On my way back from

Throughout my life, I have been to many cities. I have lived in over five and remember the life of about three.

Most of my schooling was done in a small township, so small that there was only one mall of note and only one theatre in the days. My school was the only ICSE board school and there were very few kids in each class. My class strength was about 30 by the time we entered grade 10. As for any school and highschoolers, the major concern was always who is dating whom, who wants to be what when they grow uo and who wants to marry what kind of a man/woman.

After my 10th, I moved to a different city for my 12th and later to a different one for my undergraduate and my masters. Naturally, I lost touch with most of my classmates and even my friends. I did keep in touch with a few, coincidentally they were those who had also left the city or even the country for their studies. It was via this network that I had been informed of the updates of everyone else. Most of these people were still in the same township, graduating and marrying.

I recently finished my masters and came back to this township with some work at hand. One of my old friends heard and asked me if I wanted to meet everyone. With my agreement, she arranged for a tiny reunion that around 15 of us agreed to attend.

I was obviously nervous to be meeting people that i hadnt wven spoken to in the last seven years, but most of all i was excited to see what we had all transformed into.

I reached the decided venue and everyone had already reached and were waiting on me to begin ordering food. I greeted all and sat down in the empty chair. I started to strike a conversation by asking everyone what they were currently doing in life. To my surprise, most of them were still pursuing their bachelor’s, which I later learned was due to the competitive exams. Funnily each added their life’s course with a nothing much and synchronisingly turned to one girl. As if on cue, she said “You know I got married” To this I could only respond with “okay?” I genuinely wanted to ask “what else” but her body language told me that was about it.

Everyone on the table and their attentions were fixed on what she had to say about married lufe and marriage.

This by itself is fine. You have all the right to opine that marriage is the biggest achievement. But as long as you keep this criteria to yourself. The next words she said prompted me to het up and leave the table immediately.

She had said “What losers are you guys that you couldn’t dind someone to marry yet”

LOSERS? COULDNT?

My face turned red out of second hand embarrassment because what do you mean someone is a loser because they HAVENT yet settled? Worst part was that everyone around her agreed in unison to her words.

This was a table filled with MBBS students, A law student, a published writer and a teacher.

Thats when I realised sometimes people who haven’t been around, do not grow.