“I love to cook” , I said .
“I hate it! I wanna work. When I come back home from work, dinner should be ready by then”, she said.
Our interests were different but we always wanted to be together. As 15 year olds, we were planning to be roomies in the future once I was done with my cooking courses and she with her MBA. But as always, God had very different plans.
Hi everyone.. feeling very emotional today! Missing someone very close to my heart.
My darling best friend Sanjam. There is so much i wanted to convey to her but now I can’t . Not anymore. God has taken away that privilege from me. I’ll never be able to share my feelings face to face with her.
Sanjam, my beautiful, innocent and loving friend. We had literally grown up together, “chuddy buddies” if we’re allowed to use that phrase for girls. Just two months apart, our moms put us in the same play school and then onwards, we were inseparable!
About sanju, that’s what I used to call her fondly. Aunty used to call her sana. She was very pretty, had big expressive eyes and I loved her jet black thick hair. She was goal oriented, focused on achieving what she wanted, straight forward and possessive about people she loved. She had a nice sense of humour, I remember laughing with her like crazy. She was the reason I was able to score well in all my history exams. She was the best teacher ever. I took care that she did well in maths.
From studying together to playing chess to heat 7 treats to nikku park rides to attending summer camps to watching movies, I have innumerable memories of her.
Her house was like my second home, I used to fight with her sister like she was mine and I adored her kid brother the way she did. If we were not together, then we were perpetually chatting over the landline, calling each other almost every half an hour. Even while watching our favourite tv shows, we used to discuss it over the phone as if we were watching it together. Staying at her house after the final exam was like a childhood ritual. Aunty, the perfect host, made yummy food like always. Her house was the only place my parents allowed me to stay the night till I was 15. Same school, same tuitions, common friends, lots of laughter and a lot of fighting and making up sessions.
It was a nearly perfect friendship and as all loving relationships have some disagreement now and then, we too had one! We were just 16 and as immature as teenagers generally are. I thought I had a lot of time to sort the matter out, but i was wrong. September 2006 , my friend, just 16 years old, met with this terrible accident. She was hospitalised and that’s when the reality struck me. I wanted to tell her how badly I want her to recover, how much I love her and how terribly I need her in my life. I wanted to say sorry. I wanted to hug it out. I wanted to wipe the tears off her face and tell her she is and will be my best friend even if I make a thousand other friends. I kept praying but I came to know that they all went unanswered when I got the worst news of my life. I still can’t forget how I couldn’t digest it, pinching ache in my heart and my head spinning. I felt like I’m in a dream and this horrible dream would end soon until I saw her lying down on the floor, her face as serene and beautiful as ever.
How I regret that I could never tell her all this when she could listen. I still see her in my dreams. The dreams are so vivid that I actually believe that she’s back. It takes me a while to get over the fact that she’s not there anymore every time I wake up after seeing her in my dreams. She wasn’t supposed to go this early. God had been unfair. We all, all her friends, stayed strong for aunty but each one of us was burning inside with agony because of her untimely death.
You all must be wondering why am I sharing this with you all. It’s my personal matter and I should be keeping it to myself. I’m sharing this because these thoughts have been bottled up for long. I still miss her with the same intensity and probably will keep missing her my entire life especially on all the important events of my life.
The day I got engaged, my wedding day, the day I got to know I’m going to be a mother and the day I delivered my beautiful daughter, I missed her every single time. I’m sure she would’ve been the happiest to see all this, she would’ve danced in excitement. She would’ve been the best aunt to my baby. Instead of all this, all I’m left with, are her memories and a letter she wrote to me a few days before that unfortunate accident. That letter is undoubtedly my most priced possession.
Another reason to share this is that I request all of you to share and express what you feel towards your dear ones. Don’t wait. Don’t wait for destiny to decide. Take charge. Don’t make the mistake that I made. If you value the person more than the argument, please sort it out today. Don’t wait for tomorrow. If that tomorrow doesn’t come, you’ll keep regretting all your life. Express your feelings, love wholeheartedly, forgive and forget.
No one can ever fill the void that she left in so many lives. She was loved by all. Such beautiful souls are hard to find. May god never take such people away from us. And I wish that wherever she is now, she is at peace surrounded by only good and beautiful things.
“Ek aah bhari hogi, humne na suni hogi
Jaate jaate tumne aawaaz to Di hogi
Har waqt yahi hai gham
Uss waqt kahan the hum
Kahan tum chale gae”
These words from the song Chitthi na koi Sandesh keep echoing in my ears when I think about her and tears trickle down even today.