Nostalgic escape

It is amusingly difficult to predict what flowers a child walking in a garden might pluck? Its the same with memory... we can never say what is picked and stored away in the pages of our lives as treasures. We might forget hours, days and years, but we remember some moments. Life gives us brief moments with another... but sometimes in those brief moments, we get memories that lasts a lifetime.

It is when you suddenly meet a good old friend briefly that you realize that distances never separate hearts that care. Getting back in touch with Tanuja and Indu most recently on Orkut brought back a rush of sweet memories from Alliance days. They were not colleagues but friends. Guess me being the extremely serious kind and them being extremely jovial and carefree brought a rush of lightness in my life.

My sister Priya and Vishnu making us go red with embarrassment as they had fun at our expense in the office lobby, group lunches :), the potluck every afternoon, long discussions, serious work... Mme Ashok - the terror and the perfectionist :), Anthony, Lakshmamma, the other colleagues, Mme Dargnies, Mme et M Faucher... all perfect memories... it was a great place to work. Sigh! It was not work... it was having fun at work. It was like my second home. The parties, dinners, flights to Delhi... always a festive mood... and all the fun people!!! So many people, that its almost impossible to write down all the names... A close network...all bound by the love of a language, a culture... the French! :)

""Back on its golden hinges
The gate of Memory swings,
And my heart goes into the garden
And walks with the olden things.""

Time goes by so fast, people go in and out of your life. But every memory of friendship shared is like a shower of rain refreshing the earth. Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, all the things you never want to lose.

One of the things i would like to do is a reunion with all my friends - from School, college, Alliance and Paris... seems like an impossible dream...everybody is scattered all over :) but someday years from now, we'll sit beside the candles glow,
exchanging tales about our past, laughing as the memories flow, and when that distant day arrives, we'll rediscover a most beautiful discovery that friends can grow separately without growing apart.

Do we know when we are making a memory? Life brings us simple pleasures and it is upto us to make them wonderful memories. There's a world of wisdom in our personal stories. Your life is a legacy, a gift that only you can give.