Supercalafragelisticexpialidocious!

So it happened like this!
She was eloping to Nairobi with her Alien boy friend from Sector X of galaxy Nova Beta and I just happened to meet her on the Calcutta Express.
Naaa! Not as dramatic as you would imagine.
Difficult to believe, but the following is the true story with all the murky details.

She was my geeky, Kajol look-alike, brackety-teeth, perverted-joke-master senior. I was the shy, introverted junior. ;)
Damn! This is beginning to sound like one of those love stories that I know I just don't want to finish reading. For the record, this is not a love story.
Yet anything I try, to explain the single most profound and at the same time perplexing?! moment of my adult life, looks cliche.
There she was in the midst of this chaotic whirl of sheets, books, files, paper, chords, more chords, was there more than one laptop? I am tempted to say laptops. The most insanely disorganized room I have ever seen. And on top of all this, and I swear, still very much in control, was this chubby figure in a grey t-shirt and navy blue shorts.
I was doing what a typical junior does:-bootlicking my recent United States-returned elder counterpart (by two days). I was going through the routine, vaguely intrigued, appalled, disgusted and at the very same time secretly admiring the fact, that after two months in the US of A, somehow the one thing she brought back with her was a very distinct memory of the cream cheese bagels and the brownies. After our session, I was terribly hungry, terribly fascinated and terribly waiting for another chance to bootlick.:)
Well it happened that my peculiar brand of bootlicking was a winner as far as this grey t-shirt wearing, on-top-of-total-chaos-perching senior was concerned.

I was soon to be become an integral part of the whirlwind that was Tanima Dubey's room.
The following months (years?) went by in a rush and the only mind numbing sensation that remains is that I want them back.

When I happened to feel low, a worn and battered copy of Linda Goodman was thrust into my hand, dog eared, highlighted, penciled and asterisked at the Aries section.

Do you guys know how fabulous we Arians are? You have no idea. We are by far the best sign in the Zodiac (no offense intended). All of us are so cool, so much fun to be with, I mean we're perfect!............

Yikes! Before all of you start throwing brickbats at me, I didn't mean any of that. Its just Linda Goodman makes us look so awesome. All you Arians out there, here's some sincere advice - beg, borrow, steal, tear the Aries section of Linda Goodman and keep it with you. It is a tue friend for life.

Besides the above infallable advice, Tanima introduced me to the mysterious rites of dietary hedonism. Her philosophy:The moment that you feel so completely full, you feel you can't breathe, at that point gulp another last spoonful of food. That extra serving indicates utter and complete satiation, the moment when you know you cannot possibly be more satisfied, your threshold- that euphoric point which is most appropriate for yet another act of hedonism- Unecessary rest. Snore!

The one thing about the female that baffles me to this day is the absolutely careless way in which she professes to love Govinda and Miles Davis at the same time? One of the most terrifying experiences I have had in hostel (I still have recurrent nightmares) was when two Banshee like apparitions with loose hair and crazy pajamas cornered me and performed each and every Govinda number ever released in what I think was chronological order. From "Aa aa ee oo oo ooo" to "Zshoom! Akhiyon se Gholin Mari!" there is no Govinda number I can honestly claim to never have heard before.

Sitting on the canteen mushroom, eating Pakodi and chai, cracking the craziest jokes, which were in retrospect not particularly funny, but we laughed anyway, and so heartily....like I have not laughed a long time since.

On our crazy, themed birthday parties, from "Amazonion tribes" and "Back to the nursery" to "Mochachocacaffeineshottaholic" and "Begging for Gifts", Tanima was our little vitamin pill, the Princess Xena, the one toddler who had too much chocolate cake and pepsi goes berserk, the caffeine in the coffee, the zing in the gifts that made them worth begging for, she was the unnacountable, mysterious X factor. The life of the party. The punch line of the joke. The unidentifiable twang in the Punch.

All the time I've known her, she always knew how to hold her head, no matter what on earth was happening around her. Solid as a rock. And yet so soft and vulnerable.

The female who can rewrite a six month project overnight if her hard disk crashed and yet get teary towards the end of "Pretty Woman."

The female who can go to her lab in her pajamas and yet loves to dress up in brocade saris and chunky ethnic jewellery, and to top it off, strut around the hostel corridoors in her favourite pied piper stilettos the day before the exam.

The female who can be demure, witty and sauve as the situation demands and yet crack the worst pjs possible when shes alone with her beloved hoggers.:)

We've been the best gal pals (cliche again) since that fateful day, and from crazy face packs to crazy crushes, we've been through it all together. Thats the thing isnt it? Being together. Two continents couldn't tear us apart. So then nothing really could.

There is the research, demanding bosses, the usual suspects-marriage,husbands,children-but somehow I know we will survive it all together, no matter how far apart we may be, physically.

She's there to watch out for me and I'm there for her, like those crazy sisterhood pacts during World War II. Prick your fingers and mix the blood and all that crap. We never needed any of those cocky rituals. We just were.

Both of us turn 23 this year. She called me up and remarked that she felt terribly old.

I feel that way too this year. As if a part of my life I once knew is morphing into a faint memory. When did I grow up?!Its like the in between part didn't happen. Im the giant bean stalk from Jack's magic beans.

I understand her feeling old.

The two of us are doing research. We don't party. We actually like to work as much as we can. (I can see a million index fingers pointing this way:NERD!) We like to knit and cook and keep things clean and see things are planned out in advance, way in advance. How much more boring can life get right?

But like Hathi once said, Tanima is that girl at the college alumni party, that everyone asks for- the hippy, whacky, amusing bundle of energy who always intrigued everyone back then, still fresh in their memory, morphed into the graceful 30 some-thing that every guy and girl in the party begs to be introduced to.

Aging gracefully is a gift.

And Tanima has it aplenty, what I like to refer to as her mojo.

Switching from the quintessential Kajol look-a-like "life of the party" lass to the "Sauve, sophisticated" Vicky beckham+5 pounds scientist took hardly a month. Mind over matter.

For thats what she is, a woman, phenomenally.

And so, here's to my most supercalafragelisticexpialidocious friend ever!

Hip hip Hurray!

Hip hip Hurray!

Hip hip Hurray!