A Precious Sapling

A Voice from the past

The other day,  being my birthday, my school friend Bula called up from the US   to greet me. Her relief was apparent." I have been trying desperately to reach you", she said. " Luckily you responded to my post on Facebook  with your phone number. I badly wanted to talk to you. A busy doctor in the US, she had  been trying to reach me at my old landline which had been defunct for some time now. It has been almost six years since we had discovered each other as well as many others on Social media but with our mutual daily grinds, we had little time to catch up. But still she remembered her old school chum and had gone to considerable trouble to touch base with her. At the end of our conversation, she promised to look me up when she visited Bangalore

   That touched me. Here was somebody from my distant childhood who wanted to nurture an old sapling of friendship. When you are over the hill, every passing birthday is a mere reminder of yet another year forever sliding into the pages of History, yet another wrinkle that is waiting to appear or a crease furrowing the forehead.  A time like the beginning of a New Year to ponder on the the past and wait for the future to unfold.The small joys and thrills of schoolgirlish  pursuits, absurdly silly pranks have been deleted into an unerasable past by one single key of adulthood. A distant perhaps fading memory of a distant childhood in a distant city where childish promises of friendship were made only to be forgotten in the ceaseless grind of building up one's life and career. That is how generations have lived and will continue to live in the future because that is the order of life and there can be no exception. In your middle age, when greetings pour in from friends on personal occasions like birthdays and anniversaries, remember that your day is made in more sense than one. It's time to waft guiltlessly and luxuriously into the fragrances of a carefree glorious childhood and be rejuvenated by the emotions of unconditional love and acceptance. Bula's call and warm wishes  from other friends brought us closer though we may live oceans apart. A caring thought and a warm gesture- surely the best Birthday Gift one could wish for !