Everybody has friends in all phases of their lives. Some only have few, some have a lot of them. Some have the same friends while some like me have different friends during different phases of their lives, depends on the situation. In my case, the situation was the transferable job that my father was in. Every 4 years, new place, new school, new surroundings, new acquaintances, new friends. But I'm thankful to my father for one thing, had it not been for his job, I wouldn't have been what I'm today and of course, I wouldn't have made the friends that I have. Now, every place that I stayed during my childhood was special and the friends were even more special. Be it Vikas and Nimesh in Bareilly or Pankaj and Neeraj in Devlali or the two that I'm going to talk about now in Chandigarh.
The very first close friend that I made in Chandigarh was Abhilash. During those two years of 9th and 10th, we were almost together all the time. Same tuition, same bench in class, similar marks(barely passing :-P), similar tastes. I used to visit his place very often, uncle, aunty, bhaiya, his two uncles, I knew everyone very well and he was a regular at my place too. I still remember playing video games and TT on the small table at his place. Roaming on cycles, renting comics, playing short pitch cricket etc etc... We'd done it all. If that wasn't enough, when we went to RTC for tuition in tenth, we ended up in the same batch. Night classes were fun too. He was my only best friend then. Post 10th class, he changed schools, was studying something else, changed his house and we lost touch on a majority basis but we still used to meet once in a while. Then I came to Hyderabad post 12th and we completely lost touch. Thanks to Orkut, we got back in touch and have been in touch since.
Another person that I'd like to talk about is my second best friend of that time and my sister Neemisha. She was one person whom I valued a lot at that time. I still remember my first day at school in Chandigarh. I came from Maharashtra to Chandigarh. I had a metal chain in neck, bubble gum in my mouth, shirt's collar was up always. These things changed once I came there. But one thing did not, usage of abusive language. It used to come automatically. She had a major role in me controlling that. She had told me to stop it or not to talk to her and then I reduced it by a great deal and she was happy. She also used to ask me to study. Well, we had our own share of fights too for which I always used to say sorry to her, Sorry once again Sis :-). Her last memory that I have with me is the gift that I gave her on her birthday in 2003 which was a card with a chocolate and a photoframe with our photo. And she had given me a parting gift when I was leaving Chandigarh, a glass keychain.
The reason I'm writing this today and mentioning these two very special childhood friends of mine is the very reason that it's their birthday today and though I'm not present there physically to wish, I wanted to wish them in this way.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY NEEMISHA AND ABHILASH... Miss you guys and those days... :-)
Another co-incidence is that all three of us are getting married this year so I'd also like to wish them a happy married life too.
Thank you for the memories Abhi and Neemisha... :-)
Your friend
Bhaskar.
