Meetups!

 Movies play a vital role in bringing change to society. They have the power to influence the people in different aspects. One such Malayalam movie is 'Classmates'. This Lal Jose creation walked the viewers back to their memory lane, and the movie-goers relived their campus lives. This was a harbinger to the Alumni meets! The first step to such meetups was collecting phone numbers of old classmates. The task is not so easy for the schoolers of the 20th century. The reason is that Reliance Mobile Company made the Rs. 99 scheme of GSM mobile phone facility only in the wake of the 21st century! 

The Whats App took over the whole world within a few years of its inception. It was the first place where meetups took their birth. Though collecting the contact numbers of the old-schoolers is quite a difficult task, creating a whats app group is easy. The more liberal the group admin is the faster the group grows stronger (the group coordinator has to be lenient enough to share his ‘administrator’ post with many). Once the group goes live Meetups are born. 

Meetups have resulted in refreshing long-lost friendships. Nostalgia is when shy and extrovert friends seem to have turned busy businessmen or HR managers. We may also find the first benchers serve their family as faithful wives and responsible and caring mothers to their ‘well brought up’ kids. These are the moments when we identify that not all weaknesses of childhood shall be carried forward to adulthood. 

Sometimes such meetups may also become a reason to dig up long-lost campus romances. The pairs of the olden times do cherish their old young days. This is indeed cherishable unless the sweet past paints the present bitterly. There had been a few such incidents reported in which a mother to three kids eloped with her lover of yesteryears who had a peaceful family life otherwise! Meetups shall not eat up the peaceful life one is into! 

Covid has not curbed the meet enthus. The last couple of years threw challenges before the whole world. It also included putting off tours and meets. Opportunists found online platforms as venue to revisit their childhood memories. Zoom, Duo and G Meet witnessed several of such sharing of friendship and fellowship. This is reminder that people always love for their being a child once upon a time. Meetups of old friends do bring excitement as each of them remains boy or girl while they are in the company of their classmates regardless of how old they are! Long live Alumni Meet!

Ms. Saritha. K 

Head, Dept of English 

Al Shifa College of Arts and Science, Kizhattoor, Perinthalmanna