'Be malang tera iktara'

I was clearing my email archive the other day and started reading letters from old friends and found myself wondering if somehow I had let some of these friendships slip.

Growing up I have always had a large circle of acquaintances and a few close friends who have been integral to my existence. These mates were people I could count on to share my fears and beliefs, to keep secrets, share dreams and tell me off when I was being difficult. I have shared moments of pure joy with them. We have argued, laughed, cried, learnt, and just lived. We have grown together and experienced life through each other's points of view. My parents would complain about the long phone calls in the evenings after I had spent the entire day with my buddies!:)We were interwoven into each other's lives and histories.

Yet, as we have chosen our career paths our lives have taken us to faraway places where we have gradually lost that bond that was once so strong and pulsating.I know its inevitable that lives merge and then part but then why does my heart feel so heavy today! I can't recapture that enthusiasm of youth that I felt in the company of my best friends from school and college.

I hear from them via emails and facebook and the sort but that is not the same is it! I have missed crucial events like their weddings and when we've met recently we have felt connected yet separate. Does growing up and getting married and having individual lives and families make this an inevitable process? I feel that somewhere in the muddle of my life I have lost something precious.

This song is sheer nostalgia and I feel it speaking to me as a lament for my lost childhood:


'Roonh ka banjara re parinda, Chadh gaya dil ka re gharonda,
Chadh gaya dil ka re gharonda todh ke,
Re gharonda todh ke, gaya chodh ke...
Je naina karoon bandh bandh,
behe jaye boondh boondh
tadpaye re, kyun sunaye
geet malhar de...'