Reunions!!! Yay!!

And to think I almost missed the most important reunion of my life! (well... so far in my life... you never know what the future holds!). I was doing this internship thingy for a coupla weeks (I'll tell you guys all about that later. now we deal with much more important matters). It was a 9am to 6:15pm job. Fair enough. Until I found out that my school annual day was to take place that week and would start at 5pm! Now life seemed unfair.

That morning, when I stepped into the lab to start another day of experiments, I thought I would ask my supervisor to let me go early. But he seemed to have other plans. I walked over to him to put forth my request when he spotted me coming. Before I could say anything, he said, "ah! there you are! Your work for the day has been decided. We are going to do column chromatography today. You and your partner might have to stay back till 7pm today, so inform your parents about this".

I was speechless. We could have done the chromatography the previous day, or the next week, or any other day... why did they have to decide to do it on my school annual day???

Now you might be wondering... why the heck is attending my school annual day so important to me? I am an ex-student. So why should I attend it? Well... one thing was well known in my school... when you are a student, you grumble about having to attend the annual day when you could be doing better things elsewhere, but when you are an ex-student, no other event is as important as the annual day. Because thats when all the ex-students, who are strewn in all 10 directions, find a way to get to the function. You are very likely to bump into your old pals at a school annual day.

But it looked like my evening plans were going down the drain. My partner and I went on with the day's work and at around 11am, we found that nobody was particularly keen on staying back till 7pm, so everyone in the lab was trying to finish the chromatography ASAP!!! Cool!! It was a mad rush that day... I had to run all over the lab to help get things done, freeze to death standing in a cold room (just 4 degrees!!!!! everything was frozen in there, including me!! brrrr!). With lots of golmaal (shhhh!!! dont tell anyone), we managed to get the work done even before 6pm!! Yay!

I packed my stuff and dashed out immediately, called up home and told mom that I'd be late coz I was directly going to the annual day. After that, I don't think I stopped smiling till around 10pm! (yeah, my cheeks started hurting at one point of time).

I had just parked my scooter (quite a distance from the venue... but then again, when do you even get decent parking right next to the auditorium?!) when I met friends whom I hadn't heard from in years!! As I slowly walked to the place, happily chattering with old friends and grinning away to glory, I met several other people I knew... not just my batch, but also my seniors and immediate juniors. Also met a few of my favourite teachers! (one of them gave me a nice samosa!! I like her!!!). It was totally unbelievable. Almost, my entire batch was re-united. All of a sudden, we all forgot that we were actually undergrad students. We were once again school kids, discussing all the naughty things we did behind the teacher's back, teasing each other, discussing movies, music, our favourite subjects, funny incidents, which guy proposed to which gal and other teenage stuff like that. Did I mention I had an amazing time with these awesome people???!!!! :D:D:D:D:D

And finally, the trio got re-united too!! Finally, after one whole year, Sow, Nairi and I ended up at the same place, at the same time!!! And you know what? Nothing has changed :) We still tease each other, argue with each other, tease Nairi about her being a die-hard SRK fan, tease Sow about a million other things etc etc etc. I just cannot describe how happy I was to be with the two of them. We've been friends all the way since primary school... Its nice to see that we still are great friends.

We hardly watched any programmes, unfortunately. All the time was spent talking about the good ol' days. I seriously felt as though I was back in school. It was a wonderful feeling.

At the end of the annual day, one of my most favourite teachers spotted me, called me over, and introduced me to the rest of her family as "a brilliant student and a good athlete, who hated maths, yet promised me she'd get full marks in it some day, and kept her promise. One of my favourite students!" Aw shucks.... she made me blush. (coz she's the kind who hardly praises anyone!)

Outlaw couldn't make it to the school annual day :( Our gang was incomplete without her. But I got a chance to meet her just a few days back! We met at our favourite ice cream parlour and sat talking for about 2 hours!!! (almost got thrown out of the place :P). It was great catching up with her. Hey gurl! if you are reading this, I still do miss all practise sessions we had for the skits!!!

When I was in 12th standard, the principal of the school changed. It was time for our principal to retire. My class wanted to give her a little farewell gift. So we invited her to teach us one last time. As the bell rang at the end of class, she told us not to forget our old school, even after we get jobs and become somebody in life. Because when you feel lost, or confused, or depressed, just one quick trip to your old school, or a visit to an old school friend, can do wonders to your mood. After the trip, you are just left feeling refreshed and ready to face anything in life. Your past can do wonders and even serve as your inspiration!

Today I realise, what she said was sorta true! I've been away from school only for a year. But even then, meeting all my school friends and sitting with them and talking about the good ol' days has certainly been a refreshing experience! Now I am ready to face the future....

with a smile on my lips :)