Punnu....

Punnu came home today.
We both lived together in Patel hall. Technically he is my senior but really he is as great a friend as a batchmate (or maybe better??? Who the heck cares anyway...).
We both have seen the best and the worst of life....or probably he has seen worse. But we saw it together. We shared the joys of getting the sports G.C. We grieved together when our hall came under a cloud with the authorities. (Though it was more personal for him than for me). One fine evening, we (me, Punnu and Madhup) climbed the "Patel ka L*&%d" together and held the railing to stop ourselves from getting blown away by the wind.
He graduated six months before I did. There after we sort of lost touch. Next I heard that he had got a nice job. We met in Bangy a year ago and had a rather impersonal "dinner with friends".
Last weekend Saraogi came and we called him. Then I heard that he is freelancing and is in and out of Bangalore though he stays in Mumbai.

This weekend he came home.

Its really nice to have a chat with a dear friend.
To laugh over past trifles (How after a tiring day in the illu, he spent the better part of the night bursting crackers outside my door in the hope that I would wake up and kick his ass.....I was too zonked out by consecutive night-outs to care...).
To grieve over the GPLs we got.
To swap stories about mutual friends (Who married whom).
To seethe over the injustice done to each....

He could'nt, of course, help swiping one of my photo albums (In which he is cavorting around half-naked. And there is a Sardar somewhere admiring his paunch). He promises that he will return it but I have scant hopes....


Its nice to know friends like that.