Friendship Season

It was the spring of 2005. Flowers started to bloom as the winter season passed. And also my buddy Rahul’s friendship with Tejaswini bloomed to a different level. Those days they used to travel to office together, have lunch together, have evening tea breaks together. Also Rahul used to help Tejaswini do her shopping over the weekends, and frequently go for movies (off course with her roommates and me). I kind of benefited from their ‘friendship’. Rahul was frequently invited for dinner at Tejaswini’s apartment, and I was the tag-along in every such invitation. Tejaswini & her roomies were excellent cooks. Also whenever we went for the group movies, Rahul the romantic used to pay for everyone’s ticket. So what if he was a typical miser at home who used to fight for even 50 paisa spent on grocery, in presence of women his chivalrous self always prevailed.

Akash & Shankar both had moved to onsite (client location in foreign country) by this time, and Akash had gifted their TV & DVD player to me as his parting gift. Dev & Kunal were the expected heirs of that property, but Akash had given a new logic.
He had explained “Dev & Kunal has each other for entertainment. What does poor Govind have? His roommate can entertain only his female friends”.
And thus I was deemed the fittest recipient of the TV & DVD player which I gladly accepted. This also meant Dev & Kunal were also transferred to me as ‘visiting friends’. They used to visit me every weekend to watch TV. They had inherited the playing cards from Aki, so these days I spent a lot of time learning different card games from them. Speaking of learning, I was also improving my linguistic skills. One of Tejaswini’s roommate was a Tamil girl, Laxmi. I had formed a symbiotic relation with her – she used to help me learn Tamil while I used help her learn Hindi.

One fine day, we learnt Tejaswini’s dad is visiting Chennai for a week. Rahul decided he had to impress him at any cost. He volunteered to go to the railway station with Tejaswini to pick him up. He also gathered a list of his favorite food items and suggested her roommates should cook that. He tasked me to buy all the required grocery items, and I happily obliged since it meant I will be part of the welcome lunch being planned for her dad. On that eventful day, I was sitting inside their living room, tasting all food items to ensure everything tastes perfect, when the doorbell rang. Laxmi, decided she will welcome the dad as she felt confident enough in her newly acquired knowledge of Hindi. Out of her confidence she forgot the fact she was cleaning the kitchen and went to open the door with a broomstick on hand. Not to forget Laxmi was a very well built lady, 5ft 7 inches tall, who claimed her father and aunts were wrestlers at state level. Imagine how welcoming the sight would have been for Tejaswini’s dad, to see her opening the door with a broomstick in hand. But this shock was nothing compared to the welcome speech that followed.

She wanted to say “I assume you are Teju’s father, why don’t you come in and I will show you your room”.

But her incomplete understanding of hindi caused a welcome speech of entirely different meaning. She uttered “Are tu Teju ka baap hai? Idhar andar ana ekbar, main dikhati hoon tere ko”.

It took us complete 5 minutes to clear the shock and confusion. The rest of the day went without much trouble. Except the lunch time. The apologetic Laxmi wanted to make up for her earlier misunderstood misbehaviour.

She was offering generous quantity of lunch to Teju’s dad “eat more uncle, don’t feel shy” was what she wanted to say.

Her generous speech turned out to be “kha re uncle kha, sharam nahi aata tereko”.

The afternoon finally ended with Laxmi giving an unconditional assurance of not speaking Hindi till uncle leaves Chennai. As for me, I had to promise Teju that I will stop teaching Hindi to any living being on the planet as long as I hoped to stay alive. Tejaswini herself was a karate expert, her father & grandfather had served the Indian Army, and her great grandfather and great grand uncles fought in India’s fight for freedom. So I couldn’t risk incurring the wrath of Tejaswini any further.

There was another problem for Tejaswini. Her project was in a tight schedule and she along with her other colleagues in that project were expected to work seven days a week to catch up the project deadlines. Her father came to spend time with her, but hardly got to see her. So she suggested her father to come to our apartment on the weekends and the evenings. With some hesitation he came, but within a day he gelled very well with us. We had the TV and a cricket series was going on. Moreover he also enjoyed playing cards whenever Dev & Kunal came. He admitted on his 2^nd day that coming to our apartment was reminding him of his younger days with his fellow students and comrades. But his best synergy was with Rahul. Tejaswini’s father had been in action in the Kargil war, and her grandfather had been in action in the 1971 war with Pakistan. On the other hand Rahul’s family hailed from current day Bangladesh, which as East Pakistan suffered a lot at hands of West Pakistan (modern day Pakistan). They had to migrate and settle around Delhi before the tension heightened between those countries. Thus both Uncle Ji and Rahul had a common hatred towards Pakistan. That hatred came pouring out while we watched the India Pakistan cricket series being played that time. I didn’t share the sentiment exactly. I tried mentioning few times that the common Pakistani man is also like a common Indian, who are wary of the terrorists, enthusiastic about cricket, troubled by poverty & corruption and pained by the memory of partition.

I also urged them to imagine what would have happened if there was no partition. The united India Pakistan team would have challenged the mighty West Indies and Australians at cricket. “imagine Uncle Ji, in your days, a cricket team which had Sunny Gavaskar and Mudassar Nazar opening with Vengasarkar & Miandad at middle order. Imagine a team with 2 all rounders like Imran Khan & Kapil Dev!”

Uncle Ji grunted and said “that would have been a good team that time, but then after 90s we also would have had to bear the terrorists of that nation”.

Again I drew up my defence “Imagine a batting line up with Sachin Tendulkar and Saeed Anwar and then likes of Dravid, Ganguly, Salim Malik & Ijaj Ahamed in the middle. Wasim & Waqar pairing up with Srinath for the new ball. Saqlain and Kumble spinning the ball from both ends”.

Uncle ji nodded approvingly. But Rahul wasn’t happy yet. “you still didn’t address the terrorist problem”.

I was ready as well with my answer “ if we managed to stay undivided till 90s, then there would have been a stable religious harmony. No body would have fought with each other over religion or language”. Thus our debates used to go on for hours.

After few months Uncle Ji returned to Chennai again. This time Tejaswini was very lightly loaded at office and had enough time to spend at home. But Uncle Ji was restless. He was already looking forward to the gatherings at our place. After couple of days he enquired if all is well at work, considering Tejaswini is no longer putting in extra hours at office. She happily declared that this time she has managed to ensure that she doesn’t have to work over weekends or extra hours in the evening. But Uncle Ji didn’t look too excited.  After couple of days, Uncle Ji decided to start a healthy lifestyle. He declared he will be doing daily evening walks on weekdays and morning walks on weekends. Somehow, these “walks” never progressed more than 3 buildings. The 3^rd building housed our apartment, and Uncle Ji was sure to enter there and get engrossed either in playing Cards or in watching Cricket. When he came to Chennai for his 3^rd vacation, he just kept his luggage at Tejaswini’s apartment and directly came over to us. Often Tejaswini had to remind him that he was coming to Chennai to visit her, and not us. 

Meanwhile, Rahul decided it was time to move their ‘friendship’ to the next level. However, the proposal resulted in a disaster. After much coaxing, Rahul divulged some details.

His beloved Teju had killed the proposal stating “I never saw you in that way”.

Rahul was not convinced though “All these days we were spending so much time together, weekdays at work, weekends at malls or movies…., how come you never saw me in that way?”

Teju was smart in her reply “Oh, I thought we were just good friends. Even I spent time every day with my roomies. Even they used to join us for the movies…”

I had to admit it was a good logic. “Even you convinced me continuously for these 1.5 years that you are just good friends, I can’t blame Teju for thinking the same” I told Rahul.

But Rahul was relentless “don’t sprinkle salt on my wounds now. I didn’t tell you about all the gifts I gave her on birthdays, Diwalis, Christmases and all different occasions. But how can she not notice that” grumbled Rahul.

“Didn’t you ask her about that?” I asked.

Rahul replied that he had. She had shut him off saying “Oh I thought it was out of your brotherly love for me”.

Rahul was relentless “how come out of all these you came to think of brotherly love? For once couldn’t you have thought about boy-friendly love, just-friendly love, or just love?” he had asked.

Teju had replied “well, you grew so close to my dad over last few months, he likes your company so much, he treats you like his son. That’s why I thought of you in a brotherly way”.

I tried to console Rahul, “think of the positive sides. You could have reminded her that you are so close to her dad, her dad would never object the relationship”.

Rahul was furious “you think I didn’t try that?”

“Oh you did? What did she say?” I was curious to know.

Rahul sighed “She said her family has a trend of marrying either into medical professionals or Army guys.”

I got puzzled “So that’s why she rejected you?”

“Well, she also said that her dad will be upset and her sister will scold her if she chose an IT engineer instead of an Army or Medical professional.” Rahul admitted with a resigned look.

I consoled Rahul “Well, don’t lose your self-respect for being an IT engineer. Just like doctors, we too don’t know when we will get a call to go to office. Like Army guys, we also don’t know when we will return home.”

Rahul grumbled “Anyway, no point continuing if her family has no respect for the profession”.

Within few months Tejaswini had moved to Noida. Soon we heard that she got engaged to one of her childhood friend. That guy wasn’t a doctor, neither was he in the army. But his family owned a pharmacy. And they had a contract to provide all kinds of medical supply to quite a few army cantonments.

"So in a way he was connected to medical profession as well as the army" Rahul explained. Also he clarified that the fact this guy’s monthly earnings from his family business being greater than Rahul’s annual salary was not at all an important factor in his beloved Teju's consideration.

“The main thing is dude, he is the child-hood friend while I was the Chennai-friend”.

I wasn’t sure. I just replied “well, my opinion is girls are difficult to understand”.

Rahul replied philosophically “Not that dude, girls can be perfectly understood. They are like waves of the sea, they are like night time auto fares at Chennai, and they are like the Chennai summer heat. You can never estimate their limits. You may be irritated by girls, you may be intrigued by girls. But just like night time auto fares or the summer heat of Chennai, you can’t avoid a life without girls, and neither can you imagine a life without girls.”