No, this blog entry has nothing to do with that beautiful movie with the same title.
This weekend, R & I were dining in one of my favourite restaurants in Vasant Vihar that serves amazing North Indian food. I was visiting this place after almost 4 years. R was obviously eating here for the first time.
Along with the main course, the folks at the restaurant also kept in front of us two varieties of pickles. The pickle connoisseur that I think I am, I picked up one of chillies from the hari mirch pickle.
It was perhaps the best pickle I had had in years- more importantly, the taste actually took me back a few years; a couple of decades to be precise.
I was new in Delhi and had no friends and was just about getting acquainted with my new classmates in the school. Two of them, in particular, were becoming close. One of them, a South Indian like me and the other, a Delhiite. The peculiar bit about the latter one was that he did not laugh at my accent while speaking in Hindi. He did not ridicule me by calling me Angrez like my other classmates did. We traveled by the same bus together ( I was staying in Janakpuri those days and so was he). He would get aboard the bus two stops after mine. His being there was reassuring. I had somebody to speak with and he would go out of his way to ensure that I was comfortable, or at the very least, less uncomfortable. Those days, I was a butt of jokes in the bus as well as in the class for my Hindi, rather, the non-Hindi. I remember the sense of solitude that I would feel each time he would get off the bus on our way back from school.
As the months went by, we became close- in the bus, in the classroom and over lunch. Those days as a kid who had just become a teenager, I was terribly bored with South Indian food- a far cry from these days when I find most South Indian food irresistible. It was most convenient for my friend and me to exchange our lunch boxes. He loved the Idli-Dosas and I loved the Paratha-Subzi and the Achaar (Pickle). The green chilly pickle that he would bring was most special- the tastiest I had and have ever had.
Over the next 3 years, our friendship grew stronger. We had a nice time even during our class X board exams. He had hinted he may take up Biology in class XI and I was clear about my proclivity to study Commerce (that I ended up studying Science without Biology is a different story).
As we moved into new sections in class XI, I started engaging myself with new friends as well. My days of being a joke were long since gone and I was as "local" as anybody else. These were also new lunch partners. Some of them refused to believe I was a "Madrasi" after listening to my Hindi.
As I was enjoying my comfort with Delhi, the time I spent with this old friend of mine reduced drastically. The other South Indian friend (his name is Gautam- one of the closest friends I have- there are some references to him in my previous blogs) that I have mentioned above was perhaps the only one who kept regularly in touch with him. We would still meet during lunch time once in a while and we also had that occasional exchange of lunch boxes.
I met him last sometime during the board exams of class XII. He was as pleasant as ever and his presence always brought a sense of "reassuredness" into my being. I do not remember my last conversation with him.
A few months into college, I came to know he had gone to study Medicine/ Dentistry somewhere in Uttar Pradesh.
The next thing I heard about him a few months later was of his death. Gautam had called to tell me this. We knew that he had a heart problem since he was a child, never perhaps knew that it was this serious. Gautam and I had visited his house and spent some time with his Grandmum. I remember the cycle ride back- Gautam and me doubling on the cycle- we did not speak a word to each other on the way back.
I realised I was choking when I had finished that chilly on my plate in the restaurant.
I guess nostalgia has a habit of striking me when I least expect it. A smell, a name, a song, and now even a piece of chilly pickle. I was feeling small that it took a piece of chilly pickle to remind me of one of my dearest friends.
This one is to you Manas, my friend.
This weekend, R & I were dining in one of my favourite restaurants in Vasant Vihar that serves amazing North Indian food. I was visiting this place after almost 4 years. R was obviously eating here for the first time.
Along with the main course, the folks at the restaurant also kept in front of us two varieties of pickles. The pickle connoisseur that I think I am, I picked up one of chillies from the hari mirch pickle.
It was perhaps the best pickle I had had in years- more importantly, the taste actually took me back a few years; a couple of decades to be precise.
I was new in Delhi and had no friends and was just about getting acquainted with my new classmates in the school. Two of them, in particular, were becoming close. One of them, a South Indian like me and the other, a Delhiite. The peculiar bit about the latter one was that he did not laugh at my accent while speaking in Hindi. He did not ridicule me by calling me Angrez like my other classmates did. We traveled by the same bus together ( I was staying in Janakpuri those days and so was he). He would get aboard the bus two stops after mine. His being there was reassuring. I had somebody to speak with and he would go out of his way to ensure that I was comfortable, or at the very least, less uncomfortable. Those days, I was a butt of jokes in the bus as well as in the class for my Hindi, rather, the non-Hindi. I remember the sense of solitude that I would feel each time he would get off the bus on our way back from school.
As the months went by, we became close- in the bus, in the classroom and over lunch. Those days as a kid who had just become a teenager, I was terribly bored with South Indian food- a far cry from these days when I find most South Indian food irresistible. It was most convenient for my friend and me to exchange our lunch boxes. He loved the Idli-Dosas and I loved the Paratha-Subzi and the Achaar (Pickle). The green chilly pickle that he would bring was most special- the tastiest I had and have ever had.
Over the next 3 years, our friendship grew stronger. We had a nice time even during our class X board exams. He had hinted he may take up Biology in class XI and I was clear about my proclivity to study Commerce (that I ended up studying Science without Biology is a different story).
As we moved into new sections in class XI, I started engaging myself with new friends as well. My days of being a joke were long since gone and I was as "local" as anybody else. These were also new lunch partners. Some of them refused to believe I was a "Madrasi" after listening to my Hindi.
As I was enjoying my comfort with Delhi, the time I spent with this old friend of mine reduced drastically. The other South Indian friend (his name is Gautam- one of the closest friends I have- there are some references to him in my previous blogs) that I have mentioned above was perhaps the only one who kept regularly in touch with him. We would still meet during lunch time once in a while and we also had that occasional exchange of lunch boxes.
I met him last sometime during the board exams of class XII. He was as pleasant as ever and his presence always brought a sense of "reassuredness" into my being. I do not remember my last conversation with him.
A few months into college, I came to know he had gone to study Medicine/ Dentistry somewhere in Uttar Pradesh.
The next thing I heard about him a few months later was of his death. Gautam had called to tell me this. We knew that he had a heart problem since he was a child, never perhaps knew that it was this serious. Gautam and I had visited his house and spent some time with his Grandmum. I remember the cycle ride back- Gautam and me doubling on the cycle- we did not speak a word to each other on the way back.
I realised I was choking when I had finished that chilly on my plate in the restaurant.
I guess nostalgia has a habit of striking me when I least expect it. A smell, a name, a song, and now even a piece of chilly pickle. I was feeling small that it took a piece of chilly pickle to remind me of one of my dearest friends.
This one is to you Manas, my friend.
