The phone rang at 10 in the night…..let it be, whoever it is,I’ll get back to them,tomorrow. I was under the covers, drugged by anti-allergy medicines and deep asleep. Then, it rang again. So,someone really needs to talk to me!
And here was someone,calling me and asking me to guess who she was!!And this voice, was so familiar,so close that I could touch it,this voice that sounded like I talked to her everyday, was my dear school friend Roli’s. Yes, Roli,with the infectious laughter and the never-ending spunk and spirit.
How happy, I was to hear you talk after all these years,almost eternity.It brought back my childhood, my school to me….the starched saris of the K3 teachers(Kapoor,Kohli,Ketkar),the aroma of the lunchboxes, the whites of the P.T. shoes, the maroon of the blazer, the exhausts from the army school bus, the moral science of the sisters,the morning assemblies,the march pasts and all!!
And I so wish, I’d known before, that you were in this country and we could have met.And I so envy you both,Sumita and you,the two from our 5-girl gang,that you could meet up and chat and laugh, only if, for a small time.
And,thanks Sumita for calling me up and that’s the best call I got woken up by, in a long,long time.
I have wondered, why is it so difficult to strike new friendships as adults? I think, as children, there was never a need for something to be exchanged to be friends, except pure and simple happiness to be in each other's company.