Minutes of a meeting through the lens of My Impression

Today is a different day than my recent time normal day. Today in a Google meet I got chance to connect with former colleagues with whom I worked while posted in  Bhubaneswar Regional Office of Action Aid.

For me it was first of its kind, as I had not yet participated in a digital video meeting like this. I have attended digital classes and seminars in recent months where you see the presenter in the screen and your participation is through the chat. But seeing all participants in the small windows together with your own image and talking to them was a first for me. I liked the experience. It was profound for me in the sense that as I saw them, each one in a box disjointed from other boxes, yet all together in a larger frame; similarly for each of them I have a separate box in my memory though all are part of my experience in that single frame – that office.

I realized we might have interacted with people in a group, but we form our memory distinct and separate for each of them. Just because you were in a group does not mean you have equal memory space or equal emotional depth for all of them. You have discerned them, formed impression of them, attached various emotions with them and created a loop of memory for each of them. It can be happy, sad or some other variation in these two poles.

Like a physical meeting of yester years we came into the space, at times kept quiet, waited for our turns, spoke when we were to speak, laughed, sometimes broke into the space out of turn for some contextual repartee, went out of the space for some other work and came back in. Only difference was back then we used to meet for either some planning or some reviews and there used to be a taut energy around us, like a strung bow.  There used to be pressure holding our vantage points, arguments, questions, deadlines, responsibility of deliverance, expectation of rewards and disappointment of not being able to get forth the acceptance of own ideas. The energy of this meeting was on the other end of the emotional scale; relaxed, calm and disarmed.

We reminisced ‘those’ times, narrated our journey till date since our departure because that was the agenda:catching up. Each one has changed course like a meandering river yet held on to the values learnt at the source. After so many years the sign of age was visible in each face, receding and gray hair, not so firm facial muscles, mellowed demeanor and a softer look in the eyes with calm of years of experience. The race of being somewhere has been almost achieved and hence all those events evoking tremendous hurt, anger and emotional turbulence then could evoke unadulterated and equivocal laughter now. Each one remembered some or other ‘then difficult/unpleasant’ experience and linked how that incidence has given them some learning and reason to laugh now.

Life has flown and washed away much bitterness. There was desire and discussion of possibilities of physical meeting, coming together again and contributing someway to the society as a group. Dreams never die, lest we are all dead. Hope the body that houses the dreamer also remains healthy, the mind that shapes dreams remains alert and the spirit that germinates the dream soars high.