past, perfect?

they come back suddenly, in black and white, those classes on the roof. rehaan discussing parentheses, pushan making tanvi privy to visual cues used by gay men, havovi playing hecuba at midnight by an abandoned reservoir in khandala, radhika sniffing glue in class while the rest of us dissect the iambic meter, dilshad carrying in photocopies of a paper on adorno, prajna yelling at me about camus, troy looking down at catholic women in the foyer, harold asking the women if they will consider sleeping with him, anjali telling harold why they never will, aarti smiling quietly, louella and russell discussing russell's silver earring, geeta sleeping calmly through the french symbolists on the basis of some excuse about insomnia, leena and geena doing the things leena and geena alone know how to.
 
they come back suddenly when, now, after a decade has passed, i struggle to stay awake in the face of boring media folk, corporate yuppies in arrow shirts, men and women from colleges and universities i have never heard of, boys and girls who have wasted their lives on years of studying for degrees in commerce and business administration.
 
then, like a breath of fresh air, the children of my youth pop in, every now and then. prajna and lou, tanvi and pushan, rehaan and russell. the years fly by. where have all the xavierites gone?