Smilestone

Stumped! That's exactly what I felt today. There are times when you think you are doing a great job of something when you are brought down with a thud. Here I was, telling a friend how different a person I am for the world. 'I am another person altogether you see. People think I am extremely reserved and talk only when required,' I said. This notion is actually wrong - if I talked only when required, then I would not have blabbered these to her in the first place.

Anyways, I completed many sentences on these lines and waited for her reply - as if she would feel privileged to know that she exists in that select group of people and thank me profusely for that. Well, she did none of it. She did what a good friend would have done - put me to my place. So, as I was waiting to hear some neat words, she replied - "Yeah yeah.. i know that side of you! for me it was the first 3 months of knowing you."

Stumped off a wide ball, you can say.

Needless to say, she's a great friend and a perfect case-study for 'time is not an indicator of friendship'. She might not know what exactly I work on and I definitely don't know her sister's name. But we are definitely at ease when we talk and that is what matters. I would assume she is among the more patient people I know. She bears me - and an equally irritating friend she came to know through me - with a smiling face and a uncreased heart. She was very excited to tell me that she is preparing rotis at home these days. "My new roommate has got one," she said. Obviously I knew that by 'one' she meant the ubiquitous thing in the Indian kitchen - the chakla-belan. But I, feigning ignorance that was never there, asked - "Got one what? Roti-maker?" :D

No matter what she might have thought about me in the first three months, I am sure now she knows that there can hardly be a more pestering person she's going to meet in her lifetime. But I have not faced any such change of mind with her. She smiled when I knew her first, she smiles when I trouble her now. And this, among other things, has always bowled me over each time I think about it.