Reunion- 07

24th December 2007, the festive mood was in the air and the batch of 2005 were more than excited for the second reunion. This was one bright Monday morning when none of us suffered from the usual the Monday morning blues. After a week of connecting and networking , more than fifty people turned up and it was one whole day of renewing old acquaintances, making new friends, sharing all that happened in the past 2 and half years, fun, laughter and endless bantering. In short, it was one occasion for strengthening our bond as the batch of 2005 in our alma mater.
10.30- the scheduled time, but as usual, only the punctual ones made it.This time there was no one for penalizing the late comers to school. Inside sources revealed that people had 5 rupees each, the fine money, just in case.. (habits die hard). First goal, njan adichu. Called up a number which I presumed was Anju' s and started off, " di..are u fooling me? where are you? can't find you here". A perplexed reply came from the other end, "Mole njan Anjuine, schoolil kondu vittathanallo". I don't know what was in store for Anju later on.
One by one, people were making their grand entry. The main feature of this reunion was many (old but comparatively new) faces. We were in school for about 3 hours and though an introduction took off, with missiles( questions: courtesy Govind) being shot mid-way the intro too broke off.The few victims who were hit by the missiles included Ashwathy( who was with us till 10th), Roshan, Teena, Nikhil etc. And then, people were in their own groups, talking , taking snaps, snapping at each other , chatting and bonding. I was awestruck seeing everyone, wondering are these the same people with whom I spent 12 years, and how they changed so much in 2 years.
Even the school has worn a new look in 2 years time. The auditorium work is completed and everyone would agree in unison," We miss our good old quadrangle". A new cooler was being installed and Govind was showing off that he learnt something about refrigeration. The budding engineers, doctors and people who are gonna be graduates within 5 months time chatted endlessly. So much for the verbal assault ( we did spend so much of energy for that, didn't we?)
Hunger pangs rose and we spent almost an hour deciding where to go. A movie was in the agenda but due to time constraints we had to make a choice between the two. Lunch or movie.
Finally we reached a consensus that it would be better to fill our grumbling stomachs.
Many people left by afternoon and around 15 of us were remaining and we headed off to Park Rajdhani. The movie was "Taare Zameen Par" well forget the movie, we were the taare on zameen.
Deepa, Sindhya and Govind handled the transportation department. Rohan was seen flaunting his bike( After all, when you have it ,flaunt it, no offence meant, just sprucing up my literary skills ). I happened to be the (un) lucky one to ride with Deepa and trust me, I was there counting my lucky stars and saying all the prayers I knew.(njan ariyavunna prarthana okke cholli avide irunnu). 3 screeching halts or sudden breaks and a biker's glare after almost skidding highlighted this roller-coaster ride in Maruti from Pattom to Ulloor.
We were at the entrance, waiting for the rest of them to arrive. The best place and time for a photo shoot. We were clicking like crazy till the waiters shooed us away. We were again arguing, should we wait for them to come and enter together or let one of us wait. There was a clash between hunger and sentiments. Finally, sentiments won. A mock-parliament session was in the offing, after all it takes time to reach a consensus even if there are hardly 15 of us.
The sumptuous lunch was a paisa vasool for non-veggies and paisa fisool for ( temporary and permanent) veggies like me. So now, you can guess why I am grumbling about it. But the cucumber salad was really good. Tested and Proven by the future chairpersons of Food Corporation of India, Anju Merin Kurian and Govind Nair. Some people had a whole showroom of cucumber slices on their plates. Now its left for time to decide, whether the budding biotechnologist or the mechanical engineer is gonna make it. There was roti and nan, but none of us could figure out the difference between the two. We also had Aloo and gobi ka kadai, and we were frantically searching for a hammer to break the Aloo. Though I m cribbing so much about the food, no one really cared, because all we needed to do was to talk and pull each other's legs.
An India- Pak war too began in between, but soon we were distracted by the open mouthed snores of a guy on the next table. We were puzzled, and finally one brainy person in our group solved the puzzle. The buffet coupons mentioned that it was a lunch and dinner buffet. We could make out he was an NRI from the U.S from his accent, but didn t know the kid was still not used to the time zone changes.
Dessert consisted of gulab jamun, ice cream and pudding. Everyone tried the various permutations and combinations of the 3 dishes. The gulab jamuns were better when thrown at each other rather than throwing it into your mouths. ( iila we didn t spoil the image of K V Pattom, we didn t throw Gulab jamuns at each other, its just that my imaginations went wild). There was no scope for a ice cream eating competition this time rather it was chalu competition.
Almost 3.30 p.m, the waiters were giving us sort of disgusted looks and we thought it was better to make a move. After another half an hour of debating and discussing we headed off to Museum. I was again with Deepa and after taking about 3 U-turns, riding up and down the road along Kanakakunnu palace and Balabhavan, we reached our destination.
It was very sunny, and all the complexion conscious guys and gals, were in search of a shady place to sit down and begin the banter. Anyways we were bantering the whole day..So it was needless to search for a place for that.
And began the third session of endless banter, sharing our memorable experiences in school. Its always the Barber bro's on top of the list, followed by the sodium and cycle jackson story,. Did I mention, Our uncle Sivanandan has been promoted from a cycle to a bike. (talk about changes)
The stories about our teachers, all classified and censored and due to time constraints, can be saved for another reunion. Coz these stories are evergreen and would find a mention in every reunion we are gonna have. So why be a spoiler..
The seemingly endless banter and chatter, ended by almost 5.30 p.m. There was a wave of Nostalgia, and with promises to keep in touch and resolving to organize a better reunion next time, we bade good bye.

Credits:
To Anju, Deepa, Sindhya , Govind, Arun S, Boney and Rojesh who initiated the reunion plans and made it a reality for the second time.
To all my friends who came for the reunion and made it a grand success.
To me ( no I'm not blowing my own trumpet) for publishing this post :)

PS: I have tried to include the minutest of details on what happened at the reunion. So you may find things going haywire at places in this post. Pardon, coz that s what made us, the batch of 2005 unique.
A whole bunch of multifarious, multi-talented enthu cutlets.