Nostalgia-licious!

I recently had a most nostalgia-licious (sorry, but after going through a newly found site Trendylicious, the “licious” refuses to get out of my mind) experience-

I ran into this guy the other day & he was like all “Melody!!” at me. I was a bit hesitant, didn’t know him from Adam & oh, do I hate to use the line, “I’m sorry, do I know you from somewhere?”. This is because once, in an earlier life, I used this line on a guy I briefly dated. You can well imagine the horrors! But I digress.

So I’m looking directly at this guy (we shall call him Mr. X) who senses my inner-mental-cell-thingies (yup, have some of those) are working overtime & he’s like “I was in college with you”.

“OH HI!!” I fake enthusiasm, still having absolutely no idea who he is. However I am not good at faking things (apparently!!) & am caught out. He was nice enough though & told me his name etc etc.

I profusely apologize for not remembering him, especially since he remembers me -but he very sweetly explains to me it’s quite “natural” that I don’t remember him (he says he was the quite nerdy type) and that it was equally natural he should remember me as “the whole college” knew who I was.

(The narcissist within me is delighted to hear this & continues to fish!)

“What rubbish!” I half-admonish in my most “How true!” voice.

“No, no!” he insists, taking the bait, hook, line & sinker.

And suddenly he’s telling me about the time the most gorgeous guy in college asked to “go steady” (remember the time we’d use that phrase?!!) with him. And how I refused!

I remember it all quite clearly. Mr. Gorgeous had wanted to “propose” in a fancy restaurant - unfortunately nothing fancy seemed to be open at that time of day (a hot afternoon in July!). So we ended up in a South Indian Udipi restaurant, he proposing over a bottle of Mangola. I wondered how Mr. X knew about this, surely it was not common knowledge?

Unlike the Milind-Soman-episode, which Mr. X is now talking about.

I flashback instantly. Malhar 1993. My FYJC year & I’m on stage in some contest for the “Best Dressed” where contestants have randomly been picked out of the audience. At the end of it all (some nonsensical 10 minute thingie) Milind Soman is kissing me on my cheek. The crowd is yelling. The compere is saying something like “She’s not going to wash that cheek for the next one week”. I’m naturally quite high but it wears off equally quickly.

Until I reach home & my (elder) sis says “So, I heard Milind Soman kissed you?”
“Oh! Did you see that?” I asked her, knowing she was there too. “No, but my friends told me about it”.

If I thought my sister’s friends reporting this trivial non-incident to her was strange - the next day in college was crazy! Overnight I had become a celeb. Everyone wanted to know who this girl was who Milind Soman kissed (back then he was a big name among male models) - I had random people coming upto me & saying things like “You’ve done our college proud”.

What??? Because a cute guy kissed me in public? How is that an achievement?

I still don’t know that it is. But tried-and-tested results prove it apparently is interesting at least. In the years that have followed, I’ve told the story a few times, most recently (grave mistake this!!!) to a prominent blogger - but every time people seem to think it’s noteworthy. Or they realize I’m a dumb (non)blonde, one of the two. But moving on, since Mr. X has too -

He’s now talking about the TV promo I was in. I remember, it was for some totally useless TV program about something or the other & I said just one line in it (be warned before you read on, it’s very silly) - “Keanu Reeves come to Bombay!!”

Well I warned you.

I look at Mr. X totally incredulously ~ I had honestly forgotten all about that promo! I in fact, had never even saw the promo air though many of my friends did.

Later on, when I was thinking through this whole sudden meeting & nostalgia-stirring episode with Mr. X, I realized that when we look back, we have tons & tons of memories - and I guess we forget many things too - and it’s funny because just when you don’t expect it, someone may remind you of them.

And it’s nice isn’t it, to remember happy silly days of old?! Long live Nostagia!

Tags: 1993, Bangalore, Bombay, Delhi, Gorgeous, Keanu-Reeves, Kisses, Malhar, Milind-Soman, Mumbai, Nostalgia, Pink, Popular, Proposals, Site, Trends, Trendy, Trendylicious, TV-promos