I have not heard from her since ages, last time I called her she was busy shifting back to India from another country and we could hardly talk.
Cute and petite, she was the life of our group. Her anecdotes with smatterings of “uno bola, to fir main boli” in typical Hyderabadi style kept the conversation alive. We called h er “Hauli” a slang for cutely silly. She loved the road side chinese and I would very often gatecrash on her road side dining dates which she went with her “Quack”. Her boyfriend “Quack” was a friend of mine studying to be a doctor. I still don’t know if I was an intrusion, but I was close enough to both of them to be allowed to do that.
Today as I sit and reminiscence our college days on this rainy morning, I remember how we sat listening to Cliff Richards rewinding and playing the same songs again and again on a similar morning when we suddenly realized we were late for the lecture, got on to our bikes and ran to the college. She had this annoying habit of driving her bike on the footpath most of the time but that day she rode really fast and on the road.
It so happened that all our resolve and seriousness of attending the lecture was taken away with the drizzle and gentle breeze and we decided to meet up with the rest of the gang to eat hot samosas. The Samosa stall lady was right there with hot treats and tea ready for us. All that was needed was another anecdote from her about her recent trip home and she with her knack of story telling kept us all rolling with laughter.
Next year she shifted colleges, but we continued meeting. We were together for another three years before she left the city to go back to her hometown. She kept writing, regularly at first then sporadically. Long letters in her special way describing in details her life there. She always ended her letters with the words “friends forever”
Yes, Alpana, we are friends forever. “Can miles truly separate you from friends? If you want to be with someone you love aren’t you already there?”