Purani Jeans

Some weekends leave an indelible mark on your memory. This weekend was one of them. After a long long time almost all my friends from the church gathered at my place. Though they don't qualify as my closest friends (only some of my school mates and my hostel mates have crossed that benchmark), I have had some wonderful times with them in the past. Being the part of the church "youth-group" in the yesteryears, we used to meet every Sunday after the church service, which probably explains why they are not my closest friends (unfortunately they were not my constant companions). Those days we used to participate in a lot of group competitions and worked together on a few social drives like raising funds for blankets for the poor and visiting old age homes etc. Had the time of our lives staying back for late night practice sessions in the church basement. We had so much fun together because our parents (including all the girls parents) trusted us all and moreover all our parents are good family friends too. Another thing that bound us together besides the church activities was probably that all of us come from similar backgrounds. One thing was sure, each one of us were there for each other (and always are) if anyone needed any help. They have helped me cross the lowest nadirs in my life, and have been with me during the lighter moments too. We have shared our successes and failures. Taking a line from Bryan Adams (who incidentally is performing in Bangalore I guess), those were best days of my life ...

Though we live something like a stone throw away from each other, the modern day work load and work styles just doesn't allow for all of us to be at one place at one time. We do meet, but its in groups of three or four. Someone is out of town, someone has a night shift, someone has some personal work to attend to, the reasons are many. So going by the past record, yesterday was a miracle. Actually there was a strong reason for this meeting. Today one of our friend is getting married and she wanted all of us to sing for her in the choir during her marriage ceremony in the church. Perhaps she wanted us "all" to meet one last time before she left for her new home, just to revive the good old days. Yesterday all excuses were chucked out and all of them poured in to my house along with the memories of the days gone by. So while we tuned the guitar, powered up the synthesizer, choose the hymns to sing, and munched on snacks, we caught up on each others lives and work. Reminisced and old times so well spent and laughed hysterically remembering the movie "Andaz Apna Apna" we all saw together.

We spent four hours practicing the hymns, interspersed with other songs like "Paurani Jeans" and "Maeri", cracking jokes and rolling on the floor and bed laughing. Finally, after a long time we had relived those carefree days we once spent together. After they left late at night yesterday, as I tried to put back my room in some semblance of order which had been hit by a tornado, I couldn't not help but stop my mind racing through all the old memories. As I put back each of my things back in place, the good time we had yesterday was being filed as yet another great memory ..

Today we will all get together again, to sing our hearts out for our friends marriage, and for moist eyed goodbyes ..