The Usual.

The usual, is usually the most difficult to put in words. And here I am, trying to do the very same. It’s Diwali time, the time to start anew & celebrate the year & thank the god for being so kind & praying for more prosperity blah blah. For me, Diwali in short is a time to clean. It’s when my mother entertains no excuses for having a messy room; it’s a time when you visit and are visited by people from far & near.. relatives you haven’t met in a while ( and you probably don’t want to either) and who go on & on about how you’ve grown & changed; it’s a time for weird blink lights and noisy crackers( which by the way I’m against as they cause pollution).

On this auspicious occasion my mother has forced me to clean my room. And anyone who knows me knows that this process usually involves me messing up things first and then re-arranging and sorting them in the best possible way. That’s the reason that I usually end up taking a lot of time for cleaning cuz once I set down to it (and I don’t set down to it too often) then I want to do it perfectly. Clothes: All the formals in one pile, all the black & white in one, all the things I never wear in one, the flashy party wear in one, Kuhu’s clothes in one (God Kuhu! I have to return a lot of things!).. You get the picture!

So as I was cleaning out one of my drawers I came across this box of letters.. and even though I knew that I had absolutely no time whatsoever to read them, I still sat down & started to unfold each one. It’s amazing as to how they managed to make me smile and cry at the same time. Some of them are so old that the pages have yellowed and the edges are slightly torn. Some of them so recent that I can still smell the parchment. And all of them, so meaningful. I know that things have changed, that most of these letters no longer hold any meaning. Contrary to what most of them said “We’ll always be best friends. I’ll never leave you. You’re my best friend” none of this really exists anymore. People turned out to be exactly the way they promised they wont. & The people who matter now are the ones who I don’t even have letters from! Time has moved on and proved a lot of my decisions wrong, a lot of my choices wrong. I look at every tiny little note from every friend of mine ever that I’ve preserved and I feel was it worth it? Was any of it ever worth it? Will any of it ever be worth it?

Just like the dewdrops which are so full of shine at dawn but dissolve as they day progresses, my feelings towards people too, seem to be dissolving.. the people who made up my world.. the people who I couldn’t not talk to even for a day.. I haven’t spoken to them for months. And all this makes me feel that once we all head in our respective directions.. will we even remember each other? Or is this all just going to die out? Will our parents actually be proven right as they say these friendships won’t last?!

And even as I say this, I can’t believe it. It’s too impossible. So what if some of us have fallen apart? What if some fights became too big to be sorted out & the people who could’ve sorted them chose not to? What if we did not trust each other as much or if we fell apart? I don’t believe that any of us will ever stop loving each other! At some point in life when we look back, we’ll remember the crazy / wild / dumb things we did and they’ll make us laugh & cry (just like these letters today) cuz we’ll be reminded of what we were, how life has changed us & what we’ll always be.

We’ll always be the cool-yo girls who never took life seriously, who sat in Art ‘a’ (XI/XII) all their life never talking anything productive; who looked at the ‘white-house’; who hid in the stadium when they wanted to bunk; who gave each other lectures on every possible thing; who came to each other for advice on boyfriends, first kiss, first dates, first months & first years; who clicked random pictures; who danced & posed & laughed; who discussed books/ movies/ eating joints; who roamed around the canteen; who tried to be in the videos that were being shot; there’s so much! How can I ever put all that’s happened in this one note? The break ups. The patch ups. The cat fights. The surprises. The lunches. The first years. The bunking. The AUTO RIDES all over Jaipur! The inventing new words each day (Ishani!). The Radhika Jokes. The moody-ness (Kuhu!). The govinda dancing (Aishwarya). The I-don’t-share-my-brunch (Aavriti). The talking about everything. The dirts. The sitting in XII Arts A even when something more worthwhile could be done (Shiromi). The I’m-not-short-I’m-fun-sized (Ruchika). The punjaban’s chimples (Vangoni). The chuniya&guruchela (ravija&shreiya). The captain planet (nandika jija!). These are all such irreplaceable moments & memories that I don’t feel they can ever be replaced by new ones. Even if we all go to big towns and lead our dream lives.. some part of us will always be with each other. And my thoughts will go with each one of you as you pass out and go away.

It’s not farewell time yet. For some of us, it will be soon as for others.. we still have an year to go. We banked upon these last two years so much as we wanted them to be the best. In some ways, they have been cuz even though we don’t realize it now, we’ll miss these days and even though school isn’t exactly the place it used to be.. it’s still our essence. It’s where we’ve led most of our lives, made most of our memories, shared most of our laughs and cried most of our tears. It’ll always hold a meaning in our lives. We may think that we’re all dying to go away but when we will actually go away, as Nandika once said: We’ll miss every fucking desk of this school cuz it has our names engraved on it in different colours.

I’m not sure if I’ve made sense, I’ve just tried to put down in words what randomly I felt and what I’ve always felt. Some parts may not hold true a few years later, but one thing always will..
“ At some point of time you’ve all meant the world to me. You may / may not anymore. I may/ may not miss you at the moment. But the memories we’ve created will always be etched in my heart and I’ll never ever forget any one of you & what a role you’ve played in my life. You may have made me cry but at least you had an impact on my life, and that, I’ll always remember.”

So here’s wishing you a happy diwali. I hope it brings all the joy in the world to each one of you. I hope that as the time goes by, we’ll all realize that what’s meant to be, will always find a way. And if we’re meant to be like this, then we will make sure we are. And I hope we do. All my seniors, and yes Ishani you too, I love you. I may have never said it and maybe I never will out loud, but you all make me so happy! Never change-cuz I’m too used to you. Never lose touch-cuz that’ll be heartbreaking. And always, always, remember that

You shouldn’t regret something
That once made you smile,
Cuz at one point in life,
It as what, made it worthwhile.
There’s a reason for every tear you cry,
Every drop that wets the sky,
And the reason as to why people from your past couldn’t make it to your future
Is cuz they, didn’t want to try.
Toomuchlove.
For ever & ever more,
Shiromi ~*