A Memory called MSS

What's sweeter than a union, is a reunion.

Reunion - where no one gets left behind or forgotten.

Call us friends, call us family, call it a clan, call it a tribe, we are MSS'ites

By

Murali Murthy

A small initiative by Lakshmi and Ashwin to get few old buddies together soon became a wild fire, and most of us boarded the ship, that was all set to sail through memories and good old MSS days.

Mahila Seva Samaja - First school for most of us, a place where we first got our exposure, learning, friendship, that groomed and chiseled us all and played it's part in what we are today.

A school that had vast play grounds and we boys were beyond thrilled to make best use of it. The school also made the best use of the ground, encouraged and organized many sports including Cricket, Kho Kho, Volley Ball...

The Cricket Match between A & B section was the most memorable events and epic of all.

Each of us have our own memories and connect with MSS. But the most nostalgic memories all of us have in common are: Chikki shop, Laalis, Chur chand, "school made" leather cork balls, paper ball cricket..First rank Malini, Dwiji's fancy cycle, Ramya-Sowmya, the pure taste of clear water from the tank filled with paachi. Usha miss, Saroja miss, Vatsala Miss, Manjula Ma'am.

The innocent love interests.

And our sisters studying in the same school was more of a torture, as every small incident, mischief and summons were sent to our sisters. And they didn't leave such a golden opportunity to further escalate at home and got sadistic pleasure while we were being yelled by our parents.

Though we all had a reunion in mind, we just wanted to get to know, get comfortable with everyone and reconnect.

We started off sharing our little, feeble memories of MSS days, sharing then and now pictures. Most of us were always glued to the group. So much so, that our Spouses started to frown that we are always on the school group!

Some of us continued to be in touch even after school that has bloomed into friendship for life.

It was December, and some of them were coming to Bangalore for holidays, the timing was perfect to plan a reunion.

While the main event was still taking shape, building up to the reunion, smaller groups started catching up.

With lot of coordination, repetitive discussions, we could all finally agree on 24 Dec 2023 as the date for a reunion.

Once the date was decided, Ashwin & Kavitha quickly took charge and some of us contributed to plan the meet elaborately.

Deciding the theme, menu, billing, activities all were brainstormed and thought through.

As the D Day was nearing, the excitement & anticipation was obvious, all were eager to meet up, after over 3 decades.

Technically friends, practically strangers.

Though we were seeing most of them after 33 years, there was no dearth of warmth around.

We couldn't recognise most of them, we didn't know many by name, yet each of us felt we knew each other well.

It was warmth, warmth and warmth...we could connect to each other just like that...shredded inhibitions within few minutes and engaged in some deep discussions.

It was a pleasant and diversified mix of people in varied professions. Unlike typical majority IT crowd, each of us had completely different career, path, industry and expertise starting from farming to entrepreneurship to professors to IT, making it an interesting catch up.

The reunion was indeed a Gala time, we laughed our hearts out, we smiled, we hugged, we cheered, we partied, we posed, relived our youthful days.

We hope there are more such reunions and this reconnect leads to some good friendship & bonding.

It will be interesting to see if future reunions will have same energy, vibes and excitement