Tempus fugit. I recently connected with mates from my high school in India, St. Maria Goretti, after five decades. You heard that right, 50 years. Like the Brahm Kamal or the Queen of Cereus that blooms overnight only to be gone the next morning, my Gorettian friends rise when it is time for me to retire. As disparate atoms in the digital diaspora, we chatter; sometimes there is lack of emotional draw and then thereafter, laughter and hilarity. I have the autonomy to disappear into the dead of the night as their echoes rise to a crescendo and they, on their tilt, have the liberty to do likewise. Time zones create space as the earth twirls on its axis debuting the song of the morning thrush or echoing the hoot of the night owl!
The memories are vague and sometimes resurface as altered perceptions. In an effort to fill gaps, brains recreate, embellish, or seek assistance from others. Some in the group I knew as classmates, while others I remember as silhouettes. Accepting all, I slowly endeavor to understand them through what they choose to share. Their lives - trials and tribulations that have challenged their resilience as human beings, joys and experiences that have molded them into good, kind souls, and even deserted expanses of time that remain a blank slate in the memory bank - embody meaning. As observers or participants, we stitch our stories together into a telltale quilt sewn in pandemic confinement. Friends and acquaintances who came unseen and unannounced a couple months ago are joined in unison to keep alive the memory of school days, however short lived their association with St. Maria Goretti.
For those who've experienced reunion, the powerful sentiment of something lost then found may be familiar. But for those who cannot relate, I only ask that you imagine seeing and hearing people’s stories after five decades in absentia. Half of us have lived and left, and the other half is scrambling to make the remaining decades count twofold!
Just as The Queen of Cereus reveals its medicinal powers high on the Himalayas each night, so the image of it blooming in the city gardens of old friends reminds us of the healing power of reunion. I painted the queen on cotton rag cold pressed watercolor paper as a tribute to the missed decades with compadres.
It's never too late to receive kind words from friends, Rajeev. The pictures of the Brahm Kamal from your garden were an agent of mental transportation to my 1973 trek to the Valley of Flowers en route from Hemkunt Sahib and Badrinath. That was the last time I had seen these large white blooms; and then five decades later your outreach helps reconnect school mates and you, incidentally, happen to grow them in your garden! Serendipitous. The desire to capture the flower in watercolor and our school reunification chatter resulted in my writing this piece. As I sorted my personal ambient and alien feelings to the possibilities of transitioning from the world as we knew it to this digital reunification,…
Hi Dilmit. I sure am a late reponder because I have only today learnt how to comment on a blog. Simple it is; unbeknown to me it was.
It is wonderfully sweet of you to put in so much life and eternity into the flower which we proudly raised in our garden for the first time this year.
What you have written using the Brahmkamal both as a trigger and the focal point, so beautifully describes the ethos of the Gorettians group, sharing their experiences of half a century during a phase of mutual disconnect and memories more than half a century old of joyous togetherness.
Adorable painting. 🧑🎨
Spellbinding writing. ✍️
I am on the same journey of rediscovering batchmates in three continents from my Master's program, sharing our lives thru Bollywood songs. Your masterful pen and paint brush evoke in me the desire to sing 'Ajnabi tum jaane pehchaane se lagte ho' (Stranger, you look familiar to me) and 'Duniya jise kahte hain, jadoo ka khilona hai; mil jaaye to mitti hai, kho jaaye to sona hai (Life is a magical toy; (useless) grit when you have it, (priceless) gold when you lose it)!
Thanks, Bani. I enjoyed working on it and am happy to hear that it has brought joy to the group. :)
I see and hear your passion for art and literature, Anant. Thank you :)