Unintentional Throwback

Cross-posted from Facebook.

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Those were practised gestures -- to be standing beside important people on the stage, dressed well, smiling as is wont, and then accompanying them off the stage when the day is done.

We were in practised company: the school administrators and senior teachers, dignitaries, guests, and one another.

It was a familiar place -- Drury Hem Sheela Recreation Centre; green carpets, galleries, lights, a wild crowd above and a less wild crowd below.

The feeling was familiar, too: to feel bashfully proud of everything that we were doing, everything that we were a part of, everything we stood for, and everyone we knew and loved.

Even the end was familiar: walking off the steps while snidely commenting on the people around, taking stock of the goings-on and subjecting it all to paranoid scrutiny, throwing in a few jokes and a few deep philosophical thoughts, and then parting with a handshake and a fist-bump.

So yes, aside from the fact that we were dressed not in our uniforms but in clothes of our choosing, the fact that we were not the in-office Heads of Council but ex-students who happened to also be the outgoing Heads, the fact that our classmates sat not above but below, and the fact that we were seeing one another and most of our classmates for the last time in many months, Felicitation 2015 wasn't all that different from a usual HSMS day of our lives.
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(On Felicitation 2015, as requested by Nihal Singh).