Among the many things I'd overheard as a child, while trying to remain invisible as adults mingled and partied, was that there was no going back.
"You can never recapture the magic of the past," my mother would say, as she dismissed from her mind the lure of a reunion with old friends in distant places.
However much she longed for the carefree days of youth, she was too tightly tied to the hearth and home, and ever mindful of the eternally precarious state of the family finances to 'go back.'
No such reservations stopped our generation. Alumni get-togethers, class reunions, college meetings, hostel room-mates' gatherings, we had them all - but always, I was a bit reluctant to indulge myself, afraid that I'd be disappointed with the changes wrought by time on places and people.
The very first time I 'went back,' to a city I'd loved at first sight for its gardens, it was to find greenery given way to concrete and college friends weighed down with babes in arms and children on the way, worried about homes to run and family duties by the dozen.
I stood on the periphery, still single, still carefree, itching to drag them off to a movie or a walk in the park or a day spent window shopping, but knowing that baby food and extra nappies and strollers would have to trail along too - and I acknowledged that mother had been right, as usual. The magic was gone.
Familiar landscape
The decades rolled by. Occasionally, we went back to our old haunts, always a trifle reluctantly, with trepidation, wondering when our little expectations would shatter and leave us with great regrets for having tried to catch up on the past.
Like my friends, I went through the long haul of nurturing, protecting, teaching, disciplining and then waving children goodbye. There was definitely no desire to turn back the clock and return to any of the places we'd struggled through!
When we finally mustered the courage to 'go back' once again, it was to the little desert town where we'd had the worst of times and the best of times - worst first, with the initial blast of summer sun and sand leaving us in a state of shock, that gradually gave way to the best - of winter sun and sand!
We were sure the hamlet could only have gone two ways: fallen off the map altogether or become like all the other towns we'd passed on the way there - crowded with vehicles and unrecognisable with hoardings of computer classes and tutorials for engineering and medical and MBA entrance exams!
As we drove in, the landscape became familiar, we knew where to turn, the roadside shops still sold the same things they had 15 years ago - how, we marvelled, had technology given this corner of the country a miss?
Solitary splendour
The houses still stood in solitary splendour, shrubs a little higher, but no other encroachments, no hoardings, no connectivity towers, no sagging wires, just clear pathways and parking spaces.
As other friends and acquaintances began trooping in, we spread our arms just a little more than we used to, to encompass extra girth and wider grins, none of us commenting on the ravages of Time for all of us were victims - and none of us really cared!
We were comfortable with the wrinkles and swathes of grey, and knew that the lack of bounce in the step in no way detracted from the buoyance of the soul!
Friends, and some never in that category, were suddenly easy with each other, past slights not merely swept but lost under the carpet, now exchanging confidences, digging into pasta and chocolate mud pie, doctors' orders and diets forgotten for the moment.
In the midst of the babble, I was reminded once again that we had not recaptured the feeling of the past; we had not really gone back in time. The past had been too fraught with responsibility.
The magic is here and now - in the carefree camaraderie we share!
Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.
