The school buildings had been torn down a year ago. Flattened. Cleared. Wiped out. All to make way for something modern. Something glassy. Something that probably has air conditioning that actually works.
Where our school hall once stood, there is now another building. Where we once stood nervously waiting for the assembly, there is now… progress.
So when our little group of former students walked in yesterday, we walked into unfamiliar territory. We were visitors in a place that used to belong to us.
It felt strange.
We expected nostalgia. We expected memories. We expected to feel slightly lost.
What we did not expect was therapy.
It has been decades since we were students together. Decades since we shared lunchboxes, whispered answers in class, passed notes, and invented excuses for unfinished homework.
Life happened in between.
Some of us have lost parents. Some, a child. Some have lost health. Some have survived surgeries, accidents, betrayals, disappointments, and illnesses that have names longer than the queue outside an OPD.
We arrived carrying invisible luggage.
But within minutes of sitting together, something shifted.
Nobody asked, “So what do you do now?”
Nobody asked, “How successful are you?”
Nobody asked, “How many properties do you own?”
Instead someone said, “Do you remember how Mr. DeCosta recited Shakespeare?”
And just like that, therapy began.
Laughter is a powerful medicine. It does not require a prescription. It has no side effects.
We laughed at each other’s grey hair. At receding hairlines.
We laughed at expanding waistlines.
We laughed at jokes we had forgotten we once found funny. And strangely, they were still funny.
We spoke about teachers who are long dead, but very much alive in our memories. The strict ones. The kind ones. The slightly mad ones. The headmaster who frightened us into studying and also how he made us love learning.
For a few hours, nobody was a retired bank manager. Nobody was a businessman.
We were simply classmates.
Equal.
Unimpressive.
Comfortably ordinary.
And deeply connected.
There were no counsellors in the room.
No couches.
No soothing background music.
No framed certificates on the wall.
Yet healing happened.
People shared losses casually, without drama. Others listened without trying to fix anything. Heads nodded. Eyes softened. Silence did its gentle work.
This is something therapy clinics rarely advertise.
Sometimes healing does not need techniques.
It needs togetherness.
It needs people who knew you before you became complicated.
People who remember you when your biggest problem was unfinished homework, not unfinished life dreams.
At the end, when we stood up slowly, to leave, something beautiful happened.
Almost everyone said some version of the same sentence.
“I really needed this.”
That sentence carries weight.
It means somewhere inside, a tired soul found rest.
The buildings may be gone.
The walls may be unfamiliar.
But the real structure of our school was never brick and cement.
It was relationships.
Those remain.
So if you are searching for therapy, try this.
Find someone who once knew you when you were younger.
Sit.
Talk nonsense.
Laugh.
Remember.
You might discover that the most effective therapy in the world has no walls at all.
Just people.
Who care…!
The Author conducts an online, eight session Writers and Speakers Course. If you’d like to join, do send a thumbs-up to WhatsApp number 9892572883 or send a message to bobsbanter@gmail.com
