hey - Do you remember me?

Yesterday, as I was walking home from work, a guy stopped his bike right in my path. I decided not to panic when he took off the helmet and made as if to talk to me. I tried out various answers in my head, when he called out my name. The plan was not to look up but his saying my name, changed the rules. He continued, "Hey - Do you remember me?" and I looked at his face sans the helmet and realized that it was my friend and not a serial-killer on the loose or a Hindi Mallum guy on a bike. The last time I saw him was 10 years ago when we studied together. Now, both of us were a lot plumper but not unrecognizably so :D

It was such a relief that I burst out laughing wen he asked me if I remembered him. After I convinced him, we spoke 'bout our other class-mates. I cud remember most of the names. (Surprisingly!) Our batch was the naughtiest of the lot. We were also quite competitive. Some of the folks had completed their Engineering (like my frend), others were college students, some were students who had completed their +2 (XII Std), and there were also a few housewives. To say ours was a mixed bunch was an understatement. The one thing common to all of us was the fact that we were part of the 11-1 batch and that we were in awe of our teacher. He was the bestest thing to happen to us. More 'bout that in a different post.

After spending the next 20 minutes reminscing 'bout those days, what we were upto of late, etc. it was time to say bye. It was such a welcome break to my otherwise boring day that I spent the rest of the evening, smiling.

Lunch at Zoe

After a really looong time, I was meeting with a frend whom I knew and worked with - a loong time ago. We opted to have lunch and a shopping break. The Arien was on a drive to Bheemeshwari with a bunch of other phatphatiya owners. It was the purrfect time to take a break plus no guilt tht I have guzzed the Arien. (I know... I really cannot understand tht guilt thing.)

Anyway, we met at Garuda mall and shopped like mad. The mall had sm arbid singing fest going on and we had to yell on top of tht to be heard. She wanted to have Italian food or a Sizzler and so I settled for Zoe. Zoe is a small restoCafe in Indiranagar that serves yummy food. We had a lot of catching up to do and so we decided to order so tht we cud get started on the catching up. We ordered Loaded skin and Chilli Cheese Fries, first. Between the two of us - we polished it off :D Because we loved the starters so much - we went a lil crazy and ordered a pasta and a sizzler. The pasta was creamy and nice and the sizzler had pineapple which we were amazed at but we simply cud not do justice to the food. We felt so stuffed tht we decided to not have dinner. While I like the pasta served @ Casa Picola, I like to eat out with company @ Little Italy. Zoe, has now been added to tht list -Yeah!

Zoe is not easy on your pocket but is a nice place to sit and talk for hours - no one hurries you out. And you if you like cheese, pasta, and all tht - you will probably like it here. However, be warned, if you want a quick bite so you can head for a movie, or if you are very very hungry, Zoe is not the place for you. They take forever to serve, fill water in your glass, or even give you the bill.

A Nose is a Nose is a Nose

It all started with the conversation 'bout a nose. Me and a frend who is pretty conscious 'bout her lean, pointy nose, were walking along the corridor that has all the cabins of the top management folks when she made some remark 'bout her nose, yet again. That was it. I came up with a bizzare comment as a follow-up and soon we went on and on and on and on till we were both giggling hysterically and trying hard to supress the giggles when all of a sudden, we both froze. The Head of the Engineering team had jes turned the corner and was curious to know what was so funny. Naturally, we were at our stutterring, stammering best. He let us struggle for a bit longer before smiling and walking away.

How many times have you had these absolutely crazy conversations with frends where you make up stuff tht is absolutely ridiculous, in fact, bordering-on-insanity kinda stuff that has you both in splits? No?? Not since 4th standard? Do you folks consider that kind of behavior rather Immature, Inappropriate, and a lot of other init cap words?

I, however, cannot remember a single friendship that did not have the goofy aspect. The potent combination of a goofy frend, a conversation that becomes a contest2win on who can say the bizarrest of things, a location where talking is a sin and laughing aloud is pure evil, has resulted in so many amusing incidents that they honestly deserve to be shared. But, the one thing I noticed 'bout these incidents, is that when you try to recall what was so funny or say some of the actual lines or even share the incident with someone else - the incident completely ceases to be funny for everybody including you.

When we tried to actually share the entire dialogue 'bout the nose, the team attempted a very fake convincing laughter, somewhat like the background laughter in sitcoms, which honestly, was a beeg pain for us to watch. And thus ended the story of a nose is a nose is a nose :)

The Week That Was

March has been surprisingly hectic - I was expecting it to be a lazy month - I had my birthday (Gifts!! Gifts!!), we had a new maid (finally!), and a friend was coming in frm Singapore and so we were all going to meet up (Yeah!!). I was kinda also expecting the movie mania to carry on.

The movie mania went on - I saw SlumDog Millionaire, A Wednesday, and Fashion. I actually liked Slumdog Millionaire. It was a feel-good bollywood masala movie made by a Hollywood director. I was pretty impressed with Danny Boyle- who having not lived in India was able to showcase what he saw of India to the world. It is lop-sided - but hey who are we kidding - our bollywood movies have been churning out lop-sided stories for ages - so it probably hurts that we did not make it, I guess. Lot of folks have been saying that Danny Boyle has shown India in a bad light (some of whom have not seen the movie, yet) - I don't think so - However, I did not like the dialogue 'bout real Indians vs real Americans. Considering it was not a script that Danny wrote but rather an adaptation of the book, Q&A, written by Vikas Swarup, an Indian - am not too sure why we are making a song and dance 'bout Danny Boyle. Also, there was no such hulaboo when the book was first released two years ago. Regarding the music, it was nowhere near A R Rahman's best - but we got the Oscar - so ur argument ends right there!! Ne nenne ne ne!!

Wednesday was fantastic - Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher were simply too good. The story was simple, did not have silly songs, was edited xtremely well - I really felt proud tht we cud make such a movie - even if it was a borrowed idea - which most folks said it was - honestly to make such a movie which did not rely on the stuff tht most Hindi movies rely on - was incredible.

Fashion was a beeg let down. I really cud not stand to waste my time watching the movie and so I watched it on fast forward mode. Tht helped :)

Found out by pure luck, that an old friend, was working pretty close to my workplace - Caught up with her over Chocolate milkshake at Barista, cribbed, laughed, and enjoyed each other's company after a really loong time n realized tht we hadn't changed at all; attended a close friend's Gruhapravesh - landed up too late for breakfast n too early for lunch and stood out among the crowd of family junta, unsure of what to do, managed to hand over a bouquet of cute flowers n disappeared soon after; Caught up with a bunch of old friends at Nanking - a fun evening of anecdotes, giggles, teasing, exchanging nasty comments, missing the Glamorous friend, teasing our very own sallu miya, feeling nostalgic, etc. And, the icing on the cake was having a lazy weekend! :) Tht was the week tht was!

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

No no no... this is not about the amazingly funny, popular, unmissable sitcom that is still being shown in India. Nope not at all. Having said that, I must tell you that I have watched re-run after re-run and would be really happy if they all came back for one more season. I do know ppl think I am quite balmy 'bout the sitcom and U really have to face a kicking, fighting, and screaming me, if you attempt to change the channel. It is usually better to go out for a walk and hope that when you come back the program is no longer being telecast. Thats what most ppl at home do :)

Anyways, this is about my friends in college. We have had funny moments, angry moments, sad moments - in fact, I would classify those four years as a perfect script for a soap. I mean we had showdowns, breakdowns, screamdowns, and what nots. I still feel those were the best years of my life as yet, though at that time, I doubt I thought as much.

We were a gang of five gals who initially started out as part of a bigger gang and then slowly moved out to form our own. We were not really alike or very different either. Maybe the one thing that was common was that we each had quirks, eccentricities and hence were quite understanding of each other. During the course of 4 years, we changed a lot. We all started out as good gals and that did not change much :) Ok Ok.. thts not really true but not too far from the truth either.

I am still not sure how we became friends - I still recall, I was rooming with Usha Kumari. Srivi was rooming with RD and Indu was rooming with Sabitha. Indu and RD were from the same school in Chennai. Binu and Jhunmun were roomies who were adjacent to RD and Srivi... I think.

We spent most of our free time together. We went for movies screened in the Audi together -caught up with each other in the common room after classes - bunked classes and went to Ceeri Bakery - acted as alarm clocks for each other - splooshed exams together - cribbed together -had hot coffee at Connaught place at 10 pm on wintery nites - watched Fash P and other cultural events sitting side-by-side - gossiped a lot - learnt Kathak - did the crossword - completed each other's sentences - ate up Indu's Rava Laddus (which her mom n grandmom lovingly made for her) - fought like crazy ppl - supported each other - travelled together to Delhi, stayed at Binu's uncle's place - shopped like mad and then returned to Chennai; Srivi had to travel further to Salem - conveyed whtever Srivi wanted to Ramchander Bhaiyya in Hindi - got ragged separately but ragged juniors together (until Meenakshi Raman and Meera Bannerjee caught us :P) - took hazaar snaps together - we even attended some classes together... I think (EG, workshop, the other was some Bio course whose name I cannot recall, Prob stats, CPM-I, and maybe others) - teased each other over our crushes and gatecalls - wiped tears when the "amazing romance" went awry - had late nite maggi, and hot amazing chai (which promptly sent me to sleep - no logic) - worked at Akshay Co-op to wile away time and earn money (wht hpnd to all tht money?) and studied, of course.

After college, after "We will be friends forever", most of us moved to different cities, countries - I moved to Bangalore. RD was in Mumbai, in Ghatkoper, I recall. Inds and Bines were in Chennai. I think Srivi was in Chennai or Bangalore. Not too sure. With all that, I am happy to say that I managed to make it for RD's wedding as well as Indu's wedding. I think I also made it to Indu's bro's wedding. I could not make it to Srivi's wedding though I had purchased a lovely golden tinged yellow salwar for the occassion. Srivi made it to my wedding - she came with her hubby and kid - and made my day!

Now, ten years later, I am in touch with three of them, sporadically. One fine day, RD contacted me out of the blue, when I was with HP. Her husband had joined HP and they managed to search for and find me in the Employee directory. I took down her address and phone number and lost the book - now I am not even sure if she is in Bangalore. Indu is in the states - she has two kids - she visits infrequently and I have not seen her in a while. Srivi, I met at my wedding - we call each other on our b'days (we are two days apart) - I am yet to catch up with her - she is busy with her lovely daughter. Bines is in Chennai - she cud not make it to my wedding - we call each other infrequently. Thanks to Gtalk and Orkut - there are more ways to keep in touch... but one must make the time to do so.

Here's to Friends - old, new, fat, lean, sweet, sarcy, no-nonsense, frivolous, and all other types -Happy Friendships to you :D