Chintu ? :)

That is what I asked *Guru Mathur, the person who had requested to add himself as my friend on facebook.


*Chintu ? :)


Rewind 25 years. Our family of four had just come to a new city - far away from the hustle bustle of Mumbai. We had come to a different state and had found a house in a brand new apartment. I was around 8 years and my brother 10 years. I befriended a few neighbourhood girls and my brother befriended two or three boys.


One of the boys whom my brother had befriended was a young boy of eight. He wore tight, rexin, short, shorts and a tighter t-shirt. They played cricket, cards together and practically lived in each other's houses. We called him Chintu.


Those were the days of fiat and ambassador cars. The maruti 800 had not yet come in. The *bank with which my dad used to work, had given dad too a brand new ambassador car. It was grey, had a huge chest and big round bum and we loved it. On a lazy sunday morning, for the want of engaging the bratty two of us into some useful activity, dad asked us to clean our brand new ambassador car. I got the bucket out and my brother got few wiping clothes and within no time, we were cleaning the car. Me atop the front part vigorously wiping it, my brother atop the back one, and each of our numerous friends swinging on and cleaning each of the doors - and Chintu on the top!


One another day my brother was playing cricket with a few of his friends and I saw Chintu standing behind our big grey ambassador. I glanced at my brother inquiringly, and my brother barely able to conceal his smile, pointed at a sleeping dog nearby. Apparently Chintu was frightened of dogs and he was hiding from it. Somewhere in all the playing and fun together, we had also heard that he was called Gurunandan in school.


Chintu's father used to be a business man and they lived in a joint family and had the fiat car. My father used to work in a bank. This meant that Chintu's family was a little better off than ours. It hardly mattered to us.


Eventually we all grew up. We all went our own ways and lost touch. We all went through life! We went through the ups and downs of it. I heard from a few old friends that, today, Chintu is a senior manager in a Media firm. They said his pictures look like he is partying and rubbing shoulders with hob-snobs of the industry. My brother himself has worked hard his way up to senior management of a leading Telecom* company. But then that was just heard and forgotten. And after all who remembers friends from 25 years back when life is happening now!


On the other hand should I say, who forgets such friends!


Because one fine day, as I was busy with my life and going through it, something made me stop. And smile. It was a friend request. It said Guru Mathur - Media director. Was it Gurunandan after all these years? – I had goose bumps.


I accepted the friend request, smiled and asked him -


Chintu ?:)


I waited eagerly.


I was not disappointed.


The reply to my question said - Ya.. ! How are you doing ?Feels nice to hear that !:) Its been a while since anyone has called me by that name !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*some details have been changed to protect privacy