Fair?

http://mimiandeunice.com/2010/09/15/life-isnt-fair/

Indeed! That is how a seemingly boring weekend evolves into going out with friends, meeting more friends, some new public and night-long associations with questionable substances. Pause. Cooking for an appreciative audience (who were dead scared of cats!). Rinse and Repeat.

The cherry on the cake? LA Chocolate Salon. Chocolate. Wine. Catching up with Gossip Girl. Too much of a good thing ain't that bad! 

Mine. Part III.

After doing all the keeda-kaand she could in the Motherland, the girl decides its time to shift countries. Welcome to Amreeka, ji. No more Old Monk and Kingfisher. Sad. Welcome to the land of JD and microbreweries. Yum. Always interesting to move so far away from home. The things you took for granted, no longer are. Relationships need more work. Finding new friends, harder than finding housing on Craigslist. But, we have established that the girl is awesome, and hence minimally troubled. What helped?

Stories and rumors and hope - make life so much more interesting and keep the girl going. Maybe they were about the guy with the green car, or the one with the curly hair, or the workaholic. The green car boy - lost cause; Mr. curly hair - still cute. Now, the workaholic. Heart-beat skip causer. Random sweet and sensible words-sayer. Spontaneously funny. The root cause that made the girl look back and remember all the crazy men she knows. Also unattainable, at last check. Oh well, that's the way the girl rolls (not). 

Oh, and how can she forget "shared property" or the "open relationship"? If the girl's life was a twitter feed, shared property would be #FAIL. The open relationship on the other hand, would be trending very well! One facebook status change, made on a dare was all it took. That, and the fact that the girl and the bestie gained great laughter from fanning flames. Equally evil, those two.

When the girl looks back at the last two years, she realizes she doesn't know when the bestie became the bestie! Knowing the girl, it probably helped that he cooked. Very well. Water - the girl loves to be near it, the bestie loves to jump in. The walks. The drives. San Diego. Malbec. Surprise(s)! Car-Bar-Net. Maybe the bed they shared, or the friends. Ink. Cards. Dancing. "Wild". San Fran. Long phone calls. Silence. Safety at 30. Red. The times when they thought, if only they were not so similar. The times when they are forever grateful for those similarities! Acceptance. Understanding. Most importantly, love.

Man o' man, by no means the girl thinks that this is a comprehensive list! The girl hasn't even mentioned the distant cousin she was linked with, and the distant cousin who wanted to marry her. Hey, don't blame the girl, the bawas are a small community! The sandwich-wala, who was the most important person around for 2.5 years. The girl is a slave to her stomach, also to be blamed on the bawa genes. The internet friend-of-a-friend, turned good friend, who the girl tried to hook-up with her BFF. They shared a love for slightly wonky late night conversations, peppered with references to 'mayo' and 'hunny'. The supposed asshole, who has never been but super nice to the girl (maybe it's her charm!). He was even nice enough (and drunk enough) to offer her an ill-fated piggyback ride. What fun! Oh, and the Army captain she met on the train? The girl had lunch with him on her visit home, played the perfect smart young woman, and there started another round of rumors. Fun fun fun. 

Who else? The girl also met a very open-hearted, ever smiling, amazingly humble person. The closest to a wise elder brother. Did she mention the other bawa guy who was her senior, and her nephew at the same time? Who fleeced the girl to get free tel-maalish? Also, the spiky haired guy on her team for the last one year. Brave man that one, to be the only guy in a 5 person (aka crazy women) team, but still afraid of insects. And the neighbor, alternating between being hot and being a slob. His cat, who ruled the girl's house for the past two years. Sidenote - If the cat was a human, it would have become the despotic ruler of the Earth-wide Kingdom of Godot. Scary stuff, that.

So the girl concludes, she is blessed. She looks around, and sees never-ending sources of inspiration, strength and love (and food and alcohol). Most of whom are okay when they see the girl break out into the trouble-creating evil grin. Almost all of them celebrate(d) the fact that the girl isn't a helpless maiden. And almost all of them are slightly scared of the girl's daddy dearest, because my Daddy strongest!

Mine. Part II.

And so, the girl keeps writing. College was an exciting time, so much to do, so much to see, so many people to meet. Oh, if none of this makes sense, do read Mine. first. Don't hold me to a strict timeline though!

When the girl came back to the big city for college, the first classmate she met was pouring over the entrance test results, wondering if he would get what he wanted. Couple of months later, he thought the girl looked super pretty in a saree. The shortest relationship ensued. Through the ups and downs, they remain friends and tell each other the most random stuff. Weird, but feels quite okay. Looking back, I am unsure if the guy ever got exactly what he wanted/envisioned. Life has a way of throwing him very interesting punches, leaving us with a repertoire of amazing stories! Manic Monday. Terrible Tuesday. Whacky Wednesday. Terrific(?) Thursday. Fantastic Friday.

It was also in college that the girl met the sweetest person she knows. Unflappable. Looks like a wrestler, is a marshmallow. Such patience this man has, to put up with what is now 6 years of ribbing by a set of friends who have all been generously sprinkled by the devil's dust. He is one of those people who will always be blessed, for he will have a child-like innocence with him forever.

While the girl was powering through college, she felt a need to explore an alternate world-view, partially because a close friend was immersed in it and the girl was bored and curious (in equal parts). So she went and did a short course with this international organization that claimed to change her and the way she saw the world. Yoga, social work and the lectures about living a good life were fine and dandy, but then horror of horrors! They wanted the girl to shirk her love for meat and alcohol. In desperation, she looked around for support. Found a pair of twinkling eyes. They shared a smirk, a "someone save us from these holier-than-thou people" look. Scooted closer and plotted to go out for a drink immediately after. So opened a world of hanging around in the heart of Mumbai and learning to understand Marathi. Going to small hole-in-the-wall places to eat fish(y) delicacies. Khooni paanje. Kala khatta golas. Conversations about Physics and Biology. An unforgettable holiday. Fights. Blame game. Constant pestering. Volatile emails. More pestering. A full circle, back to a tenuously held together friendship.

Once you start thinking about the people that have touched your life deeply, you realize that there are many more to go. And so, the girl will follow a friend's advice: "Today was a fantastic day, tomorrow will be better, if you like to write, don’t hesitate, if you like to draw don’t wait, whatever it is that makes you happy pursue it today for tomorrow today shall be a memory, a fading memory lest you capture it in your own special way…."

Mine.

There is always a little sweet spot in our heart for some people. The special ones from the myriad collage that makes up our lives. Old friends, friends you met only once, people who were such an integral part of your lives that you forgot all about their value, the shared mischievousness, the family bonds. Also, relationships that were not meant to be or will never be. As the years go by, sometimes even after things go bad, don't work out or maybe don't even really begin, they leave behind little pieces of memories that make you smile. Bitter-sweet as the smile may be, this is my journey through the smiles and (in this case), the men who made them!

A long, long time ago there was this girl who had the devil as her personal adviser. She was always the little perfect child in the presence of elders, but when in the company of her peers, the devil was let loose. Great many children were beaten up in the battles for food, game-time supremacy, kites, toys and attention. And then, a prince walked into the warzone, ready to face her. They clashed and fought, but realized that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. So together, they ran headlong into mischief, co-conspirators against the boring world of the parents. Together they became teenagers, and discovered the first bloom of romance. Alas, the evil world of studies and Board exams interfered. The first bloom remained exactly that, and life went on.

Her travels took this girl to a new city where she was thrown in the midst of these strange big city kids. Too much free time and a love for bike rides got her together with this another guy. So different from her prince, this one was a crazy, unrepentant wild-child. So much potential for so much fun, and the devil told the girl, go live. She did. Even today, it brings an evil, evil smile to her face!

Oh, and then there was the competitor. The guy who wanted to challenge the girl in everything. They got into fistfights at fifteen, and stories abounded in the small town they call home. The girl took the ultimate revenge. She went ahead and charmed his parents. Practice helps!

First day in college. Girl sees a guy with an odd vibe, just lurking around, being unsocial. Somehow, over innumerable cups of chai, classic milds, pegs of varying alcohols and other adventures, they went from being awkward friends to this another plane of friendship. The one where the fact that you didn't really speak for a year and a half does not really matter. You can catch up over 3 days and 3 bottles. Bliss. Thank you, God.

Still in college, the girl meets another guy. This one was highly amused by the girl's attitude - her tendency to be the laziest in a pack of lazy, willingness to fight and propensity for using very colorful language. The exact opposite of what he thought a perfect girlfriend/wife should be. Then he discovered that she was willing to get yummy sweets from her hometown, just for him. Instant magic recipe for an everlasting friendship. Bike rides. Floods. Rainy days. Food. Chai. Alcohol. More bike rides. Gossip. Pretend study sessions. Xerox frenzies. Screaming matches (the girl won). Concern. Affection. A lot of laughter.

A chance online meeting. An instant connection and a decision was made. The girl met this complete stranger, one late evening, in the middle of her exams. Passed those, couldn't pass up on him. Shared a common love for coffee, food, cinema, and exploring their city. Could not tolerate each other's music choices. The girl made him smile, and his smile made her feel like a princess. But if you think they were a boring sweet couple, think again. There was this sparky current between the two, and well, life was very interesting. Though time and tide found its way in between them, an email is all it takes to remember the time the girl scared the daylights out of him. All it took was a bumpy ride on the roads of Goa, with the girl driving the two-wheeler. 

The girl has more stories and more people to write about. She will too, soon.