“A trip to Nostalgia now and then is good for the spirit” – Dan Bartolovic

This weekend was special.
I wasn’t just treated to a stroll down memory lane but full blown nostalgia.

It all started with a brilliant idea to organise a school reunion for alumni of Indian School Sohar, yep you heard that right, not just a high school reunion, but a SCHOOL reunion, which included batches right from 1996 right upto 2017.

So a whole three day extravaganza was planned with each day curated to replicate a day in our school life at Indian School Sohar.

There was a cultural night with a Gala dinner, a school picnic to a beachside resort with beach and pool access followed by a musical evening complete with traditional Omani seating and Arabic food, shawarmas and kebabs galore, and a sports day reminicent of our past sports days! What made it better was that all the alumni were staying together at a resort inspite of having homes closeby, which instilled a sense of oneness amongst us.

What was so special about this gathering was that there were so many of us from different batches, at different points of our lives, from atleast 5 different countries, united by a single goal, to come back home, to the place that’s made us the people we are today- our school.

It was easy to see the changes, the fact that everyone was older and ahem ‘healthier’, that our sports skills were now slightly sloppy, that conversation topics now revolved around jobs and Bitcoin, that games had evolved from Chinese whispers to ‘Never have I ever’.

But that was expected.
What was pleasing to see was that somethings stayed exactly the same.
The school nicknames, playing Antakshri and Mafia in the bus, ‘tick tick’ countdowns, our love for shawarmas and omani Mountain dew, amongst others.

I knew I’d enjoy the weekend immensely, but what I didn’t know was that I’d make so many new friends, strengthen old relationships, realise that old groups didn’t exist anymore, understand how our school has instilled a strong sense of belonging in us, and also find that some friendships will never change come what may, that they’re bonds for life.

Maya Angelou said that ‘Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the number of moments that take our breath away’.
I’ve always wondered what those moments were, I now know.
The gravity of this reunion fits that criteria perfectly.

I’ll like to thank the organising team for a perfect weekend which had us both reliving old memories and creating new ones which I’m sure we’ll treasure for a lifetime!