D

Last night D and I spoke…really really spoke. We talk to each other nearly every day but there is so much left unsaid. She lives in Assam and I in Gurgaon. She is a mother of two and I have my work. She cares too much to bother me with her issues in life and I love her immensely to break her heart with mine. But yesterday we spoke. It amazing how opening my heart to D is like talking to my soul sister, confidant, shrink all rolled into one.

I still remember the first time I saw D. It was our hostel interview at Miranda House on a very very hot day. I was burning up with fever and would have rather slept in then go and sit in front of the Principal and a few others to explain why I should get the hostel seat. Blah is what I felt like? I was wearing a blue kurta and cream salwaar. Borrowed from my masi as I didn't own any. Trying to look all grown up. While sitting in the laws on Miranda house Hostel ( MHH) I saw this really striking girl walk in with her mother. I had my head on my knees and hair over my eyes…through the blur I could see D walk very confidently down to the Wardens office. Arguably the best-looking girl stood out in the crowd. There was something about her; people always just stared at her. Girls wanted to be her best friend and boys wanted to marry her.

I don’t know what it was about D but the instant we met we were connected. She had a different course, different set of friend, rooms were in different blocks, different rooms mates. Yet we were totally alike. Randomly we would meet up in the lawns at 3 am in the morning…talk about friends, family, Boyfriends (eerily we both were dating men with same names!!). We could talk till the sun came up. Then not meet up for weeks. By the end of first year we were very clear that we would be roommates in the next year. We both had other dear friends who couldn’t understand why we wanted to live together when we hardly ever spoke. We also had other dear friends who wanted us to partner with them instead of each other. Very complicated Hostel politics. Human politics. Emotional politics.

We were roommates the next year and then pretty much lived together for the next 11 years. D stayed with my family and I in Pune while I was doing my MBA. She was working with an NGO. My parents love her as their own and arpan thought he had finally found an elder sister and NOT a brother that he had in me.

D and I have travelled the world together. I was in San Hose working with a dot com and D was in Missouri. She had come over to the states as an exchange programme. We hadn’t met for a year…. the longest ever we had been apart. I decided to quit my job. Just like that I decided I am goin back to India. As always we pooled all our money together and took off to discover America. We would travel by the Grey Hound bus by night and saw places by day. It was absolutely brilliant.

Vegas by far is my best memory. D who is an amazing swimmer insisted we spend one day at a water park. I bought my bikini to look good in while hers was clearly to swim. I who can’t swim to save my life…was made to do these feaky scary rides from 8 stories high. I don’t think I have EVER screamed so loudly!! By afternoon she was doin the daredevil rides while I was happy on a tube. Floating in the lazy river. The nights were spent gambling…D who is an avid gambler was seriously at work and I was busy flirting with the Australian snooker player who was over for a snooker championship.

We have run away from Pune to Goa 4 days before my MBA entrance exam. Till today I can’t get it how I ever managed to get through the MBA. We’ve got drunk together on port wine for the first time, very confused as we thought that wine was a ladies drink and no one ever got drunk on it. I have booked us a trip to Bangkok and Phuket. Imagine her surprise when at the airport she realised we were not off to Goa but Thailand!!! She taught me how to cook. I taught her to drive a scooter. I love make up she doesn't have a speck of it on her face. I always wanted a career and D a home full of kids. She taught me how to love unconditionally, I taught her not to look back in life...

I have a gazillion stories to tell…but I can’t. All I know is that we have a bond that is unexplainable. It’s amazing how much we have rescued each other over the years. Some times we have rescued each other from people, some times from situations and a few times we have been rescued from our own selves.

We have also made many life journeys together. From having my first cigarette with D at age 17 to standing on a road in Mumbai in pouring rain waiting to hear that she has given birth to her first born…From winning the Miss Fresher Miranda House Hostel title together to becoming Mrs so and so…its been a super friendship.

I am blessed to have D. That my dear is NO seed for thought.