Jumping to conclusions .well we all do it time and again and most of the time too. Very few of us have the patience to wait for things to unfold or try to look for answers. This impatience often lands us in incredible situations. Something of this kind happened to me a couple of weeks back!

Lunch over, we trooped out of the restaurant and started saying our goodbyes. It's strange, but the ritual of saying goodbye at informal gatherings goes on & on all the "very interesting" points of discussion crop up at that point of time, they are all "stuff" that just has to be said (and perhaps forgotten soon after the goodbyes are said!) .

My friends and I were in the middle of this very "integral and important" item on the agenda of meeting friends when a mobile started ringing somewhere ..although the "ring tone" was not familiar to any one of us, still, each one of us checked our mobile phones (in an elaborately casual manner, of course, like we were looking for something else in our purses) to see whether .if maybe just in case . and each one of us sported a triumphant  smile of relief as we realized it wasn't ours! (But of course, no one said anything).

 We began joking about the "Isaac Newton" who owned the phone and forgot about its existence someone in the group suggested that maybe girlfriend called and wife is around! Poor guy can neither receive nor disconnect the call! (And of course there were many more interpretations as well). And we started laughing at our own joke

Suddenly a very brusque voice made us look around. A burly (and not so very) gentle- man, was asking us in the rudest possible tone, "behre ho sab?"(Are u all deaf) .One of my friends just started saying, very helpfully too, that the "ringing mobile" didn't belong to any one of us. The rude gentleman (?) cut her short saying that for the last five minutes he was waiting for us to move aside so that he could drive out of the parking lot. "Kya aap logon ko reverse horn sunai nahi diya?" (Did you not hear the reverse horn)

The mystery of the ringing mobile was solved in an instant! Unfortunately, for both him and us, we could just about mange to smother our giggles. This made him see red as he probably thought we were laughing at him! He gave us the nastiest scowl he could manage and very purposefully strode towards his car. Without any logic or reason, we started laughing, but very honestly we were laughing at ourselves and our interpretations of the "unanswered mobile call". The guy did not feature in the remotest thoughts or was a part of our laughter.

However, he had already "jumped to the conclusion" that we were making fun of him and stopped for a minute and  muttered something and gave us the dirtiest look he could as he drove out. (Not that it stopped us from laughing; neither did we hear anything over the sounds of our laughter!)

On last Sunday, my friends & Igot together for dinner other than being friendship day, we were also having a belated party for my B'day earlier in the week, on a working day.

It was a perfect occasion for us to rewind to olden days school, college, post-graduation days what a stress relieving experience it was we spent the whole time laughing , giggling, pulling each other's legs , generally behaving like school kids  once more.

We laughed & laughed over things like our teachers, cheating during tests, our answers which sent teachers' heads reeling & eyes rolling, smuggling magazines & posters of our er heroes(!!!)…hmm (this was against the rules) breaking test-tubes, Petri dishes & leaving them at other people's tables .list goes on… 

The best topics for friend-flogging   were of(f )course our young adolescent crushes how our attitude then was "well if I liked someone he or she had to be flawless, perfect ,gr8…simply coz we endorsed them"(lol) & that held almost all the girls in our class had a tremendous liking for a particular P.T. teacher the boys in our group ribbed us mercilessly on that calling him weather beaten & moth-eaten.  

Of course we did not fail to remind them of their crushes on our history & English teachers. One guy, whose current girlfriend was sitting next to him actually dared to deny it!!! No one bunked her classes or reported sick, coz this guy would go & tell her it gave him a chance to talk to her (aur abhi sadhu ban raha hai) Of course his getting away with it was out of question with wicked friends like us, we gave her(his gf) additional inputs on his interests during high school days.

But i noticed a strange thing…donno how to intertpret it… while we girls had no qualms about teasing the guys whose girlfriends had accopanied them, the guys did not mention anything about the past crushes of the girls whose fiance or husband  were present.

We were laughing & talking much louder than is socially permissible, there were 17(which included fiancés & girlfriends & 1 spouse as well) of us, that almost everyone in the restaurant smiling whenever our eyes met anyone's.

This is the greatness of our country people don't mind others enjoying themselves no one  told us to lower our volumes in fact they seemed to indulge us one group of middle aged ladies & gentlemen, perhaps a family, actually  dedicated a song to us (there was live ghazals & geet)..a very old Mukesh song "Aaya hai mujhe phir yaad who zalim " Most of us heard the song for the 1^st time & we loved it we requested it the second time round.

The sense of  happiness & joy it filled me with drained out all the stress & grumpiness I felt for working through the  weekend yes even yesterday our dept worked till well past lunchtime but the evening & the mails I received from my friends made my day.

I apologize to all my friends whom I could not connect to yesterday, but each one of you were definitely there in my mind & in my prayers .

WISHING EVERYONE HAPPINESS ALWAYS & FOREVER

Hi Friends, got this  from an old classmate,who is currently working in usa. It had me all  smiling. I hope it brings a smile to your face as well.

Yeh degree bhi lelo ye naukari bhi lelo,

Bhale Chheen lo mujhse USA ka Visa………..

magar mujhko lauta do college ka canteen,

vo chaay who pepsi vo teekha samosaa……….

kadi dhoop mein apne ghar se nikalnaa,

vo project ki Khatir shahar bhar bhataknaa,

vo lecture mein doston ki proxy lagaanaa,

vo sir ko chidhanaa ,vo aeroplane udaanaa,

vo submission ki raton ko jagnaa jagaanaa,

vo orals ki kahani vo practical ka Kissaa…..

bimaari ke bahane time badhanaa,

vo doosron ke assignments ko apnaa banaanaa,

vo seminar ke din pairon ka chhatpatanaa,

vo workshop mein din raat pasinaa bahanaa,

vo exam ke din ka bechain maahaul,

par maa ka vo vishvas - Teachar ka bharosaa..!…

vo pedon ke neeche gappe ladanaa,

vo raaton mein jag kar drawing sheets banaanaa,

vo exams ke akhari din theatre mein jaanaa,

vo bhole se freshers ko hamesha sataanaa,

without any reason common off pe jaanaa,

test ke waqt table mein notes chhupana,

isi tarah teachers ko dena vo Jhansaa……..

college ki sabse purani nishaanee,

vo chaaywala jise saare kehte the… jaani,

vo jaani ke hathon ki ‘cutting’ chaay meethee,

vo chupkese journal mein bheji hui chitthi,

vo padhte hi chiththi uska bhadakna,

vo chehre ki laali vo aankhon ka Gussaa…..

college ki wo saari lambisi raatein,

vo doston se canteen mein pyaari si baatein,

vo gathering ke din ka ladnaa Jhagadnaa,

vo ladkiyon ka hamesha yuhin akadnaa,

bhulaaye nahin bhool sakta hai koi,

vo college, vo batein, vo shararatein vo javani…

kaash hum phir dohra sakte vo kahani……

vo kagaz ki kashti vo barish ka pani…