Friendship Diaries;Chapter 1

 We all have sailed through this phase called childhood and all are on the same page considering it as a B.O.A.T – Best Of All Times. It’s that stage where you discover a lot of new things, laze around, trouble others and a lot more. Even if you fell, even if you cried, even if you made a mistake people around you just smile, make peace with whatever it is and pamper you in return as if nothing really happened. A stage where nobody really expects anything from you other than  spending time with you which becomes part of their routine. But there are some factors which really make your childhood even more cherishable. In my case, it was the great people I met during my early childhood. My friends are more fun than anyone or anything I know, including bubble wrap. Considering this I am starting a new series called the Friendship Diaries,  here is the opening of it.

It was the time when my family had just relocated. I was barely 6 or 7. Me as a kid was not that exposed to society and sort of introverted resulting in me having very few friends. The only ones I had meant everything to me. Since it was a newly constructed apartment by my dad, new families were moving in. Slowly I started socialising and started making new friends. We, the apartment children, had a culture to infiltrate a newly shifted family to find out if they had children who could play with us. If they did that child is considered to be kidnapped at the very next moment and spotted later with us in the play area.

I had made a friend named Nithin. To pronounce his name properly took ages for me. I used to call him 'NiTTHin' with the 't' and 'h' pronounced separately, though corrected by many, countless times. So this boy 'Nitthin' and myself used to play chess though we had no idea how it was played exactly. Him being 4 years older to me considered himself very experienced and knowledgeable in comparison to me, he taught me many indoor and outdoor games. He had a younger brother named Harsha who used to be my enemy. We literally used to trouble each other to death, it so happened one day that we realized that we also can stay calm and get along. If I were to make a character sketch of Harsha I would say he was Harsha. This guy had a very good dressing sense and getting ready was his priority over anything else. He made sure he wouldn't step out of the house before setting his hair and patting powder on his cheeks. As soon as he thought he was well dressed, he would then be ready to do anything. Harsha being as old as me, we had many things to discover in common while having common interests. A special mention to how Harsha changed his eating since I am a vegetarian.

When I close my eyes and remember my childhood, the first thing that comes to my mind is that time when we three were together literally all the time. The three of us playing together was the best thing i remember from back then. It’s hard to recapsulate the things which we did and it is impossible to measure the fun we had. One such instance of us which tickles my funny bones whenever I remember goes something like this... 

In our apartment we used to have cultural programs in the evening for every festival. Once we had to dance on a Krishna Song. We knew that dance demands a lot of practice so we had practiced for 1 hour for approximately 20 days. The choreography was also pretty good. The emcee announced the next rendition and called us on stage to present. We cheerfully climbed up the stage and were all set to perform taking our positions as practiced earlier. The song was played and all the performers sprang into different directions, fully anxious. The fact was we never heard the song before and we had practiced on counts. All we knew was the song's name. We had to dance but ended up making fools of ourselves on stage.

Being lost in a farm, playing kabaddi, dancing on stage without music, watching horror movies, going on trips and what not, are few of the many memories we shared. We used to play cricket for about 6 hours a day followed by playing GTA Vice city for hours. Our parents had a tough time dragging us back to our respective homes. But the best part was our parents were also bestfriends, thus it also played a role in our bond getting stronger.

From enemies to developing common enemies, friends to bestfriends; bestfriends to BFFs. We have come a long way. We didn’t realize we were making memories back then, all we knew was we were having fun. We also learnt so many things from eachother, to put it in a better way, because of each other. Nithin and Harsha actually taught me what was true friendship. I am so grateful to have these two gems as my friends. Though we aren’t geographically close anymore we are still very close at heart and we still share the same bond. These memories are the timeless treasures of my heart.

Aapti Patwardhan