Beyond forty – part I , The reunion.

“We are always first to arrive in any function” Susan told mini sarcastically.

“But that is good habit” Sujan Chandy added “A punctual person is serious about the commitments made”. Susan and her husband Pramod had arrived at the 5 star hotel banquet hall where their engineering college reunion was being held. Sujan Chandy was their batch mate and he had come with his wife Mini Mathew.

The hall was huge and was dressed up beautifully with many round tables and chairs around draped in clean white colored clothes. The core committee of the reunion had not taken any chance and wanted the one day event to be enjoyable and memorable.

Batch mates started arriving with their families and soon the hall was filled with them. It was an ocean of happy faces beaming with joy and seemed as if they had rewound two decades of their lives. They were joking and laughing like teenage students.

I entered the hall and could see hundreds of my batch mates with their families busy talking and taking selfies with their old friends.

 Rashmi walked up to me and said “sir, how are the arrangements?”

“Mind blowing” I said and continued “You are a very good event manager.”

She smiled and continued “The podium is on the raised platform at the end of the hall. It is all yours now.”

I walked to the podium smiling, wishing my batch mates and after reaching the podium started “Friends, Good morning. It has been two decades since we passed out of our engineering college and many of us have crossed the wrong side of thirties and have entered the right side of forties. Looking at the expressions on the faces, the way guys are talking, laughing, gesturing, taking selfies and playing pranks on one another, it appears that we all are now twenty year olds with two decades of experience.”

 “Have we grown older?” I questioned and continued “Maybe the very fact that we are having reunion indicates that we have aged. We might have aged physically but mentally we are as young as we were during our college days”. I continued for another ten minutes and concluded the speech by saying “next couple of hours we have many of our batch mates sharing their experiences and will tell us how they have spent the two decades after completion of study.”

Raghu started sharing his experiences and I slowly walked down the podium and went to the table where Pramod and Susan were sitting. Pramod Kulkarni and Susan Dsouza fell in love during engineering study days, faced all odds, got married and have been living happily since then. I sat on the chair next to Pramod and started compering the event from there with cordless microphone. One by one enthusiastic batch mates started sharing their experiences and each one of their talk was received by thunderous applause from the audience.

After about an hour I announced “Friends now we have a surprise event. She was considered the most beautiful girl of our batch and today she is not going to share her experience but will do something else.”

Soujanya walked to the podium and the audience went berserk. Deafening claps and whistles raised the decibels in the room to an unbearable level.

Soujanya smiled and looked at the batch mates from the podium.

“She is still the most beautiful woman from our batch” Sujan said leaning towards me.

“Yes” I replied.

She started “Friends today I am going to sing a song from an old Hindi film”. She narrated the background of the song and started singing. She sang with sincerity, passion and looked like she had practiced singing for many years.

Chetan walked from his seat and came to our table. Looking at Pramod he said “I never knew about her singing”. “Neither do we” Pramod replied. Susan gave a stern look at the boys and said “Keep quiet. Let us listen to her singing and encourage her.”

Guys did not heed to Susan and kept discussing. Sujan Chandy commented “This is called Limelight issues. She was in the limelight always and now age had caught up and maybe no longer in limelight. That’s why she is into singing.”

I did not like the comment much and added “She is pursuing her passion. Maybe during our study days she did not find time to do so and now with grown up kids she finds time to enjoy her hobbies”. All of them nodded in agreement.

During lunch break I walked to Pramod and said “Do you remember Vandana Joshi?”

His face brightened up. “Where is she?” he asked.

I smiled and continued “I spoke to her few days ago. She is settled in Hyderabad.”

“But why in Hyderabad? She is from Hubli right?”

I walked away as Rashmi called me and started discussing about the post lunch session and the arrangements she had made.

The post lunch session started and I could see Pramod lost in thoughts. It was natural as his first crush in the college was Vandana Joshi from our junior batch. Pramod Kulkarni thought that since both of them came from the same place and similar family backgrounds, she would fall in love with him when he proposed. She rejected his love and later Susan entered his life and they got married.

Pramod came to me and asked “you have her contact number? What is she doing in Hyderabad? Is she married? How many kids she has?”

I smiled and gave her mobile number to him and said “Vandana’s father died immediately after her engineering. She had to take up responsibility of her family, her younger brother and sister. Those days opportunities were not many and she had to toil hard to make the family ends meet. Her mother developed high blood pressure and while we all were freaking out with our initial salaries, she was struggling with her life. She got married to a widower who is about 12 years elder to her.”

Pramod looked dumbstruck and said “I cannot believe this. She was so beautiful and so good at studies and this is what life could offer her? I shall meet her the next time I go to Hyderabad on a business trip”…

To be continued in part 2…