Therefore I wasn’t surprised when dad announced one dull morning that the next day he had his 30th reunion of his civil ’78 batch.(yaawwn…) Dad assured us that we would have an awesome experience, and to top it all he said that there would be a Gazzal concert. Go(yaaaawn…)sh Noooo! And now I should go there and listen to those old songs composed ages before I was born?
And what am I going to do there among the dozens of 50+ old people? 
Having exhausted my reserves of excuses for not going out along with my parents, I was forced to tag along for the reunion. The food at the 5-star hotel being the only thing to look forward to…
I deliberately delayed my folks so that we would have to spend only less time there. But on reaching there, we found that people had just started flocking in. I was elated to see one of my college-mates there. Apparently my dad and her mom were classmates, now working in the same firm. But soon I realized that even 2 college-girls can run out of topics to speak.
We had the intro session first –one by one, each alumnus had to introduce themselves and their spouse and children, starting with my dad! Half way through the session, it was heartening to learn that all of them were in respectable positions and were well placed in their life. However I was surprised to note that more than 95% of them had their children in the same field (UG, PG, or employed in some software/core firms). Only a few of them had children who pursued medical field, and there were 2 law students as well. That’s all!! Does this country produce only engineers and doctors? Are people oblivious of the scores of other opportunities around? Has the outlook of both the parent and the child been narrowed down to this extent? …or do the children by nature inherit their parents’ taste? (I know, that includes me as well…and I frankly admit that, I still am not sure whether engineering is really my thing!
)The session was however punctuated with slap-stick humour, which they cracked at each other every now and then. The ‘gen gap’ dint prevent us ‘new age folks’ from roaring with laughter along with the people of the 70’s. I never really thought I could laugh at the jokes of my dad’s gen. Damn! I wish my mom had studied in the same college too…could have heard some of their classified stories
The concert wasn’t all that boring either… Gradually my mind drifted to my 30 yrs down the lane…How would it be like? This reunion started by paying homage to 2 of their batch mates who were taken from this world in a span of 30 years.…We’ll definitely have that part, because hardly 3 yrs into the course, and we’ve already lost 2 of our batch mates……..Coming to the brighter side…How many of the ‘college-couples’ will remain couples for life? Will our old pranks which we played on each other be remembered then? Will our children too, have the narrow vision which confines them to the engg/med field?…Wont we let them venture and explore the world of fashion, literature, art and philosophy? Will our children say the same thing about us as we do? Will our current hip songs which we consider with high regards be dumped and labeled as ‘BORING’ by the next gen? Little surprise in that, even if they do…cos that’s how it has been, that’s how it is now, that’s how it will be.
Or wham! Will nothing sort of this ever happen? Will we be too busy with our own selfish lives and be shrouded from the outside world, that we wouldn’t even be able to chip in enough time for such reunions?
To all 3rd yrs…....Four years of fun and joyful college life comes to an end next year. There after no silly jokes in the middle of classes, no stupid fights, no sleeping in the class, no roaming about in the campus …so friends, forget the little fights and misunderstandings and enjoy the next 3 sems! We came with the fear of not knowing anybody …but we will go with tears after knowing everybody…that’s college life
PS:This post was written a few weeks back when vacations started. Now at the fag end of the holidays, I quite regret what I had said about the vacations, for soon I will be longing for those blissful boring days once the sem starts
