WHAT SALLY SAYS ABOUT SUSIE, SAYS MORE ABOUT SALLY THAN SUSIE

one of my BFFs (gosh. did i just say that?) and i haven't been speaking much over the phone. we live thousands of miles apart. i blamed this on our busy lives, on our separate lives, on the distance, and on something as profound (only to me) as perhaps every relationship comes with an expiry date.

she called me up a couple of days back, excitedly, she had discovered a college mate, we had long forgotten, on a social media site. she had left college without a word,  or goodbyes. she was then the hottest girl in campus, so unsurprisingly the campus grapevine was abuzz with stories. some near foolish to some plausible ones. but oh lord. the stories.

she could barely speak. if facebook pictures were to be believed, the once hot girl (let's call her susie) was no longer so. i didn't lose much time, and looked her up. and indeed. we had aged better.

and thus began a series of calls. my friend suggested we add her on facebook. i was reluctant. neither of us were friends with her; seven hellos, 'this tastes like cardboard' exchanges during mealtimes in her month long stay, don't exactly make you friends. at best she was a distant memory. less than ten minutes later i sent her a friend request.

it's been over a week since the embarrassing add friend episode, we aren't friends yet.

however my friend and i have found our mojo back.

true friendship is sitting together for hours and gossiping about acquaintances and strangers and feeling like it was the best conversation you've ever had.   

The Kilimanjaro Girl

 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.

Men. Amen.

What could I possibly say that hasn't been said already? Turns out, surprise, surprise, I have quite a lot to say. A blog lot.

If I were talented, if I had the money, or if I had really rich producer friends I could maybe, make a movie out of it, chronicling the lives of three women, separated by a few years, and their journeys into and out of the hearts of their men. So, since I do not have any of the mentioned things, I would settle for a post. And look at the sky above, and say a silent prayer – directors of movies like Turning 30, Delhi Heights, Dus kahaniaaa, chance upon my blog, get totally gobsmacked, and offer me hell lot of money for the movie rights. I act tough. They don't want to let go of this brilliant little post. They absolutely want it. So they double the offer. And give me distribution rights of the film as well. And ask me to begin work on its sequel. You with me?

Okay, so, this post is about men. Men I haven't met or intend to meet or don't know much about. But these men are a very important part of the lives of a few women, who I call friends. And that makes them worthy of my blog.

The last few weeks have largely been about solving men related problems. Oh no I am no authority. Neither I have proof of being good at it. But then that's not how we operate. Situations like these call for any advice. Just about any. Preferably from a woman. This is a dangerous and delicate territory with certain rules. The most important one being to never hold the one in distress responsible for the misery. NEVER. Because it's not the done thing. And during the course of the conversation, the advisor becoming the advisee, or the nagger turning the naggee [Thesaurus make note] is per usual. So while one moment is about how her man fails to call her at the promised time, next could be about mine not believing in surprising me, or making an effort to find the right gift. See? When we get talking, the lines blur. Topics merge. It's no longer someone else's problem. It's mine as much as it's hers. I listen. So does she. She weeps. So do I.

Problems discussed in the past few weeks – not enough calls, more than enough silences; caring too little, working too much; too little we-time, too much boys-time; too few vacations, too many business trips; gifts versus oh-shit-gifts, oh-shift-gifts versus no gifts; no sweet nothings, words that mean nothing; and then they get a little murkier.

So what do we do after we've discussed the troubles of the heart? well, nothing much. See we aren't doers. No we are not. Neither do we press each other for acting on anything. We just listen. And when we are done listening. We talk. And they listen. It's simple. And it works. Every. Single. Time. And we often end our conversations with - “no we did not sign up for this.”

nb. Such sessions go well with a pefect cup of tea and chocolate biscuits to dunk.