There was a time when I was completely disconnected and even lost. I was out of touch, rather chose to be, with my school friends. School, the wonder years, was just a lost memory until I created a WhatsApp group to connect, after 22 years.
It all started with this school friend whom I owned a long-pending apology. She came to Mumbai and we met. I asked for forgiveness and was granted one. She expressed her interest to meet more friends from school. By this time, I’d already created this group with a couple of friends. After her permission, I added her but she’d been continuously talking about this particular name which seemed familiar — Vinay Jain.
I found him out through Facebook and connected with him. I messaged him and to my surprise, Vinay recognized me immediately — even after a gap of 22 years. We spoke for a while; about good old times and a wonderful present. He reminded me of something I did to him in the last year of school that he couldn’t forget.
Nope! We weren’t homosexual.
There was some visual communication exchanged that became a sweet-bitter memory. After the conversation, I added him to the group, and to my surprise, within no time he added almost half the school in the group.
This man, my old friend, has a phenomenal Hippocampus. The bugger knows the whole class of 1995. This man not only has an exceptional memory but also has a magical connection with all of them to date.
Vinay isn’t only an exceptional human being but also quite kind, compassionate, and loving. He’s like an Oracle of the group — he almost knows it all. Everyone is so comfortable with him and we all love him very much. He’s the one who has connected me — like Einstein’s field theory — to my lost universe, lost time, and wonderful years.
Recently, he used his innovative design thinking to create a quiz that brought all of us together at the same time on chat. The unleashed fond memories that got buried inside us in the race of life.
I’m glad to be connected to such angels in this lifetime. He has worked as one of the top employees of huge corporations but yet he’s so humble and simple, accompanied by this magic friend — his son Arjun.
Beautifully expressed!!!