Day 9

Blog readers

It is weird- the kind of relationship you develop over time with the readers of your blog.

Sometimes you get to know them really well, sometimes they are blog writers that you feel you know well because you read their blog regularly.

In the last 5 years I have been blogging, I have actually met 2 people through this blog. Two wonderful people- one I am still friends with, the other a fellow blogger was a very good friend at one point in time but we kind of lost touch along the way.

Since I am quite fiercely protective of my anonymity in the blog world ( in fact it is only now that I mention my city on the blog before this I never did that also!) - so this is quite a large number.

Apart from these two I have spoken on the phone to one and exchanged emails with atleast 3 others (I do not have a separate id for my blog)

Why do I suddenly talk about this?

Well there is indeed a reason. It’s the Girl series.

I started writing the Girl series about 4 years back- that was when I used to have a much bigger reader base and frankly was more enthusiastic about blogging too. Shekar, a fellow blogger and a voracious reader was one of those who used to follow my blog quite regulary. His comments for the Girl series were very encouraging and even now I remember one of his comments verbatim.

So 4 long years later, as part of this marathon, I decided to restart the Girl series.

To catch up on what all I had written I sifted through the previous 4 parts and spent some time going through the comments as well. And there I found the comment that Shekhar had left for me all those years ago. I smiled as I read it, promising to def mail/ scrap shekhar that I have put the next part of this story, he so keenly followed.

I wrote part 5 2-3 days back and was postponing the next post simply because I had to let him know that I had written part 5. It was a weird thing in my head- its not like we speak/ chat often. Infact we have never spoken/ met each other or are even really aware of what the oher one is upto.

But I just felt like doing it this way- one of the weird things you know, letting him know of the post. He does not follow my blog now, so he would not know of the post on his own.....I mean I have had no contact with him in months!

Anyways today I changed my status on FB. Shekhar who has most prolly never commented on any of my FB statuses , commented this:

“Speaking of which, we, the readers of ur blog, have been kept away from your own power of story-telling, especially 'the girl' series”

I was blown away by the co incidence. That he should remember that particular post after 4 long years in between of which we have hardly ever had any communication except his occassional comments on my blogs ( which have stopped as he stopped reading my blog sometime back- fault is mine though, I really had stopped writing) and maybe one email. At max 2.

So I immediately informed him to go read my blog and told him how I had been not writing the blog marathon because I wanted to let him know of the latest post.

Its funny, how we connect people with things in life and how they connect/ associate us with the same!

Love
RP

Day 4
A Tale of summer coats.

We had a mini school reunion a couple of days back in London. School reunions of this kind are so much fun. There are teachers you talk about, classmates, ice cream walah, chane wala – just so much that no one else but an old school friend can think of.

There were 4 of us. N (http://smilethesmile.blogspot.com/2010/01/best-friends-i-dont-know-if-any-of.html) who is fashion designer in London, S who is a lawyer in London, myself and then a girl called D who was visiting from India on work.

So we met at the Waterloo station at 7 in the evening. As I saw N my jaw dropped. She and I had both bought new summer coats in the last 3-4 days and guess what?!! They were just slightly different makes from the same company!

The same colour, a very slight difference in cut and the same size!

So we would be walking round the city in almost identical summer coats? We questioned each other.

Making peace with the absurd situation at hand, we deicided to concentrate on meeting the other two girls we would be seeing after almost a decade.

We were, however, still reeling from this coincidence as we hunted for the other two at the hugeness the Waterloo station is.

And as the clouds parted I could see D & S standing at a little distance from us. I was seeing D after 10 years- she left our school when her father, an IAS officer of prominence, shifted base to Delhi and she joined DPS thereafter. We were good friends and used to sit close by. I was going to meet S after 8 years! I was the Vice Captain of my house and she was the head girl. Nice girl, good speaker and a very good head girl. I do not think I ever got a chance to meet/ speak to her after she passed out of school.

So there should have been so many things I should have noticed about S. How thin/ fat she ad become. How her hair was . How she walked, how she talked. But that’s not what I noticed. What I noticed was the S was wearing EXACTLY the same coat as the one I was wearing!!

Call that a coincidence or what!!!

Such is life

RP.

I never thought I would post a pic of girls coats! But here you go! Have a look at the coats, the tale of which this post was!

Best Friends

I don’t know if any of the readers from when I first started to blog 5 years ago are around. But if you are, you might remember my best friend N, I used to talk about.
N and I have known each other since we were in class 1 and have been best friends since class 5. We were together till class 12 after which I went to do an engg degree and she went to get a degree in fashion. However, I was still at home so whenever she would come back to meet her folks I would be right there. After that she left the country and moved to a place called Preston in the UK.

I then moved out of my city to do an MBA, however we still kept meeting as she would come home for diwali holi types when I would also be home.
Now I am in London and guess where N has been for the last 3 years???

LONDON!!!

And what is like super cool is that she lives twenty minutes from house by the tube!
So after 8 long years my best friend and I are together in the same city! And what a blessing that has been.

I absolutely do not know what I would have done here without N around. She is free on Mondays and Tuesdays which is when S is busy with office, so they have become ‘our’ days.

Mondays:
She comes home. I cook lunch for us. We talk for like 3-4 hours.

Tuesdays:
We meet at some station. And she takes me to some place she thinks I would like to see.

So the first Tuesday N & I went to Oxford street to do some all important shopping. Today N took me to a place called Covent Garden and Neal street. And, Oh my gawd!

That place is just so pretty. The cobbled streets and the tiny little shops that have so much of heart! I saw joke shops with the silliest stupidest things for sale. I saw shops with low white ceilings that looked like attics. There were shops where everything was pink and silver. There were people performing on the streets. There was an eating joint where entire meals were desserts. I checked out big stores and small little shops. I saw junk stores. It was just such a nice pleasant evening.
We walked for like 4-5 hours. We just kept on walking and talking. It is so funny with old friends. You might have spent the last decade on different continents but when you meet you meet like you were together yesterday.

We then walked to Trafalgar square. Clicked some mad pics. Walked some more. Lunched together. Laughed hysterically at crazy things. Did not know how time passed.
And as I sat on my bus home (was doing this on my own for the first time )I realized one very important thing. It is wonderful to spend time with your husband. Mine is a lot of fun to be around and pampers me with all the shopping and the eating out. That’s great but what is equally great and I must say equally important is girl time. You need to have girl friends you can hang out with. Laugh like crazy with. Spend hours with without yawing.

I don’t have a job right now. There are some interviews lined up for next week. I am more than grateful to have that opportunity given the situation in the UK right now.

But I am so glad I can spend time like this right now. I do not remember when I felt so free last.

My Mum says N is one of the very very very few people who make me genuinely happy.
I have known N for 19 years. I am 25 years old. Enough said.

To best friends.

R