Think for a moment how would you feel when you get a chance to meet or hear voice of any of your old childhood friend in a sudden encounter which you never expected to happen. With youngsters the time period can be relatively short, but think of elder people getting to greet their pals after a gap of tens of years, for most of us we can only think what may happen, but the feeling is indeed very unparalleled for the old buddies.
A few days ago while I surfing as usual on the Social portals my mother teased me and said that you youngsters search and meet your old friends, if your social portals and Internet really have so much potential then show me if you can make me meet my old friend. Her tone was not in a serious way but just a playful vexation. But somehow it made my adrenaline flow and I thought of it as a challenge, I would really feel proud if I made my mom meet her friend after about 20-25 years.
So the search began..., searched aunty's name on Orkut and Facebook only to find one match which could come closest to the description, but my mom said the profile picture does not match the image of her she had in her mind, I just sent a short note to that profile in case it was what we were searching for and asked to revert back.
In the mean time my mother hunted the old directories and provided me an address of her friend which in the end proved to be inaccurate. I began googling with aunty's name and when it got no result I tried uncle's name only with no luck. I tried the soft version of the Pune directory and searched for the surname, society, road, localities, tried all sorts of permutation and combination but it yielded no favourable results. Every failure produced a new desire to bounce back and prove the power of technology to my mom and of course my shrewd way of tackling things :D .
When one way gets closed other ways open, it is only that once we have decided our destination that we get to know the path, I have chosen my destination, and when the usual path closed I was game for the harder path. Now instead of searching for aunty's number I began calling people in her locality with the help of the directory, because the address was inaccurate(I got to know that after all this searching procedure) I did get a few failures, also some people were speaking in marathi which made it difficult to interpret. Somehow one gentleman said that you called in the right society but the building is different, he said that I should call in half an hour and he would somehow get the contact number from the flat I intended to convey my message to. Another lady said that I called in the right building and she noted my number and said she would give the number to her, she also said that it would be difficult for her to give the mobile number as she didn't want any breach of privacy which was quite acceptable to us.
After all the drama and elapses of time and so many calls finally our landline rang about 1-2 hours afterwards, Mom picked the phone upstairs and I rushed to see the scene, what I could hear were mirthful laughter mixed with a dash of nostalgia. I could decipher it all, finally the search and the hard work proved fruitful. After all the conversation between the duo I got a chance to talk to aunty, she was very elated from what I could make with her voice. She blessed me so much that I began blushing. It was quite an honour for me :)
I talked to her son afterwards and we linked our facebook profiles, he uploaded snaps of aunty which I showed to my mother, she began comparing them with the photo she had with her since long ago!... I enjoyed each and every part of this mystery search :)
May God be with you all,
Ankit Bhatia
A few days ago while I surfing as usual on the Social portals my mother teased me and said that you youngsters search and meet your old friends, if your social portals and Internet really have so much potential then show me if you can make me meet my old friend. Her tone was not in a serious way but just a playful vexation. But somehow it made my adrenaline flow and I thought of it as a challenge, I would really feel proud if I made my mom meet her friend after about 20-25 years.
So the search began..., searched aunty's name on Orkut and Facebook only to find one match which could come closest to the description, but my mom said the profile picture does not match the image of her she had in her mind, I just sent a short note to that profile in case it was what we were searching for and asked to revert back.
In the mean time my mother hunted the old directories and provided me an address of her friend which in the end proved to be inaccurate. I began googling with aunty's name and when it got no result I tried uncle's name only with no luck. I tried the soft version of the Pune directory and searched for the surname, society, road, localities, tried all sorts of permutation and combination but it yielded no favourable results. Every failure produced a new desire to bounce back and prove the power of technology to my mom and of course my shrewd way of tackling things :D .
When one way gets closed other ways open, it is only that once we have decided our destination that we get to know the path, I have chosen my destination, and when the usual path closed I was game for the harder path. Now instead of searching for aunty's number I began calling people in her locality with the help of the directory, because the address was inaccurate(I got to know that after all this searching procedure) I did get a few failures, also some people were speaking in marathi which made it difficult to interpret. Somehow one gentleman said that you called in the right society but the building is different, he said that I should call in half an hour and he would somehow get the contact number from the flat I intended to convey my message to. Another lady said that I called in the right building and she noted my number and said she would give the number to her, she also said that it would be difficult for her to give the mobile number as she didn't want any breach of privacy which was quite acceptable to us.
After all the drama and elapses of time and so many calls finally our landline rang about 1-2 hours afterwards, Mom picked the phone upstairs and I rushed to see the scene, what I could hear were mirthful laughter mixed with a dash of nostalgia. I could decipher it all, finally the search and the hard work proved fruitful. After all the conversation between the duo I got a chance to talk to aunty, she was very elated from what I could make with her voice. She blessed me so much that I began blushing. It was quite an honour for me :)
I talked to her son afterwards and we linked our facebook profiles, he uploaded snaps of aunty which I showed to my mother, she began comparing them with the photo she had with her since long ago!... I enjoyed each and every part of this mystery search :)
May God be with you all,
Ankit Bhatia
