Friends are Destined to be...

I've got an awesome friend... humorous and funloving... at the same time an exceptional self-taught programmer... I prefer to call him a genius... as he has taught me much and still does. Now this friend of mine has been working for quite some time with this fast budding IT company whose employees had never seen my friends face-to-face... but they had seen and admired his work.

The Director and Founder of this company (also my friend... a "one-of-a-kind" kinda guy... for his multi faceted abilities and undying calmness and rock-solid presence of mind... no matter what!!) had seen him... talked to him... trained him... and seems very much satisfied with his performance.

So as the proposal of this company to meet my friend kept on being postponed due to unforseen reasons... it materialised atlast as a 14 person trip to his home, some 260kms away.

I believe it was more our destiny to be with him than it was his to be with us...

On the auspicious day... the journey began... all had taken extra effort to be their best... some even spent sleepless nights scheduling and organising the trip. They did their best to make it as perfect and hassle-free as possible... which was evidently fulfilled.

The journey though a happy one, had an air of mystery... suspense, rather, as none of them knew what to expect... they had never seen him... but those thoughts drowned in the lively music, painstakingly selected the previous night. We stopped for breakfast... I ate heartily.... and got to know the rest of the team... I had seen them... but never interacted with them... each one of them unique.

After 5 long hours and also the problem put up by me for having to stop twice or thrice to strech my legs... we reached our destination. All suspense was blown away and replaced with a time of fun and laughter. Then my friend's mum and his grandmum brought in refreshments and all of us digged in... his dad narrated a story... which at the moment sounded incoherent to me as I was deeply engrossed in the huge piece of chicken pastry and the nut filled cream cake which was mouth watering. Most pleasant of all was observing how the others ate... amusing, really!

But then a silence reigned throughout and my friend and i did our best to break the monotony by taking snaps of those present... half eating... half talkin... half sleeping... The silence was turned to laughter when they saw the kind of pictures we took and as we pointed out the various humorous expressions made by each...

After which we all gathered together for an extensive photo session... and then prepared for a brief departure... I wonder if all of them shook his hand... must've fallen off in the process.

They all came in doubt and left content to have found a team-mate... and more importantly a friend.

The visit was short and sweet.

I wish we had gone earlier...