Oldies are young too...

Last Thursday was very very special, for some of us. Some friends of mine & I had decided to pay a visit to the home. Most had never visited one before & were all excited (as we engineers normally are, whenever we move out of the college campus), but on a serious note, that day I had the company of some bright youngsters, who had by now decided to make the move. Most were those who knew that I was to visit the home today, but the surprise was Kartikey, who just heard of the visit & came along, & what was to follow that evening was something nobody had anticipated....

The six of us, five boys & a girl, reached the home & first met the supervisor. He was warm & welcoming as always. He talked about the basic instructions, like not sharing our personal information such as phone numbers with anyone, making the elderly happy, asking them to be involved in greater recreational activities. When he was told about the blog & plans for YFO, he was all the more excited & assured us full support. He talked about how it was important to start making contributions today, as it is easier for us, when we are students & young & infact wanted us to continue with different forms of community service all our lives, passing it onto our children too.

When we went to see our Grannies we first met Mr. Ghai, a very respected elderly there, well educated & is involved with many activities related to the welfare of the inhabitants of the home, & infact discussed with us plans for Diwali Celebration. We spent almost an hour with him, discussed on a wide range of topics & when we came out of his room, in the gallery we were to meet again the grandmas I talked about in my previous posts. Now what was to follow, was two hours of fun & laughter.....

We all cracked jokes, riddles were being fired on us by our grannies, especially in Punjabi, & we all were brainstorming to come up with some weird answers. It was difficult to imagine they were old, they talked very much like us, teased all of us about our girlfriends so to say & the most pampered of us all was Rachneet, a very sweet friend of ours, & the sole girl with us. She was the "Gudiya" of everyone, which means a Doll. Another attraction was the singing of Kartikey & Rachneet, & soon we all joined in chorus too. It was fun unlimited. We also happened to benefit from some moral based stories of Guru Nanak Ji, the reverend first Guru of the Sikhs. It was fun packed two hours, something similar to when old friends meet after sometime.

We finally came out, everyone with a unique glow of happiness on their faces, each one carrying bags full of blessings. I received a warm hug from a friend on moving out of the home, that said it all. If this was not all, we had these big glasses of fruit juice all for Rs. 10(they were huge, I promise). The visit finally came to an end & we all headed for our respective homes. Our happiness, can be judged from the fact that my cousin called me up the same evening & asked me, why I sounded so happy that day...

Now we can proudly say, we have an extended family, a wonderful extended family in Tilak Vihar home... You go out & find one of your own & do let us know of it too, we shall party together...