Then and now!

It was during the summer of 1998, Calcutta.

Two guys - about 20 years of age - perched on a railing bordering Minto Park, watching the busy traffic rush by, at the intersection of Loudon Street, Landsdowne Road and Lower Circular Road.

This was back when Calcutta summers were muggy, but bearable. It was sunny, the temperature was probably in the 90s.

They sat there in silence - if silence is possible at a busy intersection. Traffic rushing in from each direction, moving in rhythm to the play of the air horns that provided the tenor (taxis) and the base (big buses belching out black smoke and lumbering on), while the electric horns on the newer cars complemented with the alto and the soprano (the really fancy foreign cars). The traffic police stood in the middle of this din and conducted the smooth harmonic flow. But the two of them sat there in silence.

One of them, lets call him A, was back home from college after an amazingly unremarkable and completely forgettable semester, while the other, lets call him J, was bunking afternoon lab. at the local college that he was attending. They had gone to high school together and were good friends. Not long ago, after graduating from high school, their paths had diverged, but the friendship hadn't waned. Their circumstances had significantly changed, though. The flying colors that each had graduated with had faded to a very sad gray. The "we are winners" look was a shadow of its earlier self. The smiles had somewhat hardened - the perfect picture of disillusioned youth.

The question at hand was - now what?? Where were they headed? College seemed to be a bit of a drag for both and the road ahead seemed uncertain and chaotic. Hence the silent contemplation.

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11 years later - probably on the very same summer day, in another part of the world - a place where fall foliage is vibrant, winters are long and the light lingers late on summer evenings.

Scanning the morning news on the NYT webpage, A comes across the picture of a model in a pop-up advertisement. Reminds him of J. How odd - they hadn't spoken in over ten years. Indeed, their lives did diverge. The distance yawned, till each became a memory to the other. Till of course the errant ad. popped up.

A facebook search and a friend request followed.

Later in the afternoon - A was running through J's profile and his network. Photographs of old school buddies, wives, children - Both A and J seemed to have figured a way to navigate the last 11 years. The colors seemed to have returned - or at least they did not need them anymore. Instead they seemed to sport genuine smiles that said "Oh! Well - !?"

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The memory of that afternoon in Calcutta, 11 years ago remains vivid yet!