Gopi and Merlyn's visits

Gopi [Rajgopal] called me in September that he is coming to Mysore on a business trip - for a day. He is living in Chennai for 19 years [hope memory is right]. That was an oppportunity to meet a couple of friends and enemies - yes enemies. I was one in our 7th and 8th classes. But it was fun in those days! I can neither recall why our good friendship soured nor the circumstances it got sweetened thereafter. While in 7th an incident happened [see my blog on memories] which I am not repeating here. Back to his visit now.

We had breakfast at home. Mysore's Bajjanna Lane is where he lived. That also gave him the opportunity to visit his old house opposite Keerthi Typing Institute and Mari Gudi. His old tiled house was as it was when he left many years ago. He was happy to enter that house now and to know that his own friend who is renovating their old house close by was living there temporarily. He went down memory lane in Bajjanna Lane! We soon bid goodbye after we visited another old closer neighbour of his.

Come November, Meera called to inform the arrival of Merlyn from Poona. After the expected teleconfirmation of schedules Merlyn arrived home with her CKC-studied brother. She spent about half an hour with my family and then it was time to go to Meera's house closeby.

I took Merlyn to Nandini's house also, since it was very close. Nandini is an English Teacher and you can see one of her young pupils here.

Meera and Merlyn were meeting each other for the first time in 30 years and they are indeed expressive here in this picture. Merlyn's brother returned after his shopping stint - he had gone from our house and returned to Meera's.

Back in August, another schoolmate - not our classmate - visited us. Sriranjini from Sydney, Australia. She had seen one of my blogs on the web and since I had mentioned CKC, she got interested to know who this is. After exchange of e-mails, we had become friends - her memory of those days is quite amazing even though she was in the "B" Section [kannada], same academic years.

We must make it a point to visit old mates at least to say hello, at least once in a while. It keeps us going!

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