Searching Old friends- III --- Happy :)

Yes, I am happy today as I finally found one of my old lost friends.... that too when her name changed from "abc xyz" to "klm pqr"....  Even first name changed !! As per Hindu marriage tradition, name of bride has to start from some new alphabet depending upon astrology, so my friend had to change her name from "J A" to "K K", so how could I find her after more than 10 years of "no contact". But luckily, somehow found her and happy !! Yet to find four more friends....

Searching old friends - II

In last post (Searching old friends - I), I raised a question regarding the probability of finding your childhood friends after growing up. Some friends told me offline that they couldn't get the main idea about what the post is? Whom I am searching? What made me write this post? Why I am searching them through social networking only? Why I don't go simply to their place and find out? And have I found my lost friends now or not? In this post I am gonna answer all these questions. And its my own experience.

One question I should answer here itself that why internet only? Actually, some friends changed their place, some in fact city itself so we didn't have each others' contacts. So at present, apart from internet, I don't have any other way to find their whereabouts :(

Well, To begin with, Lets start the process of searching an old lost friend. And pick any social networking site which you use most often (say Facebook). Now, type the name of your friend, only name won't do, you will have to type "surname" also, because, as I mentioned earlier that unless the name of your friend is extremely unique, you will definitely find so many people of same name. Now, if you are lucky enough, you will find your friend by seeing his/her profile photo provided, (1) he/she has put a profile photo, (2) you are able to recognize your friend after "growing up". But if you fail to do so, half of your chances of finding your friend are already gone. But don't give up. Still, its not impossible. You can contact each one of them (people of same name) and ask if they are the same "abc xyz", who you are looking for. Who knows, you may be talking to your friend also while asking. Happy? Mission over? No.

It may also happen that your friend is still not active on social networking. Don't worry, don't lose hope. Wait for some more time, days, months or may be even years. Hopefully, you will be able to see your friend soon. Or, may be they will find you themselves. Now Happy? Again No?

Why? What can be the reason that you are not able to find them?

Now, here comes the point which I wanted to raise. What if person has changed the name? But why the person will change the name? Person (your friend) has a beautiful name, there was no need to change the name. Then why?

Hmm, most of my friends must have changed their names, that's why I am not able to find them :(  They had to change their names. Because most of them would have been married by now. Some got married at the age of 20 only!! Yes, now you got the point. I am talking about the girls here who must have had to change their surnames. So the name of my friend which was "abc xyz" is something else now!!!!!!!!!!!!

Though some girls who don't want to lose their identity but still accept their changed name "gracefully", making it to "abc xyz pqr". I wish my friends would have done the same, so that I won't have to ask people with name "abc pqr" ---   "Are you the same "abc pqr" who was "abc xyz" earlier?" 

And I am doing this for last five years in search of my friends, failing every time. :( :(

Searching old friends - I

We have grown up now, so are our childhood friends from whom we got away while running in the race of life. While growing up, we went through a plethora of changes in our environment. Most of the times these changes were only due to the need of "something better", sometimes it was the need of a better house which caused the change, and sometimes it was need of better city itself. Better school, better ambience, better society, better business, better....... We were bound to face the changes due to the needs of "grown ups" at that time.

Time passed. Memories got diminished. We ourselves are grown ups now, we have our own needs and in run of life we are also imposing this change upon others. Can't help it. And its a trend of life. So better be happy going along the path. Nature also helps us in doing so by giving us "power" to forget, so, we find it difficult to recollect the feeble memories of our childhood.

But still, there were some things or some people along the journey of life who had made their places in our hearts. You miss your old childhood friends. You don't have any idea of their whereabouts. After growing up you try to search for them. Thanks to technology, social networking is available to us, so most of the time we are lucky enough to  find our childhood friends. 

But unfortunately, we (people of age > 10-12 years as these days children of 10-12 years are on facebook) are late enough in getting the technology. We still are not lucky enough to find some of our friends. Now, you can argue, why late?? We have so many ways still to find out about our friends. I agree. Unless your friend has extremely complex name like Rajrajeshwari Katyayanilakshmi Venkataramana Vankamamidi (no pun intended :P), we get so many copies of one name if we search in say facebook.

So what, go through all the profiles of that name na if you are so desperate to find your friend. 

Ok, fine. Good idea.

Lets say, we have gone through all the profiles. Any guess what are the chances that you will find your friend..??