Everyone talks about love at first sight, yet sometimes friendship sparks just as quickly. Sometimes you meet someone at the gym, the office cafeteria, on a tour, or at a birthday party—and before you know it, the stranger in front of you feels like a comfort you never want to let go of. As GenZ says - pass the vibe check. I met my friend R on a train trip when I was 15.
The story is running in technicolor now.
The story happened almost 30 years before. There used to be a ceremony of travelling as small groups to entrance coaching centres, for in a developing country like ours the fate is more or less safe if one makes it to professional course like engineering or medicine. The seats were limited and job opportunities plenty. On one such travel to a place 40km from my hometown I met 4 friends from the big city of Kochi. This was pre glamor era for Indian women. Even then these 4 girls had all the plush and glamor of city life, dressed in pretty clothes, adorning lip-stick (OMG! it was a big thing). When I get jealous, I become reserved and silent. So I kept to myself when my friends (we travel as a group of kids) started chatting away with the group. One of the girls was persuasive and started opening a conversation with me. I was struggling to make sure the ice is super cold for her to break. Let's just say she managed to make me utter a few words. The saga continued for 2 years and we became travel buddies. These were days before cell phones. So once we were done with our entrance exams, the contacts ceased.
Fast forward 4 years, with the dot-com-burst and hostile job maket, all I could manage was a job in a 1 year old startup near my home. I had this burning desire to join a corporate MNC in the garden city of Bangalore. But the whole thing was put on hold with the stupid real-estate-boom-burst and its subsequent effect on IT. After one uneventful month in the startup we were joined by 2 freshers - one being my travel friend R. Since the schedule in startup was too tight, we were all couped up in apartments nearby the office. And I got R as my flat mate. The friendship the whole set of employees shared transcended the regular colleauge bonding. It bloomed as it would have as every employee was almost of the same age and none of us were married and all of us were having their first experience in their jobs.
Damn, the post has already become pretty long. And I am not even through half my story.
Let me fast forward. In the next 2 decades, life happened. I moved to Bangalore. She stayed back. We got married almost at similar times, got kids of almost similar ages, and here comes the banger - got divorced at almost the same time. Being young divorcee moms with infant kids, our struggles were too similar and the lack of other support systems brought us closer. Sleepless nights, legal struggles, painful emotional rollercosters, financial struggles, social exclusions, heart breaks and what not, we shared a lot.
So, why am I recounting this now?
Because we met for a casual lunch last weekend. While leaving, she said, “It was really good that we spoke that day—thirty years ago. We were kids back then, never knowing that life would one day bring us together to share each other’s company.”
I made her promise that we would marry each other once our kids settle down, if we don't find someone by then.
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