Phir milenge

Rama, Radha, Tushar and Rahul were bosom friends.

Tushar and Rahul were brothers and neighbors of Rama and Radha. Rama, Radha were of the same age, Tushar one year older and Rahul was 3 years older to Tushar. They all stayed on same floor of the same building. They celebrated every festival together, also fought with each other bitterly and it was also true that they couldn't stay without talking to each other for more than 2 hours.

Tushar and Rahul were Tamilians, Rama and Radha spoke Marathi. But language was never a barrier in their friendship. Tushar and Rahul spoke excellent Marathi, being born and brought up in Mumbai. Rama and Radha loved the food which Tushar's mom made and Tushar, Rahul and Radha savored the food made by Rama's grandmother. Rama's grandmother was a kind soul and she treated Rama's friends as her grandchildren. She narrated stories to them, made them sweets for special occasions and also gave them a good hearing when they were wrong.

These 4 kids played cards together, also played snakes and ladders, business game and they were equally active in playing outdoor games like hide and seek, badminton, "sonsakhaLi", "Vish amrut", "dabba ais pais" (the games in inverted commas are local games, am not sure if there is an equivalent word in English for them.). Tired and dirty, all rushed to Rama's house to drink cool sherbat kept ready by her grandmom. They all went to different schools. 2 brothers went to the same school, obviously. Girls loved their studies and boys were more attracted to outdoor games and activities in school. But still they all fared well in studies. Tushar and Rahul often got scolding from their mom. But boys will always be boys, won’t they??

Radha's parents were teachers and she also had a younger sister, who was very small. They all played with her and took care of her. Suddenly Radha broke the news that her family will be moving out as they have bought a new house on the outskirts of the city. It was a big bungalow, an independent house and with a heavy heart, Radha bid farewell to her best friends. She couldn't imagine her life without her 3 friends. Rama was feeling lost for many months together, she thought some part in her had gone far away from her. Slowly with time, the wound of separating from her best friend healed, but she never found another Radha. Rahul and Tushar got busy with studies and slowly started remaining aloof.

Rama, Tushar and Rahul were still neighbours. They remained in touch for years to come. But Radha lost touch with all the people of her first association. Rama and Radha passed their SSC, HSC and then did their separate careers. After their SSC in 1995, Radha had come to give sweets to Rama, but they both sat looking at each other like complete strangers. And then they did not meet each other or speak with each other till Mark Zuckerberg intervened.

Yes, just as the magical world of Facebook was thrown open to the whole world and helped hundreds and thousands of people to find their long lost friends, relatives, buddies on this social platform, so did Facebook reunite these girls. Rama and Radha still remembered the good old times they had spent together and they searched for each other on FB for many years, but in vain.

Finally in 2010, Radha managed to find Rama on Facebook and her joy knew no bounds. Rama was her friend’s pet name and her real name in school and on the social platform was something else. Radha managed to find Rama with her unique surname and then all the details of Rama helped Radha identify her lost friend. Rama was overjoyed to find a mail in her mailbox from Radha and all the past days flew before her eyes in a flash. She was happy to know that Radha was settled in Australia with her husband and two kids and she would be visiting India shortly. They both longed to see each other. So much had happened in between. Rama herself was married, happily settled with a kid, had a great career and was going places. Tushar had settled in Mumbai itself and was expecting his first child. Sadly Rahul was not in this world owing to the failure in academics. Rama, Radha and Tushar would definitely miss their 4th buddy all their life, no matter they get other friends. Rama wanted to tell Radha everything that happened in the past years.

Destiny – It is called. It so happened that Radha got transferred to the same city where Rama was settled and they decided to meet up. Radha turned up with her mom, her sister and her daughter and Rama’s parents, grandmother were also there with her. It was a historic meet and they both were overwhelmed. They hadn’t imagined that they would be able to see each other again and in this way, in a city, where they hadn’t thought of settling down in the future. Both the families were overjoyed with this re-union and they talked about how life was good, easy and enjoyable that time and how now there is lot of money, but no time for each other.

Yes, time changes, so does the life of people. But one thing never changes, that is the love between friends. Rama and Radha met after almost 17 years, but the love and the bond was still strong. I think it was due to their prayers, yearning and blessings of God that Radha and Rama finally got to see each other. Now they promised each other that they won’t lose touch and will keep each other abreast of all the happenings in each others lives. Meeting physically may or may not be possible very soon, but yes virtually they will always keep in touch.

So friends, cheers to the bond of friendship, cheers to Rama and Radha and god bless them with many more years of each other’s company!