Reunion time again! P.Suresh, Subroto and Anand had organized the reunion at Alankrita Resorts in Hyderabad, with the backing of Suchitra Ella (Naidu, that was). Suchitra, who with her husband had founded Bharat Biotch, had negotiated the resort and made all the travel arrangements in Hyderabad.
The reunion had started in the train for the eight of us who traveled together to Hyderabad by the Charminar Express. Gautam, Subhadra, B. Ramesh, G.Lakshmi and her husband, Selvam, Devashis Ghosh and I were together, giggling and shrieking like school kids. Luckily no-one from the compartment came and complained about fifty-year-olds creating a ruckus. Luckily for them, that is, or who knows we may have put a thumb to our noses, waggled our fingers and stuck a tongue out at them. Except Ramesh that is (the Canadian dentist NOT the one who runs up mountains for light relief, who featured in the Mustang trek series) - but that was because he was too busy running in his mind all the arrangements for the video conference that had to be set up to allow all those batchmates in far-flung areas who had failed to turn up for the meet.
The first program of day one was a visit to Bharat Biotech and to a temple thereafter. I, unfortunately, was too sleepy to make the trip (AND, as anyone who knows me knows, the sight of any office puts me to sleep), so I had dropped off when the group was all set to leave. That part of the reunion, therefore, is a secret from me as was the gift that Suchitra Ella gave each member of the visiting delegation!
The evening was spent along with Ramesh, fiddling around to find the absentee classmates from the USA. We did manage to snag Kumaraguru - but then, considering that HE was the most enthusiastic of the whole lot of us, that was no miracle.
After a sumptuous breakfast,we departed the next day to the Golconda fort. Bus trips, as everyone knows, is a bane particularly for people whose lower backs send frequent SMSes about their age - but not this time. Time had reversed itself for us and it was as much fun as any school trip had ever been - more, in fact, because there was no school teacher to call out "Silence, Children". Pratibha's mom was around, representing THAT age group but, as we all knew, she loved her bit of fun as much as everyone of us did. P. Suresh showed an unexpected talent for dance, possibly inspired by the presence and company of Suchitra Sarede (Narain, that was) and, also possibly by the apt choice of the song by S. Nalini. (OR, maybe, I mistook their writing in pain - by my rendering of the song - for a dance?)
The group photographs were all at the Golconda fort. We went in with a guide, who spoke so much like one of our school teachers that it reminded us of school all over again. Any time now, we were expecting him to say, "If you talk, I will kneel down" as one of our teachers was wont to say. He, luckily, escaped that mishap since, now that we did remember every now and then that we were adults, we may probably have insisted on his keeping that promise! We did go around the lower ramparts but neatly avoided climbing to the top citing a lack of time. THAT part of our childhood has come in handy all our lives - giving reasonable excuses for not doing what we did not want to do.
After lunch, it was time to relax and catch up on each others' lives. Not that much catching up was needed for most of them, since they seem to have updated each other daily from the time they brushed their teeth to the time they started snoring. The camaraderie of the last time was still there and everyone relaxed and rejoiced in those rare times when letting your hair down (ONLY metaphorically in my case, as with a few others of the balder sex) was not merely safe - it was de rigeur!
The evening was the time of the video conference. Kumaraguru, B.S. Murali, M.S.Lakshmi and Radha joined in first followed later by Balakumar and, I hear, by Amarnath too. Then followed a session of 'Guess who I am?' with the US guys (Radha, in particular). We, in India, were lucky, since Radha appeared in a window by herself with her name else none of us would have guessed who she was, except those tho had seen her recently. So, we could have our fun without our own inabilities nicely hidden away.
After a brief spell of Antakshari across the seas, Balakumar - our Hind Ratna awardee of this year - joined in. For a while, there was some conversation between us here and them there. Suddenly, though, the video conference had turned into a reality show with the US lot holding a meet of their own with us guys watching the show on TV. (Nice of us, wasn't it, to arrange a meet between them?) Being no aficionado of reality shows and finding that the bottle of single malt was beckoning us from the room, M.K. Bala, Murali and I skedaddled. Gautam joined us later and, then, we came to know that Amarnath had been woken up - with the hangover of last night's movie - and had joined the reality show.
We checked out on day three. Half the lot had, in fact, either departed the day before or the morning of day three. The truncated group then visited Birla mandir (Gautam stoutly refused saying that he knew of Shiv Mandirs and Vishnu Mandirs, but had never heard of a deity called Birla) and, then the Husain Sagar. The speed-freaks - Gautam, Pratibha, her husband Raja and daughter Padmini took a speed boat trip around. The rest, including me, went by the ferry to the island to look at the immense Buddha statue from up close.
On our return, Subroto proved a real hero. There is this mono-track on which trolleys carrying people on a fun ride runs. This track, unfortunately, just cuts across the paths where people walk in and out with the only protection being a sentry who warns you when a trolley is on its way. When we were coming back, a child ran across just as her mother was looking for something in her bag. P. Suresh and I just managed warning cries as a trolley came rushing in. Before it could hit the child, Subroto had run forward and scooped up the child and managed to jump back with the trolley missing him by inches.
After a visit to Shilparamam - which Gautam, Devashis, Subroto and I converted to a Paradise Biryani visit - we got back to the Railway Station where Venkatesh joined us after a visit to his uncle. The journey back was fun enough but, needless to say, did not have the same excitement as the journey forth.
But then, we will meet again in 2017, so where is the need to pull long faces? Except, of course, for those guys who have missed it every time till now!
Pic: By S. Venkatesh, as far as I know
