Old friends

Four years ago, when the internet was still young, a friend of mine who I'd not met for ten years - Jayant V, decided to look for me on Hotmail. And he found me.

Today, I'm thinking of so many of my other friends from Kuwait, who I never even got a chance to say good-bye to. Childhood friends who I've not seen for atleast 14 years. I'm wondering where they are now.

So, since finding someone on Hotmail today is not exactly the best way to go, and google turns up too many results and expects you to remember the names exactly, I thought I'd put their names up here and hope someone who knows them would help them get in touch with me.

In no particular order -

Amit (Gupta?) - He had two brothers - Rohit and Sumit, I think - and a baby sister whose name I don't remember.
Amit Thakkar - I think he'd been studying in a hostel in India a number of years before 1990. He'd come home to his parents once in a while.
Dushyant Bansal - a.k.a Pintoo. Was in Vashi last time I heard. His family left Kuwait to come to India on vacation the night before Saddam invaded - 1st August 1990. And they didn't have an inkling of what was about to happen. (My family was already on vacation and we were supposed to return to Kuwait on the 2nd of August. Saved by a day)
Puneet - The hindi teacher's son (Deshpande? Probably) Also class topper.
Upaneesh - Also one of the class toppers. Probably in the other class, since I only remembering being in the same class with him in sixth or seventh standard.
Savio Gomes - English teacher's son. She was our teacher in fifth standard I think.
Neeti and Chhavi - I forget their last name. Their mom was my Hindi teacher in third or fourth standard, I think. Neeti's real name was Aditi. Chhavi's name was probably Bhavna (forgive me for forgetting). The three of us used to play as kids. I realize now that it didn't make much of a difference to me at that time, that my first friends were girls... Neeti had once colored-in a kangaroo in a coloring book I had. She'd used brown pencil color. I think it was quite neatly done. Angry that she'd dared to color in my book, I painted on it using green water color. Thankfully, my artistic sensibilities have improved over the years. Atleast I think so.
Viraj Tipnis - A year older than my brother, he lived in the next block of the building.
Deepak and Sumit Singh - Deepak used to rip out the d.c.-motors from the remote control cars we had, and make other remote control cars out of them. We all used to play on the terrace and go bicycling together. This was mainly during Ramzaan, since all the parking lots would be empty in the afternoons, and made for great cycling-spots. We had names for all the spots, though "sandy place" is the only name I remember... These two, Viraj, me, my brother Vicky, and probably one or two others, would ride our bicycles mounted with big rubber bands sling-shot style, and a small bag of paper bullets attached to the handle. I forget the point of that game...
Tony - Sat next to me in class the three months I was in Kuwait during seventh standard.
Kunal - I guess his mom taught Social Studies in our school.
Dolfrey - I'm probably spelling her name wrong. She started studying in India quite early on and I don't think I saw her after first standard. And anyway, she was a woman. By then I was going through the "I don't like women" stage. Thankfully, it only lasted around three weeks...
Prashant Jha - a.k.a Shimpu. He had a sister, I guess. His mom used to make the most amazing "butta sabzi" - an Indian preparation with Corn as the main ingredient.
Hakim and Farhana Electricwala - Not too sure about the last name, though. They lived on the same floor as us in our old building. Their elder sister (Sabera?) got married about a year or so after they moved into our building. Don't remember her at all. They were both older than me atleast by a couple of years but their first week in school (I was probably not even in first standard then), I would lead them to the right bus. Made me feel all grown up...
Vinu - Can't remember his full name. We'd play catch in the mornings, I guess, while we waited for the school bus.

And does anyone remember Motu? You know, the fat Arab kid in my building who used to bully all of us until someone broke his glasses. (Or was it him that broke my glasses? Memory... plays a lot of tricks on you) My brother and he became quite good friends, later.

More names, as I remember them.

So, anyone of you out there?