Pooja Bedi takes a trip down memory lane at Sanawar

SANAWAR: Among the special invitees at Lawrence School Sanawar's Founder's Day celebrations this year were the respective diamond, golden and silver jubilee batches of 1954, 1964 and 1989. The most vibrant of these turned out to be the 1989 batch that boasts of alumni like actor Pooja Bedi, Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah and industrialist Ness Wadia.
While Abdullah left after attending the chapel service on the first day, Wadia didn't turn up for the event. Bedi, on the other hand, was leading her group -- right from day one to participation in the march after the school parade on the last day.
For her, gearing up for the special event began long before she landed in Sanawar, where they acted just like teens. "It has been 25 years and you forget faces in that a long time. So we created a group on Whatsapp with 17 people -- these are people from different walks of life -- and caught up with old memories," she told TOI. "It was amazing. The way nicknames and lingo we used in school, came back. People even remembered that," said a visibly excited Bedi.
"We even organized a pre-Founders and planned a get-together in Pune as early as August," Bedi said. At school, she took a trip down the memory lane going to the Charlie canteen and the tuck shop, which reminded her of the Rs 7-pocket money days. "All those memories came flooding back, when we used to get Rs 7 as pocket money and religiously went to the bank with our passbooks. The next used to be a trip to the tuck shop and buying chocolates and ice creams with the much-awaited pocket money," she added.
Admitting that she was a mischievous kid, but a class topper, Bedi advised current Sanawarians to remain childlike instead of childish. "It is okay to grow old, but one shouldn't grow up," she said.
At Sanawar, Pooja Bedi, along with her batch-mates, created a memorial with plaques bearing their names for five batchmates who have since passed away. It included the name of her brother Siddharth.