So what do you do when you meet a childhood friend whom you have not met for the last 30 years? Would you embrace and hug each other like a couple of Arabs, or do you just nod and smile, unsure of what to say or do?

As a matter of fact, the effect would be worse if you did not expect to meet each other. In my case however, it was kind of expected, since I was attending the 40th wedding anniversary of my father's best friend, and I knew for a fact that I would be meeting his son there, who is my long lost childhood friend. Frankly I thought of trying to skip that event, mumbling something about having to attend a Futsal Match. But my father wouldn't hear head or tail of it, so there I was. And expected as it was, it caught us unprepared nevertheless.