Of old friends, and unexpected appreciation

For those of you wondering where I've disappeared to, and why, it's basically been a trip back to the real world because I lost my paternal uncle to kidney failure.
____________________________________________________________________

This post here gave me this funny feeling of going back in time... getting comfortably lost within intricate shapes of nostalgia, and also like something warm and chocolatey was melting somewhere within me, around the region of my stomach. It reminded me of Mango trees, cobbled streets, and this place I like to call My School.

Friendship is strange. Old friendship is just plain delicious. And surprising.

I don't really know why this particular post reminded me of Mango trees, or cobbled streets, but I do know why it reminded me of my school. This is where I met all those nutters I now have the complete honour of calling 'My Old Friends'.

You know, I'm not in touch with all the people I include on this list, but every time I think of these people, the overwhelming love that fills my soul is more than a little sappy.


There is this girl N... she shares her birthday with my best friend, D, which I didn't know, or got confused somehow, and in XII grade, after knowing her for five years, while walking around with D on her birthday, met N and this is what happened:

 Me to N: Hi! Wish D, it's her birthday.

N to me (looking slightly unsure of the situation): Uh... it's my birthday too...

Me to N: Don't be silly, it can't be your birthday!

------ This continued for a while, where I refused point blank to believe it was her birthday, while she assured me that it was, indeed--------

Finally:

Me to N (huffily): Oh, all right! If you have to insist- Happy Birthday!

She tells me she loves me, even though I wrote more about Roger Federer on her shirt on our last day at school, than I did about her.

A while back, when I was thoroughly bogged down by my college life, and had almost forgotten what it was like to be BARKING mad, and do things just because I felt like it, I suddenly found her on facebook, and she reminded me of who I used to be before I came to college. It was like rediscovering myself. Like the proverbial light at the end of the long, dark tunnel.


I have mentioned an incident before on this post about how another old friend shook me out of the moping and self pity. It's strange how I blindly turn to him whenever there is trouble in my paradise. I sometimes wonder if he would look to me too for similar comfort.


D, the girl I mentioned above in connection to N's birthday fiasco, when Gaurang died, we spent hours on the phone. Yet we barely spoke. We didn't need to. She kept up the other end of the line, and I held onto my end. If the connection broke, one of us would call back. When we spoke, it didn't have to be about what had happened... when I cried she didn't tell me to stop. But she let me know she was there.

That's what Old friends do- they remind you of who you are, when even you have forgotten yourself, they are the quiet sources of comfort and initiate the startling moments of clarity. And sometimes, just sometimes, they make your day by telling you that something mundane you said (or did) was appreciated very much.