From my school days - Final part

Ramu was from the state next to ours. He used to speak in English most of the time during classes. We weren't sure whether it was because he wasn't comfortable with the regional language or due to his practice in earlier school. In our school, though the rule was to speak in English all the time, nobody paid a scant regard to it. Only thing beneficial out of it was, teachers used to collect a fine of Rs.1 everytime they caught us conversing in the regional language.

All our teachers pointed Ramu as an example and asked us to speak in English like he did. As majority always wins, we made him talk in the regional language like all of us did ;). Other thing about Ramu was he was very interested in Maths among other subjects. He used to keep working on amateurish vedic mathematics during those days, tricks to quickly multiply numbers and similar things.

As we got along with each other, I started visting Ramu at his house during weekends or holidays. We started spending a lot of time together and all three of us bonded into a close unit. And it continued this way till the end of our tenth grade. After that, we decided to pursue further education in a different school. Due to a gap in communication during the long holidays and due to different advices from relatives and friends, Naresh and I ended up in different schools for the next year. With that, our wonderful 4 years together came to a temporary halt. Ramu joined the same school as I did and at least I had one known friend in my new school.

From that point till date, each of our lives have run in different directions. Each of us took a diverse path in our career and life. During this time, we came across a lot of new friends during our college days and we got introduced to each others' friends. Sure, we added a one or two to our close gang, to write about them, will be a blog for another day. And though its been nearly 5 years since all three of us met, we keep in touch through occasional conference calls. None of us are in our home country now, and our trips to our homes don't seem to overlap at all. But, I am sure the day will come when we will get a chance to remember, rejoice and re-live those fun filled memories.

Yours

Vj