chapter 9 മൂന്നു പെണ്ണുങ്ങള്‍

the three great friends of my life!!!!

I know I know… it has been a long time since I told you I would be writing about the three close friends in my life…
It is an incomparable feeling to have a close friend, a really understanding friend, a friend who can predict what is in your mind, a friend who would be there for you, not behind you, not infront of you, but by your side whenever you look there.

I have had many friends over the year… so many of them, some I still keep in touch, some I know to be doing what though I am not in touch with them directly, and there is another group about whom I don’t know anything. Nothing at all… whether they have changed, whether they have forgotten me, whether they ….. I happily lived in blissful ignorance of my dear friends.

There was a great friend of mine. I studied with her in the same class for 5 loong years. Her name is Rajani. I have never had a friend who was as understanding as she was, and I remember how undemanding she was, I can feel how much she liked me even now as I think about her. And when we parted for me to join a new school she wrote in my autograph book

‘You are my best friend and you will always be…’

Though I felt happy then, I am quiet sure I didn’t know how precious that line was then because I placed her in the back of my mind soon, without even a tinge of guilt….

I regret it… I seriously regret it…

When I look back after 9 years I realize that she is the only person who ever told me I am her best friend. Yes she is the only one who ever told me that… how unthoughtful and how immature it was to not value that and I think I was punished for that…yes I was punished for that not by her but by other friends.

I know where rajani is now, what she is studying etc etc. but I didnt have her contact number and I haven’t talked to her for sooo long that I have a feeling I have lost her…


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This is a story on how I lost a good friend coz of my carelessness. I am to be blamed for this. No one else had any role in it.
I was shifted from the comfortable place in the fourth bench to the first place in the front bench by Joby sir so that I would talk less, listen more and subsequently get more marks. This is in my 11th standard. Though I didn’t gain more marks nor did I listen more I was now sitting next to Miss Hope!!! Yes! Her name was Pratheeksha. I sat awed looking at her while she solved long math problems in trigonometry, permutations combinations etc. she was very soft spoken and very caring and many other things. I don’t know how to describe people like pratheeksha. They are so down to earth, no show offs and no demonstrations. She just liked me for what I am, never demanding and always comforting me and everything. And I sure needed all the comfortings in the world because life was hell for me at that time. +1 and +2 still haunts me. And Joby sir, physics chem and bio still are the major actors in my night mares.

Pratheeksa … I don’t know where she is now. I don’t know which course she took after her plus 2… I don’t know if she is away from her home… I don’t know if she is also wondering where I am… I have lost my friend in this over populated country and I don’t even have a phone number. I had taken her phone number in my slam book and I have lost it, I don’t know where I have lost that goddamn book.
We use to go to Pala near Kottayam for our entrance coaching every saturday. We were taken in a bus from our school by the management. Pratheeksha, who stayed in the hostel, always got Kerala paratha and egg curry as her lunch. I who was a day scholar had my lunch from home. Both of us hated our respective meals. One day pratheeksha suggested exchanging our tiffin. And from that day we exchanged out lunch. She said she liked to have curd, chutney and ladies finger. So I brought that for her from the next week onwards. At times my mom treated her with fsh fries and all.

I don’t know where she is now. I have asked many of my old classmates, but none of them knows…

I am at a lose to know what I ought to do now.
Any suggestions???



She came to my school the year after I joined that school. I noticed her because of her ‘look’ if I may call it so. She was completely different… totally… before I go on to describe how she was I think it is better for you to know my ‘look’. After I couldn’t fit into frocks I graduated into long skirt and blouse. It is this typical dress young traditional girls wear. It is called ‘pattupaavada’. I think from my 8th standard till my tenth I had only these skirts other than the pinnafore I had as uniform. I didn’t even have many salwars, may be one or two. All my good dresses were those skirts. My hairstyle – one straight line in the center of my head from front till the back which parted my hair into two equal halves… I had very long hair and it would always be full of oil and I take bath everyday wetting my looong hair everyday, liked classical music a looot, listened to only Indian music, was learning classical dance at that time, and continued to learn it for 15 years, was in a short a typical traditional malayalee girl with a lot of convictions about what is good and what is bad.

So there is nothing surprising in the fact that tonks wore jeans and shirt when she was not wearing uniform, she spotted a boycut, had curly hair, listened only English music, had an accent when she spoke English(though I haven’t been able to place it yet) while I spoke English with an excellent Malayalam accent, was a total extrovert, her Malayalam was as good as her English and she my contrast in every sense. We got to know because of our common friends and we got to know better because we had one similar interest. Both of us took part in essay-story-poetry writing competitions in school youth festivals and both of us bagged one of the prizes each. We became friends because of two people- one person from UK and another one from Kerala itself. The former is J K Rowling and latter is Matha Amrithanandamayi. Your first guess would be right… yes we were both fans of harry potter. But matha amrithanandamayi… no neither of us were her devotees. But an essay competition was conducted by the Math and each school was allowed to send two participants. Our school conducted a screening competition and tonks and me were selected. There we got to know each other better. Then again the wait for the potter books to release and debates ranging from who is RAB, who is half blood prince, who would be killed next and so on made us really close friends. Then we ended up in the same class in XI and there we became best of friends and there we started to have problems. Like I told you we didn’t have similar likes and dislikes in most of our ways and I think she found me a nuisance and I got annoyed with her many times may be because I started becoming possessive about her. (this is one particular emotion which is better left alone. I have been very possessive about many people in my life…. My friends, my best friends, my secret lovers, so many of them. But I am proud to say I am cured of that particular illness,.. I will tell all about it one day.)

I am happy to say we are back to our same old selves. I was in a different class in our XII, may be that helped. Then we were in two different states for the next 3 years, that made us really miss each other I guess.

We met after 3 years and we realized we had developed a looot in common over the years and yes I am confident now, I would never loose tonks… she would always be my close friend.


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