We live in a time when everyone seems to be rushing past one another, texting on their phones, chasing deadlines and targets or caught up in the rat race with little or no time to spend with family and friends, the company of people—even if they are total strangers—can be a pleasant and unexpected change.   Picture this.   One evening, at a restaurant in Bandra, a group of people from mixed backgrounds and probably little in common arrive one by one and share a table with so

The four of us— best friends from school, college and work—met after a long time, though it didn’t feel like we’d missed a single beat....

Until the turn of this century, nostalgia—a sentimental longing for something good that happened in our past—often dominated...