Celebrating 20 years of Friendship with lovey-dovey Memories

It happened when I was ten. We had moved to a new city and it meant a new school for me. It was the first class of the day and I had felt nervous at the time of introductions… but not for long. The dusky girl with two cute pony tails, who sat next to me held my hand and gave me the most beautiful smile. Her touch was warm and affectionate and more than that her smile was contagious. By the end of the day, we were bonded… we were FRIENDS!  🙂 🙂

That was year 1994 and 2014 is just round the corner. Anushree and I will complete twenty years of our love and friendship next year. We have been together and away in different cities and countries for long phases however things have never changed between us. After her marriage she shifted to Scotland but in all these four years, the feeling of closeness has never evaded from our hearts.

On this day when Dove has given a chance, I would love to live the mellifluous memories of our beautiful friendship. The journey of twenty years has been beautiful and amazing…. Our adventures and mischiefs are down below…

1.  In class, we loved to chitchat, laughing away to glory.. a strong reason that made us run for school everyday. There was nothing that could stop us until the teachers complained our parents that we were the most talkative brats of the class… The seat change did make us shed tears, it did discourage the talking as well during the class but it strengthened our friendship. We talked about nothing important but they were the most fanciful and lovely conversations…we thrived in our world of imaginations!!!

2.  Lunch time without each other was not happening. When either of us fell sick, we missed the other…We did not believe in sharing lunches but exchanging them. Her mum made the best Maggi and sent them to school, and it was all eaten by me.  Same way Anu would do everything for the Okra with Paranthas  packed by my Mum.

3.  The way from school to our homes was effortless. We would spend endless hours in each others houses. The couch and the porch became familiar like our own. We knew the switches of the room by heart and also the way to the kitchen. When we would be tired playing and giggling all day, we would surrender on our beds, cuddle each other like soul sisters…until one of our parent came to pick us.

4. Whenever something funny happened, we would both laughed at the same time. She had a musical giggle and I had an artistic downward curve to my smile… 😉   She has always had a sweet and melodious voice and thus she would help me scrape through music lessons and tests… And I did the drawings for her.. We never competed with each other…

5. On Sundays, we played ludo, Scrabble, Doll House, Doctor Set, Snakes and Ladders and Carom.. and miraculously we never fought. I do not have a sibling but Anu had a younger one. She said she fought with her but not with me… I wonder what made us so good with each other… To this day, we have not had an argument still…

6. In the summer vacations, I helped her with her holiday homework and she twisted, knotted braided, plaited, curled my hair. She was amazing with hair dos and she taught me some great ways of tying my tresses… Anu has always possessed an appreciable fashion sense which I was extremely poor at but she ensured I pulled my socks…

7. Name codes… The havoc we created with our naming scheme. We started our game of giving code names for everyone that messed up in our life…. and we almost thought same about the people around us….that was some telepathy really!!! In school obviously our naming thing revolved around nasty teachers, ugly girls and rude boys… He he.. wat fun it was.. Ghost, Lazy bum, Kroor Singh and what not…

8. Ich, Ni, Sun….Ruk Such,…. the Japanese counting and our Judo classes after school had some our secrets hidden …We both had a crush on our handsome hunk instructor… and we actually planned our schemes to impress him… There was never an iota of jealousy… who was serious..? we just behaved as girls…!!

9. My Dad was in a transferable job and we had to move to another city. It was absolutely heartbreaking for our friendship but Anu stood strong. She knew what she had to do. I only came to know about it when her first colorful letter came knocking at my door. Wow!! the calligraphy, colorful notes, sketches, emoticons blended in with peppy talks made my day actually…. and there then was no stopping. For six years we exchanged uncountable letters. She taught me the art of letter writing… Every update about each other, school, neighborhood, boys , city was put in words, sealed over stamp and sent over….I still remember waiting for her letter would make me anxious…and it was only during the examinations that we exempted the delay… I possess all her letters even today…We actually made the best of Indian Postal System.  🙂

10. We have been possessive about each other... I remember she wrote me letters more than anyone so that I never made a better friend than her, which she told me later… And same here.. I started replying to her because I did not want to stop the letters coming to me… at that time writing was not my favorite art… today when I look back… I realize Anu actually instilled in me the art of writing letters and pouring out emotions on paper…

11.  Six years, we lived through letters and then she was in my city.. When we met, we talked all day and all night…. and it felt we had not lost on to anything… Everything came so easy and we picked it up just from where we had left… We were abreast with everything about each other…Even today distance has done us apart but we know where to begin from even after months….

12. The time we had lost in school and college, we made up all for it when we started working. Every weekend was a plan and we really looked forward to our hangouts. We had so much to discuss over our favorite cold coffee and Mc burgers… And we make one great set of foodies… Our love for chicken and fish can just not be denied by anybody whose known us…

13. We know and possess some deadly secrets of each other… We had our shares of boyfriends, break offs too.. But we never said’ See I told you to watch yourself’… Today we laugh it out loud but at that time we sobbed, sobered down and took stride and came out as stronger young ladies.. being there for each other always… There has never been a set of rules with Anu, she never judges me and thats why I know I can tell her what I am feeling about anything…

14. Shopping for us meant anything to everything and we shopped till we dropped in the auto rickshaws that took us home. It was Anu who told me to take on wearing skirts and I did that… Window shopping was favorite hobby when we had just started to earn. But in sometime we absolutely flooded the trial rooms… We had lapped up every nook and cranny of Lajpat Nagar (not to forget gorging on the momos and banta), Sarojini Nagar and G.K. M Block market to pick the best before her marriage. After the shopping in the day, we would have all the energy in the night to do some fashion walk in all our extravagance…. That was time of life!!!!

15. We always loved what the other had picked up.. and we had a fetish for earrings, bags, footwear and kurtis…The blue top of hers and the black skirt made the best combo ever… She did not take a minute before she gave me the beautiful blue necklace that she had picked fondly. I had loved it too but that was the only one for sale. I possess it, flaunt it to this day as the best gift from her.

16. The first bong wedding that I attended participating in every detail. Her family was like my own.. Her cousins behaved like mine.. The sleepless nights were worth it.. Like every girl she had the jitters in her stomach and I am glad I was with her as her confidant.. She looked beautiful like a princess adorned.. But I left early before her Bidaai because I did not want to see her cry…

17.  Yes!! We do that Weight watching thing and sharing our beauty secrets too… Thats our adventure… we know when its time to loose the inches when we point out to the other person..Hey you seem to have put on weight! Really?? Yea… time to hit the gym….thats our conversation.. We have done this for years.. ha ha… see we call tell each other something even our husbands cant dare to do so easily…We don’t have to praise each other always.. we know there are times we have to call a spade a spade! And we do tell whats the glow about and we keep suggesting too… Dove or something else ???  😉 🙂

18. I am fussy over many things but Anu is one cool person. She can be pampered one at times, she can be messy but she is one strong person. I admire her for her confidence and conviction. She lived an entire year all  by herself in a foreignland when her hubby went sailing.. On top of it with her problems, she would always hear me to sort out my issues…

19. All the way from Scotland, she was here for my wedding two years back. Being a Bengali, Durga Puja is the most auspicious time to make a visit to India and unite with family but that year she skipped the Puja time and came around my wedding just to be beside me on my best day. For this, I have no words to thank her and her hubby for the beautiful gift that they bestowed on me through their presence.

20. Whenever something makes me mad, upsets me about family, workplace, hubby or life something that I can’t put down before my parents… I know what to do. There is one facebook profile that keeps a tab on me. I message her and wait for the call or most of the times we just fix up our long chats on our systems.. She gives me all the time and space to vent out and when its done, she exactly knows what going through inside me… finally she knows how to put me at ease like a baby…And there was a time when I shouted on her, ‘ Hey , you got to listen to me, just disconnect the other call… and next thing was she was talking to me’. We share that kind of rapport even today…

No friendship is an accident.” ―O. Henry

This post is my entry for the Dove Face Test contest in association with Indiblogger.

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