On this Friendship Day, we, a bunch of sprightly 60-year-olds, sail down memory lane. Our voyage began in the corridors of St Philomena's School in Bellary, which wasn't a den of mining dons but a sleepy town in those good ole' days.

Three sisters of the Nath family — Shalini, Malini and Rajmani; two sisters from the Parekh family – Swaroopa and Daksha — and an incorrigible tomboy called Sheila Rao forged a close bond over unfinished homework, shared tiffin boxes and long bus-rides to school and back.

Talking of shared tiffin boxes, lunch at the convent dining room four decades ago brings back a wave of nostalgia. Sheila's lunch-man, an able predecessor of Mumbai's dabbawallas, was invariably late as he pedalled furiously from Cantonment to Sanganakal Road with steaming rice and sambhar! The rest of us would not-so-patiently wait for him to arrive. The desire to eat together quieted rumbling bellies!

Eleven years of laughter and light-heartedness matured into everlasting friendship when Malini and Daksha decided to move to Bangalore and enroll at the Mount Carmel College for their graduation. The rest of the group followed suit soon.

The fact that the three families moved base to Bangalore in 1960 gave our friendship a shot in the arm.
Life went on. We moved on to college and marriage and we accumulated the accompanying baggage! Letters were our only link during this busy phase of babies and booties for some, and demanding careers for the others.
Our letters were short and newsy but they kept the postman busy. By some unspoken pact that childhood buddies usually share, we didn't bore each other with photographs of family vacations and such other maudlin' stuff!

We are now what our grandchildren call the ‘golden oldies’ and, trust us, we've weathered many a storm that life threw our way, only thanks to our friendship, which only gets better with time.

We live in different cities but we meet thrice a year. These meetings are sacred to us. Sheila and Swaroopa come down from Mumbai; Malini from Chennai while Shalini, Daksha and I, who live in Bangalore, play the bullying organisers.

Emails flow back and forth as schedules are compared and dates co-ordinated. Sheila takes a break from playing Florence Nightingale to her kith and kin in Mumbai; Swaroopa sets aside some time from running a workshop for special kids; Daksha does the balancing act between business and family; Shalini takes time off from coaching school children; Malini makes a quick dash from Chennai where she volunteers at Sankara Nethralaya; and we catch up on our lives, recalling the wisdom of our school prayer:

In unison of song
Our youthful hearts awake
With the promise of the year
For the road we gladly take
So let's faithfully go forward
Ever seeking to do right
Ever upwards ever onwards
Till we reach the height.

And we know what our children and grandchildren envy us for — our lasting and abiding friendship.