F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

I am a person who finds it difficult to make friends. I am always wary, quiet and conscious to start off. But inspite of this I have made some very good friends in school,college and at work. I was just browsing through some of my old photographs in office(I wasn't very enthu about work on a Sunday evening) and I stumbled across this photograph.

This is a photograph of the night we had a barbecue party at Aditya's place. One of those rare occasions when some of us from college met after college got over. This one photograph reminded me of all my days in college. How a group of around 10 people got together and then moved away once Engineering was over. It started off mainly because of the fact that all of us were from places outside Bangalore. This motley band of boys was confused and lonely,away from home,away from familiar conditions and old friends. I don't know why we formed a group but I think it was because of the inherent insecurity that lay within all of us. We were basically Hindi speaking people ,now in a South Indian state,which though didn't pose any problem on the language front,did make us feel out of place to begin with. All this wasn't planned but happened naturally,especially in the second year when everyone moved out of the college hostel.

I still remember our trip to Goa, Hogenikkal and Hesarghetta (we went there the day our class got suspended).The never-ending tamasha going on the Cherry-Kapoor-Mamu's house. No one can forget the festival of holi they decided to celebrate together and ended up painting the whole house with the colours of Holi.The orderly home of Deep-Chinmay and the unruly but happening house of Cherry-Kapoor-Mamu. Night rides to Sabu Bhai's tea stall on MG Road, devouring all the kachori's that Funti got from Delhi,porn at Bhopali's and Puri's (Abhi are you listening?) house. The beer party we had when Deep cleared all his papers,Diwali at Adi's place,the North Indians Vs South Indians cricket matches,the fights between Puri and me,Abhi being the only guy to help me out when I didn't have a place to stay,Maggi for breakfast with Deep on numerous occasions,Puri's antics in and outside the classroom,Abhi and me helping out Deep when he had problems,Deep helping Abhi and me when we had problems,Hecate with his long list of girl friends,ever increasing size of Adi's waistline. And ya,cramming just before exams. So much more that I can't even think of going on further.

We didn't have much money then, but we had each other's company. We helped each other out when needed(except for one guy fondly called "Bade").Even in a prison-like college ruled by a martinet-like principal,we had a lot of fun. Deep, Funti, Abhi, Puri, Kapoor, Cherry, Mamu, Hecate, Aditya,Bhopali I really wish you guys are happy where ever you are. I also wish we could start college all over again!!This time make sure we include some girls also in our group. :-)