Part I - all that glitters.....

is probably part of the golden gang.... the golden gang....aaah what can I say about them...a series of stars glittering, dancing and lighting up the monotonous drivel of a college full of traditional lamps. They stood out, sometimes for their brilliance and sometimes for their fragile ability to burn up at the slightest provocation.

They were unique, or atleast they thought they were…..they were a group of six single (at various points of time) females, in an atmosphere that was never really meant for them and never really understood them. They formed a constellation by dis-association, they could not get along with anyone else…hence they got along together.

They knew everything and everyone, they were the lord-esses of all they surveyed….and like all true royalty had their fair share of notoriety and public washing of private linen. They knew they were better than everyone else and so of course everyone else knew they had to bring them down ….some were more successful in that….. and some tried really really hard. In the end, they stood the test of time, of bitching and back-biting, of the rigors of school and the fragility of friendships.

I would call this a coming-of-age story but in a post full of clichés that would just be the last straw.

Sonali – the one who betrayed the code, the deserter, the one who chose to walk away and ride the fickle wave of popularity rather than hold on to a bond of friendship.

Malvika – our own little princess, bright and funny, preened when guys were around and gossiped when women were around, the one who's eyes would light up the brightest whenever we thought of something fun (illegal) to do - and yet maybe the most practical of the lot.

Bimba – the nurturer, the mother, the sensible one and the other half of the mal/bim inseparable duo, mimic extraordinaire, and yet the only one who could make us all quake in our boots.

Pritika – our own posh spice, posh for her fancy cars and mobile phones, fancy life and spice for all the fun she was, the one with the biggest dreams and the most will power to make them happen. She was the counterpart of Mal, two of the brightest stars of our little constellation.

Shikha – the bridge between everyone, one who had the greatest arc of self-discovery in her years as founder member of the golden gang

Natasha – the one who always sat on the fence.

shes loves me /he loves me not?

So what is with us people and love, mittra spoke about the movie Closer that we watched last week, starring Julia Roberts and a whole crowd of very good actors....

The one thing that struck me the most about the movie was how the characters all used a particular justification - Im with her because it was love at first sight, I fucked around with him because I love him, Im leaving you- I dont love you anymore....

What is this damn love? since when did we start using it as a bargaining tool, as a choice, as a reason for every "sacrifice" we make?

Coming from a die-hard romantic, who devors mills and boon and their ilk and who's views of life is very influenced by bollywood movies it was almost sacrilige for me to see these characters spout the idea of love as an excuse for everything bad - from leaving to screwing up each others lives...

I guess no one has a moral right on what love is, and what it should be...

My mom thinks that apart from love for her children and her husband ,it is her dharma to love everyone else (from annoying mothers-in-law to random strangers who need help)....my dad thinks love is a habit (my words but he agreed..wholeheartedly)....

me?...the jury is still out on that one....

Brown sugar hardens if its out too long....

So do people if they spend too much time with other people. Chikita says the one thing she thinks has changed since I came from India is that I have become aggressive.

She thinks I used to be this nice, sweet (mama's chweet lil girl - thats what I was teased as all through junior college, coz once when we were going on a college trip my mom came to the railway station and begged one of my seniors, my brother's friend no less, to take care of me.....sheeesh...mom I think you may have just scarred me for life;) who may occasionally be taken advantage of but whose heart was pure and smile genuine, now I'm this harradin who peers suspiciously at every offer of friendship, and wont let ANYONE get away with ANYTHING.....

ok. so she didnt really say that, but you get the message:)...am I more aggressive than I used to be? The answer is irrevocably yes, I could deny it, but my harradin-like nature would spark - Why would you want to deny this? Do you think thats its wrong? Are you ashamed of who you are? or who you have become???

I am not ashamed of who I have become, it is who I am...no point being ashamed of that......and I think it is mainly a good thing, when I was nice (note the was...)...I suffered from a common affliction called guilt.....if I was not nice to one person...even to be nice to another....I felt guilty....thats not to say that I didnt do that...I just didnt feel good about it.

Now its easier in some ways.....I have a voice, a not very nice voice, its sometimes petty, sometimes vain and very often selfish, but I feel better equiped to deal with the world now.

Hit me people, I got my armour up.



p.s....ok now I feel guilty about this, I wanna be the one with the pure heart again.......sigh...

old friends/new friends

So my bestest friend in the whole world read my blog today (yeah ok she takes her time, so what? anything worth doing, is worth doing slowly;)....and that haaaaaas to be an occasion for a post.....nothing like reassurance from an old trusted friend to remind you that you have something to say, and something worthwhile.

So Pritika(just for you madam;) wrote me a beautiful mail telling me how much she has always enjoyed my reading(which is true, I am the official journalist/wedding invitation writer in her life)....and how I should continue...and someday I will have a "sex and the city " show based on my life and when I make millions she gets to take a commision of that!...so madam this one's just for you....

I dont know if everyone has had a chance to have a best friend that has survived for over 15 years( I lost count when I got her a charm bracelet with the roman numeral for the number of years we had been friends...and I got the NUMBER wrong!:)...yes, I do that, often), but I have had the good fortune. I could tell you about all the numerous things we have done together, over the seemingly endless years, but thats for another day...

Today I wanna think about Pritika when she was just pritam, this tall gangly incredibly thin(yeah even then!) kid with the slightly funny hairstyle (for todays times, not for then...god forbid madam is ever not in the height of fashion!) who walked into my school in the 4rth grade. I say my school , coz I had been there forever and she was the newcomer...I actually remember the day she walked into my class...but I didnt really pay attention to her for a couple of years after that.....she was thin and I wasnt, she was popular and I wasnt, she hung out with the cool kids and I hung out in the library one whole year when all my friends abandoned me. Then one day we discovered that we lived pretty close to each other and miracle of miracles! we had a measly 24 hours between our birthdays!!!

Now when I think about it, it seems like such a lame excuse to become best friends, but thats what we became. She taught me everything I didnt know about boys, all those nights I spent over at her place and we spied on those very foreign species (this doesnt sound the way it was...but she knows what Im talking about)...she seemed like the epitome of cool, someone who knew all the right moves, had a life outside of school(most of us kids never did) and yet was a great student, bright and competitive.

I dont know what I brought to her life then, I do know that now I bring to her life a shared history, a trust that lets her be be true flawed self around me, a belief that I will laugh at all her silly jokes when no one else will and a promise that I will never judge her and be in her corner....always.

I know this because I feel the same way.