After Thirteen Years

It was a euphoric feeling for me on Saturday. I met one of my childhood friends (Balaji) after a span of thirteen years. He is elder to me by a year. I used to spend most of my childhood times in his house. The entire road side crickets, seven stones, pattam, etc with him and other friends are still evergreen.

I did my schooling in Coimbatore till my seventh standard. I along with my parents lived in a quarters (House no. B 11) in Coimbatore. Balaji with his elder brother Anand and his parents lived in the house opposite to that of mine till my second standard (B 12). Their family was very close to our family (including my uncles and aunts).Then later moved to B4 in same quarters. During my fifth standard Balaji's family moved out of Coimbatore to Trichy and during my eighth standard I moved to Pondicherry. After that, all along I never met him and hardly spoke to him. In between his parents had been to my house in Pondicherry twice. Last week, Balaji who now is a marketing executive in HLL had been to Pondicherry. He got my contact number through my parents and he called me last Wednesday. I was really surprised by the call. We decided we will meet during the weekend as he was also planning to visit his parents in Chennai during the weekend. I met him in Kodambakkam and then moved to his house in Tambaram. After reaching his house, I tasted his mother's recipe after a long time. His mother was mocking me with all the silly things that I used to do when I was a kid. I was surprised when she was able to ask me about each of my uncle and aunt and also about their children (I have about 20 uncles and aunts). We spoke about incidents that happened in the quarters and about the people who lived in the quarters. A different and lovely weekend on the whole.