My Best Friend — An Essay of the Heart
It’s my best friend’s birthday, and what better way to commemorate it than writing a really huge note that no one else but her will have the interest of reading? :D
Seriously speaking though, for anyone who knows this amazing lady, you’ll love this read and to those who don’t know her, there’s no time like the present. Read on to know more about my best friend…
My best friend, is… and I say this with complete confidence… my entire life. And this note is just to re-embellish how much my life has been impacted by the one special person, that’s you, Seema Kumawat.
I poked my brain left and right to think of what would be the ultimate birthday gift for a girl who is a Do-It-Yourself diva, and the idea had finally began to intercept. Words of sorrow and joy, words of care and charisma, words of friendship and love, words that will make one’s heart melt. That is my gift to you. The gift of words.
That first day.
Granted, I was a bit woozy in the head cause I had just donated a few ml of blood at the Blood Bank where you were interning, but I know what I felt when I first saw you… and that… wasn’t love. (Come on, get your head out of them romance flicks!) Instead, I did think you were really pretty, and remember telling my friends that I would befriend you somehow or the other… And here we are, more than a year later and I can’t even place the acidity of our relationship on the pH scale.
I know it’s not the first day that you met me… I was just one of the hundreds of volunteers that day, and so easy to get lost in a crowd, but to me, that will always be the greatest moment of my life. As they say, you know a friendship can last when there’s a great first-meet story. The rest is history.
That *actual* first day.
So, this was the day you actually recognized who I was, and even then, we both were so clueless as to what the future would have in store for us. We met in college, like most friends do, went out for a snack, like most friends do, made a few wise cracks and cracked a few PJs, like most friends do. And then, unlike most friends do, we bid goodbye, thinking we’d just meet only when we bump into each other in college by pure happenstance. But that’s where it all went north.
That little restaurant we had our first lunch in, Mumbaikars, has changed, our little neighborhood around college has morphed and the places we use to go changed so much in just a matter of a year, but of all the changes, I’m glad that you’ve changed from being a stranger to me, to being mine ❤
WhatsApp Came Second
The digital age has really changed people and the way we interact with other people, obviously. The whole concept of getting to know people has been diminished to stalking one’s Facebook profile and looking up who their mutual friends are and asking them about it.
And in spite of all this easy picking, if you happen to meet a friend out of the digital convention and actually go out, you know you’re doing it right. And we did. I’d like to think we bonded the most when we kept meeting up so randomly and taking even more random selfies.
But as time passed, we succumbed to the future and started texting day and night, every chance we got. It was your constant Facebook stalking of my old DPs that brought you closer to me, and my obvious and unnerving need for attention that brought me closer to you. It’s when you don’t need a second opinion about a person, you really know that they’re the one for you :)
Random Meetings & Selfies
Time passed on, and our frequency of us bumping into each other in college raised through the roofs. We went to places like Pyramid Valley, and well… that’s about it :P (you never came out anywhere, in my defense). Our college has seen a lot of meet and greets, but not as much as ours.
As you might already know, folks, this girl is a selfie-addict (blatantly obvious from the above collage). And it’s because of her that I got the selfie bug too. Every random meet, every little moment and every single day, her gallery would have some fresh new additions. She had put my photographer name to shame. But it’s also because of her that I learned a truly important lesson in life, and in photography (ironically).
I used to be the kind of person who shoots bugs, landscapes, sunrises, sunsets, weddings and the whole lot, but now, I’ve restricted myself to people and portraits. Because in the end, that’s the only kind of photographer I wanted to be. A smile from the person you shoot is worth more than any number of likes that photo may get. She taught me that shooting people is where my true happiness lies, the joy of showing the photo to little children to see them either run away in shyness or pose some more in excitement. In a way, she does the same.
Planned Meetings & Even More Selfies
Now you know it is he real deal when you call up just to ask if we’re going to meet up. You know she’s in it for the long haul when she pops up in your friend’s birthday selfies (like the one on the left). My friends love her (sometimes even more than I do) and she always has a way of keeping people happy and bright. It’s a simple process really, she just wields out her phone and starts clicking selfies and everyone joins in. And thus, the upward curve on our face is created out of thin air.
My 20th Birthday Surprise
I guess this was the day that changed my whole perception of you. My friends had done a lot, and in spite of all that, you kidnapped me, gifted me something amazing, irreplaceable and something which to this day, I have kept extremely safely. And after everything, we had been to a temple extremely close to my heart. I may not believe in God, but I believe in you, and respect you the same way.
That birthday was so special to me, only because of you, and this is my turn to make yours just as amazing.
Your Past
It’s around this time that you started with tales of your past, of everyone in your life, still or not around any more. It is an eventual stage in every one’s lives, and it was a window into you world worth peeping into. Cause it was not just you, but me who benefited the most from your stories of bravery.
With every tale, came a tear,
for which my shoulder said “No fear, I’m here!”
There’s still a lot of things we’ve yet to share each with other, and I look forward to those days.
My Present
This present state of mine, I honestly can’t imagine my life without you. It might have been just a year, but I feel like I’ve known you for ages. We’re as open as friends, as close as a couple and as caring as family. You mean more to me than what the sun means to the earth. You might go for a while, but indeed, I will miss you even though knowing you’ll be always back the next day.
It’s because of you, that I have learnt to let go of my own past. It’s because of you, and my extreme will to impress you, that I excel in whatever field I step on. It’s because of you, and your intelligence, that I keep up with my studies so well and remain the topper I was. It’s because of you, that I am the sweet and caring boy and the respect-giving man that I know and love about myself. It’s because of you, that I found out what true love really meant.
People say, don’t fall in love, cause you might lose it all. But I gained it all, all because of falling in love with you.
Our Future
Like I always say, you got to dig up the past, and send them packing, to make new room for newer happier memories. I know our future is complete with you and me, and a lot of surprises on the way.
To everyone who thinks we are a couple (and I’m pretty sure my family thinks so, even though I’ve made it abundantly clear to them that we’re not), we *may* never get married, but that’s no reason for me to not say that I love this girl. The only relationship strong enough worth fighting for, is friendship, and ours is one that’s been tried and tested.
A girl deserves a guy best friend, even if it’s just me.
We’ve talked about this day a lot, and this is how I always see it playing out. I’ll be there the day a groom comes looking for you, where you’ll be behind the blinds, texting me asking if he’s picking his nose or something like that… and eventually, my only reply would be… he doesn’t deserve you… or I’d just text my decision once I know his CTC. *wink wink*
Our future is unheard of and unseen, but so is everyone else’s. All I know for sure, is that… we’ll have a lot more selfies and a lot more texts in the coming years. Because in life, somethings never change. I’m glad to know you’re my something.
To be continued…
Because one note is just not enough to contain the memories that we’ll be creating for a lifetime.
Measure my heart by the width of your fingers; teach it to pulse in time with your own. Beat by beat.
