We learnt
to cycle around the same time. She, a few weeks earlier. And by the time I
managed to comfortably get to the seat and pedal, she could double carry her
sister. I remember the evening I met her, at her neighbour’s. The first thing she told me was, “oh I have the same skirt; maybe
we should wear it on the same day someday.” It was yellow polka dotted skirt
with a matching top that had a little bow.
We went
to school together, she was my best friend through grades 3, 4 and 5. We got
our barbies married and then graduated to paper dolls. Those three years were
pretty packed. Under a shaky mulberry tree, we would discuss menus for the
aforementioned weddings and what we wanted to be when we grew up. While I would
settle for anything ranging from an airhostess to a forensic expert; she was set
on being an army doctor, because she would say, her father was in the army and
mother a doctor, and hence, wouldn’t like either of them feeling shortchanged. At
age 9, it totally made sense.
Endless
hours of house-house later we would be mostly quiet. Pretend accents and impromptu
adult dialogues can be very exhausting. The town we lived in hadn’t seen a coke
or its variant yet. Newspapers were a weekly feature. Every Sunday, we would
get the last 7 days newspapers. [If you are curious
about the town, it’s Tezu in Arunachal Pradesh, though I doubt its googlability.
During the rainy months [9 months a year], it would be cut off from rest of the
state and the world.] Yeah so we made do with chilled glasses of kissan orange
squash. Deep orange in colour and deeply satisfying.
She was my
first introduction to the cool. Cool in the form of luncheon meat. It was
lunchtime. We decided to not go too far into the playground with our
lunchboxes. We sat on the edge, where we could discuss grades, the importance
of good handwriting and how unimportant boys were; and then she opened her lunch
box. I am yet to taste a better
sausage. That with some sticky rice, and salad. The perfect lunchbox that I
often think about.
We were hardly adventurers but there's this absolutely random thing we did once. On a Diwali night, we
overdozed on a certain sweet made with cashews, pistachios and sugar. We just
couldn’t stop. Finally, after we could no longer move from our chairs, she looked
at me all wide eyed and asked me to stay still, said she was sure the sweets
had drugs and our parents would soon find out what we had done and it would all
be over for us. The tale of two girls who had ODed on suspicious diwali sweets,
disowned by families and friends roamed cities in search of the very sweets
that took them down. Noooo, we shook our heads that can’t be our story. I am
happy to report, it wasn’t.
I
remember that moment when we started whispering our borrowed knowledge of
periods, breasts and boys. She had an older sister who made us paper dolls and would
sometimes would offer sage advice. Wide-eyed, hushed voices, followed by
nervous giggle; that was our first real adult conversation. Nine seemed the
right age to have that kind of a conversation, especially when done wearing
faux-sarees and sitting crossed leg.
And then we moved to different cities. And
because it was way before Facebook, we wrote letters. We spent a few birthdays
together, eating too much cake, talking too much, listening too little and
watching Steffi Graf play Monica Seles. She was a Steffi fan. I was not.
Soon
after we got busy with our new lives, newer friends, entrance exams and then
jobs. Then I found her on Facebook, spoke a little at first, almost shy,
without any idea what to say to each other. And then we spoke about lives,
paper dolls, jobs, men and that mulberry tree. She grew up to be a beautiful
elegant woman living a very wholesome full life that we often see on pinterest.
An experience-rich life. We never got around discussing pinterest. We should
have.
She supported
Amnesty, baked strawberry sour cream cake, traveled far and wide and climbed
the Kilimanjaro, living a very full life. And then she left.
Soon
after her climb, which she did as a part of amnesty challenge, I remember telling
her how while she was busy doing something as life changing as this, I was busy
living a very pedestrian life, chasing the unremarkable and being bothered by
things that are trivial. She said we should be more. I told her I want to work
towards my very own Mt. Kilimanjaro.
She lived.
And she lived it really well.
I often
think of her, picture her in my mind. Not like how she looked on her Facebook
albums or atop Mt. Kilimanjaro. I try to think of her in that yellow polka
dotted skirt, smiling with her eyes.
