A matter of time

So I found this guy on Facebook, and went "OH MY GOD, is that him???"

Yes, it was. It was my tuition kid from almost a decade ago.

*Flashback begins*

It was the spring of 2001.

(Kaahe ka spring, I pause to ask myself. Who am I kidding? Singapore ain't got no spring-shring!)

So... it was the 'same-old-drab-season' of 2001.

I was doing my internship at Exxonmobil. My only memories of my internship consisted of my cute boss and the fact that they really did pay us interns a lot for not doing much. There were no classes that semester so I had a lot of free time in the evenings. I'd go over to this professor's house and tutor his kid in Science, Maths and Urdu (spoken -- it's not as difficult as it sounds). It was a family of 6 - the Pakistani professor, his Australian wife, and their four amazingly beautiful kids.

The fourth kid was only an infant. Baby S. She had started to recognise me and would actually smile at me! This was way before I had my niece baby Aish in my life and back then, to actually have a baby smile at me was a totally earth-shattering experience for me.

My tuition kid (let's call him J) was nine years old. He was a bright kid who enjoyed his lessons. I'd time him on his Maths sums using my mobile phone and he'd go, "Wait wait! Give me 5 seconds more!" I had the prehistoric Nokia 3310 in those days, anyone remember it? 'The blue brick' they called it. J was fascinated by the phone and often wanted to time me with it as I explained sums to him, the cheeky chap.

Soon, the semester was over. The final year of engineering doesn't really give one much time for tuitions. I was busy with classes and my final year project, and discontinued the tuitions. And that was the last I saw of J and his family.

*Flashback ends*

So when I found this tall, lanky teenager on Facebook, I could not believe it was my little tuition kid J. He remembered me and told me all about himself, and how he is going to university next year. University!

"How is baby S?" I asked. He told me how baby S is of course, no longer a baby, but is a child model for Singapore tourism, and was on the billboards all over India two years ago.

And that's when I felt it.

You know how we roll our eyes when an aunty or an uncle comes up to us and says, "Oh my god!!! You have grown soooo much! I can't believe it! You were a baby/kid when I saw you!!"

I guess now I can relate to them. Finally. Call it age or whatever you will, but to see someone you knew as a kid, in their grown-up avtaar is truly one of the most amazing things ever.

Even though we know it's a perfectly natural phenomenon -- time passes, kids grow up -- it still is quite unbelievable.

I hereby resolve not to make fun of the uncles and aunties anymore. :/