WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE, I WOULD JUMP OFF A CLIFF

By SHAGORIKA EASWAR

When NRIs of a certain age gather and talk turns to where we see ourselves after retirement or when we are older, some cite the advantages of going back.

Warm weather! And house help! being prime motivators. I love where I am but I do confess to feeling the pull when I hear from old school friends after a bunch of them get together in Bangalore. I met them first in grade four when my parents moved to the city. We have stayed friends through our school and university years and beyond and remain in regular touch. A few stayed on in Bangalore, others have recently relocated from different parts of the world for various reasons. And now they meet regularly for lunch or dinner at each other’s homes, they visit old haunts or discover new places to try, they attend concerts together, participate in the weddings of their children and pop in to visit each other’s grandchildren. They meet with old teachers, wonderful ladies who taught us countless life lessons along with geography, biology, math or English.

They are there for each other– as in physically there – in a crisis or times of sorrow, offering practical help with a hug.

All this, I miss dearly. “I am feeling left out of all the fun, I am turning a lurid shade of green with envy,” I write. “Send me photographs!”

Yes, I have made many friends over our years in Canada. In fact, once a neighbour had said that one didn’t really belong until one had attended a wedding and a funeral in the community and by that count, we most certainly belong. We have attended weddings and baby showers and more than a few funerals, but my Bangalore friends are my oldest friends. We grew up together. Our parents knew each other, and now the kids of my friends in Bangalore are friends. There’s something to be said for that connection.

After a recent get-together at Koshy’s, an old Bangalore landmark, Bisoka sent me pictures.

When I thanked her for doing so, the credit goes to Anitha, she said.

“She pretty-pleased a chap to take it. Who did so sweetly and then handed back the phone and ran off in such a hurry. As if from a nightmare, being accosted by a gang of noisy aunties! As collective nouns go would gaggle/cackle of aunties work better than gang?”

A giggle of aunties! That describes the group best, I wrote back, recalling the free, unfettered laughter that fills the room when we are all together.

We “get” each other’s silly jokes, we bemoan the loss of old Bangalore – and we still haven’t gotten around to calling it Bengaluru. Our respective husbands and kids look on with fond amusement as we converse in our own special short-hand and play, remember-the-time when...?

Because of that photo from outside Koshy’s, I have reconnected with Arathi and Ambika, also old school friends I had lost touch with. Shivamala was MIA in this particular gathering, but is an integral part of the group.

Jeeth sent a scan of our old grade 10 school photo. And there we all are, so many years ago. I looked at it eagerly, naming the girls in the photograph one by one, sad to note that I stumbled over a few. I’d never have thought I’d forget the names of any of them but there I was, knowing I know them but the name eluding me.

“Just ask Pheroza to send a snapshot of the back of that photo,” wrote Jeeth. “She has written the names down. Isn’t she wonderful!”

And she is, because just like that, the faded names swam back into focus.

Once upon a time, I used to feel sorry for myself, having been denied the joy of having a sister, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve realized that I’ve been blessed with a sisterhood. I cherish the fact that we are still part of each other’s lives, that we’ve stayed in close touch over the years – and this before the age of the dreaded WhatsApp! That we didn’t drift apart like so many others do naturally, over the course of time.

There was an e-mail that did the rounds a few years ago, about a man who packed a pilot’s parachute. If you google Who Packs Your Parachute? you will find a Forbes article by Emmy-winning former NBC and Wall Street Journal reporter-turned TED-speaker Kare Anderson with the details.

To encapsulate: US Navy jet pilot Charles Plumb’s plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent six years in a communist Vietnamese prison. Years later, he met the man who had packed his parachute. “If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today,” Plumb said to him.

As a motivational speaker, Plumb now asks his audience, “Who’s packing your parachute? Who has done something that has helped make your day safer – or easier or more pleasant?”

With friends like these packing my parachute, I’d jump off a cliff any day.

Now there’s talk of a class reunion. I don’t know if I will be able to make it to that, but I have promised myself a masala dosa with the gang on my next visit to Bangalore.

I feel blessed that I have these old friends in my life. They make me feel buoyant and at the same time they anchor me in ways perhaps even they can’t guess.

Meeting them is a chance to connect with old friends and to get re-acquainted with our own old selves, with the girls we were once.