New Year Notes

What a year it has been!

A year of changes, some anticipated, some rude shocks, the crushing pain of losing someone loved, the learning to live without Paati,

The foreboding sense of distrust, going to bed wanting the sun not to rise on the morrow, waking up to fervently wish for the day to draw to a close, the desperate need to find peace of mind, the waves of relief at finally knowing there is someone to count on, the pouring out of the heart, the shock of being blind-sided, the frustration of having nowhere to go, the misery of solitude, the serenity in being alone, running away from the familiar, wishing things would change,

The growing warmth of a kindled light, the rising tide of happiness at finding a friend, the pleasant sensation of seeing a familiar face, the discovery of new friendships, settling into a comfortable rhythm, the buzz of the first sip of champagne, conversations filled with unbridled laughter, an evening with good friends, finding a reason to smile in a long time, the looking forward to a new day, welcoming the new season, the satisfaction of enjoying good food,

The contentment of preparing a meal, the bliss of solitude, incessant loud music, the bass seeming to pound inside you, the stomach churning fall of the rollercoaster, the taste of the first snowfall, the ritual of picking out a present, the flavours of brownies and ice cream, missing friends who are not around, the comfort on hearing a friend’s voice over the phone, being exhausted but happy, getting sentimental with people who matter, the joy of home cooked food,

The thrill of hearing Amma’s voice over the phone, the warm fuzz when Thatha is on video chat, the familiarity of meandering conversations with no purpose, the understanding that circumstances are ever-changing, developing a radar, knowing that someone is always there for you, getting a bear hug, making someone smile, spending a day with someone special, and building memories.

Memories that will last a lifetime, memories that have left scars, memories of times to be cherished and re-lived. Here’s to another year of memory-making.

Happy New Year!

Chalte Chalte... Ahem...!

June 6th 2009 will be one of those days which I will look back on with a smile on my face. It’s one of those days I will remember on a day I’m feeling sad, or just when I want to recall a good time I spent at Drexel. It wasn’t a very drastically different day from a normal one, just that it was eventful, and I spent it with the people I consider special.

It being a Saturday, we obviously did not get out of bed till late in the morning. We had a play/walk date with a dog named Sammy at 1. So out marched Rosh, Arch and I to Kelly drive, where an impatient and (pretend) annoyed Greeshma was waiting with perhaps, the world’s friendliest dog, Sammy. When we were 10 metres away from them, she rang us and said don’t get too excited, or Sammy will snap his leash. And then, there he was! The friendliest dog I’ve ever met. He sniffed around all of us, getting to know us better in his way. He took to Arch like a fish to water, and it was love at first sniff. They couldn’t get enough of each other, and Sammy gave Arch her first smooch, well, he slobbered her with a huge kiss which spanned most of her face! We spent around an hour, just giving in to Sammy’s whims and walking him around the river bank. Then we dropped in at Greeshma’s place for a drink of water, and then returned home to get ready for the Pragathi Board dinner in the evening.

After a lot of getting ready, and people calling us to ask why we were not there yet, we finally made it to the Pragathi event. The event was good, and the food was wonderful, judging by the amount we stuffed ourselves with. The fun part of the event was the incessant clicking of pictures, though. Taking pictures is perhaps one of my favourite activities. It’s like I woke up one fine day and decided, oh what the heck, I don’t look that bad, let me take pictures! And that was the beginning of the whole ‘click’ phase, which I haven’t gotten over since. We took pictures everywhere possible, including the restroom, and in every imaginable pose we could think of.

While walking back home, we stopped at another place and clicked away, so much so that we filled up Rosh’s memory card, and had to switch to Greesy’s camera now. After clicking a whole bunch of pictures in a whole bunch of poses and locations, we finally got tired and decided to come back home. We had changed and just settled down with the intent of studying for the final, when Anup called and said he was bored, so can we please go for a walk? Not towards campus, maybe to Upenn, just for a half hour or so, to digest all the food we ate. We decided, well, we are full, so let’s go anyway. So off we marched, Arch, Anup, Rosh and I, walking with no destination or route in mind. We wanted to take pictures in front of the LOVE symbol in the Upenn campus. But there was just one problem there: The sprinklers were running. We tried going through without getting wet, but failed miserably at that. We were all but ready to give up, when we noticed that the sprinklers were slowly dwindling. So we promptly returned, and clicked away again. Once satisfied with the number and quality of the pictures, we meandered on to 40th Street, and walked into Ben & Jerry’s to eat ice cream. Well, the store keepers would have never had a more confused bunch of people in that store. The four of us took an eon to decide that we want Chocolate Therapy, and whether we want it in a cone or a cup. Well, three of us decided on chocolate waffle cone, while Anup decided on a cup. Rosh found the cone more edible than the ice cream while I favored the ice cream over the cone, so I ate her share of the ice cream as well, and the cone served to be my Statue of Liberty picture’s torch. Only Arch ate both cone and ice cream, and Anup scooped away at his three scoops with heretofore unseen determination. High and drunk on chocolate, the four of us went a little loony in the Upenn walk. We decided to take pictures on Ben Franklin’s lap while he sat in the park and read, also pose with the receiver of a payphone.

It was all good, till I had to visit a restroom. Unfortunately for me, the Penn campus is on a break, and no buildings were open, and there was no restroom in sight. Or a bush for that matter. Just kidding, I wouldn’t go behind a bush. Well, Anup being the sweet and helpful person he is did point to a Port-o-Potty on a construction site, but that was just way too icky to go to. We decided to finally walk back to Rosh’s place, all the while making jokes about Nature’s call, and trying to make me laugh while I was desperately in need of a loo. The second we reached home, I made a beeline for the restroom to get some peace of mind.

At long, long last, we decided that it was time to call it a day, or night. We did of course, stand outside our house and chat for some more time, and then decide to call it quits and head our ways. Well, this isn’t the most interesting or the best thing I’ll ever write, it’s not the most articulate entry or one that showcases that I can write. But this is just a record, for me, to remind me some day later in the future, of the fun I had this day. It’s just to tell me someday that I had some good days in my life, and this was one of them. To look back on this day when the going is not so good, that there will be days when I will go to bed with a smile on my face, glad for the friends and well-wishers in my life.

PS: This post dedicated to Roshni, Archana, Greeshma and Anup! :)

PPS: As mentioned by Arch, I forgot to dedicate this to him. So, here goes: This post is dedicated to the world's friendliest and kissiest dog, Sammy.

Oh, sweet reminiscence.....

I was on facebook some time last week, and I saw someone on my list who had displayed pictures of Waves, which is our annual cultural festival in college. As I looked at the pictures, I felt myself awash with nostalgia for some strange reason. I couldn’t understand it, simply because I wasn’t as over enthusiastic as the rest of the people around me would normally be at the onset of Waves.

The whole (almost, with the exclusion of those people who showed absolutely no interest) college would be in this frenzy whenever it was Waves season. The organizing committees would be up in arms, to re-invent traditional events, and invent new and more interesting ones, which they always managed to do. I never dared sign up to be a committee member, for I was always afraid that I could in no way come up with what would be considered a decent idea. And the thrill of participation held more attraction, simply because it was more of a rush than the satisfaction of people enjoying my event.

Well, anyway, everyone would be waiting with bated breath for Waves, and there would be glee and pure unadulterated joy writ on their faces. People would queue up to order any and every T shirt that was designed and on sale (I would never get one that fit correctly, because all girls and boys in BITS Goa were apparently the same size). A large percentage of the students would be frantically dying for the Rock Night event, which did not really hold my attention at all. I’m not into hard rock, and the most I would do then was go and grab a bite of food that did not originate in the mess and shut myself in the room to try to drown the noise in vain. The DJ night was another rage, but that wasn’t really my cup of tea either.

The events I liked to watch were the dance and the fashion show, and maybe Mr. and Miss Waves. Those I would not miss. The only things that I was seriously into were quiz and dumb charades. Quiz because I’m a big fan, and I really love quizzing, even when I suck at it. I used to be good at it, but then later it got tougher, but I still sincerely took part no matter how much I got embarrassed. Dumb charades I was really good at, without being immodest. I love dumb charades, and I don’t know how I got good at it. But I am, and I’ve won most of the times I’ve taken part.

And so, I was kind of surprised that I missed the fun and excitement of Waves, and was more surprised that I wanted to be there.  Because from what I read above, I guess I would come out to be one of the not so interested people when it came to Waves.

I thought about it, and then I realized that it wasn’t so much that I missed Waves, I just missed what I had with my friends then. Waves, even if it did not hold my interest so much; was about the collective spirit with which my friends and I would enjoy it. I’d attend events I did not like much just to provide company to my friends, as much as they would when I’d want to visit the food stands (even if they were not hungry). It was in the enthusiasm sharing and the craziness that the fun lay.

And then I realized that I miss college. All of a sudden, all I wanted to do was to go back and relive the years from 2004 to 2008, good days, bad days, the whole nine yards. All of it. I would not have minded less cramming for the exams, but they weren’t all that bad either (Maybe I’d do them better this time). I want that back, the fun, the happiness, the laziness, the sadness, the euphoria, the bouts of craziness, the fights, the after-fights, the eating, the not eating in the mess, the trips to Vasco and Panjim, the enduring of an hour long bus ride to go and have pizza at Domino’s, the Temptations pastries and rolls.

The I-want-to-go-back-to-college feeling when the holidays got boring, the I-want-holidays feeling when the semester got dull, the oh-no!-It’s-time-to-do-laundry groans, the argh!-Damn-these-tests! moans, the eww!-Is-this-edible? exclamation when we saw the food in the mess, the let’s-order-something-else, the Monginis ice candy and dutch truffle, the so funny Preeti jokes that would make us laugh so loud that everyone would turn to look at our table, the long winded and meandering dinner discussions about nothing in particular, the is this guy cute or not debates, oh can’t they all come back?

The morning phone-wake up calls, the knocking and collecting everyone to go for breakfast-lunch-dinner, the trying to wake up Preeti to go for breakfast, the morning discussions with her before we went for breakfast, the okay let’s just bunk class and sleep even though we were ready to go for class just 5 minutes ago, the go-till-the-classroom-and-then-bunk-class routine, the give missed calls and send messages to Preeti because this class is THAT boring, the sleeping in class, the getting caught sleeping in class, the oh-my-god,-I-spoke-to-that-cute-guy! conversations, the okay let’s disperse but ending up yapping for another whole hour, the Jini-I-need-to-go-to-Nescafe right after dinner in the mess, the trips to the shopping complex, the running late to class, the corridor chat sessions, the T4 investigations, the TV movie sessions in the common room, the power cuts, the power cut sessions, the early morning basketball practices, the most amazing basketball games, the victories and the losses, please bring all that back!

The heart to hearts with Pre, the unnecessary and meaningless fights with her, the apologies and crying post the fight, the way talking to her lit up the day, the way not talking to her put it out, the ways she made me laugh, her encouraging words when I’m low, the nonsensical conversations with her, playing mediator when you’re angry with Sups, the funny and interesting conversations with him, the utter madness we unleashed sometimes, the trips to Vasco, the sleepovers, the will-I-get-through-an-interview sessions, the men-suck-and-a-million-reasons-why discussions, the highs and the lows, the laughter and the tears, the dumb charades, the Abdul Karim Telgi moment, the Bangalore trip, those incredible(ST) 7 days, the maggi in Nescafe, the third semester with her, the Nandy-there-is-a-lizard-in-my-room! crises, the birthdays, the weekends at your house during PS, the meetings in TI, your reactions to just about anything, the bailing each other out of mundane emergencies, basically just every single moment we spent together, I wish I could relive them again!

The weird thing is, I wanted college to get over when I was there, but now that it’s over I want it back. Even now, I want my MS to get over, but on some level, I wish it weren’t moving so fast. I’m sure I’ll have another long entry about how I want life as a grad student back in another year or so. But how I wish I could relive life in BITS again! I may do some things differently, like study better, or organize something in Waves, or work towards a better resume, but I wouldn’t change my friends or trade any of the fun I had for anything else. I may not have had the most interesting or super exciting life while I was in college, but I loved every single moment of it. The fun gave me unbridled happiness, the frustrating experiences taught me patience, the aww moments gave me memories to cherish, the relationships I had gave me lasting friendships, the unhappy moments taught me that life wasn’t perfect, the not so nice incidents with people made me strive to be a decent person, the encouragement when I was down made me realize I always had a shoulder to lean on and life in college gave me education, a glimpse into what life can be, and how the choices we make can change it.

College changed me, the choices I made, the friends I made, the friend I am, the person I am today, all of it. And though I must be a grown up and move on with life, once in a while, there is nothing more I would like that to go back in the past and re live the whole thing. All over again. 

                                                      

My (Our) Experiments with (the) Truth (about cooking)

Well, I thought I should touch on a lighter subject for my next post, and cooking was a good one that came to mind.

My grandfather has always teased me about the fact that the best thing I knew how to cook was Maggi, and he would always sigh and say, “When do you plan to learn some Brahmin cooking?” My reply always was that I would learn when the time came, but I never thought that time would be this.

Well, as soon as I got my admit, I promised my mother and myself that as soon as I came back from Bangalore, we would commence the cooking classes. Alas, all the plans went right down the drain because:

1. As soon as I got back, my mom had me running to finish the visa paperwork.
2.    After getting the visa, everyone was tired, and decided to laze around a bit.   
3.  I started shopping, and notorious for my long hours to decide about one pair of pants, we often came back home way past any time considered decent to cook.  
4.  My grandma moved to Mayapur, or else she would have kept me busy with cooking class.
   

Well, nonetheless, the days flew past till we reached an arrangement. Amma would make one dish in the morning, and I would make another in the evening so that I eventually learned something. This turned out to be a bit of a comedy show, because I would half listen to what Ma said in the morning before leaving to work, so that by the evening I would forget her directions. An emergency call would be made to her office, and instructions taken down on a post-it note. The cooking would finally start, and somewhere in the middle I would have to rush to make another call to clarify something, or my mother would forget I’m cooking and call (She’d get worried if I did not pick up, and keep calling). Luckily, I did not char the food all that much (this was true considering my father never had any comments about the food).

I finally got to Philly, and then began our cooking (mis)adventures. I will only post the ones that really stuck with us. And those of you who follow Archana’s blog might have read some of them. These are listed in random order.

I’ll start with the funniest so far. We got tired of eating pasta and got wheat flour to make chapatti. Archana enthusiastically mixed the dough, and we got busy rolling out the chapattis. Of course, I inherited my mother’s ability to make chapattis in the shapes of all the continents (No offence, Amma!), and Arch was equally inept, so Sug took over the rolling. We were in charge of roasting them. I guess in all our excitement, we forgot that we were in America, and you have things called smoke detectors. So it came as a rude shock when in the middle of our third or fourth chapatti, a shrill ki-ki-ki-ki noise went off, and refused to stop.

At first, we could not understand what the noise was. Then it struck us as being the smoke detector. Arch and I ran to the living room and dragged a chair under the thing and tried to shut it off. We managed to do something and make it stop. Much to our chagrin, we had charred the chapatti that had been roasting. The noise stopped for a bit, but in another five minutes it went off again. It being too cold to open any windows to let the smoke out, we pulled a Phoebe (from F.R.I.E.N.D.S for those who don’t watch it), and yanked the entire contraption from the ceiling and left it on my shelf (where it lies to this day :D ).

One of the other masterpieces (read fiasco) that we cooked was dondakai curry. Archana took over responsibility for the entire thing, since Sug and I were busy with Biosim assignment. We went to the kitchen when she asked us to check the salt. The vegetable had to cook so we decided to cover it with a lid and let it cook for a while. Now, we did not know that Arch could not be separated from her room for too long, and so we never realized that she assumed that we would check the curry. It turned out that all three of us had retreated to our respective rooms, and it was only past a half hour when we saw no dinner being announced that a light went on in our heads and we all rushed to the kitchen to see the pan smoking on all sides.

Inspection revealed a layer of charcoal, nay, charred vegetable having formed a layer at the bottom of the pan. Since we had nothing else to eat, we scooped out the un-charred veggies and ate them. It took a lot of scraping to get the burnt ones out, though.

We also had this phase where we ended up melting several plastic items. A spoon by accident, a plate not quite by accident, and a certain roommate of mine is of the idea that plastic things do not melt when kept on a burner that had been in use (on high flame) for nearly an hour. :D One plate melted because the dish tray was piled with dishes, and we did not see it fall off right next to the burner.

Sug’s disaster included reheating a SPOONful of cauliflower curry for an ENTIRE minute in the microwave, which came back burnt, and left a charcoal-y taste in your mouth. Mine was the underestimating of the strength of tamarind, which resulted in super-tangy rasam.  Minor experiments gone wrong were miscalculations of rice-water proportions, and leaving curd out in the open till it was spoilt.

Besides these small incidents, we have pretty much smoothed out all the rough spots. You could say that we are decent cooks now, and you can certainly come over to enjoy a meal of pasta, if not traditional cooking. We are yet to master that art. But we are surely all much better than we were when we first came here. I guess that would apply for Arch and me, if not for Sug. She has been cooking longer than the two of us. Anyway, try us! J

 

2008: The Year That Was

Well, 2008 was actually a good year now that I look back on it. To keep a record for myself, a recap of the significant events:

January to March:

The first three months of Practice School II in NAL, Bangalore. This was a lot of fun. It was the first time I was sharing a room with someone. I made some new friends, the more important ones being Hari, Aparna, Naveen, Meenu ( My supervisor!) and Grips Sir. It was the first time I did anything close to research (and enjoyed it thoroughly). I think it was also the time that Dr. Jha screwed with my midterm grades.

The other important thing was waiting for the MS admit. I don’t think I heard from anyone till March anyway. The other thing that was significant was the Chennai trip I took in February to see Charanya. Boy, that was a LOT of fun!

Oh, February was the month that my grandparents moved to Mayapur for good. So that was a sad thing. I still miss them so much!

April to June:

Well, PS was getting a lot boring, especially because Meenu went out of town to get married, and I was bored to death for two weeks, since I could not do any experiment without her. I guess they thought I would blow up the lab. But thankfully, she was an angel to give me her room keys, so I spent most of my time chatting and surfing the net from her room.

April was another trip to Chennai to see Charan.

I got my admit to Drexel, and was jumping around in Garuda Mall when my parents called to tell me about it. I promptly treated Hari then and there and treated myself to a HUGE pastry. :D                                                   

May included the best time in PS: Charanya’s Bangalore visit! Man, that was 5 days of pure indulgence and undiluted FUN! And Kavitha just moved to Bangalore because she started work in GMR, so met her a few times and cooked egg dosa and omelette… :D

The first weekend in May included my big trip to Coimbatore, and I saw my cousins after a really long time. I was out nearly the entire weekend, eating, sleeping and eating some more.

May and June were a scramble to finish the PS report and get out of Bangalore. But I had a really wonderful time while I was there, and still miss it.

The middle and end of June went in The Kauby and Vrish Poonal - Family event of 2008 (for me) and the DREADED visa interview!!!! That was an awesome week of partying, fun, tension and happiness. Oh, and of course another visit to Charanya (which ended with me sulking and contributing to it being not so nice).

July to September:

Well, this was a lot of fun for me and a lot less fun for Amma: SHOPPING! I emptied my parents’ accounts with the amount of shopping I did to come to the US.

It also included Rohan going off to Manipal. I was so sad to see my lil brother going off to college and growing up so soon! But I was also happy that he had to suffer the misery of washing his own clothes… :D The Manipal trip included a stop at Coimbatore, which was just AWESOME! Lakshmi and co just rock! We went to Palakkad and visited old relatives and temples, and had a great time there, too.

Back in Hyderabad, it was a whole lot of lazy days, missing Rohan and trying to convince Charan to come home. The high was her getting a job, and I was so happy for her! I on the other hand, spent a lot of time in front of the television, eating and sleeping more than anything.

The months were also spent looking for roommates and housing in Philly, and I met Suganya and Archana.

After a lot of shopping, I shipped off to Chennai on September 5^th, for my last round of family visits before I flew to the USA. My 22^nd birthday was a quiet affair, with the rain putting a damper on my dinner plans, and ending up with a candle-light dinner prepared by Appa (power cut!).

7^th September, 2008 was one of the best days of the year! It was Charan’s birthday and I got to spend the WHOLE day with her, which was just the best thing that could happen before I left India. It was truly one of the best days ever. We saw a movie, roamed around Spencer’s Plaza (one of my favourite places in the world!) and just had a good time in general. I met Kavi in Spencer’s and exchanged birthday presents with her.  And took some really nice and funny pictures. And oh, I got the best birthday present I could ever hope to get!

10^th September was the BIG day. It came time finally to bid goodbye to my parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and Charan and fly to the US for my Masters’. I met Sug at the airport, and we flew to Philly together.

The rest of September went in settling down in Philly and the beginning of classes and MS.

October to December:

The last three months of the year were spent in studies, cooking, assignments, losing sleep, midterms and finals, and of course a lot of fun, too.

December was mostly about the Christmas break, which I spent eating and sleeping most of the time because I was short of cash. We spent new year’s eve at Penns Landing, watching the most spectacular fireworks display.

That was a brief look into the 2008 that was for me. 

Amistad, Freundschaft, Amitié or What We Call Friendship...

What is friendship? There are a whole lot of quotes out there that try to give it meaning or a definition, or at least fit it within some definable realm. But at the end of it, what would someone say when asked what they thought friendship is? I think the meaning of friendship to each person is different; what I expect in a friend would be vastly different from what someone else might expect.

For me, the meaning of friendship has changed through the time that I have grown up. When I was little, a friend was no more than a playmate. A friend was the person with whom we did the silly things that little girls do, play hopscotch, hide and seek, arrange tea with our tea sets and dolls, that kind of stuff. I assume my friends changed each week, depending on whom I had a fight with. But I doubt I looked for more in my friends at that point of time.

As I grew older, the meaning of a friend changed a little. Now friends were not just playmates; we began to share something more than that. Feelings came into the picture. I suppose the need for a friend was deeper than when I was in kindergarten. A friend was someone with whom I could share my thoughts and secrets. Of course, even at this age, friendships were fragile and broken quite easily albeit not as often as before.

I suppose I found my first true friend only when I was a teenager. Being Indian; we do not go through the typical teenage angst process that you see in English movies. At least I did not go through it. I was a happy teenager, did not have problems in school (at all), and was the class geek. I was never Miss Popular, and never aimed to be; I was more the person people asked about classwork and homework. This friend I’m talking about happened to me only because we accidentally picked places next to each other at the beginning of the year. We spent the better part of the year giggling in some classes, playing hangman in some, and she’d watch out for me when I dozed in some of the classes.

I never gave her much thought while I was in school. It was only when I finished school and started college that I realized how much I was missing her. I also realized that she was one of the few people in class that I really wanted to hang on to as a friend, and keep in touch with. We spent many an hour grumbling about our respective high schools and the misery we were going through in those two years. What I’m getting at is that she was the ‘always around when you need someone to talk to’ kind of friend. I can always just pick up the phone and dial her, and we can spend two hours talking about something, or even nothing (which happens most of the time).

Now comes my favorite part, my best friend. She will probably groan when she reads this, since I have spouted a few sheets of paper on the subject many times before. I have two of them by the way. Two best friends. You might wonder about that, since the term ‘best’ is normally reserved for a single superlative entity. Well, it just turned out that they both fit the superlative in my case J. Getting back to them, I’ve known one of them for six years now, and the other four. My relationship with both of them is different; the one thing they share in common is that they both bring out the best in me. I know that I would do anything for either of them, and I mean anything. I’m not trying to be dramatic or anything (even though I’ve been told I have a flair for drama), but they really mean that much to me. And I really, really miss them a lot.

Let me tell you about the four year old one. She is the rock I lean on when I’m sinking. She knows just what to say and when to say it. She’ll give you the perfect advice when you need it, and even if she is pointing out a flaw in you, you’ll feel better that she told you when you’re done listening to her. Other than that, she is everything most people look for in a friend. She has ample doses of funniness, wittiness, and the other ingredients you’d need. Other than that, she has a somewhat foul temper which will come like a storm, wipe out the town, and then clean up after itself if you know what I mean. You can’t really stay angry with her for more than 5 minutes. Not that she gives you too many opportunities to be angry with her.

She’s just the most fun to hang out with. We can spend hours describing in detail the things that happened over the day, or some incident that happened to either of us. Her laughter is so contagious; it only takes a giggle to set us off on a laugh ride. Despite being one of the brainiest people that I know, she is just so un-nerdy. She is all about the fun. She doesn’t like travelling much, and would rather sit in her room than go out somewhere. Oh, she is always looking for a reason to be overworked, and once she is in that mode, it’s hard to be able to catch her for more than half an hour in a day. But then again, just a couple of minutes of talking to her can get you through a rough day better than anything else. She just rocks, beyond all words can say.

The six-year-long friend is a whole other deal. She is just one of a kind. I haven’t had the privilege of meeting anyone else quite like her. Our friendship is the kind wherein I do most of the talking (I learned recently that it was because I never gave her a chance to get a word in edge-wise). But when she does talk, it’s a whole lot of fun to listen to her. She doesn’t believe that “I met so and so the other day” or “I went and spent a thousand bucks buying shoes” is any matter of importance requiring telling or discussing. “What you upto?” will be greeted with “Nothing, I just spoke to you two days back; what did you expect would come up?”  A story I tell will last a minimum of twenty minutes, while one she tells will be only about five minutes long (It might also have something to do with me interrupting her, you never know).

 She’s the kind of person who can bring you back to reality in a very sharp manner, like poking a pin into a balloon. :D She never bats an eyelid when she gives me a whole list of things that I’m doing wrong or saying wrong. She’ll never flinch when telling me that my opinion is stupid. We’ve had plenty of arguments just questioning why I feel the way I feel about some silly topic. But it’s these little debates that make our friendship all the more special. She’s always given me a reason to be a better person than I was some time ago.

I’ll skip the details of how we became friends. That is a long story that I can’t type out now. But I’ll tell you that I did argue my way through the first two years of our friendship. Even so, after spending the better part of the day at school picking some meaningless fight or the other, I’d still go back home and apologise over the phone (for no less than an hour!), and I’d still want to ride home with her on the bus, even if it was just to look the other way and not say a word to her. I’ve been unfair to her more than she ever deserved, but it moves me to know that she still wants to be friends with me. She’s always been the person who’s loved me in spite of me.

Right now, we have a really twisted relationship. I can’t quite find the right words for it. She will annoy me by not mailing, not coming online, not speaking on the phone (though hopefully she will now, since it’s an international phone call) and I will try my best to get her riled up by spamming her inbox (both email and phone). Unfortunately, I can’t make long distance calls just yet; I’m waiting for that day to dawn. But even though she is the way she is, I don’t think there is any other person out there I’d want for a best friend, or care about more than her. She may not really say it in many words, but I know there is no other person who will tolerate the bundle of misery that I can be at times other than her. She is just the most wonderful person I could ever have hoped to know.

I don’t quite know what we expect of friends as we get older; I suppose they will be there to share all the milestones that come along in life. They will be there when we are down, to uplift our fallen spirits; they will make us laugh when we are crying. They will be a part of the person we evolve to be, no doubt having some role to play in the process. We will probably meet and make new friends as we go on in life, and add to the list of people who are special to us. Some of them will stay in our memories, some of them not so much, and the ones who are the most special to us will only be etched deeper and deeper in our minds and hearts.

 

 

My Second Post!

Well, you might wonder why there was a gap of two whole years between my first and second posts! 

This should tell you that I'm an occasional rather than a regular blogger. To clue you in, I was busy graduating, joining graduate school, and wasting some time in between...

My friends said that I should keep writing, and I figured this new year was as good as any to keep up that resolution. So here I am, with my first official long post! 

Enjoy!