The phone rang. It brought a smile to my face. It was a very close friend of mine who got married about a year back. I still cant digest it!!!!maybe shes teh first one to get married amongst us so we are finding it difficult to take itWe hadn’t been in touch since I came to DC. She had called up to wish me Diwali. It felt great. Diwali is something, for me, that over the years had lost its charm. The Diwali I celebrated as kid was nowhere to be seen. Diwali shopping was full of ethnic clothes. Now, its just another shopping spree. So I never indulged myself in it.
But this time it was different. I am in a place where the only festival to celebrate is Christmas. Diwali is not even known. I used to feel Diwali means nothing to me. But not this around. It means a hell lot to me. All these years, I dint celebrate it but was always amongst those who took it seriously. My father, my friends, my neighbors and so somehow or the other I indirectly celebrated it. This year there was nothing of such chaos. No sweets coming home. No guests. No wishes. No sms’s from long lost friends. That’s when I realized, how much I miss Diwali.
I used buy crackers worth thousands every year. New clothes, shoes school bags and what not. But since I stopped celebrating Diwali, I never missed it until this year. This year is different. I am missing it and badly, that too. I want some excitement around. I want kids waiting for evening to come so that they can burst crackers. I want to wait for the evenings to see beautiful lights outside the balconies. I want to stand in my own balcony, with smooth air and watch a beautiful lighted city. When you look at those lights with alternating on-off or various designs, you get a feeling the whole world is so happy. I wish I could do all that. But I am not and I cant.
Coming back to the phone call. We shouted a big HI!!! Damn, I was so excited after such a long time. It felt nice to even get excited now-a-days. We wished each other Diwali and New Year. And then the usual talks, “how am I settling in?”, “how is the studies?” and then I again got that feeling, “She really got married!!!”. That’s what I was telling her. It has been one hell of a year. Lots of things changed over this one year. Exactly a year back I started blogging and wrote the Viva Goa post. Its a year since we went to that beautiful, first and last, etched in memories forever trip to Goa. But it felt more than a year. All of us had changed. More mature, more busy into career. I crib about it quite a lot, but I know I am the one who has changed the most of all.
We always went for coffee’s and movies and we never had to make any plans. It happened in a jerk.. A few fone calls and there we are, sitting in a theatre watching a pathetic movie and cracking jokes. And now, here we are. A few have families to look after, responsibilities to bear. We have to decide like a week in advance that we will be meeting for a coffee. Play Tom & Jerry over phones. When u call up I am busy, when I call up u r busy. No more Sunday 8 am shows. No more going to sea face every weekend. No more 7248. She is in a completely diff phase of life. But at least we others are not. We talk over the phone whenever time permits. Still keep in touch. Still call each other by the names we always used to. But there is no more the crazy stuff that we did. No more overnights. No more Birthday’s known surprises.
It feels like “Am I getting old?”
But there is one thing to it. All of us are happy I am sure. Nobody is regretting anything. I am having a ball of a time, studying, earning, playing soccer, partying. All of us having great time in their own life. Just that we miss THOSE days. And would love to have times like that when life permits. And that’s the reason why I say again,
“Are we getting old?”….. “Really getting old?”
