The Real Write Ups -- Aayush

As I wrote write-ups for my friends for the College Yearbook, I realised how hollow it is to attempt to compress into three sentences the relationships I have built over three years. Here are the Real Write-Ups.

What's up, handsome?
Nothing much, pretty woman.

The most awful part of being your friend is the realisation that it took me far, far too long to be your friend. There you were, saying hello to me on that first day of College and it didn't even occur to me to get to know you.

But now my Hindi is better and your shyness has abated and I know that neither of us will ever attempt to get rid of each other (hypocritical as we are). My foodie. I love that we can sit at a table and not utter a single word because we are too busy stuffing our faces. I love your various sandwich inventions and the endless hours we spend browsing Zomato. Most of all, it's the unadulterated serenity on your face as you bite into something delicious that is always going to stay in my mind.

Sometimes, your "chuck it" when I'm upset is the most soothing balm. Because like you, I'm better off driving uncomfortable things under carpets and there is never something that a Hot Chocolate Fudge and (endearing) hyena laughter cannot fix. I could spend hours sitting with you in any given corner of College, just talking about everything, about nothing. From cars to parents to love and the lack of it, the range of our conversations makes it difficult to list or catalogue them into the files of my memory. When my forehead is crinkled with lines of worry, it will always be those easy afternoons with you that, like the gentle rain of Delhi that we so love, wash away the grime of my day.

In the next ten years, whether or not we make big money and find penthouse apartments in New York, the plans we make will always weave between each other like the threads in an elaborate tapestry. We are alike that way, wanting the same things for ourselves. Jaguars and supermodel spouses apart, we will also build schools and visit the dirtiest dhabas. We will goof off in our apartments making cheese tomato sandwiches and swapping relationship advice (that is more often than not stolen from How I Met Your Mother or Cosmopolitan). We will do things on our own terms sometimes, and sell our souls for a fat paycheck most other times. We will travel the world every chance we get (and depending on our relative income levels, one of us will fund the other on occasion). When I map out my life to you, I find so many of our roads crossing at the same point and it's comforting to know that even though we may end up in two entirely different corners of the earth, we will both be searching for the same essential things.

I think you should know something. I will always be grateful for the poise with which you didn't pick sides. You could have, I know. I also know that it would have been easier for you to have chosen. But you made diplomacy look effortless. I have convinced myself that you did this because I mean that much to you. Yes, I do like to flatter myself. It is the most precious thing you could have given me. Because along with losing a lot of things, I came that much closer to losing you and you made sure I didn't.

If you think about it, it's been a long time since the awkward hugs (as is obvious from your face in the picture). Now, our inside jokes span so many different spectra that it's impossible not to remember you on a daily basis. It's a good thing.

I said one day, "If we all end up in D-school, we're going to be friends for life" and you said, "I thought we already were." That will be my favourite out of all our conversations. It will be my reminder to hound you for everything from First Class air tickets to chicken curry at Kake-De-Dhaba.

Without any awkwardness or embarrassment I can say, I love you. I mean it, I do. Now get rich quick. You know I'm only in this for the money.