College friends

Just back in touch with a friend from college, who was a year older than me and we shared the same birthday. The odd thing about the BA is that it is completely fabulous, and Delhi University is particularly so, because of its proximity to the ridge and to Kamla Nagar which had bookshops and eating joints galore. When I studied there in the 70s, there was no road connecting Model Town to Filmistan, so we were saved from the onslaught of trafffic,  while walking to college,but yes,  thirty years ago,we had to walk two kms into the university. At seventeen you never think of this as a challenge. My friends and I would just enjoy the trees, and the rose garden, particularly in winter, and we sang a lot of songs walking arm in arm.  Those singers are still around  - Jethro Tull and Stevie Wonder and Bob Dylan, but elderly like us!
My  three daughters, all who have done their B.A in Delhi University have  had startlingly similar  undergrad lives, and  it is always nostalgia that drives me to say, "But we did that too...eat thopa at the Tibetan Monastery." Our farewell for one of our teachers at Miranda House was infact at the Tibetan monastery and after our lunch three sets of B.A students,  the first, second and third year students, went in to light incense sticks at the Monastery sanctum. One of the Miranda House women from another batch went on to make a film on the Dalai Lama and those who follow his path in Tibetan Buddhism. I am talking of Ritu Sarin, who with her husband made an absolutely delightful film on the relevance of memories and the question of return to Tibet. I hope to see her at Mcleodganj this weekend, since she lives there with her family, when I visit with my old college friend Annie.