When parents choose schools for their children, they have in mind a specific social circle, a specific life style, and a specific group of people to be associated with. This is also kept in mind when purchasing a house or joining a country club. Being a part of a group matters, and being a part of a chosen group matters more.

Today, I came across a very very old VHS tape of an old school concert. Yes, you read it right, it was a tape and not a CD or DVD. Gladly, it was converted to a CD so we, in the 21st century, can have access to its hidden gems. A few minutes after laughing my head off, I started feeling nostalgic. All those people on the recording were a part of my life one day. You see, our school was a fairly young school back then so we knew all the students. A smile spread across my face as I saw myself dancing and trying to make sure I don’t miss a step. I saw people who I still have contact with on Facebook and people who I really wanted to know what became of them. Many different faces with many different stories: the boy who wrote me my first love letter and my cousin dancing along her once-best-friend.

Where did we all part ways?

When did this bunch of primary school students grow into teachers and engineers and racist lunatics and fanatics? How were we able to deviate so much from the group of sweet looking children dancing and smiling at our families in the crowd? How can one person grow up to be a politician whereas another be a yoga instructor? Did our parents really think this through when they enrolled us in the nursery?

When did our peaceful competition turn to hateful differences and racial discrimination? We never cared where any of us came from, when did we part ways? Where was the crossroad in our lives? I thought that graduation is the time where we would definitely part ways but I realized that we parted ways earlier. We parted ways when we started seeing the differences. We parted ways when we realized the difference in our backgrounds and starting comparing (and contrasting) ourselves. When we were all on that stage, everything was perfect, our individual differences made sense. Our makeup was done by our music teacher who loved us all individually, our hair was styled as we saw best (by we I mean our mothers), and our dresses were, honestly, gorgeous.

We were so pure and innocent, where did we give ourselves the right to judge? When did we think we were better and when did we lose sense of the dance of life? When did we all part ways?

Where did we all part ways?