Ravings of a Nomadic Mind

Ok I was recently talking to a friend of mine about relationships and related stuff and it set me thinking. There was the usual progression, I suppose, Hopeless first love, this and that over the years, unrequited mad crushes. OK well hopeless first love was when i was thirteen, she was a classmate of mine but i was a clumsy, introverted oaf, more adept at football, and scurrying around on the basketball court than telling her how I felt about her. Well i kept staring at her for the next four years and well never told her how i felt. Don't get me wrong, i mean my best friend was a girl, heck my frist friend was a girl, she was my Godfather's daughter and we talked about every thing but when it came to my "hopeless first love" i was born dumb and mute. her name was Surabhi.

We made it to the Tenth standard some how, we studied together, we as in my best friend and me, her name was Sarah. We played on the band together, we played mixed doubles on the badminton squad, and some where along the way we noticed that we were indispensable to each other. When we were in play school we went to a "Fancy Dress party", dressed as a North Indian Bride and Groom. We protected each other from every thing and for some reason we were together all the time, one thing lead to another and we were a couple, it was the most amazing year, I guess, for the first time I understood the chemistry between my parents. we slogged together we were at each others games we practised Dr. Zhivago and Nanha Munna Rahi Hun with each other and she taught me civics and economics i taught her science and my sister taught us both math. We were young and curious and we were eager too, one thing lead to another and we both blamed ourselves for what happened next and stopped talking to each other. I left on an infamous holiday with my friends and she left town when her dad got transfered and then i took a dive of a cliff or half way up off a cliff which ever way you want to see it. it took us two years of recovery and guilt to realise it wasn't such a bad deal and by then she was in love with another childhood friend and as these things go I was the best man at her wedding. that was "you are the most idiotic person on the planet to let her go love". She is top notch geneticist and I had the honor of being her daughters Godfather.

Two years of high school went by uneventfull Sarah had left but there were others most notably Surabhi and a few others. we were busy charting our careers and i was busy playing "boys code of honor" and still never told her that i liked her because my friend liked her and we three spent some memorable times together. life went on exams came and went and we went our separate ways. graduation was not much difference, except there were friends i had known all my life and i could trust with my eyes closed and we blew into the small college like an tornado, we could do nothing wrong and if some thing did go wrong it was some else's fault, always. There, literally I ran into a tall shy Amazon. 5'11" to my 5'6" and a face that could could be rated at a 100 milli Helens and a confidence that could be found with a micro scope. we were a sight to see, life was funny for a time and we grew into better friends and more comfortable with each other. I would like to believe the college and our company had a good effect, as she bloomed into the girl she could be confident, lively and mischievous but there was this evil witch and u know how things go in nightmares. well it wasn't that bad but we drifted apart she was "this" and her name was Ritu.

"That" was Ankita smart inteligent and I fought with her on the first day of college, and in the final year we started talking and we became close. we spent many hours cuddled up on my sofa or hers, watching all the girly movies she picked. oh and she came from a very conservative Jain family s you can guess how that ended, i had places to go and things to do and she could never tell her parents that she was serious about what was going on, waht happened in college stayed in college and never came back to bite you. she looked real pretty at her wedding too.

There was Vandana in the middle some where of all that she is still a good friend but the entire time we went out for all of three months, every time i took my bike out for long rides or went climbing she would drive my mom and my friends up the wall worrying about me, or she would be on the ground shouting be carefull every ten minutes while i had more important things to do hanging off a cliff, for some reason that lasted three months only. I wonder why ? umm oh i guess it was better for her blood pressure and every one else's sanity, oh she and my best friend from school now and army captain make a good looking couple too.

Then there was the "unrequited mad crushes" first day of PG orientation, we had a difference of opinion, well it was mostly that she formed one, an opinion that is, before she knew someone and passed a judgment and I had an opinion about such people we lasted well about six months , when work load and creepy friends and family traditions proved too much and that was that. she is a friend and with Sarah a peg against which all prospectives are measured and well that should tell you some thing. Her name was Sakshi

The "Disaster" was named Siji, friends we had been friends for ages and some how things seemed to go right for us, the night before her birthday i had a big accident. i called her dutifully and wished her and drowned my self in a ton of pain killers, at three in the night when the meds started wearing off my phone had 23 missed calls, from her. she said there was some thing wrong and I wasnt telling her, and she was so worried she couldnt sleep, this when she was in a altogether different city at that time. We shared some thing, two years down the line my life started going to peices and in the middle of all that she called me and told me that she was worried my spinal injury would affect our relationship in the future and that was the end of that. that was the "Disaster".

Then there were the summer romances, and as some one said "Summer romances begin for all kinds of reasons, but when all is said and done, they have one thing in common. They're shooting stars, a spectacular moment of light in the heavens, fleeting glimpse of eternity, and in a flash they're gone." and so it was the same with me they were blooms of splashing color when my life was Grey they were fireworks on moonless nights and they were women of exceptional talents, they arrived when life was missing some thing they gave life color and moved on or stayed back as friends and but they made a difference to who i am, there was oh and all of them were doctors, one a Doctorate student and two medical Doctors one a student of my Aunt in Bombay and the other a Russian educated but a dear friend. that was Surabhi, Arpita and Megha.

I don't know why i wrote all this, but it does bring back memories some good some bitter most of them where gorgeous bursts of color, and so here it is. These women made me who i am today and except for one all have been and are good friends, they helped me make myself today what i am. they all gone on to do or are doing what they were meant to do, as i said they were the people who filled color into the outlines of my life. some drew in pastel shades and some in splashy hurting colors, but well on wards beyond to life at its best.'

P.S. since every one wonders thats my story over the last 15 years. oh and they were not crushes or infatuations, they would take a life time and some more to recount.