It has been over a year now since I founded this WhatsApp group for my school batch mates. So what is new? Almost everyone forms all kinds of groups nowadays. Well, the unique part is that since we passed out from school we were not in touch till last year. We knew nothing about each other’s life till we met on WhatsApp. Astonishing use of technology. Let me first hit on a tangent before I go to the main topic of my discussion.

I had been a part of a school batchmates group already thanks to a persistent school friend. Then I succumbed to the idea of joining my college alumni batch group. One point of correlation here is that both the large batch groups were dead groups except for birthdays, achievements, or sad obituaries nothing else ever got posted. We all were practically living like ghosts in our lives. I felt ‘ghosted’ as it is referred to these days. What's the point of being in a group if no one likes to talk?

The worst of all is family groups I think, where most members are added due to familial pressure. You are bombarded with goodwill and happiness texts at the burst of a new day even if you hate each other's guts to death. And if one family happens to be better off or educated more then there is no respite from the blatant showing off and display of an ostentatious lifestyle. Whilst some have acquired the art of aiming taunts most derisively. Congratulations now we do not need a family gathering in person to feel inferior or humiliated.

I think before family ties get morose we will skip to better pastures of friend groups, which are safer. Now to the crux of our discussion, I started with a bunch of diverse thinking but identical school girls, we were connected in some or the other way with each other. A loosely created group.

What do you think happened? Did we feel uncomfortable? Did we ever fight? Did we ever want to abandon the group?

Yes to all the questions mentioned above but those were the negatives and the positives exceeded them in comparison. Firstly I was already in touch with them on a one-to-one basis. Some I had to hunt down from their stacked-up life. They were invisible due to their household duties and family life. This is why convent education was a necessity during my school years I suppose. To train for future wife and daughter-in-law roles to perfection. As I had not been in touch with them for the last thirty-plus years it needed a lot of careful planning as to who all would tolerate and enjoy the company of each other.

Three decades is a long span, from teenage to middle years is a giant leap to confront no doubt. I added those whom I had already added to the larger batch group, the ones who were living in the same city as mine, and in school, we sat around each other in the row. Your circle is so important in life. Then I moved to common friends who lived outside our city even our country. It was awkward trying to make a conversation as a group. So I asked about everyone’s daily routine which was a common ground we could initiate with. It took a lot of cajoling and stalking at times to make everyone talk in the beginning! Yes, life was smooth in school. I was confronting wives, moms, mothers-in-law, and even grandmoms to intimate you with the scenario that prevailed then. It was surprising that most of them used WhatsApp the least and sometimes did not even call back as if their phones lay locked in their safes! Was my declaration most times in exasperation. 

Then came the first get-together. It was no doubt just as exhilarating as a school picnic or outing. The school-time adventurous ones opined that it was as thrilling as the sly rendezvous they had that time with their beaus. I will not name any of the girls here because some secrets go with us to our graves. To one such adventuress mate, I opined that we had one boy in our batch. It was impossible as we were in a convent school. My friend looked at me bashfully when I called out her now hubby’s name and said he was omnipresent at all outings or school “functions”, as we Indians have christened school celebrations. Therefore he was a part and parcel of our school life. More secrets tumbled out that even school farewell parties were given a miss for these dudes. Such sacrifices these girls made for the men in their lives.

Now we come to the most captivating part, as we started with group video calls late at night which lasted till two or three am at times. As it was a small group we had to include friends who lived overseas, who lived in joint families, and who were night owls.

What exactly do you think we discussed? After thirty long years, most were married.

So did we discuss hubbies? In-laws? Nope, the answer is not even once. We discussed all the funny incidents that happened in our lives, you can call it our secret selves got revealed then. Who had traveled to surprise destinations, who had got tattoos done? Who had gotten drunk and made a few messes.

Yes, we discussed our most vulnerable moments and some explicit badass humour to gulp it down with. We felt rejuvenated and young, an incredible feeling. Then as we got comfortable with each other we tackled the topic closest to our hearts. Our children, that’s it. Now I will hand you a philosophy that comes with age alone. Since my daughter and her friends have been married recently, in their group they discuss their new families and love discussions about their new hubbies. So once my daughter asked in curiosity whether we had similar ideologies as the discussion. To that, I replied nonchalantly that we all were unanimous about the opinion we had about hubbies, no comments on relatives since all they did mostly was piss us off! The rose-tinted glasses had been replaced with sturdy reading ones.

But we were most emotional and concerned about our young ones. Dealing with Millenials, Generation Z and Alpha was quite a task. I agree it is a hackneyed topic of the generation gap. We are Generation X, who have been adventurous in choosing life partners but after being domesticated have fallen in line with the usual submissive lives expected from wives and other related life roles. We are the offsprings of Baby Boomers and The Silent Generation, the toughies in the entire lot of generations altogether. They will break but never bend to modernity to be precise. Therefore please understand our plight at being sandwiched between the traditionalists to the wayward modernity. As one of us pondered aloud most casually we are the only generation who is trying to please generations above and below us at the same time. Rings true really!

Hence I have with me mothers who are traumatised of their children more than they are of their parents-in-law. Mothers with sons have the most complaints, please distinguish one tiny detail of difference Millenials and Generation Z are only a few years apart but are a world of difference. Yes, even they are aware of it. The moment we started discussing, it felt as if our own stories were being described but of course with different names. We could never imagine being impolite to our future mothers-in-law. To date, we cannot fathom being bold or rude to them, forget the revealing fashion sense and sensibilities if they can be called so. But girls as they use the term now have no ‘filters’. And to make matters worse have no idea that they were endangering their future relations to make their place. It is not their fault as they had seen their mothers being bullied by their grandmothers and kin. It is a defense mechanism that gets triggered by default. And painstakingly the worst truth hit us when we concluded that our sons discussed everything with their partners which hurt a lot as our hubbies would never dream of doing the same with us. Family details will never be discussed with spouses no matter what!

Needless to say, it was a cathartic moment because what felt like a failure in inculcating trust and loyalty with our blood automatically became a regular phenomenon for us all. To say the very least I was able to improve my relationship with my kids. I even discussed the same with them and thankfully they also started seeing reason and we came to terms with our family roles. Now we make jokes about a lot of uneasy stuff that took place before this revelation with my friends. Oh yes, we friends discuss everything in detail but it is done only because we trust each other and are a support system to each other. Over time which is approximately more than a year, there were serious life changes amongst us and we huddled together as one. Innocently as it seems my friends have not realized the changes I can see in them. We talk one-on-one for ours, discuss the tiniest of situations, get scolded by each other, and get mocked for silly things. One common factor is that we are no longer just moms, wives, or aunts. We are ourselves. We are no longer connected to our kids with the umbilical cords but we are our evolved selves now. And believe me, our children are relieved and impressed with us finally the ball is back in our court. 

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