Relationships

Oh people!!!!!

When I look back at the 6o years that I have lived on this planet, there are memories of numerous people with whom I have been close to, but either I moved on or the person moved on or life happened. This leaves me with just wisps of shadowy memories of them. The time I spent with those people gave me a lot of happiness at that time. It seemed like the friendship or bond would never end, but it did. The years just rolled by and at each stage there were these intense relationships or bonds, that either broke abruptly or just evaporated over the years. 

I remember  dear friends Punita and Kousalya from my school days  in St Anthonys, Mumbai. Punita was a Maharashtrian and she and I were among the shortest in class. So we sat together. Punita lived in a tiny house with many siblings, 2 sisters and 2 little brothers. We travelled to school together; we either walked to school or took the train. We stayed at Govandi and we had to alight at the next station chembur. Another close friend was Kousalya. Kousalya was a sindhi. Her uniforms were always well stitched and she always looked well "dressed", inspite of the constraints of a drab uniform. Kousalya was vivacious and always had a cute haircut, unlike us with our plaits. I also had couple of friends in my neighbourhood, they were Roshan, Kala and Kavitha. Out of these, Roshan was very close and we often spent time together after school. I stayed in touch with Roshan and she became my life long friend. But lost touch with Kala and Kavitha. 

Those days we had a 10+2 system in Mumbai, wherein the +2 had to be pursued in a 'junior college'. the junior college was usually part of a regular college.  After our 10th exams, I just lost touch with both Punitha and Kousalya. There was a frantic search for good junior colleges and with my 10th marks I was able to get admission in KJ Somaiya college, for my +2, where I had opted for physics, chemistry, maths and biology group. I ended up staying for just 1 year at KJ Somaiya. It was exciting to be in college after being in a girls convent. I instantly hit it off with a group of girls. +2 is also the time you are preparing for your college admissions, which for the ambitious ones was getting into medicine or engineering.... those days those seemed to be the only 2 alternatives if you are ambitious. As part of our preparation for the +2 exams I enrolled for coaching at Ramu tution classes at chembur, which is one station away from our home in Govandi. So I attended college till I think about 4 pm in the evening and the group of us landed at Chembur where they lived. We were so hungry at this time of day and headed straight to Gupta chats for delicious bhelpuri, panipuri, sev puri and dahi puri. After eating to our heart's fill, I headed for my tuitions and then reached home late in the evening after my tuitions. I really enjoyed this first year of my +2. It was at this time that my dad decided that I should join a better junior college, if I had to score good marks. Through his connections he secured admission for my 2nd year of +2, at SIES College in Ghatkopar. My friends were quite upset at losing a dear friend and tried convincing my parents that I stay at KJ Somaiya, which was to no avail That was the end of my fun one year friendship with those girls...I am ashamed to say that I don't even remember their names now. We did stay in touch for a while. I even attended the wedding of one them, which was done in traditional iyengar tradition. My year at SIES was tumultuous to say the least. I was upto my eyeballs with studying, college, tutions and adjusting to the academic rigor. I did not make any friends but only focused on my studies. I did fairly well in my +2 exams and then I had to choose between St Stephen for dentistry and two top pharmacy colleges. With my parent's guidance, pharmacy it was.

During my BPharm, my closest friend was Jyoti; though we had a larger circle with Raju Patkar, Girish and Nutan. Jyoti continued to be a close friend till my wedding. After that I attended her wedding too. With the lack of social media,