“It’s been two years,” she said, “Come for me, I need you.”
“If you are coming, it would make my day,” said the other.
As much as I was finding it difficult to wander off on a
trip of my own, it was the incessant “please”s by these two that convinced me.
While it was initially planned as a surprise for the other, it was she who let
the cat out of the bag only to make sure that the other doesn’t commit to
anything else for that one day that I was supposed to be with them.
And so it started. My maiden trip. Yes, it was a small trip
but it was the first with my girls.
After a whole night of binging and trying to cram into a
small seat that seemed too short for my legs, I opened my eyes at Vellore. A
small town that really had nothing except for a premier engineering institute
(where the both of them were enrolled), a few eat out joints here and there and
oh, a famous temple and hospital. (Umm.. so the only other people who came to
Vellore was to pray for the sick? Bad one.)
There they were, the two of them giggling away even before
they saw me. Seated in the auto rickshaw, I made place for them as they crossed
the road and silently tried to control my smile. But heck, as they took their
place next to me, the autowaala was a little taken aback by our shouts of “Oh
my God, I can’t believe you are here” and “I missed you guys so much.”
The fact that they along with their friends had stayed awake
all night waiting for me, didn’t count much as even in the silence of the dawn
the three of us giggled away to glory and camped on a small bed started talking
loudly about how much we had wanted this, the three of us together.
A little bit of sleep, hellos to all of their friends and a
whole day of roaming around the VIT campus later, we got together for what was
supposed to be an “epic” night. In an inebriated condition, we talked, we
laughed and we (read: she) cried.
And that is when I knew, I missed this, not the highness but
the bond that we shared, the crazy times we have when we are together, the
feeling of being there not just virtually but actually reaching out and wiping
away the tears, laughing over our stupid crushes, hugging each other as we
realise how much we love each other and then going back to being silly. And
then in that moment, that small town within its boundaries had the best thing
that it could offer, me being myself with the people who mean a lot to me.
She and I bid a hasty goodbye to the other as we started on
the second leg of my trip, a visit to Pondicherry. What started with our driver
declaring “No English. No Hindi. Only Tamil.”, followed by our bouts of
laughter as we tried our best in making him understand that all we need to do
is stop for a bottle of water, it undoubtedly made up for few of the best days of
my life till now.
I’m not going to write down a tourist’s guide for
Pondicherry but what happened as we made our way through the French Colonies,
the sunrise at the beaches and the serenity of Auroville.
We talked. For all that we had missed out on in the past two
years and just texted about to each other, we talked. We talked about the
stupid mistakes, about the glorious days and the confused mind. We realised we
have come a long way from being two teenage girls in love to two people talking
about broken hearts, crazy nights and future careers. We were shameless, we
were boisterous and did many a stupid things, but we held those memories close
to our heart. Somewhere between talking about marks in a silly test, the plans
with our now ex-boyfriends, unruly behaviour on the roads and our new found
faith in dreams that we shall make a name for ourselves, toasts to a love lost
and a new civilised us, we grew up.
In just two and a half days in an unknown city, the two of
us connected again and knew this was the plan that the fate had chalked out for
us. It took us a long time to get here but it was all worth it, for it helped
me let go of the worries that I had let build up inside me for she let me
unleash the emotional side of me that I had buried down within the dark
corridors of the past, to make way for a hope that everything happens for our
own good.
