Skip to main content

Love that unites


Memories can be miracles.  They can bring about transformations within us.  My recent visit to Kerala was for a reunion of some friends who studied together from 1976 to 1978.  Meeting again 36 years later is a momentous experience.  The boys had become men.  The men are now involved in a wide variety of professions, ranging from today’s most popular profession of converting people from their religions to the least preferred job of fighting for justice.  There were jewellers and chartered accountants in between.  And a schoolteacher like me.  Quite a few priests too.  The spouses and children of those who were not priests added a unique charm to the gathering.

People had cancelled or rescheduled important assignments just to make it to this gathering.  A few travelled all the way from as far away as the USA only for this occasion.  A few had spent a lot of time and money making the necessary arrangements. 

I loved it.  What a meet it was!  So many people from such a wide diversity of occupations and outlooks.  And yet we all found it delightful.  An unforgettable experience that lasted almost the whole day.

As I, along with my wife, got a free lift all the way to my home (55 km from Ernakulam where the meet took place) after the gathering (thanks to an alumnus who was travelling to the same place), a thought kept springing in my mind.  If such a wide variety of people can be reunited so joyfully merely because of the fact that some of them had studied together in their adolescence, why can’t India be just one country living happily together in spite of all the variety? 

Why should India be a people of one religion?

Yes, interestingly, there was one alumnus of ours who boasted about his successful religious conversions.  I found him rather comical.  Not villainous, thank heavens.  But do we need such conversions in order to live together as one nation?  Not at all.  We, the alumni decided to meet again after four years in spite of all the variety in our outlooks and professions.  We found meaning in the reunion.  We found meaning in the love that we could rediscover.  In spite of all the differences in our careers, attitudes, outlooks...

Can’t India find such meaning?  I’m wondering still, a week after the meet. 


Comments

  1. www.lifepartneracademy.comJanuary 3, 2015 at 4:09 PM

    What a wonderful reunion after 36 long years. It would have been so nice to recollect memories of the past and rediscover each other after such a long time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 4, 2015 at 9:09 AM

      Indeed, Fayaz, it was an experience of a different kind.

      Delete
  2. parwatisingariJanuary 4, 2015 at 4:47 AM

    :) I guess we can only ask, no one answers because no is listening.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 4, 2015 at 9:10 AM

      True, listening to this kind of stuff doesn't help in their power games.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pranita a perverted genius

Bulldozer begins its work at Sawan Pranita was a perverted genius. She had Machiavelli’s brain, Octavian’s relentlessness, and Levin’s intellectual calibre. She could have worked wonders if she wanted. She could have created a beautiful world around her. She had the potential. Yet she chose to be a ruthless exterminator. She came to Sawan Public School just to kill it. A religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] had taken over the school from its owner who had never visited the school for over 20 years. This owner, a prominent entrepreneur with a gargantuan ego, had come to the conclusion that the morality of the school’s staff was deviating from the wavelengths determined by him. Moreover, his one foot was inching towards the grave. I was also told that there were some domestic noises which were grating against his patriarchal sensibilities. One holy solution for all these was to hand over the school and its enormous campus (nearly 20 acres of land on the outskirts
13 comments
Read more

Randeep the melody

Many people in this pic have made their presence in this A2Z series A phone call came from an unknown number the other day. “Is it okay to talk to you now, Sir?” The caller asked. The typical start of a conversation by an influencer. “What’s it about?” My usual response looking forward to something like: “I am so-and-so from such-and-such business firm…” And I would cut the call. But there was a surprise this time. “I am Randeep…” I recognised him instantly. His voice rang like a gentle music in my heart. Randeep was a student from the last class 12 batch of Sawan. One of my favourites. He is unforgettable. Both Maggie and I taught him at Sawan where he was a student from class 4 to 12. Nine years in a residential school create deep bonds between people, even between staff and students. Randeep was an ideal student. Good at everything yet very humble and spontaneous. He was a top sportsman and a prefect with eminent leadership. He had certain peculiar problems with academics. Ans
23 comments
Read more

Queen of Religion

She looked like Queen Victoria in the latter’s youth but with a snow-white head. She was slim, fair and graceful. She always smiled but the smile had no life. Someone on the campus described it as a “plastic smile.” She was charming by physical appearance. Soon all of us on the Sawan school campus would realise how deceptive appearances were. Queen took over the administration of Sawan school on behalf of her religious cult RSSB [Radha Soami Satsang Beas]. A lot was said about RSSB in the previous post. Its godman Gurinder Singh Dhillon is now 70 years old. I don’t know whether age has mellowed his lust for land and wealth. Even at the age of 64, he was embroiled in a financial scam that led to the fall of two colossal business enterprises, Fortis Healthcare and Religare finance. That was just a couple of years after he had succeeded in making Sawan school vanish without a trace from Delhi which he did for the sake of adding the school’s twenty-odd acres of land to his existing hun
19 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
37 comments
Read more

Sanjay and other loyalists

AI-generated illustration Some people, especially those in politics, behave as if they are too great to have any contact with the ordinary folk. And they can get on with whoever comes to power on top irrespective of their ideologies and principles. Sanjay was one such person. He occupied some high places in Sawan school [see previous posts, especially P and Q ] merely because he knew how to play his cards more dexterously than ordinary politicians. Whoever came as principal, Sanjay would be there in the elite circle. He seemed to hold most people in contempt. His respect was reserved for the gentry. I belonged to the margins of Sawan society, in Sanjay’s assessment. So we hardly talked to each other. Looking back, I find it quite ludicrous to realise that Sanjay and I lived on the same campus 24x7 for a decade and a half without ever talking to each other except for official purposes.      Towards the end of our coexistence, Sawan had become a veritable hell. Power supply to the
10 comments
Read more