I meet school friends intermittently whenever I come to Sangli. I make it a point to meet atleast some during each visit. (Though I meet Pavan everytime I come) However, I happen to meet about 3 or 4 at max together. I do not meet all of them together. This was the first time around 11 of us met together after the school got over (after 9 years) all thanks to Shigen, Gaurav and Vishwanath for taking the initiative.
It felt great to meet everyone after such a long gap. Some of us looked the same (me included) and some of us had completely transformed into a new individual altogether. Some of us have now been married and a lucky one even has a kid. We had a chat for around 2 hours where we talked about all the major events happened at school and it was surprising that I wasn't a part of any, barring one incident of standard 4th. I found that there were some of us had a gala time at school harrassing the officials of the school and troubling the Principal of our school. Looking back I find that those pranks which I considered useless at that time made me laugh heartily tonight. We recalled most of our batchmates and our crushes at that time, had some pizza and lots of sandwitches. Finally, we talked what each one of us is doing with our lives and our future plans.
After coming back home, when I started to think about the life of each one of us, a strange feeling has gripped me. Most of my friends have either joined their fathers' business and have expanded their fathers business to a diffeent field. A friend whose father traded tyres has started a cafe at prime location of the city. Another one whose father has several factories has started a saree shop which sells high end sarees only. Another friend has expanded his fathers wholesale wheat trading business to a multi-distributor business. He now acts as a distributor to Wipro products, Vodafone products and a host of other major products in Sangli district. All of the above weren't very bright at studies in school. Yet, they have made the best of whatever they had and are now shoulder to shoulder with their fathers.
And here I am - still studying or trying to study and who is not clear what he wants to do in the future. I am in no position to overtake my fathers consulting firm (My brother who will do that hopefully and thankfully).
All I am going to gain after studying for so many years away from family is a job that too in some city that is not Sangli. : (
Out of the whole lot in school, I obtained decent enough marks to make it to UICT and then the journey to Herdillia and SCMHRD. Sometimes I feel that in case I had not obtained those marks, I would have been doing something here in Sangli like my friends with a certainity of what I would be doing in future.
Yet, I feel that I am so lucky to have experienced staying away from family, knowing a lot of new people from different corners of the country and learning a lot from them too. [Contradictory feelings together]
Hopefully, I soon figure out a right strategy in my life, get a decent enough job and eventually come back to Sangli with my own firm or a factory - with my school friends.
Wishing everyone a very happy Diwali and a Happy New Year.
