With a sense of anticipation that kept growing with the passing time, I got into the taxi at Chennai Airport. It was the evening of the 14 August 2009. Twenty-five years had passed since the 77 batch had stepped out of Thanjavur Medical College (TMC). After that, we first met ten years ago; and then every two years. However, now we had prepared well for this meet. We had traced out a record number of hundred and twenty classmates in ten years. Though, I was savoring such eager moments before a batch meet for the fifth time, there was still a specialty about the present one. For, tonight was the eve of the Silver Jubilee meet of our good old batch mates of TMC.
An SMS from Augustus, in the afternoon alerted me that Muthukumar, Kandaswamy and a handful of our classmates had reached the venue and begun the non-stop fun. Moreover, this year’s get together was special for we were all gathering at our alma mater, to see our old college, and relive, refurbish those old memories, with news, and updates from as many friends and their loved ones.
Sarvanan had asked me to join him in a train that left a half-hour after the time I was arriving at Chennai. However, memories of a previous year’s meet, when I hurried from the airport direct to Tambaram station by a local train and got into the express one just in time as it was leaving the station, made me decline his offer.
So, now I was stopping over at Dr. Bhavani’s place in the center of the city for the night of 14 July 2009. Bhavani and Pichai are very good hosts. Bhavani had a spacious flat, a good clientele in her practice, while her daughter had just left to US for her studies, just a few days ago. We sat chatting of old times, till Pichai went off to sleep.
A good sleep punctuated by a midnight thundershower, vague dreams of Sunder Raj, in whose house I had been in UK, same time last August, and probably because he was not attending this meet, found me fresh despite the drizzle from cloudy skies at dawn. The customary prayer at the local temple, ritual smashing of coconuts, and with a steady droll of Sanskrit slokas, Pitchai is sending the big car at a good speed over the wet city roads.
Hot Tamil Nadu breakfast at a popular eatery near Chingelpettu, could not have been more welcome, after all the Delhi cusine. Once again Pichai takes the wheel. PGS short for Dr. P. G. Sankarnarayanan, now Chief of a Medical Unit in TMC, catches me on the mobile phone, asking where we have reached. I disclose our location and he estimates that it would be around Lunch only that our car would be reaching Thanjavur. Accordingly, he informs that as the inaugural part would be over, could we try to speed up and catch the last part at least. I reply that we will try our best. We also hear from him of the minor accident involving the vehicle in which Dr. Ashok Kumar and Seetha were travelling in the night before a couple of hours after it left Nagercoil. Moreover, he updated us that Seetha and Ashok Kumar would not be attending.
The towns on the route, the quaint brick and tile houses, the river-bank settlements, ancient temples, mangroves, the fish sold on the road side, the narrow roads, wove up a kaleidoscope of memories for me. Woven into this rich tapestry were the numerous distributaries of the Cauvery river that we crossed by weirs, regulators, check dams, or sometimes skirting its fringe as the car sped over roads that were as serpentine as the river.
Bhavani’s feels uneasy and is dropped of at her house in Thanjavur. It is around Lunch that we finally turn into the first gate of TMC. We are there before I realize it! Pitchai drops me off in the college. PGS, Neels and the reception is at the front of the auditorium to see off the last of the teachers. So, the inaugural as expected has just got over and the children’s programme starts as I walk in. Not wanting to create a stir, I slip in. Those who see me wave, come up and enquire why I am late. I explain the confusion of not realizing Friday the 14 as a Holiday. It is good to see everyone. Tamilchelvan, and his son, then Ganesan, Mohandass, the whole of Nagercoil gang whom we fondly call as ‘Kattu Gumbal’ vernacular for the ‘wild crowd’. Sarvanan, Karthi, Muthu, Bala, Gigi, Patricia, Niaz, Rathinam, TRPS, Berylson, Agustus, and everyone else we are happy to meet.
The sterling performance of Subini’s teenage daughters dancing and swirling in unison, wins more appreciation as they learnt all the nuances of classical Indian dance, down under in Sidney. On the stage, the performances seem to be getting better, for there is one by Ravindranath’s daughter. The children’s performance over, there is the medley rendering of our first year’s orientation pop songs by Ravindranth, his son Varun, Agusutus, Gigi and Karthi. I am sure Karthi who was high enough missed a few beats. However, none of us mind, as we are hearing the musical mix more for its reminiscence. My partner Manohar’s son, provides a solo performance.
There is an extempore introductions and it is more for those who are coming to the reunion for the first time. We all troop out for the group photo. I find that Karthi is missing, and there is long wait for him. When he finally dashes in, he spreads himself on the floor, as that is the only place left.
Lunch is sumptuous, filling, tasty, and much appreciated. PGS later told me that more than a hundred and fifty had taken lunch!
Pitchai had said that he had liked the informality as well as that there hardly was any program for these reunions. Everyone takes off after lunch on a sight seeing tour of their old haunts around college. Karthi takes me in his car around the college portico, and the round tana. We stand where the marath-adi had once been and look at the roads diverging to the House of Lords, the hospital, the college and to the ladies house surgeon’s quarters, in front of the canteen. Everything is different. A quick pass over Hostel Cauvery, Skylark, Paragon, the Basket ball court, the Pavilion, and finally a long break for a detailed tour of Hostel Fleming. The occupants, the incidents, and the stories of Rooms 201 A, 203, 206, 207, are retold in detail to Anu, Uma, Kannan’s wife by Karthi, Kanan and me. Similarly, for the 303, 307, series and then to the rest rooms, the office, the reading room, and the series of rooms in 135, 127 all holding troves of memories.
The mess, is the most disappointing. Either we have been used to better eating places after we passed out and forgotten how we lived earlier in TMC or the place had slipped to worse.
Over then to Hostel Paradise, where selfishly, I proceed to where I had been and look for the swastika that Rafique, Shafi and Sheshadri (RSS) had put up on the front door of the room they had stayed in. Time has rubbed it away.
It is a drive back through the town to the resort, in Kannan’s car. We stop by the river for a few snaps. The resort plumb on the bank is inviting. The sun is declining, but the meet has a break for the evening when we all check in and relax. I head to the pool for a swim.
The sun is sinking, there is going to be a long night of drink, dine, and dance. The TMC meet the very synonym for fun is just about to begin…
