The REUNION diary (part 1)

(A request- please read all “I” as “we”, this REUNION belonged to all of us. And, the word REUNION is being written in bold capital letters as it’s very close to our hearts).



Enigma, Bangalore (REUNION idea was conceived from here)

05 June, Saturday, at 1030 hrs, I was busy setting up my 35000 sft hypermarket store for weekend sales. Suddenly a call came from Smitha, “Koijam, what are you doing in the evening? Come for dinner at my place”, to which I replied “can’t promise, m not mentally prepared”. Smita blasted me “koji, what’s there to mentally prepare about?” I told Smita that I would think and called back.
Few minutes later, there was an update in facebook by Sunny Hundal “In bangalore”.
Ten minutes later, Prashant Rai called me up, “Koijam, what are you doing for the evening?” Shall we meet? Hundal is also in town. I said, “Pass me Hundal’s no”. I discovered Hundal would be free by 2000 hours. I called up Smita, Prashant Rai, Sushil Joshi, Amit Sharma (Lambu) - Lambu was at hyderabad, reaching bangalore in the evening, but he was game. Smita managed to get in Bhavana too.

So, all agreed to meet at 2030 hours. I called up ENIGMA and reserved 7 seats.Prashant Rai, an OG as always reached the spot by 2020 hours, where as Smita, Hundal and myself reached by 2100 hours. I had gone to pick up Smita and Hundal from whitefiled. The funniest part is Smita knows how to drive ALS, shaktiman, truck but not a civil car, so I had to fetch her. Till the time we reached ENIGMA, Prashant was fuming at its best; we made the sober Prashant to DURBASHA Prashant.

ENIGMA- what a place it was, what an ambience, what music!!! Everything was at its superlative best. And the meeting of 7 long lost friends, and coincidentally it was the first gathering of the Bangalore team too. Thanks Hundal for that.

The ice, the fire, and the water everything was broken within 5 mins of the togetherness. The camaraderie could be seen instantly. Man, the music was just awesome and toooo loud. Too loud that it was very difficult to converse, however we still managed to talk. We started from SSB to the Academy days.

We drank so much, we ate so much we talked so much and the music was so good. Bhavanna was supposed to be pure veg, however it was just namesake that she was eating veg. I had mixed up everything, some muttons, some chicken along with her pure veg.

Lo! Last 15 mins….it was announced and we felt like the party had just begun. The entire crowd had moved out. We were asked to wind up, to which Sushil joshi in typical fauji istyle told them to serve the last round of drinks….once a fauji, always a fauji…

One hour before winding up, Hundal had started giving gyans with the most beautiful and choicest vocabularies. He had converted the two ladies in the group, Smita and Bhavana as masculine gender and continued with his gyans comprising ‘fs’, mc, bc, etcetera…

Smita can sum up the driving experience from ENIGMA to whitefiled how when Hundal continued giving gyans inside the vehicle, Joshi overtook a truck, and how the truck driver got the shock of his life in a U turn….

The party got over, but the spirit was born. We all thoroughly liked it. Hundal told me that he wanted to see the pics uploaded before he reaches Delhi. I was dead drunk, however little senses that I had, I kept on uploading the pics…there were comments and comments for the next few days…

It was a treat to read the comments from so many course mates. Comments like “oh,Prashant has bloated, Joshi ,Amit, koijam remains the same, Hundal is still slim and trim, oh good to see Bhavana and Smita….wagera wagera”. Those pics could make it reconnect with other long lost course mates too.

Seeing the response in the comments of the pictures, my heart felt like everybody cares for everybody, the entire course of SS 70 and WS 16, and it is just that situation and circumstances just make us drift apart.

So on 11 June, I wrote in my facebook status about having this decade old meeting called “REUNION” and the immediate prompt response was overwhelming. That’s how the seed was sown, that’s how the idea was conceived. (to be contd)