Rendezvous

There she stood in her balcony watching the rain. She was not doing anything, just observing. For the first ten minutes, her palms were holding the parapet wall, touching the water drops falling from the above roof. Then she let herself go. Her hands stretched out to feel the rain. The rain that day was not rain actually, just a drizzly shower. But the wind had that in itself too. And there came a blow that touched her, blew her hair and made me notice her face.
This moment was one perfect moment of my life.
She had just woken up. Her loose and faded green colored laced shorts with many buttons looked just amazing on her. A black tee was just perfect on that green. Her hair was tied up loosely with a clutch-er, and so, most of them was out of it. And she fussed with her hair as the wind played its game. She was bare feet, no earrings too. Simple face, nothing fascinating. But she was beautiful. Moreover, her smudged kohl made her look mysterious.

(Photo credits: Kunal Gupta)

Initially she fussed with her hair, tried clutching it but failed. And then she started enjoying. She loved the feel of her hair caressing her face. And then I saw one of the most beautiful smiles ever.
Big smiles scattered all over. Mine too. She was enjoying herself. It felt as if she was in love. She was blushing, smiling, playing with her hair, with the drizzle. She started humming.
And then talking. I moved closer to my window to listen to what she was speaking and more importantly to whom.

"So in love hanh?" 

"Hehehe Shut up!!"
"You don't need to hide it with your words. It’s all over your face. And eyes." 
"Shhh! Bohot bolne lag gayi hai tu!" and laughter.

I was smiling and wondering who had entered the scene. I could see only her. I thought myself to be stupid but she seemed more. She was talking to herself!

"There's nothing bad about being in love with oneself." 
"Haha yeah! Never it is."
"So what are we wearing today?"
"Something traditional like a suit?"
"How about that green kurti with frills?"
"Oh yes, great! Wear that and you can dance with it like this..."

And she took two circles until she saw me. She froze immediately. 
"Uhh Ohh Hi Pri!" She spoke with a nervous vibe. But her hands swayed as if she collected her frilled kurti back.
"Hey.." said I. She was looking for words. 
"It's okay re. You look beautiful in these shorts too. How about wearing them?" 
Laughter spread!
"What was all about love and stuff?"
"Umm nothing Pri. You know how insane I am."
"Nobody talks insanity to oneself girl."
"Okay, but you have to promise me that this stays between only us."
"Okay, promise!"

And...We chatted for another hour till our Mums came out looking for us.

A page from my Diary

July 20, 2009.
Monday, 23:48 hours.

*Exactly two years back.*

Got up at 06:07 hours. As always, a GM msg from Siddharth was waiting for me. The thing I like bout his GM msgs is that he neva forwards any msg. He simply types-
“ Good morning dear! Have a great day ahead.. Keep smiling.. Take care.. Will miss ya.. :)
Ab uth jaa naa yaar.. aur kitna soyegi?? ”
He he!! Love you Sid.
Brushed my teeth and went for a bath playing the song “Jaaney tu Meri Kya hai” from Jaaney Tu Ya Jaaney Na. The Jai’s song sung by Sukhwinder. Awesome song man! I just love it.
Got ready. Wore the big wale gold earrings. In bus, while I was cutting my nails, Saransh was narrating his Sunday tale of World War III at his place! Then the school tales :D
Then after a while Ankit got in. Today he was looking an ‘insaan’.
(*Acc. To his dictionary, looking like an insaan means looking good!) :P
So he was looking insaan today as he had shaved and got his hair short! :P :P
Rishabh had again missed his bus so he came with us.Then his birthday (18^th, Saturday) party stories started. Reached school discussing the same. Walked upstairs with the 3 of them.

After a long time chatted with all others before the assembly started. Meanwhile, said a Hi to Priya, Prachi, Nikita and others.Ashu too joined us.
Enter Ishpreet aka Ishu, Manan aka Mannu, Yash aka Shanu!!
(Both Manan and Yash don’t like being called so by anybody else except the name creator. Who else, none other than our Ishu!! ;) :D)

Normal classes started. B.S. lecture was an interesting one as Sir indirectly said a lot of things to teach us a lesson!  In the short break, headed towards staffroom. Harshal Sir gave some work. Talked to Joshi sir, asked him if he was going to show us our a/c answer sheets, the response of the class and the highest marks. No; not good, nor bad; 48.5 came the answers.

Add on to these answers was “Both the Head Girl and Head Boy have not scored well. Indeed very less.” (He pointed at Me and Vishal.)
(I’m elected as the Head Girl for ’09-’10. Got 314/529 votes!! :D)
And so Smita Ma’am and Harshal sir kinda warned me. I explained Harshal Sir that I myself, had not worked hard for this exam. And will take care ahead.
Moved out of the staffroom feeling very disheartened with myself. Ankit saw me and caught it immediately, asked “Kya hua? Chehra kyun utra hua hai?” Told him about the a/c exam and pat came the reply-“Eh! Quarterly exam hi toh hai! Fail hi toh ho rahi hai, koi baat nahi, chalta rehta hai!”
Damn! Exactly this used to be my reply to any hell scholar who had the same worry, till last year when I was in Raphael’s. Now I understand their grief!! :o

In the 8^th period, moved down for the Oath Ceremony practice.
Came back home late. Didn’t go to tuition.

Yashvi called up, she wanted Ankita’s no. I wish she had called up because she was missing me. ‘Cuz I was. Badly. Told her bout Shrankhla’s departure tonight as she’s got admitted to IIT Gandhinagar, she was awestruck. She didn’t know and she’s calling her up now. Connected two old friends back again. Great! ;)
Suprabha called up, “Tuition nahi aa rahi hai kya? Sacchi bata bunk toh nahi maar rahi na??” :P lol

Had my dinner, watched TV for a while then sat to study English.
Just then, Ashu msged, “tu bohot matlabi ho gayi hai yaar. Maine tujhe jaate waqt bye kiya toh tune dekha bhi nahi! What u doin?”
Eh! Pagal hai ye bhi! I was practicing so maybe didn’t notice. Kuch bhi.
Called Shrankhla then.
Messaged Disha to come, then chatted with her a while. JB aka Janak Bhaiya is coming down tomorrow. :)
 Now till this quarter passed, I’m with you. Had a talk with Vishal Bhaiya too, half an hour ago. :D :D  Now good night yaar. Too much for today.

Missing some ppl. xoxo

02:14 hours.

An Unfamiliar Knock

It was January and I was still just following a profile. It was long, 2 months or so. I was actually following his work.

I wished of dropping a message in appreciation but always resisted the idea. I don’t know why exactly. One reason, I thought, was ego! And another, more appropriate to say the least, I was afraid and hesitant of taking a new step or knocking at a new door.

One fine day, the profile suddenly disappeared.
I searched and searched but it was nowhere to be seen.
My regular schedule just got me too busy to bother about it
until; I saw it in my dream. Twice.
I googled and somehow got in touch. We started exchanging e-mails.
My Gmail inbox suddenly looked so interesting. I also remember times when I opened Gmail before Facebook!
It was fun. Umm... Okay, to be honest it was not fun.
I mean one fine day you sit online, discover an id start exchanging emails, it is strange.  But ‘twas one good strange thing.
Mind you, this generally doesn’t happen in India
But then started the hello hi and then the friendly conversations. It got fun then.
Initially, I was hesitant and afraid. I had loads and loads of questions- How would he be like? Is he truthful? How do I know he’s not lying? What do I say now? What could he mean? Why is he so interested? And blah blah!

But I clung to the idea and to the person.

In no time, we picked up a great friendship. Also, interesting talks; similar thoughts and theories; interests too. :D 

The rest are just details. ;)


All I’ll leave you with is OUR favourite theory-
Destiny is a bitch. an angel.
You all would be nodding in agreement with it being a bitch.
But we discovered that if Destiny can be a bitch, it can be an angel too.
Later on, we discovered that the bitch part is so not true. Destiny IS an angel. It has always been so. It’s just we who have overlooked that it plays hard and takes us through a lot of tests, to get us the best. If it takes something away from us, it’s just because it wants us to pick up something better.

Yes, the old mugged up proverb; “Everything happens for a reason” is true. In fact, everything happens for a good reason.
Our friendship was too, purely a matter of our destinies being too kind to us.
And so friends, the next time you wanna knock at a new door or wanna stretch your hand towards an unfamiliar face or do anything for the first time, pray truly to your destiny and dare to take a step in that direction, and then see it falling in your basket on its own.
Trust me, it happens. :)

 Oh and BTW, “Some surprises in life are worth the wait!” :D

Vanity.

Since the childhood, a 'part' -a colorful, joyful and lovely part- of my life has been so close to me as my smile is.
And that day, as we ate from the same plate, that 'part' seemed like my soul mate. We were as two peas in one pod, that pea being just four months elder to me.

We stayed 24x7 together and did every single thing together.

As we grew up, till the last year, I thought we had same thinking/vision/principles/ethics/morals-call it whatever. Ok, I did not think we had the same ones (I know, that would have been stupid!) but at the very least, I never thought it be completely opposite, completely contradicting each other.

Either I have changed towards good or my soul mate has changed for bad.

And I do not hate this fact, I am hurt by this. moved. shaken. depressed. and devastated.

Though trying to accept it and move on, whenever I realize this fact, it sends a shiver down my spine. It was so so so unexpected.

The things what my so-called soul mate does and says would not even be the last things I would do or say on this planet.

Gossiping and finding out every bit about NOT your family, not your friends but about the people whom you just know by name;

Meeting a new person, smiling and talking to him as if you adore him to death and later on backbiting about him to the world;

Or even worse, backbiting about a person every now and then meeting them like you were dying to see them;

Matchmaking!! Uhhh!!;

Mocking every person and everything;

Speaking to elders in a tone and language which doesn't justify YOUR age!;

Cutting words and pulling people down from their highest aura;

Thinking oneself to be the best thing one possibly can, fine but PORTRAYING all others as shallow?!;

And-[Ok, I never wanted to say this but still I couldn't resist it-] Being a complete aunty (if you know what I mean!).

After seeing and going through all this, the best thing that happened to me is-I fell in love with myself all over again. I feel so good about myself. I've started respecting myself and my principles all the more. 
I'm not trying to sing my own song. Just that, when you know that something around you is insanely wrong, you either try to adjust with it, ignore it, fight with it or like me, you believe in yourself and stick to your own values. 

Sometime back, a friend explained me about vanity. I wasn't convinced completely with his words. But now, if I've people like these around, I think that  
v a n i t y   i s   f a i r.

Birthmarks.

2^nd April 2011.

It was an EPIC day in my life and for another prominent reason, in every Indian’s life too!

Yes, the D-day was here. All our inputs since 29^th of March had to pay off that day.

It was “Reminiscence”, the Alumni Meet in our college.

And we friends had put up a stall for the public. For the college it was a stall, but for us, it was a challenge and a chance to prove ourselves. It was a business. For most of us, it was our 1^st time on field. We were still learning the ropes. And though we talked about being okay with not earning much, but all of us, somewhere in the corner of our hearts, were praying hard to make it BIGG.

Summer had just knocked, so our stall served “Barf ke gole”, 3 aerated drinks and Jaljeera. A lil' mixture of innovation and a snappy stall name- "Thand Rakh" had got us all resolute towards the idea. And to top it all, we had fought with the organisers to let us get a tattoo artist too. :D

On the other hand, it was the final day of World Cup 2011. 
India had made it till there and no Indian even dreamt of defeat now.

So yeah, it was an important day for ALL of us.

*Hopes were high, nervousness too.*

The time before 2^nd went in arranging the raw materials, tasting and finalizing the flavours, fighting each other’s different opinions (I know working with a team is not a bed of roses, but working with 15 classmates, altogether different thoughts AND choices, is definitely a tougher task.) But we did it. And, well! :)

The first drink was a mixture of Fruit Cola and Ice cream Soda. It gained brown color and I still wonder how a friend came up with its name-“Mock Champagne”, but it was perfect!

Second one was Blue Lagoon (Just selected cuz of its colour which supported Team India already and we immediately named it “Bleed Blue”! :D) and third was Ice Cream Soda (Since florescent pink in colour, we wanted to name it “Pink Panther” or “Trip to Paris” initially but at the end, the same friends suggested “Pink Fantasy” and we all had thumbs up for it.) :D

 These drinks were aerated. So for a little change we also included Jaljeera on our cards.

The main attraction that day was tattoo. It was India’s final match against Sri Lanka and everybody wanted tri colours on their skin.
Tattoo guy was a spectacular artist and was too fast with his brush. And a lil’ more to some of our expectations, the tattoo idea was an outrageous hit.


We earned, that much that we nullified our investment money and then gained profits too. :D But, we earned a lot more things.
We were praised, appreciated, admired- and all the adjectives that go with it- not only by our batch mates, but by our seniors, super seniors and teachers. We made friends, came to know more seniors and the vice versa. Networking is important! ;)
The day revived the sparks inside us and the feeling was just W-O-W!!  Full of vigour and confidence, and love, respect and mutual understanding towards each other, we then danced and celebrated. 

The feeling at the end of the day matched to Jay-Z, when once he remarked, “I’m not a businessman.  I’m a business, man!” :P

My teammates. Tattoos on faces and names on sleeves. Excitement amazingly captured. :D
In all, an awesome click!

The tattoo mania:  :D :D 

After a year of our school life, we felt that passion for work and that joy of winning, simply because we had found a purpose. Got me thinking and call it a ‘Happy-Realization’ if you wish so, but actually I realized we’ve become lazy in college just because we don’t have goals (or targets or purpose or directions or even pushy teachers). Goals that make us forget everything-from differences to tiredness, from hunger to the Final match-and make us get our lives in it.
Seems a simple thought, but the planning and then the execution is the real test.

Anyway, sorry for marching to a different drumbeat but this was an important happy realization to share. :)

The dusk reminded us about the Finals and we all rushed to our homes. Yes, WE WON!
What a feeling it was!!! What a moment it was!!!
No adjective can describe it.
Happiness and pride were definitely the prominent ones.
The players on the field had teary eyes too and they ran to hug each other. Later, we saw them carrying Sachin Tendulkar on shoulders.
I too had dedicated this cup to him but after the match ended, I so wished that Mahendra Singh Dhoni should have been carried on shoulders. He was the man behind the victory. Of course, the team too. But a leader creates the base of it.

 We had won the cup after 28 years and have scripted a splendid chapter in the books of history.


Me and my family then rushed to the M.G. Road. 
The scene there was _____ (Can’t find the perfect word, I guess a new one should be created!)
The victory had got the crowd into a frenzy.

Every.small.atom.there.was.full.of.ecstasy.

People were dancing without even thinking a bit, playing loud music and Dhol, pulling off their shirts, roaring all kind of patriotism slogans, standing on their car roofs, yelling "Vande Mataram" and what not!!!
The best scene was to see anybody hugging anybody! :D :P
Gosh, the energy was outta control n was sooo positive!! :D
Seriously yaar, Cricket unites India like hell!
I too made a smart move and carried the 2^nd drink, Bleed Blue’s hand-painted poster and flaunted it with pride on roads. ;) :D

For all the hard work you had put in, for all the matches you won and for conquering the world for a day- Salutes Team India! :)

We really owe that evening’s every joyful bit to the Men in Blue!

And for all the happiness, smiles, tears of joy and vitality you gifted to the Indians, thanks a tonne! :)

These two events- the happening of “Thand Rakh” and winning the World Cup after two decades are so much fresh and crisp still in our memories, that it doesn’t feel like it’s almost been two months to this date. I can still jot down the most minute detail of that day. But that would be too much for this day! :P So let it be.

What I actually want to say is, these two events were such BIG ones and have left such raging feelings and imprints on my mind that these seem to be everlasting and unforgettable.

They have surfaced as nothing, but BIRTHMARKS.