Ripples on the brain

I had a wonderful time with some of my ISB friends yesterday. Two guys working in Bangalore had come over for the weekend and together with 5 other guys in Chennai, we went for a movie and then to a restaurant and then came to my house to watch football. A guy who was recently engaged brought his fiancee along and that made the get-together more interesting with some severe leg-pulling.

I know this generally happens that you realize only later about the good-times during your college days. For us, when we were at ISB, around 6-8 of us stayed close to each other and even at that time we felt we were fortunate to be in each other’s company. We had a gala time after our placements ended and roamed around everyday. Even in that tight schedule of a one-year MBA program, we met at a friend’s place atleast once in a month and watched a movie over the weekend. It also helped that all of us liked volleyball and played together.

So, when we came to know that all of us could meet this weekend, atleast I was looking forward to it eagerly, more so because I am staying alone at the moment. I must say yesterday wasn’t a disappointment. We chatted for close to 5 hours, first over a cup of coffee, then over dinner and then over a football match.

My greatest disadvantage with my friends from my under-graduation days was that though many of my close friends are from Chennai, they live very far-off from where I live and hence meeting them regularly was an ordeal and it never materialized. With my ISB friends, atleast right now, many of them are living close-by and hence have similar likes and dislikes of the places around our residences.

But, with the “scare” of marriage around the corner for most of the guys, the test will be whether they’ll have the same enthu to meet their friends immediately after marriage. Even yesterday, the guy who had brought his fiancee along didn’t watch the movie that much. I’ve experienced this in the US when 4 of us where very close to each other and tried to roam every weekend. However, as people started getting married, they generally shunned their trips every weekend and tried to stay indoors (”Wifekku udambu seri illai” used to be the general excuse ). I think it normally takes upto a year or two after marriage when guys realize the futility of the exercise (i.e staying with their wives rather than friends) and come out again to be with their friends .