My college mate and I had discovers this course so we set off with emotions and ambitions running high. We were all set to take on the emotional baggage of the world and set it free. Our destination was a one horse town near madras (in the last thirty years this place has become a busy little town). It was best known for it's one American missionary and the hospital she set up. Besides the college and hospital there was little else. It had a sleepy railway station where a few trains stopped,exactly two bus routes that covered the whole town and as a concession to the many young doctors that inhabited the place,there was a cinema hall. They screened English movies which in those low technology days,was the highlight of young peoples lives in that town. It was furnished with heavy curtains to keep out light,had a few steel chairs and many a stray dog wandering through the aisle even as we watched a movie.
We entered the institution that was to be our home for the next two months and for us to stay away from home was a big adventure. We had arrived by train,and found out way to the institute (which given our shelterd lives was a big achievement ). We entered a small office and were greeted by a tall gangly young man who had a grin that lit up the room. He was polite and friendly as small town people are usually and for us city people it was a welcome change. He showed us to our room and explained all the rules,meal times,class times and the left us to it.
The course mates as it turned out were mostly nuns and fathers sent by the Catholic Church which has an active family counselling ministry and was training it's staff. Having never been in the company of religious people,more so ones in habits,we were on our best behaviour,until my roommate arrived and then it all changed. She swept into the room and took over my life. She was full of fun and suddenly we were ready to take on evey one in that group.
We soon discovers that social life was at an all time low,there was nothing much to do so we did what most girls in their twenties do. We befriended the only young man on campus. We ground all manner of reasons to keep him back on campus well after his office hours. We made sure we played table tennis and basket ball,and after we had charmed our way into his life,it became a ritual to go for a Saturday night movie after class. It was always a late show as our days working in hospital were both physically and mentally exhausting. We would be ready and waiting and our little group which by now included the younger more enterprising priests ( who rather enjoyed our company while the lord ones looked on in disapproval),some of the fun loving nuns and us. It was a great group,we would walk to the cinema and at midnight walk back to campus through the empty streets of our one horse town. Late nigh tea stalls were our haunts and bacause we were there with a local boy and in the company of religios people we were treated like royalty. It was a carefree ,fun time and as a gap between graduation and higher studies it was our best time.
Our two motths soon came to an end but we came back richer emotionally,and had made some great friends who would make so much of a difference to our lives that many years later we would be able to capture that magic even though we had lost touch.
Thirty odd years later I have managed to call a couple of them and didn't even need to introduce myself. It was as if the years I between had never been. I met that young man again a few years ago and it was with such joy that we flung ourselves into each other's arms....now older with families of our own and jobs etc,it was still for us a great friendship that stood the test of time. We kept track of that young man who had made our lives so much easier in that small town by just being our friend and it's with such sadness that I remember his smile today. In the pursuit of following gods will and in serving those less fortunate than him,our young man took himself to Liberia. In the midst of the worst Ebola epidemic,his smile and cheerfulness must have cheered many a dying person and brought hope to many. Unfortunately our young man died serving his god in a place so far away from home and as the news of his death reached us,all of us girls who loved him for being him,called each other from different parts of the world. We who hardly call each other,talked again and in his death he once agin united the same girls whome he shepherded to the movies all those many years ago.
