GHPS Reunion

For the past three months, every time I received a friend request from someone from GHPS, I would refer to the memorabilia that had been uploaded by some good soul. I would try and look for the person in that and if I had atleast one memory, I would accept the facebook request. If not, I chose to do nothing.

The GHPS reunion, was for me , an opportunity to meet two of my closest pals I had totally lost touch with - for two decades and more.Meeting them was lovely, but the reunion turned out to be much more than that and I have come back home - richer for the experience.

Learnings

Youth is wasted on the very young! We were so stupid, OK, I was so stupid when I was in school. There was no awareness that this was the last time I would be among a huge peer group - no matter how forced! And that this peer group was so varied and diverse. After I left school, there was no effort, even desire to remain connected. In college I made new friends, pursued new interests and then moved to do my MBA and later work. While I remained connected with most of my MBA mates, my school mates did not cross my mind even once. And meeting this gang gave me a twinge of regret - at my own brashness.

People do not change - it took one conversation to remember stuff about the people I met at the re-union. And no matter what life experiences people have, the intrinsic person changes not. The naughty ones were the same after 25 years, as were the ones who merely stood and watched everyone. Even the sleazy ones had not lost their sleaze!

Memories - All said and done, after 25 years, each of us had very few memories about each other. But collectively, those memories were substantial. And I bet most of us walked away with plenty more memories than we had walked into the room with. I am beginning to realise that most of our memories are still there somewhere, needing only a nudge to awaken.

A return to innocence - Nothing beats the thrill for me of meeting people who remember me as Preeti Bakshi. 16 years of being Preeti Singh makes me very happy, but Preeti Bakshi is reminiscent of the time when I was young,super confident, carefree and terribly brash. I miss that me sometimes.

I left the reunion with a sense of gratitude. That I had been fortunate enough to be able to attend the reunion and meet with batchmates long forgotten. That as a batch we had done fairly well at our chosen professions and businesses. That most of us were healthy - even if the metabolic rates had slowed down!That most of us were alive !

And with some regret- I missed all my friends who did not make it to the reunion- their absence made the reunion a tad incomplete for me.

But I do hope that most of us will be around for the next milestone as well!