A Farewell: Seasons Of Friendship And Memories

Several things happened that always left me with a choice! Should I change the name of the Blog or not. “Friendship and Lost Dreams”. I always wanted to remove the “Lost”. But it seems fits perfectly now. And I believe - Only for a time being...

Meeting these guys was so much fun that I didn’t realize when the they started to drift apart. I thought I had too much room inside my heart. But turns out that I have just enough for just a few people to fit in. I stuffed too many people inside, instead of living happily, we started suffocating and one by one everyone left.

I had faced dilemma too, At some point of time, when I was hurt so badly that I couldn’t gather my own pieces. I had the choice of changing myself too, never trust anyone’s friendship ever again. I chose not to change for the awesome friends I had, who cared about me being sad.

There was a time, when no one of us went anywhere without the other. 

This is supposed to be the final post of this blog. I have lost more than I ever had. I had so many stories to tell, but I paid the price I can never afford. I had the privilege to have known some people who carried the tags of “Priceless” and “Super Rare” approved from heaven itself. I am honored to call them “My Best Friends”. They will always be, Forever… I want to leave with the faith and belief that someday while walking towards the spot, some random Wednesday, I will find the very bunch of people standing right there, half way, to make me one of their very own and we will correct our mistakes this time around…

It's not the end... And someday, I will take up the responsibility to write for this blog again, about the same faces that I've been blabbering about in the past posts...

This is to 'No Goodbyes' ...

Flashbacks: A Year To Remember (Part IX): How I Met Akan"K"sha

This is a story about How I Met a person I Actually NEVER Met... YET!... But nothing makes me feel that I haven’t met her... YET!. Akanksha’s name is actually Akan”K”sha and she likes to point this out to me everytime I write Akansha and I love to call her Akansha just coz I know she will get annoyed.

Akanksha is a girl who has the adequate amount of everything needed to make a perfect girl. She is demanding as much as a person needs to be, she is understanding, just, fair, caring, and always keenly interested to hear anything I have to say. She loves to talk rubbish all the time and her “limit” of anything is breached quite often and easily and she would always say “Hadd hai!”, a signature phrase after every statement.

How I Met Akanksha goes back to November 2009. After a lot of hesitation and burning with jealosy that she was in the Arka’s friendslist, I finally gathered courage to add her as a friend on Orkut. She stays in college hostel and when I first added her, she didn’t come too much online. Whenever she came, she would reply to my scraps like:

Hiiiiiiiiiii.

Mai achhi hun.

Tum kaise ho?

Acha abhi jaana hai

Baad mein baat karti hun.

Bye. Tc.

But one day, it was January 8^th, she was at home from college, and the first proper conversation came that night! She came to Google Talk and we started chatting for the first time. She was a bit slow but I waited. After some decent chat, I got tired came straight to my teasing nature! But the most important talk came in the last part of the chat. I asked for her mobile number and she hesitated and then refused. But bofore we reached there I have some funny extracts like this:

(She said that I can speak good Hindi)

Akansha: to kya ho gya...agr nhi ati hogi to hm englsh me bt kar lete ... vrna bengali me kar lete

me: oye hoye

tereko bengali aati hai?

Akansha: ha

me: chalu ho ja

Akansha: nim ne btaya nhi

me: nahi wo dhakkan hai!

Akansha: tm kemon aachis

me: tm kya hai?

Akansha: i thnk dat shud b tui

me: ya better

aami bhalo achhi

ar tui?

Akansha: nhi ati h :'(

me: kya?

kya nahi aati?

Akansha: bengali

me: gud

Akansha: :-/

And some here like this:

(The famous Phone Number Incident)

me: okkkkk

nice

ek baat bata tu fone number kyun nahi de rahi?

mujhe curiosity hai

Akansha: kis bt ki??

me: fone number chhipane ki

Akansha: pta nhi

me: >???

yahi baat ki curiosity thi

mat de

mereko fone book nahi bharna hai!

Akansha: i m really sry

me: kahekeliye?

Akansha: aise hi

me: ???

aise hi sorry bolti hai tu?

Akansha: ha... yhi smjh lo...aisi hi hu mai

ajeeeeb

me: okk

so aj tak kitno ko sry boli hai?

Akansha: jb kisi ko meri wjh se bura lgta h... ya meri koi glti hoti h ya jb bhi mje lgta h k mje bolna chaiye tb bolti hu... aur koi details du sir aapko???

me: ya plz

aur kuch details hain?

Akansha: puchiye kis bre me details chaiye...

me: ki tu mereko fone number kyun nahi de rahi

Akansha: de dungi mahan prani

me: u thr?

arrey nahi

mujhe chahiye nahi

bas REASON chahiye ki tu "KYUN" nhi de rahi

Akansha: mje bs sochne k liye tym chaiye tha k du n du

me: iska bhi reason de ki itna untrustworthy kyun laga

:P

bata na re

lazy girl

Akansha: mje shama kar dijiye prabhu... aainda mai apse kbhi bahas nhi krungi aur n hi apki koi bt talungi

me: arrreyyyyyyy

shama kiya vatsya

vatsya

Akansha: aap mahan h prabhu...

:)

me: dhanyavaad

and some like this:

me: :)

kya hua?

kahaan gayi?

Akansha: yhi hu

me: okk

kya kar rahi hai?

Akansha: achar dal rhi hu

me: waah mujhe bhi daal

Akansha: nir k hatho bhijwa dungi

me: okk okkk

sureeee

Akansha: mtlab had h ajb sawal puchne ki

is waqt koi kya krega???

me: ??? mereko kya pata tu kya kar sakti hai

This was the first chat between me and Akan”K”sha and it was nothing less than meeting her and coming to know her. I don’t know if just chatting with her can tell so much about her, I wonder what meeting her would say.

Whenever we talk over telephone, we talk rubbish and we both enjoy it. She has a great heart and she too, like Nirmalya, knows everything about friendship and unlike Nirmalya, she always applies 100% of it on her friends and thats the reason, our fights don’t last long, and that’s how we get more time to talk rubbish. She has an awesome heart and she thinks with a perfect balance of heart and mind and generally the way of her thinking matches mine specially about valuing friends.

Teasing never ceases when we talk, but she handles sensitive matters just perfectly. She is someone anyone should always treasure for the fact that she knows how to maintain a friendship. In future, we will fight ever silly reasons I know, and I also know that we will both shout at each other at the top of our voices and then it will get solved in no time and I will go back to teasing her again!

Just one more thing that defines our frndship is a short story. She sent me an sms once, it was about a nickname day, and followed a list of names. I replied instantly – “whats the use, u will always be a bewakuuf to me”. And she replied – “and you will always be battameez”...

End Of The Series...

Flashbacks: A Year To Remember (Part VIII): How I Met Nirmalya

I don’t actually know what to write in How I Met Nirmalya, yet I have scattered bits of memories to write which made this idiot one of my bestest friends ever. I kept thinking for weeks that Nirmalya didn’t quite welcome me among them before Aditi showed me a video of that memorable Wednesday. Nirmalya was the one shooting the video and there he said “Now PAPANDA has become PAPANDAS – PAPAN DAS – it has become!” (PAPANDA was the group name earlier the “S” added was my initial)... He doesn’t do it with everyone, but he did this with me!

Nirmalya is a guy whom everyone loves to be friends with and he has plenty of friends around him always. He is the Mr. Perfect as seen by others, and people just tend to adore his company anytime, anywhere. He knows sooooo much about friendship but doesnt apply even 05% of them (intentionally or not, don’t know). He is a tall fair guy with the most innocent eyes any guy can ever have. He is sensitive inside, but this side rarely comes out. Still he manages to be the person everyone chooses to open up their heart to. He is very much driven by concience and acts very slow in important matters like “Understanding A Friend”! He would try to keep a problem pressed down deep within wearing strange expressions in front of his friends (thinking that we are too dumb to notice) and won’t say a word before the water gets over his head!

How I Met Nirmalya traces back to September 1^st 2009. Even though actually met him that famous Wednesday, but he didn’t speak a word to me that day. So, it was a Tuesday, and our college had some strike going on for some silly reasons and I texted them to ask where they were. Arka texted me back that they were outside the gates and Nirmalya was treating them for birthday. I, not wanting to miss the fun, shamelessly went with them. We had the most amazing bus ride to a mall named Mani Square. we just jumped off the bus, and everyone was still inside the zeal and the first time, Nirmalya and I found some time alone, walking towards the entry gates . Our talk began:

“Many Happy returns dude, aaj hi pata chala”, I said.

“Thanx Thanx, orkut mein update nahi aaya tha kya?” he replied.

“Aaya tha, par mai bhul gaya hehe”.

“Oh! ...Tu hindi badi achhi bol leta hai”.

“Haan yaar, maine apni aadhi zindagi Calcutta ke baahar bitaayi hai”.

“Achha, I see, chal isi bahaane meri hindi ki practice nahi chhutegi!”

And all blah blah talks. That day was fun, the first day I actually came to know Nirmalya. He treated all of us with McD Burgers and a lot of photographs. Later that day, all those guys teased me when I asked for Nirmalya’s number saying that something weird happened once when he gave his mobile number to somebody and that’s why he doesn’t distribute it to anyone and that even Aditi didn’t have it and I was almost convinced. It was not before an hour that those idiots told me that the forwarding message texted to me the previous night with a “Hi!” attached in the end was actually Nirmalya’s mobile number, which I kept dreaming and wishing (and quite happily convinced) to be a good looking girl’s mobile number (Kiddying!). Later that day, he also allowed me to use his mobile to call up my mom to inform that I was going to be late...

Adventures with this guy are just too many to fit inside just one blog. And any crazy thing you name, Nimmy and Sammy were always within a common bracket. When he does something wrong, he won’t come and apologise, instead he would be silent and maybe after a fortnight he would start his usual boring speech that he knew that what he did was wrong, and you should be angry, and that time, anyone would want to smack him in the nose, so hard that he would remember, but once you take a look at his eyes, so innocent and kind that you would feel guilty that you even thought to smacking him! Just like holding a teacup pig in your hand! I have a special connection with this guy that even I don’t know how, that by the time I tell him something I want to tell, he would have already guessed it upto 10 decimal places accurate!

I just wonder sometimes, this guy treated me for his birthday even when I didn’t initially know it was his birthday that day and I am maybe the most shameless guy in this whole universe. But somewhere I feel lucky that I was shameless that day, because months later, when we would be sitting at the stairs of a subway station, I would ask him, that how did he feel when I didn’t give him a birthday present, he would laugh out loud and say, “I already got the birthday present idiot – ‘YOU’!!”. One of the best lines anyone ever said to me...

Whatever he is, I know I can kick him around, and he will still value me like he always does. He is my Bestest Friend... Nirmalya the DHAKKAN!!

Still To Come: How I Met AkanKsha...

To Be Continued...

Flashbacks: A Year To Remember (Part VII): How I Met Pritam

How I Met Pritam is the shortest one. It was that famous Wednesday, the special one too coz I became a part of the group we called PAPANDAS.

Pritam is a short thin guy everyone likes to pick on for fun. Laughs at his own jokes and mostly remains pissed and annoyed. You will never know what he takes seriously and what he doesn’t. Neither do you know when he is sensitive and when he is not. He is the one who almost always funds our outings and he is the one who will get all the different items each for everyone and finally cannot finish his own. Sometimes he is awkward, sometimes, he is stiff, sometimes kind, other times jumping off a cliff. I think whoever named him, he made a mistake, he should have named him Sometimes Das.

That Wednesday, I went with the guys to the spot for the first time, and just along the curve, there was a gate that guarded the entrance to out college playground, and as we were walking the street towards the gate, I could see at a distance, a small fellow, in white and brown combination, with some other people around him looking for something. As we got nearer, that boy looked at our direction and smiled, and I also noticed that he was wearing white shirt and shorts of some color I dont know coz the brown I mentioned earlier was mud which hid the color of his shorts. He was covered with mud to his chest lenght and he was smiling all over his face with all the teeth he had and his eyes almost shut. The guys I was with introduced me to him. It was Pritam’s first introduction to me.

However, this was not the first time I saw Pritam. When I used to sit in class, and the classroom door used to be in a good view from where my bench was, I saw sometimes, something dark wearing white, scutter past the door which would be Pritam when he bunked his classes and roamed aimlessly throughout the college. Several months later, we actually came to know that he was playing football (soccer) that day I met him for the first time, he was sent to get the ball from the mud which was why he was brown. And Pritam is also credited to be the first ever benchwarmer Captain of any football team, and he was of CSE Football team.


There are numerous incidents on which our name is written all over in the past year, and in the most important ones', Prtiam's name is always written. He was supposedly the first "P" of  PAPANDAS, and one of my best friends, and as for times to come, he always will be...


Next One: How I Met Nirmalya... Hang On... Won't Be Long...

To Be Continued...

Flashbacks: A Year To Remember (Part VI): How I Met Aneesha

It was around October, just before the Puja vacations that one day I met Aneesha. We just went to college to take a last glimpse of college building before about a fortnight of holidays. The hostel go-ers went to their homes and the air was free of tension of the usual studies and the newly born Autumn air blew lightly and refreshed us with more and more sense of holiday coming. I was in high spirits coz I was about to have the best Puja vacations of my Calcutta life, and the first one with my friends. We were all together and Aditi was a little angry over me and Arka for some reason and was sulking somewhere around library, when a girl named Debopama introduced us to Aneesha.

Aneesha looked like a girl anyone going in the street or meeting her for the first time would mistake her to be a fourth grader. She had little eyes, little ears, little other parts like every fourth grader had, shoulder length hair, and wearing a baby top and like fourth graders, wore her first pair of jeans with a back-pack which looked too heavy for her.

We roamed a while in college while Pratip picked up books from the library, and Aneesha accompanied us till I asked her to add me in Orkut and she bade goodbye to us all and parted in the front gates of the library. But this was not just yet.

Later that night, Aneesha did add me on orkut and we were online together that time. She had some cute Anime as display picture, like all girls do. We talked for a while like the first talks every newly met strangers usually have, and we exchanged phone numbers over Google Talk too.

The real fun started next morning, when Aneesha and I were online again. We were having the same lifeless conversation when Arka buzzed me on chat. I told Arka that Aneesha might be getting bored by me coz her replies were the usual, and they came in late and we didn’t have anything new to talk about. So, Arka decided to spice things up a little bit. He told Aneesha from his side of chat that, Samik’s Orkut and Google Talk account are sometimes used by his elder brother just for fun and to spy on Samik. And the game kicked off.

I should have seen her face but I can very nicely imagine that it was drained of all the blood she had, coz she had quite a decent conversation, however boring, and exchange of phone numbers, and she was scared like hell. When Arka told me this, I started forcing her to talk like “Hey, what happened, why aren’t you replying” etc... and she was all silent and won’t even return any of my chats or texts. After sometime she went offline maybe thought of never coming online ever for security reasons.

Arka and I had a laugh over it the whole afternoon till we both decided her to feed her the truth. After all it was just meant to spice up the boring talk, and then we both texted her which she returned that night with a lot of life threating threats like “WILL KILL YOU BOTH” ... Arka and I laughed more on this becoz we are both nearly six feet tall and she was a fourth grader. She did finally hit Arka and me when the college reopened after the vacations and I mistakenly reminded her of hitting us.

Meeting with Aneesha was this fun, and we came to have more and more fun later on. On Aneesha I REALLY need to write this – It was just a few weeks we have known Aneesha, we were walking a road behind the college which lead to the old school, when a cow was coming towards us. She was leading the way previously when suddenly she cowared (probably coz the size of the cow was much much more than her own size) and ran to hide behind us. Suddenly I shouted – “Aneesha is hiding from Aneesha.” Now, at first Aneesha didn’t get the statement but Arka did, and laughed out loud, and after five minutes or so, when Aneesha finally came to realise what it was and she chased Arka and me down the street all the way till she was out of breath (trust me, she has a lot of breath). This "Cow = Aneesha" thing went on for many days including a text session between Aneesha and me.

Aneesha came to become one of us in the time to come, and she is still sticking. Its good to have a baby girl around us who is as much innocent as a baby just a few month’s old. And this was all how it started, How I Met Aneesha...

Yet To Come: How I met Pritam... Stay Tuned...

To Be Continued...