Wonder Years or Wonder, Years? – (I)

I was talking to my friend the other day, we had a decent discussion and I was amused to realize a fact that we were talking about some of our teen wonders! It looks so far away! May be wisdom stuck us so early. On one end it is beautiful to realize that we developed the maturity to reason and understand life much better than what we did at that time. However, on the other end, it was hard to accept the fact that we lost the formula to enjoy the trivial things in life. May be we don’t have time! Or may be we know too much now! Ignorance was certainly bliss!

The funny fact is that, sometimes, when we don’t have something, we try and try to posses it and once we acquire it, it would not be as enjoyable as we once thought. On the other hand, from one perspective you can make it enjoyable as we progress! Maturity and reasoning is of that kind, when I was young, without my realization, I was fighting my way through to get rid of the kiddo feeling. Once I got through it, it’s impossible to get that back.

As for me, making friends was always easy, but the process was much enjoyable then than now. There were no hurdles to pass through then; acceptance was prevailing when evaluation was demoralized. The present days are aligned with unintentional and unstoppable habits like judgmental, evaluating phases!

In one of those blank moments, I thought of those few people I grew up with, those now-so-stupid memories and where they are! Well, it’s been an awesome journey and one can’t rule the world much better than how we did then. So, in the series of what I call (and we know) ‘Wonder Years (WY)’, which might come up every now and then in my blogs, I thought of glorifying our moments of stupidity and remember them once in a while!

It was during the start of my 3rd year of engineering, I used to shuttle from Chidambaram to Chennai every weekend (to get rid of the (pea)nutophobia)! Guna and myself were planning to drain our brain to the States then. So we were in the initial steps of the passport application formalities!

Rangaswamy studio, Mylapore. If you had ever been to this place, you would definitely corroborate my conclusions! Once you are there, it’s almost impossible to control those laughter releasing natural tranquilizers, pain relievers and endorphins. Especially, after seeing their enormous network display, from S.Ve Shekhar to Riskshaw Maari.

“Machi! What pictures da..? Comedy! May be they will hang ours right after we take our passport pictures!” I was expecting the photographer to show his skills.

“We will see! No matter what…the camera won’t lie mame!” Guna was well within his own world of reality.

Rangaswamy Jr., took us in to the studio, we were in our usual dresses and posing as normal as ever, without realizing the fact that the picture was going to stay with us for atleast a decade from then. Two clicks for each of us was on! The pictures were due to be collected the Wednesday from then. So it was unsaid that Guna was going to collect it and I was going to get it from him the following weekend.

A week went by with my train and his bus adventures! A Saturday was waiting for me to realize the reality.

Knock! Knock!

“Machi, we need to apply for our passport next week! Anyways, did you get the pics from the studio?” there was certainly some electron transfer to transpire my excited state!

Guna with his unusual sorry face turned in my pictures!

Rangaswamy Jr., was definitely not P.C.Sriram, but was skilled enough to replicate reality! It was a total shocker! I looked like an AIDS patient and Guna’s look was competing with a Con as well as an Autodriver!

“Ot*a! Om**la! Enna yezhavu da idhu! (WTF)! How can this be so damn miserable!?! Impossible!” Reality was not easy to accept!

“Yes, Mamse…do you still think that these pictures will be hanging outside the studio or a few buildings along in the E-1 police station!” Guna seemed to have gone through cribbing part already!

I was curious, was looking at all angles in my own perceptional Santhosh Sivan that always showed me what I wanted to see! The Mirror! Well, reality seemed to sink in then!

“Machan, we are’nt this bad da…what happened to the other pic! He took two snaps did’nt he?” was trying in vain!

“Mams, if you are so damn curious now, imagine my level when I saw the picture right outside the studio. As a matter of fact, I asked him about the other picture! He took a deep breath and patted on my shoulder and said Buddy! You did not see the other picture; if you had you wouldn’t have been asking this question to me now”

We certainly did not have words after that! All we could do was roll on the floor and laugh and make sure no one else sees that picture!

Gunasekhar Natrajan! We still talk once in a while, when he is staying Sleepless in Seattle. The irony is that, right now, his Meg Ryan is Bill Gates!

I still see that picture almost every semester start! Its smiling from my passport, portraying that ‘looks are the last thing that matters’ at the least for my girl it has to be the last thing! May be I should scan that and post it once!

I know this incident certainly doesn’t reflect what I was trying to convey in the first paragraph! But what I realize is “On the other hand, from one perspective you can make it enjoyable as we progress!” statement is very true or I would like atleast to make it so. Great friends and great memories are almost similar, you don’t lose them anytime. The best part is that, both stays there forever waiting for you to be touched and realized. The funny part is that we don’t communicate frequently with the few best friends that we have in our life, and it doesn’t matter! As long as you realize it that no matter when, where and how, its there waiting for us! And once in a while it needs to be touched and realized. Doesn’t matter how frequently you do it but how true you are when you do it is more important than any other thing!