We have already split - each one his or her different way. We are already scattered. Like dry leaves from an old tree with nothing to hint our connectivity. As the wind strengthens, it will take us on new adventures to explore new worlds. Some will settle down in their niche while others will be carried away to cross further distances. Irrespective of how it seems to the outside world, we know we belong to the same old tree………..

I am writing this, one hot afternoon, alone at home. I have given my CLAT (and I don’t want to talk about it!). I open my school album and look at my class pictures right from class III up to my class XII. Most faces I remember. I am ashamed to realize with horror that some faces I have forgotten (I know, I am such a bad classmate!!). Looking back, I have absolutely no idea how I ended up here. I mean I still vividly remember my first day at school (12 years, 8 schools!!! Beat that, buddy!!!)

They say that the friends you make during your school years are the most trustworthy and ever-lasting. We never actually appreciate our friends when they hang out with us every day- in class, during lunch breaks, near the canteen, on the football grounds. But now that schooling is over, now that everyone is already gone, now that we are all alone, with no friends to call and gossip in the pretext of asking doubts, no parties to attend, no more private jokes… we truly realize the void they create in our life when they are absent. This is the crossroad that I am presently standing at. My only comfort is, it’s not just me but the millions of teenagers who just graduated from high school…

True friends are those who point out your faults not because they like to get you upset but because it pains them more than it pains you when you fall. They are those unknown forces who compel you to do your work because ultimately you will succeed. And when you succeed, they do too. They are those who ask your help without a hint of inferiority making you feel that you belong to them, loved and cared. Those who say ‘1 sec’ and make you wait for a lifetime (I had plenty of those!). Those who finish your snacks even before you get a glimpse of it and ask you shamelessly to bring the same thing again tomorrow (my friends, for some weird reason, were in love with my mother’s culinary skills).

My group of friends... Well we were just out of the world (all half mad and completely dumb!!). We have screamed our hearts out for every single football match. We paint our faces red, blow trumpets and invent new clap patterns. We all enjoyed every moment of schooling with the fierce spirit of belonging to one another. My friends had the freedom to flick chocolates from my pocket and offer me a tiny piece (Yup! I had truly caring friends). My friends had the freedom to make random phone calls at really odd times and say “Sup, dude?” Sometimes I feel that we wouldn’t stop enjoying our lives even if the world came to an end!!! But hey, we were truly responsible when we were expected to be. In fact I can proudly say that our gang had the Midas touch. Every year there would be a masterpiece from our side in the exhibition. We were the sort of friends who don’t know why we started laughing, so we laugh even harder.

When I finally announced that I wanted to be a lawyer, my friends were really encouraging - "You do hard core science for two long years and chose LAW? I knew it from the beginning, YOU ARE MAD!!" But ultimately, they all agreed it would be for the best.

Years from now, when we are all strewn in different parts of the world, each one with a different job, with a different lifestyle, with an entirely different look, it is probably then that we will cherish the little jokes we played on each other, the petty fights we had, the stories we made up, the crushes we had...

Sometime later, when you look back you will find a lot of faces adorning your life journey. Some of them almost forgotten, some of them hated, some of them fresh and livid. Some other faces remembered with a hint of nostalgia and a sudden rush of longing.

Someday, when we are old and withered, looking out through the bedroom window, enjoying the breezy evening sans company, some of us will wish that we were that dare devil 18 year old student with our beloved gang of friends leading that life which once slipped through our fingers. That day, never for a nanosecond, should you feel that you missed out something, that you didn’t do what you wanted to, that you don’t have enough memories to keep your past alive…

So make good friends, realize how blessed you are to have a strong bond of friendship and make more memories because at the end of the day, what would we be without these flashes of memories?

The old tree, timeless and ageless will continue to bloom. Irrespective of how it seems to the outside world, we know we belong to the same old tree………..