Twenty-four pairs of brown eyes stare at me from the computer screen. Most of the girls’ hair in the picture is pulled back into neat ponytails or secured by blue hair bands. Small hands are placed delicately in all the laps -- the right handover the left as instructed by the photographer. Despite this uniformity, the facial expressions vary widely. A few of the nine year olds are smiling shyly -- others seem to have been caught unawares.

I am gazing at my class photograph from Grade 4. My eyes wander over each girl. It is astonishing that a lot of the faces aren’t linked with a name in my mind anymore. It is as if the memories of going to the same classroom for a whole year -- a class where everyone had fixed seats and queues had to be formed to go anywhere else -- have been first diluted and then eliminated by the thousands of memories formed later.

The picture appeared on my Facebook newsfeed at the wrong time -- I was leaving my school a couple of months later. Needless to say, the thought that I would perhaps not see the majority of my class fellows next year was at the top of my mind. Conversations were peppered with this sentiment and promises to stay in touch.

It was easy to catch yourself wondering whether or not we would be that integral a part of each other’s lives a few months down the road. The prospect was, for lack of a better word, just sad. This was a new experience for me -- a new crossroads in my life -- or so I thought. It remained to be seen how things would turn out.

But then that picture from years ago popped up. It struck me then that I had already been through the process, without even realising it! A lot of people whom I had once seen every single day for months, or even years at end, had just disappeared. They shifted abroad or changed schools or repeated a grade and I didn’t even notice when the connection between the face and the name faded from my mind!

But maybe, I thought to myself, I had not noticed because it had never been a close friend. It had just been a friend (and in Grade 4 everyone in the same classroom is a friend!). This time though it would be different.

Of course, it would, because these were my close friends we were talking about. We’d Skype weekly. The text messages’ volume would not slowly dwindle and peter out -- I wouldn’t let that happen. Hmm, maybe, a Whatsapp group would also make it easier to remain in touch.

My phone vibrated. Another notification. Someone else had commented on that picture. It reappeared on the screen, the nameless faces taunting the plans forming in my mind -- until I comforted myself with the thought that one of my friends and I had ended up in different sections from Grade 1 to 8 (almost an entire decade!) but still remained close. Plus, technology was on my side!