There she stood, her eyes framed in a pair of gigantic glasses, wearing a baggy brown t shirt over equally baggy dark brown corduroy trousers and a wide smile stretched across her face. “Hi I am Manisha, you can call me Mini” she bubbled. Hearing her effervesce, I couldn't believe my mother had coerced me into befriending her simply because her parents had moved next door. From the moment we met I knew that the bully inside me could finally be unleashed and let loose on this unsuspecting simpleton. While hatching all the devious plans to trouble her (tricking her into believing that I had original autographs of the entire Indian cricket team, making fun of her low grades in Polynomials and so on), little did I know then that she was soon to become a permanent and irreplaceably important fixture in my life.
Two very tumultuous years later, Mini and her family moved to another city. This inevitably spelled ‘The End’ for our blow-hot-blow-cold friendship, or so I thought. Owing to the fact that we weren't big on snail mail and also perhaps as neither of us had anything great to exchange, we lost contact and moved on with our lives.
I never imagined that our paths would cross again but as luck would have it, not only did we bump into each other in a new city where we were off to start our lives as college students but we also began a brand new experience of hostel life together. And so, on a very warm night in June of 2002, we found ourselves at our new hostel, shivering at the mere prospect of getting ragged by a bunch of formidable seniors. Since Mini had an elder brother who had gone through his days of ragging a few years back, she had been counseled on how to survive the much feared first month of ragging. With his advice as her mantra, she appeared calmer. ‘Don’t worry Preeti’ she said valiantly, “Just do whatever they ask you to do”. By the time we reached the staircase to hell which was our common room, her pep talk had given me just enough courage to get by. However, I may have sucked all her valor because she suddenly froze on the last step and mumbled “I cannot do this Preeti. They are going to butcher us”. Thus began a cycle of mutual motivation and consolation which was to last for several years to come. Through countless moments of feeling lost in the crowd and agonizing over growing-up pains I found Mini by my side making things a tad bit easier. We got through the night albeit with a painful introduction to the ‘chawanni athanni’ dance and an interaction with the much dreaded Tashi ma’am who was soon to become our nemesis.
An era of life changing endeavours had begun. Each day would bring with it weird experiences which later made for great anecdotes. Be it the time when we were sent to get a dirty movie for the seniors from a nearby movie library and wanting to believe that we were as inconspicuous as possible even with the helmets and terrorist like scarves tied around our faces-which we refused to take off even when inside the shop (now come on, this was the first time we had laid hands on something as despicable as an X-rated movie let alone having seen one before), or the time when our God awful warden cornered us into almost giving away the seniors in our dorm for having a midnight alcohol party the previous night (Mini’s valour, which made itself evident in flashes, did a guest appearance again that day)or the time when we got into trouble for returning 30 minutes after the hostel in-time, each incident was one of a kind. What was common though among these seemingly diverse events was the fact that Mini and I were always at the epicenter together. Somewhere along the way several nicknames were bestowed upon us like Pinki-Rinki, Pinty-Minty and so on.
The excruciating torture of semester exams became tolerable with Mini being there to share the suffering. Being a part of an ever shrinking bunch of engineering students in the hostel, we were always unfortunate enough to have our exams during those times of the year when the rest of our dorm mates would be free as birds and as a result prone to creating ruckus ad infinitum. Often, one or both of us would succumb to the notorious examination blues. Such times called for desperate stress busting measures - the ‘Friends’ marathon or the 60 buck delectable dinner at our filthy road side Chinese ‘tapri’ (this comprised mountainous portions of vegetable noodles and chilly chicken followed by a single scoop of ice cream split in two). The ‘Friends’ marathon always started with a mutual agreement over watching only one episode but both of us had such wavering will power when it came to studies that we would end up watching an entire season or more only to realize that half the day had gone by (the exam being the next day) and we had barely covered the tip of the iceberg which was our syllabus for the exam. The Chinese tapri on the other hand aside from being just as dirty as any other roadside fast food vending cart, provided us the crucial spirit lifting tasty treats. Braving all fears of jaundice ridden livers and diarrhea ridden guts we would devour the meal as if it was our last meal before being executed.
As we slowly climbed the seniority ladder, we added new experiences and new friends to our kitty. The time we ragged our juniors, the time we sneaked into the common room through the window to watch ‘Sex and the City’ and then scurried out the same way, the time we stayed up all night trying to develop a taste for a terrible concoction of vodka and Milkmaid, the abnormal jubilation we felt after watching ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, the terrible trauma we went through while watching ‘Kal ho na Ho’, our astonishment when we saw Mini’s hair ablaze as part of an unexpected prank, the unusual strength she exhibited during the ‘Maro-Maro’ fights, the midnight ludo or even the time we waged war against an uber snooty group of girls in the hostel are stories worth a million.
Today as I try to encapsulate these memories for Mini’s birthday write up I find it difficult to pick only a handful because, cheesy as it may sound, each and every story is just as dear as the other. Times have changed and we all seem to have grown up which means that we now have clouds of mundane worry hovering incessantly over our heads. Yet, thankfully, each time I speak to Mini we embark upon an insane giggle trip which lasts for anything between 15 minutes to an hour. Our inane chatter is so rejuvenating that even on a cloudy day I feel a warm, golden sun shining upon me. She has an ingrained ability to crack me up with her comical stories and antics. From being my sounding board to being the crazy clown in my life and from being someone whom I can trust my darkest secret with to being my practical touchstone and gossip partner, Mini has always been there during the good and not so good times and I love her for that. Oh and before I forget, I also give her credit for a whole lot of important milestones in my life, the most vital one being pruning my caterpillar shaped eyebrows to a more acceptable earthworm like shape. On her birthday today, I wish her all the giggles, craziness, happiness and love to last her a lifetime and more………Mintyyyyy, have a blast, cannot wait to start a new chapter of our lives in ‘phoren’ land together!!
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