Wednesday, May 17, 2006
It all began when ...
No one remembers when it all began. But I will start from a reference point and use flashbacks wherever required.
It was an usual afternoon at siddharth’s place. Sid as he wanted himself called, but we seldom did, was a relatively
New friend for me. It was mid May in 1997. The first year exams were over and the results were yet to be declared.
Afternoons are not very pleasant in the hot weather in pune. Given a choice, I would have easily opted to stay back
Home in Mumbai. But I had to get here, as results were going to be out soon.. If I was going to flunk , I sure needed to run away from home.Being in pune would have given me a headstart.
I was introduced to siddharth by a common friend, mithil. Mithil was studying with me in fergusson college.
He was the kind of guy, you could recognize from a distance and then maintain the distance. I mean, there was
Nothing wrong with the dude, but nothing seemed to be right either. He had done the moonwalk during our course induction,And immediately non-fans of Michael Jackson stepped away. Considering It was late in the 90’s, the music had long faded and jackson’s bed habits were already public. But mithil seemed unfazed, and till today remains a true fan. In the beginning of the year, the guys in class had a running wager. At the end of the day, we would pay the guy who sat next to mithil..
And one day mithil found out I was from Mumbai. He came and asked me with a big smile on his face, a smile I would see only three times in the next four years “Where are you from in Mumbai?”. Before I could reply, The guy had already sat down next to me. He was from Virar, I was from andheri. They are both suburbs of Bombay, but they could be two different cities altogether considering the contrasts.I prefer to call the city Bombay, cos it was Bombay at that time. And so started a conversation, which would set the ball rolling. If I would have just said I was not from Mumbai, Maybe Life would have changed a lot and I would have been not writing this. Soon enough, I found out that even though the guy makes a horribble first impression, he could be entertaining in a strange sort of way. Mithil is still an acquired taste, one which I have still to acquire. Anyways, by the end of the year we kinda could tolerate each other and that much was enough.
I met siddharth outside college, where you generally meet people when you are studying. He was mithil’s roommate and had come to pick him up. Well, here was another dude you could not miss in a crowd. There was nothing fancy about him, but you could know the guy was making an effort. At what, I am not entirely sure of. But he would come across to most people as someone who is always trying. I still remember him being perched on his Yamaha 135 c.c ( I know he would not like it being called just his bike) in a pair of denims and a bright orange shirt.
The only thing missing to complete the image of Shahrukh khan in DDLJ, which had released a couple of years ago, was the mandolin, which I later found out was at home. I didn’t see him for a long time after that, details of which I will come to later. Anyways, by the end of the summer we were getting along well enough to spend a couple of hours together.
