To dear Jerry, - with love from Tom

Seventeen years ago, today, an excited girl with a curly head had gone to get herself a doll. That’s what she had been promised. A doll that she wanted to take to school along with her, to show off to her friends (Naivety of a 6 year old) :)

Back then, she didn’t know that her doll, her sister, was going to be more than a playmate for her. She didn’t know that the kid was going to be her life and soul. More like her own kid, than a sister.

Now, the kid's all grown up and is just a year short of adulthood. And I feel like awww, she has grown up too fast. I wish she could stay the mushroom headed tiny little thing that she was, forever. I am not even out of the habit of calling her 'baby' yet, and she has shot up an inch over me!!

But again, I am not sorry that you have grown up to be what you are. My friend. My confidante. My soulmate. And also the best(est) sister in the world.

You have always been there through my daily ups and downs and my oscillating mood swings, my temper-trums, my moments of ecstasy and my normal silliness. I love the way we complement each other, just like day and night. Had you been a "similar someone", life would have been rather boring. It’s nice to disagree on everything the other person says, and to like the same things and then fight over who gets it. Its fun to sneak into each other’s cupboards for clothes, though messing it up isn’t. How wonderful it feels to sing at the top of our lungs to songs that we like, even if ma-pa say that we sound like wolves howling. I love the silly talks that we have in our funny hindi-english-gujarati mix of a language, and when we giggle over the phone for nothing. It makes you feel so special when your sister fights with her best friend just because she dared to say something nasty about you. And it’s cool when all her friends know you, and all your friends know her, and then you go around hating their best friends out of sheer possessiveness. I love the hug that you give me every day when I get back from work. And I love making everybody else wait for my attention while I am busy showering it upon you. I love all the sister's-day-out(s) that we have, because it’s so much fun to do things together. I love spoiling you, even though I maybe the person who complains the most about you being a spoilt brat! :D

In short, I love you!

Wishing you a very Happy Birthday nannu!!

One in a Lakh!!

There is nothing normal about me. I should have known!

A very normal homo sapien has a set of 32 teeth. Then there is a category of a huge mass of slightly abnormal people whose milk teeth refuse detach or fall off as they are are normally supposed to, and then people end up having 2 permanent incisors instead of one. These kind of teeth are called mesiodens. They are the most common kind of supernumerary teeth, so not a very rare abnormality, I would say.

Next is the category of the very abnormal people. People like me. People who have the rarest kind of supernumerary tooth, the paramolar. Lets make that plural - teeth, because I have (or rather, had) two of those.(= 34 teeth) BTW, The paramolar is the extra tooth that grows beyond your wisdom tooth.

I had to get one of them plucked out because of the discomfort it was causing. A shot of local anesthesia. 2 mins by the watch. And out came the tooth on a wad of cotton. (= 33 teeth. I am still abnormal :P) The doc gave me the tooth for safe-keeping, saying its a rare thing to have. I threw it in the dustbin after coming home though. 1) Because it didnt look like my tooth. 2) I didnt know what I would do keepig it. Show it to people who came visitig me? :O :/

But, I have never felt this happy after visiting the dentist! Mind you, he knocked out my tooth and it did hurt after the anesthesia wore off. But the joy of being scientifically proved as a 'One in a Lakh' people is something!!! :P :P :P

Touching base with the past

You will rarely find friends who equal up to your school friends. Its beautiful how easily you can slip into conversations of any kind with them without having to think twice. They know you in and out and you can be at ease being yourself around them. You didnt comb your hair today, or your eye makeup is running all over your face, or you have just come up with a couple of extra pimples doesnt really bother them. To them, you are how they know you. Comments, compliments, leg pulling and being down right honest and blunt is generally the order. They have seen you from the time when you were, err.. what should I say.. raw, perhaps?

I miss those days when we were all a mass of blue and white uniforms with red belts, and yes red ribbons too in the case of girls. I dont miss the ribbons though. Tacky those were. The endless chats that we would have by the wall surrounding the ground, a favourite hangout. The link ups. The teasing. The teachers. Even the lab assistants. The hours that we would take to bid each other a good bye everyday. And the phone calls that followed once we were home. Classes through which we would yawn. Classes that we really enjoyed. What a naughty batch we were, each one of us driving our teachers mad in our own way. Joint studies. Notes borrowed. Oh heck! homework copied :) I could go on, but you know, I hadnt started this blog with this on my mind.

A reunion with my school friends really helped me wash out the nauseatic feeling that i had been developing of late, of not really having real friends at work. Its not like its a sob story at work. I love my team, and we are friends in the general way. But they arent the kind of friends I can share everything with. Neither would they not be judgemental. So you know, I have got to be careful about what I am saying and to whom. And I have got to mind my tone and my impatience, and I dont like pretence of that kind...

I have already said we were a naughty batch. An almost good for nothing batch if I may exagerate it. Back in school we werent even sure of what we wanted to do with life. And we were very sure that neither was our next neighbour. Its been 5 years since then and we are all somewhere, somewhere significant, each one of us proud with our progress. Along with the friendship, the respect for each other has grown too. There is a genuine feeling of pride and happiness.

Mr. Watt will be a Doctrate in 2 months. I cant really imagine calling him Dr. Watt!!

The kiddo has grown up too, though we wouldnt admit it on his face. He has a job. He has plans for the future. And more importantly the potential to make them happen.

Big-Bro has finally been caught by the big fish and is going to earn twice as much as I do. I intend to spend it well ;)

Silent-Killer is still going through the ups and downs that a new job gets along. But the day she tires of it, she will throw caution to the winds and forge ahead. Unstoppable she is, once on the roll.

Mr. Photographer is yet to become a professional photographer. In fact we didnt even know of this hidden talent all these years. At the moment we are more serious about him being one than he is. He is going to go for his MS soon, an engineering-management course. sounds geeky, bt not half as cool as his photography, because thats where he truly belongs. Lets see..

And the others who were not at the reunion are also all doing extremely good. Many of them doing what they have always wanted to.

I am the only one who is still groping about in darkness without direction, not knowing how to go about what I want to do, not moving a millimeter ahead.. not ready to settle for anything else apart from that, and yet not knowing what is it that I am really stuggling for. I just know that what I am doing today is not it.