Nostalgia Time

The work week that ended today has been a real tedious one. More than the work, the reason is the last weekend when I was on vacation with my College buddies (from Chicago) in Miami,FL. It was a wonderful trip - the snorkeling in the ocean, eating break-fast in the middle of the day with cock-tails made in Paradise, the Beach, And how can I not mention the second most beautiful thing about that beach. Those tanned "beauties" with only one piece of clothing on, is second only to the Beach as Beach itself was so beautiful. Add to that the feeling among us that probably this was last such get-together as bachelors.

Its no wonder that after a vacation like that I was sitting in my cube and thinking "what is the meaning of life?", "Where do we all come from?", "What is the use of life with out vacations like that?". Gradually, that feeling gave way to a feeling of nostalgia about days in Graduate school in Chicago and Engineering college back in India before that. Few key-strokes and right-clicks later, I was transported back in time to my beloved home town thanks to two posts in blogs from people went to same college as I did.

Having grown up in Hostels from a very early age, I have a load of my own Nostalgia about times and places other than my hometown and family. I came back to my hometown Hassan only for college. Its a strange and delightful feeling that I got from reading those two well written posts as their college town is my hometown and look at my hometown as I would look at the places I went to study. I haven't probably met these people and I think they are roughly talking about same time frame as my college days. But, I understand and remember what exactly they are talking about.

Those two posts put together, they get more fascinating for more reasons than I mentioned above. In Lakshmi's post she fondly remembers her days in Ladies hostel and her friends and all the girly (I don't mean to sound sexist which I am not) things. I also got the feeling that she is looking at those times through the present and how she endured it all.

Where as, Manoj's post is more about re-living the past and definitely on this side of the Ladies hostel compound. (he says..."oops !!! we dint have time to visit the LH … which was Mother of all temples of Worship…"...Good one!). He is very brief and remembers all the places (outdoors) that were his haunts and how little Hassan has changed since his time.

Isn't it amazing how we all look at past and think fondly of them even though at the time we thought of them as life's travails?