Happy Birthday, SM!
Today is the birthday of a friend from long long ago. SM and I were very close through our high-school years and we kept in touch through college, too. She was the one person that, I can say with confidence, was far crazier than I - in her ideas and in her execution. She had dreams of becoming a combination of a theoretical cosmologist and a sociobiologist, and looking for life outside the planet. And you know what? She would have been the only one to manage that sort of feat successfully! (I, on the other hand, stopped at wanting to lead the first manned trip to Mars.) She engaged people in endless debates on the "real" nature of black holes - and then she called me Albertina Einstein. She read, she wrote, she sang, she dreamed. She was the "raciest" of all of my friends at the time - nonchalantly talking of things it boggled my mind to even consider. Now, of course, having lived here for a while, it strikes me that she was just a very typical American teenager in some ways - a fairly good teen, mind - what made her racy was that she lived in India. Bombay, but nevertheless, India.
She had every institution opening doors wide for her at the end of high school. She topped every list you could think of. She struggled for a while with the chains of the Indian educational system - I guess by then we'd all realized we couldn't major in our dreams under the system - and decided to opt for medicine at a well-known Bombay college. I opted for engineering. This meant there was nearly zero overlap between our curricula and the pace of school meant we couldn't keep in touch as much as we wanted to. Still, we'd manage. In between long discussions on the nature of truth and the classes we loved, she'd managed to throw in a mention of her latest beau along with some description of goings-on. I lapped it all up - not being of the sort who got into those Mills and Boon-ish situations myself. If it was anyone else, I'd have wondered if all those stories were true but I knew SM well enough to know they were true.
As time went on, the calls got less frequent, and we lost touch. One day, a few months before I moved to the States, I got a call from another friend saying they were all meeting up and would I want to be there. I ummm...ed for a little while till she said, oh, by the way, SM will be there. Of course, I went.
We were eight of us, at Juhu beach. I think we grabbed a coffee at the nearby Barista (no Coffee Day or Cafe Mocha in those days - oh my, I'm sounding old!) and headed to the beach for a long walk. It was around six, another hour before the sun went down. It had been nearly six years since I'd seen some of them. We talked about our activities - and then SM mentioned she'd been taking vocal (western) music lessons. She needed very little urging to start off on Whitney Houston's I will Always Love You. I remember vividly the strong voice, the open environment, the light breeze, and the JW Marriott in the background. (Is it still there?) And I remember that as the last notes of the song faded away, there was tremendous applause - not only from the seven of us there, but from all the guests of the Marriott who had formed a long unbroken line along the parapet above us to listen and cheer. Then, as we broke into little groups to renew long-lost friendships, I once more found myself discussing philosophy, careers and men, in the same breath, with SM.
I feel stupid that I didn't take her email address then. Or maybe I did, and then lost it...? I don't remember. What I do remember is thinking of her, months later, in the States, and trying to get her email address so I could contact her. I believe her telephone number has changed as well. There was no way to get in touch. I got a lead, tried sending an email but apparently it wasn't the correct address. I have tried several times in the last few years but it's funny how someone so larger-than-life seems to have disappeared so completely. I tried to google her today as well... no luck. Maybe she's married and changed her last name? Doesn't sound very SM, though.
Ours is one of those friendships that didn't need constant stimulation. We could always reconnect after ages, and it would seem the same. Such relationships don't disappear completely - ever. So, I believe that, just as I think of her once in a way, she probably remembers me occasionally as well. I hope she knows that I'm thinking of her today, on her birthday, and wishing her the fulfillment of all her dreams. And I really do hope I manage to get in touch with her some day.
She had every institution opening doors wide for her at the end of high school. She topped every list you could think of. She struggled for a while with the chains of the Indian educational system - I guess by then we'd all realized we couldn't major in our dreams under the system - and decided to opt for medicine at a well-known Bombay college. I opted for engineering. This meant there was nearly zero overlap between our curricula and the pace of school meant we couldn't keep in touch as much as we wanted to. Still, we'd manage. In between long discussions on the nature of truth and the classes we loved, she'd managed to throw in a mention of her latest beau along with some description of goings-on. I lapped it all up - not being of the sort who got into those Mills and Boon-ish situations myself. If it was anyone else, I'd have wondered if all those stories were true but I knew SM well enough to know they were true.
As time went on, the calls got less frequent, and we lost touch. One day, a few months before I moved to the States, I got a call from another friend saying they were all meeting up and would I want to be there. I ummm...ed for a little while till she said, oh, by the way, SM will be there. Of course, I went.
We were eight of us, at Juhu beach. I think we grabbed a coffee at the nearby Barista (no Coffee Day or Cafe Mocha in those days - oh my, I'm sounding old!) and headed to the beach for a long walk. It was around six, another hour before the sun went down. It had been nearly six years since I'd seen some of them. We talked about our activities - and then SM mentioned she'd been taking vocal (western) music lessons. She needed very little urging to start off on Whitney Houston's I will Always Love You. I remember vividly the strong voice, the open environment, the light breeze, and the JW Marriott in the background. (Is it still there?) And I remember that as the last notes of the song faded away, there was tremendous applause - not only from the seven of us there, but from all the guests of the Marriott who had formed a long unbroken line along the parapet above us to listen and cheer. Then, as we broke into little groups to renew long-lost friendships, I once more found myself discussing philosophy, careers and men, in the same breath, with SM.
I feel stupid that I didn't take her email address then. Or maybe I did, and then lost it...? I don't remember. What I do remember is thinking of her, months later, in the States, and trying to get her email address so I could contact her. I believe her telephone number has changed as well. There was no way to get in touch. I got a lead, tried sending an email but apparently it wasn't the correct address. I have tried several times in the last few years but it's funny how someone so larger-than-life seems to have disappeared so completely. I tried to google her today as well... no luck. Maybe she's married and changed her last name? Doesn't sound very SM, though.
Ours is one of those friendships that didn't need constant stimulation. We could always reconnect after ages, and it would seem the same. Such relationships don't disappear completely - ever. So, I believe that, just as I think of her once in a way, she probably remembers me occasionally as well. I hope she knows that I'm thinking of her today, on her birthday, and wishing her the fulfillment of all her dreams. And I really do hope I manage to get in touch with her some day.
posted by Summer Showers at
4:42 PM
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