For many years of my life I was terribly unsettled. Whenever I started making real friends, which I do very rarely and never easily, we moved to another city for a while, where I made another set of friends and then, soon enough, had to leave them to move back home, where my old friends had grown up and away, just as I had. It was, for an only child with a non-conventional attitude and upbringing, not a happy situation to be in, in spite of the fabulous travel and learning opportunities. But in all that, I found people who mattered and with whom I formed bonds that hold, even today.
There is, for instance, a young woman from Zaire called Lelo Masamba. She was wonderfully maternal, comfortingly rounded and a fabulous colour – a beautiful, gleaming dark chocolate. She sang like a dream, had a totally infectious giggle, believed staunchly in her God and took me for what I was, writing letters and postcards to me wherever in the world I was at that moment in time. We had made friends when we were in school together in Geneva, Switzerland, and kept it up as long as I was in graduate school in the United States. Recently, stung by some force I do not yet understand, I looked for her on the website of the school we had shared. And I found that she was looking for me, too. It would be amazing to talk again, this time much faster than my snail mail. But how do I get in touch with her? Wherever you are, Lelo, where do I find you?
In college I met a girl called Karen. I first came across her in the women’s room in the dorm. I was in the toilet stall late one night when I heard voices….a voice, actually. Someone was out there at the sinks, clattering bottles, turning on taps and talking. To herself, I discovered when I peeked out, rather nervous (with fairly typical Indian prudery) of being caught in my nightie by the cleaning crew. Our eyes met in the mirror and I started giggling. At which point we became, I think, friends. To my amazement, she shared my brand of lunacy with no effort at all, often topping it with her paranoia and zany laughter. With this, she had a strong streak of caring and sharing, opening her heart and mind and family to me, starved as I was for home and its loving attention. A tarot reader once called us soul sisters and, for the most part, we are. She is still where I call home in the US, still inviting me in to invade her life, still demanding my presence at regular (and short) intervals. Some day, soon, I promise, I will be there, suitcase in hand, asking for a hug and some of your world famous enchiladas, Karen!
When I lived briefly in Delhi, I met some very interesting people, some of whom I prefer not to know now. One whom I would keep for ever in my life is Nina, someone I had never met before, even though our extended families had known each other long before we were born. Not too tall, nicely barrel-tummied and with a giggle that matches mine in madness, we bonded easily and quickly. For me, she is the sibling I never had, but at a nice distance that does not allow for boredom. We meet twice a year or so, now that I am back home in Mumbai, talk endlessly and, of course, giggle, much to the astonishment of our various friends and relations who cannot understand what there is to talk about and, more, to go into such hysterical laughter about. When we are together, we eat, we shop, we gossip and we try and figure out who we are. And when we are not, we still talk - on the phone when she is in India, with irregular emails when she is not - and share worries and fears, news and book reviews, and more giggles. I wait for her to come here, hopefully soon, so we can catch up with our lives, together and apart, bemoan the state of the shoe shops and disapprove of beige lipstick, skirts that cling unfortunately and weather that will not decide what it wants to be. Hurry back, Nina, I miss you!
Friends are rare finds, even rarer long-term keepsakes. For me, a friend tends to be for ever. Which is why I treasure them, always.
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