For you, Vaish and Malu..

Most of my posts on this blog have been reminiscences of my childhood. And it goes without saying that my friends in school, without their knowledge, played a role in making me the person I am. Infact , there might not be anything significant looking at it in a glance, but from a closer perspective, you realise how much those small changes they made out of you are still carried along in your persona. Probably, these small changes are your distinguishing attribute today that people identify you with. This post is a small dedication to all my friends I have had until now to show them how much they have meant to me and specifically targeted at two people in my life for whom the tag "My Best Friends" is only an understatement - Dedicated to Vaish and Malu.

Galz, I know its been a looong time since we cuddled together for a warm chat catching up on the latest of the latest of things under the sun, but those memories still linger fresh in my mind.. Am very very sorry that I am posting our loony-toony thoughts and embarrassingly funny ideas on this blog, but I thought this was the best way to get nostalgic! :-) So start turning pink.... :-))

Remember galz, when somebody asked about our friendship we used to make sure one of us
mentioned this vital stats without fail that "Our friendship,you know, dates back to 1989 !! " and how we loved to watch in eager the expression on the listeners face doing atleast 5 rounds of change from an "hmm" to " ohhh??" to "wow" to "thats cool" to "going green with jealousy" to "ohh,they are so proud" !!! The "going green with jealousy" was our fave among them :-)) Even if this emotion wasn't evident (for the plain reason that it was absent!) we would imagine that everybody would get jealous at that statement!!! lolz..! And remember how the teachers would ask us "Where is the third of the trimurthi?? " when one of us stayed back in class ??

Any idea how many pranks we have played on the poor librarians??? Vaish, I know you might be praying from the bottom of your heart that I shouldn't mention about the embarrassing incident when you placed the Nancy Drew you borrowed from the library on one of the cycles of God-alone-knows-who only to find the cycle missing after we returned..and you lied to T* Sir that you had returned the book to him on Wednesday evening... You sounded so convincing to even Malu and me who knew the truth very well that no wonder T* sir relented in the end and actually said " Oh yes...I rememeber..Vaishnavi,You did return the book on wednesday and I probably didn't update the register" !!! Vaish , you still retain the crown for the Best Liar I have ever met!!!

And remember those after-school Club Activities hours.. when we would wait for that one painfully long hour of painting to get over so that we can run through the dark verandahs in the school playing Hide-n-Seek and Help? And remember how we all used to desert A* in the game by making him the seeker always coz we thought he was too irritating?? And during one of those days the three of us somehow got away from the rest of the kids when we stopped to drink some water and Malu got so drunk (yes guys, Just plain H2O ! ) that she fell on the floor and was later found dancing to a Suneil Shetty number "oh jaaneman " ??

And I think it was during one of those after-school club activities days while we munched away those (banned) yummy paruppuvadas (made out of "unhygienic oil, don't have it children" - or so claimed by A* ma'am ,who nevertheless had 2 of them everyday at sharp 11 AM ) wrapped in newspaper from our very own 5* Manju Tea Stall that we decided we will have a reunion , just the three of us, in the year 2010, on Dec 25th at nowhere but Manju Tea Stall ! What of that galz ?? :D

And how we loved to imitate our teachers... especially the way P* sir said"Portiaaaa ...hmmm..portia ki umar shaayad pachaas teekh rahegi .." and greyed out my hair entirely for the Shakespeare play for the Annual Day despite me screaming in protest .."Sirrr....Portia is married just nowwwwww...She is young!!" And what about those series of humorous characters ,better known in school as Social Science teachers... remember S* ma'am, who at the thought of her upcoming wedding went to a shopping spree, only to buy a hand-bag looking half like a pomeranian pup and half like a snow man , and looking the least like a hand-bag of a school teacher!! I remember Vaish blushing and answering "Sunsilk,ma'am " when she asked her "Which shampoo do you use Vaishnavi ?" !!!! And the way she used to start every History class with her trade marked sentence "Bachon, aaj me tumhe itihaas ek kahani ke roop me sunaathi hoo ..puraaaaaaane kaal me jab bhaarath me aarya log rehthe the tab bharath me chaaaaaaar varg the... brahman,kshatreeya,vaish aur shoodra..isme braahman.. " zzzzzzzzz.... :-)) What about her successor L* ma'am who resembled a horse when she got angry!

Remember those times we got sooooo jealous when MK* ma'am ignored us completely in the English periods and showered all her attention on A* ?? And we vowed we would come up with better ideas for our activities ..much better than A*'s :-) , and we believed (hoped!) secretely she still had a soft corner for us and that she was just not showing it out! It wouldn't be fair on my part to skip a mention about the Hindi classes by S* Sir! I remember how everything would just vapourize away from our heads and we would jsut be blinking away when he asks us a question, his eyes gleaming with terror !!! And remember all those times we ended up writing essays as impositions " only 500 times, before 3 o' clock " even though we knew the answer but had gone into a paralysis when the hand was pointed at us followed by a thundering "You" !!!

Okie, lets not mumble about our teachers now...we did love them a lot for whoever they are ! :-) And galz, I wonder what happened to our "Dead Man's Path" , the banned shortcut to the library where you had to duck your heads as we pass in front of princi's office enroute! Not to mention that deserted machine in the play ground which had enough nooks and hideouts for us to play hide-n-seek ! Of course, I remember that sapling we had all planted together on Vanamahotsava. The mud was so dirty that it was stinking and we were very close to our guess about a toilet being in its vicinity, but after all that effort, I still remember the wide smiles we had on our faces when we watered it! I guess it must have become a tree by now !

Do you remember how we used to read only "fat" books so that we could score atleast 5 point in one go to earn the Reading Habit Award?? Or those moments of Shivaji-Raman-Tagore-Asoka House competitions! Can't forget those Annual Day Drama practices... the secret crushes we have had,followed by the crush-failures(!!).... how we took turns when only 2 were allowed in one bench and one of us had to move out and sit with Ms A*.. how we returned home after a good 8 hours spent talking in school , yet found something new to talk on the phone from five in the evening to seven !! And how my mom scolded me for keeping the phone busy (those days we didn't have that "Press 2" option to keep somebody on hold...all mommy could hear for hours was the familiar bugging beeeeeeeeeeeep beeeeeeeep!!)

Phew!!!! I could go on and on, coz there is still so much unsaid about the absent-minded Malu who used to cry so much initially for every single reason which used to scare us a little...Her eyes would go red and they would well up with tears,big blots streaming down her face while she screamed "I am NOT crying" :-)) (OK,I have to admit that later on she literally stopped crying and even when the whole class cried,she wouldn't and she would look at others with an expression that suggested crying was a sin !!) or the emotional Vaish who sometimes got too emotional that Malu and me were met with a tearful Vaish after our class-play about Brain-Drain in English class! May be a part 2 will follow... !!! Probably more parts!!! :-))) But I guess I should stop here ofr today!! Love you buddies, for all your gimmicks and love!!!! Ciao!