The Real Write Ups -- Pat

We don't have even one picture. I've done some of the craziest things with you around and we don't have even one photograph to document it. It's better this way. We were too cool for pictures anyway.

That red light and those dirty draws, what a shady, shady room that was. The room where it began, with those mad stories and random things being set on fire. I still remember always having to recharge text balance in first year thanks to you. I still remember calling you Anish. Yeah, I'm not going back to that again.

I don't remember second year that well, you weren't around very much. Then you came back to College and it took us a while to get back on track, but soon enough we were up to our old tricks again. Everything has changed now. How we see people is different, our friends are different, we are more cautious and there seems to be a lot more at stake somehow. But we will be escapists always. We can self-medicate like pros, that's something we've mastered over the years. We will drown our sorrows in a half and then celebrate the insane times with the rest. We will use our sarcasm as often as we can, snubbing the world and each other every chance we get.

We've carried each other at odd times of the night when we were like dead weights, we've walked around a hell lot of places with a bottle of Pepsi that you got free from the Cafe and we have set up headquarters in MyBar. We've fought and created drama and then forgotten it all the next day. We can spend hours laughing at people. Even the senti conversations, man. Sometimes you know exactly what to say. Cocky is your middle name, and you aren't apologetic about it. I'm going to miss our muk east breaks and our resolutions that we always give up on.

Yeah, I don't know what's going to happen once College is over. We're going to get busy and things will change all over again. In different parts of the city and Paharganj will be too damn far. I'm going to bet that we'll stick together though. I'm going to bet that I'll follow you around until you come to my place for "just a beer" and end up having another killer night. Here's betting that College was the beginning.

It's been some ride, Pat. Knowing you has been beyond insane. The fights and the drama and the bad trips were all worth it. After all, there ain't nothing that we can't fix with a, "Bhaiya, barah DSP aur coke".

No, I don't want your coke. 

The Real Write Ups -- Raa

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.

First Year Dirties

Like a fish to water, I took to you. It was quite effortless. Did you know you were the first person in College to call me "Mari"? I knew right then that you were going to stick around. There's no way I would let some random girl that looked like Ritu to call me Mari, unless I knew she would be amazing. We go back to the beginnings so often that we know it by heart. Small skirts and IDG talks. First year with "Where?" texts and coffee. With all sorts of outrageous outings like shady Metro Station beer. Now when I think about it though, it isn't first year that I hold most close to me. It's what happened after Diya and I invaded B.D. Estate and suddenly, it wasn't  "The PG". Suddenly, it became "Home".

We know dangerously too much about each other, Raa. Somehow it's always been easy to give away my worst secrets to you. From being friends, we became roommates and then everything changed. We were dealing with the dirties now. Fighting about switching lights off, about hair in the drain, about the maid and everything in between; and on those days, when we were at wits end and made each other cry, we also learnt about every little thing that pisses each other off. We learnt about or worst fears, our biggest insecurities, the ones that only show up when it's 12 a.m. and there's an exam the next day.

Spaz is our middle name

We've grown up a hell lot since those first year days (or have we?).You have taken care of me as the perfect mix between a sister and a best friend. The funniest and most memorable things that we've shared are best left unwritten. We don't want our kids (no matter how hard you try, Raashito, your children will know me) to find this post and use it against us.

That room of ours will be the best room. Even with all my creepy paraphernalia. That room of ours, as much as we hated it, has absorbed every ounce of our characters into its walls. All future Mittal PG residents will feel our creepiness resonate from those walls. I feel this is a proud moment for us. We have left our mark.

Our nights on that terrace, too many to count, with the smog of Delhi and one-and-a-half-moons are what I will miss the most. There's a certain sense of loneliness I feel when we are not up there together, because that's just the way it has always been. From watching interesting shadows to playing ridiculous drinking games, that place has done quite an excellent job of being refuge from bad days, bad food, bad landlords and bad anything else.

Take my secrets to your grave, Rashi Rathi. I love you.

P.S. I have too many pictures with you. Kay took almost all of them

The Real Write Ups -- Meg

We just started on the wrong foot. We should never have. There's this picture of us from Blues that I have. Can you believe this was even before I knew you? It's difficult to imagine that we weren't friends before. After the ice broke, it was all so effortless. Like the day walking from the metro, sharing earphones and listening to you explain the lyrics of Hosanna.

Like you said, we are much about the big things. We are bottlers and skeptics. We are move-onners and deciders. We are secret keepers. We are jigsaws that no one has all the pieces to. But the small things are just as important. The nights at the PG with those ridiculous coffee mugs of whiskey sour, with club dancing, star gazing, coin flipping and truth-or-daring, the evenings when we repeatedly got kicked of out that stupid park, the afternoons flopping and "stealing" our internet: these are the little security blankets that I will hold on to when I miss you the most. Will you miss me too?

It's difficult to quantify us. It's difficult to contain us into words and phrases and sentences. When I think of us, there are always these clouds of memory that float around in my head. Blue boxers and long legs. Gold hair clips to contain greasy hair. Picture posing. That crazy laugh of yours. Crying like a loser on your birthday. Fab India. Khan market haircuts. Side Wok. Coffee. Amma and crab at the Grand hotel and Amma's amazing Malayalam. Meggers, you are a goddess in most every way. From the kajal-lined eyes to how you are effortlessly The Smart One in the family.

I hope that our hugs, the best ones ever, will always be around. Not just to comfort (no, we don't need other people to comfort us, do we?) but also just-like-that. And when no one really gets it, when no one says it will be okay, you will walk with me to the park and say, "do what you want to do, MarsBars."

Mari doesn't konjify. But Mari will always konjify her Meg. I love you.

The Real Write Ups -- Anna

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.
Shock of curly hair. Splash of colour. A laugh that frolics and resonates the halls like the patter of rain on a roof. An excited sense of animation that takes its form in the bubbly movement of hands and a light spring-like gait. No picture of you can be complete without these things and so, no picture of you will ever truly be complete.

I don't remember what day it was or how we ended up sitting with each other, but I do remember realising (and quite late, too) that we have a lot in common, a lot we could relate to about each other. It's a good thing, I feel. We still have a lot to do before we can rest and say, "yes, I know most everything about her." In the way that we worship our fathers or how we enjoy Maths, in the way we hug and leave vehement kisses on each others cheeks, in the way we talk each other through exams, in all these ways and more, we are quite similar, Annamo.

But you are more careful, more meticulous than I am when it comes to the important things. You are less reckless and more organised. This truth makes itself most clear about a week before any major exam. You will have a plan, you will stick to it. I will adopt your plan, fool around anyway and breathlessly manage to keep up with you somehow. We will both walk out of the exam hall though with the same expression on our faces. Sometimes it's disgust. Other times it's relief. There is also happiness, anger and quite often a look of absolute nonchalance. "It's over dude. Screw it."

No, I am not a real Malayali. I don't know the movie dialogues and the colloquial phrases. I can't read that well and watching the news in Malayalam sounds to me like aliens trying to make contact. But what do I have you for, then? In the same way you explain a difficult Trix question, you will explain these things too, but of course, you will laugh your insides out as you do. I have my share of bad habits and strange notions of life that you would most vehemently disagree upon. Despite this, we are the best of friends. I will still come to you, disheveled, unbathed and unapologetic after a night at Vijay Nagar and you will give me that look of utter disdain with your nose all scrunched up. In less than five minutes, we will return to laughing out loud at new nonsense.

The lazy afternoons we spend sitting in your room will be my best memories of Rez. Conversations ranging from Cherai beach to South Africa, punctuated with gossip and random anecdotes. I doubt we will ever stop having things to talk about. We don't need a Rez room to be who we are. We will do the very same things in Paroor, Thrikkakara, Padivattom or Thevara. We're going to be calling each other when we teach our kids Maths and reminding each other the tips and tricks we used in school and college. I feel our dads should meet and congratulate each other on the fantastic impression they have made on their daughters. As beach-lovers, I know that I can always count on you for a quick ocean swim.

You are a resilient rainbow. You don't fade even when skies turn grey and the sun hides behind the clouds. Instead, you will resonate even brighter and act as an assuring band of confidence. Oh, and when the sun is out and the rain has just given way to a misty coolness, you will beam across the horizon infecting everyone around you with an excitement that's hard to resist.

Annamo. You will always be my rainbow. Not just because of the range of colours in your wardrobe but for the vibrance with which you have painted my life. You will always be my horizon, not just because you are the standard I set for myself but because you unconsciously teach me that there is always more that I can become, greater dreams I can fulfill. You will always be that fluffy cloud holding me up with the lightness of your laughter and reminding me not to crease my forehead with lines of worry. I don't like black and white, neither do you. Let's stick together and make sure we never have dullness in our lives. As I always say, the kettippidichummas are for life. 

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.

The Real Write Ups -- David

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.

I can't recollect the beginning of you and I. You're like my favourite purple sweatshirt. I've worn it so often that it's like second skin and it doesn't matter when it began because it feels like it was eons ago. I do remember the cartoons. I still have them in my drawer. In the beginning you were quite fascinating. I was mostly impressed by the fact that you could be so nice to everyone. It was a gift I didn't have and it came effortlessly to you. There I was, developing a crush on this little person with the thick-rimmed glasses sitting next to me. 

It was easy with you. Exchanging secrets over KFC didn't seem like such hard work (the hot wings helped). You do this thing when you laugh, it's as if your entire body is laughing. It's the most adorable thing I've ever seen. But I remember there was such a long time when I used to hold my tongue, lest my dirty mouth ruin your impression of me. For the record, I did try to clean up, but I was too far gone. I really didn't know how to make people laugh without being raunchy.

There's no one else who has convinced me so easily to go to church. I found myself walking to church in the evening with you, silently cribbing because some sort of Jesus-talk would automatically crop up. I found myself arguing with you over all these things about god and religion and being frustrated with you for not giving in and then frustrated with myself for not giving in. There was that book you gave me for my birthday that I tried so hard to make sense out of, but I just couldn't. I sang along to the songs though, because some music is always better than none. I felt happy by the end of it and glad I came.

I never did want to believe you were flawless, but then again, I could never convince myself you weren't. The sort of 'goodness' that beamed out of you was quite too much to process. I felt like I needed to defend you in case someone took advantage of it. No one messes with my David. It wasn't so much a sense of possessiveness as it was protectiveness. 

Then there was this 'paradigm shift' and for the longest time, I couldn't digest the fact that this New and Improved David really existed (someone told me, "David is not feeling well." I thought you had chickenpox). Badder, dirtier and yes, sexier too. Not that Old David wasn't sexy of course. We started all over again with you on my side this time. We began a new journey of firsts, ones that we may not be able to retell to many. But that makes them all the more special. I was always learning from you about the white and pure side of life. Now here I was, teaching you the ways of the dark. Not surprisingly though, your essential goodness stayed just the same. Of course, the level of niceness ranged according to moods and people, but it was still there. So was that gorgeous laugh.

We are more at home with each other now, I think. You finally laugh at my jokes. I feel like we could ride the entire yellow line on the metro and not be bored of each other. Though I'm pretty sure you'd be fidgety because it screwed up your meticulously planned schedule.You still inspire me. The way you read Economics, the way you love guitar and the way your sexiness just drips off you like honey. Yes, I knew you'd like that one. Look at the picture: I've purposely made myself look preggos so that your hotness is magnified. Oh, the self-sacrifice!

We may be light years apart in distance in the years to come. Will I let that keep you away? You bet I won't. You've seen and heard more about me than I am comfortable with and I will be damned if I let you spread that kind of nonsense to the rest of the world.

The most compelling memories of you are the small ones. Like days in the cafe and Google Talk conversations that lift my spirits. Like the little video emails that we send each other and the hugs that never lose their warmth and always manage to embarrass you. Like the bad habits we've developed over the years or the exchanges of Mallu chips for Stickjaws. With your variations of Stephanian sweatshirts with those same old ripped jeans and that big head of hair that my fingers always search for, you've made it impossible for me to let go. It will be these tiny things that I'll hold on to the tightest. From being your protector (at least in my own head), you have become mine. You are the one that witnesses my weaknesses and doesn't flinch. You are the one that knows all my stories and you've never judged. For even though your hands are small and often quite dirty (god knows where they've been), they are the kindest ones I'll ever hold. 

The Real Write Ups -- Ann

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. 


The first image that comes to mind when I think of you is one where you are sitting at the back bench, with a book open, one leg crossed over the other, picking at your cuticles with your nails and reading intently. It makes you look curious and stern at the same time. It makes me imagine you as one of those professors that wear gorgeous silk saris and take no nonsense from their students. But of course, as with everyone, despite your shyness you are easily liked by your students. With that stubborn expression and a copy of Frontline along with the attendance register.  I can imagine you giving free attendance and silently smiling to yourself remembering how much we enjoyed it in College.

As my thoughts traverse on, our memories span across my mind like a film reel with your fingerprints marking every frame. When you broke down in the Metro. When you've hugged me for no reason (even though you're not a hugger). Malayalam dictation in Coffee Day. Endless hours of chatter (and quietness) in various comfy chairs and lawns in Delhi. Shopping as an excuse to go restaurant-hopping. Boys and continuous marriage conversations. Home, being away from home. Cherai beach and flopping in each others' homes. Fatness advice and lamentations. Just as it's impossible to isolate one frame from a two-hour long movie, so it's impossible to defragment all the million memories and list them out.

You've awed me, from the beginning. I was once asked why, and I never could come up with a good enough reason. Maybe it's the Malayalam or the music we share. Maybe it's Wills.  Maybe it's because you're so vehemently closed around most people and in contrast, so breathtakingly open around a few. I'd like to think it's an amalgamation of things that compound one over the other.

You are the golden sand that I dig my feet into when I go to the beach. Even as the waves spatter foam all over my legs and distract me, the strong foothold that the sand gives me makes sure that I am not carried away by the current. You are the epitome, not just of stability but this beautiful sense of calm. Even as you break into song sometimes in the middle of a conversation or laugh spontaneously at my ridiculous jokes, it is your unwavering presence holding me upright in times of doubt and confusion that keeps me close to you. It makes you stubborn too. In a way that makes me afraid to question or oppose you. When you say, "no", there is nothing else you mean but that. In a way, I respect that you are strong with your decisions. In a way, I resent that I can't attempt to change your mind.

Your sternness though is never present for long. You always replace it with that childlike smile of yours. I am going to be so very upset when we are forty and you still look like a twenty-five year old. As the weeks and the months pass on and we worry about our place in the world after College, I find myself missing you already. For even as the red brick and stone arches display their charm, the lawns and trees play the songs of the birds and the corridors paint gleaming sunlight rectangles on the floor, none of it has any depth or meaning unless it is filled with the people that made College home. I couldn't think of walking these halls without you right next to me and it is this thought that makes me fear what comes next.

Before I can let myself be sad, your voice plays in my head. The voice of firm assurance. I am reminded that we are not friends that disappear after College. We are the ones that will makes toasts at each others' weddings (I am already writing my speech). We will exchange prawn recipes and share secrets of where to get the best kappa biryani. I will think of you every time I hear Sultans of Swing. I will also laugh to myself when I am on a Spice Jet flight with crying babies. You will always be around, guiding my reckless little boat on this frightening sea of life.