SHE

Oftentimes when I talk to my friends from the previous college, they ask me, you are Akankshya, you always loved living alone so why is Hyderabad making you so miserable? And I say, Not Again! In Delhi, I spent so much time with people that I needed some alone time. In Hyderabad, I spend all my time with myself apart from a few days in a month and let’s admit it; I am a really boring soul. So for the last six months, I have cribbed about not having a group of people to hang out with, to share a pizza, to roam around aimlessly, to make impromptu plans because well planned ones fail, to sit around a table and have the disgusting conversation over food etc. etc. In the end all I did was torture my only best friend here, Asif, to meet me at least once a week to save the miserable soul that I am becoming!

To pull me out of this misery and the emotional fucked-up-ness that she was unaware of, or simply to visit Hyderabad, came my best friend from school who can never be replaced in my life! She’s probably the one person I never mentioned in my Leukemia diaries and never will. What she did was beyond anything any friend did for me. Knowing that I was suffering from cancer, she called me everyday holding back her tears and a really scared heart, connecting me to my school, my home in such a way that when I went back home nothing seemed new when a lot of things were. Swati she is!

She arrived in Hyderabad with three of her collegemates. Being the person that she is, we already knew each other virtually without meeting before, so when we met breaking the ice wasn’t really a big deal. (Quite literally) Even though I am not a big fan of the famous Paradise Biryani, I hopped in to her invitation of sharing one together on 10^th March. It wasn’t about the food; it was about being with her after ages! Though she was tired from her Ramoji Visit, and I was over-excited to meet her, we managed to share laughter, thanks to Suvendhu’s ever smiling face. Also, we had so much to talk about that we got a new finger bowl story apart from the ones in which someone drinks the Nimbu pani. And when Anwesh, Guddi, Suvendu and Swati decided to walk me home, I was more than elated.

The next day was spent at Inorbit Mall, Snow World, NTR Marg and Eat Street. Asif and I joined the four of them. It was the best day I had in a long while. Shopping for a couple of hours was followed by hitting each other’s face with snow balls the moment one cleaned it from the previous attack. The ice sliding, the snowball fights, the falling together at the entrance of the igloo in attempts to kick the ball, the dancing in the snow, the freezing feet, the burning cheeks and finally out in the heat was followed by walking on the Necklace Road, reaching NTR Gardens at the closing time, and then moving on to have the last bite is all about the day.

One might ask me, what was so great about it? It is any day of visiting Hyderabad. But for me it was about being with a group of people, who probably come from different backgrounds and are way too different from me. It was about a group of people wanting to have fun irrespective of the little clashes every now and then. It was about vegetarians and non-vegetarians sharing the table and teasing each other with the food they cannot eat. It was about respecting each other’s food habits and playing along. It was about passing the food the moment one’s mouth is empty or not. It was about having a conversation without thinking the right and the wrong. It was about having conversations in Odia, including Asif who was shockingly good at the few lines he tried speaking. It was about the photographs to create memories and not posing for fifty photos and selecting the best one. It was about having both my best friends together without much awkwardness. It was about making new friends. It was about two best friends talking for hours after school and not so much during college with the mobile bills but dying to meet each other. It was about having probably nothing in common but Swati. Yes, it was about her and the pending letters that I finally gave her.

And then there is something about railway station see offs. You are together till the train leaves the station. You do not want to let go. They want to take you with them. In the chaos of the crowd, the eyes do the talking as she often quotes so. Once the train leaves, you just sit in the emptiness of platform wondering that you never knew how it was to let people go and return home alone not knowing when you will see them again. And somewhere you think of all the people who have had returned home when you left. I have always felt that there is a thing about good bye(s) that no matter how much you try you simply cannot explain.

So this one's to her. Because SHE is LOVE! <3