Nostalgia

Last week end, I attended a wedding of one of my friend’s daughter. You may ask what is new or nostalgic about a wedding . To me it was.

Bit of background—this was my friend from my Chartered Accountancy course internship days—goes back to around 29 years ago. As we finished our courses and charted out to various directions , we did managed to keep in touch but they were over the phone or through emails. We never met during these years and it is astonishing but true .You may be surprised but this particular set of Interns of the CA course with this firm never met again after completing our internship. The last time I met this friend was at his very own wedding and that was in January of 1988.

During the last 25 years so many things ought to have changed including physical appearances. I had my own apprehension if I could even recognize him or any of the other friends who would be coming in. My friend ensured that he connected with everyone from the group and also got to our Auditor to come in for the wedding and this became a small get together of sorts.
One person that I was confident that I could recognize was my friend itself. ( being the bride’s father , that was an easy one . I doubt if we had met elsewhere, we may not recognized each other ).

Our Auditor who is now close to 82 came in on time ( he was known for that .. not sure if it matters in today’s context ). He easily recognized all of us – post these long years . If at all, if all of us picked up some traits in Bookkeeping , Taxation, dealing with Tax Authorities and Auditing techniques and some amount of Financial Analysis , it was due to his effort with us during the time of internship. Reviews with him would be challenging . His knowledge of each of the clientele business and how things were progressing was interesting. We had many an anecdote to share in terms of the reviews that he would perform when we presented the financials for his review. He still looked young although his movements had slowed down. Felt so happy to see him and connect with him. This person shaped up many of his interns during his career that probably has spanned more than 50 years and is still continuing. No retirements !

In respect of the others , it was fun.. some common themes

Most of us had done well in our careers and that was good.

Receding hairlines or the lack of it was prominent ( one of them said it was ‘ Wisdom’ growing all the time )

While some were focused on being trim and lean , some of them had gracious amount of waistline…

Worrisome topic was about Children– what would they do, addiction or interest on gadgets , lack of understanding of “spending “ and so on … This discussion was never ending.

Most of us had changed our Interests.. Some of them who vouched they will get in to Practice , were with Corporates. Some , who had their own business and were doing CA as it was thrust on them by their family were not in the family business.

It was great to just see and catch up after such a long period.

We all parted agreeing to meet up at least once in a year or when functions like these happen …