Sunday, October 08, 2006

Life Or Something Like It

Yesterday, I attended a wedding of an old friend. When he walked down the aisle, so handsome in his tux with lovely wife on arm, my heart lurched with pride. So this is what it feels like to see someone close get married. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to a million weddings- after all, it’s a KL past time – only that this isn’t a shot gun one (!), and it was the wedding of a friend who was close during a very happy part of my life. The event filled me with wonderful memories and glad tidings for the future.

The wedding was a reunion of old friends too. People I partied with, cried with, laughed with, could have slept with, worked with, fought with, holidayed with, dined with, drank with, ended up in the police station with.

When you attend a funeral and a wedding back to back, it does things to you. I guess I am reminded of what life is. No matter where you are – in India or in Ireland, in hiding or not, you cannot escape the cycle of people being born, people uniting, and then eventual death. From the coolest person you know, to the saddest, the prettiest to the not so, everyone follows the same old cycle. Life is just that – a book with many chapters. The same for everyone.

With childhood friends, we all grow up together, lead our separate yet inextricably parallel lives – whether some marry or not, divorce or not, have kids or not, live abroad or not, make money or not – we all age, we all get our fair share of wrinkles and handles and we all meet perfunctorily at each other's life's milestones – at weddings, funerals, full moons, etc.

It’s strangely comforting to see other people go through what you are going through – albeit with a small degree of variation. There is comfort in numbers. We are all finding ourselves, dealing with ourselves, adapting as we journey together on this giant bandwagon community along the road called life.

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