The World is a small place indeed!!!!

Every day that we spend in our lives is filled with so many little stories, nice feel good moments and a few difficult ones. All these together in their many different layers is what our daily life is all about. A lot of times I wish I had one of these really nice high end phones through which I could do instant blogging and pen down my thoughts, just to make sure I did'nt  lose the joy of capturing that fleeting moment. It was one such wonderfully scripted moment last week that has made me sit down, recollect and write this piece. This little incident from last week has done me a huge favour and has served as a great reminder to the sweet surprises that life always has in store for us. Read on..

Ever since I came back from my trip to the US in September last year, I have found it very difficult to accept a certain fact regarding which I would'nt elaborate further. Too many random thoughts and a sense of failure have bogged me down from getting myself fully involved with the people and activities around me. My daily life started following a rather depressing pattern where I would converse very little with folks at home, head straight to work, spend long hours at my desk, drive home in the dead of the night and sit awake till an ungodly hour thinking about why something very simple and true that I wanted did not happen. With every passing day, the frustration and the feeling of anger towards everything around me increased. It was in these tough times that I started finding some joy during my late night drive back home. 

Am a big music lover and its almost impossible for me to drive my car without listening to some quality music. I have a lot of numbers downloaded and burnt on to discs that I hear frequently. Radio has never been an option for me, but one night while driving back my CD system in the car had a snag and the same song kept on playing in loop. Of course thats a pretty bugging thing to be happening, so I switched over to the FM stations. The only station whose frequency I readily recollected was Radio Mirchi's 98.3. It was about 11:20 odd in the night I guess and I heard this very sweet and cheerful voice that I found catchy for some reason or the other. The voice had a little thread of familiarity to it but it was such a momentary thought that I just let it skip through. The show was called Kadhala Kadhala and the RJ went by the name of Dr.Love. 

It was interesting to hear her talk about all the little things that people in love faced very often. Her primary job, apart from playing songs was to act as a counsellor for couples who faced minor squabbles in their relationship and needed someone to talk to. She also varied the mood of the program everyday. If one day was about counselling, the next day she would play matchmaker and the next day interview a celebrity guest.  As I kept hearing her everyday, I realized that she was extremely good at what she was doing and I sure developed a genuine liking for the show and the way it was being conducted. It almost became a habit for me to get in my car and quickly tune into her show. In between all the songs and ads on the show I would probably hear about 10 mins of her by the time I reached home. 

Once I got back home it was back to the usual surfing on the internet and being all by myself. It was during one such night that I felt this instinct within me that said - 'There is definitely something remarkably familiar about Dr.Love's voice'. I had no clue what it was though. Could'nt recollect any friend or person I had met who had actually gone on and become an RJ. So I just thought it was something I felt because I was listening to her daily for 4 months. The next night when I got online, the first thing that I searched on Google was Radio Mirchi Chennai. Something told me to go figure out who she was and I wanted an answer to that mystery hidden somewhere in my brain. I got through to the website pretty comfortably and it had this flash content on it that showed you a few seconds of each RJ and the show they hosted on air.

One of the faces that I recognised from the first few, was Siva -  the Chennai 28 hero. I had asbsolutely no idea that the guy was an RJ on Mirchi. Then it was Dr.Love and boy in one small second it all came right in front of my eyes. One whole bunch of memories from my days as a kid came rushing through. I instantly recognised her face and her name as well. She had never revealed her name on air during the show but it was'nt a mystery to me any longer. This was ShivShankari, the girl I knew from my school days in St.John's Besant Nagar. I was like wow!!!! It all made sense to me, that hunch that I heard her voice before. I was honestly very surprised how I could remember someone from 15 years ago by their voice. To me it was absolutely astounding. 

My memories of Shivshankari were all about dance. She and her friend had a great interest in it from very early on in school and their talent was there for all to see. Even when she was just in her grade 6, she peformed solo during the 10th year celebration of the school. It was a marvellous performance that just blew me away. It sure did leave a big impact on me, since it was the first thought that came to mind when I saw her picture. I also recollected having talked to her but those memories were very vague. After finding her on the Radio Mirchi site, my next task was to get in touch with her and tell her about all of this. The only option for me was to look into Orkut. I thought maybe she had a profile or a community or something that could give me some leads. It was just a shot in the dark.

But well well, I was lucky again. I first found a community for her and then I actually figured out that she was one of the members. Her profile had her picture, but I was'nt sure if it was really her. So I checked her scrapbook and I found the usual scraps from listeners. It was then that I noticed this mutual friend connection that Orkut offers. I had my classmate from school, Anu on it and thats when I realized that this was surely a genuine profile. I decided to leave Shiv a scrap, narrating in about 5-6 lines a short version of this story. Of course, I had no idea if she remembered me, since I was this quiet, shy guy back in the school days.

In about 3 days, Shiv responded to my scrap and to me it was such a great surprise. Not only did she remember me but she also told me about a hilarious conversation that we had from our grade 5 days. We had shared a bench back then and she told me how I had told her the story of my name(Kalyanaraman - shortened to Kalyan). I had also told her not to tell other folks in class fearing they would start pulling my leg big time. I was totally stunned that she actually still had that fresh in mind. It kind of made sense to me why her voice seemed so familiar - I probably shared a bench with her for an entire year. Her reply told me she was very excited about the whole thing. One of the requests I had made to her in my scrap was to narrate the story of how I found her on air if she found it equally intriguing.

The following Monday, I tuned in to her show just at the stroke of 11 with an air of expectancy. And again I was spot on. She spoke about it beautifully in her own inimitable style. Talked about how excited she was at finding an old friend and commended me for readily getting in touch with her. She also urged her listeners to go ahead and reach out to their long lost friends from school. At the end of it, she called out my name and then played out a song. It was one of the best moments that I can truly think of. I looked back at the whole sequence of events and it was quite miraculous. It was a very genuine moment of happiness for me. To be able to recognize a friend from 15 years ago through a radio show and then get in touch was a remarkable thing indeed.

Since that event happened about 2 weeks back, we have exchanged a couple of emails and have promised to catch up sometime considering we live in the same part of the city. Our work keeps us pretty much busy but we sure will stay in touch. The big lesson for me from the whole thing was that the most repeated cliche 'The world is a small place'  is indeed very true. Whoever came up with that phrase was a real genius and he must have felt exactly the same way as I did when he said that. Life is about surprises and you never know when the next one is around the corner. The key thing is to take great joy from these little moments. This one was fantastic and am surely gonna treasure this for a long, long time.