There’s something magical about the number 80. Especially when the person celebrating that milestone is a gracious lady who has known you well since you were a khaki trouser sporting HPS teenager. And someone who has been a part of some of the most important dates in your life.

Someone who is warm and vivacious, and someone who will always find a special place in your heart.

Well, it was her birthday and there was a party. And I went expecting to enjoy meeting up with this favourite aunt but I got something much more than I had imagined.

Because as I stepped into the venue I realised that the hall was filled with her contemporaries and friends from another generation. And naturally they were mostly people we knew as kids.

An aunty whose sons were schoolmates, college mates even; an aunty who was responsible for me getting into advertising. A lady who was for a while a stylish neighbour; and many ladies who were my late mother’s friends. And of course there were the other children who had also grown up with us. Friends who we see once in a few years and still feel as if we never lost touch.

As I was mentally ticking off all these lovely people and remembering various incidents that involved each of them I realized that I was truly blessed…me and my generation I mean.

Such lovely parents and guardians we all had. Such simple, unassuming legends. Theirs was a different grace, a different era almost. When each of us was regarded as a son or a daughter just because we were friends of their own. What dignity they all had and continue to live by.

Truly, a meet up of several milestones and an afternoon of rediscovering flashes of youth. I just had a Coke. The atmosphere was so heady.

As I was leaving, a single thought crossed my mind. Will we ever be even half the parents that ours were? Will we be ever the kind of guardians these varied people were? I hope so. I know I am trying my best to measure up to this wonderful generation.

I hope one day my children will feel about us what we feel about this older generation. This golden generation.