I never thanked you for being there.

“ I never thanked you for being there. Talking to you makes me feel alive, coz the loneliness just vanishes. That’s why I msg you every day every time.”

When words like this get delivered in our inbox, it’s not just a message, its like someone gifted a part of their heart out to you. Her words made my day today.

This is a story of a cute, snow white ( yes white), introvert and an intelligent girl. On the first day of their Bachelors as the first year girls started undergoing the drill of “ragging: by their seniors, the girls were asked to stand height wise and march to the “Psychology Lab” of the college. The line bustled with voices like “Are you taller than me” , “ Oh! I’m shorter than you” and soft giggles which mostly accompanied kindergartens.

While the ragging involved kissing each other’s bums with a loud sound of “mwaaaah” and turning up to college the next day in oily plaits and mismatched shoes, something interesting was about to happen few minutes down the line.

The batch of first years got divided into groups and was expected to go around the college with the seniors. As they got out of library, one of the cheerful girls turned to the snow white girl at the back and said “ Hi, I’m Cheer, what’s your name?”, Snow white politely answered “ I’m strawberry”.

Who knew that in that little exchange of names and contact numbers was in stored a path breaking journey of friendship, love, and a gazillion discussions ranging from food, cute boys, love, to Freud, Winnicott, Before Sunset and Before Sunrise.

When you see some pals day in and day out and wish to be in their company, people and this heart of ours begins to ask some questions, or rather feel some feelings! While it became clear by the final year of Bachelors that Cheer and Strawberry very much enjoyed and grew in each other’s company, much to Cheer’s surprise the other girls in their group began addressing them as “best friends”. It seemed sarcastic at first but well it was ignored!

As Cheer got involved in her research project in the final year  as Strawberry and other classmates did practicals, Cheer made it a point to share her research study progress with Strawberry. Years later, she wondered if Strawberry ever realised why would Cheer do this?

You see, when you find pals lying within the same intellectual plane as yours, then it’s not just friendship that bonds two people, it’s the sparks that emit and the enlightenment you seek as you respect and understand the other’s point of view.

Time passed by and in Bachelors, Strawberry got a cute ‘Hello Kitty’ key chain attached to her bag. That was the day the keychain was named “Yen” by Cheer. To this day the name remains, however we have no clue about the “hello kitty” key chain!

As it was time for Bachelors to come to an end and get the year book signed from pals, a number of huge shifts of plate had already occurred in the ground. The used to be pals seemed more like “used to be” than “pals” and Cheer realised that perhaps only Strawberry and another pal called Suzi would make it to the next level of friendship; and so it was……

To Cheer’s surprise Strawberry wrote pages and pages and pages filled with love in Cheer’s year book. Those pages till date are re visited and smiled upon as the words are a reminiscence of moments spent together sitting in the Spring coloured lawns of the College or simply exchanging messages in each other’s notebooks as AG went on seeking everyone’s attention in her ‘Social Psychology Class’.

Then came the time when it was for life to decide where the two would go and that my friends decided the course of her story………..

To be contd……

To Cheers and Strawberry...for their love of baking......<3: br="">