I had once remarked to a friend, “I wish life had a rewind button.” Last week, when I was back in my hometown Bilaspur for Diwali, I felt that my wish had almost come true.
Some of the happiest memories of my childhood emanate from the CMD College cricket grounds in Bilaspur, where I used to play cricket with my school mates. The cricket freak that I was (and still am). Nothing gave me greater pleasure than laying some bat on ball, and pursuing little cricketing rivalries with friends. Sadly, those fantastic cricketing contests ended along with my school days. So, did my contacts with most of my school mates.
Arbit Choudhury has given me a lot over the last one year. But perhaps Arbit’s most important contribution in my life so far was been his role in reuniting me with my old school mates.
Few months back, I was most wonderfully surprised to receive e-mails from 3 of my long lost school mates (one working in Bangalore, another in Pune, and the third studying in the US). All of them had received Arbit Choudhury forwards from somewhere, and remembered their old time buddy. I also got to know about the existence of a yahoo group, through which many of my school mates used to stay in touch with each other. Through this group, I was able to get in touch of many of my old pals, whom I had not seen for more than 7 years.
So, there we were again, same set of guys, enjoying the same game, as the same place, 7 years on. I soon realized, not much had changed, apart from our receding hairlines that is. We were still pulling each others legs, still fighting over each umpiring decision, and still doing wild jigs on winning.
As all of us retreated after the game, we resolved to be back at the cricket field the next time all of us are in Bilaspur. But I knew inside, this was a day unlikely to ever be repeated. Rarely, if ever, does one get a chance to relive the good times in his past. So, when you do get such a chance, you might as well enjoy it to the fullest.
3 comments:
Nice blog..enjoyed reading about your friend's filmy kahani...
@sanjukta,
thanks a lot.. it is funny how real life throws up incidents which are as, if not more, theatrical than reel life..
BTW.. i liked ur blog too..
Well ... the amount of time after which I am visiting ur blog speaks volumes how busy i ve been ,... and that too even though we talk on phone almost every week...
A nostalgic post ... I have this feeling that we should now start a system when the whole nation is on leave for 10 days in a year and everyone goes back to his/her hometown to enjoy old days.
I remember me going to Jabalpur with my father on some Diwali vacations when we would have all my father's friends, my uncles etc back in town and we did have Cricket Gatherings then...
I would really love to visit my old mohalla and play cricket on that narrow road where (even) I used to hit sixers and get the ball into my neighbours garden at evry 2nd ball :))
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