A time to remember

Diwali eve was a get together time of wonderful sorts. My good friend Sourin invited me over to his home to partake in his daughter's 5th birthday celebrations! An accomplished singer and a music exponent, I've told you about him and his band sometime before.

This time around, I was witness to his usual exuberance in expression of warmth and bonding that comes so easily to him and his family, always forthcoming and readily able to come together with people, even at first meeting!

A little after I arrived, some of his friends, hitherto unknown to me, aficionados and experts in music and matters of the world, presented themselves! Usually taking sometime to break the ice, I found myself amidst a group of friends with an instant sense of connect - one like never before!

After a round of introductions and talk about each others' lives, fellow-guests, and the host, many a passionate pursuant of music in one venue, broke into momentum enthralling the rest of us with verses of Tagore in the voices of Kishore, to mention a few that is!

Not many of us feel happy in the pursuit of something that is non material, but it is imperative to understand that true happiness can and will be a result of intangible quantifications! Also important it is, to know that to connect with people, one requires an open mind, the ability to establish relationships - worthy in themselves, and the good sense to appreciate the other in a measure that is of true recognition!

As for my expression to summarize the evening, I feel appropriate to render it in the words of the famous American humorist, Will Rogers, that "A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people."