I believe in Yesterday!
on the nostalgia mode
was just thinking about the many "best" friends who meant the world at one point who I've totally lost touch with now. I guess the "shy boy who made it big" and "the behenji girl who made it hep" tales I 've been hearing about ex-SPV-ites set me off on this memory trail...
The first "best friend" - back in Nursery- was this chubby red faced Bhavana. She used to stay a few blocks away from my Lajapat Nagar House and had this brat of a younger brother. They were a very different family but I guess when you are so young - political orientations and such do not matter that much! Their house always smelled like food, and there were many cupboards to hide and ofcourse the added attraction being that in her house we got to bully the younger brother (not that I didn't bully my elder sister as much but younger is always more fun!). Last I met her was at a old patelian meet in 1997 - she was wearing 100 tola gold and diamond and looked like she is a mother of 5 already. It was quite disorienting!
Class II was - I think- a best friend duo - this skinny snorty gril with pig tails Manisha (actually to be fair she was not snorty all the time but my strongest memory of her is when we were returning from this disastrous camp from a malaria-infested site and she had snort all over her face, sniffeling crying and mosquito bitten). Actually now that I think about it I was always semi embarrassed to be associated with her! HEE HEE I AM SO BAD!
The other one was - ofcouse Nandu- my "friend of convenience" as she has named herself! Now here's the problem - she is one of the only ones who reads this blog so cant really bitch about her can I!! It's wierd how N & I have continued to be so close (in our unsenti rough way!), we started off as such close friends that some aunty (now I don't remeber who) had to separate us into different sections so that we could be unglued from each others back side! In & university she visited once and we had teh greatest game of train train in our garden! I guess that cemented our friednship. Ofcourse, god helped and we were next door neighbors for 20 years after that! From fighting with Mayank and Kabeer over dirt space, to witch witch ghar ghar, treasure hunt and whatver else we played with teh Soumya Ashima and chulbulbulbuls of the world, to crushes, theatre and boyfriedns, it's been hell of a roller coaster ride! :)
oops I broke the chain. So class V- VI was Dolly. I don't know how we became close - I think it was over some ego hassles over "who reads more". Dolly won - she was reading Archer before I had passed the Enid Blyton phase and I was mighty impressed! Was it with her (and someone else) that we wrote a pact in blood!! HAHHAHA I have to check this one up with her. If I am not wrong - in a moment of mad romaticism (I am sure it was Dolly's idea) we signed a pact of friendship for life (in blood?? It couldn't be, but I do remember something as powerful!) D & I stayed in touch in a wierd sort of way - I always felt we were too similar to be close friends for too long!
Then was the shruti mona phase - I don't remember that much of it cos it kind of got steam rolled by the Sudu Ambu phase. But Shruti, Mona and I did do our silly girly things like watching Akshay Kumar movies (yup we did!), try our first "flirting" with boys, discover what periods are about and read a few mills and boons, with all the love parts highlighted for us by our "progressive" (read bra-wearing) friend Preeti! we were the true Judy Blume girls - just in the wrong country!
was just thinking about the many "best" friends who meant the world at one point who I've totally lost touch with now. I guess the "shy boy who made it big" and "the behenji girl who made it hep" tales I 've been hearing about ex-SPV-ites set me off on this memory trail...
The first "best friend" - back in Nursery- was this chubby red faced Bhavana. She used to stay a few blocks away from my Lajapat Nagar House and had this brat of a younger brother. They were a very different family but I guess when you are so young - political orientations and such do not matter that much! Their house always smelled like food, and there were many cupboards to hide and ofcourse the added attraction being that in her house we got to bully the younger brother (not that I didn't bully my elder sister as much but younger is always more fun!). Last I met her was at a old patelian meet in 1997 - she was wearing 100 tola gold and diamond and looked like she is a mother of 5 already. It was quite disorienting!
Class II was - I think- a best friend duo - this skinny snorty gril with pig tails Manisha (actually to be fair she was not snorty all the time but my strongest memory of her is when we were returning from this disastrous camp from a malaria-infested site and she had snort all over her face, sniffeling crying and mosquito bitten). Actually now that I think about it I was always semi embarrassed to be associated with her! HEE HEE I AM SO BAD!
The other one was - ofcouse Nandu- my "friend of convenience" as she has named herself! Now here's the problem - she is one of the only ones who reads this blog so cant really bitch about her can I!! It's wierd how N & I have continued to be so close (in our unsenti rough way!), we started off as such close friends that some aunty (now I don't remeber who) had to separate us into different sections so that we could be unglued from each others back side! In & university she visited once and we had teh greatest game of train train in our garden! I guess that cemented our friednship. Ofcourse, god helped and we were next door neighbors for 20 years after that! From fighting with Mayank and Kabeer over dirt space, to witch witch ghar ghar, treasure hunt and whatver else we played with teh Soumya Ashima and chulbulbulbuls of the world, to crushes, theatre and boyfriedns, it's been hell of a roller coaster ride! :)
oops I broke the chain. So class V- VI was Dolly. I don't know how we became close - I think it was over some ego hassles over "who reads more". Dolly won - she was reading Archer before I had passed the Enid Blyton phase and I was mighty impressed! Was it with her (and someone else) that we wrote a pact in blood!! HAHHAHA I have to check this one up with her. If I am not wrong - in a moment of mad romaticism (I am sure it was Dolly's idea) we signed a pact of friendship for life (in blood?? It couldn't be, but I do remember something as powerful!) D & I stayed in touch in a wierd sort of way - I always felt we were too similar to be close friends for too long!
Then was the shruti mona phase - I don't remember that much of it cos it kind of got steam rolled by the Sudu Ambu phase. But Shruti, Mona and I did do our silly girly things like watching Akshay Kumar movies (yup we did!), try our first "flirting" with boys, discover what periods are about and read a few mills and boons, with all the love parts highlighted for us by our "progressive" (read bra-wearing) friend Preeti! we were the true Judy Blume girls - just in the wrong country!
High school was mostly spent being BAD - my partners in crime were Ambu, sudu and then Somya, Molly and Abha. Ambu was momma-elder sis and big boss all rolled in one. She taught me a whole lot of things - flirting being just one of those! I have the fondest memory of Ambu and even though we came from really different families we were as close as close can be - it's so strange how we suddenly lost touch. She wrote to me suddenly the other day - getting married to her bf from ESPN this october. I really wish I could make it just for old time sake. OHHO, here I go getting sentu pentu again!
I think, Sudu and I were more intolerant and impatient towards each others idiosyncracies and fought as much as were friends. She was at teh awkward age of wanting to "date" boys and all teh boys were at the disgusting age of just being horny porny and gross. So I ws in the odd position of knowing that my friend was making a fool of herself in the pink tights that were not her style but i couldn't do anything about it (I have no idea why she thought those tights would get that cricketer with braces to fall for her but she did!). Well, we were all the same at that age - I was drooling over some chap who didn't even accept I was a girl (I had big nerdy specs which disqualified me as a potential crush)... Oh well!
And since Nandu has brought it up I am going to be crazy and REALLY will dedicate a post to all the boys who I crushed over ..! So read on for more confessions :)
posted by Amrita Pande at 6:42 AM
3 Comments:
just setting the record straight...the writer of this blog called me fruiend of convinience because the school conuselor told her that she is smarter than most kids in our class (which she actually was)...
but the writer of the blog chose to be a part of the hip crowd instead...so that is the story
maybe one day she will also do story on the strange men she could'nt marry as there were 12th boards that came in between hee hee hee yes yes i am talking about the creature with not so white teeth...
ha ha ha ha
write more sudo phish
this is from your friend 'inverted snob'
ooooyiii any mention of me on your blog deserves a post : ). there were 3 of us in the 5th- niharika too. i think what got us together was our english snobbery- the middle class intellectuals who suddenly discovered their power when the medium of instruction switched from hindi to english in 5th class and who could now stand up to the gori bombshells of the class! remember the completely unimaginative names we had for each other?- chubby (no guesses about who that was- moi!), curly (you) and... what was N? we probably were too much like each other! but really enjoyed reading this post and others.
well silbil, I am going to talk much more about yello dantu in the next post so read on!
and Chubby, I think Niharika was Frisky - I know it was something be "F" - tho' for the life of me I can't recall why NIHARIKA WOULD BE FRISKY!!! but then who cares!
Post a Comment
<< Home