Where art thou?

A couple of minutes ago, I was talking to P on MSN (may God bless them!). As usual, our conversation consisted of the most inane topics which would make no sense whatsoever to anyone who wasn’t me or P, which basically is, the rest of the world. Now, she is known as the-one-who-wished-her-caring-loving-awesome-nice-friend-belated-birthday-2-days-BEFORE-her-actual-birthday. That was like, the height of goofing up. No, the Height of goofing up! I teased her to my heart’s content (which, by the way, was some teasing). Our conversation drifted towards people whom we knew, whom we are no longer in touch with and who seem to have become very different from what they were when we knew them. Of course, we weren’t too pleased with all that, but like, does anyone give a damn about what P and I think?

After our little (actually it was pretty long) chat, I remembered all my old pals (and not so-friendly ‘pals’ too) and kept thinking about them for quite some time(yes yes. I think about the good, the bad and the ugly)(and none of them fail to bring fuzzy memories back to my rotten old brain!). That was what made me write this. I decided, before I become too old and forget all those people, I must document bits and parts of the hazy pictures in my mind. Later on, I can read this, smile and go like “Mmm… those were the days.”

Since I have been in like 6-7 schools I shall start with my earliest memory of someone whom I called a ‘friend’. She was someone called Poulomi. She and I were friends back in 1^st and 2^nd standard. I would always irritate her with my standard line- “Poulomi, follow me.” (Yea, I was a creep back then too. Muahaha). That used to majorly piss her off! In the same class there was this girl called N1 whom I admired a lot because I thought she was very pretty and all that. She was. Then there was my very first crush (in 1^st). It was on a guy called Prince (yea, that was his name. Nice nah?) and he was a teacher’s son. Back then, being a teacher’s son was very cool. So don’t laugh at me!

I did my 3^rd standard in another school, in another city. I didn’t get a chance to make many friends in this new school but I do remember a few faces. First was this quirky chick called Itarthi. She was the girl-who-knew-everything-about-everyone. However, I remember getting majorly pissed off with her this once when she mixed up my cup cake with someone else’s (it was Republic day or some such day when they distribute cakes and chocolates) and I couldn’t figure out which one was mine and had to give up my cake (Hey, remember Joey? Even I don’t share food!). Ooohh and I can’t miss Ashwitha who I swear looked like Aishwarya Rai junior. She had lovely eyes. She was the snobbish monitor though and I was one of her favourites so she used to make me write her notes (I was all innocent and nice, okay?!).

Then I made sooooooo many friends in 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 7^th and 8^th that it’s impossible to write about all of them. Of course, all of them are no longer friends and most have been reduced to mere ‘acquaintances’. Isn’t it sad that despite all this technology and keep-in-touch-with-old-buds-networks one hardly has any long time pals remaining. Dearest of them all and who still is a dear dear dear pal is P, like I have said before. This Sag never fails to cheer me up and she has always been the there-for-you type friend. She is someone with whom I’ve cracked the poorest of jokes and yet we have laughed our asses out at those dumb jokes.

We were talking about how a certain someone (who was known as Machchar (M), between the two of us) had turned into a ‘dude’ in 10^th. Now, as a matter of policy, I always laugh at things that should be laughed at. Isn’t this the stupidest thing one can attempt – being someone they are not? Trying to be all out-there sorts only makes you look like an utter idiot. Seriously. It’s much better to be a genuine nerd than to be a phony ‘dude’.

Virgo L is someone I call my ‘childhood friend’. We were the best of friends in 4^th and 5^th. We used to skate together, play house-house, teacher-teacher, make-up party together and used to romp around the colony in the evenings. She was the one who taught me how to cycle. We had these ‘Fun-ways’ which were actually slopes down parking slots. We had numbered all of them and would skate down these fun-ways with much gusto. Actually, even Scorpio D used to skate with us back then. The three of us used to play Cats or Charlie’s Angels at D’s place. We even used to have little ‘picnics’ in D’s and L’s kitchen balconies! L had taught us a novel way of eating Kurkure back then which, I must confess, was just the way a pig would probably eat them. Nonetheless, it was all great fun.

With my ‘building friends’ I used to play carrom. And I was good at it. So after all, I was good at some sport!

Then there was Scorpio V. We were like the best of buds in 5^th, 6^th and 7^th. Both of us had Sanskrit as a subject (in place of marathi) and those sanskrit classes are somewhat like my current IT classes with Capricorn Abhu. Both of us were good at the subject and we would discuss topics that involved pens that were sold in local trains and such. She was the most amazing artist back then (and even now) and I loved this particular artwork of her so much that I made the exact same thing myself and stuck it on my wall. We were both pretty geeky and nice-type (heylo, what’s wrong with that?!) and I was horrified to learn later on that the guys in our class used to call us LL (lallu log)! Shit. Anyway, like I care! By the way, I recently got in touch with V through the marvel called Orkut. It feels great!

There were many others like K, N, S1, P1, A who were friends, the ones whom I liked to call my good friends. Sadly, they have all drifted away now.

Actually, I wanted to pay special tribute to those people whom I’d secretly been paying tribute to. You know, I am a firm believer in Karma. If you’re nice to your friends, then they’ll pray for you and prayers work. They manifest miracles. So, isn’t it better to have a few genuine friends* who care for each other than to have many ingenuine ‘friends’ who really don’t give a damn about you.

P used to be the perfect companion for my afternoon-trips to Society (a store in santa cruz which must’ve raked in millions when I craved for chocolates at the most unearthly hours) and also to Linking Road, where we used to shop and window-shop ( P lived very close to my place in Santa Cruz). L was one virgo whom I actually got along with. She and I used to think we were the most perverted souls in our class. (Yeah right. Little did we know about the others.) L would say, “Gosh Sneha, we’re so corrupted! Heeeheeehee”. You get the picture right? I used to go to the melas with V. She was my first ‘friend’. K and I had given about a million blank calls in less than 4 months. We even used to give R blank (and prank) calls!! Sheesh. I hope he never comes across this one. N and I would burst out laughing the minute we looked at each other. She and I had honoured A with what we called BBA (the full form of which shall not be disclosed in these hallowed pages). I remember so many funny things that A had confessed to. For example, apparently, he liked playing with Barbie dolls as a child. I also remember that I’d learnt the word ‘procrastinate’ from him. P1 used to actually hate my handwriting and would still say that it was okay just to make me happy (even though I knew the real thing). S1 used to call me up before the sanskrit exam to ask the portion and to do some translation work for him.

I remember everything about everyone. Now, Scorpio TC and Capri Abhu are my closest girls and recently they even helped me get out of a sticky situation (the stupid-fellow-incident) which I really really appreciate. May be, after some years, I’ll write about TC and Abhu and about all the things we do. Now, that should be fun. :D

* by genuine friends I mean those whom you can trust. Really trust. I remember R and A. they seemed to be each other’s closest pals. I was appalled to hear each bitch about the other to me! and they weren’t girls, in case you think they were. Hah! Anyway, I did know many such venomous creatures (one in particular) who didn’t have a single ‘friend’ whom she hadn’t bitched about. I hope she’s not the same any longer.