Birthday. Not mine.

I have a penchant for the weird and the dramatic. Anything normal I automatically discard in favour of the obscure.

And this has been a life-long thing for me. Occasionally though, normalcy creeps into my life. Dark-washed skinny jeans, engineer/doctor career options and a hugely sensible friend.

This hugely sensible friend (let’s call her S), I met in the eleventh standard. The academic year started off with me being bitter because all the friends I had made so far had been cleaved from my life and thrown into different sections. The girls I gave my tenth boards with were all scary smart, witty and frankly, a little crazy. Hear me out.

We made a hue and cry when the waiter at Café Coffee Day didn’t do his job (dude, 100 bucks seems like a lot of money for a cup of coffee when you’re 14. Actually, it still does). We coined semi-bitchy, self-praising jingles for Sports Day (actually, I did, but the others were game enough to chant along. Sports Day had all of us on a high, not necessarily because of the adrenaline, but more because of the caffeinated drinks and sugary bars of chocolate). These girls helped me tide the crimson wave, every month (not fun, especially with pink uniforms and puberty menorrhagia and whatnot). They didn’t make a fuss about eating; created a riot synonymous with pathu-ruba people at posh theatres whilst watching The Ring; and most importantly, they never forgot birthdays.

Cut to Day One, Eleventh Standard.

How do you expect a class of geeks who’d decided to study Mathematics, Biology, Physics and Chemistry to be? Fun is not the word you’re looking for, mes amies. These girls seemed kind (ew), sweet (double ew) and were the save-the-world-types (ew, ew, ew, ew, ew).
I went back home that day and wrote a poem about how much I missed my friends. I really did. The poem is trash, but it was heartfelt. It still makes me miss them all over again, even though they are still very much a part of my life (even the annoying ones).

Within the first week, we were subjected to the horrors of a medical examination. Yes, it includes checking your weight. In front of the whole damn class. And if that’s painful, a visual acuity test isn’t far behind. After a year in Ophthalmology, I’ve come to realize that there is no point in asking us myopes to try reading the stupid chart without our glasses. Heard of Astigmatism? The world is just a blur to us, sans glasses.

So while we were in the line (no, it wasn’t a queue. Despite being in the eleventh standard, we were still made to sit cross-legged on the floor, in pairs), I tentatively remarked on how I should go memorize the letters on the chart… not too many, that would definitely arouse suspicion. A couple of girls in the S’s giggled. Fuelled by the response, I started shooting my mouth off way more than I should, and ended up being best friends with both of the S’s.

S was a recent graduate of a CBSE school. She was a topper there, and though I didn’t know it at the time, she would be a topper when she left this school too. I usually can’t stand people with a perpetual smile on their faces; she’s been one exception. Can’t stand those who wear their shoes, size goody-two, either. Nope, not an exception, it’s exasperating at times.

But. She’s game for a cup of coffee before an exam; a movie on the day of the board exam results (not that she’d have to worry); waiting until midnight for Ashish Nehra to turn up; Spencers’ every single day of our board holidays (7 years back, it was kind of cool, OK?); double biryani on Eid; bursting the scariest crackers on Diwali; cruising around like she owns the city on a Scooty Pep; covered for me with my folks and she has the coolest sister who’d come back from the US with goody bags filled with chocolates and lipgloss.
She even came to the Tamil remake of Bhoot. Shock, it’s called. Apt. It features a love scene between Prashant and Meena’s thunder thighs. That is shocking. For that alone, she deserves a post. For that and for the yummy food her mum stuffs us with every Diwali.

But this post is mostly because it’s her birthday. Her birthday kind of signals that mine is coming up, so it’s even cooler. And inevitably brings back memories of the surprise party my tenth AND twelfth friends (weird how I still label them that) threw us at Hyderabad (I unwittingly helped plan it, even). And no more praising her, because I’ve a feeling she’s going to be around for long.

Happy 23rd, Sail-um-yeah!