Bhavans B Divison Zoom

"Talk to you all in about 12 hours from now"
That is what Pravin S mentioned in our school class whatsapp group.

Clearly, I was not the only one eagerly anticipating today's zoom meeting.
Today is defined by this zoom meeting. Need to ensure that dinner is done before the meeting, that the lights, wifi etc are all good.

But Richu wouldn't let me in. I had to wait outside the class. The reason was my zoom contact name said "Divya" from the previous mom and kids meeting with the neighbors on the street.
Gopal was disappointed to see me as he was expecting a prettier face against that screen name.

Once in,  I saw Ranjith, Jolu and Ajin whom I am seeing after a whopping twenty four years! Very special feeling.  Spoke to Ranjith first. He is still the same well mannered student he used to be all the while back and mentioned that he has been reading some of my old school blog posts. That was very nice to hear.

Pravin, Richu, Nishanth, Gopal, Sageer, Paul, Anuradha, Vinod were more familiar as we have had zoom calls/ personal meetings etc within the last few years as opposed to twenty four years plus. 

And the good thing about these old timer meets is we just continue where we left off as if it was just yesterday that we were in our class room together in our sky blue uniforms.

Unlike Ranjith, Jolu has changed her conversation style. She is a big talker now as per her. Come to think of it, I cannot recall Jolu ever talking while in school. Jolu spoke. And told us all that she is in Cary now, near Raleigh,North Carolina, and had recently moved to US. 

Ajin has hardly changed from her school years, and spoke easily about her life in Sharjah, and about her children who would turn the video off and start being the typical "boy character" during his school online sessions. Unlike earlier zoom meetings, with the girls around, today's meeting was much more civil.  

Anuradha spoke about her own company venture in the corporate training space. And how she ran a successful zoom training session yesterday, given the current Covid lockdown scenario. I had met Anuradha personally during a recent school get-together in erstwhile Kalamandir and we had got the chance to talk for quite some time then.

Pravin mentioned that he was worried he dropped in late and missed the morning prayer from Anuradha. To make the zoom experience even more complete, we had felt that it would be great if all 38 (Vinod was vehemently confident about this class strength count.) of us would come together in a zoom call to which Pravin suggested that we might want to invite a few of our teachers as well. That idea did not fly. We are still happier in classes without teachers. 

Paul, our lawyer gave some serious information about the current covid situation and how court sessions are happening in zoom calls etc. Interesting insights. It has been a while since I have had the chance to listen to Paul for a stretch.He spoke about a friend of his who specializes in mindfulness and how we could do another zoom session with him. It was clear that we were all in the same phase of life when he said that. He is trying to figure things out just like I am and just like everyone else is.

Except, Richu claimed very clear understanding of some of the mindfulness tips from Pauls' mindfulness specialist friend. So we decided to have one mindfulness session from Paul's friend and another from Richu!

Vinod's car accessories and rental business in Ernakulam is open for business except there is hardly any customers coming in due to the lockdown scenario. Incidently, my car is outside with a flat right now!

Nishanth and Sageer I had personally met in Bangalore during my recent India trip couple of years back.  Still carry the warmth from the meetings we had. While Nishanth came across as calm and centered, Sageer has hardly changed from his bubbly talkative self. His penchant for always having something interesting to share continued today. Sageer was distracted in class by phone calls and visitors and on being enquired what all this is about, he said he had to get ten cars jump-started. 

Pretty well connected with Pravin and Richu through regular zoom calls/whatsapp messages. So it was a bit of a surprise to note that it has been two years since we have actually met. 

Rohit and Anil presented themselves for a short ten minutes before having to drop out for official zoom meetings. Rohit had to drop in late as he had "baby duty" with his third child. Now I know why his status says "Fatherhood" all the time.

It was indeed a very special zoom session. Looking forward to meeting you all again. Looking forward to a full quorum in the coming weeks.

"Let noble thoughts come to us from every side"..ting ting ting ting..