Dosti humari jaan se pyaari

Hmmmm......my friends. Well, them.... what can i say...hmmmm....definitely blockbuster material. They are movie material of the kind for which tickets would be sold in black a year in advance and the movie would run to packed houses . This is my interpretation on how i saw them when i first met them, how they turned out to be and what they are today after we have each walked away now to follow our own lives. Though commendably we have all managed to stay in touch.

This one is about friends i made in delhi in particular. I spent over nine years there and of which around six were spent living with some of my friends. There were visitors too., who came in and well suffice it to say they will always be remembered as dilliwallahs by me.

I have a mix of insanely cute characters as friends,each special in there own right(read special as making u reach for the closest sharp object). None of them are remotely seedha nor sadha. In fact super rangeen.Lets go alphabetically.Or rather lets go as n when i met each one of them (in delhi).
The first one i saw on a very hot dilli ki duphari was Kriti. Aah our first meeting was for me like finding "doobte ko tinke ka sahaara". Well to explain this better would mean that technically i had met kriti two years back in our school . Oh later we told everyone how we are school friends.Truth is that back in school we didnt talk to each other.I personally dont remember any convos with her while in school.But in Delhi she was the only familiar face for me(coming finally out of the over-protective world of MGD) and so i clung.I remember thinking this girl was a scienti is school. So in my understanding she was a super padako boring kinda gal. But was i in for a surprise. She turned out to be a pataka and some more. Nautanki no 1. And one of my funnest fren who never had any inkling of what was happening around her. Sjust wanted to live for the moment and think only about where the next party was. Her plans were always half-baked and hair-raisingly scary. She got me into a lot of 'god save us from this dilemma ' -kinda situations.Her "i need a man in my life" was a perennial mantra, if i didn't hear her holler that i got scared that she was down in the dumps.
She was the kind of gurl for whom the epicentre,core, surrounding area and the buffer zone were all about HER. Self-preoccupation was how you could describe kriti as. A good one though as it helped in spreading many smiles.And the whirlwind of her day would just sweep everyone in. I knew everything from her over-the-top dreams to what kinda coffee she'd had that day.
I still remember after loaning her my shoulder innumerable times to weep abt her "always on-off-on relationship? " i had gone to her so that she could console me a lil. Well , :) it was i who was consoling her. That too on a night before a particularly scary paper.


She did the craziest things. Sneaking people in when we had 'somebody's parents' staying with us.Wearing see-thru night clothes or not wearing any at times:). Befriending the strangest characters.On her sane days she re-arranged my cupboards albeit in her fashion by grading the whites.Hmmm.Thats her.She pulled me into cooking strange reciepes which she googled during office hours. That is after she got some spare time from tracking her ex in the virtual space.And that's the only one person i know how managed to pull me into doing anything in the kitchen.Also, I did my max passive-smoking with her.Let me add-in the strangest and most uncomfortable places( like under the cooler stand).
She was wonderful and made my life in Delhi lively to say the least.The best thing about her personality was her confidence and vibrance. She believed she could do almost anything and tackled everything with the same gusto.

Nevertheless...She made me do the thing i hated most. Shop. Ufff.And when i say made me. I mean it. She used all sorts of blackmails. From pleading to getting angry to giving duhaai of dosti n natas. Made me go with her to all the places she detested.Meet all the people she didnt want to meet alone.But i can say it in all honesty doing these 'hated tasks' with her was kinda fun.She also pushed me in the right directions and was a really good motivator.There are so many things i would have not attempted had it not been for her.

To sum up our time together. I did the strangest as well as the funnest things with her.She was and i hope will contine to be a true friend and add to many more smiles for me.
I wish back on time to turn back so i can live some more of the crazy times with her. Also, devilishly tease her about her not-so-smart moments.
PS: Next Post on the second friend i made in Delhi should be there by the end of this week.

Life in the Amrikaas!

My head didn't spin 'round and round in circles" nor was I searched for the"pickles" by the americans at the airport.I didn't have all the khandaan and more come to see me off as i was going saat samundar par. No gangajal or bhabhuti for me.Infact my first flight out to the Land of the Free was very very uninteresting ,judging by Indian standards.
What did happen was i was asked whether i knew how life in America was? was i prepared for it or not? No! i said. Do i need to take a crash course? Did people not breathe,eat,sleep,laugh and cry there? OMG it felt like i was going to mars and i needed a pre-launch training at NASAlike-version in India.
Then when i came here people and friends (mostly Indians) suggested that i should check the malls here, as i must have never seen a mall in india. A definite must-do they insisted. Guacamole was explained to me.A double-door fridge was explained to me.Concept of jaywalking, shopping carts, words like winery and vineyard were explained. I was told that tacos were mexican and Taco Bell was where i could find them. Oh yes! i was also told very sweetly that Starbucks would be where i could buy coffee.
all i did was smile.
I was also told that the best chaat in the world was found right here in California. I smiled some more.
I was told that nothing could beat the mutton curry sold at a restaurant here. the smile became wider.
I was told that in india things like ATMs, Convenience store,24/7 eateries were such a no-no.
Oh God.....
Post so many months....stuff like this still crops up....
adding to the smiles....
All i can say is that what i have found out is that its not so different from home..specially given the fact that most of the people walking around here are from india.
WILL UPDATE THIS POST MORE WHEN STUFF HAPPENS

amen to the first blog!

Cool....i finally landed on this space.Being a professional writer i have always held on to the adage, that i wont ever write - not a single word -for free. After all writing was what i was paid for.If i started giving my only skill for free, i would soon be among the 'Unemployed' .
At this point in time it turns out to be just so.So here i am expending my wares , so to speak for FREE! its all muft, muft, muft!!!!
A very very learned sage has recently added that this status would continue for a couple of months. I am secretly hoping that the blogging which will take place on this platform will in time to come pay off and help me get oh so precious break to Bora Bora.Amen!