"Insert cliche Hindi Film friendship quote"

Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda

I have a lot of friends who are the very reason I stay sane or insane I should say. They let me be myself, they let me accept myself and they love me for exactly who I am. I wouldn't have been this person had it not been these people who kept my insanity in check.

I've always had many guy friends, my best buddy is one. I've never had too many girl buddies (even after having been in an all girls school). I have no problem with girls, I've had just never met "the one" or "the two". That changed in Bangalore, Each day, I am glad I wake up with my phone list that shows at least a few names I can call. I make this post to two people who I love very very dearly. I cannot make this post without stressing enough on how important these people have been to me.

This post is to my extended family, I guess I will have to write separate posts about Dipti, Swati, Ann, Zuli, Poorvi because they are awesome. But this post I make out especially to Zainab and Pooja; my roommates, my extended family, my late night call buddies, my cry my heart out to people, talk crap and forget people.

This is a story that goes back 2 years. I go to this awesome PG next to the college I studied at, it was a  nice place, I asked the aunty there who my roommates would be, she said she had options for 3 flats and I picked Flat 1. That was the BEST decision I made. I picked flat 1 for the only reason that aunty said these people work and are not students, so it struck me that I would possibly get the house to myself a lot and I could have silence around the house all the time. (I was to be blamed for all the chaos that ensued in that flat).

Day one of the moving in.  -  Generally, I get along well with people older than or younger than me it's just my age that I struggle with. I had moved in all my stuff previously and then comeback in June to live. I hadn't met any of these people, so I was full of anticipation   Day one, I finished college and walked home and fell asleep, as usual both Zainab and Pooja were at work. So I did a 'flat to myself' jump of joy and went on to read some and then fall asleep.

First impressions aren't everything, I can tell you from my experience from these two. The first day was not all great, I had fallen asleep on the couch after reading and at about 7 in the evening Pooja enters. I am tall and I had occupied the entire couch, Pooja screams to another roommate, "Arre toh aise hi hall me soyegi kya?" she was clearly annoyed that I was sleeping in the hall. (LOL) it gets better, I wake up. I walk in without a word. I am just out of my sleep and just wondering if I'm going to be bullied by all these ' grown ups' in the house. (I was wrong; Pooja was the one who got the maximum amount of torture)  BTW, later these same people covered me with a blanket when I fell asleep and tiptoed around me when I slept. Yelled at my other roomie for switching on the TV when I was sleeping and stuff like that.

Zainab I hadn't met till the second day, Zainab doesn't really like people who are annoying. She is very straight forward about that. She is just 'I will beat you up if you mess with me' person. You know when she is pissed, she hates 'stupid people'. The problem was ,I am no engineer, I just assumed I was one of those  'stupid people' she would be annoyed with.  I was just going to try really hard to be friends since we clearly had nothing in common. I was a communications person, these were engineers. If they weren't so nice,  my engineer buddies really would have beat me up for how much I troubled them.

Once you get to know Zainab, you know how adorable she is and once I knew how she really was was, I realised how wrong I was about her initially. Zainab is a fashionista if I know one. This woman knows stuff. It's just really fun to discuss everything from books to boredom. We can talk about boredom, like *actually* talk about it. I've spent many waking hours talking about everything under the sun, late into the night. We'd suddenly realise it was 3 in the morning and then try to fall asleep. Her sense of humour is quite awesome. You should get her to do a few famous impressions. (Amazing)

With these two people I've shared a friendship that comes with a lot of kindness, a lot of genuine concern, a lot of joy. This friendship is based on a lot of respect. Although I've chosen to ridicule Pooja on soo many things, I had this nickname for Pooja (Saala Engineer) I called her. It was not to mock engineers. There was just no disrespect at all. (None intended at engineers reading this). Pooja says the most random things, it gets all complicated when she is talking and then you have to stop her and go 'Oye! Engineer' that's her cue to explain again. That is all. Pooja defies laws of Physics, just like that. But I know when she does it intentionally  as well. Just to get us to laugh about it.

With Zainab the friendship is based on our mutual hatred for certain things, ;) as a group we hated Hindi TV Shows and I just get a kick out of criticizing every goddamn thing on TV. I've collectively seen what feels like a million years of TV time. (Most I've ever seen in my life). I watched these shows only to piss Pooja and the fellow roomies. Zainab and I teamed up. On one of the days we just thought what roles we would fit into and Zainab and Me were immediately cast as the villians (The evil nanad and devrani type people).  I know we were being silly but we enjoyed this,  Pooja who was the kind and submissive character. I still remember telling Pooja ' Zara baby ke liye paani garam karna" (I'm not a bad person, I was only joking because Pooja is just too kind and we wanted her to lose some of it, to make us look good. We'd all burst laughing after that.Okay, Pooja starts most of her sentences for me with 'Kaminey...' (Just so you know I wasnt being abusive)

This stuff wont make sense to anybody. This is all contextual, but I really wanted to write about them. These are people who took care of me when I was down with a terrible fever. They were people who called up from work to ask me how I'm feeling, they (All my roomies) have thrown me a birthday party when I was not expecting it.. They've seen me at my worst. They are probably the first set people I will choose to tell about things in my life.

This post really brings back the wonderful things we did as roommates, I share completely different friendship dynamic with both of them, but both equally important. Every phone conversation I've had with both of them has lasted a few hours and in these hours we have gone from being happy to sad and back to happy again. We've all had our challenges to work with and we've all done it and dealt with them in the best way we can. Hell! We've done excellently!

I missing living with these people, I miss those "girly" Friday nights, those Pizza treats, all that hanging around comm street and brigade. I miss living with people who know to have patience, I miss calling Pooja 'Bai', I miss hating things with Zainab, these people know how to treat with kindness, to love without conditions, to point out exactly when I am being a complete nut case! There are so many things I could tell you about my friends and about the time I spent with them, those late night ice creams we shared, the dinners we've had, TV shows we've loved. I wish this post wasn't already this long and I wasn't bursting with excitement to post this.


**Most of the things I talk to either of them are unsuitable for the blog post; let me just refrain from writing about them.**

Silence is a healer

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda

Most people who are too quiet are either too engrossed in their own heads trying to figure out their lives or have nothing to talk about. But silence is different, it is a voluntary choice to keep quiet. Silence is self imposed. Silence lets you take a moment and reconsider our actions. On the crazy fast paced lives that we lead our minds deserve some quiet time.

She fought with him again! She just couldn't take in anymore, she was done being a victim of the endless apologies and the nonsensical sweet talk that followed. This time, was the last. She told herself that a lot of times, but these fights would get ugly and then the sweetness followed. So she picked up her bags and left. 

She headed to her own house, it was late, she hadn't cleaned in months, she simply let all of that go and put a pot of steaming tea on the stove and picked a book up realizing she hadn't read in ages, she headed out to the balcony with a her steaming cup of tea (her comfort drink) and book and she stood there, simply taking in the view the sun setting over the bridge, the birds returning home, the trees turning a shade of black, it was like the world was telling her she needed to go back home, she needed to sleep. But she continued to stare deep into the sunset reconsidering her entire life. Wondering if all this sacrifice was worth it.

She wondered if she was unhappy with him or herself? These fights, they had a pattern. The moment their jobs got a little difficult the fights got uglier. It was a lifestyle choice, both of them had job related stuff to deal with and then they had each other to vent out at.At some twisted level their fights made sense she thought. She was on her own for a few hours now and she genuinely missed being around him. It was not a case of new found love, it was not that it was waning away. She realised the hilarity of the situation, she needed that crazy venting out, she could not take the lovey-dovey for too long. She thought of it as unnatural. But she was done losing battles as well. She was stuck! The need to pick up the phone and apologise was much but she knew that it was a reaction, so against all will she decided to figure out something about this relationship, herself and everything else. 

No sooner her phone rang and as expected it was him. 

Some time on the phone and both of them knew what was happening. It was going away. They were yelling again. They were probably done. But with a stroke of genius she suggested that they deal with the issue 72 hours later. The fight was not over or may be it was and thankfully nobody won it. She smiled at the outcome, she had not lost or won this bout. 

She wanted to rethink everything, every conversation, her reaction. She wanted to be extremely real about this, she wanted to analyse herself as practically as possible and this would happen if she calmed down.  She needed to keep quiet, she needed to rethink.

And  3 days had passed while day one was torturous, she was angry, she felt horrified, the hurt was too much so was the guilt. She wanted to smash crockery, she wanted to burn his house down and the idea did give her some comfort. But by day two she had moved away from the idea, she knew that these fights were at some level keeping her emotions in check. The fights were making sure that her tear ducts were working. and by day 3 she had a plan. She invited him over and it looked like he had done some thinking too. 

The conversation seemed slow but back and within a few minutes it was back to normal, they were talking. About everything. The fight, the last 3 days the anger, the guilt, the remorse and everything. They realised that their problem was that they were simply reacting to small issues issues that could be over looked. His attention to detail and him overlooking things of importance were his issues. She simply needed to understand that he wasnt like normal people, he was complex and weird. Her expectation that he be outspoken about everything was unreal. Her understanding of his world was slightly skewed. They weren't just any couple. They were Sheldon and Amy! 

That is exactly why  he drew up the relationship agreement and they lived happily ever after! 

#In a parallel universe that is exactly how relationships work#