? What drives us to catch up with the lost years? What do we gain from this exercise? 

I received a mail recently that brought up these questions with regard to my previous post where I had spoken of meeting my school mates after 32 years. The sender of the mail wanted to know why it was so important to have a reunion which according to him/her was "regression". I do not agree. I think the answers are very obvious. 

Every relationship we have, whether it is as a friend, spouse, sibling, child, or parent, is a cord of connectivity. A part of us is there in that relationship; we invest not just time, but emotions and feelings into every relationship. We share so much together, and when we lose that relationship, that friendship, a part of us is lost forever. Somewhere we do not feel whole and complete. This feeling of not being complete drives us to look for the missing parts of our own selves, and that is exactly why we feel complete and happy when we find our lost friends.

 And not, as my misguided friend had written, because we were unhappy with our present lives and were looking for something that was lacking.